Mr. Monk in Outer Space

by Goldberg, Lee

  “And they’d be wrong,” Monk said. “Conrad Stipe was killed by a hit man.”

  “Who you think killed two people just so he couldn’t be pinned for shooting a man who was already dead,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Exactly,” Monk said.

  “Desecration is a very serious crime,” Disher said. “That’s why we have a special unit to combat it. The assassin was terrified that we’d catch him.”

  “The unit didn’t exist until Lorber was shot,” I said. I didn’t mind contradicting Disher. I didn’t work for him.

  “But the shooter anticipated that we’d form the special unit after we saw his crimes,” Disher said. “That’s how clever he is and why he’s met his match in me.”

  “The hit man is still out there, free to kill again,” Monk said. “And he will for the right price. We have to find him before he does.”

  Stottlemeyer rubbed his temples.

  “We’re done here, Monk,” the captain said. “This homicide is closed and your services on this case are no longer needed.”

  “You’re firing me?” Monk said.

  “No,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m just telling you that this particular investigation is concluded and that we have our man.”

  “You have the man in one murder,” Monk said. “Not two.”

  “Let it go, Monk. It’s over. You misread the clues in this one. It was bound to happen sometime,” Stottlemeyer said. “But I want you to know that it’s okay. I still think you’re the best detective I’ve ever met. I’ll call you when another difficult case comes along.”

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Monk said and walked away.

  Stottlemeyer looked at me. “You have to help him deal with this. Convince him the case is closed. If he obsesses over it, he’ll only make things worse for everybody.”

  I didn’t say anything one way or the other. I just turned and followed Monk out.

  I had a lot of faith in my employer, and I wanted to be supportive, but I couldn’t help feeling that maybe this time Stottlemeyer was right.

  28

  Mr. Monk Spreads the Word

  When I got outside, I found Monk pacing in front of my car.

  “Let’s go,” he said impatiently.

  “Where?”

  “Burgerville headquarters, of course.”

  I sighed. “Mr. Monk, the case is closed.”

  “Not for me it isn’t,” he said. “It’s not done until the murderer has been caught.”

  I thought about what Stottlemeyer had just told me. “Maybe you ought to take a time-out.”

  “A time-out?”

  “Step back from this for a day or two, relax a little, collect your thoughts. Afterwards you may see things differently.”

  “My thoughts are already collected,” he said. “Indexed and color-coded.”

  “Color-coded?”

  “It’s an integral part of my thought filing system,” he said.

  “You have a thought filing system?”

  “You don’t?” Monk said.

  I shook my head.

  He nodded knowingly, as if some other great mystery had finally been solved.

  “That explains so much,” Monk said. “I’ve had a real breakthrough today.”

  “I think so, too,” I said. “You’re understanding people now in a way you never have before.”

  “That’s so true,” Monk said. “I can’t imagine how anyone could go through life with their thoughts spread out all over their psyche. I see you in a whole new light, Natalie. Your mind is a mess. You can’t hold a thought if you can’t find it first.”

  “I was talking about Ernest Pinchuk and how he’s really no different than you.”

  “I’m glad you can see that although he’s crazy, his thoughts are organized. It’s the first step in your rehabilitation. If you can organize your thinking, you’ll be a lot more rational,” Monk said. “But we don’t have time to straighten out your life right now. We have to save the captain from making a mistake that could destroy his career.”

  “But what if he’s right?” I said. “Then all you’ll be doing is antagonizing powerful people who could get him fired. And if he’s gone, you’ll lose the only champion you have in the San Francisco Police Department.”

  “He’s not right,” Monk said. “And I can prove it.”

  “With gum and candy wrappers?”

  “With the hit man himself,” Monk said.

  “You can do that?”

  “I can,” Monk said.

  Archie Applebaum saw us coming, so he got up from behind his security desk in the lobby of Burgerville headquarters and opened the after-hours employee door for us.

  “You really ought to try the revolving door, Mr. Monk,” he said. “It’s fun.”

  “That’s what people say about skydiving, too.”

  “For some people it is,” Archie said as we followed him back to his donut-shaped desk.

  Ernest Pinchuk would have been happy in Archie’s seat. It wasn’t Captain Stryker’s command podium, but the console looked a lot like the navigational station of the Discovery bridge. There were lots of buttons and several screens that showed alternating views from the cameras in various corridors and stairwells.

  “Maybe there are people who enjoy setting themselves on fire, drinking rat poison, and stabbing themselves in the heart with a butcher knife, too.”

  “That would be suicidal,” Archie said.

  “So would jumping out of an airplane and going through a revolving door.”

  “It’s a door,” Archie said. “Not a buzz saw.”

  I knew that it was futile arguing with Monk about something like this, or just about anything else, but I couldn’t blame Archie for trying.

  It’s human nature, I suppose.

  “We’d like to see Andrew Cahill,” Monk said.

  “Let me call up and see if he is available,” Archie said.

  He picked up the phone, told the secretary that Monk was downstairs, and then he waited for her response. I judged by the way his expression hardened that the news wasn’t good.

  Archie hung up and looked at Monk. “Mr. Cahill doesn’t want to see you. In fact, he asked me to escort you out of the building and never allow you in again.”

  “I see,” Monk said. “Then would you mind passing along a message to him for me?”

  “Sure,” Archie said, and took out a pen.

  “You can give it to Mrs. Lorber, too,” Monk said. “The medical examiner has determined that Brandon Lorber wasn’t murdered. It was natural causes.”

  Archie looked up from his notepad. “The guy was shot three times.”

  “Yes,” Monk said.

  “Twice in the chest and once in the head,” Archie said. “That’s not natural. Even if I wasn’t a cop before, I’d know those were fatal shots.”

  “They would have been if he wasn’t already dead when he was shot,” Monk said. “He died of a heart attack before he was shot.”

  “Why would anyone shoot a dead person?”

  “I don’t know, but you can tell Mr. Cahill and Mrs. Lorber that it’s no longer a homicide investigation,” Monk said. “It’s a desecration case.”

  “I’m sure that Mr. Cahill and Mrs. Lorber will be relieved to hear that,” Archie said, jotting down some notes. “So do the police even care about a corpse shooting?”

  “The Special Desecration Unit is on it,” I said.

  Archie raised an eyebrow. “There’s a unit for that?”

  “There is,” I said.

  “Wow,” he said.

  We walked back to my car, Monk tapping each parking meter that we passed, keeping a silent count. I never understood why he did that. I mean, I got the counting part but not the touching. Didn’t he realize how many hundreds of people had touched those parking meters? How many birds must have crapped on them?

  But I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t have enough patience, Advil, or Pepto-Bismol in reserve at that moment to deal with it.
/>   “Where to now?” I asked.

  “Nowhere,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant. “So are we going back to your place to check on the carpets? They should be done by now. Or are we going back to Ambrose’s house?”

  “We’re going back to the car and staying here until something happens.”

  I glanced back at the Burgerville building. “We’re doing a stakeout?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  We got into my car, which was parked at the corner of a side street. It gave us a pretty good view of the lobby and the entrance to the underground parking garage.

  “What are we waiting to see?” I asked.

  “The hit man,” Monk said. “Whoever hired him is going to be pretty upset that he paid for nothing. He is going to want his money back.”

  “Do you really think the hit man is going to give him a refund?”

  “We’ll see,” Monk said.

  Thank God for National Public Radio and Starbucks.

  If it weren’t for All Things Considered, I would have had to spend the next few hours talking to Monk instead of listening to thoughtful left-wing news and liberal commentary, though I could have lived without the constant pleas for pledge money. They should just install coin slots in car radios and be done with it.

  If it weren’t for the Starbucks two doors down from my car, I would have gone thirsty, hungry, and had no restroom to use. But after all the coffee I drank, I was so wired by nightfall that my hair was practically standing on end and I could pick up the NPR broadcast without turning on the radio.

  Even so, the hours crawled by very slowly. And I had to stay alert the whole time.

  It wasn’t because I had to do my part in the surveillance of the building. It was because I had to keep my eye on Monk.

  I had to stop him from going out and chastising drivers for not parallel parking properly.

  I had to stop him from giving some window washers lessons in correct window washing technique.

  I had to stop him from putting money in other people’s parking meters to keep them from dipping into odd numbers of remaining minutes.

  And I had to stop him from arresting an old lady who let her dog urinate against the fire hydrant that was in front of Burgerville headquarters.

  “You’ll blow our cover,” I said.

  “But what if there’s a fire?”

  “The fire department will come and put it out,” I said.

  “With what?”

  “Water,” I said.

  “Not from that hydrant,” Monk said. “It’s inoperable. ”

  “No, it’s not,” I said. “It can still be used.”

  “There is urine all over it,” Monk said. “No fire-man would dare touch it, nor would any other human being.”

  “Firefighters run into burning buildings,” I said. “They aren’t going to care about some dog pee on a fire hydrant.”

  “They would if they knew,” Monk said. “We should call and warn them. Call Joe right now. He can get the word out faster than we can.”

  “Every fire hydrant in the city has dog pee on it, Mr. Monk. It’s how dogs mark their territory. I can guarantee you that every male dog that has passed that hydrant has pissed on it.”

  He looked at me, wide-eyed. “No.”

  “It’s what dogs do,” I said. “The firefighters know this.”

  Monk swallowed hard. “And they still use the hydrants?”

  “Of course they do.”

  “They are the bravest men on earth,” Monk said somberly.

  “You may be right,” I said.

  “But if my house is ever on fire, whatever you do don’t call the fire department.”

  “Why not?”

  “I would rather be cleansed by fire than be hosed down with dog urine.”

  It wasn’t until a few minutes after eight p.m. that something finally happened. Andrew Cahill drove out of the garage in his black Maybach, a car that Mercedes made to make its other cars seem affordable.

  I started my humble Jeep.

  “What are you doing?” Monk said.

  “Getting ready to follow Andrew Cahill,” I said.

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because he’s going to lead us to the hit man,” I said.

  “Isn’t he?”

  “He’s not the one who hired the hit man,” Monk said.

  “Then why aren’t we parked outside of Veronica Lorber’s house?”

  “Because she didn’t hire him either,” Monk said. “Archie Applebaum did.”

  29

  Mr. Monk and the Revolving Door

  I looked back at the Burgerville headquarters, where Archie sat at his desk, reading the San Francisco Chronicle.

  “The security guard?” I said. “He’s the guy who is supposed to protect Lorber, not kill him.”

  “That’s why he was in the perfect position to get away with murder,” Monk said. “He not only knew when Lorber came and went, he also had access to the security system. He didn’t have to steal Lorber’s card, he just made one for the assassin with the same encoding. The hit man didn’t have to guess when Archie would be away from his desk, Archie told him. The hit man didn’t have to figure out where the security cameras were, Archie gave him the specific locations.”

  “What pointed you to Archie?”

  “I knew we were looking for an inside man. Archie is the one person with access to everything, from the security cards to the shredded documents,” Monk said. “And, being an ex-cop, he’s also the person most likely to have the contacts who could put him in touch with a hit man.”

  “But why would Archie want to hire an assassin to kill his boss?”

  “This isn’t just Archie’s job. It’s his future. He was relying on his pension for his retirement,” Monk said. “Somehow Archie found out that Lorber had pillaged the pension plan. Archie was so angry about it that he decided to get revenge.”

  It made sense. Then again, it also would have made just as much sense for Andrew Cahill or Veronica Lorber to have hired the hit man.