He said some other things, perhaps even profane things, but they were drowned out by a plane passing overhead. It was so low that I instinctively ducked to avoid being decapitated by the landing gear or crushed by the collapse of the building. Once the plane passed, I spoke up.
“It’s not like the guy drowned in midair or was attacked by an alligator or was found in a room locked from the inside. I don’t see what’s so complicated about this.”
“That’s funny,” Stottlemeyer said, “because five minutes ago you didn’t think you were qualified to offer an opinion.”
I shrugged. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“You’ll understand the complexity of the situation after you’ve seen the surveillance tape,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’ve got it queued up and waiting in the manager’s office.”
The captain motioned to the guys from the morgue to take away the body, then led Monk, Disher, and me across the parking lot to the lobby.
“By the way, Monk, I got the medical examiner’s report on Lorber this morning,” Stottlemeyer said. “You were right. He was dead for at least ten minutes before he was shot. It’s not my problem or yours anymore.”
“It’s a case for the Special Desecration Unit,” Disher said. “Or SDU, as it’s known in law enforcement circles.”
“What ‘law enforcement circles’?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“This one. You and me,” Disher said, making a circle with his finger. “And Monk and Natalie.”
“I’m not in law enforcement,” I said.
“But you are in the circle,” Disher said, twirling his finger again. “So you know. Everyone in the circle knows.”
“The SDU has another case,” Monk said.
“We do?” Disher said excitedly.
“The desecration of that taxi.” Monk pointed at the car and then at the body bag being wheeled away on a gurney. “By that man.”
“He’s dead,” Disher said. “There’s not much more we can do to punish him.”
“Justice must be served, Lieutenant,” Monk said. “He needs to be held accountable, even if it’s in name only.”
“What is his name, by the way?” I asked.
“Conrad Stipe,” Stottlemeyer replied.
The name sounded familiar to me. “Why do I know that name?”
“You’ll see,” Stottlemeyer said and opened the door to the lobby.
He took us into a cramped, windowless room behind the front desk, where there was a bank of eight VCRs and several monitors.
“Detectives from Vice and Narcotics have raided this place a few times over the years,” Disher said. “So the management put cameras in plain sight everywhere to try to discourage solicitation and drug dealing.”
What a charming place to stay.
Monk rolled his shoulders. “So why did the killer shoot him here? Why not somewhere else, where he wouldn’t be on camera?”
“Because he wanted to be seen,” Stottlemeyer said.
Disher hit PLAY on the VCR. The display on the monitor was separated into quarters, each one showing a different angle on the loading dock as the taxi drove up.
Stipe got out of the car. A man stepped out from behind the Dumpster, shot him once in the forehead, and then ran into the convention center.
It was sudden, violent, and shocking, and it happened just the way I’d said it did.
Well, almost.
The killer didn’t look anything like I’d imagined. I’d pictured a tattooed gang member. But the actual shooter was wearing a bright orange shirt with a silver starburst insignia on the chest, black pants, and black boots.
The killer also had pointy ears, vertebrae visible under his forehead, and an elephant’s trunk in the center of his face that dangled down to his chin.
I recognized him immediately.
“Oh my God,” I said. “It’s Mr. Snork.”
7
Mr. Monk and the Fan
Monk studied the freeze-frame image of the elephant-nosed killer. “You know that freak?”
“Of course I do,” I said.
“Is he an old boyfriend?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t you recognize him?”
“I don’t associate with freaks,” Monk said.
“That’s Mr. Snork, security chief of the starship Discovery,” I said. “Well, not him exactly, but someone dressed up to look like him.”
And that’s when I realized why the victim’s name was familiar to me.
“Wasn’t Conrad Stipe the creator of Beyond Earth?”
Stottlemeyer nodded.
“It’s one thing to shoot somebody. But this was more than that,” I said. “Stipe was gunned down by a guy dressed up as one of the TV characters he created. Someone is sending a message.”
“Now you’re beginning to grasp the situation,” Stottlemeyer said.
“How hard could it be to find a freak like that?” Monk said, pointing at the screen. “He ran into the convention center. With all those witnesses around, somebody must have seen him. It’s not like he’s going to blend in.”
Stottlemeyer glanced at Disher. “Show Monk the feed from the floor of the convention center.”
Disher hit some buttons and the image on the monitor was replaced by four views of a very large banquet hall that was full of hundreds of people. They were crowded into long, narrow aisles, browsing the dozens of vendors selling T-shirts, books, videos, models, and posters.
Most of the people were dressed in different-colored versions of the outfit the killer was wearing, with the same starburst insignia on the chest. And easily a third of those people also had pointed ears and elephant trunks. Another third had an alien mix of fangs, fur, tails, claws, scales, multicolored skin, and an assortment of extra appendages.
Monk leaned forward and stared at the screen in disbelief.
“Arrest them all,” Monk said.
“On what charge?” Stottlemeyer asked him.
“Are you kidding?” Monk said. “They’re obviously high on LSD. They’re tripping out, man. Go ask Alice.”
“Who’s Alice?” Disher asked.
“It was a book, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It was a lyric in a Jefferson Airplane song,” I said.
“It was a warning, my friends, and you’d best heed it,” Monk said. “Say no to drugs or you’ll rip out your own eyeballs.”
“I don’t remember Alice ripping out her eyeballs,” I said.
“It was the subtext,” Monk said.
“I don’t see any evidence of drug use here,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Look at them, Captain. They are drug-crazed hippies. What other explanation could there be?”
“It’s a Beyond Earth convention, Mr. Monk,” I said. “They’re all dressed up like aliens from the TV show.”
“What TV show?” Monk said.
“The one Conrad Stipe wrote and produced back in the seventies,” Stottlemeyer said. “It has a cult following.”
“Ah, so they’re a cult,” Monk said, nodding knowingly. “Now it all makes sense. We’d better arrest them now before they sacrifice a virgin.”
“There’s a virgin?” Disher said. “Where?”
“They’re probably all virgins,” I said.
“I’d like to make an arrest, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’d like it to be the killer. But how are we going to pick him out of that crowd? There’s got to be a hundred Mr. Snorks in there. It would be like picking a needle out of a box of needles.”
“I could pick a needle out of a box of needles,” Monk said.
“I know. That’s what I’m counting on,” the captain said, “because when the killer ran into the convention center, he immediately got lost in the crowd. Nobody would have given him a second look. If anyone can spot him in there, it’s you.”
“Can’t you test everyone attending the convention for gunshot residue on their hands and clothing?” I asked.
“First I’d have to find a judge insane enough to give m
e a warrant. But even if I could, for all we know the killer changed out of his getup and slipped away before we got here.”
“Oh,” I said, and then I had another idea. “Couldn’t you trace him by checking the places that sell Snork noses, pointed ears, and Confederation uniforms?”
“There must be fifty vendors in the dealers’ room of the convention alone who sell the stuff, as well as countless merchants on the Internet,” Stottlemeyer said. “That’s not even counting the people who create their own makeup and costumes. And I doubt most of those people keep detailed sales records on every single purchase. We don’t even know when the shooter bought the stuff. Was it today? Last week? Twenty years ago?”
“Oh,” I said.
“As you can see, Natalie, this is demanding work best left to professionals,” Disher said. “We have the experience, resources, and old-fashioned know-how to get the job done.”
Disher looked at me, then at Monk, then back to the captain.
“In most cases. I’d say between half and two thirds of the time,” Disher said. “More or less.”
Stottlemeyer sighed wearily and looked at me. “Now do you see my problem?”
I did. And I could also see that it was about to become my problem, too.
Morris Hibler, the organizer of the convention, would have been a reasonably attractive man if not for the purple Beyond Earth uniform, the pointed ears, and the elephant trunk dangling from his nose.
Stottlemeyer, Monk, and I were talking with him in his Airporter Motor Inn suite, where he was drinking a can of 7-Up and awaiting the results of the diphenylamine swab tests for gunpowder residue that he’d graciously allowed a CSI technician to perform on his hands and clothing. Disher was still outside, taking witness statements.
“Conrad Stipe’s murder is a tragedy of interstellar proportions for fandom,” Hibler said. “The fact that it was committed by a Confederation officer is unthinkable.”
“A Confederation officer?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“The Discovery is a Piller-class Confederation starship, ” Hibler said. “Every member of the crew has sworn an oath to respect all life in whatever form it takes. This heinous act is a gross violation of the Cosmic Commandments of Interplanetary Relations. It just sickens me.”
“You should have another 7-Up,” Monk said. “You’ll feel better.”
“No thanks,” Hibler said. “I’m still working on this one.”
“What was Stipe doing here?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“He was our guest of honor, of course. He was going to inaugurate the con, do a Q&A with the stars, and screen some of the classic episodes.”
“Do you have any idea what he was doing at the Belmont Hotel this morning?” Stottlemeyer asked.
Hibler nodded his head. “He was staying there. Stipe demanded four-star accommodations. We couldn’t afford to rent convention space there and they wouldn’t have us even if we could. They’re sci-fi bigots. They don’t want our kind on their premises.”
“Who knew when he was going to be showing up here?”
“Just about everyone,” Hibler said, taking another sip of his drink. “He does six or seven of these cons a year.”
Monk rolled his shoulders and tipped his head towards the 7-Up. “You’re required to drink those in pairs.”
“No, you’re not,” Hibler said.
“Yes, you are. They’re like socks,” Monk said. “Only carbonated.”
I’m sure that made sense to Monk in some way, but not to any of the rest of us. I pressed on.
“The show has been off the air for thirty years,” I said. “You’d think Stipe would have gotten sick of answering the same questions over and over.”
“Do you think the pope gets tired of discussing the Bible?” Hibler said.
“You’re comparing Beyond Earth to the Bible?” Stottlemeyer said.
“What I’m saying is that it’s like the Bible,” Hibler said. “The more you delve into it, the deeper your understanding and appreciation becomes for the history, the values, and the enduring life lessons that it teaches.”
“If you read the front of the can,” Monk said, “you’d know you’re supposed to have two at once. It’s like the Bible, too. Only on a can. You need to follow it religiously.”
“All it says is ‘7-Up,’ ” Hibler said.
“The dash means ‘and,’ as in ‘and up to fourteen,’ ” Monk said. “It means you’re supposed to go up to another can.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Hibler shook his head, which made his elephant trunk swing.
“It’s common sense,” Monk said.
Stottlemeyer began to rub his forehead. The whole room shook as a plane passed over us.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Hibler yelled.
“Me? Me? ” Monk yelled back. “Have you taken a look at yourself lately?”
Some more things were said back and forth between the two men that were, mercifully, drowned out by the plane. When the roar was over, Stottlemeyer spoke up first, silencing them both.
“Enough about the drinks, Monk. We’re conducting a homicide investigation here,” he said. “Let’s stay focused on the facts.”
“The fact is that the rest of us live in the real world,” Monk said. “Where a man has been murdered, rational human beings don’t wear pointy ears, and seven plus seven equals fourteen!”
“I’m not wearing pointed ears,” Hibler said. “These are my ears.”
We stared at him. That was a conversation stopper.
“They are?” I asked.
“I had them surgically enhanced,” Hibler said.
“Why?” I asked.
“The erotic power,” he said. “Surely you feel it.”
I was feeling something, but it wasn’t attraction. Quite the opposite, actually.
“What about the elephant trunk?” Monk asked. “Is that part of you, too?”
“Only in the emotional and spiritual sense. It’s a prosthetic,” Hibler said. “Made from the original mold they used on the show. But I follow Snork’s example in life.”
Stottlemeyer cleared his throat. “It must have cost you a lot of money to put Stipe up at the Belmont. Why bother inviting him at all? Surely you’ve heard everything he has to say.”
“A Beyondcon doesn’t have any credibility unless you’ve got Stipe and at least two of the original cast members attending,” Hibler said. “We have four of the six. Only Captain Stryker and Starella aren’t here.”
“And they are?” Stottlemeyer said.
Hibler looked at Stottlemeyer in disbelief, as if he’d just been asked who the first president of the United States was.
Mr. Monk in Outer Space Page 6