Petra Vance was leaving her office when Imogen arrived. She had one glove on and a file tucked beneath her arm.
“You came before the station sent for me,” Petra said.
“I came before Ferro takes my notes.” Imogen set the certified copy of Saye’s ledger on the desk between them. “You went to the jeweler three weeks before Quill died. You told him you were checking the estate inventory.”
Petra looked at the copy but didn’t touch it. “That is what I told him.”
“Why?”
“Because it was easier than telling a jeweler that my client had asked me to trace a ring he claimed not to possess.”
Imogen pulled out the chair across from the desk. “What did Quill ask you to trace?”
Petra removed her glove finger by finger. “A dark garnet and a pale moonstone. He asked whether Saye’s books would connect them to Jonas Pell.”
The name landed cleanly. Imogen kept her face still. “How did he describe the ring?”
“He didn’t describe it. He gave me the name and asked if there would be a record.” Petra folded the glove and set it beside the file. “I knew Pell had been connected to him. I didn’t know there had been a ring.”
“You didn’t tell me this when I asked about your visit.”
“You asked whether I had sought the records. I said I had.”
“You let me believe you were checking an inventory.”
“I was checking what Quill wanted included in one.”
Petra’s precision could make a lie sound like a distinction between two columns. Imogen opened the certified copy to the entry where Quill had ordered the replacement ring. “He had Saye take the stones out of Pell’s ring, then commissioned a new setting with the same stones. He made sure both would show from a distance.”
Petra read the page. Her mouth tightened at the line about visibility. “That was not what he told me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That the ring might have been sold or altered. He wanted to know whether an old record could establish Pell had owned it.”
“You thought he was trying to establish ownership?”
“I thought he was trying to establish a fact.” Petra returned the copy without closing it. “Quill was careful with facts. He rarely explained why he wanted them.”
Imogen tapped the ledger entry. “He had already commissioned the replacement before you went to Saye.”
Petra looked at the dates. She took longer with the second page, the one recording the later order and Quill’s collection of the ring. “I didn’t know that.”
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you he’d collected it?”
“No.”
“Did he ask you to take an impression from it?”
Petra’s gaze moved to Imogen. The question had found its place. “No.”
Saye’s old note about black wax remained in Imogen’s notebook, not on the certified copy. The jeweler’s father had recorded that Quill asked whether he could take an impression from the stones. It linked the ring to the wax and the prepared trail, but it didn’t tell her what Petra knew. Imogen kept that distinction in mind.
“Why did Quill send you?” she asked.
“To find out whether the old record existed. I asked Saye if the ring had been brought in for repair. He said he’d need to consult his father’s books. I left my address and came back the next day.”
“He showed you the entry?”
“He showed me that Pell had brought in a ring for resizing. He didn’t show me the later orders. I didn’t ask to see them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’d been told to establish whether there was a record of Pell’s ownership. I did.” Petra pressed the file against the desk with two fingers. “I was not instructed to conduct an investigation.”
“But you knew the ring mattered.”
“I knew Quill wanted the record. That is not the same thing.”
It was a distinction Imogen had used herself: motive was not proof; a prepared object was not an identified person. She disliked hearing it from Petra because the lawyer had kept the missing part to herself.
“Did you ask Quill what he planned to do with the information?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it would settle a question.”
“Which question?”
“He didn’t say.”
Petra reached for her glove, then stopped. Imogen watched the hand settle flat instead. “You believe he intended to use that ring at the back door,” Petra said.
“I believe he made a ring that could be recognized by someone watching from inside. Sera saw a hand at the door. She couldn’t identify the person.”
“And the ring was based on Pell’s.”
“Yes.”
“Then the person may have been made to look like Pell.”
“That’s one possibility.”
“Is it yours?”
Imogen closed the copy. “I’m still testing it.”
Petra’s smile was brief and tired. “You always did prefer questions that could be answered.”
“Did Quill have the replacement ring at the house?”
“I never saw it.”
“Did you see him wearing any ring on the night you visited?”
“He had no ring on his hands.” Petra glanced at the glove she had folded. “He wore gloves when I arrived. He took them off while we argued over the settlement papers. There was a mark on one finger, but no ring.”
Imogen thought of Saye’s account: Quill carrying the ring in his left hand, turning it until both stones faced outward. A small detail, useless as identification and hard to forget once heard.
“Which hand had the mark?”
“His right.”
“Was it fresh?”
“I can’t tell you.” Petra drew her file closer. “It may have been from any ring. He wore one years ago. I never asked about it.”
The answer was careful, but it was also the first thing Petra had offered that Imogen could place against the jeweler’s record. Quill had asked about Pell’s ring, then commissioned another one. Petra saw a mark on his hand after the ring was made. She had no basis to say the mark came from it. Imogen wrote down the words as Petra had given them, leaving room beside the line.
“Will you put that in a statement?”
Petra slid the file under her arm. “I’ll state that Quill asked me to find whether Pell’s ring had been recorded, and that I did not know about the replacement.”
“And the mark?”
“I’ll include it. It proves nothing.”
“It may help establish what he was doing with the ring.”
“Or it may give the prosecutor one more detail to place beside Sera’s.” Petra’s voice had lost its careful ease. “They have a witness who saw two stones. They have the old association with Pell. If you give them this without the rest, they’ll say she saw the ring and recognized it.”
Imogen’s pen stopped. Petra was right about the danger. The ring had been made legible to a witness; the record would make the witness’s description look like recognition. The clean line from Sera to Pell would grow cleaner.
“Then we submit the whole record,” Imogen said. “And your statement. We don’t let them separate the old ring from the replacement.”
“Ferro may not care about the distinction.”
“He can refuse it in writing.”
Petra regarded her for a moment, then opened her file and took out a sheet. “Give me the wording you want corrected.”
“I want your wording. Exact dates. What Quill asked. What Saye showed you. What you didn’t see.”
Petra sat. “You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t.”
The lawyer began to write. Imogen stood by the desk and watched the pen move. Petra used the same narrow hand as the signatures on Quill’s estate papers. She stopped twice to check the dates against her file, then turned the page toward Imogen.
“I wrote that I asked Saye whether his father’s books contained an entry showing Pell owned a garnet and moonstone ring,” Petra said. “Quill wanted that answered. He did not tell me there was a second ring.”
“Good.”
“Don’t say it proves he planned anything.”
“I won’t.”
Petra signed. Imogen took the statement and read it through. It put Petra’s visit on the record with a reason, and left the central question untouched: whether Quill had meant the ring to identify a man, or make a witness believe she had identified one.
Outside, a delivery cart rattled over the stones. Imogen checked the time. The independent examination would begin soon. Ferro had given her until then to pursue the lead. After that he expected her notes.
She put Petra’s statement in her case beside Saye’s certified copy. “I’m taking both to the station.”
“Ferro will ask why you didn’t give him the jeweler’s record earlier.”
“He can ask.”
“And when he asks why I held this back?”
Imogen looked at the lawyer. “I’ll tell him you held it back.”
Petra accepted that without protest. She drew on her glove, tugging the cuff over her wrist. “Then you should tell him the rest too. The ring does not put anyone at the back door.”
“No. It only makes the sighting easier to use.”
Imogen left with the record and Petra’s signature. At the station, Ferro would want the evidence arranged into a line that ended at Sera. Imogen had two documents that could make that line look stronger. She also had the first account of why Quill had wanted Pell’s ring traced, and no answer yet for who had carried its likeness through the back door.
She chose to put the documents on Ferro’s desk before he could ask for her notes.
Next
Imogen takes Petra’s signed statement and Saye’s certified record to Ferro, knowing the same documents that expose Quill’s preparation may make Sera look more guilty.