by Lee Goldberg
I climbed through the opening and Stottlemeyer followed, glaring at Monk.
“This way,” the captain said, and proceeded to lead us across the lot toward the freeway.
Monk yelped again. I looked at him.
“Candy wrapper,” he said.
“You spent the day in thirty tons of trash and you’re freaking out about a candy wrapper?”
“I’m unprotected,” Monk said. “And that’s a big, big candy wrapper.”
I turned my back on him and marched on through the weeds.
Monk stepped gingerly through the lot as if he were playing hopscotch on hot coals.
I don’t know what he was avoiding, and I didn’t really care. It could have been dog droppings or dandelions; to him they are both equally repulsive.
If I sounded irritable, it’s because I was. It was bad enough that I’d been yanked off a perfectly good date to go strolling through a urine-stenched homeless encampment to see some hideous corpse. Having to deal with Monk’s irrational anxieties on top of all that was asking way too much of me.
But if I’d been really honest with myself on that cold, windy night, I’d have known it wasn’t the lot, the murder, or Monk that was eating at me; it was the feeling I’d had when I kissed Joe and what it meant.
Stottlemeyer took us up the embankment on a well-worn path beneath the freeway to a cardboard lean-to wedged against the ground and the base of the overpass. There were two feet, clad in topsiders held together with duct tape, sticking out of the entrance of the lean-to. It reminded me of the Wicked Witch after Dorothy dropped the house on her in Oz.
“The victim is in there,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Yes, I see,” Monk said.
“Aren’t you going to go inside?”
“Not until my suit gets here.”
“Why don’t you just wear the damn suit all the time?” Stottlemeyer said. “Then you’ll never have to worry about breathing or touching anything ever again.”
“It would be awkward,” Monk said. “Socially.”
“Socially,” I said.
“I don’t like to draw attention to myself,” Monk said. “One of my great advantages as a detective is my natural ability to slip smoothly and unnoticed into almost any social situation.”
“But just think of all the money you’d save on wipes,” Stottlemeyer said.
Monk took out his key chain and aimed his pen-light into the shelter. The tiny beam revealed a man lying inside on his back. He was wearing at least a half dozen shirts and had a scraggly beard. Beyond that he was unrecognizable. His head was bashed in with a brick, presumably the bloody one left beside the body.
I turned away.
Before I met Monk I had managed to go through my life without ever seeing a dead body, without seeing people who’d been shot, stabbed, strangled, beaten, poisoned, dismembered, run over, or clobbered with a brick. Now I was seeing as many as two or three murder victims a week. I wondered when, or if, I’d finally get used to it, and whether I would be a better person if I never did.
“Is he a friend of yours?” Stottlemeyer asked Monk.
“Does he look like a friend of mine? Weren’t you here for the outbreak-suit discussion?”
“I won’t ever forget it,” Stottlemeyer said. “Still, I thought you might know him. That’s why I called you down here.”
“I’ve bathed more today than he has in the past ten years,” Monk said. “What made you think that we could possibly know each other?”
Stottlemeyer motioned to the edge of the embankment. Monk peered over the side and saw a few dozen sealed Wet One packets scattered among the weeds.
“You’re the only person I know who carries around that many Wet Ones.”
Monk looked at me and we came to the same realization at the same instant. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold wind.
“You do know him,” Stottlemeyer said, reading our faces.
“We saw him panhandling on the street near the Excelsior,” I said. “He wanted money; Mr. Monk gave him wipes.”
“Figures,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It’s not easy to recognize him,” I said. “He doesn’t look the same now with the blood all over his face, and . . .”
I couldn’t go on. Stottlemeyer nodded. “I understand. It’s okay.”
“That’s not the only reason we didn’t recognize him,” Monk said.
He turned back to the shelter and crouched at the entrance, letting his flashlight beam sweep over the body and the interior of the lean-to. He sneezed.
Monk sat up, rolled his shoulders, and when he looked at us again, there was a glint of excitement in his watery eyes.
“I know who killed him,” he said, and sneezed.
“You do?” Stottlemeyer was astonished. “Who?”
“Lucas Breen.”
“Breen?” Stottlemeyer sighed wearily. “C’mon, Monk, are you sure about this? You’ve got him killing old ladies, dogs, and bums. What is he, some kind of a serial killer?”
Monk shook his head and sniffled. “He’s just a man who wants to get away with murder. The sad thing is, he has to keep killing to do it.”
“Why do you think Breen did this?” Stottlemeyer said.
“Look at you, Captain. You’ve got your jacket buttoned up to your nose.” Monk turned and shined his flashlight on the dead man. “But he’s not wearing one.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have one,” Stottlemeyer said.
“He had one when we saw him before,” Monk said. “A big, dirty, tattered overcoat.”
Only it wasn’t dirty and tattered. It was charred and burned. And we missed it. If we’d only known then what we were looking for, and what we were looking at, we could have solved the case right there and probably saved this man’s life.
I wondered if Monk felt as guilty and stupid as I did at that moment.
“Lucas Breen killed him for his coat and threw out the wipes that were in the pockets.” Monk sneezed again. “Which just goes to show Breen’s utter disregard for human life.”
I wasn’t sure what Monk meant. Was it murdering a man for his coat or throwing away disinfectant wipes that revealed the depth of Breen’s inhumanity? I didn’t dare ask.
Stottlemeyer pointed to the corpse. “You’re telling me this guy was wearing Lucas Breen’s overcoat?”
Monk nodded and blew his nose. “He must have rooted around in the Dumpster the night of the murder. He was a man with a death wish, and it came true.”
“It wasn’t going Dumpster diving that killed him,” Stottlemeyer said.
Monk took a Ziploc bag from his pocket and stuffed the Kleenex into it. “If the coat hadn’t been the agent of his demise, it would have been a hideous flesh-eating Dumpster disease and a horrible, drooling death.”
“Agent of his demise?” Stottlemeyer said.
“Horrible, drooling death?” I said.
“Thank the Lord for Wet Ones,” Monk said.
“How the hell did Breen know this guy had his coat?” Stottlemeyer asked.
I knew the answer to that one, and it didn’t make me feel clever. Quite the opposite.
“When we were talking to Breen in the lobby of his building, the guy passed by with his shopping cart. Breen saw him.”
“Breen must have crapped himself,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s sitting there with a homicide detective and the two of you accusing him of murder, and a guy walks by wearing the one piece of evidence that could send him to death row. Breen has probably been searching like a maniac for this guy ever since.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And we spent the day wading through all the trash in San Francisco for nothing.”
Stottlemeyer glanced up at the night sky. “Somebody up there is having a nice laugh on all of us.”
“Has the medical examiner been here?” Monk asked.
“She left just before you got here.”
“Did she say how long this man has been dead?”
The captain nodded. “About two hours.”
/>
“Maybe there’s still time,” Monk said.
“To do what?” I asked.
“To stop Breen from getting away with three murders,” Monk said.
20
Mr. Monk Plays Cat and Mouse
The Bay Bridge, which connects Oakland to San Francisco, is really two bridges—one that goes to Yerba Buena Island and one that leaves it, depending on which side of the bay you’re coming from. The two bridges are connected by a tunnel that cuts through the middle of the island.
Adjacent to Yerba Buena Island is Treasure Island, a flat, man-made patch of land that was created to host the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and that the United States government seized during World War II for a naval base.
Treasure Island got its name from flecks of gold found in the Sacramento River Delta soil that was dumped into the bay to make the isle. But if you ask me, the real Treasure Island is across the bay, north of San Francisco in Marin County.
Belvedere Island is a one-mile-long, half-mile-wide enclave of the superwealthy, who gaze upon San Francisco, the Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge from the windows and decks of their multimillion-dollar, bayfront homes. There may not be flecks of gold in the soil, but a handful of dirt on Belvedere is worth more than an acre of land just about anywhere else in California.
So if it were up to me, and for the sake of accuracy in island naming, they’d strip the title “Treasure Island” from that pile of Sacramento dirt dumped in the middle of the bay and slap it on Belvedere instead.
Of course, Belvedere Island is where Lucas Breen lived, because anywhere else just wouldn’t have the same cachet. He and his wife inhabited a lavish and ostentatious Tuscan mansion with its own deepwater dock for their sailboat. (Not that I have anything against being rich; I come from a wealthy family, even though I don’t have much money of my own. It’s the attitude of entitlement and superiority among the rich that I can’t stand.)
To get to Breen’s house, we had to take the Golden Gate Bridge out of the city, drive across Sausalito, then go over a causeway to the island and wind our way up a thickly wooded hillside. Even with a siren and flashing lights, it took us a good forty minutes to get there. Stottlemeyer did turn off everything as we were crossing the causeway, though. He didn’t want to panic the residents.
The gate to Breen’s property was wide-open. It was almost as if he expected us, and that couldn’t be good.
Breen’s mansion was at the end of a circular driveway built on a hillside that gave him sweeping views of Angel Island, the Tiburon Peninsula, the San Francisco skyline, and the Golden Gate Bridge—when the sky wasn’t pitch-black and all fogged in as it was when we arrived.
We pulled up behind Breen’s silver Bentley Continental sports car and got out. Stottlemeyer stopped and put his hand on the Bentley’s sleek hood.
“It’s still warm,” he said, and caressed the car as if it were a woman’s thigh. “How do you think I’d look in one of these, Monk?”
“Like someone sitting in a car.”
“This isn’t just a car, Monk. It’s a Bentley.”
“It looks like a car to me,” Monk said. “What else does it do?”
Monk was dead serious.
“Never mind,” Stottlemeyer said, and marched up to the front door. He leaned on the doorbell and held his badge up to the tiny security camera mounted over the door, though Breen probably knew we were there from the moment we drove through the gate.
After a minute or two Lucas Breen opened the door. His eyes were red, his nose was runny, and he was wearing a bathrobe over a warm-up suit. He looked miserable. Good, I thought, the more miserable the better.
“What the hell are you doing here? I was just getting ready for bed,” Breen said. “Haven’t you heard of a telephone?”
“I’m not in the habit of calling murderers for an appointment,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Captain, I’ve got a terrible cold, my wife is away, and all I want to do is go to sleep,” Breen said. “We’ll do this another time.”
Breen began to close the door, but Stottlemeyer shoved it open and pushed his way inside. “We’ll do it now.”
“You’re going to regret this,” Breen said, his stuffy nose and watery eyes making him look—and sound—like a petulant child.
“Fine with me,” Stottlemeyer said. “Without regrets I wouldn’t have anything to think about and no excuse to drink.”
We followed the captain past Breen and into the two-story rotunda, which was topped with a stained-glass dome. Monk covered his nose and gave Breen a wide berth, even though Monk was sniffling, too.
The rotunda overlooked a living room dominated by a set of French doors and large windows that framed a spectacular view of the San Francisco skyline, the city lights twinkling in the fog. To our left, just next to a grand staircase, was a book-lined study, where a fire roared in a massive stone hearth.
“I believe you were told to stop harassing me,” Breen said, wiping his nose with a handkerchief.
“I go where the evidence takes me,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You’ll be going on job interviews pretty soon,” Breen said. “What’s so important that it’s worth throwing away your badge?”
“A homeless man was murdered tonight,” Stottlemeyer said.
“That’s a shame. What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Confess,” Monk said.
“Tell me, Mr. Monk, are you going to accuse me of every murder that occurs in San Francisco?”
“He was wearing your overcoat.” Monk sneezed and held his hand out to me for a tissue. I gave him several.
“I told you before, my wife donates my old clothes to Goodwill.” Breen strolled into the study and sat down in a leather armchair facing the fire. There was a brandy snifter on the coffee table. It didn’t take much detecting skill to figure out that he must have been sitting there when we showed up at his door.
“Gee, it seems like everybody we meet is buying your clothes at Goodwill these days,” Stottlemeyer said.
“A fortunate few,” he said.
“That homeless guy didn’t look very fortunate to me,” I said. “Someone caved his face in with a brick.”
“The overcoat we’re talking about wasn’t a Goodwill donation.” Monk blew his nose and then tossed the tissue into the fire. “This was the custom-tailored overcoat you wore to the ‘Save the Bay’ fund-raiser but weren’t wearing when you left.”
Monk crouched in front of the fire and watched his tissue burn.
“It’s also the one you wore when you went to smother Esther Stoval and set fire to her house,” Stottlemeyer said. “The one you left behind. The one you had to disguise yourself as a fireman to get back. The one you later ditched in a Dumpster outside of the Excelsior hotel, which is where the man you killed found it.”
“You’re delusional,” Breen said to Stottlemeyer, and motioned to Monk, who was still staring into the flames. “You’re even crazier than he is.”
“You burned it,” Monk said.
“Burned what?” Breen said.
“The overcoat.” Monk gestured into the fireplace. “I can see one of the buttons.”
Stottlemeyer and I crouched beside him and looked into the fire. Sure enough, there was a brass button with Breen’s initials on it glowing in the embers.
The captain stood up and looked down at Breen. “Do you often use your clothes for kindling?”
“Of course not.” Breen took a sip of his brandy and then held the glass up to the fire, examining the amber liquid in the light. “The button must have come off the sleeve of my jacket when I put the wood in the fireplace.”
“I’d like to see that jacket,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I’d like to see your search warrant,” Breen said.
Stottlemeyer stood there, glowering. He’d been trumped and he knew it. We all knew it. Breen smiled smugly. I imagined he even flossed his teeth smugly.
“It’s a shame we don’t always get what we
want; though, to be honest, I usually do.” Breen tipped his snifter toward Stottlemeyer. “You, on the other hand, strike me as a man who rarely does. I can’t imagine what that must be like.”
“I can’t imagine what it must be like on death row,” Stottlemeyer said. “Pretty soon you’ll be able to tell me.”
Monk sneezed again. I handed him another tissue.
“And how would you presume to put me there, Captain?” Breen said. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m guilty of everything you’ve accused me of. If that’s true, then the one piece of evidence you needed has just been incinerated, along with any hope of ever prosecuting me.”
Breen took another sip of his brandy and sniffled, which you’d think would have undercut his menace and smug superiority, but it didn’t. That’s how secure he was in the knowledge that he’d beaten us.
Stottlemeyer and I both looked at Monk. This was his cue to reveal the brilliant deduction that would destroy the bastard and prove him guilty of murder.
Monk frowned, narrowed his eyes, and sneezed.
Stottlemeyer drove us back to my car. Nobody said a word. Monk didn’t even sniffle. There wasn’t really anything left to say. Lucas Breen was right. He’d won. He was going to get away with three murders.
Obviously that was bothering us all, but I think what really troubled Stottlemeyer and Monk went beyond the injustice of a guilty man walking free. It was something deeper and more personal than that.
For years their relationship had been predicated on a simple truth: Monk was a brilliant detective, and Stottlemeyer was a good one. That’s not a slight against Stottlemeyer. He became a captain because of his hard work, dedication, and skill at his job. He solved most of the homicides he investigated and had a conviction rate that any cop in any other city would be proud of.
But he wasn’t any cop in any other city. He was in San Francisco, home of Adrian Monk. Any detective would have a hard time matching Monk’s genius at crime solving. It was worse for Stottlemeyer. He was also Monk’s former partner. His career was inextricably linked to Monk. It didn’t matter that Monk’s obsessive-compulsive disorder had cost him his badge. The captain and Monk would always be partners in their own eyes and the eyes of the SFPD.