Meter Maids Eat Their Young: A Love Story

by EJ Knapp

  Right after his call to HL, I thought. “Did you know he called HL at 8.00 p.m. that night?”

  “Mr. Essex has informed me of that and of the brief conversation between them.”

  “Strange coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “It might be were it not for the bug we found in Harrison’s phone. And that, Teller, is off the record.”

  “Sure.” Anything to maintain the détente. “You found a bug?”

  “I just said that, didn’t I?”

  “Any idea on who was bugging him?

  “None. It was a short range device, a mile at most, so someone was watching him. My men are canvassing the area but a square mile is a lot of houses. It’s going to take time.”

  I finished scribbling down my notes and looked up at him.

  “Any sign of that SUV?”

  “Nothing yet. We’re looking for it. The license number you gave us came back as belonging to a Chrysler Imperial.”

  “Figures. What about the Meter Mangler?” The change in tack caught him off guard.

  “How ... what makes you think I know anything new about the Mangler?”

  “Well, I have information that you have him here in your little jail.”

  He stared at me, hard, the color in his cheeks going from pink to crimson. I could almost hear the enamel of his teeth cracking, and I swear he was trying to stop my heart with the look he was giving me. I don’t know why I yanked his chain so. I didn’t dislike the guy. In fact, I rather admired him; highest score at the police academy, youngest gold shield detective on the force and now the youngest chief ever appointed, not to mention his numerous military honors. But there was just something about his demeanor that begged to be tampered with.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “You mean you haven’t arrested the Meter Mangler?”

  “I didn’t say that. Where did you get this information?”

  “Confidential sources,” I said. “So. Did you or didn’t you?”

  He sighed, muttered something that sounded like ‘Felice’. His breath smelled like Lysterine. He got up, walked out from behind his desk and left the office. I folded up my pad and followed.

  We walked past the interrogation room and into the observation room next door. It was cool inside that room, narrow and dark. A tape recorder was turning. I looked through the one way glass into the next room; Marion’s interior design program hadn’t reached this far into the jail house. Dingy green walls, bars on the tiny window, a scarred metal table set dead center of the room. I shuddered, thinking about the time I had spent in that room a quarter century ago, when I’d been the one and only suspect in a murder investigation. That little escapade had made Marion’s day. I’m not sure what broke his heart more; that I turned out to be innocent or that it was me who uncovered the real culprit.

  A young, disheveled man sat slumped in a chair at the table. Two detectives sat across from him. The man wore a soiled, white T-shirt a size too small for his massive chest. His face was covered in a bird’s-nest growth of beard and his black hair stood out at all angles. When he looked up, he had a hollow, vacant look in his eyes. Lights on: Nobody home. No way he could be the Mangler. He didn’t look ‘there’ enough to tie his own shoes.

  “So, where’d you pick him up?” I said.

  “South end of town,” Marion said. “He was walking down the street with a pipe cutter in one hand and two meter heads slung over his shoulder.”

  “And that makes you think he’s the Mangler?” I was unable to avoid a touch of sarcasm in my voice.

  “Well, what do you think it makes him, Teller?” Marion said, picking up on my tone.

  “Cool Hand Luke?”

  “What?”

  “You know, the movie? Oh. Jeez, Marion. What am I thinking? You’re not into entertainment. Cool Hand Luke? It’s an old sixties flick. Paul Newman? The movie opens with Newman cutting off the head of a parking meter.”

  “And you think—”

  The door behind us opened and another detective walked in. “Sir,” he said, handing a slip of paper to Marion. “This just came by fax.”

  Marion scanned the paper and I could see his jaw tighten and the color creep back into his face. He took a deep breath. “All right, Pawlaczyk,” he said through clenched teeth. “Call Eloise and tell them we have their man. Tell them to get someone up here ASAP.”

  “Right.”

  Pawlaczyk left and I turned to Marion. “The guy’s from Eloise?”

  “It would appear that way,” he said, forcing the words out. “Been locked up the past year.”

  “A nut case?”

  “Mentally challenged, Teller. Have some respect. And, unless you’re ready to tell me what you’ve been holding back, get out of my jail before I find some reason to keep you here.”

  “What makes you think I’ve been holding back?” I said, trying hard for innocent and seeing, from the look in Marion’s face, that I was missing the mark.

  He raised his arm and pointed at the door. Having no desire to check out Marion’s interior decorating scheme for the jail cells, I moved toward the door without another word but stopped.

  “By the way,” I said, “the morning Harrison’s body was found ... did his identity go out over the radio?”

  “Not a chance,” he said. “We kept that close to the bone. You and Felice, of course, were the only ones outside the department who knew. Why?”

  “No reason. I was just curious.”

  “What are you holding back from me, Teller?”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you, Marion, now that we’re getting along so well.”

  I hurried out the door and left the building before he could strong-arm me into saying anything more.

  Follow The Money

  The rain had stopped by the time I was back out on the street. As I walked to my car, I felt an odd mixture of comfort and confusion. Comfort because the Meter Mangler was back in the saddle. Confusion because seeing that old interrogation room was stirring up a memory pot on the brink of being over-stirred already. The old ‘why did I come back here’ refrain echoed with every footfall.

  My spirits rose somewhat when I saw the local TV news van skid to the curb. Late as always. An animated mannequin ran past me, her bouncy blonde curls so stiff with hair spray they would probably shatter if you flicked your finger against them. She was followed by two camera-toting guys who looked like they’d just finished a thousand-mile motorcycle run.

  I considered telling them the story had evaporated, save them some time. And, knowing the mood Marion was in, some grief. Instead, I just stepped out their way and smiled as they rushed past. They wouldn’t listen to me anyway, and it would give Marion something to chew on besides thoughts of me.

  I called Felice to let her know what was going on. She connected me to the news desk and I shot off a story from the top of my head to one of the kids there. They’d type it up, insert it under my byline, and it would be in the website edition in minutes. That done, I considered my next move. The problem was I wasn’t sure what my next move should be.

  Something had been nagging at me all day. I pulled the notebook from my pocket and there it was. I knew what my next move was going to be.

  Twenty minutes later, minus the trip down memory’s minefield, I pulled into the rutted parking lot of Hock It To Me Pawn. Tom Philo was just stepping out the back door.

  “Teller,” he said as I stepped from the car. “Back so soon.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry I didn’t call first but there was something you said that’s been nagging at me and I wanted to clear it up. Mind if I ask a few more questions?”

  “Not at all. I was just going out for some decent coffee but that can wait. Come on in.”

  He opened the door and walked through. I followed.

  “So, what can I help you with?” he said, sitting where he had sat the last time we spoke.

  With a grimace, I settled into the overstuffed chair.
Flipping through several pages of notes I found the ones I had circled.

  “I wanted to ask you about the maintenance costs,” I said. “With all the meters they’re installing, wouldn’t that cut heavily into their budget as well?”

  “Not at all,” Philo said. “The expense for any work done on the streets, or sidewalks, is borne by the Department of Public Works. The DPE bears the expense of purchasing the meters; the DPW would bear the expense of installing them.”

  I noted that and moved on to my next question.

  “When we were discussing the money from the meters and tickets, you said the DPE will collect. I thought the money went into the city coffers?”

  “Well, that was true at one time,” he said. “That changed several years back. A technical thing, really, a change in the city charter and one of the hottest of hot-button issues we’ve seen in this town. You see, from a financial point of view, there are two types of city services: Those that ultimately fill the city coffers and those that drain it. Police, fire, the DPW in fact, these services tend to be revenue drains. With EMS it could go either way. Licensing, leases on city-held property, the DPE, these are examples of revenue earners.”

  “So how is now different?” I said. “What changed?”

  “Well, at one time, all monies collected by city agencies, including the DPE, went into the general fund as they were collected. At the end of the fiscal year, when budget talk time came round, those same agencies would fight it out for a piece of the pie. A proposal emerged that each agency should maintain its own accounts, profit and loss, and, if profit were involved, the money would revert to the general fund at the end of the fiscal year.

  “It was a silly proposal, really. An accounting nightmare for the revenue gainers and drainers alike, but several of the council members were quite enamored of the idea. James Gjerde, the city manager at the time, was the most strident voice against the proposal. And Jim carried a lot of weight back then.”

  “But the proposal obviously passed,” I said. “What happened?”

  “A tragic incident, that.” Philo’s voice was shaky with emotion. He took a deep breath and continued.

  “Jim was a diabetic and a meticulous one at that, which makes his death all the more tragic. He had one of those new-fangled automatic insulin pumps. Reads your blood sugar and automatically adjusts. According to the coroner’s report, the thing malfunctioned, forcing Jim to fall back on dosing himself. He inadvertently, or so they say, gave himself a massive insulin overdose. He was home alone at the time, and with no one there to help him, he died.”

  Something in his demeanor led me to believe he was holding back something .

  “You don’t think his death was an accident, do you?” I said.

  Philo looked away, off into the distance.

  “I knew Jim well,” he said, in a whisper. “He was scrupulous and careful. Always had a good supply of insulin on hand, needles as back-up for the pump, hard candy on him at all times in case of hypoglycemia. He exercised, watched his diet and had regular check-ups. He also had a Medic Alert bracelet he never took off. Oddly, they found the candy and the bracelet in a drawer after his death.”

  He pulled his gaze from wherever it had been and looked back at me.

  “Dorothea, his wife, had died several months before and Jim took it pretty hard. There were whispers of suicide but Jim would never have resorted to that, despite his grief. He loved life too much.”

  “Who else on the council opposed the plan?” I said.

  “Well, let me see. Harrison de Whitt was opposed. As were Susan Pitlosh, Bob Koleda and Nicole Wittenmyer. With Jim, that made the pros and cons even and as long as an issue before the council was even, it couldn’t pass. His was the most strident voice against the proposal; with his death the opposition was outnumbered and the proposal passed. This will be the second full year of its operation. It should be interesting to see how it pans out come budget time.”

  Something was afoot. Philo was skirting something, still holding back, maybe even a bit fearful. I could feel it, but I sensed he wasn’t ready to reveal what he was hiding nor what he might be afraid of.

  “Tom, I want to thank you. Our conversation has been very enlightening.”

  “Sure, I am more than happy to help,” he said. “If you need any further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Oh, and if you’re interested, we meet once a month. There’s a meeting coming up this weekend, in fact, though I’ve covered most of it here. But you’re welcome to attend. There are some interesting horror stories that might lend a nice human touch to your articles on the department.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said. “If I can.”

  “I’ll look forward to your being there.”

  We exchanged the usual gotta-go-now banter and I headed out the shop by the back door. I swung the Altima out the parking lot, the Goo Goo Dolls reminding me that everything was made to be broken.

  I had a feeling this story was going to break soon. Very soon.

  Where Teller Fears To Tread

  The rain began again in earnest as I pulled into the driveway. I tucked my notebook, empty space a couple of days ago and now down to one blank page, beneath my shirt to keep it dry. My scrawl was hard enough to read. Soaking wet, it would be impossible.

  As I raced from the car to the house, thoughts tumbled around in my head as if driven by the fierce wind which was whipping the lilac bushes bordering my front door into a frenzy. A hundred and twenty million dollars. Maybe more. Two deaths. Were they connected? What did it mean? And where did the Meter Mangler fit into all this?

  Questions, questions, questions. I had more questions now than when I started. Always the case, though. A good story was like a box of jigsaw puzzle pieces into which half a box of another puzzle had been tossed. It was all a matter of picking through the pieces, keeping the ones you needed, discarding the rest. The hard part, and the part I enjoyed the most, was determining which was which.

  Once in the house, I grabbed a fresh notebook and began poring over Philo’s information. His comment about not being able to get the figures from the DPE’s website stopped me. What had he meant by that?

  Setting down the notebook, I called the pawn shop, hoping he might still be there. The voice on the answering machine wasn’t Philo’s, but it sounded familiar. I called back to listen again and recognition clicked in. It was my friend Pauline, using one of her stage voices. She did voice-overs as a kind of side business: Radio, some TV, though never on camera and, it would appear, answering machines.

  Pauline runs the Stonehenge Bar, a smoky little underground place that isn’t listed in the phonebook or in the trendy little places-to-visit brochure published by the city for tourists. There is no sign outside marking the place, just a dingy expanse of moss-covered stone leading down into darkness. The Stonehenge was one of those ‘back-room’ places where clandestine deals go down over expensive cigars and twenty-year-old single malt scotch.

  Pauline owns the Stonehenge, though few people know that. What even fewer people know is that Pauline was once known as Paul. I’ve known it for years. He and I went to grade school together. An effeminate, androgynously beautiful young boy, with glistening dark hair and smooth, cocoa-colored skin, he was always being harassed by the other kids.

  Marion, Harrison and I had come upon three of the local bullies beating up on Paul out behind the schoolyard one day. Paul was doing a fair enough job of not getting killed but he was grossly outnumbered and trapped by the buildings to his rear and on both sides. Marion had stepped into the fray first. Even back then he had delusions of Super Hero greatness. And, I suppose, Harrison and I had delusions of our own. We’d followed a step behind.

  We’d made pretty quick work of the bullies and Paul had started hanging with us after that. Well, with me and Harrison, anyway. Marion was indifferent to him, as he was with anyone under the age of adulthood. Kids couldn’t get him to where he wanted to be. Adults could.

  Paul was
accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the tender age of fifteen. Over the next ten years, he obtained a PhD in computer science and a half dozen patents that would keep him in beer and cigarette money forever. It also gave him the only thing he’d ever really wanted.

  He’d returned as Pauline when he was twenty-five, bought the Stonehenge and started single-handedly running the place. Astute, aggressive young journalist that I was back then, it hadn’t taken me long to figure out who she was. Or had been. Before the change of wardrobe.

  I called the pawnshop a third time, listened to the voice on the machine again. It was definitely Pauline’s. Did she really do answering machine voices? Or did Philo and Pauline know each other?

  You’re paranoid, Teller, the nag in my head nagged. Paranoid? Philo and Pauline. The smell of Jaz’s perfume in the pawn shop. The voice synthesizer in the display case. The doubts about the gender of the Mangler. Harrison’s murder. Jim Gjerde’s ‘accidental death’. I knew I could get the straight scoop on Gjerde through the paper or, if I had to, through Marion.

  If I wanted something unofficial and possibly more enlightening, I knew where I had to go. The thought made me shudder, though. I hadn’t been in Jilly’s once since I got back.

  If there was a vortex of memory swirling about this town, Jilly’s would be at its center.

  False Evidence Appearing Real

  I stood inside the back door of Jilly’s, breathing hard, trying to make my heart slow down. It was dark, the dining area closed, the chairs stacked neatly on the tables. A string of neon dots ringed the old Wurlitzer. I could hear a couple of post-lunch drinkers at the bar, the sound of glass clinking on glass, the tinkle of ice cubes. The air smelled of cigarette smoke, Pine Sol, and booze. I’d been frozen in place for five minutes or more, unable to move forward or back.

  A hand brushed my neck. I nearly jumped through the roof.

  “It’s just fear, Teller.”

  Felice stepped from behind me, her hand still brushing my neck. Where she had come from, I had no idea. I hadn’t heard the door open, nor seen the light from the outside and yet she was there.