Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants

by Goldberg, Lee

  “For what?” the captain asked.

  “To arrest all the perverts,” Monk said.

  “This is a nude beach, Monk.”

  “Don’t these people have any sense of human decency?” Monk declared.

  “It’s perfectly legal,” Stottlemeyer said.

  Monk stared at me, aghast.

  He would have stared at Stottlemeyer aghast, too, but that would have meant turning around and facing the nudity.

  “The California Penal Code, section 314, clearly states that any person who willfully and lewdly exposes his or her person or private parts thereof in any public place is violating the law,” Monk said. “Those are all willfully lewd persons. I’ve never seen such willful lewdness before.”

  “This beach is a state park and this is an authorized, clothing-optional area,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’ll just have to live with it, Monk. Let’s go.”

  “You go,” Monk said. “I’ll wait here.”

  “The body is over there,” Stottlemeyer said, pointing to the gathering of cops and crime-scene techs thirty yards away.

  “They’re everywhere,” Monk said. “And all of them are naked.”

  “I was referring to the dead body,” Stottlemeyer said. “You need to see it at the crime scene, if it’s actually a crime scene.”

  “You aren’t sure whether it’s a murder or not?” I asked.

  “Good. Call me when you find out.” Monk started to go, but Stottlemeyer grabbed him by the arm.

  “That’s why you’re here, Monk. You’re the one who is going to tell us if it’s a murder or not.”

  “Can’t the medical examiner do that?” Monk asked.

  “Trust me. This is a case that cries out for Adrian Monk,” Stottlemeyer said and headed for the crime scene, pulling Monk along with him.

  Monk looked up at the heavens as if seeking spiritual guidance, but I knew all he was really doing was trying to walk across the sand without seeing any nudity.

  “If you’re afraid of seeing a naked body,” I said, “why don’t you just close your eyes?”

  “I don’t want to bump into any private parts,” Monk said.

  “It’s not like they’re flung out all over the sand,” I said.

  He stumbled along, letting Stottlemeyer lead the way until we reached the scene, which had been cleared of any nearby sunbathers. The forensics team, clad in jumpsuits, carefully sifted through the sand, which they’d separated into quadrants with stakes and yellow string.

  “The victim’s name is Ronald Webster,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s single, thirty-five, and works at a shoe store. His body was found by sunbathers this morning.”

  “Willfully lewd persons,” Monk said. “Hippies, most likely.”

  “The ME figures the guy died sometime last night,” Stottlemeyer said. “But it’s hard to tell, given the body’s immersion in salt water.”

  We followed a staked-out path in the sand that had already been cleared by the forensics team. Disher and the medical examiner were leaning over a naked body that was floating facedown in the tide pool. The victim’s midsection had been ripped open.

  I turned away, sickened and repulsed.

  But Adrian Monk, a man who couldn’t look at a naked sunbather, had no problem staring at this mutilated corpse. In fact, he was fascinated by it.

  I’m not a shrink, but I’m guessing that Monk didn’t see a naked body in front of him now. Once the person was dead, he or she was no longer human to him. The victim was just an object, a puzzle piece that he had to put back into its proper place in the larger picture.

  Stottlemeyer put his hand gently on my back. “Are you going to be all right? I can have an officer take you back to your car.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  I wasn’t going to run away, even if that was exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be seen as weak by the detectives I worked with. Besides, I wouldn’t be much good to Monk sitting in the car.

  I took a couple deep breaths, let them out slowly to calm myself and turned around again.

  Monk crouched beside the medical examiner, Dr. Daniel Hetzer, a balding man who studiously maintained two day’s worth of stubble on his fleshy pale cheeks.

  “What do you think, Monk?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  Monk rose without saying a word and held his hands up in front of himself. He tipped his head from side to side, looking at the body of the late Ronald Webster from various angles.

  Then he shifted his gaze to Webster’s clothes, which were neatly folded on a rock near the tide pool.

  “Where was his wallet?” Monk asked.

  “In his pants pocket,” Disher said and held up the clear plastic evidence bag that contained the wallet. “I don’t think anything has been taken. There’s still a bunch of credit cards and about two hundred dollars in cash inside.”

  “Where are his car keys?” Monk asked.

  "They were also in his pocket,” Disher said, “along with his house keys.”

  “Where’s his car?”

  “The DMV told us that Webster drives a Buick Lucerne and it’s not in the parking lot,” Stottlemeyer said. “I have a couple of patrol cars checking the cars in the neighborhood just in case.”

  “If he didn’t drive,” Monk said, “how did he get here?”

  “If this turns out to be a murder,” Stottlemeyer said, “we’ll call the taxi companies and talk with the bus drivers on the local lines to see if anybody remembers seeing him.”

  “This is a popular make-out spot at night,” Disher said. “Maybe Webster came with a special friend for a late-night skinny-dip.”

  Monk shuddered at the thought but pressed on. “Were there any cars left overnight in the lot?”

  “No,” Disher said. “But maybe the friend lives nearby and they walked over.”

  “Or the special friend parked on the street,” Stottlemeyer said. “But since we don’t know who this person is, or what car we’re looking for, all we can do is take down a couple of hundred license-plate numbers from cars parked in the area and work backward. That’s a lot of man-hours and I’m not ready to authorize that yet, not when I don’t know if a crime has even been committed.”

  “If Ronald Webster came with a friend,” Monk said, “where is that friend now?”

  “Perhaps that body hasn’t washed up yet,” Disher said.

  “What about the friend’s clothes?” Monk asked.

  Disher shrugged. “They could have been washed away by the tide.”

  Monk rolled his head and his shoulders, as if trying to work out a kink. I knew what that kink was. There were too many could-haves, maybes and what-ifs. He hated could-haves, maybes and what-ifs.

  “What’s your preliminary determination on the cause of death?” Monk asked Dr. Hetzer.

  The medical examiner turned the victim faceup in the water. Webster was a young man, but his hair was flecked with gray. His face was spared the brutal ravages that had been done to his body.

  “Unofficially, I’d say drowning,” Dr. Hetzer said. “These wounds are bad, but they don’t appear to be fatal.”

  “What did that to him?” I asked. “Was it a shark?”

  Dr. Hetzer shook his head. “I don’t think so. The curvature of the bite and the amount of flesh torn away isn’t consistent with a shark attack. The bite parameter is narrow and long, which suggests that whatever creature did this has a muzzle or snout.”

  “A wild boar,” Disher said.

  “There aren’t any boars in the Presidio,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “A ravenous wolf,” Disher said.

  “They move in packs and they would have torn him apart,” Stottlemeyer said. “There’s too much of him left.”

  “A vicious dog,” Disher said.

  “A dog would have gone for the throat,” Dr. Hetzer said, “not the midsection.”

  “A mighty seal,” Disher said.

  “The bite isn’t consistent with a seal,” Dr. Hetzer said, “mighty or otherwise
.”

  “A gigantic clam,” Disher said.

  Everyone gave Disher a look. He shifted his weight.

  “Do you realize how large a clam would have to be to attack a human being?” Stottlemeyer said.

  “The depths of the sea are still a great mystery to mankind, ” Disher said.

  “Is that so?” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s the last unexplored frontier on earth,” Disher said. “I read that they recently discovered an entirely new species of octopus that’s blind and glows in the dark.”

  “Maybe the octopus did it,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s possible,” Disher said.

  “No, it’s not,” Stottlemeyer said and turned to Monk. “What do you think did this?”

  “It’s obvious,” Monk said.

  “It is?” I said.

  Monk nodded. “This man was attacked by an alligator.”

  It wasn’t the strangest declaration Monk had ever made, but it was definitely among the top five.

  “I see.” Stottlemeyer stared at Monk for a long moment, then turned back to Disher. “Tell me more about that octopus.”

  “It wasn’t an octopus or any other creature,” Monk said. “This man was definitely bitten by an alligator.”

  “You’re aware that alligators don’t live in the ocean,” Dr. Hetzer said.

  “Yes,” Monk said.

  “And that alligators aren’t indigenous to San Francisco, ” Dr. Hetzer said.

  “Yes,” Monk said.

  "Then how can you presume that an alligator did this?” Dr. Hetzer asked.

  “The shape of the bite and the punctures left by the teeth,” Monk said. “They are all the same.”

  Dr. Hetzer leaned closer to the victim and examined the wound. “I’ll be damned.”

  You hear those words a lot when you’re around Adrian Monk, especially at a crime scene.

  “Unlike the teeth of other creatures, which have different sizes, shapes and functions, alligator teeth are identical, ” Monk said. “That’s because they use their teeth primarily to grasp their prey.”

  “Why do you know that?” Stottlemeyer said.

  The answer was obvious, at least to me. “Because there’s no differences between the teeth.”

  “It’s called uniform dentition,” Monk said, “or, in a word, perfection. I’d love to have teeth like that.”

  “I suppose that an alligator could be responsible for these wounds,” Dr. Hetzer said. “Alligators don’t rip apart their prey. They grab them, twist them and hold them underwater until they drown. That’s consistent with the injuries we see here and the probable cause of death. But so are a lot of other explanations.”

  “Like wild boars,” Disher said, “or a gigantic clam.”

  Stottlemeyer grimaced and rubbed his temples with his thumbs. “So is this a case for homicide or animal control, Doc?”

  “Ask me tomorrow,” Dr. Hetzer said. “I won’t have any definitive answers for you until I complete my autopsy.”

  “Call animal control anyway, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said. “See if they’ve heard anything about someone losing a pet alligator. Maybe ask a few of the neighbors if some poodles and cats have started disappearing around here.”

  “I’ll ask animal control about boars, too,” Disher said, making a note to himself.

  “You do that,” Stottlemeyer said wearily. “Don’t forget to mention the giant clam and the octopus while you’re at it.”

  “Shouldn’t I ask a marine biologist those questions?”

  “I wasn’t serious about the clam and the octopus,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Were you serious about the alligator?” Disher asked.

  “I wish I wasn’t,” the captain said, “but I’ve learned to trust Monk’s hunches.”

  “It’s not a hunch,” Monk said. “It’s a fact.”

  “But is it murder?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  Monk rolled his shoulders.

  “Yes,” he said, “it is.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Mr. Monk and the Other Shoe

  Even though Monk had declared the case a murder, Captain Stottlemeyer wasn’t prepared to commit more police resources to the Webster investigation until he got the medical examiner’s official determination.

  I could understand Stottlemeyer’s reluctance.

  He was stuck with a dead guy on a nude beach who might or might not have been killed by an alligator. While that situation raised some big questions (like “How did the guy get to the beach?” and “Where did the alligator come from?”), there wasn’t actually anything pointing to murder except Adrian Monk’s opinion.

  Granted, Monk had never been wrong about this kind of thing before, but the powers that be at the SFPD weren’t as confident in his abilities as Stottlemeyer and I were. So if Stottlemeyer wanted to keep his job, he had to play the politics and take a wait-and-see approach until after the autopsy.

  But Monk didn’t have to wait.

  Nor could he.

  Monk would have been eager to investigate this case even if he wasn’t actively avoiding the prospect of returning to Los Angeles to solve Ellen Cole’s murder, though I’m sure that was an extra motivation. This particular death was just too intriguing for him to ignore.

  I wasn’t too happy about the way things were working out. My job security would remain uncertain as long as Trevor was in jail, Sharona was in the picture and Ellen Cole’s murderer was still free. But I couldn’t honestly blame Monk for the delay. The alligator attack was a legitimate case, not a stalling tactic. And getting a head start on the investigation meant he’d solve the mystery that much quicker.

  Monk wanted to learn more about Ronald Webster to see if there was something in the man’s life that might explain the bizarre circumstances of his death.

  So we started at the shoe store where Webster worked. I was surprised to discover that the store was in my neighborhood, just two doors down from Sorrento’s Pizza.

  I’d never bought any shoes at the store, but I’d window-shopped there a few times. They carried lots of fancy Italian brands and running shoes that cost more per pair than the yearly salaries of the Chinese factory workers who made them.

  I wish I could say that I didn’t buy the shoes as a deeply felt political statement, but it was mostly because they were way too pricey for me on my Monk salary.

  Then again, so was a pack of bubble gum.

  There were three customers, two salespeople and one cashier in the store when we went in.

  I was never entirely comfortable in situations like this, where Monk intended to question people who didn’t know who he was or his connection to the police.