Mr. Monk Helps Himself

by Hy Conrad

  Monk and I had somehow wound up at the front. The pack of people pressed up against us, and for a second, I thought we might get pushed over the edge ourselves. Monk was in an especially dangerous position. He can’t stand being touched, even under the best circumstances. And now, with a human horde behind him jostling for a better view, I could see him considering jumping, just to get away from them.

  I grabbed his arm and he didn’t pull away. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Miranda Bigley jumped.” I couldn’t believe I was saying those words. But I guess they were true.

  Everyone was gazing out over the Pacific now, listening through the surf for any sounds of life. Miranda had been wearing a bright yellow top, but there was no dot of yellow visible in the churning waves. One of the guests had taken out his phone and was filming the empty expanse of blue-green water.

  Monk leaned into me, a very somber look in his eye. “Was it because of me?”

  “What? No, Mr. Monk. Not everything is about you.”

  “Well, I was pretty brutal. I called the woman a cult leader. Some people can’t take criticism.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I shot back. “Miranda Bigley was a strong woman.”

  “And yet she killed herself right after talking to me.”

  “A lot of people feel that way. But there are no documented cases of Monk-related suicides. Believe me, I should know.”

  “Not until now. Cult leaders have very fragile egos.”

  The man with the camera phone pointed it off to a small red object bobbing in the foam, buffeted between a pair of black rocks. “Sandal,” he shouted. “That’s one of her sandals.” Then he went back to filming.

  Within half an hour, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office had arrived, cordoning off the cliff with yellow tape and taking our statements. The helicopter arrived around the same time, making great sweeps up and down the shoreline. Within an hour of the jump, two coast guard boats were patrolling the waters in front of the Sanctuary. I could see several divers in scuba gear and wet suits waiting on deck.

  The meditation center became the hub of the rescue operations. Monk and I sat in a corner, filling out statement cards. Actually, I filled out mine, then filled out Monk’s for him. I find that this is faster, since he always takes so much time perfectly writing out each letter. More than once, people have mistaken his penmanship for a computer printout. In case you’re interested, his chosen font is Times New Roman. For years and years, he did Helvetica, but then developed an issue with their lowercase “s.”

  “Do you think I should identify myself?” he asked, glancing across to a sheriff’s deputy.

  “You mean being a police consultant?” I looked up from his half-completed card. “I didn’t mention it on mine. This isn’t a crime scene.”

  “I mean as the person who drove her to suicide.”

  “You didn’t drive her to”—I lowered my voice—“to anything. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Can I borrow a pen?” The interruption came from a girl in her midtwenties—tall and muscularly lean, with a reddish brown bob and bangs that accentuated her perfect jawline. I recognized her from the staff orientation. Teresa Garcia, the Sanctuary’s massage therapist. When I’d arrived last night, I set up an appointment, but I didn’t think either of us would be in the mood for it now.

  “Sure,” I said, and began to rummage through my bag.

  “Have they found her yet?”

  “Not that I know of.” I handed her the pen. “Keep it.”

  “Thanks.” She sighed. “It’s so inexplicable. Miranda’s whole business was self-fulfillment and happiness. She’s talked people out of suicide. If she was having any troubles at all, there were a hundred people she could have turned to. Why, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Well, I did say something to her,” Monk said. “About her cult—”

  “Mr. Monk,” I interrupted. “Teresa is a massage therapist here. Teresa, this is my friend Adrian Monk. He came for lunch.”

  I told you about my magpie strategy. This was another example. And it worked. The idea of talking to a woman who touches half-naked people for a living was too much. It would be like me learning that this woman was a snake handler or raised leaches for medical purposes. It was just enough to shut him up.

  “Nice to meet you,” Teresa said, and was slightly taken aback when Monk’s hands flew into his pockets. “I’m sorry you had to visit us under such horrible circumstances.”

  I was prepared for the moment to get more awkward but was saved by the appearance of Damien Bigley, coming from the other side of the center. “Teresa, sorry to interrupt.”

  Damien was a George Clooney type. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he purposely modeled himself after the heartthrob actor. He was large but not heavy, well-dressed but not fussy. But it was a look that could easily turn disheveled—and at the moment, Damien was looking disheveled. He apologized to us as well, then turned back to Teresa.

  “I have to get out of here for a while, to preserve my sanity.”

  “What about the press?” she asked gently. “There are at least two TV trucks outside the gates. You can see the antennas from here.”

  “They’re going to be like vultures.” He shook his head. “There’s nothing they like more than irony. First the owner of the Segway company accidentally drives one off a cliff. Now a self-help guru commits suicide. They’re going to reduce poor Miranda to a sick joke.” His voice caught in his throat.

  What he was saying was absolutely true. I remember the case of Jim Fixx. Back in my teenage years he’d been kind of a hero of mine, the man who practically invented jogging. I started doing it myself and lost a ton of weight, which did wonders for my popularity. But when Jim Fixx died of a heart attack while jogging, the late-night comics were all over it.

  “Mr. Bigley,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Thank you. We’ll get through this. Anyway, I need a little drive along the coast. Clear my head.” He took out a set of keys. “The gardener’s pickup is by the side gate. I’m pretty sure I can get away without being seen.”

  “I’ll take care of things here,” Teresa promised. She put a comforting arm on his shoulder and walked him out the door.

  “I’m glad to see they’re getting along,” Monk said as they disappeared from view.

  He expected me to understand. I didn’t. “What do you mean, getting along?”

  “They had a big fight. From the shade of the coagulated blood on his left earlobe, I’d say two hours ago. And there’s the tiniest drop of blood on her collar. She hasn’t noticed it yet, so I assume that’s fairly recent, too. The most obvious theory is the two of them had a fight and she bit his ear.”

  Oh! I guess I’d seen the blood, too, now that I thought about it: a red spot at the very bottom of Damien’s ear. And then the equally tiny stain on Teresa’s top. I could have kicked myself for not putting the pieces together. But then Monk isn’t perfect, either.

  “Mr. Monk, I don’t think that was from a fight.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “Sex. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it.”

  If Adrian Monk was like a Superman of detectives, then sex would be his Kryptonite. He just didn’t get it, which could be both charming and annoying.

  “Sex!” His shoulders twitched twice, two involuntary spasms of revulsion. “Augh! People actually bite each other during coitus? I mean, I’ve read about it, but I thought it was just folklore.”

  “It’s not folklore. Not that I’ve ever done it myself,” I lied. What’s a little love bite on the ear? But I knew he wasn’t ready to hear that.

  “Good. I don’t want anyone I know biting each other like cannibals or preying mantises. What’s this world coming to?”

  I didn’t know what it was coming to. I was too busy thinking about Miranda’s husband and the tall Hispanic masseuse at his side. “So, Damien and Teresa are having an affair,” I whispered.
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br />   “Or a fight,” Monk said, then shrugged. “Okay, probably an affair. That would also explain him smelling of her perfume. You don’t always get that from a fight.”

  “No, you don’t,” I agreed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mr. Monk Goes Unanswered

  I guess it didn’t really hit me emotionally until the drive back.

  We were barely onto the I-280, heading north when Monk brought up the obvious—insensitive but obvious. “Okay, maybe I didn’t cause her suicide,” he admitted. “It was her husband’s affair. Ms. Cult Leader found out and couldn’t handle it.”

  “That’s not true,” I protested. “Miranda helped hundreds of women deal with this exact situation. You didn’t know her. You can’t judge.”

  “It’s not a judgment.” He was tightly gripping his seat belt the way he always did when I drove. “In seventy-nine percent of suicides in which one or both partners are having an affair, the affair is the primary cause of the suicide. It’s a well-known statistic.”

  “Well-known? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “That’s because you don’t read the annual report from the World Health Organization. It’s in a footnote on page three forty-four.”

  “Statistics,” I snorted, and kept my eyes locked on the road. “Did you know that sixty-two point seven percent of all statistics are made up?”

  “No. You’re making that up.”

  “Exactly.”

  He winced. “I get it. Humor. Well, that doesn’t change the facts. Your beloved cult leader—”

  “Stop calling her that,” I shouted into the windshield. “She has a name. It’s Miranda and she was a wonderful human being. She was more giving and caring than you’ll ever be. So don’t pretend you know her, because you don’t. You don’t have a clue. Not a clue.”

  Looking back on those words, I can see how harsh they sound. But at the moment, they expressed exactly how I felt and I wasn’t about to take them back.

  For once, in a personal interaction, Monk said the right thing. Nothing. No protest, no statistic, no counterargument. It was probably the only way of stopping my rant, and somewhere inside, he knew it.

  We sat for several minutes, until the merge onto 101 North. Then, calmer and sick of the silence, I punched the button on the radio. But instead of the comfort of the classic oldies on 89.3, I heard, “The drive for happiness is a modern phenomenon.” It was her voice, soothing and self-assured. “No one asked the cave man if he was happy. Throughout most of history, it was only important that someone’s God was made happy or the local lord or king. The life of man, according to an English philosopher, was ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ But we live in different times—wonderful times—with an almost limitless possibility for creating our own joy.”

  I had forgotten that I’d been listening to the CD on the drive down. I switched it off and the car fell once more into silence. Not quite silence. I found myself sobbing the rest of the way.

  I dropped Monk off at his apartment on Pine Street, still crying (me, not him), then steered my middle-aged Subaru down Divisadero to a treelined street and my protective cocoon of a Victorian row house.

  There was already a car in my driveway and I was so glad to see it. I parked on the street. By the time I made it to the front door, it was open. Ellen Morse appeared in the doorway, wearing my favorite white apron, her eyes wet with tears, holding open her arms. I fell right into them.

  “I knew you taped a key under your mailbox,” she said, shutting the door behind us. “I hope you don’t mind. But I thought you shouldn’t be alone.” A familiar savory smell wafted in from the kitchen. “Meat loaf,” she explained. “And mac and cheese. Comfort food was invented for moments like this.”

  This was so Ellen. She wasn’t just being empathetic. Anyone can do that, except Monk. But to take it upon yourself to do something big, like buy groceries and break into my house and cook dinner. She even figured out where I kept the garlic press and how to work the temp on my rather temperamental oven.

  It was just what I needed. After an early dinner and a bottle and a half of a Napa Valley merlot, we settled into the living room with the other half.

  “I had the news on right before you showed up.” She’d obviously been saving this until I’d had my share of merlot. “They found a suicide note. In her bedroom. Her handwriting.”

  “What did it say?” I asked.

  “That part hasn’t been released. But I guess she planned it. It wasn’t an accident or a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

  “I know it wasn’t an accident. I just need to know why.”

  She knew what I meant. The system that Miranda invented, the Best Possible Me, had made such a difference for both of us. It was impossible to think that all those words were suddenly meaningless, that the woman who’d said them didn’t believe in them enough to save her own life.

  Ellen’s phone was on the coffee table, and as we sat down with the remnants of the bottle, I could see it vibrating.

  “Adrian,” she explained, and watched as it went to voice mail. “I canceled on him tonight. He’s been calling every ten minutes or so. Knowing him, I’m sure it’s exactly every ten minutes.”

  “You’re not going to answer?”

  “What’s the point? He’ll whine and fixate on the fact that I canceled. Then we’ll all feel bad and the whole reason for me being here will be defeated.”

  This made sense, but was also a little out of character. “Is everything all right?”

  “Of course,” she said in a tone that meant no. Then her tone turned philosophical. “I never needed to question my impulses. If I tend to give more than I get in my relationship with Adrian, that’s been my choice.”

  “As long as it remains a choice,” I added, echoing the Miranda Bigley point of view. “When you feel it becoming an obligation or a trap, then you have to reevaluate. Is that what you’re doing? Reevaluating?”

  This was a tough topic to bring up. I cared for Monk and Ellen both and wanted them each to be happy. Until now, I’d thought these goals were compatible, part of the same scenario. But maybe not.

  “No, I love Adrian, quirks and all. I just wish sometimes he could be a little more supportive. For example, does he have to ridicule my career every time we get together? If he could cut the ridicule down to twice a week …”

  “It was a big step for him, even to say the name of your store. I mean, ‘Poop’?”

  She shrugged. “Do you have any idea how hard it is running two stores twenty-five hundred miles apart? In this economy? And then to have a loved one constantly make insults …”

  “He’s capable of change.”

  “Maybe. But Adrian shouldn’t have to change for me.”

  “Yes, he should. You’re the best thing to happen to him in years. The only thing.”

  She chuckled and sighed. “This probably isn’t the right time to discuss it, not on the same day our life coach jumped off a cliff.”

  “Good point.” I gulped what was left of my wine and hunted around for the remote. “So … I think I have a few episodes of Dancing with the Stars.”

  “Love that show,” Ellen said with a lopsided grin. “Always makes me feel better.”

  “Does it really?”

  “Sure. It’s like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer. Makes you forget all about the pain in your foot.”

  I clicked and we were suddenly in the middle of the ABC local news. Two seconds later and the proverbial pain in the foot was back, throbbing more than ever.

  Cindy Namaguci, the entertainment reporter for KGO, stood in front of the Belmont, the grand duchess of Union Square hotels. At her side, looking reluctant and a little trapped, was a familiar face. She had his Clooney-esque arm firmly grasped in her manicured claw.

  “We were here this evening to do a segment on the opening night of the San Francisco Tech Expo, happening here in the Belmont ballroom. We’ll be showing that later, on the eleven o’clock news.”
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  The reporter’s face was trying to strike a balance between tasteful sadness and the elation of a national scoop. “Right now, we’ve been lucky enough to come across Damien Bigley, chief operating officer of BPM Enterprises and husband of the self-help icon Miranda Bigley, who died today in an apparent suicide at their Half Moon Bay retreat. Mr. Bigley, your wife was beloved by millions of admirers. We’re so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you, Cindy. I have no statement at this time.” At the bottom of the screen, I could see the top of a rolling suitcase. “As you can imagine, I left the retreat in order to get a little privacy and to try to deal with this tragedy. If you’ll excuse me …”

  “Well, I guess there’s no hiding from the press,” she simpered.

  “I guess not.” Then he faced the camera. “My heart goes out to all of Miranda’s followers. She was a phenomenal woman who gave so much to so many. Her legacy will go on.”

  “Can you give us an inkling what may have been behind her alleged suicide? I mean, apparent suicide.”

  “I don’t know. If I’d had any idea at all that she’d been contemplating such a tragic act …”

  “Who is that?” Ellen had stopped listening and was pointing to a figure in the background. It was a woman half hidden behind the trunk of a California date palm. I could barely make out a reddish brown bob. “Is that Teresa Garcia?”

  Ellen had visited the Sanctuary several times during her trips to the West Coast and knew Teresa. Over dinner, I had told her about Monk’s sexual deduction and we’d discussed it at length. She’d been as surprised as me.

  “Yes,” I confirmed, peering at the screen. From her body language, I could sense the athletically built therapist was not happy about her lover being caught on camera. She also had no idea that she was in the shot, looking furtive and impatient behind the trunk of a palm.

  Within the next minute, Damien had extricated himself from the interview and pulled his rolling bag through the hotel entrance, leaving Cindy Namaguci to reluctantly go to a commercial. I turned off the set.