Ella looked at the evidence bags lined up on Ripley’s side of the desk.Three of them.The ceramic snowman from Amber Holloway’s necklace.The wooden ballet dancer from Rose Michaels’ palm.And the newest one – the wooden man holding an oversized key, taken from Eddie Foxall’s hand less than twelve hours ago.
Three figurines.Three victims.And somewhere out there, a fourth target who didn’t know they were next.
‘Hey, Mia, not bad work for someone who wasn’t interested in another murder investigation.’
‘I have my reasons,’ Ripley said.
Ella didn’t know what Ripley’s reasons were and she was a little scared to ask.She certainly wasn’t doing this for the love of the game, nor to impress Vernon.The woman had a secret, that much was certain, and Ella was happy to keep it that way if it got her interviews with music box specialists.
‘Grab a coffee,’ Ripley said, ‘because you’ve got an hour to start acting human again.’
***
Marguerite Lefevre’s shop was on the ground floor of a narrow building on Royal Street, wedged between a praline place and a gallery selling paintings of jazz musicians that all looked like they’d been done by the same person in the same afternoon.The sign above the door said LEFEVRE ANTIQUITÉS in gold lettering that was flaking at the edges, and the window display was a cluttered arrangement of pocket watches, music boxes, porcelain dolls, brass candlesticks and a stuffed crow under a glass dome that watched Ella with one dusty eye as she pushed through the door.
A bell tinkled, and the smell of antiques washed over Ella as she and Ripley headed inside.Marguerite Lefevre was behind the counter, already waiting for them.She looked somewhere between sixty and eighty, and Ella hoped she could say the same about herself in thirty years or so.The woman was petite and had silver hair pinned up in a style that probably had a name Ella didn’t know.Her fingers were covered in rings and she wore a magnifying loupe on a chain around her neck like a piece of jewellery.
‘You must be the FBI,’ she said, and smiled like this was the best thing that had happened to her all month.
‘Agent Dark.This is Agent Ripley.’
‘Marguerite.Don’t call me Mrs Lefevre or I’ll think my mother-in-law has come back from the dead, and I didn’t like her the first time.’She was already clearing space on the counter.‘Your partner said you had figurines for me.I’m ready when you are.’
Straight to business.Ella liked it.Ripley placed the three evidence bags on the counter in a row.Marguerite pulled the loupe up to her eye and leaned in without touching them.
‘May I take them out?’
‘Go ahead,’ Ella said.‘Just handle them by the bases if you can.’
Marguerite opened the first bag – the ceramic snowman – and placed it on a square of black velvet she’d produced from under the counter.She turned it slowly, then she did the same with the ballet dancer.Then the wooden man with the key.
She spent longer on the last one.Ella watched her fingers hover over the blue line painted along the base, then move to the oversized key the figure held across its chest.Marguerite said nothing for what felt like a long time.
‘Well, this is interesting,’ Marguerite said.
‘How interesting?’asked Ella.
‘Well,’ she said eventually.‘You have one music box piece and two that aren’t.’
Ella looked at Ripley.Ripley looked at Ella.They both already knew the answer, but Ella wanted to hear Marguerite get there on her own.
‘Which one’s from a music box?’Ella asked.
Marguerite tapped the velvet beside the snowman without touching it.‘This fellow.Ceramic, machine-moulded base with a hand-painted finish, approximately forty millimetres tall.The base has a peg hole.You can see it here.This tiny recess on the underside.That’s where it would have sat on the lid or the rotating platform inside the box.It’s standard gauge for a mid-range decorative music box, and it was probably manufactured in the last fifteen to twenty years.East Asian import, most likely.You’d find this in a gift shop or a department store.’
‘And the other two?’
Marguerite picked up the ballet dancer and held it at eye level.‘This is wood.Hand-carved, not moulded.The paint is acrylic and it’s been applied by hand.You can see the brush strokes if you look closely, and they’re confident.Whoever made this knew what they were doing.But it’s the wrong size for a music box ornament.It’s too tall and too wide at the base.There’s no peg hole or attachment point.This was never designed to sit on a music box.It was made to stand alone.’
‘And the third?’
Marguerite set the ballet dancer down and picked up the wooden man with the key.‘Same story.Hand-carved wood, acrylic paint, skilled craftsmanship.The proportions are completely off for any standard music box format I’ve seen in forty years of handling these things.This is a standalone piece.Someone made it on purpose, as its own object.’
‘So the snowman came off a music box,’ Ella said, ‘but the ballet dancer and the man with the key were made from scratch.’
‘That’s my assessment.The snowman is commercial.The other two are artisan.Different origins entirely.’
Ella stared at the three figurines on their square of black velvet.The snowman from Rose’s music box – the one Jared Novak had given her, the one she’d donated after the custody battle.That was the starting point, but the ballet dancer and the wooden man hadn’t been snapped off anything.
