Meter Maids Eat Their Young (20 page)

The newsroom was quiet, the day's deadline long past, only a few stragglers remained, a skeleton night crew. I could remember a time when this room was chaos from well before daybreak until the depth of night. The Internet was destroying print news and journalism in general, as far as I was concerned.

My sour mood over the death of journalism didn't improve when I ran into Rafe Savage coming out my office as I approached it.

His name in no way describes him. Early thirties, kind of slow on the uptake, a florid complexion stained with freckles, and the scent of English Leather that clings to him like the dust of lost civilizations that follows Charles Schultz's Pig Pen wherever he goes. He wanders the offices like a monk in joyous mourning, zealously sucking time from whoever crosses his path. Shaking off a tick was easier then shaking Rafe once he locked onto you.

Back in the old days, before political correctness ruined the language, Rafe would have been known as a copy boy. What his title was now, I had no idea. I'd never been much for PC, and I wasn't even sure if there was such a thing as copy boys anymore. He was mostly a gopher now; go fer this, Rafe; go fer that, Rafe; oh and bring me some coffee and one of those donuts too. He'd make your copies at the Xerox machine, sharpen your pencils and restock the all-important Post-it note supply. Pretty much any minor task that needed to be done, Rafe would do.  Sometimes he helped the janitorial crew clean up. That was what I thought he was doing when I saw him coming out my office.

“Hey, Rafe,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, jumping about a mile off the floor. For a moment, I thought he was going to start crying. Unusual for Rafe, the always-happy guy. “Mr. Teller. You scared me.”

I didn't bother to correct him on the mister part. I'd done it a hundred times since I'd returned and he never remembered.

“Sorry, man,” I said.

“I have to go now, Mr. Teller,” he said, inspecting his shoes. “I have to … I have to get something for the boss.”

“Sure, Rafe,” I said. “No problem.”

He shuffled off, staring at the floor as if he expected it to open wide and swallow him. I noticed he wasn't carrying a trash can. So why had he been in my office? I remembered HL's leak. Rafe? I laughed out loud at the thought. Rafe involved in something nefarious was beyond paranoid and into the ludicrous. He was probably just lost, or maybe he'd delivered the report from Lynn.

I stepped into my office and checked the in-box. Empty. I looked back into the newsroom but Rafe was gone. Whatever. He was harmless enough. If it rocked his boat to wander about the newsroom after working hours, who was I to deny him that small pleasure? He was on HL's payroll, not mine.

I looked back at the in-box. It was still empty. There was nothing on my desk but an old pizza box and several dirty coffee cups I kept forgetting to take back to the kitchen.

I glanced at the computer crouched menacingly beneath my desk, as if ready to pounce on the unwary. No. Lynn wouldn't do that to me. She said she'd print them out but, despite the lunacy of the idea, it bothered me that Rafe had been skulking about my office.  I tried calling Research, just to check, and got a recording. They had either gone for the day or were having a party. With Research, anything was possible.

I grabbed my notebooks from the shelf and spread them across my desk. Flipping through the CD rack for some tunes to think by, I considered The Car's
Candy-O
, and rejected it. If anything would lead me into the Robyn Zone, the Cars would and I needed to concentrate not ruminate. I slipped Haris Alexiou's
Di Efhon
from the sleeve and into the player instead. She was Greek and her voice was beauty incarnate but, as the lyrics were in Greek and I couldn't understand most of them, the music soothed me rather than distracted me.  When the first notes of the title cut began to drift from the speakers, I started reading through my notes, making a list of my thoughts and observations in chronological order.

As the lilting sound of her voice faded from the last song, I looked up from several pages of notes. Lynn was standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” she said, smiling. “Nice music. Nice voice.”

“Yeah,” I said, clicking off the player before the CD started again. “I got turned on to her while I was in Greece. Hard to find her over here. A friend sends me her stuff when it's released. I didn't expect you until morning.”

Her smile slipped as she took a seat.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“I thought you might be here,” she said. “I tried calling the house. Your cell phone.”

My hand went to the pocket of my shirt. No cell phone. “I must have left it in the car,” I said. “On the charger. Why do I get that  bad moon rising feeling?”

“I don't know, Cat,” she said. “I thought I'd get an early start on it. But, the deeper I dug, the weirder it was. I mean seriously hinky.”

“Hinky?” I said. “Is that like a computer term or something?”

“Yeah.” She laughed. “Something like that. Maybe I'd better give you the other report first. Get it out the way.” She set a stack of paper on my desk. “Twenty-one,” she said.

“Twenty-one?”

“Reports of meter vandalism not related to the Mangler in the six months before you came home.”

“That many,” I said, picking up the stack of papers. They were printouts of newspaper articles. None with my byline.

“Nothing like what's happening now. Minor stuff, gum in the coin slots, hammer blows, a couple of meters knocked over, which could have just been an accident. They wouldn't have even been reported had it not been for the fact that it was never just one meter.”

“Or it was a slow news day,” I added.

“Yeah, that too. The interesting thing is there are eighteen occurrences in the last four months that don't involve the Mangler directly.”

I scanned the dates quickly. “Since my first article.”

“It would appear that way. Three the first month, four each month afterward, and seven in the last month alone.”

“And the month isn't over yet.”

I started skimming through the articles. A driver, beaten and maced. Two construction workers. Several carts had been vandalized. One turned over. A couple with their tires slashed. A windshield or two smashed. Another incident of fisticuffs and an actual mêlée at a little league game. I knew there had been problems but not to this extent. Too wrapped up in my own investigation, I suppose. Still, I should have known about this. Especially the progression over the last month. HL had been right. I hadn't been performing at the top of my game for a while there.

“This one,” I said, peeling off one of the sheets. “Crazy glue and nickels in the meters. Are we sure this isn't the Mangler? That was his first act of vandalism. Ninety meters as I remember.”

She took the sheet, skimmed through it, turned it over. “This guy was caught in the act,” she said. “Claimed he'd been inspired by the Mangler. And he had an alibi for the night those ninety were hit.” She handed the sheet back to me.

“Rough out there,” I said, tucking the sheet back in the pile. “Rougher than I thought.”

“Yeah. Those meter maids are a real pain in the ass. People are becoming afraid to park but what can you do? You can't go anywhere in this town anymore where there isn't a parking meter.”

“Yeah, I've noticed that.” I set the stack of paper aside. “Okay, tell me about this hinky thing.”

She laughed. “Do you know how a website works?

I stared at her. “Uh, you click on the little blue underline things?” I said.

“Jesus, Cat,” she said, her eyes rolling back. “Internet 101. Okay, those little blue underline things? They're called links and a website is just a series of pages, individual files really, written in ….” She hesitated. “You don't even want to know this, do you?”

“I don't even understand this,” I said. “I lost you after links.”

She blew out a long breath. “Okay. The DPE has a website. Very pretty. Very government. You got your history. You got your chain of command. Pretty pictures of meter maids cruising around in their little carts. The whole nine yards. What you don't got is anything statistical or financial. All the links to that stuff are broken.”

“Broken? What do you mean broken?”

“It means you can't get there from here. You click on the link and it just times out.”

“Times out?”

“How do I explain this?” she said, sounding exasperated. “Okay. There are several reasons you might not access a particular page you want to see. The page isn't there, for one. In that case, the web server will throw up a ‘Page Not Found' error. Usually that's a file naming problem, or the file was moved during some reorganization of the site, or you just typed in the wrong URL. Happens all the time. No biggie. Then there are ‘time-out' problems. That usually happens during really peak times when a lot of people are trying to hit the same page at once. Generally, if you wait a bit, or keep trying, sooner or later the traffic jam eases and you get the page.”

“But not this time?”

“Nope. That's what made me suspicious. No matter how many times I tried, I got squat. Finally I had one of the guys look at the code.”

“Code?”

“Don't ask. What we found were the links to stats and financial info, called an ASP page.” She waved me off before I could interrupt. “Just think of it as a page of special code and leave it at that, okay?”

“Whatever,” I said.

“Anyway, when we examined that page, we found that it sent the web server into an endless loop which will eventually cause your browser to time out. In other words, the browser just gives up and tosses an error message at you.”

“And that's a bad thing.”

“A bad thing, yeah. But you're missing the point, Cat.”

“I'm missing this whole conversation, Lynn. What are you trying to say? The information isn't there?”

“It's more than just not there. And, by the way, the information isn't there, but I'll get to that, okay? Just stay with me here a minute.”

“I'm too confused to go anywhere else.”

“Good. Now. Look at it from the point of view of the people running the website. If a user gets a ‘Page Not Found' error and they know they've typed the right address, they might complain. Send an email, or something, because obviously the fault lies with the site itself, right?”

“Sure. I can buy that.”

“But, if the user times out trying to get to a page, they'll likely figure the problem is at their end, or that the site's really busy at the moment and they'll move on to something else. People tend to have a short attention span when it comes to the Internet.”

“Yeah, well, I guess so.”

“Trust me. They do. But the bottom line in that time-out scenario is that they won't report it to anyone.”

“And no one will think anything is wrong?”

“You got it. By law the gov has to provide the information. From the looks of things, the information is there, it's just not accessible at the moment. The key being
at the moment
.”

“But, in this case, if I'm following you, the information is never going to be there, right?”

“Right. But the average user would never know that.”

I considered this. “But how can that be? It's public record. It has to be there. I mean, you can walk over there and view the stuff in their file cabinets, can't you?”

“That's the theory, sure. Tried that even. Sent Mark over there. He's the straightest one of the bunch, as long as you keep him away from the sugar bowl, and his brother's one of the Admin building night guards. The room where they keep that stuff was locked up, under construction according to the sign on the door.”

“Under construction? They didn't set up a temporary place to view the records?”

“Not that Mark or his brother could find.”

“But, the public is authorized to have the information. Aren't they?”

“Well, sure. They're supposed to. By law. But what the hell does that mean anymore? Enron wasn't supposed to rip off people, either. Law is relative, Cat.”

“Relative?” I said. “Relative to what?”

“To the amount of money involved, of course,” she said. “Wasn't it one of your kind who said ‘follow the money'?”

“Deep Throat,” I said, not to mention my mysterious informant. “Yeah, that's the reporter's credo. Or was, at one time. I'm not so sure anymore.” I chewed the end of my pencil. “You said something about the files not actually being there.”

“Yeah, well, the time-out thing bothered me. The fact that the browser was calling a page that forced a time-out bothered me more. So, I had one of the guys look a little deeper.”

“Deeper?”

“Don't ask. And we didn't do it using the paper's computers. We used a satellite feed laptop and bounced it off a site in Russia. Long story. The Reader's Digest condensed version is, the data is simply not there. Not on that server, anyway. Could be internal. Would have to be, in one form or another, or they couldn't do their job. But no way could we find that without leaving a footprint.”