by Lee Goldberg
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mr. Monk and the Gift
We hurried out of the house, Monk walking gingerly, as if he were stepping on hot coals. It was driving me crazy.
“Stop,” I said when we got to the car. “Give me your foot.”
He put his hand on the car to steady himself and lifted his left leg. I examined the bottom of his shoe and saw a pebble so small it was almost invisible to the naked eye. I flicked it out of the tread with my fingernail.
“Thank you,” he said. “Wipe.”
“Where is she?” I reached into my purse and held the wipe out to him.
“Not for me,” he said. “For you. You’ve been handling the bottom of my shoes with your bare hands.”
I wiped my hands. “Does Yuki have something to do with this murder?”
“No, but I know who does. Get in the car. We don’t have much time. If we did, I’d wait until you could get rid of those clothes. You look like a dog walking upright.”
I gave him a look. “You lied about knowing where Yuki is?”
“I know exactly where she is, but forget about her for now.”
“I don’t want to forget about her,” I said. “I want to find her.”
“I already have and we’ll go see her as soon as we find him.”
“Who?” I asked, rapidly losing what little patience I had left.
Monk looked back at the house and saw Stottlemeyer stepping outside, watching us.
“We’re going to locate Yuki now and reunite her with my brother,” Monk said to him. “Ambrose.”
“Yes, I know who your brother is,” Stottlemeyer said, eyeing Monk suspiciously.
“They were fornicating in my parents’ house and probably will again now that I have found her.”
“Good for them,” Stottlemeyer said.
I got in the car just to end the conversation before it got any more awkward and cringe-inducing than it already was. Monk nodded at Stottlemeyer, then got in the car.
“Drive,” Monk said.
I did. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on in ten seconds, I am going to throw you out of the car.”
“Why do people keep threatening to do that to me?”
“You just wasted five seconds.” I steered toward the first open spot along the curb.
“Okay, okay, keep going. I know who the guy was who picked up Michelle Keeling and brought her back to your house.”
“Who?”
“Your mailman.”
“Irwin Deeb?” I said. He was a likable, chubby guy who’d been my mailman for years. “What makes you think it’s him?”
Monk took a pair of tweezers and an evidence baggie from his pocket and began plucking dog hairs from my clothes as he spoke.
“It’s like the captain said—there have been an inordinate number of burglaries in your zip code, all in homes that were empty because the owners were on trips. The mailman knew how long they’d be gone because they all filed vacation holds with the post office, just like you did,” Monk said, putting dog hairs into the baggie. “And, if you’ll recall, the neighbors told the police they didn’t see any strangers or suspicious individuals around, just the usual people.”
“Like the mailman and the gardeners,” I said. “Everybody saw him.”
“They just didn’t register anything suspicious about it, because he was a fixture in the neighborhood. He was probably careful about when he came and went, and if someone did see him at an unusual time, they probably figured he was making a special delivery.”
“It all makes sense,” I said, especially since I didn’t have the most observant neighbors, which is ordinarily a plus as far as privacy is concerned. “Now we know why the guy at the Belmont bar knew the zip code for Walla Walla.”
“That’s no clue. Any literate person knows the nation’s zip codes.”
I rolled my eyes. “So what made it all come together for you?”
“Jeroen Berge coming home early from his vacation and carrying his mail. A yellow vacation hold card was among the parcels.”
“I didn’t see that,” I said.
“You were busy playing with the dog’s chair,” he said, examining a black hair before putting it in the baggie.
“It wasn’t the dog’s chair,” I said.
“So it was upholstered in dog fur.”
“Never mind about the chair,” I said. “Tell me how being in Berge’s house led you to Yuki.”
“You raised the window shades,” Monk said.
“But it’s not like she was standing outside the window when the shades went up. What do window shades have to do with anything?”
“You were right when you said that Yuki wouldn’t wander far from Ambrose,” Monk said. “The surveillance video from Beach’s grocery store showed the storage lot where Ambrose’s motor home is parked.”
“So? The RV is still there.”
“Yes, but in the video you can clearly see that the shades are up above the kitchen window of the motor home. But when we drove by the day after she disappeared, the shades were closed.”
“Are you sure about that?”
He gave me a look. “Trust me, she’s hiding in the motor home and she’s not going anywhere.”
So when Stottlemeyer asked Monk if he’d solved the Berge homicide, and Monk answered that he’d found Yuki, Monk wasn’t lying. He simply wasn’t telling all that he knew, which is a good thing, because he was a lousy liar. But that didn’t explain why he’d withheld information from the captain.
Monk regarded his baggie, which was now full of dog hair, then my clothes. “We’re going to need a Hefty bag. Or an incinerator.”
“Why didn’t you tell the captain about the mailman?”
“Because you need to solve this mystery.”
“Too late,” I said. “You just did.”
“Yes, but it’s your name that needs to be cleared in all of this,” Monk said.
“Your name, too, Mr. Monk.”
“My name is fine and well established. However, solving a high-profile case like this will burnish your reputation as a cop and start your career off in a big way. Think of it as a going-away present.”
It was a surprisingly thoughtful gesture for him, and one not without considerable risk for us both if we kept what we knew from the captain. It was a risk Monk was willing to take, and he was born risk averse, so the least I could do was go along with him.
“So the mailman is on the run, hiding out in empty homes along his route,” I said. “We need to get a list of people who filed vacation mail holds.”
“How do we get it?”
* * *
“You’re forgetting that we’ve got these.” I took out my badge. “All we have to do is ask.”
We flashed our badges at the post office and were taken to the supervisor, who was in the back of the building, in the vast mail-sorting area, overseeing the individual carriers as they gathered letters and parcels they had to deliver.
The supervisor’s name was Kathy Lopez. She was a heavy woman with an almost military bearing who wore her uniform with obvious pride.
I tried to channel Mariska Hargitay’s tough, world-weary attitude on Law & Order.
“I’m Natalie Teeger and this is Adrian Monk. We’re with the Summit Police Department.”
She nodded and put her hands on her hips. “Zip 07901.”
“That’s right,” I said, though I had no clue if it was or not. “We’ve got some questions we’d like to ask Irwin Deeb. What zip code can we find him in?”
“In 96761,” she said. “Or maybe 89109.”
“Maui or Las Vegas,” Monk said.
Lopez looked at him with admiration. “You’re good. Have you worked in the postal service?”
“No, I’m just a literate citizen, of which there appear to be few.”
“Amen, brother.”
“What makes you think Deeb is in Hawaii or Nevada?” I asked.
“He’s always talked about going to those plac
es and he’s got a whole bunch of vacation days saved up. Two weeks ago he took them. He won’t be back for another week.”
“We think that he never left San Francisco,” I said, “and that he’s actually been squatting in empty homes on his route.”
“That’s seriously creepy. Why would Irwin do that?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“Is he a sexual deviant?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because squatting in people’s empty houses sounds like a sexually deviant thing to do. Does he do strange things with their underwear?”
“Underwear is not part of this investigation,” I said.
“Thank God,” Monk said.
“You might want to make it part of it.”
“We’ll take that under advisement,” I said. “Can you give us a list of current vacation mail holds filed by residents on his route?”
“Sure,” she said. “What about their shoes? Does he do strange things with them?”
* * *
The first two homes we visited were empty and showed no signs of break-ins. However, the third house had been broken into and trashed inside. We were careful not to touch anything and I was relieved not to find any bodies. The next house appeared empty and secure. But there were fresh footprints in the mud under the windows, as if someone else had been scoping out the house recently.
Not everything about Monk’s solution to the mystery was adding up for me, so I mentioned my concerns to him on our way to the fourth house on our list.
“A few things about this whole case just don’t make sense to me. I’m not close with my mailman, but I have known him casually for years. I suppose Irwin could have gone to Salvatore Lucarelli with a plan for stealing the marked money, or vice versa, but I just can’t picture him killing Jeroen Berge with a karate kick to the face.”
“I’m not saying that he did,” Monk said, plucking more dog hair from my clothes.
I swatted his hand away. “Would you please stop picking at me with those tweezers?”
“I’m sure that he’s probably not in this alone,” Monk said, ignoring my request. I was driving, so I was at a disadvantage for fending him off. “He could be working with Lucarelli, or with a crooked FBI agent, or with them both. All I know is that he’s been staying in empty homes.”
“That’s the other thing. Why is he doing that? I mean, wouldn’t it have made more sense, and drawn less attention to himself, if he’d just gone along with his everyday life?”
“Maybe he is. Maybe he’s been occupying empty houses for years. We won’t know until we find him.”
If that was true, then Kathy Lopez was right and Irwin was one seriously creepy guy.
But did that also make him a killer?
The fourth house was at the end of a cul-de-sac on a steep hill that overlooked my street. It was basically a bungalow, hardly a thousand square feet, with shingled siding and lots of overgrown juniper hedges—tangled with spiderwebs—close to the walls. A cracked concrete driveway led to a tiny ramshackle detached garage in the backyard.
We stepped up to the front door. Monk crouched down and studied the doorknob.
“The lock has been picked,” Monk said. “Just like yours. Look at the lateral scratches.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m going around back. After a minute or two, knock on the door and announce that we’re here.”
I ran in a low crouch, below the line of the windows, along the driveway.
If we’d been full-fledged cops, with guns to go along with our badges, I would have drawn my weapon. So when I spotted a rusty shovel leaning against the garage, I grabbed it to use just in case Irwin was hanging out with the martial artist who kicked Jeroen Berge into the afterlife.
I crouched beside a juniper bush and waited. A few moments later I heard Monk knock on the door.
“This is the police. Irwin Deeb, if you are in there, please come out with your hands up.”
I heard something squeak inside the house. It sounded to me like mattress or couch cushion springs being relieved of weight. Then I heard scrambling footsteps.
Staying low, below the top of the juniper hedge, I followed the sounds to a window, which I heard being jimmied up.
I stood up to see Irwin Deeb in his blue mailman’s uniform, his mailbag slung over his shoulder, trying to squirm out the window. It was a tight squeeze because this postman was built more like Kevin James than Kevin Costner.
Irwin landed on the junipers, sinking deep into the prickly branches before extricating himself, only to find me standing there, shaking my head.
“Hello, Irwin,” I said.
Needless to say, he was startled. But to my surprise, I detected something else.
Relief.
“Ms. Teeger! What are you doing here?”
“You first,” I said, setting the shovel aside. I didn’t think he’d be slaying me with a karate kick.
Irwin stood up, brushed himself off, and straightened his uniform with a couple of tugs.
“I’m house-sitting for my good friend Ted Bowers.”
“Like you were for me?”
He blushed, his round cheeks turning bright red. By now, Monk was coming up behind me, carefully avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk.
Irwin looked past me at Monk. “You aren’t the police. I know you. You’re Adrian Monk, Ms. Teeger’s boss. What’s going on here?”
I flashed my badge, mostly because I loved doing it whenever I could. “Actually, Irwin, we are police officers, back in Summit, New Jersey, and I didn’t appreciate coming home to a dead body in my bathtub and thousands of dollars in stolen money under my bed. And I’m sure Jeroen Berge didn’t appreciate getting killed.”
“What?” Irwin said, taking a step back. “Mr. Berge is dead? Oh my God, not him, too.”
“Is that your way of saying you didn’t kill him?”
“I didn’t kill Mr. Berge. He was a great guy. I used to read his Playboys all the time.”
“So you really are a sexual deviant,” Monk said.
“I used to read his Architectural Digests, too. Free access to all kinds of magazines is one of the perks of my job. Shoot me for trying to intellectually enrich myself.”
“I don’t care about the magazines you read,” I said. “What I want to know is who killed Jeroen Berge.”
“Obviously, they did,” Irwin said. “I thought you were them coming after me. That’s why I was escaping out the window.”
“Who are they?” Monk asked.
“I have no idea,” Irwin said. “All I know is that they want me dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mr. Monk Goes Postal
“Gee, do you think it might have something to do with the five hundred thousand dollars in marked money that you stole from the FBI evidence room?” I asked.
“Is that where it came from?” Irwin said. “Oh my God, this is even worse than I thought.”
Monk tipped his head and regarded Irwin at an angle. “You didn’t steal the money.”
“Of course not,” Irwin said. “I’m not a thief.”
“Then where did you get it?”
“I was delivering a Priority Mail package to one of those mailbox outfits when I tripped and dropped it. The box split open on the curb and when I bent down to pick it up, I saw that it was stuffed with cash, enough to give me the chance to live the life I always dreamed of. I saw it as divine providence.”
“Who was the box addressed to?” Monk asked.
“John Smith,” Irwin said. “I didn’t have to be a detective to figure out the money was probably stolen. I figured it would serve the guy right if somebody stole the money from him. It’s almost poetic justice.”
“First it was divine providence and now poetic justice,” I said. “You’re just full of rationalizations for what you did.”
“Okay, it was like winning the lottery. Can you blame me for seeing it as an opportunity? I’m a
dedicated public servant who has never gotten a fair deal once in his life,” Irwin said. “Not even now.”
“I still don’t understand what you were doing in my house,” I said.
“I went to work the next day, like I hadn’t found half a million dollars in cash, but when I came home that night, I saw someone ransacking my house. I knew that John Smith had found me and that I had to disappear fast.”
“So you got the list of vacation mail holds along your route and hid out in the empty houses,” Monk said. “That was very clever.”
“Why didn’t you just hop a plane to South America?” I asked.
“I don’t speak Spanish, for one thing, and hot climates make me break out in hives.”
“Okay,” I said, restraining the urge to strangle him. “Why didn’t you take a plane to Europe, or a bus to Canada, or just get in your car and drive?”
“Because that’s exactly what they would expect me to do and they’d take appropriate measures. I was afraid they’d be watching the airports and bus stations, rental car agencies and borders. I figured do the opposite of what they would expect, and that way I’d improve my chances of not getting caught. So I decided to lay low somewhere they would never think to look for me. The last thing they would expect is for me to hide in plain sight, so to speak.”
“How did you pick the locks on the houses?” Monk asked.
“I have a locksmith on my route and he subscribes to National Locksmith, Locksmith Ledger, and all the best magazines in the field,” Irwin said. “I’ve never missed an issue.”
“If you were so afraid of getting caught,” I said, “why did you go to the Belmont bar?”
“I didn’t think I’d be in any danger. I mean, who’d ever think to look for me there? I wanted to live large, drink expensive wine, and hang out with beautiful women, not sit in your house eating Cheetos.”
“You ate my Cheetos?”
“I wasn’t in the bar thirty seconds before the most beautiful woman in the place came over to me. One thing led to another, which almost never happens without some begging, and we went back to your place. It was the most glorious, exciting, and wildly erotic night of my life. But I underestimated them.”