Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant (14 page)

“That would really help your walk-in traffic.” I took a step back and tried to look all sweet and innocent. “Wouldn't it just be easier to check your security video? It won't take long. We can look at it together.”

“I'm not letting a detective look at my video. What kind of idiot do you think I am?” I didn't answer, just kept up my sweet expression. “How much trouble is this going to be? Do you have a date and a time when this woman was here?”

“I do.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mr. Monk Refocuses

T
he usual suspects, plus a few extra, were crowded into the semiprivate room at SF General. Trudy Stottlemeyer gathered her husband's bag of dried, bloody clothes, ready to make their exit, while I adjusted the captain's shoulder sling and tried to get him into a wheelchair. The captain wasn't cooperating.

“I'm perfectly capable of getting around under my own power.”

“Everyone leaves the hospital in a wheelchair,” said Trudy. “It's a rule.”

“A dumb rule,” said Stottlemeyer. “If I'm fit enough to go back to work . . .”

“You are not going to work,” Trudy informed him. “Banish that thought.”

“Why not? I dare you to find anyone more capable of tracking down my killer.”

“Leland, that's not funny.”

“Trudy's right.” Randy tried to guide his former partner into the wheelchair. “You can't be part of the investigation. We need you safe at home with a guard at the door.”

The captain found it hard to argue, not after what had
happened the previous day in the alley. “Okay. But I need you to keep me constantly updated.”

“Will do,” said Lieutenant A.J. He was lifting himself out of the next bed, with his sister helping him into the other wheelchair. Since he could put only limited weight on his right leg, the process was more difficult. “I'll keep you in the loop, Captain.”

“Not you,” said the captain. “If I'm getting bed rest, you're getting bed rest.”

“Sir, that's not fair. I'm perfectly capable of returning to the field.”

“Not with that leg. Chief Disher is on loan from the Summit PD. Between him and our consultants, they can handle it.”

“You're trusting your life to them?” A.J. stubbed his foot onto one of the wheels and let out a little scream.

“Sorry, Arny,” said Rebecca, as if she were somehow to blame. “So sorry.”

Her brother brushed her hands aside. “Captain, you can't be serious. Some doofus with a dinosaur diary? A pair of strip-
mall detectives? Look at Monk. He can't walk down a street without stepping over every crack. They're not even with the department.”

“Well, I'm authorizing them. You're going home and they're in charge.”

“You can't do that. I'll file a complaint.”

“You do that, A.J. Meanwhile, will someone please get me out of this damn place?”

“It is not a dinosaur diary,” muttered Randy as he
straightened the captain's wheelchair and started pushing. “It's a journal.”

“I wouldn't trust this bunch of misfits to make me a sandwich,” shouted A.J. into our backs.

By the time the old Subaru made it through the crosstown traffic and was being flawlessly edged into a tight parallel parking spot on Hyde Street, the three of us had all calmed down. Pretty much. “How can you work with him every day?” Randy asked from the backseat.

“That's my point,” said Adrian. “That's why we need you to come home.”

“Monk, it's not going to happen.”

“Then I'll figure out some other way. Maybe Luther can help.”

“Luther?” said Randy, looking puzzled. “You mean your driver friend?”

Monk grinned. “Luther and I have our own ways of solving problems.”

I heard this and nearly scraped the bumper in front of me. “No. You and Luther are not going to pull one of your pranks. I absolutely forbid it.”

“We'll see,” said Monk. “We'll see.”

As we walked up to the porch of Judge Oberlin's house, I noted the sturdy stone umbrella stand, the spot where the captain had sat down and chatted with me one day prior to his own poisoning. The answer had been right under him and we never suspected. Monk also saw the stand and gave it a wide berth.

Bethany Oberlin must have been waiting because the door flew open almost before I touched the bell. “Come in,
come in. Please.” We wiped our feet on the mat and followed her instructions. The front door opened directly onto a wide, homey living room with a stone fireplace centered on the rear wall. Before sitting down, Randy introduced himself.

“A police chief from New Jersey?” Bethany stiffened. “Are murders like this happening in New Jersey?”

“No, no,” Randy assured her. “I worked with Captain Stottlemeyer seven years ago. And your father, too. On those trials where someone wanted to kill us.”

“Seven years ago? What happened seven years ago?”

I tried to explain in as few words as possible. Someone had dropped a note on the captain's desk, claiming that the attacks were revenge for stealing “seven years of my life.”

“We think it may be a trial the judge and the captain were involved with,” said Monk. “But it could be anything. Were you living with your father back then?”

She thought for a moment. “I was in high school. Sixteen. Mom had just died in a car accident.”

“I'm so sorry.” That's what I say when someone mentions death, no matter how long ago.

“Thank you. It was a rough patch for Dad. He was just going through the motions. Some of his old friends tried to reconnect, but I couldn't tell you who. I spent a lot of time with my high school friends. Captain Stottlemeyer . . . I know he and Dad used to be close. But that was before I was born. I think the first time I met the captain was at Dad's first funeral.” She shuddered at the memory. “His second funeral is tomorrow, by the way.”

“Tomorrow?” Monk turned to his appointment secretary. “Is that on our schedule, Natalie? You didn't mention it.”

“It's a small event,” said Bethany Oberlin, biting her lower lip. “I didn't think to invite you. But if you really want to come . . .”

“Thanks, but we'll let you grieve privately.” The last thing the poor girl needed was Monk bending over her father's casket again.

“Do you think Dad did something bad?” she asked. “To make someone hold a grudge strong enough for murder? For seven years? He was in mourning at the time and not always rational.”

“Whatever he did, it involved the captain,” I pointed out. “We're checking the trials, but there might be something else. Do you have any idea?”

“Dad wasn't the type to make enemies. But he was known for his strict sentencing. Several of his decisions went in front of review boards. I don't think any of them was overturned.”

“Was he a strict father, too?” I had to ask.

“Dad was . . .” She thought hard before going on. “I'm not sure he liked children, even his own. Growing up, I got treated like a little adult. Mom was different. I could always go to her for sympathy and a hug. I work with kids myself now. Kids aren't always perfect. They like to experiment, try on different personas and behaviors.”

“Make mistakes,” I said, thinking of my own relationship with Julie.

“Yes, but that doesn't make them bad. They're discovering who they are, what works for them. Dad didn't get it. ‘As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.' He used to say that a lot. His mission, I think, was to straighten the twigs, which wasn't
always easy on the twigs. Maybe that's why I got into teaching, to try a gentler way of bending the twigs. Who knows?”

“If you heard that your dad sentenced a couple of teenage boys to seven years each for stealing antique silver, would that surprise you?” I was interested to see her reaction.

“Stealing silver and threatening two officers with semiautomatics,” Randy reminded me.

“He really gave them seven years? Those poor boys.”

“They used to be poor boys,” said Chief Disher. “Now they're grown men, ex-cons who probably have chips on their shoulders.”

“Well . . .” She sighed, the weight of the world on her thin shoulders. “To answer your question, I can see Dad doing that. He'd say it was grand larceny. He'd look at their priors and how they dressed and comported themselves. These boys who stole the silver, you think they killed Dad?”

Randy shrugged. “They could be our best lead.”

“Do you think whatever Dad did back when he was grieving, right or wrong, is putting your captain in danger?”

“You can't think of it that way,” I told her. “Nothing can excuse murder. If those men did it, they're responsible. No one else.”

“They're not trying to kill me, if that makes you feel any better,” said Randy.

Bethany looked puzzled. “Why would that make me feel better?”

Sometime in the middle of our visit with Bethany Oberlin, Harlan Brown phoned me from the Pleasant Valley facility near Fresno. I let it go into voice mail and returned his call as soon as the three of us got outside.

“Warden Brown, thanks for getting back to me,” I said, even though I was the one getting back to him.

“No problem, Miss Teeger.” The man had a warm Southern accent. Is it a cliché, or do most of the nation's wardens come from the South? Maybe they just like the accent. “The Frisco police commissioner says I should answer whatever questions you and your partner might have.”

“That was very nice of him.” I sometimes forget the power Adrian Monk's name carries in the world of law enforcement.

“Your message said something about the Willmott cousins. I gotta tell you, ma'am, I had mixed feelings about their release. On the one hand, I'm glad those boys are gone. On the other, I feel sorry for the general public.”

I let out an inappropriate chuckle. “I guess that answers my question about why they didn't get paroles.”

“It's a shame, really. They come in as a couple of entitled yuppie kids and wind up covered in neo-Nazi prison tats, spouting all kinds of hateful stuff and getting into knife fights. We tried everything on them.”

“Neo-Nazis? Oh, dear.”

“You heard me, Ms. Teeger. In a maximum- or even medium-security prison this behavior wouldn't be a big deal. But Pleasant Valley is minimum security. Half our population is white-collar offenders in on bank fraud and insider trading. Some of them are Jewish. Then, out of the blue, these clean-cut kids start watching that TV show
Lockup
on MSNBC. You know the prison show about life behind bars?”

“I've seen bits and pieces.”
Lockup
was one of those reality
shows that makes you question everything you thought you knew about humanity and want to hide under the covers.

“Well, these two kids started their own branch of the Aryan Brotherhood. From scratch.”

“I didn't realize the Aryan Brotherhood had branches.”

“I think they got all their information from
Lockup
. That basic cable. I tell you, it's more trouble than it's worth.”

“Why didn't you have them transferred to another facility?”

“Ma'am, we tried. But the parents pulled some strings with the state. Funny how they couldn't use their juice to keep the boys out of prison, but when it came time to mess with my facility . . .”

“They probably thought it would just make them worse, putting them in a tougher prison.”

“I'm sure that's what they thought.”

“I know I'm going to regret asking you this.” I stepped away from the car and out of earshot. “Do your records show a current address for the Willmott boys? Are they in the Bay Area by any chance?”

“They're living together, if I'm not mistaken.” I could hear the warden tapping away on his keyboard. “Yep. Right in San Francisco. You thinking of visiting them? You're not African-American, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. How about Jewish? If you're Jewish, I can't give you the address. For your own protection.”

“I'm not Jewish.”

“Good.” And he gave me the address.

When I got back to my perfectly parked car, Monk and
Randy were looking quizzical. “Well,” said Monk. “Who was that? And why is there a drop of perspiration above your right eyebrow? It can't be over sixty degrees.”

“Adrian, how do you feel about neo-Nazis?” I didn't think Monk had any Nazi-related phobias, although I couldn't blame him if he did.

“Neo-Nazis?” He rolled a single shoulder. “They're not as bad as the old-fashioned original Nazis, from what people say—although the original Nazis were a lot neater and they dressed better. Is there a reason why you're asking me this question?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mr. Monk and the Urban Château

T
he address I'd written down wasn't far away, about twenty blocks north toward the bay and another twenty blocks west. It wasn't until I was getting close and the neighborhood kept getting nicer that I realized. Our two young neo-Nazis, fresh out of prison, had set up house in Pacific Heights, otherwise known as the land of you-can't-afford-to-live-here. And then it hit me. Of course.

“They're residing in their parents' basement, aren't they?” said Monk. Great minds think alike. “I hate basements.”

“It doesn't have to be the basement,” I said. “But you're probably right.”

“What if they're not home?” said Randy from the backseat. “We should have called ahead.”

“I didn't want to give them advance warning.” I turned on Broadway Street and started looking for a parking space.

Monk agreed. “It's an historical fact. You don't give Nazis advance warning.”

Colin Willmott's parents certainly had enough room to accommodate their son and nephew in the spare bedrooms
on the second or third floor of their faux-French urban château, situated on a spacious corner lot. But I guessed it was some sort of mutual agreement that kept all the Oriental rugs and hunting paintings above ground level and all the swastikas and survival gear and military-style cots in the basement, with its own bathroom and separate entrance from the street.

It was late afternoon on a Thursday, but Ben and Olivia Willmott were both working from home. We identified ourselves and held up our IDs to a camera above the doorbell. An alarm system beeped on and off, followed by the sound of more than one dead bolt being unbolted.

The weary, middle-aged couple were at first reluctant to sit down with two private detectives and a police chief from New Jersey. But this, we told them, involved their Colin, and as painful and intrusive as it might be, they knew they had to make one more effort, and probably a dozen more after this.

Ben Willmott did something or other in banking. Olivia Bowersox-Willmott, as she introduced herself, did something in the advertising world. Both were perpetually confused and exhausted with their only son, who, despite having love and every other advantage showered on him, had turned into a Hitler-loving ex-con.

They walked us back to the kitchen—through the front room, a second living room, and the dining room. Along the way I noted a framed photo on the fireplace mantel, the younger-looking Willmotts, all scrubbed and happy-looking. An earnest but smiling Colin, blond and perhaps ten years
old, stood between them, the Eiffel Tower in the background.

We sat on leather-topped stools around a marble island big enough to have its own zip code. Olivia offered us something to drink and Adrian was impressed to find that their imported water of choice was from Fiji. Good start.

Ben took a sip from his own bottle. “I used to look at people in our situation, on the news, and think they must have been bad somehow or overindulgent. But we didn't do it any differently from the way dozens of our friends raised their kids. There was just something about the way Colin and his cousin interacted. They were the same age, only a month or so apart. From the time they were toddlers, the boys brought out the worst in each other.”

“When was their first arrest?” asked Monk.

The Willmotts exchanged wary glances. “Those records are sealed,” said Ben. Then he sighed. “They were fourteen or fifteen.”

“Fourteen,” his wife clarified. “It was small stuff at first. Taking a car for a joyride, shoplifting. There was at least one convenience store. And of course, there were the drugs.”

“Two convenience stores and a gas station,” Ben added. They almost sounded like a pair of proud parents reciting their child's long string of accomplishments—but exactly the opposite.

“The nice thing about prison was that it got them off drugs. They say. We hope.”

The Willmotts, Olivia and Ben and his brother's family, had done everything they could—counseling, drug rehab, trying to keep the boys apart, a lot of patience—probably
what I would have done if Julie had gone down that path and I'd had the Willmotts' money and clout.

When the cousins finally turned eighteen and Captain Stottlemeyer arrested them for stealing their uncle's silver collection, pieces that had been in the family since the Revolutionary War, the Willmotts decided on a little tough love. Suddenly gone were the slick lawyers and the legal favors that had worked during the previous four years. The boys were on their own with a court-appointed attorney just out of law school. Having pulled semiautomatics on the arresting officers didn't help their chances.

“The judge completely went out of bounds,” said Olivia. “It wasn't fair.”

“You mentioned them doing a joyride,” said Monk. “At fourteen? Did they take the keys or hot-wire it?”

“It was a car off the street. Colin is very mechanically minded,” said Colin's father. Another one of the child's accomplishments.

“We'll assume he still knows how to hot-wire cars,” said Monk.

Ben Willmott's sad smile faded. “Are you saying they're in trouble again? Please don't say that.”

“It could be very big trouble,” said Randy. “Mr. Willmott, do you own a handgun?”

“Handgun?” Olivia looked to her husband. “We don't have to answer that.”

Monk cricked his neck and rolled his left shoulder.
Here it comes,
I thought. I felt sorry for the poor couple.

“The answer's yes,” Monk announced. “No one says, ‘We don't have to answer that' if the answer's no. Under normal
circumstances, you would keep it in the bedroom, the usual spot for a law-abiding household needing a gun for protection. But Mr. Willmott's eyes just flitted out toward the front of the house.”

Monk got off his stool and crossed to the doorway. “The second living room. When we walked through, I noticed two antique end tables with locks on the drawers. The one on the left side of the sofa had scratch marks around the lock mechanism. Fresh ones, not yet polished over by the maid. My guess—and it's not really a guess—is you tried to hide the weapon from your son in the past, before prison. The end table was your new hiding spot and the boys found it.”

Ben sputtered. Should he be outraged or impressed? “What the hell are you doing? This is an invasion of privacy.”

“Just observing the obvious,” said Monk.

“Colin and Marshal aren't allowed in the main house,” said Olivia. “We had the inside stairs removed. They don't have keys and we always lock up and set the alarm. It's impossible for them to break in.”

“Hardly impossible,” said the master of the impossible. “What's your alarm code? Your birthdays, your anniversary, your son's birthday? Something easy for Colin to figure out?”

Ben's embarrassed expression said it all. “We've done everything to protect ourselves. We're not responsible anymore. He's a grown man.”

“A grown man living in your basement,” Randy pointed out. “What kind of handgun is it? I'm going to guess, like Mr. Monk. A nine-millimeter?”

“We don't have a gun,” said Ben defiantly. “If you check
state registration records, yes, you may find a nine-millimeter Beretta under my name. But that gun went missing. Years ago. I never reported it. That's not a crime.”

“I'll tell you what's a crime,” said Randy. “For a convicted felon to possess a firearm. That's at least eighteen months plus a ten-thousand-dollar fine. If you know they took your gun and didn't report it, that makes you an accessory.”

“And if we report it?” Ben asked.

“Then we can get a search warrant for your basement.”

“Well, that's not going to happen,” said Ben.

“What did the boys do?” Olivia asked softly. It seemed she couldn't help herself.

“That's no longer our responsibility.”

“Benjamin! That's what you said when they turned eighteen.” She raised her voice, as close to shouting as she would get. “You said it was time the boys learned the hard way. Tough love. Well, this is what your tough love did. Are you happy?”

Ben turned to me, as if sensing I was the one other parent in the group and that I'd understand. “Before the trial got under way, we knew it was a mistake. We tried to fire the public defender and get a top-notch lawyer, but the boys . . . They were so enraged at the whole family.”

“Can you blame them for being mad?” said Olivia.

“They were adults and we could no longer make their choices. They reacted out of spite.”

I found this hard to fathom. “They rolled the dice with an inexperienced public defender rather than let you tell them what to do? Weren't they scared? They were just boys.”

Ben nodded. “That's what we're dealing with. They're filled with so much hate. Getting even is what they live for.”

“We lost our son and our nephew forever,” said Olivia, her voice cracking with emotion. “Their other cousin, from my side of the family, is getting married this weekend.”

“A very nice Italian girl,” added Ben, with a what-can-you-do shrug. “We were a little surprised, to be honest. One generation off the boat. But very nice people. Very lively.”

Off the boat?
I thought.
Lively? And they wonder where their son got his prejudices from.
I just nodded and kept smiling.

“A wedding is supposed to be a joyous occasion,” said Olivia. “Instead, the boys aren't even invited. Their own cousin they grew up with. Everyone has cut them off. Everyone's too afraid.”

“And yet they're living in your home,” Randy said.

Olivia bristled. “What do you want us to do, make them live on the street or worse, with a gang?”

“Have you and your husband lived here a long time? In this house?” asked Monk. The question seemed to come out of the blue, but I knew better. “The name Willmott is etched on the mailbox and the mailbox looks at least thirty years old.”

“Who said you could examine our mailbox?” said Ben. “I'm feeling violated here.”

All four of us did some form of eye rolling, including Ben's wife. “Yes,” said Olivia. “Almost thirty years. The house was a wedding present from my parents.” Wedding present? Really? I think my parents gave Mitch and me a Cuisinart. “Why do you ask, Mr. Monk?”

“I was thinking about your mice problem,” said Monk. “Well, not your mice in particular. In general. In a lot of garden sheds and basements, there's leftover rat poison, just sitting on the shelves. Not used for years. A lot of those old rat poisons used thallium as an ingredient.”

“Thallium?” said Randy, his interest in the Willmotts growing.

Monk went on. “It's been outlawed in the U.S. for quite a while. Highly lethal, even to touch or breathe. But if you've had the house for thirty years, it's more than likely . . .”

“Rat poison?” said Ben Willmott. “You ask us about guns and stealing cars? Now rat poison?”

“Yes,” said Monk. “It's a regular smorgasbord of crime. And it probably isn't over.”

“Oh, my God,” said Ben.

“We don't have a garden shed,” said Olivia. “All the garden supplies . . . they're in the basement.”

“In the basement with the boys,” I pointed out.

We left the Willmotts in a state of stunned wonder. I thanked them for their time, Monk thanked them for the Fiji Water, and Randy advised them to change their alarm code immediately. Also the passwords on their computers and bank accounts and whatever else they wanted to keep safe.

After the front door closed behind us, I listened for the dead bolts being locked into place and the pings of the alarm system being reset. “You have to feel sorry for them,” I said softly.

“Because they raised a boy who's trying to kill the captain?” asked Randy.

“We don't know that,” I said, then turned to Monk for his expert opinion.

“Earplugs,” said Monk.

“Earplugs?”

Monk held a finger in the air, as if testing the direction of the wind. “Rock-and-roll music. It's even worse than the hippies.”

“What hippies?” Randy asked.

“Don't ask,” I said.

“Earplugs,” repeated my partner. As I scrounged through my tote, Monk led the way around the left side of the urban château, down a slate gravel path toward a door near the rear of the house. “Augh. The noise!”

“I don't hear a thing,” said Randy, shaking his head in wonder. “Monk, you must have ears like a blind person. You know? How they say when you lose one sense, then all the other senses become better.”

“Really, Randy? And what sense has Adrian lost?”

“I don't know. The sense of normal? No offense, Monk.”

“I can barely hear you over the din,” shouted Monk, more for effect than anything. He took my pack of earplugs, broke the plastic wrap, and stuffed the buds firmly in his ears. “That's better. What were you saying?”