Mr. Monk Gets Even (12 page)

“Do you mean that in the same way that you said you’d tow that Mercedes at Zuzelo’s building but then you really wouldn’t?”

“No, Monk, this time I will do it,” Stottlemeyer said. “You can sleep soundly tonight.”

Monk stared at the desk, then back at the captain. “I will check the desk next time I am here.”

“You check my desk every time you are here,” Stottlemeyer said.

Monk nodded. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

And with that, Monk walked out, Julie right behind him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mr. Monk and the Broken Heart

A
t that moment, I was in New Jersey, three hours ahead of everyone in San Francisco, and back in my hotel room after ending my shift.

During my day maintaining law and order in Summit, I ticketed a dozen drivers for speeding violations, figured out who’d been stealing Mr. Abernathy’s morning paper for the last month (it was a dog across the street), and filled out a report for a woman who had an iPad stolen from the front seat of her unlocked Porsche.

It was not the most exciting day in the annals of law enforcement, and I found myself guiltily longing for a major crime wave to challenge my little gray cells, as Hercule Poirot would say.

I gave Julie a call on the pretext of giving her my travel information for the wedding, but I really wanted to find out what complex mysteries she and Monk were involved in so I could live vicariously through them.

I caught her at home, shortly after she’d dropped off Monk at his place and been dumped via text message by her boyfriend.

“You’re better off without him,” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Because he broke up with you by text,” I said. “It proves he’s a gutless, classless jerk.”

“I deserved it,” she said. “I would have dumped me, too. I was never around and totally undependable.”

“You’re dependable,” I said.

“To Mr. Monk—not to anybody else. I blew off a date tonight at the last minute because Mr. Monk had one of his sudden inspirations.”

“Did he catch the murderer?”

“No, but he’s certain that he knows who it is, even though he doesn’t have any concrete evidence. But his epiphany meant that I stood up my boyfriend for the one hundredth time. I never did that before I started working for Mr. Monk. This job makes it impossible to have a relationship.”

“Believe me, I know,” I said. “Now imagine doing the job while being a single mother and raising a child.”

“You’re fishing for appreciation,” she said.

“I’m just making a point,” I said.

“No, you’re trying to score some off of my misery. Shame on you. This call is supposed to be about me.”

“Who says?”

“I do,” she said. “I was just dumped.”

“By a jerk. He did you a favor. Suck it up.”

“Thanks for the sympathy and understanding, Mom.”

“That’s not what you need now. Don’t be hurt, be angry,” I said. “It feels better. How’s work going?”

“The usual. People have been murdered. Mr. Monk makes huge deductive leaps on the basis of tiny details nobody else notices. Amy is pissed off and defensive, though she had it a bit more under control today. And Leland just accepts it all and wants to go home.”

“Sounds wonderful to me,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too homesick and envious.

“Oh, and Dale the Whale is having lipo and a gastric bypass.”

That made me sit up in my chair. “In prison?”

“In a hospital.”

“It’s a trick,” I said. “He’s plotting an escape.”

“That’s what Monk thinks, too, but Leland has it under control. Dale is in the ICU and under around-the-clock guard.”

Murders to solve and Dale the Whale out of prison, perhaps plotting a grand escape. It sounded so much more interesting than catching a dog who liked to collect rolled-up morning newspapers and bury them in his yard.

For a moment, I wished I was there to help out. But I wasn’t Monk’s underappreciated, underpaid, overworked assistant anymore. Julie was.

I was a police officer now, recognized for my skills and decently compensated for my work. I carried a badge and a gun instead of a purse full of disinfectant wipes, bottled water, evidence baggies, and hand sanitizer.

I was independent and self-reliant in a way that I’d never been before.

I was respected for the first time in my life.

I actually had a profession.

So why was I so glum?

“Tell me about the murders,” I said.

She did. “And you won’t believe who Mr. Monk thinks the killer of all three of them is.”

“You say that like it’s someone I know.”

“It’s someone everyone knows—except Monk, of course. Cleve Dobbs.”

I was stunned. “Founder of Peach?
That
Cleve Dobbs?”

“How many others do you know?”

“Why would he go around killing people? He has the money to hire an army to do it for him.”

“I don’t know, but Mr. Monk is usually right about his deductions, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be over at Dobbs’ place tomorrow. Leland will try to be polite and circumspect, but he will be totally undermined by Mr. Monk, who will probably come right out and accuse Dobbs of being a murderer. Maybe I’ll record it all for you on my Peach.”

I almost took her up on the offer, which made no sense. That’s because the situation she described was one I’d been in a thousand times before with Monk and always found extremely irritating, frustrating, and uncomfortable. It was exactly the kind of stress I’d looked forward to eliminating from my life when I’d taken the Summit job.

And yet, at that moment, I found the prospect of being part of that potentially awkward and infuriating encounter with Dobbs so much more interesting, fun, and amusing than anything that was likely to happen in my life.

“If Monk says Dobbs is a killer, then he is,” I said. “But proving it isn’t going to be easy. Monk will become obsessed with solving the crime.”

“So I won’t have much time to wallow in my heartbreak,” she said.

“Are you really heartbroken?”

“It wasn’t love, if that’s what you’re asking. But I really liked him and, who knows, in time it might have turned into something.”

“Not if he’s the kind of guy who breaks up with you with a text message.”

“Well, in his defense, it’s probably the best way to reach me these days, so how he dumped me kind of underscores why the relationship wasn’t working. I probably would have stood him up if he’d made a date to dump me face-to-face.”

“You’re not making it very easy to be angry at the guy,” I said.

“I don’t want to be angry at him,” she said. “It just sucks, that’s all. I guess I’m going to have to be single until the summer is over and Mr. Monk can find a new assistant. I need a job with regular hours once school starts again. I can’t blow off my classes every time a dead body is found in San Francisco, or I’ll never graduate. And I’d like to have a love life.”

“Join the club,” I said.

“What’s stopping you?”

That was a good question. “I’m focusing on my career right now.”

“And you’re still living in a hotel?”

“I haven’t had a chance to find a place yet,” I said.

“Sounds to me like you’re stalling.”

“Stalling what?”

“Starting your new life.”

“I’m hard at work,” I said.

“But you’re living out of a hotel room and not starting any new relationships,” she said. “You’re hesitating about putting down roots. Something is holding you back.”

“Have you changed your major to psychology?”

“No,” she said.

“Maybe you should,” I said.

• • •

Okay, that’s enough about me. The last thing you want to hear about is my emotional and psychological angst. You want to know about the three murders and Dale the Whale. I just wanted to remind you that I was around and that I’d soon be arriving in San Francisco, where I’d become part of the story rather than just your lovable, all-knowing if slightly neurotic narrator.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Julie followed Teeger family tradition and drowned her sorrow in Oreo cookie ice cream, which is lousy for the waistline but a remarkable cure for whatever ails you. Unless it’s worries about your weight, of course.

The next morning, she got a call bright and early from Captain Stottlemeyer summoning Monk to the police headquarters.

“Can I assume this means Amy found the connections between Dobbs and the three murder victims?” she asked.

“A brilliant deduction,” Stottlemeyer said, but he declined to tell her any more details.

So Julie dutifully picked up Monk at his place, but it took them nearly an hour to get to the headquarters. The brakes failed on a moving truck on Powell Street, sending it barreling down the steep hill toward Union Square, where it plowed into a cable car and a bus, injuring scores of people and snarling traffic throughout the city.

Monk and Julie didn’t have to make any excuses for their tardiness to Stottlemeyer, who was at the coffee machine when they came and was well aware of the accident. Besides, Julie got the impression that the captain was in no hurry to question Dobbs anyway.

He picked up his coffee cup and led them over to Devlin, who sat at her desk, which was covered with fast-food containers and empty soft-drink cans.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to eat at your desk anymore,” Monk said.

“The captain did, not me,” Devlin said. “If I stopped eating at my desk, it would be the same as going on a hunger strike.”

“You are wearing the same clothes you wore yesterday,” Monk said.

“Wow, you really are observant,” she said. “I haven’t showered, either, thanks to you.”

Monk took a big step back from her desk, which seemed to delight her.

“She’s been here all night digging into the backgrounds of the victims and Dobbs,” Stottlemeyer said. “You were right, they are connected.”

“I wasn’t aware there was any doubt,” Monk said.

“We already know Grossman’s connection to Peach. He was on the board that booted Dobbs from the company and took his spot as CEO,” Devlin said. “And you were right about Carin Branham. She was Dobbs’ girlfriend for two years before he developed the Peach. Supposedly, he was so depressed from the breakup that he went into virtual seclusion after that, which was when he created the Peach.”

“So the breakup was the best thing that ever happened to him,” Julie said. “Just because someone dumps you, it’s not the end of something, but maybe the beginning. An opportunity. A blessing in disguise. Instead of wallowing in misery and feeling sorry for yourself, you should celebrate your heartbreak as the glorious gift that it might actually be.”

Monk, Stottlemeyer, and Devlin stared at her.

“Did your boyfriend dump you last night?” Devlin asked.

“How did you know?” Julie asked.

“It’s obvious from the drops of Oreo cookie ice cream on your shoe,” Monk said. “And the fact that you ordinarily send or receive text messages from him once or twice an hour and yet you haven’t today.”

“I didn’t notice any of those things,” Devlin said. “I got it because Julie just told us she was dumped.”

“She did?” Monk said.

“Your understanding of human nature is astounding,” Stottlemeyer said.

“That’s why I am sure I would have heard Julie say it if she’d said it,” Monk said.

“Yes, I was dumped,” Julie said. “But I am totally okay with it.”

“We can tell,” Devlin said.

“Can we move on, please?” Julie said. “How is David Zuzelo connected to Dobbs?”

“Zuzelo was Dobbs’ high school math teacher who flunked him,” Devlin said. “Apparently, Zuzelo told him to pursue a career that didn’t require any mathematics.”

Monk nodded and turned to Stottlemeyer. “Shall we go arrest him?”

“We don’t have any evidence,” Stottlemeyer said.

“If you aren’t going to listen when I tell you what happened, you should have Devlin take notes.”

“His tattoo doesn’t prove he’s a serial killer,” Stottlemeyer said. “We also don’t have any motive.”

“Zuzelo offended him, Grossman took his job, and Branham broke his heart.”

“Decades ago, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “Why kill them now?”

“We can ask him after you read him his rights,” Monk said.

“We will go and talk with him,” Stottlemeyer said. “But you aren’t coming along unless you can promise me you’ll behave yourself.”

“I always do.”

“Okay,” Stottlemeyer said. “With all the traffic today, it’s probably better if the three of us can go in my car.”

“Your car?” Monk asked.

“I’ve got a siren,” Stottlemeyer said. “And I’ve had it cleaned.”

“You said three of us would be going.”

“I’m sending Devlin home,” Stottlemeyer said. “She’s pulled an all-nighter on this.”

“Then we’ll need another officer,” Monk said.

“I think we can handle Dobbs on our own,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Three people in a car isn’t safe,” Monk said. “It’s a deadly imbalance, particularly at high speed.”

Devlin sighed and got up. “I’ll come along. I don’t get to meet many billionaires.”

“Are you going to shower first?” Monk asked. “With a strong disinfectant soap and a scrub brush?”