Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu (14 page)

“Even though you were losing money?” I said.

“Did I mention she was great in bed?” Collins smiled at me and then strode over to a painting that was an explosion of colors expressed in brush-strokes, splashes, and dribbles of paint.

It looked to me as if someone had hung the canvas on the wall, threw balloons filled with paint at it, then ran his brush across it a few times before pouring some more paint over it all from a can.

Monk shielded his eyes from the painting. “So what went wrong?”

“I lost three million. I couldn’t believe the stars suddenly went so bad. So I hired a PI to do a little digging. He discovered that Allegra was being paid by the companies I invested in to steer rich people their way. Astrology had nothing to do with her advice. So I broke it off with her.”

I was surprised he was having this conversation with us in front of Prudence, but she appeared not to be paying any attention, nor to feel the least bit awkward, though she was obviously hearing every word. She was adept at remaining present but unobtrusive at the same time.

“That’s it?” I said. “You simply broke it off?”

“I also recommended that she leave San Francisco while she still had use of her legs.”

“Did you have a key to Allegra’s house?” Monk found a place to stand so he wouldn’t have to look at the painting while facing Collins.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” Collins said, moving so that once again, Monk would have to see the painting if he looked at him.

“Where were you two nights ago?” Monk said, moving to Collins’s side and glancing at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Visiting my mother, who lives around the corner from Allegra’s house.” Collins took a step back, so Monk had to turn to look at him and, again, catch a glimpse of the painting. “Not only did I have a motive to kill Allegra, I also had the means and opportunity.”

“I’m surprised you’re being so candid,” Monk said, squinting to blur his view. “Would you like to confess while you’re at it?”

“I figure the more open and honest I am with you, the more likely you are to scratch me off your list of suspects.”

“It could simply be a ploy,” Monk said. “Like all the moving around you’re doing so I have to look at that painting.”

Collins feigned surprise. “Oh, excuse me. I had no idea. You don’t like the painting?”

“It’s a mess,” Monk said.

“This is a classic Wallengren, one of his earliest explorations of abstract expressionism.” Prudence regarded the painting with reverence. “It’s called
Laura,
a portrait of his mistress. As you can see, he was deeply influenced by Pollock and de Kooning.”

“Definitely,” Collins said, nodding.

“The emotion here is raw, almost animalistic,” Prudence said, “yet tempered with sensuality and, dare I say it, whimsy. You feel its power instinctively rather than emotionally or intellectually.”

“A blank canvas would be more pleasant to look at,” Monk said. “The painting doesn’t look anything like a woman.”

“Abstract art doesn’t depict objects,” Prudence said in a patronizing tone. “It captures their nature, their ambiguities, their feeling, their essence.”

“How much is it?” Collins asked.

“Seven hundred thousand dollars,” Prudence said.

“I’ll take it,” Collins said.

“You don’t want to buy it,” Monk said. “It’s not art.”

“I’m curious,” Collins said. “Is there anything here that you would deem a work of art?”

Monk let his gaze roam the gallery until he found something pleasing.

“This is a masterpiece,” he said.

He led us over to a pedestal, where a spray bottle of Windex gleamed under a pinpoint halogen.

“Its red-white-and-blue color scheme evokes freedom, democracy, and peace, underscoring our patriotic duty to keep surfaces germ-free,” Monk said. “The graceful, flowing lines of the bottle and the deep, vivid blue of the liquid represent nature, purity, and the spiritual deliverance that can come only from clean living. It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a bottle of window cleaner,” Prudence said. “It wasn’t on display. I was cleaning the windows and left the bottle there. It’s worthless.”

I didn’t like this lady, and I was tired of her superior attitude. She was no better than me, and I had to let her know it.

“A box of Brillo soap pads is just a disposable consumer product in colorful packaging. But when Andy Warhol made exact plywood replicas of the Brillo boxes and stacked them in a gallery, they became art,” I said. “Like the Windex bottle, the bold use of red, white, and blue on the Brillo soap-pad box ties patriotism, virtue, and independence with the act of keeping aluminum clean, while the squareness of the box itself evokes order, balance, and harmony.

“Warhol used the ordinary nature of his subject to ask: Why is a representation of something art and yet that which it depicts is not? And, in doing so, he completely undermined the prevailing philosophy of art. I submit that by putting it on a pedestal under a spotlight in a gallery you have made it art by virtue of its context. The question is: Is it art regardless of the context? I think Mr. Monk has proven that the answer is yes.”

They all stared at me for a long moment in silence. I may look working-class, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an education. I enjoyed their astonishment and tried not to appear smug.

Collins picked up the bottle of Windex and offered it to Monk.

“It’s yours,” he said, “with our compliments.”

Monk took a step back, holding his hands up in front of him.

“Do you really think I could walk out of here with that and no one would notice? It’s a bribe.”

“It’s Windex,” Collins said.

“What you’re doing is the desperate act of a guilty man, and it’s tantamount to a confession.”

“I didn’t kill Allegra Doucet,” Collins said.

“They why are you trying to bribe me?” Monk said. “You must have done something wrong. I’ll find out what it is. You can be sure of that.”

On that note Monk walked out, shielding his eyes the whole way from the painful images of abstract expressionism.

 

We walked back to my car, which was parked a few blocks north on Sutter. The sidewalk was crowded with people. Monk’s hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets, and his head was hung low as he tried hard not to brush against anyone. His efforts to avoid all contact with passersby turned his walk into something resembling interpretative dance. He weaved, twirled, and contorted. I was tempted to put a hat on the sidewalk and collect donations for his street performance.

“It’s one thing not to like a work of art,” I said. “But don’t you think that covering your eyes was going a little overboard?”

“I was protecting myself.”

“From a painting?”

“You don’t know what it’s like for me to have to look at something that awful.”

“How is it you can casually examine a bloody, mutilated corpse but you’re repulsed by a creative splatter of color and paint on a canvas?”

“The longer I look at something so messy, so disorganized, so
wrong
, the stronger and more irresistible my compulsion becomes.”

“The compulsion to do what?”

“To fix it,” Monk said.

“How could you fix a painting? How would you bring order to something intentionally abstract?”

“I don’t know, and that’s what I’m afraid of. I have no idea what I might do.”

“Surely you could control yourself,” I said. He looked at me. “Never mind, I take it back.”

“With an unsolved murder, I’m driven by the same compulsion to fix the problem. But I know how to do it,” Monk said. “I assemble the evidence into a clear picture of what occurred, and then I make sure that the murderer is punished for his crimes.”

“Do you think Collins killed Allegra Doucet?”

“By his own admission, he had means, motive, and opportunity,” Monk said. “The fact that he had a key and was Doucet’s lover would explain how he got in the house, why she was facing her killer, and why she didn’t know that she was in danger until it was too late.”

“What about the open bathroom window and the broken towel bar?”

“Collins could have staged the whole thing to make it appear that there was an intruder when there wasn’t one.”

“You’d think if he was planning to murder Allegra Doucet he would have come up with a better alibi for himself.”

“You’d think,” Monk said.

“Then again, maybe that’s what he wants us to think,” I said. “Perhaps he has a lousy alibi on purpose so he’ll appear less guilty.”

“Perhaps,” Monk said.

“So which is it?”

Monk shrugged. “I don’t know yet. But I was very impressed by the speech you made in the gallery.”

I smiled. I may have even blushed. It was the first time Monk had ever told me he’d been impressed by anything I’d said or done.

“Really?” I said, fishing for more compliments.

“I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“You mean the thorny, philosophical question of what constitutes art?”

“I mean the box of Brillo soap pads,” Monk said. “It sounds incredible. Where can I see it?”

My cell phone rang. Officer Curtis was calling to report that the city of San Francisco had one less taxpaying citizen.

 

We were on our way to a homicide, so the victim of the crime was beyond help, but I still felt a sense of urgency. That’s not to say I was speeding, though I was certainly driving aggressively.

If we kept at this cop thing for much longer, I was going to ask for a magnetized red bubble light, like Kojak had, so that I could reach up and put it on the top of my car when it was time to press the pedal to the floor.

But my pedal wasn’t pressed anywhere near the floor, so I was surprised when I saw a cop car zooming up in my rearview mirror, his lights flashing.

“What does he want?” I said.

Monk looked over his shoulder. “Maybe he’s our escort.”

“I doubt it,” I said.

I kept driving for a block or two anyway, until the cop gave me gave a short squawk of his siren, signaling me to pull over.

I parked in a red zone, the only open space on the street, and rolled down my window. Monk gave me a scolding look.

“Now you’ve done it,” Monk said.

“I haven’t done anything,” I said.

“The police don’t pull you over for nothing,” Monk said.

“They do if you’re driving the guy who accepted the mayor’s offer to lead the homicide division during a Blue Flu.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Monk said.

“They knew we were on our way to the crime scene and that we’d probably be taking this route,” I said. “This was a trap. I wouldn’t be surprised if every patrol car in the city is on alert to ticket me for something.”

“Someone has a persecution complex,” Monk said.

“They towed my car from a crime scene,” I said.

“You were parked illegally, weren’t you?”

“You’re missing the point,” I said.

“You need to start reading the signs before you park,” he said.

The officer strode up to my window. He was an Asian man in his mid-thirties. His name tag said Officer Nakamura.

“Driver’s license and registration please,” he said.

I handed him my license. While he looked at it, I reached across Monk, opened the glove box, and took out my registration.

“You’re in some hurry, Ms. Teeger,” Officer Nakamura said.

“This is Captain Monk of homicide, as you already know.” I gave the officer the registration slip. “I’m his driver. We’re on our way to a crime scene on official police business.”

Monk held up his badge.

“That’s no excuse for speeding in a residential zone,” Officer Nakamura said. “You are a civilian in a civilian vehicle. You have to obey the traffic laws.”

“That’s what I keep telling her,” Monk said.

“Thank you for your support,” I said to Monk, then turned back to the officer. “I wasn’t speeding.”

“I’m afraid that’s not an accurate statement,” Officer Nakamura said. “I clocked you on radar going twenty-eight miles per hour.”

“Good God, woman, what were you thinking?” Monk exclaimed.

“This is a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone, Mr. Monk. I was going
three miles
over the speed limit.”

“So you admit you were speeding?” Officer Nakamura said with a grin.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“I’m dead serious, Ms. Teeger. These intersections are full of women with baby carriages, senior citizens, and children,” Officer Nakamura said, barely able to keep himself from laughing. “It’s not a drag strip.”

“A drag strip?” I said. “What is this, 1957?”

“How could you be so reckless?” Monk admonished me. “Don’t you place any value on human life?”

“C’mon, Mr. Monk, can’t you see what’s happening here? This has nothing to do with whether or not I drove a mere three miles over the speed limit; it’s all about you,” I said. “This is blatant harassment.”

“You’re also parked in a red zone,” Officer Nakamura said. “That’s a parking violation.”

“See,” I said to Monk. “
Now
do you get it?”

“You’re a scofflaw,” Monk said.

“Please remain here while I write up your tickets,” Officer Nakamura said, returning to his car.

“God bless you, Officer,” Monk said.

I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw Nakamura laughing to himself. The jerk.

“You should be grateful he’s going so easy on you,” Monk said.

“Easy on me? I can’t believe you,” I said, nearly screaming in exasperation. “The tickets he’s writing for these bogus violations will probably cost me hundreds of dollars!”

“Don’t look at me,” Monk said. “I’m not the speed demon.”

“You’re a police captain,” I said.

“Are you saying I should arrest you myself?”