Page 39 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Thrown for a Loss

Oh, ho. That last remark had teeth. I couldn’t have said that, but it
made practical sense. Who would want to be nailed as having run
away from the scene of a disaster? Meanwhile I could hear the
paramedics coming through on the first floor, walkie-talkies cutting
in and out, equipment jangling and clanking. There was really
nowhere for the bystanders to go, unless they broke ranks and went
to the other escalators at the end of the floor past the food court and
the video arcade. The cop would see them leave, and so would
everyone else.
After a few tense moments, a middle-aged couple left the group
and headed for the exit, defiance on their pasty faces. That started a
general stampede of the ignorant, who had seen nothing, heard
nothing, could say nothing—but had been happy to stare at the
spectacle of a dozen people laid out with injuries along an escalator.
What else could be done? Seal the entire mall? I began to see trouble
ahead for me with my supervisor and the likelihood of a lot of
paperwork and grilling under hot lights. But the police have
precedence. The instant Labelle Gramercy identified herself I was
outranked.
So I looked again at her. She had tucked in her sweatshirt so the
badge was clearly visible, as was a pouch strapped around her waist.
No purse, no gun, no handcuffs. I would have put her at about forty
years of age, height five-foot-eight, weight one hundred thirty
pounds. No fat, no figure, no fooling in those gleaming green iceberg
eyes. Then I realized a few people were still standing around. The
mall rats, another half-dozen young people I did not recognize—
probably patrons who had just left the Cineplex—and a couple of
half-senile oldsters who were blinking and whispering to each other
as if they didn’t know why everyone else had left. They, too, were a
type I recognized, the old-age home residents out on a field trip. Like
the kids, the mall was a place for them to go when anywhere else was
not as interesting or welcoming. Sad but true. Not a real community
here, but it sort of looked and sounded like one.
“Do you know any of these people?” Lieutenant Gramercy put
this to me in a quiet voice, possibly not audible beyond us, given the
noise of the paramedics and the quickly returning usual hubbub in
the mall.

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