Meter Maids Eat Their Young by E. J. Knapp Page B

jumped. Felice would only call if something was up, not to ask about my condition. She would already know my condition.
    â€œWhat’s happening?”
    â€œYou need to get down to the police station right away,” she said, her voice as calm as if she were discussing the weather. “They’ve arrested the Meter Mangler.”
    The phone fell from my hand, into my lap. I could hear her voice as I fumbled to retrieve it.
    â€œTeller? Did you hear me?”
    â€œYeah. Sure. No problem, Felice. I’ll head over there right now.”
    I folded up the phone and slipped it into my pocket.
    I stood up. Turned one way, then another, confused. The Mangler. Caught. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want it to be true. I had grown rather fond of Darth and his little jabs at the establishment.
    On wobbly legs, I ran inside, slipped on some clothes, grabbed my keys and headed out the door to my car. I hesitated, thought about locking the front door and was on the verge of doing so when my cell phone began butchering Beethoven again.
    â€œAre you on your way?” Felice said.
    â€œHalfway there,” I said and flipped the phone closed. I stared at the front door a moment longer then jumped in the car and headed downtown.

Torquemada Slept Here
    The city courthouse has a ‘Torquemada slept here’ look to it. Heavy, dull gray stone, heavy oak beams, window and door frames like lips pursed in anguish. You find yourself looking for the entrance to the dungeon and think you’ve found it when you stumble across the stairs leading to the police station. It sits on the north side of the courthouse, enjoying the worst of the winter storms and little of the summer sun. The granite there is stained and moss-covered; stepping down the stairs to the massive oak doors brings a ten-degree drop in temperature.
    The place was quiet when I stepped through the door. I knew Felice had a mole in the police department; she had moles everywhere, so it wasn’t likely that the TV crews had wind of this yet. I’d managed to avoid entering this part of the courthouse since my return so I was somewhat surprised at how civilized it was inside, considering the outside facade.
    Ivory walls, pastel blue trim, Weston, Adams, Cunningham and Bullock photographic prints on the wall; house plants on every flat surface and everything in its place. I was sure this was Marion’s doing since becoming the head honcho. He was a neat freak to the extreme. His desk was always empty and shining, his clothes clean and pressed to perfection, and his houseplants never died. Never even yellowed.
    Marion didn’t like being called Marion, despite the fact that Marion was the name given on his birth certificate. Really. I looked once, just to be sure. Normally, when someone can’t abide their first name, they resort to their middle one. In Marion’s case, it wasn’t an improvement. Francis, in his mind, was as bad as Marion. And it wasn’t like he could go by his initials, MF not being the best sobriquet for a cop. In the end, from the time he returned from Nam, he emulated his movie hero John Wayne, another Marion, and started calling himself Duke.
    I have never called him that, much to his chagrin.
    I made my way past the reception area and found Marion watering plants in his office. Built like a NFL lineman, his hair was the color of sun-bleached wheat and cut close to his scalp. He had a hard, square Dudley Do-Right jaw, with tight, thin lips that turned neither up in a smile nor down with displeasure, and sharp, blue eyes that could pin you in place like a mounted butterfly. As always, his khaki-colored uniform looked fresh off the hanger, with creases so sharp they hurt the eye to look at them. A Sam Browne belt was tight about his trim stomach. A sleek Sig Sauer 9mm rode on his hip at pocket level, an improvement over the bulky, Dirty Harry .44 he used to carry.
    The only