Page 65 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Thrown for a Loss

He opened his eyes wide and pursed his lips, an exaggeration of
surprise, as if the question itself was completely unexpected because
its answer was obvious.
“Well, I came out here to see what was going on. Me and about a
thousand other people. I think it was Luke I saw first, so I asked him.
Not that he ever has a clue about anything.”
So that dovetailed with Luke’s account of things, as I recalled.
Lieutenant Gramercy paused a moment, then pursued a different line
of inquiry.
“Okay. Now tell me about what was going on before you went to
the bathroom. Were all of your friends around this bench?”
He tensed up. Now he had to decide what to say and what to hide.
This sounded like informing on the mall rats. And that was the real
trap, it might now be occurring to him. Although each of them
reported to the others after being interviewed, how could the group
around the table know what the kid on the hot seat had really told us?
Divide and conquer. The old strategy. They might have sworn to
stick to the same story, but an alliance formed only to save one of
them would crumble if any of the others could be isolated and
intimidated—or at least be seen by those co-conspirators to have
been pressured. I finally recognized the beauty of Labelle’s placement
of these suspects in plain view but out of earshot of the one being
questioned.
Newt couldn’t clam up much longer without really looking bad.
“All right, all right. This is how I remember it: we were all hanging
around here, as you said, then I felt the call of nature. If I had been
sitting on the bench I might have waited a bit, though you can’t stick
your hands in your pockets and cross your legs forever! I think Cal
got a page and wandered off as I was heading for the john. So I guess
Luke got that spot next to Curt on the bench. Yeah, that’s how it
was. Maybe no one else remembers it that way, but I’m cold sober
and I like to pay attention to what’s going on around me all the
time.”
Oh ho! That was a nasty dig, almost an invitation to give them all
blood alcohol and drug tests, with the implication that the others
would not necessarily come out clean. And a challenge to contradict
him. Could we?

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