Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (7 page)

 

 

I spent an hour acting as Julie’s social secretary, arranging a playdate for her at the home of one of her friends so she would be under a parent’s supervision for the day while I assisted Monk on his investigation.

Since, technically, Monk was working for Julie, she didn’t mind that I was dumping her at her friend’s house. It didn’t hurt that her friend had an Xbox, a PlayStation, a Game Boy, and every other computer game gizmo ever devised by man. The downside for me was that Julie would come home demanding, for the hundredth time, that I buy her all that stuff, too.

Monk and I were out the door at 10 A.M. The first stop Monk wanted to make was at the home of Gregorio Dumas, the man who lived across the street from the firehouse and was, according to Firefighter Joe, Sparky’s only enemy and therefore our number one suspect.

We knocked on Gregorio Dumas’s front door a half hour later. He look as if he patronized the same groomer as his dog. His fluffy mane of golden hair was styled into an enormous, flowing pompadour. His silhouette reminded me of a French poodle, which, by the way, was the animal he happened to own.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

The guy was short and fat, with gold rings on every finger and necklaces and medallions draped around his neck. All his bling had a tacky canine theme, like the enormous, diamond-encrusted dog bone on the gold chain around his neck. He stood at his front door in a silk kimono, smirking with haughty superiority and evident distaste at his guests on the stoop, who happened to be Mr. Monk and me. Behind the two of us was the fire station where Sparky was killed.

“You obviously like dogs,” Monk said after introducing us and explaining why were there.

“You
are
a detective,” Gregorio said in a voice that was equal parts Ricardo Montalban and Fran Drescher. “Are all your deductions as brilliant as that?”

He stepped aside to let us in. It looked like he’d inherited his home furnishings from an elderly relative who did a lot of shopping at Levitz in 1978. The upholstery reminded me of the Impala station wagon my parents used to have.

An entire wall of shelves overflowed with dog show trophies, award ribbons, and framed photos of Letitia and her proud owner. Seeing the pictures, I was convinced I was right about their sharing the same groomer.

“If you like dogs so much,” Monk said, “you must be heartbroken about what happened to Sparky.”

“He was a rapist,” Gregorio said. “A canine sex offender.”

“C’mon,” I said. “We’re talking about dogs here.”

“Letitia is not a dog; she’s a symbol of perfection and beauty, the reigning queen of the canine world,” Gregorio said. “Or she was until Sparky ruined her life.”

He swept his arm in front of the wall of honors. “She’s won hundreds of American Kennel Club competitions, including Best in Show at the Tournament of Champions. Letitia earned over sixty thousand dollars in prize money and endorsements last year alone.”

“So you’re living off your dog,” Monk said.

“She enjoys the fruits of her success,” Gregorio said. “She lives better than I do.”

“She couldn’t live worse,” Monk muttered.

Gregorio led us through the kitchen. The laundry room was a modified pantry, and Monk paused to look in at a fresh load of clothes, underwear, and towels folded on the dryer.

“Mr. Monk,” I said, drawing his attention away before he started to refold everything or, worse, began giving his lecture on the importance of separating clothes by type of garment into their own stacks.

Gregorio opened the door to the backyard, which was dominated by a miniature Victorian cottage with a cedar-shingled roof, gables, cupola, bay windows, and a wraparound porch with flower boxes. There were a bunch of rubber chew toys on the porch, including a bone, a squeaky ball, a hot dog, and a cat. There was a high fence ringed with razor wire surrounding the yard.

“You’ve got to treat royalty like royalty,” Gregorio said.

“All that,” I said, “for a dog? I could live in there.”

“How many bathrooms does it have?” Monk asked.

“Show dogs are judged by teeth, muscle tone, bone structure, coat texture, and, most important, how they carry themselves. Their gait, their balance, how all the elements fit together. A dog who lives in a castle walks like a queen. That’s what she was, a queen.”

“You keep talking about Letitia in the past tense,” Monk said. “What happened to her?”

“Sparky’s lust,” Gregorio said. He whistled for the dog.

Letitia bounded out of her mansion. The French poodle still had her astonishingly white, fluffy hair and her regal bearing, but she was almost as rotund as her owner.

“Sparky knocked her up,” Gregorio said.

She went straight for Monk and shoved her nose toward his crotch. Monk blocked her with his hands and squealed when her wet nose made contact with his skin.

“I’ve been hit,” he said, backing into the living room while the dog pushed him along, trying to get her nose past his hands.

“Now she’s just a pregnant bitch,” Gregorio said as he returned to the living room. I followed him. “Soon she’ll be fat and swollen with big, bloated udders. But that’s nothing compared to what she’s going to look like after she squeezes out a litter of puppies.”

Monk grabbed a pillow from the couch and placed it protectively in front of his groin. So the enthusiastic dog angled around for a sniff at his butt instead. He dropped into a chair, covered his lap with the pillow, and pinched his knees together.

I could have helped Monk, of course. But after the morning ordeal with the bathroom, I was enjoying some payback.

“Surely she can get back into shape,” I said. After all, I thought, I bounced back to my old form after my pregnancy, didn’t I?

“Sagging teats, wrinkly skin, bloodshot eyes; that’s her future,” he said. “A shriveled-up shell of her old self. I warned those firemen something bad would happen if they let their spotted monster run wild through the neighborhood whenever they left the station.”

There was a mirror on the wall. I looked at my reflection, wondering if that was what Joe was going to see at dinner tonight: sagging teats, wrinkly skin, bloodshot eyes.

“It’s not like she bred with a show dog. Sparky was common street trash,” Gregorio said. “Can you imagine what those mixed-breed mongrel monsters are gonna look like? I won’t shed any tears over Sparky.”

Letitia jumped up on the couch beside Monk and started licking his cheek.

“Help,” Monk squeaked.

“Sounds like you hated Sparky enough to kill him,” I said.

“Except I didn’t,” Gregorio said.

“Is that the best you can do?” I said.

“Help,” Monk squeaked again.

I grabbed Letitia by the collar and pulled her away from Monk, who bolted out the front door and closed it behind him.

“If I was gonna kill him, I would have done it before he knocked up Letitia,” Gregorio said, taking Letitia from me. “What good would it do me now?”

“How about revenge?” Monk said from outside, his voice muffled by the door.

“I won’t say it didn’t cross my mind,” Gregorio said.

“What?” Monk said.

“
It crossed my mind
,” Gregorio yelled. “But I’m suing the San Francisco Fire Department for Letitia’s lost earning potential instead.”

“Where were you last night between ten P.M. and two A.M.?” I asked Gregorio.

“Here,” Gregorio said. “Alone.”

“That’s not much of an alibi,” I said.

“I don’t need one,” Gregorio said. “Because I didn’t do it.”

“Could you speak up?” Monk called out.

“
I didn’t do it
,” Gregorio yelled back. “
Ask the fireman
.”

Monk opened the door a crack, just enough to stick his face in. “What fireman?”

“The one I saw coming out of the station about ten thirty,” Gregorio said.

“But they all left at ten to fight a fire,” I said.

“I know that. Don’t you think I’ve got ears? It’s a real joy to live across the street from a fire station, let me tell you. Anyway, the blaring sirens at ten; then a half hour later that damn hell-dog of theirs starts barking. I looked out my window to see if he was trotting over here to defile Letitia some more, but the barking stopped and I didn’t see anything. Five minutes later, Letitia starts barking, so I look out the window again, thinking Sparky’s on his way over for some action, and I see a fireman walking out.”

“How do you know it was a fireman?” Monk asked.

“I could see his helmet and heavy coat,” Gregorio said.

“But not his face,” I said.

“He had his back to me,” Gregorio said. “And it was nighttime, and he was across the street. Now if you will excuse me, I’ve got things to do.”

He ushered me to the door. The instant I stepped outside, Monk waved his hands frantically in front of me, as if ants were swarming all over them.

“Wipe, wipe, wipe,” he said.

I gave him about thirty of them as we walked to the car, which was parked in front of the fire station.

“I need to shower,” Monk said. “For a year.”

“Who does he think he’s kidding?” I said. “He expects us to believe that a fireman killed Sparky? How lame is that? He’s just trying to deflect attention from himself.”

“He’s not the guy,” Monk said.

“How can you say that? Sparky knocked up his cash cow—or cash poodle—whatever. The point is, Gregorio lost sixty thousand dollars per year. That’s plenty of motive for murder, and he lives right across from the fire station, so he knows exactly when the firemen come and go.”

“He’s not the guy,” Monk said.

“He admitted he loathed Sparky and that he knew the firemen left at ten,” I said. “It probably happened just like you said. He went over there to poison the dog food or something and Sparky surprised him.”

“He’s not the guy,” Monk said.

“Will you please stop saying that?” I asked. “Did you see his hair? He’s got to be the guy. How do you know he’s not the guy?”

“He’s too fat,” Monk said. “He never could have made it to the pickax before Sparky took him down. But he’s lying.”

“About what?”

“He was in the fire station the night Sparky was killed.”

“How do you know?”

“His laundry,” Monk said. “I saw the two missing firehouse towels folded with his socks. Can you believe that? With his socks.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was busy defending myself from that vicious dog and its slavering jaws of death.”

I suspected the slavering part was what concerned him the most. Then again, if I lick my lips, he accuses me of slavering.

“Gregorio Dumas is still in possession of stolen property,” I said. “Though you’ve got to wonder why he took the towels in the first place.”

“I do,” Monk said. “I also wonder how Sparky got Letitia pregnant.”

“I could explain that to you,” I said. “But do I really have to?”

“I don’t mean how he did it, but how he was
able
to do it.”

“He’s a dog, she’s a dog, I think that’s all that really matters to dogs,” I said. “That’s why they call them dogs.”

“What I mean is, the backyard is protected by a fence topped with flesh-cutting razor wire. How did Sparky get into the yard?”

“Maybe the fence was installed after the deed was done?”

We didn’t get a chance to ponder the question because my cell phone rang. It was Stottlemeyer. He wanted to see Monk in his office right away.

 

Stottlemeyer’s office was more than just an office. It was his refuge. Here he could do all the things his wife wouldn’t let him do at home. He could smoke cigars. Eat junk food. Pick his nose. He could take off his shoes, put his stockinged feet up on the desk, and browse
Sports Illustrated
’s swimsuit issue. The office was also filled with all the stuff she wouldn’t let him display around their house, like his baseball memorabilia, his
Serpico
movie poster, his collection of cigar labels, and the bullet that was dug out of his shoulder a few years back.

So as much, and as often, as Stottlemeyer complained about having to work late and on weekends, I knew he took more comfort and solace in being in his office than he was willing to admit.

“I hate coming in here on my day off,” Stottlemeyer said as we gathered in his office. The bullpen outside was sparsely occupied by three or four detectives.

Stottlemeyer was wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes to remind himself, and anyone who saw him, that he was supposed to be home relaxing.

Lieutenant Randall Disher, by comparison, was in his usual ill-fitting, off-the-rack suit and tie, as if it were any other day of the week. He idolized Stottlemeyer, so he was never entirely comfortable around him. A tremor of eager-to-please anxiety underscored his every word and action.

“We could use your help on this one, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “And since you’re the one who brought this unsolvable homicide to our attention, I think you’ve got a duty to solve it for us.”

“Unsolvable?” Monk asked. “There’s no such thing.”

“That’s the spirit,” Stottlemeyer said. “Tell him what we have, Randy.”

Disher referred to his notebook. “Ordinarily in these kinds of accidents, where someone falls asleep while smoking, it’s not the fire that kills them but the smoke.”

“Did the medical examiner find smoke or soot particles in the victim’s lungs or nasal passages?” Monk asked.

“No,” Stottlemeyer said. “Meaning Esther Stoval was dead before the fire started.”

“There you go,” Monk said. “It’s murder. You solved it. What’s the unsolvable part?”

“We’re getting to that,” Stottlemeyer said. “Go on, Randy. Tell him the rest.”

“The ME found bits of fabric in her windpipe and petechial hemorrhages in the conjuntivae of her eyes that come from increased pressure in the veins when—”