Mr. Monk Gets on Board

by Hy Conrad

  Okay, I know that sounds dramatic. But this is what I see every day, what I do for a living. It’s probably no different from a plumber driving by your house and knocking on your door and saying that he noticed from the look of your lawn that your septic system was on the verge of failing. That’s a detail he’s been professionally trained to see.

  What makes my job unlike a plumber’s is that there are human lives at stake. In this case, the life belonged to Mariah Linkletter, a woman I liked, although I barely knew her. She was sweet and young, with her whole life in front of her. All of this was going through my mind as I dropped off my rental bike at Brown’s and walked out on the Green Pleasure Pier to catch the four p.m. tender back to the ship.

  Malcolm Leeds was waiting there as well, a tote slung over his shoulder and a shopping bag labeled C. C. GALLAGHER at his feet. Standing beside him was a quiet couple in their seventies, holding hands. They’d probably been holding hands like this for half a century. Lucky them.

  “Fancy running into you.” From the way he said it, I could tell that he’d missed me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been dealing with Adrian.”

  “We could have spent the day together.”

  “I know,” I said, matching his wistful tone of voice. “Totally my fault. But we still have five more full days.”

  “Five more full days,” he repeated. “It’s a date.”

  “Did you get in touch with Lieutenant Devlin?”

  “Devlin?” Malcolm asked. “Why? Has she been trying to contact me?”

  “You didn’t get her e-mail?”

  “I haven’t checked e-mail,” he said. “Or my phone. I suppose I can get reception here.”

  “You didn’t check e-mail?” This was very strange.

  “Not yet. But there’s a business center on the ship. Did Devlin say what she wanted?”

  “Um, no. She didn’t say.”

  I used to be very direct when people lied to me, almost confrontational. Malcolm was definitely lying. I could see the outline of his MacBook, bulging in his tote. But over the years, I’ve learned to play things a bit closer to the vest. If Malcolm wanted to lie about not getting Devlin’s e-mail, that was his business. For now.

  The arrival of the tender was delayed—4:20 by my watch—and the two crew members running the boat were full of apologies. “Sorry. We’re down to one boat,” the taller, older one explained. He and his partner had just tied up and were ready to help us on board.

  “The other one capsized,” said the shorter and younger.

  “Capsized?” By this point, seven more passengers had joined us, and I think we all must have said it at once. Everyone took a step back.

  “Josh?” the taller crew member said in a warning tone.

  “They’re going to find out soon enough,” said Josh. Then he turned to us, smiling brightly, as if he were telling a joke. “Everyone’s fine. Just a little wet. We don’t quite know what happened. The boat started taking on water and …”

  “There was never any danger,” said the taller man.

  “Although there was one woman,” Josh said, continuing his joke. “She was crawling all over this guy, just to stay afloat. And he couldn’t swim to begin with. I had to pull her off him. Pretty funny. Anyway, welcome aboard.”

  “We do insist you put on life vests,” his partner advised, pointing to the orange vests on the benches. “I mean, we always insist on that. It’s the rule.”

  I couldn’t help wondering how Monk was reacting to the news of the capsized tender. If Ellen had any sense, she would keep this from him until he and his baggage had left the ship for good.

  During our short, uneventful ride out of the harbor, everyone sat quietly, vests in place and securely tightened. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I wasn’t feeling good about any of this.

  I added it up. First there were the accidents, two of them: the missing railing bolts last night and the capsized boat today. Then there was the overheard scene in the beachside cabana that made my mind wander to the possibility of murder. And last, and probably most trivial, Malcolm’s lie about not checking his e-mail.

  These were not monumental events, each one taken alone. Taken alone, each was ignorable. Except maybe the chance that Mariah’s life was in danger. And except maybe the two potentially lethal accidents. And except maybe the cute rare book consultant who suddenly left San Francisco and wouldn’t respond to repeated phone calls or e-mail messages.

  You can see how this would be unnerving to a plumber like me. Things were in play here, bad things, although I had no idea what. And the worst part was that I would be left alone on the ship to deal with them, me and the ship’s tiny, unsuspecting security staff. Could I do it? I wondered. Could anyone do it except Monk?

  It was ironic that I hadn’t wanted Monk to come along in the first place and now I was almost afraid to let him go.

  As the tender began to circle around to the docking area, I could see Monk and his twin orange vests, standing back against the wall, waiting for us to pull up. Ellen, still lovely in white, was at his side, and the eight pieces of black luggage were piled around them, waiting to be loaded for their evacuation.

  I was the first one off. I walked up to Monk and Ellen and waited wordlessly until the other passengers had spilled around us and disappeared into the ship.

  “Well, I guess this is good-bye,” said Ellen with a sad smile. She gave me a warm little hug. “Have a good trip, Natalie. Learn some things.”

  “Don’t drown or die of dysentery in Mexico,” said Monk.

  “Adrian, you can’t go.” God help me, it just came tumbling out. I knew what I was asking from Monk and from Ellen and from myself. But I had to do it.

  Ellen was the first to react. “Natalie, what are you talking about?”

  The two crew members were still in the tender, so I stepped aside, pulling Monk with me, and lowered my voice. “I think there’s going to be a murder. We have to stop it. And there’s something going on with the ship. And Malcolm … I don’t know about Malcolm.”

  “Do you want us to load the luggage?” shouted Josh in our general direction.

  “Not yet,” I said over my shoulder. “Can you wait a minute?”

  “A murder?” Monk’s face brightened. “It’s not Darby, is it?”

  “It’s not Darby,” I said, and watched his face fall. “It’s Mariah, the cruise director.”

  “I like Mariah,” Monk said. “Are you sure it’s not Darby?”

  “I thought you wanted Adrian to leave,” said Ellen, looking at me, mystified. “I canceled everything to fly down here and help.” She pointed to the suitcases. “We spent the last two hours repacking him.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a room,” Monk said. “I can’t stay on the ship without a room.”

  “You can have my room,” I promised. “To yourself. I’ll find somewhere else.”

  “Where?” he asked. “The morgue?”

  “If it’s still empty by tonight.” Ouch. I shouldn’t be thinking like that. Bad karma. “I’ll find somewhere to sleep. Just stay.”

  “Really?” Monk was impressed by my self-sacrifice. “This is for real.”

  “Very real.”

  “You’re not just feeling lonely for my company?”

  “No.”

  “Natalie, please.” Ellen was speaking in that calm voice that means I’m trying to be reasonable. “I think you might be overreacting. There aren’t murder plots everywhere you go. I know how sometimes it seems to you …”

  Monk ignored her. “The captain or his wife?” he asked. He was already working it out.

  “Captain,” I said. “No doubt.”

  “Then he’s already arranged an alibi.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Monk was right. If Mariah was like most women, the affair was not a total secret. Someone knew. After her death, the captain would become a suspect and would need a foolproof alibi. In case you didn’t know this, no one is bett
er at breaking foolproof alibis than my brilliant partner.

  “I think it’s tonight,” I said. “From the way he was talking.”

  Monk scowled. “We’re definitely at a disadvantage. The captain controls the ship, the security, the schedule. He’ll have the upper hand.”

  “Mariah’s going to be my new best friend,” I pledged. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

  “Maybe there’s a place for you to stay in the crew quarters,” Monk suggested. “That way you can be closer to her.”

  “I can ask.” It wasn’t a bad idea if there weren’t any rules against it. It wouldn’t be as comfortable, of course, but that wasn’t the point.

  “Did you bring your Glock?”

  “No.” I hadn’t even thought about bringing my gun, which wouldn’t have been allowed in the first place. Not legally. “Do you think he’ll try it in U.S. waters or international or Mexican sovereign?”

  “Not U.S.,” said Monk. “International. Unless he’s planning an accident.”

  When it comes to crime, Monk and I have a kind of verbal shorthand. I can understand how it might be annoying to the outside world.

  “You’re actually staying?” Ellen said in disbelief.

  “I don’t want to,” Monk said.

  “Yes, you do. Look at you. You’re practically giddy.”

  “Not giddy,” I said, answering for him. “Working. I’m sorry, Ellen. But if Adrian leaves and this girl gets killed … I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “What if it’s all your imagination?”

  “Then we’ll be lucky,” I said. “I couldn’t be happier.”

  Ellen shook her head. “So that’s the way it is? Every time you see something a little suspicious, you throw everything else aside? Your friends? Your life?”

  “It’s just this once,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” Ellen almost shouted. “It happens all the time. And the rest of us are just supposed to fly back home and wait—until the next time you’re bored or you need us.”

  She had a right to be angry. On the other hand, it wasn’t like we were asking people to murder one another just to keep us busy. “If you knew this girl … ,” I said.

  “Look,” said Ellen. “I’m sure Mariah is a wonderful girl. And if you can keep her from getting killed, that’s what you should do. No doubt. But there’s always going to be another Mariah, isn’t there?”

  Monk is not very eloquent as a rule. And when the moment does come, it’s fleeting. “Ellen, this is what I do. This is me.”

  He was right. For better or worse, this is the business we’ve chosen, I thought, quoting Stottlemeyer quoting someone from The Godfather. Monk and me.

  “Excuse us,” said Josh. He and the taller crew member were still in the tender, looking up at the three whispering weirdos and their eight pieces of luggage. “We gotta take the boat back for the last pickup. If any of you guys want to leave, now would be the time.”

  Monk and I just stood there side by side, facing Ellen, saying nothing.

  “I’m going,” Ellen said to Josh. “Don’t worry about the luggage. It’s just me.”

  Monk and I stood in the docking area, watching the crew members helping Ellen board the tender. She sat down near the front, facing Catalina, and didn’t look back. I felt so horrible.

  “I’ll bet he lied about triple-filtering the air,” Monk said.

  “What?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Captain Sheffield. He said my luggage would be stored in the VIP dry cleaning suite with triple-filtered air. But I think he was lying. Murderers lie.”

  “Yes, Adrian. Murderers lie.”

  He stood there stoically, watching as his girlfriend faded away in the distance. “That’s okay,” he muttered. “I can buy new luggage.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mr. Monk Gets a Room

  Looking back on that moment, I’ve never felt closer to Adrian Monk, or more depressed about Natalie Teeger.

  What was wrong with us? I had just asked Monk’s girlfriend, a generous, loving, patient woman, to fly down and rescue him. Then, after she made the trip, I persuaded him not to leave. And Monk agreed without a blink. I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to see either of us again.

  On the other hand, a young woman’s life was at stake. But back to the first hand …

  It’s probably no accident that I haven’t had a serious relationship since I started this job. I’d always told myself that it was the memory of Mitch that had made me skittish of getting close to another man. But what if it were more? What if our work had changed both of us? What if the victims—even the killers—had become more important to us than anything else? Any normal woman has girlfriends who aren’t cops. Any normal man has male friends who aren’t police captains.

  Was it somehow easier or more satisfying for Monk and me to deal with the lives of the dead than with our own? That was a scary thought and one that I didn’t want to focus on too much. For right now, all I could focus on was that a young, vibrant woman might be killed tonight.

  The Valencia was one of the two upper decks that ran around the entire ship, with little inlets here and there to accommodate special features, like an outdoor bar, protected in a nestled cove with space heaters projecting from the wall in case of a cold snap.

  I’d been meaning to join Mariah there ever since she invited me to yesterday, when I first stepped on board. Was it yesterday? It seemed like a world war ago. She had mentioned it more than once, which made me guess I could find her here at some point during the two-hour interval the grown-ups in my family used to call the cocktail hour.

  Sure enough, she found me there waiting, an hour after we lifted anchor in Catalina, as I was nursing my first white wine of the evening.

  “Natalie, fancy running into you.” She leaned in, kissed me on the cheek, then settled onto the stool beside mine. “Welcome to my hideaway. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all,” I said. I’d chosen the far end of the bar and had been lucky enough to get several empty stools next to me.

  “Charlie,” she called out. “My usual. My new usual.”

  Charlie grinned. Everyone seemed to grin when Mariah arrived. Charlie finished delivering a pair of beers at the other end, then grabbed a highball glass in one hand and the bar gun in the other. I’d been a bartender long enough to see that her new usual was club soda.

  “How was your shore day?” she asked as she took her first sip. “Did Mr. Monk’s girlfriend fly down to pick him up? Did it work out?”

  I had rehearsed this conversation a dozen different ways. The best way, I figured, was to get her, not me, to bring up my housing situation. “He decided not to get off.”

  “Wow.” Mariah was obviously surprised. “Does that mean he got everything worked out with his roomie, Mr. McGinnis? So cool. It renews my faith in human nature.”

  “Don’t get too renewed,” I said. “There was no reconciliation. I gave Adrian my cabin instead. And no, we’re not rooming together. I don’t know where I’m sleeping tonight.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I lifted the wineglass to my lips, just to let the dead air hang.

  “There are no free rooms, Natalie. And you can’t sleep in the public areas.”

  “Are there any extra beds in the crew quarters?” I asked, as if the possibility just occurred to me.

  “The crew quarters? That’s not allowed. What are you going to do?”

  I took another sip and gave her a little more hang time. Whatever solution we came up with had to come from her. And I knew, or at least strongly believed, it would. She was that kind of caring, involved person. And a problem solver.

  “Why in heaven did Mr. Monk change his mind?”

  “He had a fight with his girlfriend and she left without him.” All true.

  “That’s too bad. You hate to see that happen. I suppose …” Okay, here it came. “Giselle, the ship’s accordion player …”

  Okay, th
is was unexpected. “What accordion player?” You’d think I would have noticed an accordion player.

  “She was let go after the Alaska cruise. She used to wander through the tables in the dining room and play requests. Really sweet girl. Wonderful musician. I say ‘girl,’ but she must have been in her eighties. Anyway, the company has made some cutbacks.”

  Thank goodness for accordion cutbacks, for the sake of the diners and my housing situation. “So, her room is free?”

  “Giselle actually bunked with me. I suppose we wouldn’t get into too much trouble if you …”

  “I would love to bunk with you, if that’s possible.”

  Hurray! This would be the best imaginable solution, I thought. I’d have a place to sleep, I’d be able to keep a better eye on Mariah, and we could become closer. I might even be able to warn her about Sheffield.

  “It’s not going to be as comfortable,” she said. “We’re below the waterline, so there are no windows. And the rumbling of the engines can be annoying until you get used to it.”

  “Sounds perfect. I mean, except for the rumbling. I think we’ll get along great. And you’ll be helping Adrian so much.”

  “It’s not the trip you signed up for,” Mariah said. “And it hardly seems fair. You’re the one who paid the single supplement.”

  “I don’t mind, believe me. As long as it doesn’t get you in trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about that. The captain can’t fire me.”

  “He can’t?” That’s not what he’d told his wife.

  “I mean he wouldn’t,” she demurred. “He’s a great guy. He’ll understand. Just the same, it’s probably a good idea not to tell him.”

  Charlie the bartender was making his rounds. I waved him off, but he took Mariah’s highball glass and refreshed her club soda. “Your new usual,” he repeated. “At least it’s cheaper on the house.”

  “Thanks, Charlie.”

  All right. Are you ahead of me here? You could be. Because this was the exact moment when it hit me. The reason behind her new usual cocktail.

  Mariah’s old usual had probably been an alcoholic drink. Let’s start with that assumption. Mariah liked to sit at bars, at least this bar, which is a no-no for recovering alcoholics, at least in the early days of recovery. So let’s assume she wasn’t a recovering alcoholic, just someone who had recently given up drinking. She was also someone who could put pressure on her captain boyfriend to leave his wife—or else.