The date notation, Gideon said, pointing to a specific line. On Ror's version, it's consistent with notation practices that weren't standardized until 1,884, Ferris said. The original here uses the pre-standardization format. You can't fake the pre-standardization format on a document that postdates it without the error being detectable. Ror's Forger didn't know that, Mara said.
Ror's Forger was apparently confident that nobody would look this carefully, Ferris said. There was something in his voice, not quite anger, but its professional equivalent. Which tells you something about how long he expected to operate without scrutiny. Orson made a sound from the chair by the stove that communicated his opinion of this without requiring words. Ferris authenticated the document over the next 40 minutes, a process that was painstaking, methodical, and involved him producing three separate written attestations in the particular formal language of territorial recording procedure.
Each signed and dated and pressed with his official seal. He made two copies. He gave one to Mara, sealed in an envelope with his certification mark. The other went into his satchel. District Attorney Whitlock will file for warrant issuance this evening, he said, repacking his instruments.
She's prepared to request a freeze on all property transfers associated with Ror's holdings pending investigation. Given the documentation here, I expect that request will be granted before morning. Mara sat with that for a moment. The weight of it. The specific reality of it and the other families, she said.
The ones who came to Whitlock, will this help them? Ferris looked at her steadily. It establishes the method. Once a court sees what the fraud looks like in a documented case, it becomes considerably harder for Ror to argue that other cases with similar characteristics are coincidences. He paused.
I can't promise outcomes, but I can tell you that the district attorney has been building a file for 2 years, and yours is the foundation she needed. She nodded once. Ferris shook her hand again at the door, shook Gideonss, accepted a nod from Orson in lie of a handshake. And rode out into the late afternoon with his satchel and his certified copies and the particular focused energy of a man who had just finished an important task and had another one waiting at the other end of the ride. Mara watched him go.
Toby appeared at her side. He'd been in the back room during the authentication process, Gideon's quiet suggestion, which she'd agreed with. Because six-year-olds didn't need to sit through the procedural details. And Tobia had accepted this with the adaptability he'd developed over the past months. The adaptability she alternately admired and broke her heart to in him.
Is it done? He asked. Part of it, she said. The important part? She looked down at him.