Meter Maids Eat Their Young: A Love Story

by EJ Knapp

  “Not his?” I was surprised and more than a little interested in that revelation. “Are you sure?”

  “As sure as I can be. Forrester was a bachelor, gay if you believe the rumors, lived alone out there. He was also a well-known obsessive-compulsive.”

  “Like that detective guy on the TV program?”

  “Not that bad, but close. I checked out his place. Everything in it matched, right down to the number of things. Apparently he couldn’t abide odd numbers. Eight plates, eight cups, eight saucers, knives, forks, spoons: All eight in number And all real: Real wood, real china, real silver.”

  “Sounds like he couldn’t abide synthetics, either,” I said.

  “Not if he didn’t have to. And it carried over to his clothes,” Marion said. “Sixteen suits: Four blue, four brown, four black and four gray pinstripe. All wool, all the same tailor. Thirty-two dress shirts: All cotton, all the same design. Thirty-two ties: Colors to match the suits, all raw silk. Six pairs of Bontonis: All leather and very expensive. The only thing synthetic in his closet were the five pairs of Converse running shoes, six if you count the ones he was wearing. All the same design and color.”

  “What about track suits?”

  “Ah, now that’s where the discrepancy creeps in,” Marion answered. “There were five hanging in the closet; medium gray, same size, same manufacturer, all cotton. The sixth one should have been on him.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “The one he was wearing was three sizes too large. It was also a darker shade of grey, a different manufacturer and, it was a cotton polyester blend.”

  “You don’t think he was hit where they found the body, do you?”

  Marion glanced in the direction of Jilly’s again and back at me, a sour expression on his face. “Too clean,” he said. “That area is well kept; high hedges border the front of the properties along there, with a twenty foot well-maintained shoulder of grass between the road and the hedges. I found a spot about a mile and a half away where the grass was torn up, broken glass scattered about.”

  “So you think whoever hit Forrester, removed his track suit, replaced it with another and moved the body to disconnect the scene from the evidence?”

  “I think that’s a good possibility. Unfortunately, I couldn’t convince anyone of that so it was ruled a hit-and-run.”

  “Albert thinks it may have been an impulse thing. That whoever was stalking Forrester, if he was even being stalked, saw the opportunity and took it without thinking it through.”

  “Albert thinks too much for his own good but yes, that’s pretty much the way I see it. And he was being stalked.”

  Another surprise.

  “He was? And you know this how?”

  “I spoke with his ... friend. Forrester had been receiving late night phone calls, disturbing letters and he was sure he was being followed.”

  “And he didn’t report this to the police?”

  “Apparently not. There’s no record of it that I’ve been able to find.”

  “If he was gay, that would make sense. Gay men, in particular older gay men, don’t like drawing attention to themselves. What about Gjerde?”

  Marion clenched his jaw; ground his teeth for a moment.

  “Is there anything Albert doesn’t know about?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Marion shook his head but I noticed that twitch at the corners of his mouth again. He’d been keeping this information to himself for a long time. He seemed more than ready to share it despite his aggravation with Albert.

  “Short and sweet, then. There was nothing wrong with his insulin pump.”

  Yet another surprise. “So no reason for him to inject himself?”

  “Right. Which is why the unofficial ruling is suicide.”

  “But you don’t buy that, any more than you buy Forrester being a hit-and-run.”

  “Same answer as before. Too clean. I could buy the suicide. He and his wife had been together close to thirty years. When she died, it shook him up pretty bad. I could even buy him stashing the candy and the Medic Alert bracelet in the drawer, in case he changed his mind. Suicides often do. What bothers me is the amount of barbiturates in his system and the fact that the place was wiped clean of fingerprints. And despite a thorough search, no pill bottle was found. So where did the drugs come from?”

  “But you couldn’t convince anyone of that?”

  “Too little evidence. It was common knowledge he was distraught, so everyone just zeroed in on what they thought to be the obvious.”

  “But you’re still investigating?”

  “Let’s just say that as far as I’m concerned, the two cases are still open.”

  “And somehow this all ties into Harrison?”

  “I believe it does. Don’t you?”

  Never Trust The Machine

  The weekend passed with no sign of the Mangler and little progress in my investigation. On Monday that changed on both counts.

  I was sitting out on the porch, rereading my editorial in Sunday’s paper and enjoying the smell of the rain, the clash of thunder and lightning. If what I was implying in that editorial didn’t shake something loose, nothing would. The thing to do now was to wait and see what crawled out from under the rocks.

  I was about to get up for another cup of coffee when I heard something that grabbed my attention. A rumble of thunder obscured it for a moment but as soon as the echoes died away, I heard it again. At first I thought it was gunshots. Then one of the Cushman carts the meter maids drove came into view, barreling up Market Street, black clouds of smoke billowing in its wake. The thing was backfiring wildly, the rear end all but lifting off the pavement every time it farted.

  As it passed in front of the house, the wheels locked up and the thing went into a short, sideways skid. It tipped up on two wheels. I could see the driver trying to shift his weight against the direction of the lean, like a motorcyclist counterbalancing the centrifugal force of a curve. It was a futile attempt. The cart was much too heavy. It went over on its side and skidded a dozen or more feet.

  I was out the door and halfway to the cart before it stopped sliding. The meter maid was trying to open the door when I reached the cart. Between the two of us, we managed to force it back on its hinges. I tried to help him out but he shoved me away, cursed and stepped out on the street under his own power. He wobbled for a moment but seemed otherwise unharmed. Before I could ask him what had happened, he gave the cart a swift kick in the underside and walked off toward downtown.

  I could hear my cell phone bashing Beethoven when I got back to the porch. Soaked as I was, I considered ignoring it but when I looked at the caller ID, I saw it was Felice.

  “Teller.”

  “Get out of those wet clothes and head over to the Coney Island restaurant,” she said. “I’ve sent Kayla down to meet you there.”

  “What’s up?” I didn’t bother to enquire how she knew I was soaked. Pointless, really. She wouldn’t answer anyway.

  “It would appear your Mangler has struck again,” she said.

  “He’s not my Mangler,” I said.

  “You named him. That makes him yours.”

  “Whatever. What’s he done this time?”

  “Kayla will fill you in on the details. Get out of those clothes and get down there.” She hung up.

  I changed clothes, poured myself another cup of coffee and gulped it down. Rummaging around in the closet, I found an old rain slicker balled up in the corner along with a wide-brimmed leather hat and put them on. As I was heading to my car, I glanced in the full-length mirror in the hallway. The slicker made me look like a wrinkled eggplant, but at least it would keep me dry.

  Traffic had snarled up around the overturned Cushman cart. The cops hadn’t arrived yet which struck me as odd. I turned in the opposite direction of downtown, took a back alley route behind the school to bypass the jam. As I pulled out onto Ash Street, I saw another of the Cushman carts parked at an angle to the curb. The door was
open but no one was around. A little farther up the street sat another cart, this one several feet from the curb.

  The meter maid was standing beside it. He had the engine cover up and was peering inside the engine compartment the way men do when something mechanical goes wrong. As if staring at the problem in a manly way will bring the recalcitrant beast into line. I swung around him and continued on my way.

  Turning onto Gratiot Avenue, I noticed several other carts parked at odd angles up and down the street. What the hell was going on? A double-parked delivery van pulled away, revealing an empty slot along the curb. I pulled over and parked the Altima. Heavy rain was still falling, the water sluicing off the brim of my hat an instant after I stepped out the car. Hunched over the meter, I started rummaging around in my pocket for change.

  “Probably won’t need that today,” came a soft, female voice from behind me. I turned. A young woman stood peering out from beneath a large umbrella. She looked eager and young enough to be my granddaughter. If I had grandchildren.

  “You must be Kayla?”

  “That’s me,” she said, sticking out her hand. “Kayla Miracle at your service, Mr. Teller.”

  “And are you?” I said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “A miracle.”

  “More a misadventure but I have my miracle moments.”

  I liked her immediately. Sharp, unafraid, and quick on the uptake. She’d go far in this business.

  “Just what we need,” I said. “Oh, and it’s just Teller, if you don’t mind. The Mister part died with my father.”

  “Teller it is, then.”

  “So tell me why I shouldn’t feed the meter,” I said.

  “They’re dying all over town,” she said.

  “What’re dying?”

  “Carts,” she said. “Meter maid carts. I don’t think they’ll be giving out tickets today.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And tomorrow the government will start caring about my welfare.”

  I found two quarters and fed them to the meter. We turned and headed toward the restaurant. Part way there, a meter maid was walking up the street alongside the parked cars.

  I looked at Kayla. “Never trust the machine,” I said. “It will roll you over without so much as a backward glance.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she said, watching with just a trace of awe as the meter maid chalked tires.

  Disaster, Seconds Away

  I ordered dogs and coffee while Kayla filled me in. Cushman carts had been developing mechanical problems all over town, she told me. Several, like the one near my house, had crashed. As Kayla talked, I wondered what was going on. Why were the attacks on the DPE escalating? I had little doubt this was the Mangler’s work and, from the looks of what was going down out on the streets, this was meant to be permanent shut-down.

  The anger level was escalating as well. I looked out the window. A group of protestors had already gathered on the steps of the Admin building. And not a single citizen moved to help any of the meter maids when their carts stalled. Nor when they crashed. In fact, I watched several people applaud. Was that the Mangler’s goal then? Get the people pissed? I didn’t think so. Motivated to do something, perhaps? But DPE was doing an excellent job of pissing off people all by itself.

  So back to the original question: Why the escalation? And back to the original answer: Hell if I knew.

  As Kayla wound down and I finished my lunch, two more reporters from the paper came in. They scampered over to where we were seated, eager as puppies off the leash, looking for all the world as though they should have lunch pails and school books in their hands, instead of cell phones and notepads.

  I gave them all instructions and sent them on their way, feeling oddly authoritarian as I did so. I was used to being the whole team, not the head of it. In a strange way I almost liked the feeling.

  I paid the check and headed out to my car. The rain was still coming down but its fury had abated somewhat. It seemed pointless to duplicate the efforts of my ... team, so I decided to drive over to the cart compound, see what information I could dig up there.

  I passed a tow-truck hauling a cart on the way there. Another was just pulling into the compound when I arrived. I waited for it to pass, pulled in behind it and parked off to one side, well out of harm’s way. The storm seemed to have refocused its fury overhead, the lightning and thunder almost simultaneous. I scanned the grounds until I spotted the mechanics’ shed on the far side of the compound. No way was I going to attempt driving over to it. The whole place was filling up with water; it was beginning to look like a rice paddy out there. Low slung, the Altima wouldn’t make it ten feet before being bogged down in the mud.

  I killed the engine, stepped out and locked the door. I managed to make it across the yard with a minimum of slippage. The mud was up to the ankles of my boots. Ducking in the door, I shook the rain from my hat and looked around. There were several carts in the room, most with parts scattered about them. I spotted a guy standing by a bench and walked over to him.

  “Problem?” I said.

  He turned, looked me up and down as if I wasn’t what he’d been expecting.

  I can’t say he met my expectations either. I’d never before seen a mechanic wearing a suit and tie. He had on a starched and pressed pair of overalls over the suit. There wasn’t a hint of grease on it anywhere. The name Oliver was stitched in red over the pocket.

  “And you are, sir?” His voice was crisp and evenly modulated.

  “Teller,” I said. “Call-Register.”

  He chewed this over for a minute, deciding if he should tell me anything.

  “They’ll not be happy, you being here,” he said.

  “Who?” I said, though I knew the answer.

  “Management, of course.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to give me a ‘no comment’, tell me to get out of your hair and return to work?”

  “Moi?” he said, his hand going to his heart in a fey gesture of surprise. “Not at all, sir. I have neither love nor respect for management. Will this be on the record?”

  “I’d rather it was. I could avoid using your name; refer to you as a confidential source.”

  “That would be preferable; though as I am the senior mechanic here, it seems reasonable to assume they will know it was I who gave you information. On the other hand, firing me at this critical juncture would be counterproductive. And costly. The counterproductive I might expect from them. Costly, however, is not something they tolerate well. What is it you wish to ask of me?”

  I found myself liking this guy. “Well,” I said. “For starters, what’s happening with all the carts?”

  He pulled out a pocket knife, flicked it open with his thumb and began cleaning his fingernails.

  “Corn syrup would be my theory,” he said. “Of course, sugar would produce the same result. However, I would wager the culprit is corn syrup. Simpler to administer.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “It would appear the engines are seizing. Were it but one cart, I might think a loss of oil pressure, perhaps even a loss of the oil itself. But, as you can see there are quite a number of them disabled. And, from my understanding, there are a good deal more stalled in the streets. The odds that all of them would suffer a catastrophic failure of the internal lubrication system are, well, quite high I would imagine.”

  “And you think it’s corn syrup?”

  “Introduced into the fuel tank. Yes, sir.”

  “And that would do this?”

  “It would indeed. Corn syrup mixes quite well with gasoline. The vibration, movement of the cart, the bouncing up and down, would help to mix it further. The engine would perform as usual for a time. In this case, long enough for most of them to get out of the yard and onto the streets. Once the fuel pump began to deliver this diluted mixture to the carburetor, however, disaster would be but seconds away.”

  “Disaster,” I said. “Seconds away.”

  “Indeed. Once the mi
xture is introduced into the cylinder, put under pressure and ignited, the cylinder walls will begin to scorch. The rapid motion of the pistons, actually, to be precise, the rings surrounding the pistons, sliding over this scorched surface will cause a tremendous amount of heat to build. Metal expands with heat. As the tolerances between the wall of the cylinder, the rings surrounding the pistons and the pistons themselves, already minuscule to begin with, becomes smaller, there comes an inevitable point where there is no tolerance left at all. Motion stops rather abruptly and the fluid mechanical properties of the internal combustion engine cease to exist.”

  “The engine seizes,” I said.

  “Just so.”

  I scribbled in my notebook, feeling like I’d dropped into an evening class on advanced auto mechanics.

  “So, you’re saying that someone poured corn syrup into the gas tanks of these things?”

  He smiled. “That is my current theory, yes.”

  “How many carts are we talking here?”

  “If this Mangler fellow is as thorough as he has shown himself to be in past encounters, I should think all of them.”

  “All of them? Trashed?”

  “An apt, if somewhat inaccurate, way of putting it. The word has gone out to the drivers to shut down their machines. However, these minions of management are an arrogant lot ... perhaps more arrogant than management itself. It remains to be seen how many will heed the word. The more who do, the fewer the number of carts destroyed.”

  “They would be salvageable, then?”

  “Oh, they are all salvageable. Or most will be. The engines can be replaced. I have several spares in-house and more are readily obtainable. The engines are manufactured less than thirty miles from here, in fact. If the mixture has not yet been introduced to the carburetor, we could dismantle the system, dispose of the contaminated fuel, clean the tanks and lines, and install new filters. That would solve the problem.”

  “And how long would this take?”

  “If it were me alone, a month perhaps. Perhaps longer. Management won’t suffer that, however. They will bring in outside help. Tyrants rarely tolerate being thwarted. I have little doubt that the majority of these carts will be back on the street as early as Wednesday.”