Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant (23 page)

“I'll pay the bill,” said Daniela. “And I'll pay your bill, Mr. Monk. Gladly.” The coral red corners of her mouth turned up in a grin. “How did you know?”

“I wasn't trying to solve your problem,” Monk admitted. “I was solving Natalie's. A woman plays a prank on our office and the office next door. What do these places have in common? A paper-thin wall, that's it. What do they have of value? Nothing at Monk and Teeger. But over at the hippies' . . .”

“I get it,” said Daniela. “Once again I underestimated you. I won't do it again. Now, if you'll excuse me . . .” She was
looking out over my left shoulder when she groaned. “Elliot Brown has just walked in, kiddies. Looks like my fun is never done.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mr. Monk and the Very Last Man

S
o let this be a lesson to me. Adrian Monk is no man-child. He is not some idiot savant with just one special skill. He is a brilliant detective who was once a seminormal human being and could still be that man. The fact that he could solve this case and orchestrate a perfectly timed redemption in front of Daniela Grace proved it. There had been no great embarrassment, no OCD faltering. Even Monk's use of Julie. Had I known what he was up to, I would have totally objected. But it worked.

Given Julie's little adventure with playacting, I'd thought she'd be ecstatic, like the times when I'd accidentally given her too much sugar before bedtime. Giddy and bouncing off the walls. But she was relatively subdued. I took it as a sign she was growing up.

After Claudia Collins walked out and Daniela left us in order to deal with Elliot Brown, we had the table to ourselves. I dragged over a wingback chair. Monk arranged it evenly with the other two, and we all sat down to celebrate with an expensive lunch. Two iced teas, two Cobb salads, and, since they refused to allow Monk to go back and inspect
the food preparation area, no matter how nicely we asked, one bottle of Fiji Water, opened at the table.

I don't recall everything we said. But Julie re-created her meeting at West Bay and how she talked Claudia into going out to lunch. Monk talked about our landlord and how he should be criminally prosecuted for the thin walls. And I reveled quietly in my great good luck. And by saying “quietly,” I include the ringing in my ears. Almost gone. I had to focus to notice it at all.

“How is the captain?” Julie asked at one point.

My sense of well-being faded. “Physically, he's fine,” I said. “He should be released anytime, although he'll have trouble sitting until his tailbone heals.”

“Why did you say ‘physically'?”

“Someone's tried to kill him three times. Other people were injured, one was killed. All collateral damage. I have no idea how this is all affecting him.”

“Plus, it's escalating,” said Monk between sips of his Fiji. “The last attack was just hours after he left home. Whatever the note said about already having waited seven years, someone's in an awful hurry to kill him.”

Nothing puts a pall over a celebration like a death threat to one of your best friends. Even after Daniela dropped by our table to thank us again and pick up the tab, we were all sobered by the reality of the situation. This wasn't over.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Julie.

“No, absolutely not.” I'm glad Monk said it before I had to.

“Good. I mean . . .” My daughter blushed. “To be honest,
I'm not so sure I want to be a private eye after all. No offense.”

“Oh.” This was a surprise. After so many months of hounding me . . . “What changed your mind, honey? Was it seeing how Claudia worked?”

“No, it's nothing.”

“It's not nothing. Look, I can't pretend I'm upset by your change of heart. It's a tough business. And not everyone in it is moral or ethical, at least not all the time.”

“Don't worry, Mom. I still respect what you do. I just think it may not be right for me.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Actually, I was a tad disappointed. I don't know why.

“You can still be an unpaid intern,” Monk suggested.

“No, she can't,” I said. “How about an internship at a law office? That will help prepare you for law school. Daniela Grace was very impressed by your ability today, I must say.”

“She was?”

“Absolutely. The way you went in there. Your confidence and initiative. I'm proud of you.”

“She thought I was convincing?”

“Of course you were convincing. I barely recognized you myself.”

“So, you're saying I could be a good actress.”

“An actress? Heavens no. That's not what I'm saying at all.”

“You don't want me to be an actress?”

“It's even worse than being a PI.”

“Well . . .” Julie squinted and pursed her lips. “I'll just have to give it more thought.”

A few minutes later, Adrian and I were on the street, watching as my daughter, in her grown-up disguise, walked south on Powell toward the nearest BART station. “She takes after you,” Monk said as Julie faded into the crowd.

“Was that meant as an insult or a compliment?”

“An observation,” said Monk. “But I'll say compliment if that makes you feel better.”

“Good,” I said. “Now let's go see the captain.”

Monk was silent, all the way from the Fairmont parking garage to the hospital parking garage. He emitted no loud warnings for me to yield at every intersection, no constant reminders about my speed, like a speedometer with audio. This should have been a nice change, but it wasn't. I knew what he was thinking. How could we be so clueless for so long on this case? We didn't have any suspects left. And we certainly didn't have a motive, which was probably the most puzzling part.

As always, there was an armed officer in a chair outside the door. As usual, A.J. Thurman was at the captain's bedside. The three main differences, on this particular visit, were the absence of Trudy Stottlemeyer, the absence of a heart monitor, and the position of the man in the bed. Leland was facedown, his upper chest resting on a pillow, his head resting on his folded hands.

“That's a very unnatural position,” said Monk.

“Good afternoon, Monk,” said Leland without looking up. “It's actually quite comfortable. I can also rest on my side. And with my inflatable doughnut, I can manage lying on my back. Want to help me with my doughnut?” Monk
shivered audibly and the captain chuckled. “Ow, don't make me laugh. Natalie, are you there?”

“I'm here,” I said. “How is Trudy holding up?”

Stottlemeyer lifted his hands, a helpless gesture. “Even with the poison and the bullet and the fractured tailbone, I think this damn assassin's doing more harm to my marriage than to me. Anyway, Trudy will be sorry she missed you. The lieutenant persuaded her to go home a few minutes ago.”

“You don't need more than two or three babysitters,” said A.J. He was in Trudy's usual chair, with a pair of crutches leaned up against the wall, one for each injured leg.

“How's your dad?” I asked. Between the captain and the retired captain, A.J. must have been spending half his life looking down at sickbeds.

“Not good.” A.J. bit his lower lip. “It might be as soon as tonight. That's what the doctor says.”

“Shouldn't you be with him?” I asked. It seemed like a reasonable question.

“I love my dad, okay? I just needed to take a break.”

“Not much of a break,” said Stottlemeyer.

“At least you're going to live,” said the lieutenant. “That beats a deathbed vigil.”

“Don't make me feel more guilty, okay?” Captain Stottlemeyer grunted and managed to turn over on his side. “People have paid the price for me being alive. A twenty-five-year-old boy paid the price.”

“Sorry, Captain.” A.J. lowered his eyes and rubbed his outstretched legs. “I'm just trying to deal with it.”

“I'll get out of here today,” promised the captain. “Then we'll all go over and see your dad.”

“Thanks. Dad would like that.” A second later, his phone rang and he picked up instantly. “What's up?” He paused. “Good, good.” A hand over the receiver. “It's Rebecca. He's still with us.” Back on the phone. “No, I'm not alone. Monk, Natalie. The captain, of course.”

“Hello, Rebecca,” I said in the phone's direction.

“I'll get there when I get there,” A.J. told his sister. “Damn it, Becky, I'm doing my best.”

•   •   •

“Why do I always feel so awkward around him?” I asked. It was less than five minutes later. After the call from A.J.'s sister, Monk and I had cut our visit short, promising to visit the captain at home, as soon as he was released. We were in the hospital stairwell, getting our exercise and avoiding the horrors of the elevator.

“You feel awkward?” said Monk. “Good. I thought it was just me.”

“Well, it is you. You feel awkward around everyone. But A.J.'s a special case.”

We emerged from the stairwell into the lobby just in time to see Randy Disher and Bethany Oberlin come in through the automatic doors. We all saw one another at the same moment and joined up by the elevator bank. Three out of four of us hugged.

“I came by your house to say good-bye,” said Bethany. “Randy was there. I'm so glad I ran into you like this.”

“I had my phone off,” I explained. “You're leaving?”

“Back to Thailand, through Tokyo. It's about a twenty-four-hour flight.”

“I don't envy you that. How was the second funeral?”

“Uneventful,” said Bethany with a sad smile. “Thanks for asking. It might have been a blessing for the first one to be such a mess. It got me more used to the idea of him being gone.”

“We thought we'd drop by and see the captain,” explained Randy.

“He and my dad knew each other forever, and it just seemed right to stop by.” Bethany's right index finger was just settling on the up button.

“What do you mean by forever?” Monk asked. He shrugged his shoulders and cricked his neck. This seemed to be one of his long-shot hunches. “How long is forever?”

“Forever,” explained the judge's daughter. “Since college, at least.”

“Were they in the same fraternity?” asked Monk.

I won't say I had a clue at that moment, maybe half a clue. Maybe a quarter.

“I think so,” said Bethany. “Is this important?”

“Maybe,” he said. “We were looking for another connection between the captain and the judge. The fraternity is a connection. Did your father ever tell you stories about his college friends?”

She shook her head. “Dad wasn't much of a sharer.”

Then Monk turned to me. “You remember the story about the whisky, the last frat brother drinking the whole bottle. Could they be the last two alive, the captain and Captain Thurman?”

It was a rhetorical question, but I didn't care. “Are you saying someone's killing off the frat brothers? Why would anyone do that? Revenge, maybe?”

“Maybe to drink the whisky,” said Randy in that tone of voice that lets you know it's a joke.

Monk paused, not laughing. “Randy, you're right.”

“I'm right? I'm never right.”

“Randy's right,” I agreed. “He's never right.”

Monk ignored us and ticked off his points. “Stottlemeyer's father was a whisky expert. He brought back bottles from Inverness, the whisky Mecca. A lot can happen in forty years. Accidents happen. Things get rare.”

“You're saying someone's killing people over whisky?” I almost snorted. “How rare can a bottle of whisky be?”

“Off the top of my head, I'd say one-point-four million. That was the price back in two thousand and ten. It may not even be the same whisky, but—”

“One-point-four million?” I gulped. “Dollars?”

“It was sold by Sotheby's, the auction house in New York.”

“Sotheby's?” Hadn't I just heard that name? Someone had mentioned Sotheby's. Or I'd seen a Sotheby's catalog. Just last week. “Oh, my God,” I said. “The Thurman house. On a chair by the bed.”

“Room three forty-seven,” shouted Monk. “Go, go, go!”

Randy Disher had spent enough years with us. He knew the shorthand. The ex-lieutenant was the first of us through the stairwell door, bounding up the flights of stairs. I was right behind him. “Right turn, left turn,” I said toward his disappearing feet.

I was the second one at the captain's door. Randy was pulling at the knob while the officer on duty seemed torn between reaching for the key on his left side or his weapon on his right.

“Locked from inside,” Randy shouted back at me.

“Give him the key,” I ordered the patrolman. He was young, with no memory of homicide lieutenant Randall Disher. But crazy Natalie he knew. “Give him the key!”

I got to the door myself just as the officer's key turned the dead bolt. Randy and I barged through, stumbling over each other. He recovered first and took in the scene. “Get the bag off him,” he shouted.

The captain was in the bed sideways, just as we'd left him. But the sheets were a mess. A pillow was on the floor. And a plastic bag was over the captain's head, cinched at the throat with a drawstring. He wasn't moving, deathly white. But a tiny puff of air vibrated between the plastic and his open mouth.

I grabbed at the drawstring, trying to be fast but gentle. The bed rocked and jolted as a pair of wrestling men ricocheted off the walls. At some point, a plastic syringe scuttled across the white tile at my feet.

“Stop,” screamed the patrolman, his sidearm nervously drawn and pointed into the melee. “Both of you.” They stopped and his eyes finally focused and tried to take it all in—the barely breathing captain, the bag over his head, the syringe, the homicidal desperation on A.J.'s face.