Page 72 - Labelle Gramercy, On the Case

Thrown for a Loss

He blinked. “We were in the same class before I dropped out.
Yeah, we were, like, on a friendly basis. But I don’t talk to any of
those kids anymore, and they act like they don’t even recognize me
now.”
“Did she send you that page?”
“No! Why should she?”
His objection rang false with me. Lieutenant Gramercy was right
on the verge of solving the mystery, and I took the last step just
ahead of her. Calvin Oreck was Autumn Pratt’s accomplice! She
wanted to get rid of the old lady so she could take over control of the
estate. Bertha Marks effectively had doomed herself by her regular
habits. Same time every Sunday at Krumpet Kozy. Autumn always
behind her on the escalator going down. All she had to do was send
Cal a page that meant it was time for him to get over to the escalator.
As soon as they had started down it, he dropped the quarters and
diverted attention. Then he pushed the emergency stop and faded
into the background. The laws of physics had taken over from there.
Autumn was young and could grab her grandmother to use as a
cushion and to be certain her neck would be snapped. Cal was
holding up well under questioning, but the girl would not. Case
closed. Almost.
“Then was it Meza Patamian?”
The boy blushed, regaining his color and then some.
“Why do you say that? She never had any interest in me!”
“Is that what Newt told you?”
“Newt? What did he tell you?”
Labelle Gramercy kept her voice at the same low pitch, even as
Cal’s rose up to a whine. “I’m asking you what he told you.”
Cal was getting hot, convinced that Newt had accused him of
pushing the escalator button. The detective must have made a lucky
guess, finding the sore spot that would get him rattled enough to lose
restraint.
“Now, look. I didn’t have anything going with Autumn or Meza.
Newt had been telling me I should just go up to Meza and ask her
out and I wouldn’t do it. Then when he came back from getting his
doughnut he told me that he had put in a word for me with her. I
didn’t like that, but what could I say? No matter what I could have
said, the other guys would be laughing, like, what a loser—can’t even

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