Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

by Lee Goldberg

  “He’s got a rock-solid alibi.” Disher went to Stottlemeyer’s computer and clicked a few keys. “I’ve pulled dozens of press photos off the net of Breen and his wife arriving at eight P.M. and departing at midnight. I talked to the photographers and got the approximate times the photos were taken from them.”

  “Good work,” Stottlemeyer said.

  Disher angled Stottlemeyer’s monitor so we could see the pictures on the screen. Sure enough, there were photos from various angles from different photographers of Breen and his wife in their raincoats, huddled under an umbrella and rushing into the lobby from the rain. There were also photos of the Breens leaving at midnight with the governor and his wife.

  “There were five hundred guests at that event. I doubt anybody can account for his movements the whole night,” Monk said. “The Excelsior has dozens of exits. He could have left the hotel and come back and no one would have noticed.”

  “Pull the security-camera footage from the hotel,” Stottlemeyer told Disher. “Maybe there’s something. And talk to some of the guests and hotel staff, see if anybody noticed he was gone.”

  “Breen built the Excelsior. I’m sure he knows how to get in and out without being seen,” Disher said. “Besides, leaving the hotel doesn’t put him in Esther’s house, holding a pillow to her face.”

  “One step at a time,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Okay,” Disher said. “So what does a train robber who died in 1906 have to do with all this?”

  “Nothing,” Monk said. “That has to do with the murder of a firehouse dog.”

  “You’re trying to solve a one-hundred-year-old murder of a dog?”

  “Sparky was murdered Friday night,” I said.

  “By a ghost?” Disher said.

  “Whoa.” Stottlemeyer raised a hand. “Could somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

  “In the late eighteen hundreds, Roderick Turlock and his gang robbed trains that were carrying bank cars filled with gold coins,” Disher said. “The Pinkertons finally tracked him down to a boardinghouse in San Francisco, where he was killed in a shoot-out, taking his secret with him.”

  “What secret?” Monk asked.

  “What he did with the stolen gold,” Disher said. “Most of it was never found. Legend has it that he buried it somewhere.”

  “That’s real interesting, but can we discuss San Francisco’s rich and colorful history another time?” Stottlemeyer said. “We’ve got a murder to solve here and no evidence whatsoever.”

  “You’re forgetting about the buttons,” Monk said. “And the flowers.”

  “Right, of course. The flowers.” Stottlemeyer snatched the bouquet out of the Big Gulp cup. “Tell you what, Randy, I’ll take these over to the DA right now while you and Monk go arrest Breen.”

  Stottlemeyer marched to his door. Disher stood in place, not sure what to do.

  “You want me to . . . I mean, should I . . . ?” Disher looked at Monk. “Is he serious?”

  “No, I’m not serious.” Stottlemeyer pivoted on his heels and waved the bouquet as he spoke, shaking off some of the petals. “Lucas Breen is on the Police Commission, for God’s sake. What we need is his DNA all over the crime scene, twenty-two eyewitnesses who saw him there, and a video of him smothering the old hag. And then maybe, maybe, we’ve got something to go on.”

  Stottlemeyer shoved Disher out of the way, slammed the bouquet back into the Big Gulp cup, and took a seat behind his desk. He took a deep breath, then glanced at Monk.

  “Tell me how you think he did it.”

  “I think he left the hotel, killed Esther, set fire to her house, then went back to the party.”

  “That’s not a very cunning plan,” Disher said.

  “It worked, didn’t it?” Stottlemeyer said. “Did you check out Lizzie Draper’s alibi?”

  Disher nodded. “They have some kind of Coyote Ugly thing going at Flaxx. There are a hundred guys who saw her dancing in a wet T-shirt on the bar, pouring drinks and juggling bottles until midnight.”

  That, by the way, was the other reason I didn’t get the job at Flaxx. I don’t jiggle or juggle.

  “Assuming you’re right, Mr. Monk,” I began, then paused when I saw the chastising look he was giving me. “Excuse me, knowing you’re right, Breen couldn’t have taken his car, not without the valet and the press seeing him go. And he wouldn’t have hailed a taxi and taken the risk that a cabbie might remember him. So how did Breen get to Esther’s house and back again?”

  Stottlemeyer nodded at me. “You’re getting the hang of this, Natalie.”

  “He must have walked,” Monk said.

  “Is that possible?” I wondered. “I mean, could he do all that in an hour on foot?”

  Monk shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  As we left the police station, Monk apologized to every officer we passed for his “earlier nakedness,” which he blamed on disorientation caused by his sinus medication, not that anyone asked or cared.

  “Allergies,” he said to them. “It’s the monkey on my back.”

  We drove to the Excelsior, which was on Montgomery Street, a few blocks northeast of Union Square. Although it was a relatively new building, constructed in the last decade, it was crafted in the Beaux Arts style favored by San Francisco’s elite in the early 1900s. The big-ticket touches that advertised wealth were all there: the grand arched doorways, the monumental stone columns, the sculpted balustrades, and the arched windows adorned with carved-leaf crowns and ornamented keystones.

  I reluctantly left my Cherokee in the Excelsior’s underground garage, where it costs more to park a car per day than it does to rent one. As Disher predicted, even a casual inspection revealed dozens of ways out of the building, including doors on each floor of the parking structure and a service exit that opened into a dark alley.

  The service exit into the alley was also conveniently blocked from view from the street by several large Dumpsters. If Breen used this door to slip out of the building, he could have taken the alley a full block before having to emerge onto the street, putting him at a safe distance from the hotel and any press gathered out front. Monk assumed that was the likeliest route for Breen to have taken, so we followed it, too. But from that point, there were any number of routes he might have taken. Monk chose the most direct one, going straight up Montgomery, to start with.

  It was nearly dark as we began our walk, and it began to drizzle. Our trek took us past the towers of the Financial District, where business-people and clerical workers were already streaming out, eager to get a head start on the rush-hour traffic. And the night shift of homeless people was beginning to move in, seeking shelter in the alcoves and doorways, scrounging in the trash bins, and hitting up passersby for money.

  Monk wouldn’t give them money, but he handed out individual packages of Wet Ones from my purse to every indigent we passed. They didn’t seem to appreciate the gesture, particularly one guy, who slept on a piece of cardboard and wore an ill-fitting, tattered overcoat over several layers of filthy shirts.

  When Monk tossed him a Wet One packet, the homeless man rose up from his mat.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he said indignantly, holding the Wet One in disgust. His hair and beard were matted, his skin deeply tanned and caked with dirt. He smelled of body odor and rot, like he’d been sleeping in a Dumpster. The stench was an invisible force field that kept Monk a good three feet away from him.

  “You’re right,” Monk said to the man. “It wasn’t very thoughtful of me.”

  Monk reached into my bag, took out two handfuls of wipes, and dumped them at the man’s feet.

  “One isn’t nearly enough,” Monk said, and hurried away, sneezing, the homeless man shouting profanities in our wake.

  I handed Monk a Kleenex. Monk blew his nose, then put the used tissue into a Ziploc bag, which he sealed and stowed in his pocket.

  “That man sleeps with cats,” Monk said.

  “I
think that’s the least of his problems.”

  I looked over my shoulder and saw the homeless man gathering up the wipes and putting them into the pocket of his overcoat. He saw me looking at him and flipped me off. Have a nice day to you, too, I thought.

  We walked north, following Montgomery as it crossed Columbus Avenue and rose up toward Telegraph Hill. The office buildings and restaurants soon gave way to upscale galleries and residences. We zigzagged along side streets into the residential triangle of Victorian homes and garden apartments roughly bordered by Columbus Avenue, Montgomery Street, and Filbert Street. It was a steep climb—not nearly as steep as the one I took to Delores Park each Sunday, but we were still breathing pretty hard when we reached the crest of the hill and found ourselves, much to my surprise, facing Firefighter Joe’s station house.

  “Do you mind if we stop in and say hello to Joe?” I asked. Breen would have needed a rest about now, I thought, even if he had been in a hurry. We were eight or ten serious blocks from the Excelsior, and we’d been walking for about twenty minutes.

  “That’s a good idea,” Monk said. He looked like he could use the rest, too.

  It was also a chance to dry off a bit. Drizzle isn’t so bad until it accumulates and you suddenly realize you’re soaked, which we both were.

  Besides, we’d more or less proven that Breen could have walked from the Excelsior to Esther’s place, which was only a few blocks from the fire station, in a half hour.

  Everything in the station was gleaming, of course. Even the turnouts, the firefighting rigs hanging in the open racks, were all clean, the latches and zippers shining.

  The firemen were all in the kitchen eating pizza. I couldn’t help noticing that Sparky’s bed basket and rubber hot-dog squeak toy were still there. Monk also noticed it. I guess Joe wasn’t willing to accept that Sparky was gone quite yet. I knew the feeling. I kept Mitch’s clothes hanging in the closet for almost a year after he died. And I know Monk still has the pillow his wife slept on. It’s in a plastic bag in his closet.

  Joe broke into a big smile the minute he saw me, jumped out of his seat, and rushed over to greet us. But once he got to me, he wasn’t quite sure what he should do. Kiss me? Hug me? Shake my hand? We settled on a friendly hug.

  “Natalie, Mr. Monk, what a nice surprise. You’re just in time to join us for some pizza.” Joe glanced back to Captain Mantooth, who held out a slice to Monk on a napkin.

  “No, thank you,” Monk said. “We just stopped by to ask you some questions.”

  Once again I was out of the loop. I thought it was a happy coincidence that we ended up in front of the firehouse.

  “Captain Mantooth, did you notice any towels missing before Friday night?”

  “Sure, they’re always disappearing,” Mantooth said. “They’re like socks. You know how that is, Mr. Monk.”

  “No, I don’t.” Monk looked genuinely perplexed.

  “Everybody loses socks,” Mantooth said. All the men around him nodded in agreement. So did I. “You’ve never lost a sock?”

  “How could I? They’re either on my feet or they’re being carried in the basket back and forth between the hamper, the laundry room, and the sock drawer,” Monk said. “I don’t see how it’s humanly possible to lose a sock.”

  “It’s one of the great mysteries of life,” Joe said. “Where do all those socks go?”

  “The same place as our towels.” Mantooth laughed.

  “And my panties,” I added. Mantooth’s smiled faded. I looked around. Everybody was staring at me. “C’mon, guys, everybody loses underwear.”

  The men shared glances, shook their heads, and looked at me with bewilderment, especially Monk and Joe.

  “I know this for a fact,” I said.

  “I want you to think about something, Captain,” Monk said, saving me from further embarrassment, though I’m sure that wasn’t the reason he spoke up. “In general, were you more likely to notice a towel or two missing after you returned from responding to a fire?”

  Mantooth mulled that over for a moment. “Now that you mention it, yeah, maybe you’re right. But to be sure I’d have to check my records.”

  “You keep a record of missing towels?” I asked, incredulous.

  “I keep track to justify the expense of buying new ones,” Mantooth said. “I have to account for every penny that I spend.”

  I had a feeling he would whether he had to or not. No wonder Monk wanted to be a fireman. Mantooth was almost as anal as he was, which gave me reason to wonder what Joe’s dark side might be like. Joe had been amazingly punctual when he came to pick me up for our date. Was punctuality a thing with him? What would happen the first time I was late to meet him somewhere?

  Monk turned to Joe. “Did Sparky run around the neighborhood only when the company was on call to a fire?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said.

  “How come you didn’t tie him up?”

  “Sparky always came back,” Joe said. “I didn’t want to restrict his freedom.”

  “When he came back,” Monk asked, “what did he smell like?”

  Joe seemed bewildered by the question. I certainly was. “Like crap. I don’t know what he got himself into.”

  “How bad was the smell?”

  “I usually had to give him a bath as soon as he got back or Cap would give me hell.”

  “I like a clean station,” Mantooth said. “Cleanliness is the outward expression of order.”

  “Amen, brother,” Monk said, and then he smiled at me. I’ve seen that smile before, usually just before somebody gets arrested and sent to prison for a very long time. “Let’s go have a talk with Mr. Dumas.”

  I followed Monk across the street to Gregorio Dumas’s house and knocked on the door. Monk stood directly behind me, using me as a shield, his hands poised to protect his groin from canine attack. How gallant.

  Gregorio opened the door wearing a red smoking jacket, pajama pants, and so much bling that he made Mr. T, Sammy Davis Jr., and Liberace look under-accessorized by comparison. I know those celebrity references are dated, but somewhere between the time I graduated college and the day I became a mother, my cultural needle got stuck. I don’t want to think about how out of touch I am with American popular culture. It makes me feel like I’ve become my mother, and that’s scary.

  Anyway, back to Gregorio. Monk asked if the dog was out back and, if she was, if we could come in and talk to him for a moment.

  Gregorio reluctantly invited us in. We took a seat on the couch and he sat in a chair across from us. He didn’t look too happy about our being there.

  “Can we make this quick? Jeopardy is on,” Gregorio said.

  “That’s the game where they give you the answers and you have to come up with the questions,” Monk said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Oh, great,” Monk said, “let’s play.”

  “What do you mean?” Gregorio said. “You want to watch TV with me?”

  “Let’s have our own game. I’ll give you the answers and you can give me the questions. Ready? Here’s the answer: Roderick Turlock’s gold.”

  Gregorio flinched as if he’d been slapped.

  “C’mon, Mr. Dumas,” Monk said, “take a guess.”

  Gregorio didn’t say anything, but he began to sweat under his pompadour. Monk mimed the sound of a buzzer.

  “Time’s up. The question is: Why have you been tunneling from your house to the sewer and from the sewer to the fire station? That was fun, wasn’t it? Here’s another answer: To wipe your footprints off the firehouse floor. Can you tell me the question?”

  Gregorio licked his lips and wiped his brow.

  “You aren’t even trying, Mr. Dumas,” Monk said.

  “I am,” he said. “I just don’t know the question. The answer makes no sense.”

  “I know, I know,” I said, raising my hand and waving it enthusiastically.

  Monk smiled and pointed to me. “Yes, Natalie, what’s your guess?”

 
; “Why did Mr. Dumas steal the towels?” I said.

  “Correct!” Monk said. “He tunneled under the firehouse searching for the gold whenever the firemen left the station. But he didn’t want Sparky barking and attracting attention to his digging, so he’d lure him out of the station with a rubber hot-dog squeak toy. It’s Sparky’s favorite. There’s one on Mr. Dumas’s porch that’s identical to the toy in Sparky’s basket.”

  All the disparate facts, all the things we’d seen and heard, suddenly fell into place for me. It was an exhilarating feeling, and for a moment I understood why detectives want to be detectives.

  “Sparky got to this house by way of the tunnel and the sewer,” I said. “That’s how Sparky got past the razor-wire fence and impregnated Letitia. And that’s why Sparky always came back to the station smelling like he was covered with crap. It was crap.”

  Gregorio broke into a deep sweat.

  “Natalie is winning this round, Mr. Dumas,” Monk said. “You’re going to have to guess the right question to this answer to stay in the game. Here it is: Fifteen years in prison.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Gregorio screeched.

  Monk shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, the correct question is: What’s the combined jail term for filing a fraudulent lawsuit and committing an extreme act of animal cruelty?”

  “I treat Letitia like royalty!” Gregorio said.

  “But you murdered Sparky,” I said.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Gregorio said. “Yeah, I’ve been digging for Turlock’s gold, and I was in the firehouse Friday night, but I didn’t kill Sparky.”

  “Convince us,” I said.

  “The truth is, Letitia is over-the-hill, past her prime. The only reason she won her last show two years ago was because I spent twenty-two thousand dollars on an extreme makeover.”

  “She had plastic surgery?” Monk said.

  “It bought us another year on the dog show circuit, but that was it,” Gregorio said. “The judges have sharp eyes, and no amount of cosmetic surgery can prevent the inevitable decline of beauty. We’ve been living on the gold coins I’ve been able to dig up under the firehouse. My plan was that once the coins ran out, we’d live off a settlement from the fire department on our lawsuit.”