by Hy Conrad
“Should I go in anyway?” Monk asked. “I was all prepared to go in.”
“I don’t think it matters.”
“Maybe she’s getting out of the poop business to spend more time with me.”
“Yes. That would explain why she’s not answering your calls.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Monk said before getting the sarcasm. “Oh.”
We stayed another minute, as though the sign would suddenly change back to POOP or Ellen Morse would suddenly open the door and come out and explain herself.
This second thing is exactly what did happen. Ellen seemed just as surprised as we were when she walked out of her ex-store and found us lingering on the sidewalk.
“Adrian. Natalie.” She bit her lip and blushed. “I was going to call.”
“After you got back home to Summit?” I asked.
Ellen didn’t acknowledge the sarcasm. “This store hasn’t been working out,” she explained. “You know that.”
Ellen had confided her business concerns to me a few months ago. But I’d thought that her fondness for Monk, combined with the reward money that we’d shared with her from our last case, would have convinced her to stay.
“Not working out? I didn’t know,” Monk said, which was true. He handles the possibility of change even worse than he handles change itself, so I’d kept all of this from him. “You can’t leave.”
“Unfortunately, the good people of San Francisco disagree.”
“Ellen, please. Why didn’t you tell me?” he moaned. “I could get all my poop-loving friends to come in and buy your poop.”
“Do you have any poop-loving friends?” Ellen asked.
“Ugh!” Monk shuddered. “Crazy talk. That’s a figure of speech. But look. I’m going to walk into your store.”
“My inventory’s already on its way back to Summit.”
“Good. That makes it easy. Look, I’m walking in.”
It was no use. Ellen had probably made up her mind that afternoon on the tender, heading back alone to the dock in Catalina. It wasn’t just the business, of course. It was Monk. And, to a lesser degree, me. As long as she was here in our city, she would be tempted to forgive everything and start over and pretend that the next time it would be different. She deserved better.
“I saw on the news that the girl was killed, the one you were trying to save.” Ellen smiled sadly. “I’m sorry.”
“But I caught the guy,” said Monk, as if that had made everything right. “Actually, Natalie caught the guy. I was busy at the time, drowning.”
“What?” said Ellen. “Drowning?”
“I almost died,” Monk confirmed. “You can ask Natalie.”
“He almost died,” I said.
“He almost always almost dies,” said Ellen.
That was weirdly true. For someone with so many phobias, Monk did spend a lot of time on the brink of death. Ellen had no way of knowing that this brink of death had been a lot closer than most.
“I don’t mean to seem callous, Adrian, but if that news is supposed to make me want to stay … it’s doing just the opposite.”
“It wasn’t all that close,” Monk clarified. “I was just in a coma.”
“A coma?” This caught her off guard. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right? I had no idea.” She reached out to touch his shoulder but stopped herself. “I should have answered your calls. It was selfish and mean of me. I don’t know what to say.”
“It was a short coma,” Monk told her. “Very relaxing.”
“Adrian,” said Ellen, “I think being involved with you would be worse than being with a cop. A cop has backup and procedures to follow. A cop has regular hours and probably doesn’t get into as many wild situations. And a cop gets to retire. I would have that to look forward to.”
“Retire? How can I retire? The bad guys aren’t going to put themselves away.”
It was exactly the wrong thing to say. But true. As long as there was the chaos of murder staring him in the face, there would be Adrian Monk, trying to clean it up.
• • •
From Union Street, Monk and I took a silent, thoughtful stroll to Rassigio’s, not far from the Pine Street apartment. Along the way, I texted Tony Rassigio, the owner, warning him. This would give him time to make sure everything was spotless and to change the board of health rating card in his window from A to AAA. It was a fake sign made just for Monk, but the result was that we now had a restaurant he would go to.
It was early, a little after five. Tony unlocked the door, led us to the only table Monk would sit at, and brought us new menus, fresh from the printer, not yet touched by human hands. I immediately ordered a glass of white wine and wondered when I’d stop feeling guilty about ordering one glass of wine.
“So good to see you, Mr. Monk. I was hoping you’d come in.” Tony seemed even more solicitous than usual as he scurried off to get my chardonnay and a bottle of Fiji Water for Monk.
“It’s all your fault,” said Monk.
“My fault?”
“Yes. If you hadn’t known Mariah Linkletter was going to get killed, I would have gotten off the ship with Ellen, and everything would be normal.”
“First off, you’re not normal, Adrian. Second, if you hadn’t stayed, people would have gotten away with murder. Mariah’s killer and Malcolm’s killer. And Darby McGinnis might be dead.”
“That’s not helping your argument.”
“Okay, forget Darby.”
“We can’t keep everyone alive,” he said with a careless shrug. “Or solve every case.”
This sentiment was unusual coming from him, the man who had practically invented the idea of obsessive perfection.
“So, looking back,” I asked him, “knowing what you know … would you have gotten off the ship with Ellen? Is it okay to let killers go unpunished? Mysteries to go unsolved? If the result is you get to have a ‘normal’ life?” It was one of our rare philosophical moments.
“Would Darby be alive or dead?”
“Forget Darby.”
Monk made a face and rolled his shoulders. He sighed. “This is what we do.”
I had to sit on that for a moment. We waited in silence for Tony to return.
“Excuse me, Mr. Monk.” The restaurant owner delivered our drinks, then cleared his throat, as if about to run down the daily specials. “Please. I need your help with my son, Tony Junior. He’s dating this girl. I looked her up on the Internet, just to check, and she’s been dead for six months. The exact same girl.”
Talk about bad timing. “Tony, is this a case you want us to work on?” I asked.
“Yes, please. I showed my son this girl’s obituary online but it doesn’t bother him.”
“Tony, I’m sorry. But it’s a Saturday. Adrian and I are in the middle of some personal stuff. If you want to set up an appointment …”
“Of course, of course,” he apologized. “I can come by your place tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday,” I pointed out, “when normal people don’t work. You can come by Adrian’s apartment on Monday. At nine. Will that be okay?”
“Of course, of course.” Tony continued to apologize and thank us as he took our order and retreated back into his AAA-rated kitchen.
Monk sipped his Fiji and stared at me over the rim. “Aren’t you interested in the dead girl?”
“That’s not the point. The trouble with us, Adrian, you and me, is that we let work become an excuse. We ignore our lives. And because we’re helping people, we think it’s all good. Meanwhile, we’re getting older and we don’t have any friends… .”
“We have each other.”
“Don’t depress me. What if you were here tonight with Ellen instead of me? Would you suddenly ignore her and start working on Tony Rassigio’s problem? You probably would. Or what if I was here with a boyfriend?”
“You mean a boyfriend who’s not a crook?”
“Yes, let’s say I had a boyfriend who’s not a crook or a soon-to-be murder victim.
Would I ditch him to go work on a case with you?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, that’s got to change. We’ve got to pretend our lives are as important as a double homicide in the Castro. More important. That’s the only way we’re going to wind up happy instead of alone and lonely, chasing down bad guys in our motorized wheelchairs.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“First, you have to decide if you care enough about Ellen to change your ways and win her back.”
“I think I do.”
“Good. We’ll work on that. Meanwhile, I have to set limits. I can’t be at your beck and call twenty-four/seven. I need an activity. Maybe I’ll train for a marathon. And I need to spend time with Julie before she moves away for good.”
“I should get an activity, too,” Monk said, warming to the idea. “Maybe curling. That involves a broom.”
“Sounds wonderful. I’ll come to all your matches.”
I let the image sink in for a minute. Monk seemed to be giving it a lot of thought. Well, he was giving something a lot of thought. “Do you think it’s stolen identity?”
“Not if she has the same face,” I replied. “And why doesn’t Tony Junior care? If I showed Julie her boyfriend’s obituary, she would care. A lot.”
“I wonder if Tony Junior has a job.”
When Tony Senior emerged from the kitchen a moment later, I motioned to him. “All right, Tony,” I said, following it with a sigh that could have supported the weight of the world. “You win.”
The man’s face broke out into a grin as he grabbed an extra chair and headed for our table.