Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu (25 page)

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Authors: Lee Goldberg

BOOK: Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
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“That’s all you’ve got?” Stottlemeyer said. “That’s the basis for your entire theory?”
“Pretty much,” Monk said. “And the strawberry thing.”
“What strawberry thing?” Stottlemeyer said.
“You don’t want to know,” I said, dry-swallowing two Advils.
“Gruber also got his mom’s birthday wrong,” Monk said.
“Excuse me?” Stottlemeyer said.
“Gruber claimed he remembered Herrin’s partial plate because it matched his mother’s birthday, M-five-six-seven for May fifth, 1967, but for that to be true, she had to give birth to him when she was ten years old, which I find highly unlikely.”
“What if she adopted him?” Disher said.
Stottlemeyer looked at me. “Is that Advil?”
I nodded.
“The math still doesn’t work,” Monk said. “If his mother was born in 1967, she’s forty. He’s thirty.”
“Maybe she adopted him when she was twenty and he was ten,” Disher said.
“Toss me the bottle, would you?” Stottlemeyer said to me. I did.
“It still doesn’t add up,” Monk said.
“I’m not so sure,” Disher said. “Does anyone have a calculator?”
Stottlemeyer put some tablets in his mouth, washed them down with a sip of coffee, and tossed the Advil bottle back to me.
“Okay, Monk, here’s how I see it,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’ve got absolutely nothing connecting Bertrum Gruber to the murder of Officer Milner.”
“How can you say that after everything I just told you?”
“Because none of it makes any sense,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It couldn’t be more sensible,” Monk said.
“We may be experiencing a historic moment here,” Stottlemeyer said. “This could be the first time you’re wrong about the solution to a homicide.”
“I’m not,” Monk said.
“Hey, you don’t have to convince me,” Stottlemeyer said. “I don’t sign your checks anymore. You’re a captain in this department. If you think you’ve got something, prove it.”
“I don’t want to step on your investigation,” Monk said.
“Trust me, you won’t,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You’re sure?”
“Monk, I guarantee it. The Bertrum Gruber angle is all yours,” Stottlemeyer said. “Run with it with my blessing.”
“Okay.” Monk headed for the door. “I will.”
 
Monk went back to his interrogation room office. I went with him and closed the door. He paced back and forth in front of his desk.
“Can you believe that?” Monk said.
“It’s shocking,” I said.
“I couldn’t have been any clearer if I had Bertrum Gruber standing in the room making a confession.”
I didn’t say anything. Monk paced some more.
“The facts are indisputable and the conclusions are logical and inevitable.”
Monk paced back and forth. I kept my mouth shut.
“How could anyone listen to that explanation and not be thoroughly convinced that I’m right?”
After a moment Monk stopped and looked at me. “
You
are convinced, aren’t you?”
I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me that question.
“Frankly, Mr. Monk, no.”
“How can that be?” he said. “What part don’t you get?”
“Everything after you said Bertrum Gruber killed Officer Milner.”
“Okay,” Monk said. “I’ll go over it again.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “Please don’t. The Advil hasn’t kicked in yet, and I’m afraid my head might explode.”
Monk nodded and started pacing once more, counting to himself.
“What are you counting?” I asked.
“The number of times I pace,” he said.
“Why?”
“I want to make sure that when I’m ready to quit I end on an even number,” he said.
“Why don’t you just pick a number to pace to and end then?”
“That presupposes that I will know when I want to quit pacing.”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m thinking,” Monk said. “I’ll finish pacing when I’m through thinking, and I’ll do it on an even number.”
“So you might have to pace past the point when you’ve finished thinking.”
“Usually I can time it so they happen at about the same time,” Monk said. “I just walk slowly or think faster.”
“Gotcha,” I said, and debated to myself whether the two Advil I’d already taken would be enough. “How are you able to keep count and talk to me at the same time?”
“I’m counting in my head,” he said.
“While you’re talking,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “Can’t you do that?”
“No,” I said. In fact, I could barely think at all. It felt like my brain was trying to break out of my skull.
“That explains why you couldn’t follow my simple solution to Officer Milner’s murder.”
“Simple?” I shrieked. Yes, shrieked. I’m not proud of it.
“Simple,” he said.
“How did Officer Milner figure out that Charles Herrin was the Golden Gate Strangler?”
“I don’t know.”
“What proof do you have that Officer Milner and Bertrum Gruber have even seen each other in the last eight months?”
“Gruber couldn’t have known what he knew otherwise,” Monk said.
“That isn’t proof,” I said. “That’s a guess. So how are you going to establish that Officer Milner solved the murders and then told Gruber about it?”
“That’s a niggling detail.”
“No offense, Mr. Monk, but that seems like a big detail to me. Without that, how can you establish Gruber’s motive for killing Officer Milner?”
“Why do you think I’m pacing?”
“The only two people who can tell you what you need to know are Officer Milner and Bertrum Gruber,” I said. “Milner is dead and Gruber won’t talk. So where can you go to find the evidence?”
Monk paced back and forth. And back and forth again. “I need a picture of Officer Milner. Can you get me that?”
“Probably,” I said. “Why?”
Monk paced back and forth one more time and then stopped. “Twenty-eight.”
“You’re finished thinking?”
“I am,” Monk said with a smile. “Now it’s time for some action.”
22
Mr. Monk Goes to Jail
Visiting a jail is a lot like going to the airport these days, only you’re not allowed to bring any personal belongings with you. You have to walk through a metal detector, but even if you don’t set off any alarms, a guard is still likely to run a wand around you and physically pat you down.
Unless you’re Adrian Monk.
The guards at the county lockup were familiar with him and knew his strong aversion to being touched. So they did an extraordinary thing: They let him pat himself down.
Yeah, that’s right. He gave
himself
a full body search, right there at the security checkpoint. And believe me, it was something to see.
He contorted his body this way and that, slapping himself as if he were covered with fire ants, while the guards looked on with stone faces.
But he was thorough.
“Uh-oh.” Monk patted his pocket. He reached inside slowly, as if there might be a mousetrap in there that he didn’t know about, and pulled out single, shiny quarter. “What was I thinking bringing this inside a jail?”
“What harm could a quarter cause?” I asked.
Monk shook his head and looked at the guards. “She’s a newbie.” He looked back at me. “This quarter could be carved into a tiny, but deadly, arrowhead.”
“I’ve heard of prisoners making shivs, but never arrowheads.”
“That’s because the tireless diligence of these fine guards has prevented that from happening.” Monk dropped the quarter in the basket that contained his wallet and other personal items.
One of the burly guards stepped forward to pat me down.
“Can’t I pat myself?” I said.
The guard shook his head.
“But you let Mr. Monk do it,” I said.
“He’s a special case,” the guard said.
I couldn’t argue with that. I got patted down.
We were led into a windowless meeting room with gray walls and only a metal table and four matching chairs, all screwed to the floor.
“I like what they’ve done with the place,” Monk said.
He wasn’t being sarcastic. He really liked it. The table was in the center of the room, the four chairs spaced evenly apart, creating a perfectly symmetrical ensemble.
Monk walked around the table several times, admiring it, touching the four corners lightly with the tips of his fingers as he passed.
“It’s beautiful,” Monk said. “It’s like a sculpture. I wonder if I could get one of these installed in my house.”
“You want to furnish your place like a prison?”
“Remind me to get the name of the artist before we leave,” he said.
The door opened and the guards brought in Charlie Herrin, who was in chains and wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. They led him to a chair and locked the chains at his feet into an eyebolt on the floor.
“Is that really necessary?” Monk asked.
“He murdered three women with his bare hands,” I said.
“Knock on the door if you need us,” one of the guards said. “We’ll be right outside.”
The guards left and closed the door. We sat down across from Herrin. He looked at me as if I were a Fudgsicle.
“Hi,” Monk said. “I’m the guy you held hostage the other day. You might not recognize me because you were behind my back with your gun to my head.”
“I remember you,” Herrin said, his eyes going up and down my body. “Who is she?”
“Don’t tell him my name,” I said. “I don’t want this monster knowing anything about me.”
The last thing I wanted was to get letters, e-mails, or collect calls from Herrin and his buddies in prison.
“She’s someone I know who goes places with me,” Monk said. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“You can ask all the questions you want,” Herrin said. “But I’m not answering them without an incentive.”
“Like what?” Monk said.”
Herrin smiled at me. “I want your left shoe.”
“In your dreams,” I said.
“That’s my problem,” Herrin said. “All I have are my dreams. They took my entire collection of souvenirs away. I have needs that aren’t being met in here.”
“That’s the idea,” I said.
Herrin shrugged. “No shoe, no answers.”
Monk looked imploringly at me. “Give him your shoe.”
“No,” I said.
“It’s an old shoe,” he said.
“I don’t care,” I said.
“It’s all scuffed up and dirty,” Monk said.
“That’s not the point,” I said. “You know why he wants this shoe. You know what this shoe means to him. Do you really want to indulge his sick, twisted desires?”
“Do you want a murderer to go free?” Monk said.
He had to put it that way, didn’t he? I reached down, pulled off my shoe, and dropped it on the table.
“Happy now?” I said.
Herrin picked it up delicately, as if it were a glass slipper, and brought it up to his nose. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes in rapture.
Monk grimaced in disgust and so did I.
“My God,” Monk said. “You’re so, so, so sick.”
“It may be a long time before I get this close to another shoe,” Herrin said. “I want to savor it.”
“Hurry up and ask your questions,” I said to Monk. “I want to get out of here.”
“Me, too,” Monk said. “Give him your other shoe.”
“What?” I said.
“Give him your other shoe,” Monk said.
“I don’t want her other shoe,” Herrin said.
“Give it to him anyway,” Monk said.
“I’m not giving him another shoe.”
“She can keep it,” Herrin said.
“You’re only wearing one shoe,” Monk said to me. “Be reasonable. You can’t walk out of here with just one shoe.”
“Yes, I can,” I said.
“No, you can’t,” he said.
“I’m not giving him my other shoe,” I said.
“What are you going to do with just one shoe?” Monk said.
“I’ll have it and he won’t,” I said.
“I don’t want it,” Herrin said.
“All that shoe will do is remind you of the shoe you gave to him,” Monk said. “Do you really want to be reminded of that?”
I looked at Herrin, who was lovingly sniffing and stroking my shoe. No, I didn’t want to be reminded of that.
“Fine.” I took off my right shoe and smacked it down on the table. “Enjoy it, you creep.”
“Why would I want a right shoe?” Herrin slid it toward me. “It’s incomparable to a left shoe.”
“Take it.” Monk slid the shoe back to him using the very tip of his index finger.
“No.” Herrin pushed it away.
“Yes.” Monk slid it back again.
“No.” Herrin pushed it away.
“Either you take the right shoe or I’m taking back the left one,” Monk said.
“No, you won’t,” Herrin said.
“Yes, I will,” Monk said.
“Then I won’t answer your questions,” Herrin said.
“Shoes come in pairs!” Monk slammed his fist on the table, bolted up from his seat, and glared at Herrin with a righteous fury I’d never seen in him before. “It is the natural order of the universe. It’s bad enough that you’ve murdered three women, but you will
not
mess with the natural order of the universe. Do I make myself clear?”
Herrin swallowed hard, cradled my left shoe to his bosom with one hand, and reluctantly took my right shoe with the other.
“That’s better.” Monk settled back into his seat and took a deep breath. He rolled his head, adjusted his collar, then reached into his jacket pocket and took out a photo. “Have you ever seen this man before?”
It was a picture of Officer Milner.
Charlie Herrin glanced at the picture and nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen him.”
Monk was right: There
was
a connection between Milner, Gruber, and Herrin.
“Do you know who he is?” Monk asked.

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