Mr. Monk in Outer Space

by Goldberg, Lee

  “Bozadjian was using drugs,” Monk said.

  “That’s insulin, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “He was a diabetic. The hooker probably took his MedicAlert bracelet with the rest of his stuff.”

  Monk cocked his head at the spare bed, crouched in front of one of the corners, and untucked the blanket.

  Stottlemeyer groaned. “Now what are you doing?”

  Monk motioned to the top sheet, which was folded around the corner and tucked under the mattress.

  “Admiring the way this sheet is tucked in,” Monk said, motioning to the top sheet, which was folded around the corner in a half-triangle formation. “It’s like Emilia gift-wrapped the mattress. She should get a raise.”

  “I don’t really give a damn. I’d like to get out of here and the ME is ready to take the body.”

  “Just one more thing,” Monk said and left the room. We all followed him.

  “No, Monk, no more things. It’s time to go,” Stottlemeyer said.

  Monk approached the maid. “Can you show me the last room you cleaned?”

  Paola looked at Disher, who looked at Stottlemeyer, who looked at me.

  “The sooner Monk grades her cleaning, the sooner we can get out of here,” I said.

  Stottlemeyer nodded at Paola, giving his consent. She unlocked the door to the room across the hall and stood to one side while Monk went in.

  He crouched at the foot of one of the beds and untucked the blanket. The top sheet was tucked in a way that made the corners of the bed seem square, with tight, sharp creases in the fold.

  “Excellent work,” Monk said to Paola. “You were taught to make beds by your father, who was in the Salvadoran military.”

  She nodded shyly.

  “You learned well,” Monk said. “You could bounce a peso off that bed.”

  “We don’t have pesos in El Salvador,” Paola said. “We have colóns.”

  “Yes, but a colón wouldn’t bounce on this bed,” Monk said. “A peso would.”

  “Good to know.” Stottlemeyer turned to Disher. “Tell Dr. Hetzer he can take Mr. Bozadjian to the morgue now.”

  “That’s not Mr. Bozadjian,” Monk said.

  Stottlemeyer gave him a look. “Do you know John Bozadjian?”

  “No,” Monk said.

  “Then how do you know that’s not him?”

  “Simple. Because that man didn’t stay in that room,” Monk said. “And that room is registered to John Bozadjian.”

  “Isn’t that the victim’s stuff in the closets and the bathroom?” Disher said.

  “Yes, those are definitely his clothes and toiletries.”

  “So what makes you think he’s not John Bozadjian and that he wasn’t staying in that room?”

  “It’s obvious,” Monk said.

  Stottlemeyer rubbed his temples. “I hate it when he says that.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because it’s never obvious until he explains what the hell he’s talking about, and then I feel like a damn fool for not seeing it myself.”

  Monk went back into the victim’s room. “This man was killed for his jewelry.”

  “That’s exactly what I said happened here.” Stottlemeyer looked at me. “You heard me, right?”

  I nodded. “That’s definitely what the captain said, Mr. Monk.”

  “I’m not talking about his watches and rings,” Monk said. “I’m talking about the diamonds.”

  “What diamonds?” Disher asked.

  “The ones that this man was selling and that he was killed for,” Monk said. “He was never with a prostitute and he was never in this room.”

  “He’s in this room now,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s right in front of you.”

  “I meant he was never in this room when he was alive,” Monk said. “And everything we see in front of us proves it.”

  Stottlemeyer, Disher, and I looked around the room for a long, quiet moment.

  “I don’t see it,” Disher said and glanced at me. “Do you see it?”

  I shook my head and looked at the captain. He looked at Monk.

  “Don’t just stand there, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “Tell us what happened.”

  He did.

  11

  Mr. Monk Sets the World Right

  Monk spent much of his life in a state of despair. That despair appeared to be caused by many things, but I believe that essentially it all came down to one thing.

  Disorder.

  It was all around him and nothing he did seemed to change it.

  Except when it came to murder.

  The only time Monk conquered that despair, and all felt right in his world, was the moment when he solved a murder and told us how he did it.

  It was during his summation, his explanation of how the homicide was committed and who did it, that he restored order, that he set right what was in disarray.

  In that moment, Monk was a different man.

  He was strong, confident, and secure.

  Because he was right. And therefore, for a painfully short time, so was the world.

  It made me feel good to see him at peace, and yet it also saddened me because I knew how short-lived it would be.

  That brief moment was now.

  “ ‘John Bozadjian’ is a fake name that the killer used to rent this room, presumably because that was the name on the stolen credit cards he used to pay for it,” Monk said. “The victim was staying on the seventh floor in the room where he was killed. The victim’s room is now occupied by the killer, who, if he hasn’t checked out already, will be wearing the victim’s MedicAlert bracelet on his left wrist.”

  “The seventh floor?” Stottlemeyer said. “Isn’t that where this maid usually works?”

  “She’s the one who moved the body down here in her linen cart after the murder and helped stage the scene,” Monk said.

  Paola let out a little gasp and took a few steps back into the hallway, looking around as if she might run. But with officers at both ends of the hall, there really wasn’t anywhere for her to go.

  “Well, if I didn’t know you were right before, I do now just from the expression on her face,” Stottlemeyer said, turning to Paola. “Do you want to tell us what happened, or are you going to make him do it?”

  Paola chewed on her lower lip but said nothing. I knew Monk was relieved, for all the reasons I just shared with you.

  He didn’t want to be robbed of his moment. I think Stottlemeyer knew it, too, and was having some fun of his own.

  “Sorry, Monk. I’m afraid you’re going to have to do all the heavy lifting.”

  “The victim was a diamond dealer,” Monk said.

  “You got that from the loupe in his pocket,” Disher said.

  Monk shook his head. “It simply confirmed what I already knew from looking at the right-hand sleeves of his shirts and jackets.”

  He took out his pen, went to the spare bed, and lifted up the right sleeve of the victim’s shirt.

  “If you look closely, you can see abrasions and scratches on the cuffs. That’s because he always had his merchandise case chained to his right wrist.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I could see the marks. I wouldn’t have, though, if he hadn’t pointed them out to me. But now they were glaringly obvious. I was beginning to understand how Stottlemeyer felt.

  “The killer murdered the diamond dealer and assumed his identity.”

  “Why bother?” I asked. “Why not just run off with the diamonds and be done with it?”

  “Because he wouldn’t be done with it,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’d still have to fence the stolen merchandise, which means taking a big risk and cutting someone else in on the score.”

  “The killer’s plan was brilliantly simple,” Monk said. “He was going to sell the diamonds to the legitimate buyers and take the money that would have gone to the dealer.”

  “What if the buyers had already met Bozadjian face-to-face? ” Disher said.

  “They hadn’t, and the killer k
new it, or he never would have done this,” Monk said with a trace of impatience in his voice.

  Disher picked up on it and looked stung. “Okay, let’s say you’re right. Where’s the proof?”

  “There’s so much evidence to choose from.”

  “Like what?” Disher asked.

  “Like those wineglasses,” Monk said. “The victim was a diabetic. He wouldn’t have had alcohol.”

  “I know diabetics who drink,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Do you know any diabetics who can live without insulin?”

  “He has insulin,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “But he couldn’t have taken it,” Monk said, leading us to the bathroom and showing us the victim’s kit. “Here are the syringes, the insulin vials, and the needle clip. Ordinarily, he injects himself, then clips off the needle into this hazardous waste container, then throws out the syringe. He’s been here since yesterday, the room hasn’t been cleaned since he checked in, and yet there are no syringes in the trash. If he’d taken his insulin, there would be.”

  “He could have taken his shot somewhere else,” Disher said.

  “Doubtful,” Monk said. “But even if he had, it wouldn’t have done him any good. The insulin is supposed to be kept refrigerated or on ice. These vials aren’t. Why aren’t they in the minibar? And where is the ice pack that goes in his kit? I’ll tell you.”

  “Of course you will,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s still in the minibar upstairs. The killer took the vials out of the minibar when he removed the victim’s things, but it didn’t occur to him to look in the freezer for the ice pack also. That was his crucial mistake.”

  “The insulin thing suggests that he was moved,” Stottlemeyer said, “but it doesn’t prove it.”

  “You’re right,” Monk said. “It doesn’t. The bed proves it.”

  “The bed is from upstairs?” Disher said.

  “Of course not. That would be ridiculous,” Stottlemeyer said, but he hesitated, then turned to Monk. “Wouldn’t it?”

  “The bed wasn’t moved,” Monk said.

  Stottlemeyer looked relieved. I think that for a moment there he was afraid Monk was going to contradict him and show that the bed had, indeed, been moved in some fiendishly clever way.

  “Paola said she walked in to clean this room and found the body,” Monk said. “So how could she have made the victim’s bed?”

  Monk pulled up the blanket so we could see how the top sheet was folded under the mattress of the bed the body was on.

  “The top sheet on the corner of this bed is tucked using the Salvadoran fold,” he continued. “The top sheet on the other bed is folded around the mattress corners using the classic gift-wrap method. That proves that this bed was made after Emilia, the usual maid, cleaned the room yesterday. Paola brought the body down from upstairs in her linen cart. She remade the bed before placing the body in it to remove any possible forensic evidence the killer might have left when he slept in the bed last night.”

  We all looked at Paola, who chewed on her lip some more. Things weren’t going well for her and she knew it. So did we.

  “You’ve convinced me, but we aren’t going to be able to make a case on how she folds sheets,” Stottlemeyer said. “The DA would laugh me out of his office.”

  “Use the wineglasses,” Monk said. “The lipstick on the rim is hers. It’s as good as a fingerprint. The DNA aside, her upper lip is chapped, which is why she chews on it. The lipstick impression is an exact match.”

  Stottlemeyer nodded. “Read this woman her rights, Lieutenant, and arrest her.”

  While Disher did that, I asked Monk the one question I still had.

  “How did Paola know that Emilia would be sick today?”

  “She poisoned her, of course,” Monk said.

  “I told Roger it would never work,” Paola said, shaking her head. “But he said it was foolproof, that we’d be long gone before anyone realized what had happened.”

  “You probably would have been, too, if it wasn’t for Monk,” Stottlemeyer said.

  I had to give the captain credit. He never tried to minimize Monk’s brilliance for his own benefit. He always made sure that Monk knew his work was appreciated and that he got full credit for it, even if it was at Stottlemeyer’s or the SFPD’s expense.

  Stottlemeyer had his faults, but failing to acknowledge the accomplishments of others to relieve his own insecurities wasn’t one of them.

  “So, Paola, are you going to tell us where to find Roger?” Stottlemeyer asked. “Or are you going to take the murder rap for him while he enjoys piña coladas on a beach somewhere with his new girlfriend?”

  “He’s in room 717,” she said without an instant’s hesitation.

  Stottlemeyer glanced at Monk. “You want to come along for the arrest?”

  Monk shook his head. “Seven-seventeen is a very odd number, and that can’t be good.”

  Stottlemeyer glanced at the corpse. “It certainly wasn’t for him.”

  12

  Mr. Monk Sorts Out the Nuts

  Solving a murder put Monk in a much better state of mind. He’d set the world right and, in doing so, seemed to center himself, too.

  He was eager to talk with anyone who’d been involved with Conrad Stipe—as long as they were in the Belmont and not back at the convention.

  So we headed downstairs to the bar, where Stottlemeyer had left Kingston Mills, the new executive producer, and Judson Beck, the actor playing Captain Stryker.

  I think part of the reason Monk was so motivated to stick around and work on the case was to avoid going home and dealing with the fact that Ambrose might be an Earthie. Or an Earther. Or whatever the Beyond Earth fans were calling themselves these days (I missed the panel discussion on that topic at the convention so I didn’t know which term was politically correct in the “Beyond Earth-verse”).

  I was eager to get to the bar, too, but for an entirely different reason. I was starving.

  We were in the stairwell, two flights from the lobby, when Monk stopped on the landing, something occurring to him.

  “I forgot to trade cases with the captain,” Monk said.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I should have made the deal with him before I solved the Bozadjian case. If I’d done that, we’d be on our way home by now and solving the Stipe case would no longer be my job.”

  “You got caught up in the moment,” I said. “You were on a roll.”

  “I wish my whole life rolled.”