Mr. Monk Gets on Board

by Hy Conrad

  Fifteen minutes later the scene was repeated, this time with a black body bag instead of a box. I imagine this had all been carefully timed. It wouldn’t have been diplomatic to bring out both corpses at once.

  The captain was still on the pier, this time with a man and a woman, probably about my age. The woman leaned against her husband, but she didn’t seem to be crying. I could envision her, twenty-three years ago, listening to Mariah Carey songs on old Sony headphones as her unborn daughter kicked at her belly.

  When the captain used the lower gangway to reenter the ship, I breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t on the run.

  “Was that Miss Linkletter?” someone asked.

  I looked around to see a scraggly line of passengers milling around, waiting for the gangway to open. Daniela Grace and her three friends were at the railing beside me, each holding the straps of a Chanel or a Louis Vuitton carry-on. “It’s so sad,” Daniela added. The others murmured in agreement.

  “And how is poor Mr. Monk?” asked Ruth Weingart.

  “He’s in a coma,” I said, and watched their faces fall—as much as was physically possible for those faces.

  “Oh no,” said Sondra Winters. “He’s such a nice man.” It might have been the first time I’d heard Monk described as nice.

  “He kept us from doing something terrible,” added Daniela.

  “Although we do feel more empowered now,” said Ruth. “Just knowing we could have done it—for Samantha.”

  Daniela pulled a card out of her Chanel. “Please let us know if there’s anything we can help with.”

  “The law offices of Grace, Winters, and Weingart?” The name was very familiar, perhaps from some long-ago case. “Is your husband a criminal attorney by any chance?”

  “I am,” said Daniela, “along with Sondra’s husband and Ruth’s husband.”

  “I’m a retired judge,” said Lynn. “That’s how we all know one another.”

  “What?” I had to laugh. It would be my one good laugh of the day.

  “I know,” admitted Lynn sheepishly. “You couldn’t pick four worse assassins.”

  “If you’re lawyers,” I said, “you should work to revoke Darby’s medical license. So no one else dies.”

  “Absolutely,” said Lynn. “We were discussing that last night.”

  “We would love to hire you,” said Daniela. “You and Mr. Monk, of course, whenever he recovers and gets back to work.”

  “I’m not sure what we could do to revoke Darby’s license.”

  “No, I mean on other things. Do you ever work criminal cases? On retainer?”

  “Of course,” I said. “We would love to—when things get settled.” What a coup! Well worth the price of the trip. “Thank you, Daniela.” And I slipped her card firmly into my pocket.

  Daniela fixed on me with her matriarchal smile. “My only condition is that you stay with the AA program and give up drinking.”

  • • •

  Lieutenant Devlin, a detective I didn’t know, and a young ADA arrived a few minutes later at the bottom of the gangway. They showed their IDs to the guard and climbed up the ramp to meet me.

  The detective—introduced as Sergeant Holloway—and the ADA—Amanda Weber—went off to do whatever interviews and paperwork the situation required, while Devlin stopped to talk.

  “You’re sending in a sergeant?” I asked.

  “Do you want to spook him by sending in the big guns?”

  “No. But you’re so much better… .”

  “Do you think I could learn anything in an hour that you couldn’t learn in four days?”

  “No.” Okay, she’d proved her point.

  “So, how can I help?”

  It had just turned eight, and a steward was removing the chain from the gangway. A flood of eager passengers began to funnel around us and down to the pier. As they passed, I could hear more than one of them joke about making it home without falling overboard. It was all done in good humor, which served only to irritate me more.

  “I need to get off,” I told Devlin. “Maybe I’ll think better on dry land.”

  “You mean you’ve got nothing?”

  “Don’t rub it in,” I said, then began pushing my way through the crowd.

  We didn’t stop to deal with luggage, but went straight to the spot by the fire hydrant on the access street to the Embarcadero where Devlin had parked her red Grand Am. It was a 2005 model, one of the last ever made.

  After a few blocks, I asked her to stop. I didn’t want to get too far from the Golden Sun, just far enough. I could still see it out of the passenger-side window, the whole length of it, from our current spot on the abandoned part of Pier 32.

  “It’s got to be something simple,” I told myself, although I’m sure Devlin was listening. “Some spot on the ship where—”

  My monologue was interrupted by Devlin’s phone. She checked the display, pushed a button, and held it up between us. “Talk to me.”

  It was Sergeant Holloway. “Lieutenant?” He sounded nervous. “I may have made a mistake.”

  “What mistake?”

  “I was interviewing the captain and I may have let something slip.”

  “Talk to me,” Devlin said again.

  “I may have let it slip that Monk is in a medically induced coma, rather than a normal coma. I guess there’s a difference?”

  “There is,” I said, having Wikied the subject thoroughly during the last two days. “A regular coma is chancy. You may come out of it, you may not. A medically induced coma is a procedure.”

  “Oh,” he said from the other end. “And this is important?”

  “Yes,” I shouted at the phone. “It means Monk can be brought out of it and testify, which is exactly what we didn’t want the captain to know.” I glared at Devlin, then at her phone.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know the difference,” Devlin said, then turned to the phone. “Holloway, how did Sheffield react?” asked Devlin.

  “He said he had an appointment in the city and we could continue the interview later. Then he walked out. That’s why I called.”

  “He’s going to run,” I said.

  “Should I stop him?” asked Holloway. “Can I? Legally?”

  “Follow him,” said Devlin. “Ask him to stay for further questioning. Make it sound like he doesn’t have a choice. Go. Go.” And she hung up. “He’s not going to stay.”

  “Can Markowitz get us a material witness order?” I asked.

  “I doubt it,” said Devlin. “But I’ll try.”

  Devlin got back on the phone and I got out of the Grand Am. How infuriating, I thought as I began pacing the abandoned pier.

  The Golden Sun was three blocks away, its profile mocking me, daring me to figure it out. The morning mist was just starting to lift, and a glint of sun sparkled off the anchor. For a crazy split second, I panicked. The anchor was up! Did that mean they were about to set sail? Was Sheffield going to use the ship as a gigantic getaway car?

  It was idiotic, of course. Ships don’t drop their anchors in port. They use them when parked in the middle of a bay, like in Catalina. Or for emergencies, like dealing with high winds or a man-overboard situation or …

  Bingo!

  Devlin was still on the phone with Judge Markowitz when I pounded on the driver’s-side window. “Tell her we need a search warrant for the ship.”

  “Excuse me, Your Honor.” Devlin lowered the window and placed her hand over the receiver. “For the whole ship? That’s a fishing expedition.”

  “No, just one room. Let me talk to the judge.” I reached over and grabbed the phone. “Good morning, Your Honor. It’s Natalie Teeger, Mr. Monk’s partner.”

  “Of course, Ms. Teeger,” came a soft voice. “How is Adrian? I heard about his accident.”

  “He’s recovering. Still unconscious, I’m afraid. But I just figured it out. I know how it was done and I need a search warrant.”

  There was a pause. I could almost feel the excitement from
the other end. Or maybe that was my excitement. “You know,” she said, “Adrian has never disappointed me. I’ve gone out on a limb with him dozens of times, and he always pulls through. I remember this one case. He asked for a search warrant at a cattle ranch. He was literally looking for a needle in a haystack. My clerk thought I was crazy to okay it, but …”

  “Excuse me, Your Honor. This is an emergency.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Judge Markowitz cleared her throat and got serious. “Ms. Teeger, I am familiar with the details of the case as outlined to me by Lieutenant Devlin. Please state the location for the requested warrant and your reason for needing it.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” I said, then followed up with Monk’s three favorite words in the English language. “Here’s what happened.”

  • • •

  I was the one driving back up the Embarcadero access road to Pier 35. The road was jammed with vehicles going in the other direction, passengers from the ship now on their way home. Occasionally, they would try to pass in my lane. But you don’t play chicken with a woman who has just solved a murder.

  Meanwhile, Devlin was in the Grand Am’s passenger seat, waiting for a copy of the signed warrant to download to her phone. Also arriving would be a material witness warrant for Captain Dennis Sheffield, meaning we could hold him until we had grounds for his arrest.

  The captain’s black Mercedes was easy to find. It was in a private parking spot right at the foot of the gangway. Making it even easier was the sight of Sergeant Holloway leaning into the driver’s window. He looked up and seemed glad to see us.

  The same couldn’t be said for Dennis Sheffield.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mr. Monk and the Bedside Manner

  “When you ran out of the engine room, did you know?”

  “No. I just had to get out of there. All the noise and smell and the heat. I was waiting for Natalie out in the hall. And then I saw the door marked ANCHOR ACCESS and it came to me. Obvious.”

  Monk was sitting up, the top half of his bed at a forty-five-degree angle, the sheets weirdly unwrinkled, as if the bed had been made with him already in it. He paused here for a drink of water. Four perfectly square ice cubes and a straight, clear straw.

  “You used my all-access key to get in,” I said.

  “I used your key,” he confirmed. “It was just going to take me a minute.”

  So that was the simple but annoying explanation. While I’d been scouring the lower decks, going up and down three flights shouting his name, he’d been right there, in the anchor room next door.

  Two days after that, I’d been in the anchor room myself with Judge Markowitz’s warrant. It was a largish space, near the very point of the prow and almost completely occupied by a long, massive chain wrapped around a series of interlocking spools. On the outside wall was a steel access panel, held in place with a row of simple bolts.

  Monk took another sip of water, then didn’t like the level and motioned for me to fill it up to the line in the red plastic tumbler.

  We were gathered around his bed in a private room, still at Good Samaritan—Stottlemeyer, Devlin, me, and an LAPD officer we’d borrowed for the occasion to record our statements and take notes.

  “Here’s the thing,” said Monk. He was looking tired and maybe a little confused. “Here’s the thing that occurred.”

  “Here’s what happened,” I prompted.

  Monk had been awake for a day and a half now. The doctors warned us that recovery wouldn’t be instantaneous, that there might be gaps in his memory, and that his mind might not be exactly the way it was. That was scary. Not that Monk’s mind was ever a perfect specimen. But it was perfect for him, and I was used to dealing with it.

  “Here’s what happened,” he said. The sleeves on his brown checkered pajamas were uneven, the left a full three inches higher on his arm than the right. He didn’t seem to care. Stottlemeyer had noticed this, too.

  “Here’s what happened,” Monk repeated, trying to mentally find his place again. “Captain what’s-his-name met with Mariah what’s-her-name that night, probably in the anchor room,” said Monk. “Secret rendezvous.”

  “That would have been Monday, your second night at sea,” stated the LAPD officer. “And the name is Sheffield. Captain Sheffield.”

  “Correct,” said Monk. “Sheffield. Whether he knew she was pregnant with his child doesn’t matter. Somehow he got the liquor into her system. There are ways of getting liquor into people, aren’t there, Natalie? You should know.”

  “I’m not an alcoholic,” I shot back, then grabbed the officer’s arm. “Strike that. The question and the response.”

  Stottlemeyer nodded. “Strike it.”

  The officer made a note and Monk continued. He seemed to be recovering strength. “Captain Sheffield brought the wooden leg with him, so we know the act was premeditated.”

  “Premeditated,” mumbled the officer.

  “After he killed her, Sheffield unscrewed the bolts to the panel, giving him access to the anchor. What he did then was brilliant, although I hate to glamorize the work of a cold-blooded killer. Can you erase the word brilliant? Just say nifty.”

  The officer made another note. “What he did then was … nifty.”

  Monk considered. “Maybe you should say diabolical.”

  “I like nifty,” said Stottlemeyer, wrinkling his mustache just a touch.

  “We’ll stick with nifty,” Monk said. “It was nifty the way Sheffield wedged her body on top of the anchor. From there he went up to the crew section of the Calypso deck, placed the chunk of ice in the alarm bell, pulled the lever, and went to dinner. He made sure to stay in the public eye all the time. His second-in-command, the Asian guy …”

  “First Officer Lao,” I reminded him.

  “Right. First Officer what’s-his-name did the rest, although he didn’t realize it. When the ice melted and slipped out of place, the alarm bell rang. The Asian guy followed the rules for ‘man overboard.’ He took the ship back to the coordinates and dropped anchor. The falling anchor dumped the girl’s body into exactly the right position.”

  “We have a statement from Gifford Gilchrist,” said Devlin, for the record. “The boy recants his story about pulling the alarm, although Barry Gilchrist made us put into the record that his son did pull the alarm for Monk.”

  “I appreciate it,” said Monk and went on. “If I had it to do over, I probably wouldn’t have tried that stunt with the vest. What was I thinking?”

  The stunt with the vest had been Monk’s way of testing his theory in the anchor room. He’d deduced that the long stain on Mariah’s dress had come from her being wedged along the anchor top. To this day, I’m not sure how he did it, but while I’d been frantically looking for him, he had managed to remove the bolts, swing the panel in, and have access to the open sea.

  Directly below him was the anchor, protected by a curved barrier from the onrush of salt wind. There was only one way Monk could think of to replicate the stain, so he removed his life vest—the one he’d stubbornly refused to remove even when in bed at night—and wedged it in the same place along the anchor.

  After that, he had very little memory of events, except that Captain Sheffield had stormed his way in. There was a struggle near the open hatch to the anchor. The next thing Monk recalled was waking up four days later, after his brain had returned to its normal size. Normal for him. At least I hoped so.

  Monk glanced down at his sleeves—and still didn’t straighten them. “Did you guys figure this out? I forget.”

  “Yes, Adrian.” Apparently he had some problems with short-term memory. “I figured it out. Judge Markowitz got us a search warrant. We sent in the best CS techs. They found Mariah’s fingerprints, blood spatter traces, DNA, even a thread from her dress wedged in a steel seam behind the anchor.”

  “So you don’t even need my statement.”

  “We need it, Monk,” said Stottlemeyer. “We’re indicting both for murder and at
tempted murder.”

  “Good. Glad to hear it. Can I go back to sleep?” He reached for the remote control on his bed.

  “Sure,” said the captain, giving an affectionate squeeze to the shoulder of Monk’s pajamas. “Good job, buddy. You earned it.”

  “No,” said Lieutenant Devlin and grabbed for the remote. “You can’t go to sleep.”

  “I can’t?” Monk whined. “But the captain said I earned it. You heard him say I earned it. No backsies.”

  “I’m sorry, Monk,” said Devlin, gently prying the remote from his hand. “But as long as you’re awake and running on all cylinders, I need to ask you about the other case.”

  “But Leland said I earned it.”

  Stottlemeyer twitched the corner of his mouth. “Sorry, old buddy. Devlin’s right. We’ve got officers working overtime per your instructions. And the mayor’s calling me once daily, like an alarm clock.”

  “It’s the Melrose case,” said Devlin, trying to prompt his memory. “The German woman who killed Lester Melrose? Right before you left? Portia Braun?”

  “She didn’t confess?” Monk asked, irritation breaking through his fatigue. “Usually they confess.”

  “She didn’t confess,” Devlin assured him. “In fact, we had to let her go.”

  “Let her go?” Monk drifted into wordless thought. For a few seconds, I thought he was falling asleep. “But she didn’t leave town. Of course not. She wouldn’t.”

  “Because of her inheriting the Shakespeare?” Stottlemeyer asked. “That’s not true. An inheritance can be handled long distance.”

  “No, no. You don’t get it.” Monk paused dramatically. We waited for something more, something brilliant … “I’m sorry. What is it you don’t get?”

  “How to solve the Melrose case,” said Devlin. “It’s been ten days. Portia Braun is still staying with her professor friend in the Mission District. And we have a twenty-four-hour presence on the Melrose library. I’m not sure why.”

  “Why do you have a guard on the library?”

  “Because you told us to,” said Devlin. “You told us to keep a presence until you got back or you drowned at sea.” She winced. “I didn’t mean that. I mean, that’s what you said. But I wasn’t taking it literally.”