by Lee Goldberg
“You’re done already?”
“Far from it. I needed some fresh air to gird myself for more battle,” Monk said.
“You make it sound like the bathroom is fighting back.”
“Have you seen what’s growing between your shower tiles?” Monk asked. “You have nothing to be grinning about.”
“Yes, I do. I just found out that Walter O’Quinn’s binoculars came from a store in Seattle in the early 1960s.”
“So?”
“That’s where Walter O’Quinn lived. His father had a charter fishing-boat business up there.”
Monk looked at me. “My God, that’s amazing.”
“You’re ridiculing me.”
“No, I’m genuinely amazed that you are so stupefied by this dull case that you think it’s a revelation that people buy items in the places where they live.”
“I think it was Walter O’Quinn’s father who bought those binoculars and that Walter kept them because they had enormous sentimental value to him.”
“Okay,” Monk said. “So what?”
“Walter brought them to San Francisco,” I said. “I think he was using the binoculars to spy on people in the building across from the hotel.”
“So he was a pervert, too.”
“What if Stacey or her daughter lives in that building? That could be the answer to the mystery.”
Monk stiffened from head to toe. “It is.”
“You think they live there?”
“I’m not talking about them,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “I’m talking about Stuart Hewson.”
“Well, I’m not,” I said.
“I know why he was killed.” Monk peeled off his gloves and tossed them in one of the trash bags.
“And who killed him?” I asked.
But Monk didn’t answer that question. He untied his apron and dropped it in the trash bag, too. “Call Captain Stottlemeyer and tell him to meet us at Hewson’s house right away.”
If Monk was willing to leave my bathroom behind only half-cleaned, this had to be big.
Monk didn’t say a word during our short drive back to the Hewson crime scene. Rayburn Street was clear this time—only Captain Stottlemeyer’s car was out front. He was leaning against it, smoking a cigar as we arrived.
“You got here fast,” I said.
“I have a loud siren and I was only a few blocks away, having lunch,” Stottlemeyer said. “I showed Stuart’s friends the place again. You were right, Monk, it was never that clean before.”
“Why are you telling me something we already know?” Monk asked.
“I thought you’d appreciate the confirmation.”
“I didn’t need confirmation. I have confidence in my own conclusions.”
“Too much, sometimes. Are you going to tell me why we’re here?”
“I’m going to show you,” Monk said. “We need to go inside.”
Stottlemeyer snubbed out his cigar on the hood of his car, tossed the stub through the open window onto his passenger seat, then went up to the door. He took Hewson’s keys from his pocket, cut the yellow police seal sticker on the door with the edge of the key, and let us in.
Monk rushed inside and started opening closets.
Stottlemeyer turned to me. “Do you know what he’s looking for?”
“Nope,” I said. The BART train zoomed over my head, startling me. “Why did you leave that on?”
“Couldn’t figure out how to turn it off.”
“You could shoot it,” I said.
“Do toy trains irritate you that much?”
“Only when they are running nonstop around my head.”
Monk emerged from a back room lugging a telescope on a tripod, which he carefully set in front of the big picture window. The legs fit right into the indentations left on the hardwood floor.
“This was here until the killer moved it,” he said.
“Why did the killer do that?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“So we wouldn’t see why Hewson was killed.”
“For his view,” I remarked.
“Exactly,” Monk said.
“I knew it,” I said. Both men turned to me. “I mean, I thought it. The moment we drove up, I thought, ‘Hey, this is a view to die for. I wonder if that’s why he was killed.’ And it was.”
“You would have saved us a lot of time and trouble if you’d said it instead of thought it,” Monk said.
“I didn’t say anything because it seemed silly. It was a facetious thought. I mean, really. He was killed for his view?”
“Real estate is worth a lot of money,” Stottlemeyer said. “If you want a house bad enough, you might kill for it.”
“That’s not why Hewson was killed,” Monk said.
“You’re the one who said it was for the view,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Yes, I did,” Monk said. “It was for what he saw.”
He stepped back from the telescope and beckoned us over. Stottlemeyer bent down and peered through the viewfinder first. When the captain looked up again, he appeared bewildered.
“I’ll be damned,” Stottlemeyer said, stepping aside so I could have a look.
I bent down and took a look. What I saw was Mark Costa’s bedroom in his house below us on Castro Street. The drapes were open and I could see every inch of the room. It was a powerful little telescope. If someone had been standing in the room, I could have seen the color of their eyes and the blemishes on their skin.
“Mark Costa was a womanizer,” Monk said. “I think Stuart Hewson enjoyed watching him and his partners fornicating.”
“I guess Hewson wasn’t such an upstanding citizen after all,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I believe we’ve already established that I was operating from a false assumption when I made that statement.”
“We certainly have,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I don’t understand. Are you saying Rico Ramirez killed Stuart Hewson because he witnessed the murder?”
“No, I’m not,” Monk said.
“Then who killed him?” I asked.
Monk looked down at his feet and hesitated. “It pains me to say this, Natalie, more than you can possibly know.”
“Spit it out, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I don’t spit,” Monk said. “Ever.”
“It was a figure of speech,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It should be banned,” Monk said. “It’s coarse and ugly and certainly shouldn’t have been used in a solemn moment like this.”
“Solemn?” Stottlemeyer said. “The way you’re acting, you’d think it was the pope you’re about to accuse of murder.”
“Close,” Monk said.
It wasn’t until I saw the hurt on Monk’s face, the genuine and unmistakable sadness, that I knew who the killer was, even though I couldn’t imagine what the motive could be. I felt queasy and light-headed just thinking about it.
“No, Mr. Monk,” I said.
Monk nodded, a grim expression on his face. “It was Jerry Yermo.”
“Who?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“The crime scene cleaner,” Monk said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Mr. Monk Is Disappointed
“You’re not making any sense,” Stottlemeyer said. “What possible motive would a crime scene cleaner have for killing Hewson?”
“A fortune in diamonds,” Monk said.
“You’ve lost me,” Stottlemeyer said.
“If you take a look in the telescope again, you’ll see that Jerry and his crew tore up Costa’s bedroom floor and replaced it.”
“Of course they did,” I said. “It was soaked with blood.”
“But they also replastered and repainted the bedroom walls,” Monk said. “And there was no blood on them. So why do you think they did that?”
I peered into the telescope. Monk was right. The walls appeared to be freshly painted. I stepped aside and let Stottlemeyer have his turn. He bent down, closed one eye, and looked thr
ough the viewfinder.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Jerry overheard us talking about something valuable being hidden in the couch. He assumed Costa found the valuables and hid them somewhere in the house,” Monk said. “Cleaning up the crime scene gave Jerry free rein to tear the place apart.”
“That’s why Jerry wouldn’t let you stay to help clean,” I said. “He’d already decided what he was going to do.”
“Meaning he’d ransacked a dead person’s home for valuables before,” Stottlemeyer said, straightening up. “Or the decision wouldn’t have come so quickly and easily for him.”
Monk nodded somberly. “Here’s what happened: Stuart Hewson saw all the police activity at Costa’s place and was naturally curious. He kept the scene under constant watch and he saw Jerry find the diamonds.”
“How did Jerry know what Hewson saw or didn’t see?” Stottlemeyer asked. “We’re a couple of blocks away. There’s no way Jerry could have known he was being watched.”
“That was Hewson’s fatal mistake. He called Jerry and demanded a piece of the action,” Monk said. “So Jerry had to silence him.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Jerry wasn’t alone. He had his whole crew with him. I don’t see how he could have done any of this without them knowing about it.”
“You’re right,” Monk said. “They were in on it, too.”
“That’s pure speculation,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I wish it was,” Monk said. “But Stuart Hewson’s body proves it.”
“I don’t see how,” Stottlemeyer said.
“That’s why he was shot four times,” Monk said. “Each member of the crew took a shot so they would all be equally culpable.”
“That’s not proof, Monk, that’s guesswork.”
“My guesses are as good as fact,” Monk said without the slightest trace of modesty. In this case, though, his words carried a palpable sadness.
Jerry’s fall from grace undoubtedly represented a deep and painful betrayal for Monk. I wasn’t too happy about it, either, or what it said about my taste in men.
But the realization that Corinne, the clean and dependable med student, had participated in a theft and a murder had to rub salt and cayenne pepper in the wound.
Stottlemeyer sighed and paced back and forth across the living room. “It could just as easily have been Rico Ramirez who did this. I could make a convincing argument.”
“But it wasn’t him,” Monk said.
“We don’t know that,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I do,” Monk said.
“You’re missing my point.”
“Because you haven’t made one,” Monk said.
“There’s just as much evidence pointing to Rico Ramirez as there is pointing to Jerry Yermo,” Stottlemeyer said. “Which is to say, there is no evidence at all.”
“I just gave you the evidence,” Monk said.
“You gave me a theory, but nothing that would stand up in court,” Stottlemeyer said. “I couldn’t even justify an arrest warrant based on what you’ve given me.”
“You know I’m right,” Monk said.
“What I know and what I can prove are two entirely different things,” Stottlemeyer said. “There’s no physical evidence and there won’t be. Cleaning up this stuff is what Jerry does best. He left nothing incriminating behind.”
“Except the lingering scent of his cleansers and solvents,” I said.
“Yeah, that’ll convince a jury,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It convinced me,” Monk said.
“Anybody could have used the same chemicals to clean this place,” Stottlemeyer said. “Jerry is not the only crime scene cleaner out there. And those chemicals are widely available. Hospitals use ’em, too.”
“What about Hewson’s view? You saw it for yourself,” Monk said. “He can see right into Costa’s house.”
“And a hundred different other homes, too. Or maybe he used his telescope to study the stars and wasn’t a Peeping Tom at all.”
“Why else would the killer move the telescope?” Monk asked.
“Maybe the killer didn’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “Maybe Hewson put it in the closet. Face it, we’ve got nothing.”
“You know Mr. Monk is right,” I said. “So the maybes don’t matter. The question is what are we going to do now?”
Stottlemeyer paced some more and tugged absentmindedly on the corner of his mustache.
“If Jerry has done this before, he must have a network in place to fence the goods that he plunders. The diamonds aren’t worth anything in his pocket. He’ll have to take ’em to the street, and that’s when he’ll be vulnerable. He’s in the same bind that Rico’s in.”
“But Rico doesn’t have the diamonds,” Monk said.
“We have to assume they both do and take it from there,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Why?” Monk asked.
“Because you could be wrong, Monk, and the diamondfencing angle is all we have right now on either one of these killers.”
“So, in effect, you’re waiting for one or both of them to make a mistake,” Monk said.
“You got any better ideas?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“Yes,” Monk said. “Natalie can go on a date.”
Monk had me take him to a hardware store to get a fresh set of masks, gloves, and goggles before going back to my house to finish cleaning my bathroom.
I wasn’t surprised that he was intent on finishing the task. For one thing, he couldn’t leave the job incomplete; it would have nagged at him. But that wasn’t the big reason. He found comfort in cleaning—it was how he put himself and the world back in balance.
So I didn’t argue. I took him to the hardware store and then back home.
I let him scrub for a while in peace before I joined him in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub while he cleaned the tiles.
“What is the world coming to, Natalie?”
“You’ve been deceived before, Mr. Monk.”
“But if you can’t trust a crime scene cleaner, who can you trust?”
“There are bad people in every profession,” I said.
“But crime scene cleaning is a calling,” Monk said. “Jerry took an oath.”
“I wasn’t aware that crime scene cleaners had to take an oath.”
“He had a professional obligation to leave every place he went clean and disinfected. He violated that. And what about Corinne Witt? She’s a medical student. Not only did she break her oath as a crime scene cleaner, but the Hippocratic oath as well.”
“Not to mention a couple of commandments. But is that really why you’re so disappointed?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I think there’s more to it than that.”
He intensified his scrubbing. “I admired Jerry and the principles he stood for. He was out there on the front lines of the war against dirt, decay, and disarray, confronting the worst filth there is head-on, with unrelenting dedication. He cleaned with a depth I can only aspire to.”
“I thought he was a nice guy,” I said. “Understanding, funny, considerate.”
“It wasn’t just him, it was his whole crew. Corinne, Gene, and William. They were people who shared the same core beliefs as me, who put those beliefs into action, who appreciated the beauty and balance of cleanliness and order. They let me be a part of that. I didn’t feel alone anymore.”
“You aren’t alone,” I said. “You have me.”
“I’m talking about people who live by the same principles that I do. You live like an animal.”
“Okay, what about Ambrose?”
“He’s shacking up with an ex-convict biker chick,” Monk said. “Before you know it, he’ll be drinking water from the tap. I’ve lost him.”
“No, you haven’t, Mr. Monk.”
“I’m so alone,” he said.
“Stop whining. If anything, what Jerry has done should make you appreciate the people you already have in your life.”
&nbs
p; “No one I know cleans as thoroughly as he does.”
“Look at the conclusions you jumped to about Stuart Hewson’s character just because you thought he kept a clean house. There are more important measures of character than how clean someone is, or whether someone lives their life exactly the way you want them to. Ambrose, Captain Stottlemeyer, Randy, Sharona, Julie, Molly, and I may not always meet your expectations, or your high standards, but we are always there for you.”
“We don’t clean together,” Monk said.
“I’m letting you clean my bathroom, aren’t I?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Monk said. “Not like it was with Jerry, Corinne, Gene, and William. I had a posse. I’ve always wanted a posse.”
“I know, Mr. Monk.”
“I was betrayed,” Monk said.
“So was I,” I said. “I suppose that gives us one more thing we can share.”
“The pain,” he said.
I nodded. “Sometimes I think that binds people together more than the good times do.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Monk said. “I have so few good times.”
“Yes, but it’s your positive attitude that carries you through.”
Monk glanced at his watch. “What time are you meeting Jerry?”
“We were supposed to get together at six, but given what we’ve learned today, you can’t really expect me to keep my date with him tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a killer. I have a strict rule: I don’t eat with murderers.”
“You have rules?”
“Of course I do,” I said.
“How come you’ve never given me a copy of them?”
“They aren’t written down.”
“Then how do you expect others to follow them?”
“I don’t,” I said. “I am the only one who has to, so I keep them to myself.”
“So who is there to catch you if you break a rule?”
“I am,” I said.
“That sounds like a flawed system to me,” Monk said. “There are no checks and balances.”
“There’s my conscience,” I said.
Monk waved that off. “I have no faith in that.”
“Gee, thanks.”