Mr. Monk Helps Himself (19 page)

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You would think with all the private eyes roaming these foggy streets that San Francisco would have its own PI testing facility. Or maybe I’m thinking of Sam Spade and those fictional guys in trench coats. The closest facility is actually in Hayward, across the Bay Bridge and south about half an hour. It’s a nice little city, the skyline dominated by a water tower left over from when the Hunt’s cannery was the biggest local employer.

The job of testing had been farmed out to a private firm in an unimposing one-story building in an industrial park right beside another industrial park. Seven of us were taking the test that day. We nervously compared notes in the parking lot. I was surprised to see that four out of the seven were women, two of them very young and attractive. My guess was these girls could make a nice living just from wives hiring them to see if their husbands were the cheating type.

All of us were seated at individual desks, with plastic dividers in front and on the sides to prevent a wandering eye. There were five possible tests, chosen at random, and all five were changed every year.

The first few questions were easy. “How many counties are there in California? Fifty-eight.” “In what U.S. city are the majority of military personnel records stored? St. Louis, Missouri.” “What type of camera lens ‘sees’ the same as a human eye and should be used when shooting accident scenes? Fifty millimeter.”

Toward the bottom of page two, there was a question about police reports. I think I got it right. But it also got me thinking about Miranda’s police report. Why was I suddenly thinking about her police report? There was something odd. . . .

Before I knew it, five minutes had passed, and I hadn’t even looked at the next question. What was it about the report that was distracting me? I’d had a copy of it for days now. I’d looked it over a dozen times. Why was it sticking in my head?

The subconscious is funny. It’s aware of stuff that you’re not, not on the surface. But I find that if I look back and try to find the trigger . . . What prompted this? Was it the YouTube video I’d just seen? Was it my drive down here? Was it something in the test? Was it my conversation with Devlin about the phone?

Eureka! The phone. I’d have to check the report, but I was sure I was right.

I didn’t know what it meant. No idea. But I’d just discovered something odd about Miranda’s phone and couldn’t wait to let Monk figure it out.

For the next hour and a half, I tried to force myself to concentrate. But it wasn’t happening. Whatever focus I’d had at the beginning was gone.

“HIPAA is a federal law about the privacy of medical records. What does the letter P stand for?”

It probably stands for “Privacy,” I thought. No. Too easy. Was it Policy? Or Plan? It certainly couldn’t be Portability. Where did that choice come from? I knew I had seen the answer somewhere in the twelve pounds of study guide. But I wound up going with Julie’s suggestion: b.

It went downhill from there. Between my general unpreparedness and Miranda’s phone and my desperate need to get back to town and talk to Monk, I turned in my test and didn’t even wait for the results.

I knew I’d failed miserably.

The answer, by the way, was Portability. Is that crazy? What the hell does portability have to do with medical privacy?

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mr. Monk and the Breakup

W
hile I’d been away in Hayward, choosing random Bs and Ds, the other members of the task force had been at the station house. A quick text to Devlin assured me they were still there. That was good.

The blinds in the captain’s office were artfully drawn. Fully closed, they might arouse suspicion, but they were just open enough to prevent a passing officer from seeing too much. I knocked on the door and eased it open. Monk, Devlin, and Stottlemeyer all shot me quick, startled glances, then went back to work. They seemed energized and excited, even Monk. It was good to see him so involved in a case.

Devlin tried to catch me up. “I combed through the local financial news from 2009. That was a year or two after the crash, so there was a lot.”

“The lieutenant’s been busy.” Stottlemeyer smiled. It was as close to beaming as he got.

Devlin continued. “Harriman Brokerage, of which both John and Alicia were partners, was on the bubble, like many companies. Really overextended. A lot of firms were being investigated for misuse of funds. But Harriman made good. All his clients were paid in full.”

“How?” I asked.

“That’s the big question. Whatever Harriman did to get out of the hole couldn’t have required a lot of capital and had to happen quickly. On a hunch, I checked the public record of short sales of Cemedrin stock or, more specifically, the parent company, Medical Mills.”

I basically know what short selling is. That’s one of the advantages of growing up rich, where half the talk at the dinner table is about how Uncle Walt made a killing in the market. I’ll try to keep it simple.

Let’s say I think Cemedrin stock will go down. So I “borrow” ten thousand shares from Investor Bob and promise to return them to him in a month. I pay Investor Bob a small fee, which is the only cash I need to play this game. Bob’s happy because he didn’t want to sell the stock anyway and he’s making money.

Right away I sell the Cemedrin; let’s say for a hundred bucks a share. Then I hold on to my million bucks and wait.

Cut to a month later and the Cemedrin stock has tanked. It’s now ten bucks a share. I buy Cemedrin at this new price and give it back to Investor Bob, as agreed. He has his ten thousand shares, same as before. And I have close to $900,000 in profit.

I looked at Devlin. “You’re saying they shorted Medical Mills right before the poisonings.”

She grinned. “John was the borrower of record. He placed it through six different brokerage houses, just to keep it under the radar. But once I knew what I was looking for . . .”

“John wound up with an eighteen-million-dollar payday, and his firm stayed in business.” Stottlemeyer looked to his lieutenant. “Great work, Amy.” He only called her Amy when it was something very good or very bad.

Devlin tried not to blush. “This confirms that Harriman’s our guy. It’s not just based on some Monk mumbo-jumbo anymore. No offense. Unfortunately, if we take this in front of a judge, the FBI will find out.”

Monk held up his hand. “The FBI doesn’t have to be involved, not if we put this in our back pocket and go after Harriman for killing Smith.”

“I would love to, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said with a sigh. “And how do you suppose we do that? Harriman probably doesn’t even know that Smith was his blackmailer or that he’s dead. There’s nothing to tie him to it.”

Monk winced and lowered his hand. “I’ll come up with something.”

“Make it fast. The longer we wait, the more trouble we’ll be in when we have to go to Special Agent Grooms.”

I think we all shuddered in unison at the thought of being chewed out by the FBI bully with his off-centered widow’s peak.

It was an awkward moment. And it was only broken when Stottlemeyer suddenly recalled why I was late. “Natalie. I forgot. How was the test? Hold on. Save the details. I’ll break out my emergency bottle and we’ll have a toast.”

“I flunked,” I said quickly, ripping off the proverbial Band-Aid.

“What? Is this a joke?” Devlin seemed truly puzzled.

“Sorry, Natalie,” said the captain. “I hear the tests are hard.” I didn’t know which was worse, having everyone sorry for me or disappointed.

“How could you flunk?” Monk asked.

“Oh, don’t start with me. You’d still be back there sharpening pencils. The reason I flunked was . . . Okay, maybe I was a little underprepared. But I found the cell phone clue,” I told Monk. “The clue you were looking for.”

“Mr. Smith had a phone?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“Not that case. The suicide at Half Moon Bay. The so-called suicide.”

“Natalie, please,” said the captain. “We don’t have time for this.”

“But Adrian said there was a three percent chance.”

“That was if someone called Miranda’s phone while her body was in the water,” Devlin corrected me. “No one did.”

“I know. But that wasn’t her phone.” The excitement I’d felt during the test had faded since walking through the door. But now, as I paced the floor and explained, it came back.

The thing that had subconsciously bugged me about the police report was the phone found twisted in Miranda’s pocket. It was a small T-Mobile, not even a smartphone. But Miranda’s phone, her only one, was an iPhone.

Devlin could back me up on this, and she did. “You’re right. I should have noticed the discrepancy.”

“So, where is Miranda’s real phone?” I continued. “And what was the other one doing in her pocket?”

“Monk?” Stottlemeyer was looking impatient. “Is this a case or not?”

Monk cricked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I was humoring her. Natalie needed humoring.”

“Humoring? Since when do I need humoring?”

“Since you joined that cult and went overboard.”

“But you said the phone was important.”

Monk frowned. “It was a tiny oddity, so I said three percent. Have you seen three percent lately? It’s small. Doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Yes, it does,” I insisted. I went to the dry-erase board and, without thinking, grabbed an eraser. “First, we need to get hold of the T-Mobile phone. Find out who bought it, who has it now. Probably Damien, since it was in Miranda’s possession and he’s the next of kin. The phone itself is probably useless from the water—”

“Natalie!” Stottlemeyer’s voice boomed. “What are you doing?”

It turns out I was erasing the board, the one covered with bullet points from the Cemedrin case. “Sorry. We’ll get another dry-erase board in here. We can work on both cases at the same time.”

“Natalie, step away from the eraser. Devlin, fix the board before we forget.”

“Sorry.” I gave Amy Devlin the eraser and stepped away. But that didn’t stop me. “Our step after that is to find Miranda’s iPhone. Damien probably has that, too.”

“Stop now!” the captain barked. This time I stopped. “Natalie, take a look at yourself. Do you even see what you’re doing?”

To be honest, I couldn’t see what they saw. I saw a case like any other Monk case—puzzling, impossible, but one that was going to get solved. The fact that I was so emotionally committed didn’t seem material. Obviously it was.

“You’re obsessing over a suicide in another jurisdiction,” the captain said, lowering his voice to a patient growl. “The sheriff’s office closed the case.”

“I understand,” I said, thinking I did. “You don’t have to help. Adrian and I can do it ourselves.”

“No, you can’t,” said Stottlemeyer. “We’re working a series of high-profile murders that had the city in a panic. Now we have a new victim and a viable suspect. And we have this sword called the FBI hanging over our heads. Every moment counts. I can’t let Monk get distracted with trips to Half Moon Bay and little inconsistencies in a case twenty miles away that doesn’t even exist.”

Captain Stottlemeyer can be very eloquent when he wants to be.

“You don’t even know what you’re looking for,” said Devlin, pitching in. She had just repaired the board and was trying to look sympathetic.

But I was having none of it. “I know what this is about. You think the Cemedrin case is going to make your career.”

“Maybe,” Devlin half agreed. “But it could as easily ruin all our careers if we don’t do it right.”

“So I just have to forget about Miranda Bigley? I can’t.”

“You don’t have to,” said Stottlemeyer. “But Monk does. We have a contract with him. We would love to have you on this case, Natalie, but if you can’t let go of this suicide . . .”

It sounded like he was getting suspiciously close to firing me. There’s been more than one time when Monk has been fired from a case and, by extension, me. But never me alone. “Are you firing me?”

“No. I’m just laying down the law.”

“You can’t do that. Adrian and I are a team. If we want to work on this case on our own time, you can’t stop us.”

“Actually, I don’t.” Monk had said it so softly I almost didn’t hear.

“You don’t?”

“Like the captain said, it’s a distraction. And a cult. And I have a chance to solve four murders and show up Special Agent Grooms, which is something I like doing. It’s, like, my favorite thing.”

“But we’re a team. We’re partners.”

“Actually, we’re not. Not until you pass the test.”

“I’ll pass the next one.”

“When?” Monk asked. “I don’t even know when the next one is.” Neither did I, since I’d never expected to fail this one. “Until then, you’re my assistant and you don’t get a say.”

I couldn’t believe it. “Yes, I get a say. We’ve been together almost ten years.”

“Monk made a promise,” Stottlemeyer reminded me. “We’re germ brothers. He’s staying on the Cemedrin case.”

“We’re germ brothers,” Monk said, as if that meant something. “You can’t abandon a germ brother.”

“Adrian, please.”

How did we get to this point? In just a couple of minutes, I had backed myself into this corner and now I couldn’t see a way out. “Mr. Monk, please.”