by Hy Conrad
“Forever,” explained the judge’s daughter. “Since college, at least.”
“Were they in the same fraternity?” asked Monk.
I won’t say I had a clue at that moment, maybe half a clue. Maybe a quarter.
“I think so,” said Bethany. “Is this important?”
“Maybe,” he said. “We were looking for another connection between the captain and the judge. The fraternity is a connection. Did your father ever tell you stories about his college friends?”
She shook her head. “Dad wasn’t much of a sharer.”
Then Monk turned to me. “You remember the story about the whisky, the last frat brother drinking the whole bottle. Could they be the last two alive, the captain and Captain Thurman?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I didn’t care. “Are you saying someone’s killing off the frat brothers? Why would anyone do that? Revenge, maybe?”
“Maybe to drink the whisky,” said Randy in that tone of voice that lets you know it’s a joke.
Monk paused, not laughing. “Randy, you’re right.”
“I’m right? I’m never right.”
“Randy’s right,” I agreed. “He’s never right.”
Monk ignored us and ticked off his points. “Stottlemeyer’s father was a whisky expert. He brought back bottles from Inverness, the whisky Mecca. A lot can happen in forty years. Accidents happen. Things get rare.”
“You’re saying someone’s killing people over whisky?” I almost snorted. “How rare can a bottle of whisky be?”
“Off the top of my head, I’d say one-point-four million. That was the price back in two thousand and ten. It may not even be the same whisky, but—”
“One-point-four million?” I gulped. “Dollars?”
“It was sold by Sotheby’s, the auction house in New York.”
“Sotheby’s?” Hadn’t I just heard that name? Someone had mentioned Sotheby’s. Or I’d seen a Sotheby’s catalog. Just last week. “Oh, my God,” I said. “The Thurman house. On a chair by the bed.”
“Room three forty-seven,” shouted Monk. “Go, go, go!”
Randy Disher had spent enough years with us. He knew the shorthand. The ex-lieutenant was the first of us through the stairwell door, bounding up the flights of stairs. I was right behind him. “Right turn, left turn,” I said toward his disappearing feet.
I was the second one at the captain’s door. Randy was pulling at the knob while the officer on duty seemed torn between reaching for the key on his left side or his weapon on his right.
“Locked from inside,” Randy shouted back at me.
“Give him the key,” I ordered the patrolman. He was young, with no memory of homicide lieutenant Randall Disher. But crazy Natalie he knew. “Give him the key!”
I got to the door myself just as the officer’s key turned the dead bolt. Randy and I barged through, stumbling over each other. He recovered first and took in the scene. “Get the bag off him,” he shouted.
The captain was in the bed sideways, just as we’d left him. But the sheets were a mess. A pillow was on the floor. And a plastic bag was over the captain’s head, cinched at the throat with a drawstring. He wasn’t moving, deathly white. But a tiny puff of air vibrated between the plastic and his open mouth.
I grabbed at the drawstring, trying to be fast but gentle. The bed rocked and jolted as a pair of wrestling men ricocheted off the walls. At some point, a plastic syringe scuttled across the white tile at my feet.
“Stop,” screamed the patrolman, his sidearm nervously drawn and pointed into the melee. “Both of you.” They stopped and his eyes finally focused and tried to take it all in—the barely breathing captain, the bag over his head, the syringe, the homicidal desperation on A.J.’s face.
“Lieutenant Thurman? Sir? What the hell? I mean, what the freaking hell?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mr. Monk and the Bottle
Not that I have to be fair to Lieutenant A.J… . I mean, really! But to be fair to Lieutenant A.J., this had been his sister’s plan from the start.
A.J.’s and Rebecca’s interrogation statements were similar on all the major points.
They’d been unaware of the existence of the bottle of Aisla Dalmore until just a few months ago. That’s when they were sitting by their father’s bed, amid all the extravagantly expensive equipment designed to keep him alive. Rebecca brought out a photo album from the old days. Arny Senior perked up as he looked at the pictures and told his favorite stories, including the one about the whisky and their fraternity pledge. There were several yellowing snapshots of the boys posing around the large bottle, pretending to drink, embracing it like a lover, all of them impossibly happy and young and hopeful.
The story might have ended there, if not for the obituary column in the Sunday Chronicle. That’s where Rebecca read about the death of Harrison Wheeler in a plane crash in Nova Scotia. He was the third of the six boys to die. She’d never considered her father that old. Yet here he was, third in line for a dusty bottle of single-malt whisky. It made her curious enough to go online and type in the words “Aisla Dalmore.”
This, I have to point out, was not the same whisky that had gone on the auction block for 1.4 million. That was a 105—
year-old Aisla T’Orten, which had been sitting undiscovered in someone’s basement until 2010. But the Aisla Dalmore was in the same ballpark.
“It’s hard to quote a value,” the fine-spirits expert from Sotheby’s had told Rebecca when she finally got him on the phone. “That whisky isn’t supposed to exist. They were aging their best single malt in the storeroom of the Inverness distillery, saving it for the company’s hundredth anniversary. Then came the storm of nineteen seventy-two. A lightning bolt hit the building and the place burned to the ground. One of the great tragedies in whisky history. If someone had managed to bribe or sweet-talk them out of a bottle before the fire, it would be the only one. Are you saying you have such a bottle, ma’am?”
Rebecca had hung up and told her brother everything.
Their first instinct was to steal the Aisla Dalmore. But the Mechanics Bank on Sansome Street in the business district had both keys and strict instructions not to open the safety-deposit box unless the requirements of the ghoulish agreement had been met.
All they could do was hope their father could outlive the two other heirs, even by a day. Then his inheritance would go to them. They could pay off the mortgages and finally have lives of their own.
Rebecca claimed the poison was her doing. She had found umbrella stands on both the judge’s and the captain’s porch, which was what gave her the idea. Being an ER nurse, she was familiar with heavy-metal toxins. Two middle-aged men would die of natural causes on some rainy San Francisco day. Simple.
Their statements differed about when exactly A.J. was brought into the scheme. Both of them had visited Judge Oberlin in the hospital. Either one of them could have continued to poison him with the thallium. Rebecca blamed A.J. for this and A.J. blamed Rebecca. There was plenty of blame to go around.
At the judge’s funeral, A.J. had done his best to humiliate Monk and avoid the possibility of an autopsy. That seemed clear. He was also the one who had written the seven-year note, hoping that this fake, anonymous motive would derail the investigation, which it almost had.
By the time he led the captain into the alley ambush, A.J. was certainly an active participant. Being hit in the leg by your own sister must have been galling. But they were in it together, with only one man standing in their way.
A.J. was the one responsible for the car bomb; he confessed to that one. He had lured Leland out of his sickbed. And he’d had plenty of time to plant it while we were inside the Tuscany Pines. He just hadn’t counted on anyone else starting the car.
From then on, things got only more desperate. Arny Senior was requiring his daughter’s constant skill to stay alive. Meanwhile, it was becoming more difficult for A.J. to get some valuable alone time with the captain. Their las
t chance would be in the hospital room.
Between a police lieutenant and a nurse, the Thurmans knew what to do. The plastic bag would immobilize, not kill. Killing him would be left to the contents of the syringe. Succinylcholine, according to our forensics specialist, is a powerful muscle relaxant that paralyzes its victim and can mimic the signs of a heart attack within fifteen minutes.
Fourteen minutes after the injection, when the captain was breathing his last, his trusted lieutenant would unlock the door, race down the hall, and alert the hospital staff. But it would be too late.
• • •
Whiskey or whisky? “Do you spell it with an e or without?” Out of the five of us staring at the bottle, I was probably the only one concerned about the spelling.
“According to my pop, the Irish use the e, the Scots don’t,” said Captain Stottlemeyer. He kept staring at the simple, solid bottle with the black-and-white label—no e in “whisky”—and the two signatures and a seal verifying it as the real deal.
It was hard not to stare at thirty ounces of brown liquid with an auction value of perhaps 1.5 million. That was only the Sotheby’s estimate. It could go higher.
“How could your dad afford it?” Randy asked.
“It wasn’t quite that expensive,” the captain explained, not for the first time. “But I’m sure he did some fancy talking and paid a pretty penny. I remember our trip to Scotland as a kid, how Mom and Pop fought. I thought they were arguing about the cost of the vacation. The amazing thing to me …” He choked up a bit and hid it with a cough.
“The amazing thing is that he cared so much about you and your friends,” said Trudy, squeezing Leland’s hand. “His best bottle by far and he never even tasted it.”
“So when is the auction?” I asked, rubbing my hands together.
Captain Arny had died two days before, drifting off the same night that his son and daughter were arrested on two counts of felony murder and various other charges. The captain called us that morning and asked us to come over and see what had been dropped off at his bungalow in an armored car from Hamish Stottlemeyer’s safety-deposit box at the Mechanics Bank.
“If it happens in New York, Sharona and I can drive in to celebrate.” Randy seemed to share my auction fever, but the others looked as if we’d just suggested shooting the family dog. (Teddy, by the way, was in the backyard, happily gnawing a bone.)
“Leland made a sacred agreement,” Monk said. “Does that count for nothing in your world, Natalie?”
“You mean you’re actually going to drink a priceless bottle of whisky?” I was dumbfounded. I turned to his wife. “Trudy, you can’t be in favor of this.”
“Not the drinking part,” Trudy said. “But honoring the memory of his fraternity brothers? And his father? Leland and I talked it out and I agree.”
“You agree?” It was hard to find the words. “How could you agree? It’s a million and a half dollars versus a massive hangover. Think what you could do with that money.”
“We don’t need that kind of money.”
“Fine. Then give it to charity. You’ll also be making a whisky collector somewhere very happy. Or a museum or whoever puts up that kind of dough.”
“You have two sons,” said Randy to the captain. “You can leave the money to them. Or leave them the bottle.”
“I’d rather leave them the story,” said Leland. “How their dad kept his word to his dad and his pals. What do you think Nate Oberlin would say if I sold it? Or poor Arny? People are dead and his kids are in jail because they wanted to sell it.”
“Okay,” I argued. “Let’s talk about Nate Oberlin. His daughter lost a father because of this bottle. Don’t you think she deserves a say?”
“I talked with her this morning,” said the captain. “I suppose that was last night in Thailand. She agrees with Trudy and me. To her it’s blood money. ‘You might as well drink a toast with it’—that’s what she said.”
“Wow,” I said rather eloquently.
“What do you think is going to make the bigger impact on our lives?” said Trudy. “A new car or honoring Leland’s friends? What if the whisky was worth a hundred dollars? Would you think it right for him to sell it then?”
“For a hundred bucks, no,” said Randy. “But this is a million point five.”
It had taken a little while to get my head around the idea. “Okay,” I agreed. “I guess you’re right. But you have to promise to save a few drops for your newer friends. I’ve never had a ten-thousand-dollar sip of anything. Deal?”
“I’m sure there’ll be some left over,” said the captain.
“Can we do it now?” asked Randy.
“Now?” Stottlemeyer laughed. “First you want to sell it, now you want to drink it for lunch?”
“Sorry. I’m just curious.”
“No, I think I need to take my time before opening this baby. Maybe after Arny’s funeral.”
“Sorry,” said Randy again. “The only reason I mentioned it is because I’m heading back on the red-eye tonight. But you can tell me how it tastes.”
This took us all back a step, not because it was unexpected—Randy had to go back to his life, we knew—but because the moment had been so perfect, the four of us together and discussing a case, just like old times.
“You can’t go back,” said Monk. “I worked long and hard to put A.J. Thurman behind bars. I would have done it even if he was innocent.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Monk,” said Randy.
“That’s not my point. There’s a vacancy at Leland’s side. The planets are aligned. You obviously want to leave New Jersey and we want you back. You never have to speak about the past few years. In fact that’s the way I prefer it. Like the disruption in our little universe never even happened.”
“But it did happen,” said Randy. “And it’s not all bad. I’m a police chief in a town that needs me. Well, maybe doesn’t need me—or want me. But I’m still their duly appointed chief by a majority vote of the city council. As of right now. Although they could vote at any time.”
“I’d be glad to have you back,” said the captain. “I can’t lie. I mean, I understand about being the chief. That’s important, if it’s important to you. But you’re needed here, too. It won’t be easy for me to trust a new lieutenant. Not after the last one.”
Stottlemeyer had a point. He had done so much for Arnold Thurman Jr.—promoting him, defending him, entrusting him with his safety … and all the while it was the lieutenant who had been out to get him.
“Hell, Randy, you saved my life.”
“I did not.”
“Monk says you did.”
Monk bobbed his head vigorously. “It’s true. You’re the one who got in there and grabbed the syringe. You’re the one who joked about the priceless whisky. I never would have made that connection.” I couldn’t tell if Monk was exaggerating or not. “Never in a million years.” All right, he was exaggerating.
Randy seemed to be warming to the notion. “Well, I knew it couldn’t be connected to an old case. I mean, no one wanted me dead, right? That’s just illogical.”
“Absolutely,” said Monk. “The captain would be lying dead and cold on the hospital room floor before I ever thought of the whisky.”
“Adrian, please,” said Trudy. She took a deep breath and shuddered. “That’s enough.”
“Well, you know what I mean. We need him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mr. Monk Aligns the Planets
Somehow, Randy had managed to survive his entire visit without renting a car. That was fine with me. It gave us a chance to spend some time together, just the two of us, as I drove him through light evening traffic to the airport.
“Are you texting Sharona?” I asked.
Randy glanced up from his phone, then rather guiltily placed it in the passenger-side cup holder. “Sorry. I guess I’m not very good company.”
“No, go ahead. I assume she’s picking you up at Newark.”
“Hop
e so. I haven’t been able to get in touch. With everything going on, I just bought my ticket this morning.”
“When was the last time you talked to her?”
“Yesterday. She had some city meeting this morning and turned off her phone. She’s relieved, of course, about Leland. And she’s proud of me for helping.”
“She should be proud.”
“So Monk wasn’t just saying that? To make me stay?”
“Not at all.”
“Good. It gets harder and harder for her to be proud of me in Summit.” He picked up his phone again and put it back down. “There’s this weird snowball effect. People look at you a certain way and somehow you wind up being that way. I try to act nonplussed about it.”
“Nonplussed?”
“You know, calm. I can’t believe you don’t know the word nonplussed.”
“Nonplussed actually means the opposite of calm. It means confused. Unsettled.”
“Really? Wow. It sounds like it should mean calm.”
“I know. I used to say it that way. Adrian had to correct me.”
He appreciated this. “At least you don’t make me feel stupid. If I had used ‘nonplussed’ in Summit, can you imagine? The English teachers alone. Oh, God, I think I did use it, in a letter to the editor last month.” He moaned and slumped into his seat.
“You really don’t want to go back, do you?”
“I don’t,” he finally admitted. “I told myself it was impossible as long as A.J. was around. That was easy. But now he’s not around.”
“Look, Randy. I know I’ve been pushing you to go home and make the best of it, but if you’d really be happier … There’s no shame. Honestly. Everyone here would love having you.”
“But that would be running away from my problems.”
“Hey.” I had to smile. “A very wise man once told me you can run away from your problems.”
“I think that was Monk.”
“It was Monk.”
“Right.” He looked down to his phone again. “But I have to go back.”
I tried thinking it through. “For Sharona?”