Mr. Monk is a Mess (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Mr. Monk on the Street

I
nstead of hopping into one of the three other available squad cars, Monk suggested that we go on foot patrol up Springfield Avenue, Summit’s main drag, to stretch our legs and interact with the community.

But Monk hated interacting with the community.

What he meant, but wouldn’t admit, was that he wanted to see Ellen Morse again.

I didn’t mind. I enjoyed strolling along tree-lined Springfield Avenue, which was a lot like Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A., except the stores here sold goods from Gucci instead of Goofy and the buildings were, for the most part, authentic small-town Americana rather than canny re-creations.

Morse owned the most unusual store in town. It was a high-end place even though its products came entirely from rear ends. The store was called Poop and Monk’s initial reaction to it was entirely predictable: He was revolted and outraged. He considered Morse the Antichrist.

His feelings about the store hadn’t changed but, in a remarkable turn of events, his feelings for Ellen Morse had. That’s because she was almost as obsessive-compulsive as he was, especially when it came to cleanliness and order, but she was far more socially well adjusted and didn’t share his thousands of phobias, particularly those involving excrement.

Her take on poop was that it was not only a natural part of life but also an integral element in the balance of nature. Balance is very important to Monk, so she had him there. She then appealed to his sense of order.

Here’s how she explained it to him:

“Think of poop as a byproduct in the process of manufacturing a product or creating energy. If you do, you’ll see it as something left over, a part that no longer fits anywhere, that has to be organized and reintegrated in some way or the natural balance is thrown completely out of whack.”

He couldn’t argue with that. But he couldn’t get past his disgust, either.

Which brings us to that afternoon on Springfield Avenue. He stopped a few yards short of Poop, unable to even look in the window.

“Would you please ask Ellen if she’d like to come out and say hello?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said and started for the door.

“Ask her to take a shower first,” he said.

I stopped. “That is probably the least romantic thing you could possibly say to her.”

“I won’t be saying it,” he said. “You will.”

“No, I won’t.”

“She’d appreciate it, coming from you,” he said.

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“It’s girl talk. Girls talk about showers and grooming activities all the time. She’d take it as sisterly advice.”

“I’m not telling her to take a shower before she steps outside.”

“At least be sure that she washes her hands,” Monk said. “And you might also ask her if she’s had a tetanus shot.”

“Why would I ask her that?”

“It could come up in conversation.”

“That subject has never come up in any conversation I have ever had.”

“Having seen your personal grooming habits, I am not surprised but I am alarmed,” Monk said. “Have you had a tetanus shot?”

“Yes, I have,” I said. “See, that’s not so hard. Why don’t you ask her?”

“I haven’t found the right moment.”

“You mean you still haven’t asked her if all her vaccinations are up-to-date?”

“I know,” he said. “It’s reckless and irresponsible of me. But I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.”

“That you’re romantically interested in her.”

“I’m not,” he said.

“Then why do you want to know if she’s been vaccinated?”

“Public health and safety.”

I turned my back on him and went to Morse’s store, which had a display of coprolites in the window.
Coprolite
is a fancy word for fossilized dinosaur dung, which looks like an ossified pile of soft-serve ice cream. She sold a tiny piece, about the size of one single-scoop cone, for two thousand dollars, which seemed cheap for something sixty-five million years old, even if it was crap. On the other hand, a wristwatch with a coprolite face, also on display in the window, sold for twelve thousand dollars, so there was definitely money to be made in dinosaur droppings.

I walked inside the store. Poop had the ambience of an art gallery crossed with the hippie vibe of a Marin County health food store. The sounds of burbling springs, birdcalls, and the wind rustling the leaves of tall trees played softly from hidden speakers and the air was heavy with floral incense.

Morse was in the stationery aisle, showing a young couple in their twenties her selection of elephant, rhino, and bison dung paper and greeting cards. She had long blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and skin so soft and perfect that it made me half tempted to try out the dung moisturizers from India that she used.

“It’s the perfect stationery for a green wedding,” Morse told the couple. “You can use it as stock for printing or engraving as you would with any other kind of paper. We also have preprinted, general wedding invitations that you can fill out by hand.”

“Cool,” the young girl said. “Do you have poop ink?”

“Of course,” Morse said, spotting me. “It’s at the end of the aisle.”

“What about a poop quill?” the young man asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Morse said. “Why don’t you take a look at the inks while I step outside for a word with Officer Teeger.”

The couple both looked at me as Morse came over. I’d seen them around town. They smiled at me and I smiled back. Being able to recognize people in the community was one of the things that appealed to me about Summit.

Morse met me at the door. She was in her forties but could have passed for much younger. She carried herself with a natural grace that I could never pull off, even if Julie Andrews spent a year training me to be a princess.

“I like to think of myself as liberal,” I said, low enough to ensure that the couple couldn’t hear me, “but I can’t help thinking it’s a bad omen to send out wedding invitations made of crap.”

“The only way the guests will know the paper is made from dung is if the couple chooses to tell them,” Morse said. “And if they do, I think they are saying something meaningful about their connection to nature, that their love, and the celebration of their bond, is a beautiful and essential part of the circle of life.”

“Wow,” I said. “You’re good.”

“Did Adrian send you in to get me?”

“He did,” I said. “He asked me to remind you to wash your hands.”

“Good idea. I’ve handled a lot of money today and you have no idea where it’s been or how many dirty hands and grimy pockets it has passed through.” She went to the front counter, where there was a bottle of hand sanitizer by the cash register. She squirted a dollop on her hands, rubbed them together, then headed to the door. “You can never be too clean.”

No wonder she and Monk got along so well.

We both went outside, where we found Monk writing up a ticket for a man in his thirties wearing a loose-fitting, short-sleeve vintage bowling shirt and cargo shorts. The man had a day’s growth of beard and his hair was cut so short that it looked like a shadow on his head. But the style worked for him.

“I’m glad to see you, Officer,” the man said to me. “Maybe you can talk some sense into your partner. He’s ticketing me for traveling in the wrong lane.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t have a head-on collision with someone,” Monk said.

“He’s right,” I said. “That’s a serious moving violation.”

“I agree, if you’re in your car on the street,” the man said. “But not if you’re walking on the sidewalk.”

“You were still in the wrong lane,” Monk said.

“There are no lanes on a sidewalk,” the man said.

“They’re invisible,” Monk said. “But rest assured, they are there.”

I took the ticket book from Monk. “Why don’t you let me handle this? You have someone who’d like to have a word with you.”

Monk looked back, saw Morse waiting, and nodded. “Okay, but penmanship counts.”

He walked over to her and while they talked, I pulled the businessman aside. His driver’s license was clipped to Monk’s notebook. His name was Stephen Booth. He was thirty-six years old and a resident of Summit.

“We’d appreciate it, Mr. Booth, if you walked on the right side of the sidewalk, just like you would drive on the right side of the road.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what most people do, whether they realize it or not.”

“I’ve never noticed,” he said.

“You would if you went to London. You know how people there drive on the opposite side of the street? Well, they walk down the sidewalk the same way.”

“I didn’t know that,” he said.

I didn’t, either. I’d been to London, but I couldn’t remember if they walked any differently down the sidewalk than we did. But I figured that it sounded plausible.

“So now you know that there are invisible lanes on the sidewalk that we impose on ourselves to reflect the traffic patterns on the street. There’s no law that says you have to follow them, but I’m sure Officer Monk isn’t the only one who’d like it if you did.”

“Would you like it?”

“Yes, I would.”

He smiled and he got these little laugh lines in his cheeks that made him look like a mischievous child. “Then I’ll do it and think of you every time I do.”

“You’re flirting with me,” I said.

“I’m glad you noticed,” he said.

“I’m an officer of the law. I’m very observant.” I smiled and handed him back his license. “I’ll let you off with a stern warning this time, Mr. Booth.”

“Please call me Steve. Perhaps I could thank you with a cup of coffee?”

I glanced back at Monk, who appeared to be finishing up his conversation with Morse.

“That would be nice. But it will have to be some other time.”

“It’s an open invitation. I have lunch most days at the Buttercup Pantry,” he said, gesturing to the café right next door. “You’re always welcome at my table.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be sure to stop by one of these days.”

“I hope you’ll make it soon”—he glanced at the name tag on my chest—“Officer Teeger.”

“Natalie,” I said.

“Natalie,” he said and walked away. I watched him go and then I tore the ticket out of Monk’s notebook and stuck it into my pocket so I had Booth’s contact information for safekeeping. He would be my first date when I officially moved to Summit.

Actually, he’d be my first date in months anywhere. But I’d be on my guard. I might even bring my gun.

That was because my taste in men lately hadn’t been so good. The last couple of guys that I’d dated turned out to be killers, which is enough to make any woman wary of romance.

Or make her enter a nunnery.

But I still had a pulse and the desires that went with it, so I wasn’t ready to give up on love altogether.

When I turned around, Morse was heading back into her store and Monk was coming my way.

“Did you ticket him?” Monk asked.

“Yes,” I said. “But I made it a warning citation rather than a violation. I think we scared him straight.”

“Good,” Monk said. “I believe we’re making a real difference in this community.”

“So do I,” I said and I meant it, too.

CHAPTER FIVE

Mr. Monk Gets an Invitation

I
t was our last night in town before our flight back to San Francisco, where we would have three weeks to prepare for our big move east.

Monk went to dinner at Morse’s house while I shared Chinese takeout with Sharona and Disher at their kitchen table. It was a rare pleasure, since Monk refused to share entrées and for me that was half the fun of eating Chinese food.

Disher quickly wolfed down his dinner. He had only a few minutes to spare before having to attend a city council meeting. It probably would have been less hassle for him if he’d had a quick bite at the office, but he thought it was important to come home and see Sharona, even if it was for only a few minutes over chow mein and kung pao pork.

That said a lot to me about Disher and how he felt about Sharona. He was a good man and she was lucky to have him.

After he left, Sharona got out a carton of Oreo Cookie ice cream and brought it and two spoons to the table. It was an evil, wretched thing to do and I loved her for it.

Outwardly, Sharona and I were very different. I was a California girl, casually dressed and sun-kissed. Sharona was loudly, aggressively, and proudly a child of New Jersey. Everything about the way she walked, talked, and dressed reinforced every cliché about women from that state.

My style in clothes was loose and casual. I didn’t show much skin, though I was hardly a prude. I just didn’t like men leering at me. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I thought I had a spectacular body that would drive men wild if they got a peek at it. Men will leer at the slightest hint of cleavage, which is all I can muster anyway.

Sharona dressed tight and flashy, with skirts as short and necklines as low as she could find. She thought she was hot and liked it when men stared at her. And they did. So did most women. She wore a push-up bra that shoved her boobs in her nose, not to mention everybody else’s.

I used very little makeup, only enough to hide my flaws and accentuate my strengths. But Sharona used a lot, highlighting everything, using color like pinpoint halogens so that nobody would ever miss her face in a crowd.

I had short hair that I didn’t do much with, and I had no desire to change that. She had big hair that she twisted, shaped, colored, teased, curled, streaked, and extended in all kinds of ways.

But below the surface we were a lot alike.

We were both strong willed, fiercely independent, and ready to fight for what we believed in. We’d both been single mothers with limited incomes, so we knew how to survive and how to stretch a dollar. And we’d both worked for Adrian Monk and cared deeply for him, despite the misery he caused us.

We probably understood each other better than anyone else could.

So it was no surprise that she sensed my anxiety about my trip home and brought out the ice cream.

I stuck my spoon in and helped myself to a big scoop.

“I know what it’s like to move across the country and start a new life,” Sharona said. “Just thinking about all the things you have to do is so emotionally overwhelming you almost feel paralyzed.”

I swallowed my ice cream and went for another scoop. “Is it that obvious?”

“It’s only natural,” she said. “I’ve done it four times and it’s never any easier. But once the actual move is over and things settle down, I’m always grateful that I took the risk and made the change. You have one advantage, though, that I never had.”

“What’s that?”

“Me,” she said, taking a spoonful of ice cream herself. “Someone who has already been down the road you’re traveling. I’ve got your back. I’ll start by looking for your new place here while you’re settling your affairs in San Francisco.”

“You make it sound like I’m going back for a funeral,” I said. “Come to think of it, I am. I’m burying my old life.”

“Oh, stop being so melodramatic,” she said, carefully exposing and removing a big chunk of cookie, like an archaeologist finding a rare fossil. “You’re making a change, that’s all.”

“I’m beginning to understand why Mr. Monk hates change so much.”

“Don’t you love your new job?”

“I do,” I said. “Even the mundane stuff is a thrill for me.”

“Don’t you like Summit?”

“I do,” I said. “I feel very comfortable here.”

“So you should be excited about what’s ahead.”

“I am,” I said. “But it’s not as simple as that.”

“Of course it is,” she said.

“For the last twenty-plus years, my life has been in San Francisco,” I said. “It’s where I married Mitch, bought a house, and raised Julie.”

Sharona waved away my argument. “Your husband has been dead for over a decade. Stop using him as an excuse not to have a life.”

“It’s more than that. How is Julie going to feel about me moving to Summit to become a cop?”

“Doesn’t she know that you’re already working here?”

“She knows that Mr. Monk and I are here helping Randy out,” I said. “But I haven’t told her that I’m actually working as a police officer.”

“Or that you’ve already accepted Randy’s job offer.”

“This is big stuff. I need to tell her face-to-face,” I said. “I don’t want her to be hurt.”

“What does she have to be hurt about?”

“That I made the decision without consulting her, for one thing.”

“It’s your life,” Sharona said. “Not hers. You don’t have to consult anyone.”

“I’m being selfish,” I said. “I’m abandoning her and our life together.”

“I’ve got a news bulletin for you, honey. Julie is an adult. She’s got a life of her own now, apart from yours. And I’ll bet that she’s not calling you to consult on every decision that she makes.”

“I wish she would,” I said.

“You should follow her example. You aren’t responsible for raising a child anymore. You have your life back. You can do as you please without anyone or anything tying you down. There are a lot of people who’d envy the opportunity that you have now to reinvent yourself.”

“But I’ll be leaving our house behind, the one thing Julie and I both have left that we shared with Mitch,” I said. “How can I do that?”

“She did,” Sharona said.

“She left to go to college, but it wasn’t like she went all the way to, oh, Summit, New Jersey. She went across the bay to Berkeley. She knew that she could always come home,” I said. “Where will home be now?”

“The one she makes for herself. It’s just a house and San Francisco is just a city. It’s the memories that matter and they’re going with you.”

“But the San Francisco Bay Area is where Mr. Monk has lived his entire life.”

“And Adrian is coming here, too. That alone should tell you something.”

“But what if he changes his mind and decides to stay in San Francisco?”

“Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of it.” Sharona got up, went to the cupboard, took out a package of Oreo cookies, and set it on the table. “You’re afraid to leave him.”

“He needs me, Sharona,” I said.

“Sure he does.” She opened the package, took out some cookies, and dropped them into the container of Oreo Cookie ice cream. “But does he need you as much as you need him?”

She began to mash the cookies into the ice cream with her spoon. I could see why she’d brought out the extra Oreos. I’d need the reinforcement. This was heavy stuff.

“Mr. Monk has come a long way in the last few years,” I said. “I’m sure he’s capable now of living on his own. But I worry that if there isn’t someone running interference for him, cutting down on the little distractions and smoothing out his misunderstandings with others, then the frustration, confusion, and fear could build up in him, become too much, and he could crack.”

“He could,” she said. She stopped mashing and took a big cookie-filled scoop for herself. “But it’s not your problem.”

“Easy for you to say,” I said before I dug out a spoonful of ice cream and stuffed it in my mouth. It was delicious. Pure Oreo heaven.

“Do you think it was easy for me to leave Adrian?” she said. “He was much less capable of taking care of himself back then than he is now. But one thing was true then and is still true today: Adrian becomes your life and pretty soon you forget you have one of your own. I knew if I didn’t go, I’d end up sacrificing my life and my happiness for his and I wasn’t willing to do that. But I also knew I couldn’t face walking out on him. So one day I just didn’t show up. I left without even saying good-bye. And you know what? He survived. He found you.”

“What if he doesn’t find someone else?”

“I think he already has,” she said.

As if on cue, that’s when Monk returned from his dinner date and walked in on us in the kitchen.

“Are you two drunk?” Monk asked.

“No, of course not,” I said. “What makes you say that?”

“Because that’s the only thing that could explain such reckless and unsanitary behavior,” Monk said.

“There’s nothing wrong with sharing ice cream, Adrian,” Sharona said.

“Did you both floss and brush your teeth before eating out of the same container of ice cream?”

“No,” I said.

“So what you’re actually sharing is ice cream slathered with hot saliva teeming with millions of germs, bits of undigested food, and flecks of plaque. I hope you’re not thinking of putting that massive petri dish in the freezer and preserving it. That’s how the Black Death started.”

“With Oreo Cookie ice cream?” I said. “Did they even have Oreos back then?”

“Relax, Adrian,” Sharona said. “We intend to finish it here and now and with no regrets.”

“I’ll be sure to quote that in your eulogies,” Monk said and went to the refrigerator to get himself a bottle of Fiji water. He cleaned the top with a disinfectant wipe, then unscrewed the cap and drank directly from the bottle.

“Rough night?” Sharona asked.

“I told Ellen that I needed to find a place to live,” Monk said.

“And that made you feel anxious,” Sharona said. “Don’t worry, Adrian. While you’re in San Francisco, I’ll start looking for first-floor apartments that are even numbered, symmetrical, and spotlessly clean.”

“She pointed out that her house has four bedrooms, two baths, and was extremely clean and symmetrical,” Monk said.

“That’s true,” I said. “It’s got the same disinfected operating-room smell as your place.”

“She offered me a room in her house for as long as I wanted,” Monk said.

I shared a look with Sharona. “What did you say?”

“Naturally, I declined,” Monk said.

“Because you’re not ready for that kind of commitment,” Sharona said. “And everything that it implies.”

“It’s not the rental agreement that concerns me,” Monk said.

“She was asking you to live with her, Adrian,” Sharona said.

“Strictly as a tenant,” Monk said.

“No, she wasn’t,” I said. “She wants to be with you, Mr. Monk.”

“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Monk said. “She’s not that kind of woman.”

“Then why did you say no?” Sharona asked.

“Because I can’t live in the same house with someone who collects excrement art and uses excrement products.”

“It hasn’t stopped you from spending every free minute you have with her at her house,” I said.

“That’s because she put her personal excrement collection in hiding and refrained from using products derived from excrement while I was around,” Monk said. “But it’s still there. She still engages in excremental conduct. It’s the elephant excrement in the room we don’t talk about.”

“So what did you tell her?” I asked.

“That I’d be living with you,” Monk said.

“But you won’t be,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Of course I will.”

“Let me make this perfectly clear,” I said. “I will never share a home with you. Here or anywhere else.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I have a life of my own,” I said.

“That revolves entirely around me,” Monk said. “Think how much easier it will be once we’re living in the same house.”

Sharona looked at me triumphantly. “I rest my case.”