Mr. Monk Gets on Board

by Hy Conrad

  I told him the basics—concussion, in the water, lack of oxygen. “They’re flying him to Good Samaritan in L.A.”

  “I’m catching the next flight,” said Stottlemeyer. “You talk to Devlin. She’ll hold the fort and give you everything you need in San Francisco. What about you, Natalie?”

  “What about me?”

  “Are you going to be okay? Do you think your life’s in danger?”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. Now I thought. “I don’t think so. Adrian’s the one who was close to figuring it out. I don’t think the bad guy sees me as a threat.”

  “Well, that’s his mistake. People underestimate you.”

  “I hope it’s his mistake,” I said. “I need him to make one.”

  “What about the ship’s captain? Is he on your side?”

  I had to laugh. “The captain is, in fact, the opposite side.”

  I took a few minutes here and explained to Stottlemeyer the basics, in case neither Monk nor I survived our lovely six-night cruise. It felt a little like when I made out my will a few years ago, speculating about how life would have to go on without me. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

  “I gotta call the airlines,” said the captain, turning back to practical matters. “Is Ellen flying down?”

  Damn. I hadn’t even thought about Ellen. “I’m calling her right now,” I said. “She and Adrian had a little falling out. But I’m sure—”

  “Oh,” the captain interrupted.

  “‘Oh’ what?” I asked. Oh is never good, not in that tone of voice.

  “Nothing,” Stottlemeyer lied. “Okay, not nothing. I happened to walk past her store this afternoon. It was all closed up in the middle of the day.”

  “Oh,” I echoed in response. Maybe Ellen had flown off to take care of business in New Jersey, I thought. But then she had an assistant, Suzie, to keep the Union Street shop open. You don’t close a storefront for no reason, not when you’re paying that kind of rent. “I’ll give Ellen a call.”

  I tried Ellen’s cell phone a few times. Each time it rang and rang and went to voice mail. Either she was away from her phone—odd behavior for her—or she was screening her calls. The third time, I left a message, saying it was important and to call Captain Stottlemeyer as soon as possible. I didn’t want to say anything scary. I didn’t even want to think it.

  That evening, I dialed room service and had dinner delivered. I forget what it was, something light and simple. Then, antsy in my cozy cabin, I went up to the Calypso deck and started walking, doing slow, steady laps around the ship.

  One more day, I thought as I lapped. Another day at sea, to discover whatever Monk might have discovered. When we woke up the day after, the gangway would be down at Pier 35. The Golden Sun would be turned around in a few hours, refilled with passengers, and cruising into international waters by that afternoon, this time up to Vancouver.

  • • •

  When the business center opened at seven, I was waiting at the door, phone number in hand. I found the bureaucracy at Good Samaritan to be mercifully efficient, and once I explained my relationship with the patient and dropped a few names, they patched me through to a very tired-sounding doctor at the ICU.

  “I’ve been on the phone with everyone from the San Francisco mayor to the ex-governor. You guys should share information. Start a Facebook page.” I was glad Stottlemeyer had told so many influential people and that they were taking it so seriously. Monk would get the best care. On the other hand, I needed to hear it personally—and right now.

  His first words were not reassuring. “A medically induced coma,” I repeated. It didn’t sound any better when I said it.

  “It’s not an unusual procedure in drowning cases,” he told me. His voice was flat, as if he’d already said this a dozen times. “We use barbiturates. The coma reduces the rate of activity in the brain and the amount of blood it uses. This decreases the intracranial pressure, and we might be able to avoid brain damage.”

  “Avoid brain damage.” I ignored the word might. “So we can expect a full recovery?”

  “God, you’re worse than the mayor.” He sighed and I almost felt sorry for him. “A full recovery is possible, yes. And if I can anticipate your next question, Ms. Teeger, it could take as little as a few days or as long as a few months.”

  I don’t recall much else of what he said that morning. But I do remember giving him a piece of medical advice. “Is Adrian in a private room?” I asked.

  “It’s part of an IC unit,” he said, “but it’s curtained off to make it private.”

  “Well, keep it as private as possible. And keep everything in his line of vision clean and symmetrical. I know you run a clean hospital, but make it extra clean. And symmetrical. The same number of rings on each curtain, that sort of thing.”

  “Ms. Teeger, the man’s in a coma.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’ll know.”

  I added on another call to my account, this one to Captain Stottlemeyer at a motel just down the street from the hospital. He confirmed what the ICU doctor had told me, and I confirmed that there’d been no change since last night.

  “Did Ellen call you?” I asked. “I don’t have any reception, so I left her a message to contact you.”

  “Not yet,” said the captain. “When she does, I’ll try to break it to her gently. Thanks for the heads-up.”

  We exchanged a few more words of encouragement and strategy, then I reluctantly had to say good-bye. I was alone now, on someone else’s turf, playing the game of cat and mouse that Monk had always been so good at.

  From the business center, I went for breakfast in the cafeteria, feeling slightly better than before. Monk was getting the best of care. Stottlemeyer had my back. And the fruit salad looked better than it normally did.

  I like to think of myself as a sensitive person, sensitive to my surroundings. But even a self-involved gorilla could have figured out people were talking. My few acquaintances among the passengers were giving me a wide berth on the food carousel. They huddled in small groups, their heads close together, their eyes trying not to glance my way.

  Sitting by myself at a corner table for two, I returned to my old trick of shutting out the ambient noise and isolating voices across the room. I didn’t expect the gossip to be positive or uplifting, so I guess I shouldn’t have been offended. Still …

  “On a calm sea like that? How can you fall overboard?” “The weird guy with the life vest.” “My dad says the captain says it was suicide.” “He took off his vest before he jumped.” “Is he dead? I heard he drowned.” “They say his alcoholic girlfriend went back to drinking.”

  I lost my appetite for the fruit salad and pushed my tray away. If I kept this up, I’d be the only person in the history of cruise ships to lose weight.

  Dr. Aaglan began his office hours at nine. I arrived around nine fifteen and found I wasn’t the first. Captain Sheffield was in the examination room. They both saw me as soon as I walked into the waiting area.

  “There she is,” said Aaglan, and waved for me to join them. “I was telling the captain that I haven’t been able to get a report from Good Samaritan. The doctors won’t talk about Mr. Monk’s condition.”

  “Natalie, you placed a call to the hospital this morning,” said Sheffield with a concerned expression. He was demonstrating that this was his ship, that I couldn’t hide anything. “What did they tell you?”

  “He’s in a coma,” I said. I put on a brave face and held back the tears that weren’t there. “They think he might not make it.” I let my voice crack. Not too much, I warned myself.

  If Monk recovered before Sheffield could make a run for it, then it was straight to jail for attempted murder, even if we never solved the Mariah case. But if Monk died or stayed in a vegetative state, Sheffield would be off the hook, hounded only by the ace detective’s drunken female partner.

  Stottlemeyer and I wanted Sheffield to feel safe, not to run or be stupid, hence our instructions to the ho
spital staff and my Oscar-worthy moment.

  “That’s terrible,” the captain murmured, although I could sense his relief. “When you get a chance,” he added, “Sylvia and I would like to meet with you. Whenever you get a chance.”

  Dr. Aaglan waited until we were alone and the door was closed. “Is he really in a coma?”

  “Yes,” I said, perhaps a bit too forcefully. “Do you think I’m lying?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aaglan. “I’m not American-born, so I misconstrue. But something odd is going on. You first ask me about pregnancy. Then the captain asks about pregnancy. Mariah’s dress had this long stain. And now Mr. Monk’s life vest has a stain just like it. Both he and she had head wounds. Then the captain comes in and asks if I have possession of your friend’s vest. I say no, but …”

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Back up. Adrian’s vest has a stain? From yesterday? Do you have the vest?”

  Dr. Aaglan opened the long drawer beneath the examination table and pulled out an orange vest, still wet and smelling of the sea. “The stewards brought it in with your friend.”

  It was Monk’s all right, from the evenly matched buckles to “Adrian Monk” printed in a ridiculously neat hand with a black Sharpie. Running diagonally was a greasy stain combined with a crease that hadn’t been there before. My first reaction was to retrieve my iPhone and take a picture, just as I’d done with the dress.

  “Maybe I’m too suspicious,” said Aaglan. “It was dirty before?”

  “No, trust me. This vest was not dirty.”

  “Then something bad is going on.”

  “Something bad,” I confirmed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Mr. Monk Shrinks His Brain

  I don’t know what I’d expected from Sylvia Sheffield. A short meeting full of sympathy for my partner and friend? Perhaps a hundred dollars off my next Golden Sun cruise? I certainly didn’t expect to get called on my money-back guarantee. By the way, I don’t believe I ever said money-back.

  “We hired you so there would be no more incidents,” said Sylvia. She was obviously the one in charge. “That was your job and you guaranteed us.”

  “Do you know what happened to Mr. Monk?” asked Sheffield, with a straight face.

  “Not everything. It wasn’t a suicide attempt and I don’t think it was an accident.”

  “Do you have any idea how this is affecting our passengers?” asked Sylvia. “Two overboard incidents in a week? Two emergencies where we had to grind to a halt and drop anchor? They’re in the business center right now, Facebooking like crazy. The office is already getting calls from the press.”

  I wanted to point out that both of these “incidents” had been caused by her husband. But really, how do you phrase something like that? “It’s not our fault” was the best I could do.

  “You said you knew who was responsible,” said Sylvia. Her husband squirmed.

  “The vandalism wasn’t connected to the overboards.” Even as I said it, I knew she wouldn’t believe me.

  Sylvia rolled her eyes. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist. We need someone to take responsibility. Otherwise, the Golden Sun will be branded as dangerous. Or a jinx, which is even harder to combat. Electrocutions, capsized tenders. And I’m not even counting the death in Mexico. Once that becomes public knowledge, God knows …”

  “We need answers,” said Dennis Sheffield.

  If you’re looking for a textbook definition of irony, this is it. A killer scolds me for not identifying the killer, even though he knows that I know. But what could I say? If I stood up now and pointed a finger at the captain, what would it get me? Even less credibility with his wife.

  “Are you saying this is my fault?” I decided to go with indignation. “My partner was a victim. On your ship. He very well may die.”

  “That’s why you need to tell us,” Sylvia said. “If you know who’s responsible … What if something more happens, something you could have prevented? How would you feel then?”

  I was an inch away from telling all. “There won’t be any more incidents,” I promised instead.

  “You said that last time,” Sylvia reminded me.

  “What Sylvia means is we’re stopping payment on the check.”

  “What?” But I wasn’t surprised.

  “You’re lucky we don’t sue,” said Sylvia. “If you could have prevented this last incident, you should have told us. The damage to the ship’s reputation and the cost of lost business could run into the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions.”

  “But we’re the injured parties,” I pointed out. “My partner’s in a coma.”

  Sylvia shook her head. “No, dear, our business is the injured party.”

  I can’t begin to tell you how maddening this was. Completely, want-to-take-her-by–the-throat-and-strangle-her maddening. So self-absorbed and blind to her husband’s guilt. So oblivious to the suffering of others. Although … in the teeniest of ways, I understood her point.

  Our problem was that we’d accepted the job under false pretenses, investigating Mariah’s death as part of the vandalism case. And now that we’d made that connection in Sylvia’s mind, I couldn’t very well separate the two cases, not right now.

  Anyway, that was the highlight of my day.

  I spent the rest of our last day at sea pretty much to myself. Somewhere in midafternoon, I stopped pacing the decks long enough to have a cup of tea. First Officer Lao must have been following me, because he passed by my table as soon as I sat down.

  “Whatever you need, I’ll do it,” he said, and slipped a calling card under my saucer. “I always have this phone with me and it always works.” Before I could even mutter a thank-you, he was gone.

  As I watched my tea grow cold, I reviewed the few facts that I had to cling to. Monk had gone somewhere after running out of the engine room. This location was probably important, as no one had seen him since, not until he was floating in the ocean without his vest.

  Another fact. The matching stains on Monk’s life vest and Mariah’s dress couldn’t be coincidental. If I could discover the source of the stain, I would probably have my answer.

  Before dinner, I made a final visit to the satellite phone in the business center. Monk was still in his coma. The swelling in his brain had gone down and the doctors were encouraged. Stottlemeyer was still at his bedside, carrying on a one-way conversation, occasionally checking up with Devlin about their cases, and becoming quite the expert at Angry Birds.

  Ellen still wasn’t answering and still hadn’t responded. I left another message, saying it was important and Monk needed her. Of course, that’s what I’d said earlier in the week, before she flew down to Catalina and we sent her away.

  On the other hand, Lieutenant Devlin was answering. She picked up on the first ring. “Any breakthroughs?” she asked.

  “Not unless you count taunting as a breakthrough.”

  “Geez, get a move on.” Always the diplomat, that Devlin. “What time does your gangway open?”

  “Eight a.m.,” I said. “It leaves port again at five. But you can always refuse to sign off. That’ll give us an extra day.”

  “It’s not that easy. Their lawyers are already pressing the department with the paperwork. We need a good reason to deprive them of their ability to do business.”

  “How about a restraining order? Or a provisional warrant?” These were all things I’d learned in my P.I. studies.

  “On what charge?” Devlin asked. “Allowing people to fall off your boat?”

  “There was a shipboard death. That warrants an investigation of some sort.”

  “I’ll talk to Judge Markowitz.” Mary Markowitz was our favorite cop-friendly judge and a big Monk fan. “But even if she grants a restraining order, there’s nothing to keep Sheffield from going on the lam.”

  “I think he feels safe for now,” I said.

  “Good. Just in case, I’ll have Markowitz standing by. Try to have a breakthrough.”

 
; “I’ll do my best.”

  “See you on the pier at eight.”

  “Oh.” Speaking of women waiting for us on the pier … “Have you heard from Ellen?”

  “Monk’s Ellen. Why would I hear from Monk’s Ellen?”

  “I’m trying to get in touch with her.”

  “You mean she doesn’t know about his condition?”

  “She might have gone back to Summit.”

  “I’ll check her house,” said Devlin. “As if I don’t have enough to do.”

  That was Devlin’s way of being gracious. “Thanks.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Mr. Monk’s Favorite Words

  As soon as I heard the ship engines stop, I woke up. Technically, I guess I was already awake.

  The previous evening, I’d packed up my luggage and left it in the hall. Then came the big chore, packing up Monk. I had a team of stewards bring his eight huge suitcases up from the “executive VIP dry cleaning suite,” otherwise known as the hold. I dusted them off, packed them as neatly as I could, knowing that whatever I did, he would call my efforts irredeemable and throw everything out. At least, I hoped he’d be able to do that. And soon.

  Looking out to my balcony, I could see through the shadowy mist the familiar outline of the Transamerica Pyramid looming above the pier. I don’t know exactly when I packed up my toiletries and left the cabin for good. Probably around six a.m.

  I grabbed a quick yogurt and a plastic spoon from the cafeteria, then headed for the gangway. Even though it wasn’t yet open for passengers, I felt I needed to be there.

  I was standing by the railing when the wooden box from Mexico was wheeled out from the lower gangway, just above the level of the pier. A tall, thin woman in her thirties stood out there with Captain Sheffield, her eyes focused on the approaching box. Were her eyes also hazel? I wondered. I felt bad that I didn’t know her name. Malcolm had mentioned his sister only once, but he’d spoken of her with real affection.

  A man in a black suit came forward to officially claim the body and take it out to the street, probably to a waiting hearse.