Page 47 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Thrown for a Loss

would take anyone, no matter what kind of grades they had, for the
tuition money and who knows what other payoffs. My kids couldn’t
get a scholarship to state college even though they qualified based on
my income. That’s life.
“Do you have many friends?”
“Sure!” That was her liveliest remark. No girl wants to be
friendless.
“Do you ever meet them here?”
“No. Grandma doesn’t let me go anywhere after school, because
she needs me to help out around the house.”
Poor kid. Still talked as if her grandmother were alive. The
policewoman’s line of questioning was no mystery to me. She wanted
to know if Autumn knew anyone else here, like the mall rats. It didn’t
seem like she would, but I was wrong.
“How about those boys over there?”
Autumn raised her tear-streaked face and blinked in the direction
of the food court.
“Maybe. They look familiar, sort of. I lost my contact lenses when
I fell, so I can’t see too well.”
Labelle nodded vigorously, looking at the table where the mall rats
sat hunched over, pretending to be uninterested but unable to avoid
paying more attention to us than the bag of chips they were sharing.
What did they think she was acknowledging?
“Do you come here only on weekends?”
“Oh, yes, every Sunday afternoon for tea, after church. Grandma
likes the little sandwiches, the ones without the crust, that they serve
over there at Krumpet Kozy. We would never waste any part of a
piece of bread at home, but she didn’t mind paying in a restaurant for
someone else to cut off the crust and throw it away. It was like her
reward for going to church.”
That tea shop behind us in the food court was probably the only
place on the second floor that would appeal to the older set. It was
done up in pastel colors and lots of frilly pillows and feminine
touches. Small groups of women were the usual customers. It even
had its own restrooms, so the patrons wouldn’t have to mingle with
people like the mall rats. Personally, it gave me the creeps. It looked
like a cross between a nursery school and a nursing home. But it
made sense for Bertha Marks to take Autumn Pratt there. The old

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