Again, I’m not quite sure what the allure is of living in a place that’s gorgeous on the inside but ugly on the outside, but I’m not a rich urban sophisticate. I’m not even a poor urban sophisticate.
I didn’t think Ronald Webster was, either, but that dull man was full of surprises.
There was a freight elevator up to the second-floor loft, but since Monk has elevator issues, we took the iron staircase up the narrow, grimy stairwell instead.
“There are four units in this building, two on each floor, three unoccupied and awaiting buyers,” Stottlemeyer explained as we trudged up the two flights of stairs. Disher and Ludlow took the freight elevator.
“So no one would have heard anything if there was a struggle,” I said.
“You could have brought an alligator, a lion and a walrus in here and nobody would have noticed,” Stottlemeyer said.
On the second-floor landing, one of the two fire doors was open to a vast living room of chrome and glass and marble, which combined to make a striking contrast to the exposed beams and rough bricks of the original factory. The entire space was bathed in light from the uncurtained windows that lined one wall and the skylights above.
The rooms were essentially cubicles, set apart by rolling stainless-steel-and-frosted-glass partitions, making it possible to reconfigure the living space in a number of different ways. There was also a large rolling bookcase full of hardcovers that acted as a room divider. The only rooms that were permanently located were the kitchen and the baths, though some of their walls were on wheels, too.
It was impressive. And looked expensive.
“How does a lowly shoe salesman afford this?” I asked.
“He doesn’t,” Stottlemeyer said, putting on a pair of gloves. “There’s a lot more to the late Ronald Webster than we think.”
“This gets more incredible with each passing hour,” Ludlow said. “I am always amazed at what you find when you scratch the surface of any ordinary person’s life. Who would ever have thought that this shoe salesman could have so many secrets?”
Monk stopped and sniffed. “It smells like gasoline.”
Stottlemeyer sniffed. So did I, but I couldn’t smell anything.
“Diesel, regular or unleaded?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“I can’t tell,” Monk said.
Stottlemeyer shook his head. “I’m disappointed in you, Monk.”
“Me, too,” Monk said. “It’s that LA air. It’s ruined my sense of smell.”
“I was joking,” Stottlemeyer said. “No one can be expected to tell the grade of gasoline from the smell.”
“You’re just being nice,” Monk said.
Ludlow drifted toward a generic pizza box on the kitchen counter. There was a cash register receipt taped to the box. Using the tip of his pen, he lifted the lid of the box to reveal a dry, fungus-covered pizza, three slices missing.
Dr. Hetzer certainly knew his way around stomach contents.
“Now we know where he got his last meal,” Ludlow said, glancing at the receipt. “Sorrento’s Pizza. I wonder if he ate alone or if his murderer was with him.”
Julie and I were in Sorrento’s on Thursday night. Was Webster there at the same time that we were? Maybe we saw him and didn’t know it.
Maybe we brushed shoulders with his killer and didn’t know that, either. It gave me the shivers to realize that we’d stepped under that cloud of death.
I know that sounds overwrought and melodramatic, but think about how you’d feel if you were me. There was a killer, and there was a victim, alongside the two of us in that restaurant. There were a lot of other people, too, but still it was chilling to know that we were in close proximity of such evil and didn’t sense anything more than the smell of garlic and hot cheese.
It made me think about fate and how cruel and unpredictable it could be. Of course, if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t call it fate. They’d call it luck.
So I guess it was fate that got Ronald Webster and luck that saved Julie and me.
Monk was browsing Webster’s bookcase, as if we were guests at a dinner party instead of working a possible homicide scene.
“Webster was a fan of your books,” Monk said to Ludlow. There were five or six Ludlow titles lined up on a shelf in clear plastic dust jacket protectors.
“He and millions of other readers,” Ludlow said.
“How else could you afford your Mercedes?” Monk said.
“I owe a lot to my fans but they expect a lot from me in return,” Ludlow said. “A good mystery every ninety days, for one thing.”
“Webster doesn’t have your latest book,” Monk said. “He was killed before he got a chance to read it.”
“Maybe if he had,” Stottlemeyer said, “he would have known better than to let someone into his house with an alligator.”
Disher stepped out from behind a frosted-glass partition, which I assumed walled off a portion of the bathroom.
“Check this out,” Disher said.
We followed him around the partition to see a Jacuzzi on a platform tiled in travertine. It was enough to make me seriously consider switching to a career selling shoes.
Disher leaned over the rim of the tub. “I think there’s some dried blood caught in the grout,” he said, pointing with his gloved finger. “And a ring of salt around the drain.”
“Common grocery store sea salt is my guess,” Ludlow said. “The granules are larger.”
Monk groaned louder than was necessary, not that he really needed to groan at all.
“I think we’ve just found the spot where Ronald Webster was fed to the gator,” Stottlemeyer said. “Let’s get a forensics team down here pronto.”
Disher took out his cell phone and made the call.
Monk crouched beside a pair of parallel black smudges on the tile floor in the middle of the bathroom. There was another pair of identical smudges closer to the Jacuzzi.
“This is odd,” Monk said.
“They look like scratches,” Stottlemeyer said. “Maybe from the soles of someone’s shoes.”
“The marks are side by side,” Monk said. “If they came from shoes, they’d be staggered and further apart.”
“Whatever it is,” Stottlemeyer said, “we’ll make sure the lab guys check it out. I’m sure when they spray that tub with luminol and light it up, it’s going to glow.”
Luminol is a chemical that reacts to hemoglobin and makes it luminescent. Hemoglobin sticks to surfaces long after all the visible signs of blood have been washed away. I knew that less from actual experience around homicides than from watching reruns of CSI.
Monk squinted at a spot on the floor. “What’s this?”
We all squatted around him to check out the spot.
“It looks like motor oil,” Disher said.
“Or maybe brake fluid,” Ludlow said.
Monk frowned to himself and stood up. “The killer was surprisingly sloppy. It seems like the only clues that he didn’t leave were his name and phone number.”
“Good for us,” Stottlemeyer said. “Maybe we’ll get some prints we can use, too.”
“Do alligators leave prints?” Disher said.
I figured that was our cue to go. Besides, I wanted to get home and start enjoying my free night. I headed for the door and everyone but Disher followed.
As soon as we got outside, Monk motioned to me. I thought he wanted a wipe, but when I reached to take one from my purse, he shook his head.
“Can I borrow your phone?” he said. “I need to make a call.”
I gave him the cell and stepped away to allow him some privacy. Ludlow caught up with me at my car.
“What is Monk’s problem with me?” he asked.
“This is his turf,” I said. “He feels threatened by another expert.”
“But I’m not an expert,” Ludlow said, “as he keeps reminding me.”
I smiled. “You’re a rich, famous author of crime novels. He can’t help but feel a little overshadowed.”
Ludlow nodded
and glanced at my Jeep. “These cars are real warhorses. How does she run?”
“Not bad for a car with 177,000 miles on the odometer,” I said.
“That’s how I feel about myself sometimes,” Ludlow said.
Monk joined us and gave me the phone. “Have you solved the case yet?” he asked Ludlow.
“I’m working on it,” Ludlow said. “But I have no illusions that I can make sense out of it all before you do, not that it’s any kind of competition.”
“Of course not,” Monk said.
“The last thing I want to do is invade your turf or rob you of any glory,” Ludlow said. “I’m not a detective and I’m certainly not as gifted as you are. I’m just a writer looking for a good story to tell. When this is over, I’ll go away and write another book.”
“I understand,” Monk said. “I apologize if I was rude.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Monk was actually acknowledging he was at fault and apologizing for it. This was a first.
I might have pressed him on that point, but my cell phone rang. I glanced at the display and recognized the number. It was Firefighter Joe. If his impeccable timing kept up, I’d have to start calling him Mind Reader Joe.
“Excuse me,” I said to Monk. “It’s Firefighter Joe.”
I stepped away so I’d have some privacy when I took the call.
“I hope I’m not calling you too soon,” Joe said.
“I was just thinking about you,” I said.
“You have no idea how good that makes me feel,” he said.
“As it turns out,” I said, “I have a free night.”
“As it turns out,” he said, “so do I.”
“Would you like to be free together?”
“I had the same thought, but I don’t think I could have expressed it any better than you did.”
“I’ll call you after I’ve dropped off Mr. Monk,” I said, told him good-bye and returned to my car, where Monk now stood alone. Ludlow was farther down the street, making a call on his cell phone.
“I thought you and Joe weren’t seeing each other anymore, ” Monk said.
“So did I,” I said. “But then he came by my house on Thursday looking for you, or so he claimed, and—”
“On Thursday?” Monk interrupted.
“He wanted you to investigate a burglary that happened at the fire station on Wednesday night,” I said. “But it was really just an excuse to—”
“Call him back,” Monk interrupted me again. “Tell him we’ll meet him there.”
“We will?” I said sadly, feeling my wonderful night slipping away. “But he’s got the night off.”
“I want to investigate,” Monk said.
“Can’t you investigate tomorrow?”
“I’m two days late already,” he said and got into my car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse
It was like déjà vu. Once again Monk and I were at the firehouse atop a hill in North Beach, investigating a crime that occurred there while the company was out fighting a blaze. Only this time neither man nor beast had been hurt.
The firehouse had a multimillion-dollar view of Coit Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid, but only if you were standing out front. Inside the firehouse, the few windows looked directly into the building next door. It was almost as if the architect intentionally wanted to deprive the firefighters of the view.
Fog was rolling in off the bay and lapping up against the tall buildings like waves in the encroaching darkness.
Firefighter Joe didn’t seem any happier about being at the station that evening than I was, but our shared frustration created a nice tension between us that was going to be fun to burn off.
Captain Mantooth was pleased to see Monk again, probably because it meant that they were likely to recover what had been stolen and get the chrome on their fire trucks thoroughly shined as well.
Before we came in, Monk pinned a junior firefighter badge onto his lapel. The children’s badge was a red helmet atop an emblem of a fire truck encircled with a golden firehouse. I found the gesture both endearing and amazing. He had no idea when he got dressed that morning that we’d be visiting a fire station, so that meant he must have carried the badge around with him at all times.
I wondered what else he had in his pockets.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Monk said to Mantooth, a man in his fifties who looked like he’d been chiseled from stone.
“We got called to a car fire at approximately eight fifty-two p.m.,” Mantooth said. “It took about two hours to contain the fire and do the necessary cleanup before we got back.”
“Tell me more about the fire,” Monk said.
“Someone stuffed a rag soaked with gasoline into the fuel tank of a painter’s van parked down by Washington Square,” Joe said. “It made quite a blast.”
“And created a lot of attention,” Monk said.
“That’s usually why arsonists do it,” Joe said.
“When we got back at approximately eleven p.m., we commenced cleaning our rig, replenishing supplies and unloading our stuff,” Mantooth said. “That’s when one of the guys discovered that we were missing one of our small hydraulic cutter/spreaders and a lightweight power unit from the firehouse.”
“Why didn’t you take it with you?” Monk asked.
“We’ve got a couple of them,” Joe said. “Different sizes for different jobs. And we keep backups here.”
“Can you show me what one of these tools looks like?” Monk said.
“Sure,” Joe said and led us over to what looked like a giant bolt cutter. “We use this mostly in car accidents to free the people who are trapped inside their crushed vehicles.”
Mantooth pointed to the blades. “The tips of those aluminum-alloy pincers are heat-treated steel and can tear through just about anything.”
“Or we can close the blades, jam this into a tight spot and, instead of cutting,” Joe said, “we can spread an object apart or lift it off of somebody.”
“Can I see what the power unit looks like?” Monk asked.
Joe motioned to something that looked sort of like an outboard motor without the propellers. It fit into a square iron frame, the bottom two bars serving as feet for the unit.
“The one that was stolen was a smaller version of this,” Joe said. “It’s basically a Honda 2.5-horsepower, four-stroke engine.”
Monk nodded as if he knew what those stats actually meant. “What does it use for fuel?”
“The same as any engine,” Joe said. “Gasoline.”
That was when I got my first shiver of realization—one Monk probably had back at Webster’s place when I told him why Joe had stopped by my place on Thursday.
Monk squatted beside the motor and examined its feet. “Could one person carry both the power unit and the rescue tool?”
Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants Page 21