by Lee Goldberg
"Did I just see you throwing French fries at Monk?" Stottlemeyer said.
"Yes, you did," I said.
"What for?" Disher asked.
"Some consideration," I said.
"Seeing you do that was worth the drive out here all by itself," Stottlemeyer said.
Monk slid out of the booth. "Excuse me, I have to go."
"Why?" Disher said.
"Look at me, I am soaked in grease," Monk said. "Are you blind? What kind of detective are you?"
He marched off in a huff. Stottlemeyer and Disher watched him go, then they both slid onto the bench that he'd vacated across from me.
"Feeling better?" Stottlemeyer asked me.
"I'm getting there," I said. "It's going to take a little while."
"When Monk called today and told me his plan, I warned him that you'd be pissed," Stottlemeyer said. "But he felt that catching Kelton was more important than your feelings."
"What did you say?" I asked.
"I told Monk that I completely understood how he felt," Stottlemeyer said. "And that's probably why my wife left me and I haven't had a single successful relationship with a woman since then."
"There was that real estate agent, Linda Fusco," Disher said, eating one of the French fries off the table. "Things were going great with her."
"Until she was arrested for murder," Stottlemeyer said.
"That wasn't your fault," Disher said. "You held up your end of the relationship."
"So I may have some problems in my relationships with women," Stottlemeyer said, "but at least I've done all right dating murderers."
Disher nodded. "You've got to keep a positive outlook. That's key."
"Thanks, Randy, for that helpful insight," Stottlemeyer said.
"No problem," Disher said and looked at me as he tipped his head towards the pie. "Are you going to eat all of that?"
"I was planning to share it with some friends," I said with a smile. "And they just got here."
Monk would have been shocked watching us eat that pie. We didn't bother to cut out individual pieces. We dug into it with our forks, devouring it. He would have found it uncivilized, unsanitary, unbalanced, and probably immoral.
While we ate, I told Stottlemeyer and Disher about our adventures in Trouble and how they dovetailed with the experiences of Artemis Monk, which led to Adrian Monk solving a fifty-year-old robbery and three murders.
"It's like there's two Monks," Disher said. "Our Monk and his identical twin in an alternate, Western universe."
"It's not like that at all," Stottlemeyer said. "Artemis Monk really existed one hundred fifty years ago."
"But what if past and present don't come one before the other," Disher said. "What if they co-exist?"
"They don't," Stottlemeyer said. "The present wouldn't exist without the past. The present is the result of past events."
"But what if you're wrong?" Disher said.
"I'm not," Stottlemeyer said.
This was like a conversation I might have had while I was high on pot in college. We weren't on dope, but we were definitely on a sugar high.
"What if this town sits on the precipice between two dimensions, like Sunnydale is with Hellmouth."
"Where is Sunnydale?" Stottlemeyer asked.
The three of us were crossing our forks like swords in a fencing patch as we scrounged for the last bits of tasty crust and the few remaining drops of the sugary filling in the pan.
"It's the California town where Buffy the Vampire Slayer lives," Disher said. "Trouble could be Monk's Hellmouth."
"Everywhere is Monk's Hellmouth," I said.
"So whatever happened to Artemis Monk and his assistant?" Stottlemeyer asked me.
"I don't know," I replied.
"If I were you, I wouldn't leave town until I found out," Stottlemeyer said.
"We're leaving tomorrow morning, no matter what," I said, sitting back and dropping my fork. I was done and the pan was empty.
"Don't you have to return that book first?" Disher said, picking up the pan to retrieve the last few crumbs with a moist fingertip.
"Yes," I said. "I was just going to drop it off and run."
"You aren't in any shape to run," Disher said.
"Your talk with the local historian should be interesting," Stottlemeyer said.
"Who said we were going to have a talk?"
"Maybe I'll tag along," he said.
"Me, too," Disher said, setting down the pan.
"You have to," I said. "You're driving."
"That reminds me," Stottlemeyer said. "The story of how you pulled Monk out of that pit, and what you did to yourself doing it, is pretty amazing. You're one tough lady."
"I don't feel so tough."
"You look it," Disher said.
"I'll take that as a compliment," I said.
"I've got one question, though," Disher said. "How did you get your pants back on with a torn-up hand and a dislocated shoulder?"
"Let's not go into that," I said.
"I don't know if I can get the picture out of my head of you lying out there in your underwear," Disher said.
I picked up my glass of ice water and hurled the contents in his face. "Does that help?"
Crystal looked at me sternly from behind the counter. I was throwing more food and drinks than a three-year-old having a tantrum and I looked like a homeless drunkard. I doubted I'd be welcomed back into the Chuckwagon again anytime soon, no matter how grateful she was to Monk for solving the mystery of the Golden Rail Express.
"Yes," Disher said, dabbing his soaked face with a napkin. "Thanks."
Stottlemeyer grinned. "I am so glad that I came to Trouble."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mr. Monk Sets the World Right
I went back to my own motel room for the night, which Monk had thoughtfully cleaned for me while I was at dinner.
I'm sure that he did it in an attempt to make amends, but he still had a long way to go as far as I was concerned.
I climbed into bed without bothering to change out of my stinking scrubs and fell fast asleep.
But I slept fitfully, tortured by my various injuries, and awoke at seven a.m. stiff, in pain, and with a pounding headache from a sugar hangover.
I quickly took my pills and washed them down with some Summit Creek water and a handful of Wheat Thins to deaden the pain and quell my headache.
That's when I noticed how much I reeked and how sticky my skin was. I desperately needed a shower, but I wasn't looking forward to the struggle and the pain that would be involved in pulling that off.
But there was no way around it. You wouldn't have to be as sensitive as Monk to find me repulsive to see and to smell.
I couldn't even stand to be around myself.
So I girded myself for the ordeal to come, sat up slowly, and I went to the bathroom to do what had to be done.
I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that showering and dressing involved all kinds of obstacles, physical contortions, extreme discomfort, and loud, vulgar profanity.
When I finally emerged from my motel room at nine thirty, I found Monk, Stottlemeyer, and Disher waiting patiently for me in the front lobby. Disher was even kind enough to go back to my room, get my suitcase, and put it in the trunk of my car. I guess he was trying to make amends for his bad behavior, too.
We decided as a group to skip breakfast in favor of catching an early lunch on the road. The sooner we got out of Trouble, the better, as far as Monk and I were concerned.
I got into my car with Disher. Monk insisted on riding with Stottlemeyer for safety reasons. He thought it would be dangerous to have three people in one car and that it would be much better to have two in each.
I was expecting that, but I think Monk was also afraid that I might give him another lashing on the road if he rode with me.
On the way out of town, we stopped at the historical society to drop off Abigail Guthrie's journal.
Doris Thurlo was very plea
sed to see the four of us. She'd heard all about what happened the previous night, of course. The parallels between the crimes Monk solved and Artemis Monk's cases weren't lost on her. Nor were the similarities between me, Stottlemeyer, and Disher to the people in Artemis Monk's life.
"It's like a balance has been created between past and present," Doris said. "It's an almost perfect symmetry."
"I like that idea," Monk said. "It feels right."
"There's a surprise," Stottlemeyer said.
"Some would call it destiny," Doris said.
"Do you know what happened to Artemis Monk and Abigail Guthrie?" Stottlemeyer asked, studying the daguerreotype of Artemis Monk on the wall.
"Throughout the rest of the 1850s and well into the 1860s, yes. There are several more journals from Abigail Guthrie that recount their adventures during that period," Doris said. "But not surprisingly, it ends abruptly after that."
"Why is that not a surprise?" Disher asked.
"The Gold Rush had ended and most of the prospectors and miners moved on to strikes in other places, like Nevada and Alaska," she said. "And the gold that was left was increasingly difficult and expensive to get to. Most Gold Rush towns withered and died, and Trouble nearly joined them. So there wasn't much assaying for Monk to do, and that was how he made his living. Investigating crimes was more of a hobby."
"Well, that was very interesting and informative. Good day," Monk said and headed for the door.
"So they moved to San Francisco after they got married," Doris said.
Monk stopped dead in his tracks.
"Monk married his assistant?" Disher said, clearly amused. So was Stottlemeyer. I wasn't.
"That's what they say," Doris said.
"Do they?" Stottlemeyer said with a grin.
"I don't have a marriage certificate or anything like that to confirm it," Doris said. "But it's pretty common knowledge. I believe there are some references to his assistant, Mrs. Monk, in other accounts from that period."
Stottlemeyer turned to Monk, who appeared mortified. I could sympathize.
"If you really want to maintain the crucial balance between past and present, you know what you have to do," the captain said.
I wished I had a French fry or a glass of water or a big cream pie to throw at Stottlemeyer. But I didn't. All I could do was give him the nastiest look I could muster, which I'm sure made me appear constipated on top of everything else, and that only seemed to amuse him even more.
Even Doris was grinning like an idiot.
"That's totally outside the realm of possibility," Monk said.
"I agree," I said.
"I'm sure Abigail Guthrie thought the same thing," Doris said. "But love finds a way."
"It will have to find another way," I said and headed for the door, which Monk opened for me.
"I agree," he said.
And we walked out.
"The past is the past," I said. "It has nothing to do with us."
"Besides, there's no evidence that Artemis Monk and his assistant got married," Monk said. "It's just scandalous hearsay."
"Because it didn't happen," I said.
"It couldn't have," Monk said.
"Why not?"
"Because it would upset the perfect balance."
"What perfect balance?"
"The one that they had," he said. "And that we have. I wouldn't do anything to upset that."
I stopped at my car. "Why is that, Mr. Monk?"
"Because it means too much to me."
With my good arm I reached out and gave him a hug. To my surprise, he didn't stiffen up or resist. He even gently patted my back.
That's when Stottlemeyer and Disher came out of the historical society. Disher started humming "Here Comes the Bride." I promised myself that I'd make him pay for that. I didn't know how yet, but I would find a way.
"Did Monk already pop the question?" Stottlemeyer asked me.
"You keep this up and I'm going to pop you," I said and then turned back to Monk. "You're forgiven."
"Thank you, Natalie," he said, obviously very relieved.
"But I'm taking the rest of the week off," I said. "Maybe next week, too."
"Why?" Monk asked.
"Because I've got a dislocated shoulder and a bad left hand," I said, trying not to get annoyed and ruin the sweet moment we'd just had. "I need to recuperate."
"You can recuperate with me," he said. "You'll need someone to take care of you."
I was touched. "You'd do that?"
"To a degree," he said.
"What's that mean?" I asked.
"Whatever you can't do for me I'll do for myself."
"And what about the things that I can't do for myself?"
"Don't do them," he said. "Problem solved."
"I don't think that's going to work," I said.
Stottlemeyer turned to Disher. "Listen to them. They sound like an old married couple already."
"They always have," Disher said, walking around to the driver's side of my car. "I'll take the lead. You can follow us."
"No," Stottlemeyer said, walking to the driver's side of his car. "I think it's better if you follow my car."
"Why?" Disher said.
"Because I'm in an official police vehicle and you're not," Stottlemeyer said. "If I speed a bit, you can, too."
"Wouldn't it work the same way if you were behind me while I was speeding?"
"No," Stottlemeyer said.
"Why not?" Disher said.
"Because I say so!" Stottlemeyer said, getting into the car and slamming the door.
"We'll see about that!" Disher said, getting into my car and slamming the door.
"Those two are always arguing," Monk said, shaking his head with disapproval. "They could learn a thing or two about cooperation and mutual respect from us."
"Like what?" I said.
"That I'm right all of the time," Monk said. "And you're right the rest."
"You're probably right," I said.
"I know I am," he said and got into the car, obviously pleased with himself and certain that the universe was in balance once again.
Maybe he was right about that, too.