Meter Maids Eat Their Young (26 page)

“Sir,” she said to my back. “Mr. Teller, you can't go in there.”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me back. I slipped from her grasp and opened the door.

The room was as I remembered it from the last time I'd been here. Cooper was standing behind his desk, his back to a broad expanse of glass that looked out over the park. There was a man, a meter maid, sitting in one of the chairs, his head lowered, looking for all the world like a puppy being scolded for peeing on the carpet. When he looked up at my entrance, I recognized him immediately. The ticket guy from the other day.

But all that slipped by when movement across the room drew my attention. I stared at a figure disappearing through a door at the far end of the office. He was gone in an instant, the door clicking shut behind him, but the copper-colored hair, the receding hair line, and most of all, the gauze bandage that covered the side of his face, froze me in place. All the things I had planned to say, lost.

The receptionist or secretary or whatever she was, tugged at my shirt, trying to drag me from the room. I glared at Cooper. He smiled. I smiled back and made the same gun gesture my friend had made to me the day the Cushman cart almost ran me over. The smile on Cooper's face faltered and fell away.

A grip considerably stronger than the secretary's clamped itself on my upper arm, spun me around and dragged me out the room. I shook it off and stepped away.

“Sir …”

“I'm going,” I said. I turned and had to look down to see their faces. Two flat black hats, two adolescent attempts at a moustache, the pair reminded me of the old Bud Fisher cartoon. Mutt and Mutt, I thought, they send up Mutt and Mutt.

“Wrong room is all; no problem.”

On shaky legs, I walked down the hall, down the stairs, the two Mutts following close behind.

“What'd you guys do with Jeff?” I asked over my shoulder. They gave me a blank stare and I shook my head in dismay over the total lack of fundamental education of the youth of today.

I stepped out the front door, a satisfied smile on my face. It was all beginning to come together. I just had to make sure I wasn't blown apart before I could see the final picture.

Back outside again, the beautiful spring morning had turned ugly with thunder clouds moving in from the north. The crowd was dispersing faster than it had gathered, people packing up their lunches, folding their signs and hurrying off to whatever shelter they could find. Two teenagers were scurrying about, plastic garbage bags in tow, picking up trash.

As I made my way back to the newspaper office, I pulled out my cell phone and hit the speed-dial. It rang several times and then kicked over to voicemail. Felice wasn't in which meant HL was gone as well. I folded up the phone, dropped it in my pocket and headed for the garage and my car.

Distant thunder greeted me as I pulled into my driveway. Jaz was midway down the walk way, pushing her bike, the wind whipping the tails of the long trench coat she wore.

“Heading back to work?” I said, stepping from the car.

“Heading to work, period,” she said. “I didn't bother going in this morning. Wasn't going to go in at all but what you said about the website and the viewing room bothered me so I thought I would check it out.”

“You'll get wet,” I said, looking up at the threatening clouds.

“It's a short ride. The rain won't be here for another hour. If it gets bad enough, I can always take a cab home.”

“Well, be careful.”

“I always am, Teller.”

She mounted the bike, pulling up the hood of the coat as she pedaled away. All at once, Skeeter's voice was whispering in my head: ‘After that is when the vampire came, like something out of one of those Wes Craven movies, all misty and formless, shimmering in the dark, a vampire on a bicycle.'

Dementors, vampires in general, Count Dracula in particular, what did they all have in common? Capes. As I watched Jaz disappear around a corner, I considered how much a trench coat with the hood pulled up could look like someone wearing a cape, especially in the dark, tweaked out on meth or riding the Night Train.

Could my suspicions about Jaz be right after all? Was she indeed the Mangler? It made a twisted kind of sense, considering the way the DPE was treating her, and it fit with some of the odd pieces of information I'd gathered so far; the print shop owner thought that his mysterious customer could have been a woman, the guard at the courthouse garage describing the pizza deliverer as being tall and willowy. Jaz fit the bill on all counts.

And what about the other things? The scent in Philo's back room, the empty spot in his display case next to the voice synthesizer. Had that spot once been occupied by a similar gadget? Were Jaz and Philo in cahoots?

But the most damning piece of evidence was the fact that she had known it was Harrison's body in the parking lot. I pulled out my cell phone, oblivious to the rising wind, the rain that splattered all around me.  I needed to be sure.

“This is Teller,” I said, when the line on the other end was answered. “With the Call-Register. I need to talk to Marion Chambers right away. It's urgent.”

A moment later, he answered.

“This better be good, Teller.”

“I just need to check something,” I said without preamble.  “You said the morning Harrison's body was found, his identity didn't go out over the radio.  Are you sure of that?  No leaks, no curbside whispers amongst the troops?”

“Not a chance,” he replied. “My men don't do curbside whispers. I told you before, you and Felice were the only ones outside the department who knew. Why?”

“No reason. Just checking”

“Teller!”

I broke the connection before he had a chance to grill me further.

That clinched it. She had lied to me. The only way she could have known the identity of the body in the parking lot would be if she had been the one to stumble across it. Either she'd been out for a midnight stroll or Jaz
was
the Meter Mangler.

Nearly soaked now, I hurried into the house, certain of what my activities would be over the next few evenings. Though I was certain now, the journalist in me wanted to confirm it with my own eyes. The courthouse meters would go into operation soon, by Monday at the latest. If Jaz was the Mangler and if she was going take them out yet again, she would have to do it soon. I planned to be there when it happened.

As it turned out, I never got the chance.

I spent the rest of the afternoon going through the copies of my notes I keep at the house and the information Lynn had obtained for me. A dozen phone calls to the research department had my fax machine rattling like an out of tune Tin Lizzie. Pulling a calendar from the wall, I plotted out all the days the Mangler had struck, trying to remember if I had seen Jaz during any of those times.

By the time I made it back to the newspaper, the mad rush to deadline was over and the worker bees had long ago left the building. The newsroom was deserted as I made my way to my office. Movement at the far end of the room made me halt. Someone was standing by the window. It took me a moment to recognize who it was.

“Sir,” I said. “Is everything all right?”

Startled, HL turned from the window.

“Teller. Yes, yes, everything is fine, I suppose. As fine as it can be.”

He began walking in my direction, looking about the room as if seeing it for the first time.

“An empty newsroom is a sad place,” he said.

“I've thought the same thing myself, sir,” I said.

He stopped beside a battered desk, ran his hand over the top of a monitor.

“Back when my father ran this business, this room was never quiet. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The two editions we put out, when folded for delivery, were as fat as a Yule log, even on Monday. Now …”

He swept his hand out as if sweeping away the past.

“How is the investigation going, my boy?” he asked.

“I'm making some progress,” I said, trying to decide what I should tell him and what I should hold back. “Nothing definite yet, just a lot of loose ends which need gathering and tying.”

“Always the way with a story like this. You'll tie them in the end. I have confidence in you. I always have.”

As he began walking across the newsroom, I fell in step beside him.

“About those tickets, sir” I said. “I've been thinking that maybe we should turn them over to the cops and run with the story. It's getting dicey out there, what with what's happening with the courthouse meters.”

“All the more reason not to run the story now, my boy. It's a powder keg out there. That story could be the match, though I do agree we may need to bring the police in on it, soon. Anything further on your mysterious friend?”

“Not much,” I said, trying to decide what to tell him about what I'd seen in Cooper's office. “The cops found the car he was driving the last time I saw him. Which may not have been the last time I saw him.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I think I may have seen him in Jefferson Cooper's office,” I said.

“Cooper's office? You made your impromptu visit then?”

“I did.”

“And you saw this man in his office?”

“Slipping out the office, actually; which is why I'm not a hundred percent certain it was him. When I barged in on Cooper, another man was stepping out another door across the room. It was only a brief glance but I'm fairly sure it was him. Whoever it was had a bandage over the side of his face, which would be consistent with what the cats did to my assailant.”

We walked in silence for a moment; HL mulling over the information; me wondering why I hadn't yet told Marion about my encounter.

“Can you describe this man?” he said, stopping near the end of the newsroom.

“Six three, two forty, maybe fifty, but not fat, a body builder's body or someone used to physical labor, broad shoulders, muscular. I'd say he was in his forties, late forties. A thin moustache and thinning, dull copper-colored hair.”

“I'll ask around, see if any of my contacts in the administration know of such a man.”

“About those tickets, sir.”

“You're worried about them being in my possession.”

“After what happened the other night, that would be a yeah.”

“Have no fear, my boy, they are well protected.”

A sudden movement off to our left made both of us jump. Rafe stepped timorously, shaking, from the shadows.

“Rafe, what are you doing here so late?”

“I … I … s-sorry s-sir, I …” He turned then and ran off toward the stairs.

“That was odd,” HL said.

“He's an odd kid,” I said.

“But a good one and a good worker … if a little strange at times. I promised his father before he died that I would ensure his son a job. Well, I must be getting back to work, as I'm sure you must as well.”

“Yes, sir. I do have some things I need to sort out.”

“Very well, then. Perhaps we should meet tomorrow, go over what you have; decide what the next steps should be.”

“I agree. I'll type up my notes tonight, check in with you tomorrow morning.”

“Fine, I'll see you then.”

I watched him walk away into the gloom of the foyer, heard the ding of the elevator. A shiver ran up my back, reminding me of what my father always used to say: A goose walked over your grave.

The thought unsettled me for reasons I couldn't explain.