by Lee Goldberg
“She might demand that I pay off my debt to her with my body.”
“You think you’re that hot?”
“I know I’m that hot,” Disher said.
“Speaking of which,” Monk said, “if Joel Goldman lured Trina out to meet him, it was surely on the pretext of a romantic rendezvous.”
“So they’re meeting at a hotel somewhere,” I said.
Monk shook his head. “He won’t take her to a hotel. There’s too high a risk that they will be seen together. He’ll take her somewhere remote, but not so much so that she finds it suspicious.”
“It could be anywhere,” Disher said.
The phone rang. It was McCracken.
I turned to Monk. “She’s almost as fast at detective work as you.”
“Her detecting is primarily done by computers.”
“Do I sense a little defensiveness?”
“She’s an efficient keyboard-and-mouse detective,” Monk said. “You, of all people, should know the difference between what she does and what we do.”
“We?” I said.
“We,” he said.
Disher quickly scrawled some notes on his blotter.
“Thank you so much, Agent McCracken. I owe you big-time,” he said, and hung up. “Trina Fishbeck left Manhattan for New Jersey over an hour ago along Interstate Eighty.”
“How did McCracken get that information so fast?” I asked.
“We made it easy for her by being timely and precise. We were asking her surveillance matrix to scan activity regarding a specific person over the last few hours along key geographical checkpoints. It would have been a different story if we were talking about days.” Disher got up and went to the map on the wall. “Trina made and received calls that puts her in the general area of Denville.”
He tapped an area about twenty-five miles northwest of Summit. Monk and I stepped up on either side of Disher and looked at the map.
“What’s out there?” Monk asked.
“A good chunk of the state of New Jersey,” Disher said. “Forests, rock quarries, gravel pits, and other good places for disposing of bodies.”
But I saw something else, too. Lots of little patches of blue dotting the area.
“And there are a lot of lakes,” I said.
“How does that help us?” Disher asked.
“When we first met Goldman, on the night of the murder, he mentioned that he’d built a cabin at Spirit Lake,” I said. “Where’s that in relation to Denville?”
“How do I know? I’m new here,” Disher said. “I have no idea.”
“You knew about the rock quarries and gravel pits out there,” I said.
“Only because I watched The Sopranos,” he said.
Monk looked at the key on the side of the map, found Spirit Lake on it, and then found the grid where the lake was located.
“The lake is only a few miles north of Denville,” Monk said.
“You two start heading out there,” Disher said. “I’ll find out where Goldman’s cabin is and be right behind you.”
The lake was thirty minutes away from Summit if you obeyed the speed limit, which I assumed Joel Goldman had done. The last thing you want to happen on your way to a murder is to get stopped for a speeding ticket.
But we could go as fast as we wanted without any worries, though judging by the look of terror Monk had on his face as I drove pedal-to-the-floor, I don’t know if he would agree with me about that.
Even though Goldman had a big head start on us, I was determined to make up the difference by hitting the siren and driving like Michael Schumacher up the 287 to I-80.
By the time we reached the turnoff on I-80 that led to Spirit Lake, Disher was right behind us. He’d alerted the local police that we were coming and requested backup, but they were busy dealing with a report of a kid with a gun in their local high school, which was on lockdown until they found him.
So we were on our own.
We turned off our sirens as we left the major streets and transitioned to the narrow, unpaved roads that wound through the thick woods to the mobile homes and hunting and fishing cabins that dotted the area around tiny, undeveloped lakes.
I finally came across a rusted mailbox pocked with pellet holes that had the address Disher had given us over the radio.
I slowed way down as we bumped and bounced along the rutted road until we reached a small clearing surrounded by towering pines. In the center was a wood-planked cabin, an outhouse, and a storage shed.
A blue Honda Accord was parked out front, right beside a rust-eaten, salt-corroded brown van.
We were definitely in the right spot. But were we too late to save Trina Fishbeck?
We parked our patrol cars side by side and took out our guns as we emerged from our vehicles. Monk didn’t look very comfortable holding his weapon. He probably would have preferred to be wielding a can of Lysol instead.
Disher made some very military-looking, rapid hand signals that I interpreted to mean: be quiet, I see you, you see me, there’s something in your hair, you two go here, I’ll go there, circle here, circle there, and your zipper is open. Or he could have been saying something entirely different. I had no idea what he was trying to say.
So he went to the front door, Monk went around back, and I headed toward the outhouse and shed.
I kicked open the door of the outhouse and was hit by a smell so awful I almost gagged. I quickly moved to the shed, nudged open the door with the toe of my shoe, and saw that it was filled with rusted tools and cobwebs.
That’s when I heard the digging.
I looked over my shoulder to signal Monk and Disher to follow me, but I didn’t see them. They were probably in the house.
I took a deep breath and moved slowly through the trees in the direction of the sound. A bead of sweat rolled between my shoulder blades, tickling my skin as I crept along cautiously, trying not to crunch too many twigs and leaves under my feet so I wouldn’t announce my presence.
The trees were thick and it was hard to see very far ahead. But the sound was getting louder, though less frequent. Whoever was digging was either nearly finished or getting tired.
I came through some trees and caught a glimpse of a mud-caked and sweaty Trina Fishbeck standing in a shallow grave, shoveling out dirt as Joel stood over her. His back was to me and he was aiming a shotgun at Trina. Her shoulders were heaving, as much from her sobs as the strain of digging.
“That’s deep enough,” Joel said.
I took a quick, desperate glance over my shoulder. If Disher and Monk were back there somewhere, I couldn’t see them. I was alone.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” she said, her voice cracking as she struggled to speak through her sobs. “I loved you.”
“So did Pamela,” Joel said. “But you can blame Adrian Monk for this. Somehow he figured it all out. If that hadn’t happened, we’d be in bed right now.”
“We still could be,” she said.
“You’d sleep with me even after I made you dig your own grave?”
“I’m a very forgiving person,” she said.
“I’ll remember that about you,” he said and raised the shotgun.
I planted my feet firmly on the ground and took aim. “Don’t move, Goldman.”
“Who do we have here?” he said, without lowering his weapon.
“Summit Police. Drop the weapon and put your hands on your head.”
“Oh, it’s you, the make-believe cop.”
I felt a pang of anxiety in the pit of my stomach because he’d said pretty much what I was feeling at that exact moment.
“My badge is real and so is the gun I’ve got aimed at you.”
I wasn’t sure who I was trying harder to convince, him or myself.
“Yes, but I don’t think you’ve got the balls to fire it. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to shoot you and then I’m going to shoot her and then I’ll bury you both.”
“I’m not alone, Goldma
n.”
“I’m even less afraid of Monk than I am of you,” he said and whirled around toward me.
I heard the gunshot and saw him tumble backward into the grave, the shotgun flying out of his hands, before I even realized that I’d fired my weapon.
Perhaps that’s because Trina’s scream was even louder than the gunshot.
She scrambled out of the grave and ran into the trees, nearly colliding with Disher and Monk as they came out.
I marched up to the narrow grave and peered down into it. Joel Goldman was wedged faceup in the middle of it, his body bent at the waist so that his legs were sticking up over the edge. He was conscious and moaning in pain, pressing his hand against a big, bloody wound in his right shoulder.
I was so relieved that Goldman was alive that I almost cried. But instead I kept my gun leveled on him and forced myself to look him right in the eye when I spoke.
“Are you afraid of me now?”
He nodded, gritting his teeth against the tremendous pain. I nodded, too.
“Then I guess we’ve both learned something today,” I said. “You’re under arrest.”
Monk stepped up beside me. “Are you okay?”
I thought about it for a moment so that I was sure of the answer myself.
“Yes,” I said, “I am.”
31
Mr. Monk Makes a Big Decision
Our next two weeks, compared to our first few days, were relatively uneventful.
I didn’t have any regrets or go into much soul-searching about my actions at Spirit Lake and didn’t suffer any stress over it, either. I really was okay with shooting Joel Goldman. I don’t know how I would have felt, though, if I’d killed him.
Monk and I continued patrolling Summit, New Jersey, on the day shift, dealing mostly with traffic violations, a few drunk-and-disorderly calls, and we arrested a serial shoplifter. No major crimes or murders were committed, much to my relief.
When we weren’t working, I honed my shooting skills at the firing range with Evie, who I gradually grew to like quite a bit, much to my astonishment and probably to hers as well.
But that wasn’t nearly the most surprising relationship that developed in Summit over those weeks. That honor would have to go to Adrian Monk and Ellen Morse.
Monk spent almost all of his free time with her. Although he still wouldn’t set foot in Poop, he had no qualms about being in her house, where they worked together on assembling a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of George Chambers’s painting of the 1916 naval bombardment of Algiers by the British and Dutch fleets.
They probably completed the whole puzzle together in an hour and just kept repeating the process every night, but that’s a guess on my part.
Beyond telling us about the puzzle, and praising her culinary talent, organizing prowess, and exemplary sanitary habits (with the exception of her business, of course), Monk didn’t talk much about their time together, despite frequent and persistent interrogations by me and Sharona.
Things might have continued along indefinitely like that if not for the call I got from Captain Stottlemeyer on my cell phone one night at Sharona’s house.
“How’s it going out there?” he asked.
“Randy’s got the city government running more or less smoothly and crime is at a bare minimum,” I said. “The scandal is still in the news every day, but he’s not part of the story anymore. The powers-that-be in Trenton, and the people in town, seem to have faith in his stewardship.”
“Great. So, when are you planning to come back? Monk has a pay-or-play consulting contract with us. The payroll department wants to know if we’re suspending it and, if so, for how long. I’m kind of curious about that myself.”
We’d been so caught up in the flow of things, we hadn’t given any thought to our return. But now that Stottlemeyer had brought it up, I started thinking about how nice it would be to sleep in my own bed instead of on Disher’s couch.
“Let me talk to Mr. Monk and Randy about it and I’ll get right back to you.”
“I’d appreciate that. But from what I hear, you seem pretty comfortable wearing the badge and uniform. Are you thinking of a career change?”
“Are you offering me a job?”
“The department is always on the lookout for qualified men and women who are willing to serve. But I couldn’t fast-track you the way Randy did. You’d probably have to go through the academy training program. Law enforcement here in the big city is a whole lot tougher than it is out in Summit.”
“I’m well aware of that,” I said.
“I’m just reminding you, that’s all. You’ve got a good thing going now. You might want to think twice before you walk away from it.”
“What thing are you referring to?” I said. “My job here or my job with Mr. Monk?”
“I’ll be waiting for your call. Give my best to everyone.”
And then he hung up, pointedly avoiding my question. But his comment made me think of something Sharona had said to me one night two weeks ago.
Who says you have to go back?
I thought about the questions he’d raised and wondered why I hadn’t been thinking about them myself. Stottlemeyer was right. I was enjoying my new job. But was it something I wanted to make permanent?
But then I started to think about my life in San Francisco. Although my daughter was an adult now, and on her own, she was only across the bay in Berkeley, close enough for me to still see her often. How much longer would that last?
And I still lived in the home that Mitch and I bought together. Next to Julie, it was the one thing I had left that we had all shared together. Was I willing to walk away from it and make a clean break from my past?
That still left open the possibility of being a cop in San Francisco. Was that something I really wanted? Wasn’t I already a de facto homicide detective? How important was it to me to wear a badge and carry a gun? And did I want the responsibilities, and dangers, that came with it? And did I want to be a cop if I wasn’t partnered with Monk?
Those were big questions to consider and I hadn’t even talked to Monk or Disher yet.
So I went into the kitchen, where everyone was gathered around the table, watching Monk cutting a pan of fresh brownies into squares using a compass, a tape measure, string, a knife, and a spatula.
Strings were stretched taut across the pan in evenly spaced horizontal and vertical rows and taped to the edges. Monk was preparing to cut, using the strings as his guide.
“That was Captain Stottlemeyer,” I said. “He’s wondering when we’re coming back.”
Disher leaned back in his seat. “He’s been on me for a couple of days about that, but I’ve been stalling him.”
“Are you still having trouble finding two candidates to replace us?” Monk asked as he cut into the brownies with the precision and concentration of a coronary surgeon performing a quadruple bypass.
“I’ve found a few good candidates. But to be honest, I’ve been putting off a decision because I figured the longer I waited, the more likely it was that you two would consider staying.”
“Both of us?” I said.
“Absolutely, though I’m making the offer to each of you individually. You don’t have to both agree to it.”
I sat down.
Monk stopped cutting the brownies and sat down, too.
This was a big decision.
“I’ve spent my entire life in the Bay Area,” Monk said.
“Maybe that’s reason enough to make a change,” Sharona said. “You could have a new life here, Adrian, one that’s slower and less stressful, and Ellen could be a part of it. We all could. You’d be among family.”
“But Ambrose is there,” Monk said.
“He’s got a motor home now,” Sharona said. “He can come out and visit. In fact, you being here would be a strong motivation to get him to leave the house, hit the open road, and see the country.”
Monk shifted from side to side in his seat as he mulled it all over.
>
Disher looked at me. “What about you, Natalie? What do you have holding you in San Francisco?”
“Mr. Monk, for one thing.”
“Okay, let’s say he decided to come here, or at least gave you his blessing to leave, then what have you got back there?”
“Memories,” I said.
“Me, too,” Monk said.
“You can bring your memories with you wherever you go,” Sharona said. “You don’t need your homes for that.”
She had made a good point.
I looked at Monk.
He looked at me.
“What do you think, Mr. Monk?”
He thought about it for a long moment, rolled his shoulders, and then came to a decision.…
Don’t miss another exciting book
in the Monk series,
MR. MONK IS A MESS
Available in hardcover in June 2012 from Obsidian.
The hours pass very slowly when you’re sitting in a squad car, parked behind a billboard on a New Jersey country road, waiting for speeders to whiz by.
It’s not the most glamorous side of law enforcement, but writing $390 speeding tickets pays the bills, especially when a handful of corrupt politicians have looted the town treasury to finance their outrageously extravagant lifestyles.
So that’s why Adrian Monk and I—the lovely and resourceful Natalie Teeger—had to do our stint early that Monday morning out on the old highway, a remote, curving stretch of two-lane asphalt surrounded by rolling hills no driver could resist taking at high speed.
We were into our third week working as uniformed police officers in Summit, thousands of miles away from our homes in San Francisco, where Monk was usually employed as a police consultant and I toiled, underpaid and underappreciated, as his long-suffering assistant.
Summit was basically an upscale bedroom community for highly educated, well-off professionals who worked in New York City, which was only a thirty-minute train ride away. The town’s roots as a pastoral farming community were still evident in the rolling hills, tree-lined streets, and the lush landscaping around the homes, many of which dated back to the early 1900s and had been impeccably restored and maintained. That cost lots of money, but from what I could see, there was no shortage of that in Summit, except in the recently looted town treasury.