Page 55 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Thrown for a Loss

Grepsi and it slopped over and hit my shoe.” He pointed to a green
stain on his sneakers, one of many in all the colors of an oil slick.
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t know. Really. Guys come and go.” He probably wanted
to make a statement about not being a roll-caller, as well. And no
doubt he wanted to avoid falsely accusing anyone who might return
the favor, a desire easily confused with group loyalty. Luke had to be
totally subservient to this bully, already. Of that I was certain.
“Where were you and Luke when this started?”
“Right about here. We were sitting here, I think.”
That was totally plausible. The bench was a trophy in the teenage
turf wars. If I saw the same kids there a second time when I made my
rounds, I found ways to let them know it would be a good idea to let
the rest of the public have a chance to rest their aching feet. Two or
three of them would be sitting on this bench, and the others in the
immediate vicinity, joking and styling and acting as if they owned that
tiny piece of the mall. Curt, as top dog, might not have paid attention
to which of his little gang were jockeying for position around him at
any given moment. That would be beneath his dignity.
“What made you head toward the escalator?”
“We heard the money, and then somebody screamed they had lost
it. But that damned buzzer stopped us cold when we got over there.”
“How long had you and your friends been together in this
immediate area before that happened?”
“I don’t know. Could be half an hour. Could be longer.” That
squared with my memory. I hadn’t noticed the mall rats occupying
the bench on my previous walk through that area more than an hour
earlier.
“Did you see Autumn Pratt get on the escalator?”
His eyes shifted back and forth. Obviously a trick question, he
could see that. So first he had to decide if he was supposed to have
seen her. Did she say she had seen him?
After a few seconds of mental anguish, he croaked, “No. No! I
never saw her. If she walked by me I didn’t know it. Lots of people
go through here, and I couldn’t tell you how many or what they all
looked like.” Now he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t a census-
taker, either. But he was being controlled by ignorance. Nobody
could be expected to recall such detail. The lieutenant knew that, but

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