Mr. Monk Helps Himself

by Hy Conrad

  Toward the bottom of page two, there was a question about police reports. I think I got it right. But it also got me thinking about Miranda’s police report. Why was I suddenly thinking about her police report? There was something odd… .

  Before I knew it, five minutes had passed, and I hadn’t even looked at the next question. What was it about the report that was distracting me? I’d had a copy of it for days now. I’d looked it over a dozen times. Why was it sticking in my head?

  The subconscious is funny. It’s aware of stuff that you’re not, not on the surface. But I find that if I look back and try to find the trigger … What prompted this? Was it the YouTube video I’d just seen? Was it my drive down here? Was it something in the test? Was it my conversation with Devlin about the phone?

  Eureka! The phone. I’d have to check the report, but I was sure I was right.

  I didn’t know what it meant. No idea. But I’d just discovered something odd about Miranda’s phone and couldn’t wait to let Monk figure it out.

  For the next hour and a half, I tried to force myself to concentrate. But it wasn’t happening. Whatever focus I’d had at the beginning was gone.

  “HIPAA is a federal law about the privacy of medical records. What does the letter P stand for?”

  It probably stands for “Privacy,” I thought. No. Too easy. Was it Policy? Or Plan? It certainly couldn’t be Portability. Where did that choice come from? I knew I had seen the answer somewhere in the twelve pounds of study guide. But I wound up going with Julie’s suggestion: b.

  It went downhill from there. Between my general unpreparedness and Miranda’s phone and my desperate need to get back to town and talk to Monk, I turned in my test and didn’t even wait for the results.

  I knew I’d failed miserably.

  The answer, by the way, was Portability. Is that crazy? What the hell does portability have to do with medical privacy?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Mr. Monk and the Breakup

  While I’d been away in Hayward, choosing random Bs and Ds, the other members of the task force had been at the station house. A quick text to Devlin assured me they were still there. That was good.

  The blinds in the captain’s office were artfully drawn. Fully closed, they might arouse suspicion, but they were just open enough to prevent a passing officer from seeing too much. I knocked on the door and eased it open. Monk, Devlin, and Stottlemeyer all shot me quick, startled glances, then went back to work. They seemed energized and excited, even Monk. It was good to see him so involved in a case.

  Devlin tried to catch me up. “I combed through the local financial news from 2009. That was a year or two after the crash, so there was a lot.”

  “The lieutenant’s been busy.” Stottlemeyer smiled. It was as close to beaming as he got.

  Devlin continued. “Harriman Brokerage, of which both John and Alicia were partners, was on the bubble, like many companies. Really overextended. A lot of firms were being investigated for misuse of funds. But Harriman made good. All his clients were paid in full.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “That’s the big question. Whatever Harriman did to get out of the hole couldn’t have required a lot of capital and had to happen quickly. On a hunch, I checked the public record of short sales of Cemedrin stock or, more specifically, the parent company, Medical Mills.”

  I basically know what short selling is. That’s one of the advantages of growing up rich, where half the talk at the dinner table is about how Uncle Walt made a killing in the market. I’ll try to keep it simple.

  Let’s say I think Cemedrin stock will go down. So I “borrow” ten thousand shares from Investor Bob and promise to return them to him in a month. I pay Investor Bob a small fee, which is the only cash I need to play this game. Bob’s happy because he didn’t want to sell the stock anyway and he’s making money.

  Right away I sell the Cemedrin; let’s say for a hundred bucks a share. Then I hold on to my million bucks and wait.

  Cut to a month later and the Cemedrin stock has tanked. It’s now ten bucks a share. I buy Cemedrin at this new price and give it back to Investor Bob, as agreed. He has his ten thousand shares, same as before. And I have close to $900,000 in profit.

  I looked at Devlin. “You’re saying they shorted Medical Mills right before the poisonings.”

  She grinned. “John was the borrower of record. He placed it through six different brokerage houses, just to keep it under the radar. But once I knew what I was looking for …”

  “John wound up with an eighteen-million-dollar payday, and his firm stayed in business.” Stottlemeyer looked to his lieutenant. “Great work, Amy.” He only called her Amy when it was something very good or very bad.

  Devlin tried not to blush. “This confirms that Harriman’s our guy. It’s not just based on some Monk mumbo-jumbo anymore. No offense. Unfortunately, if we take this in front of a judge, the FBI will find out.”

  Monk held up his hand. “The FBI doesn’t have to be involved, not if we put this in our back pocket and go after Harriman for killing Smith.”

  “I would love to, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said with a sigh. “And how do you suppose we do that? Harriman probably doesn’t even know that Smith was his blackmailer or that he’s dead. There’s nothing to tie him to it.”

  Monk winced and lowered his hand. “I’ll come up with something.”

  “Make it fast. The longer we wait, the more trouble we’ll be in when we have to go to Special Agent Grooms.”

  I think we all shuddered in unison at the thought of being chewed out by the FBI bully with his off-centered widow’s peak.

  It was an awkward moment. And it was only broken when Stottlemeyer suddenly recalled why I was late. “Natalie. I forgot. How was the test? Hold on. Save the details. I’ll break out my emergency bottle and we’ll have a toast.”

  “I flunked,” I said quickly, ripping off the proverbial Band-Aid.

  “What? Is this a joke?” Devlin seemed truly puzzled.

  “Sorry, Natalie,” said the captain. “I hear the tests are hard.” I didn’t know which was worse, having everyone sorry for me or disappointed.

  “How could you flunk?” Monk asked.

  “Oh, don’t start with me. You’d still be back there sharpening pencils. The reason I flunked was … Okay, maybe I was a little underprepared. But I found the cell phone clue,” I told Monk. “The clue you were looking for.”

  “Mr. Smith had a phone?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “Not that case. The suicide at Half Moon Bay. The so-called suicide.”

  “Natalie, please,” said the captain. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “But Adrian said there was a three percent chance.”

  “That was if someone called Miranda’s phone while her body was in the water,” Devlin corrected me. “No one did.”

  “I know. But that wasn’t her phone.” The excitement I’d felt during the test had faded since walking through the door. But now, as I paced the floor and explained, it came back.

  The thing that had subconsciously bugged me about the police report was the phone found twisted in Miranda’s pocket. It was a small T-Mobile, not even a smartphone. But Miranda’s phone, her only one, was an iPhone.

  Devlin could back me up on this, and she did. “You’re right. I should have noticed the discrepancy.”

  “So, where is Miranda’s real phone?” I continued. “And what was the other one doing in her pocket?”

  “Monk?” Stottlemeyer was looking impatient. “Is this a case or not?”

  Monk cricked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I was humoring her. Natalie needed humoring.”

  “Humoring? Since when do I need humoring?”

  “Since you joined that cult and went overboard.”

  “But you said the phone was important.”

  Monk frowned. “It was a tiny oddity, so I said three percent. Have you seen three percent lately? It’s small. Doesn’t mean a thing.”

&n
bsp; “Yes, it does,” I insisted. I went to the dry-erase board and, without thinking, grabbed an eraser. “First, we need to get hold of the T-Mobile phone. Find out who bought it, who has it now. Probably Damien, since it was in Miranda’s possession and he’s the next of kin. The phone itself is probably useless from the water—”

  “Natalie!” Stottlemeyer’s voice boomed. “What are you doing?”

  It turns out I was erasing the board, the one covered with bullet points from the Cemedrin case. “Sorry. We’ll get another dry-erase board in here. We can work on both cases at the same time.”

  “Natalie, step away from the eraser. Devlin, fix the board before we forget.”

  “Sorry.” I gave Amy Devlin the eraser and stepped away. But that didn’t stop me. “Our step after that is to find Miranda’s iPhone. Damien probably has that, too.”

  “Stop now!” the captain barked. This time I stopped. “Natalie, take a look at yourself. Do you even see what you’re doing?”

  To be honest, I couldn’t see what they saw. I saw a case like any other Monk case—puzzling, impossible, but one that was going to get solved. The fact that I was so emotionally committed didn’t seem material. Obviously it was.

  “You’re obsessing over a suicide in another jurisdiction,” the captain said, lowering his voice to a patient growl. “The sheriff’s office closed the case.”

  “I understand,” I said, thinking I did. “You don’t have to help. Adrian and I can do it ourselves.”

  “No, you can’t,” said Stottlemeyer. “We’re working a series of high-profile murders that had the city in a panic. Now we have a new victim and a viable suspect. And we have this sword called the FBI hanging over our heads. Every moment counts. I can’t let Monk get distracted with trips to Half Moon Bay and little inconsistencies in a case twenty miles away that doesn’t even exist.”

  Captain Stottlemeyer can be very eloquent when he wants to be.

  “You don’t even know what you’re looking for,” said Devlin, pitching in. She had just repaired the board and was trying to look sympathetic.

  But I was having none of it. “I know what this is about. You think the Cemedrin case is going to make your career.”

  “Maybe,” Devlin half agreed. “But it could as easily ruin all our careers if we don’t do it right.”

  “So I just have to forget about Miranda Bigley? I can’t.”

  “You don’t have to,” said Stottlemeyer. “But Monk does. We have a contract with him. We would love to have you on this case, Natalie, but if you can’t let go of this suicide …”

  It sounded like he was getting suspiciously close to firing me. There’s been more than one time when Monk has been fired from a case and, by extension, me. But never me alone. “Are you firing me?”

  “No. I’m just laying down the law.”

  “You can’t do that. Adrian and I are a team. If we want to work on this case on our own time, you can’t stop us.”

  “Actually, I don’t.” Monk had said it so softly I almost didn’t hear.

  “You don’t?”

  “Like the captain said, it’s a distraction. And a cult. And I have a chance to solve four murders and show up Special Agent Grooms, which is something I like doing. It’s, like, my favorite thing.”

  “But we’re a team. We’re partners.”

  “Actually, we’re not. Not until you pass the test.”

  “I’ll pass the next one.”

  “When?” Monk asked. “I don’t even know when the next one is.” Neither did I, since I’d never expected to fail this one. “Until then, you’re my assistant and you don’t get a say.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “Yes, I get a say. We’ve been together almost ten years.”

  “Monk made a promise,” Stottlemeyer reminded me. “We’re germ brothers. He’s staying on the Cemedrin case.”

  “We’re germ brothers,” Monk said, as if that meant something. “You can’t abandon a germ brother.”

  “Adrian, please.”

  How did we get to this point? In just a couple of minutes, I had backed myself into this corner and now I couldn’t see a way out. “Mr. Monk, please.”

  I don’t know why I said that. It felt like cheating. But it didn’t make any difference. “Sorry, Natalie.”

  So there it was. I’d thought we were partners. I thought by now they all trusted my cop instincts. Apparently not. The lure of a big case and the impossibility of a small case were just too much.

  “Fine,” I spat out. “If you want to get along without me, that’s your call. Have fun with your clowns—clown noses and clown shoes and clown cars and little clowns in diapers.”

  “Natalie,” Devlin warned softly.

  “Clown, clown, clown, clown, clown, clown!” I shouted. Then I turned on my heel and walked out.

  I could hear a little whimper escape from Monk’s lips right before I slammed the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Mr. Monk Loses It

  Now that I look back on it, on that day six months ago when Monk and I were in the car and I was about to fly off to New Jersey, I realize it had all been my idea.

  I was the one who impulsively turned and said I was leaving the Summit Police Department and coming back. I was the one who insisted on becoming partners and getting my PI license. Monk had no concept of a partnership or of treating me as an equal. He just wanted things back to normal.

  There have been many times when I’d threatened to quit and once when I actually did. But this felt different. First, I hadn’t technically quit. It was more of a work stoppage. I wanted to take on a case I thought had merit. They said no. And second, I had no idea how this was going to get fixed. If I was going to be Monk’s partner, then I felt I had to be taken seriously. It was my line in the sand.

  On arriving at the cocoon, I scrounged around the freezer and found a Lean Cuisine left over from when Julie, an even more serious noncook than her mother, was staying at the house. I nuked it, toasted an English muffin as a side dish, and sat down in front of CNN. A pretty sad picture, I must say, made slightly happier by the fact that tonight’s newscast did not once mention Miranda Bigley.

  I had just rinsed the plastic container and put it in the recycling bin when there was a knock on the door. Three knocks, not ten.

  The porch light revealed Ellen Morse, with a box of tissues in one hand and quart of Swensen’s hand-packed Rocky Road in the other. Her face was wreathed in a big, sympathetic grin. “I have a DVD of Working Girl in the car. If things get bad, we can put it on and yell back at the male-chauvinist workplace.”

  This was pure Ellen, always there at the right moment with just the right touch.

  “It’s been quite the day,” I had to admit.

  “How did your test go?”

  “Not bad. I was somewhere around the seventy percentile.”

  “That’s pretty good.”

  “The seventy percent of people who don’t pass.” I shrugged. “It’s all right. I was distracted. I can always take it again.”

  In all my excitement about the phones and disappointment about the case, I’d already blocked out the earlier trauma of the day.

  “I’m so sorry. Here.” She handed me the box of tissues and we laughed. Then she held out the Swensen’s. “Let’s get this into us before it melts.”

  I got bowls and spoons from the kitchen, divvied up two scoops for each of us, and put the rest in the freezer. We didn’t want to peak too early.

  “I would have brought dinner,” Ellen told me, “but I got sidetracked for a few hours by Adrian.”

  “You’re seeing each other again?”

  “He popped up at my house after work. I don’t know how he got there.”

  “Apparently he has his ways.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  We settled in at my small dining room table. “What else did he say?”

  Ellen blushed and gushed. “He was being very cute. He showed up at my door with a bouquet of ten p
erfect long-stemmed roses.”

  Okay. You and I know that roses come by the dozen. But not with Monk. We also know that real roses aren’t perfect. “Were they artificial?” I asked.

  “Of course they were,” said Ellen. “He went through four local florists and bought and discarded their entire rose supply before he settled on this. I assume there’s going to be more than one angry woman in town who’s getting gladiolas for her birthday.”

  “Well, at least he made an effort. And artificial roses don’t have that annoying smell.”

  “He pointed that out,” Ellen said. “Although he still doesn’t understand what he did wrong. All women, according to him, are flighty, and he doesn’t know what’s gotten into any of us.”

  “You’re feeling sorry for him,” I warned her. “That’s not the basis for a good relationship. I’m learning that the hard way.”

  Ellen nodded and started on her second scoop. “He also said you refused to work on one of the biggest cases in a decade because you’re obsessed with Miranda Bigley’s suicide.”

  “He said that?” It was annoying to hear Monk describe me as obsessed. Okay, maybe I was being unreasonable. But he had been unreasonable about so many things over the years, and I had always supported him. “Do you think I’m obsessed?”

  Ellen shook her head. “They didn’t know Miranda. They’re looking at the facts, not the person. Damien is guilty of something. That much is undeniable.”

  We had just returned to the kitchen to dish up our second helping of Rocky Road when my cell phone rang. I checked the display. “It’s Monk.” I let it ring. If he apologized in his message, then maybe I’d call back.

  But it didn’t go to voice mail. It rang three and a half times and stopped.

  Then Ellen’s phone began to ring and it was the same thing—three and a half rings. Then mine did the same again, almost immediately. Then Ellen’s. On the fourth cycle, we knew something must be wrong. Not that Monk wouldn’t play this game for hours just to annoy us. But there was a kind of urgency to the quick succession of calls.