Mr. Monk in Outer Space (8 page)

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Authors: Lee Goldberg

BOOK: Mr. Monk in Outer Space
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“There’s fresh gum under the seat.” Monk stood up straight and pointed accusingly at the corpse. “And I’m certain that he was responsible.”
 
 
“That’s good to know,” Stottlemeyer said. “That’ll be one less question keeping me up at night.”
 
 
Disher joined us, shoving his notebook into his inside jacket pocket. “The taxi driver picked Stipe up at the Belmont Hotel in Union Square and brought him straight here. He confirms what we know and what the other witnesses told us. Well, at least I think he does. My Chinese is a little rusty.”
 
 
“You speak Chinese?” Stottlemeyer asked.
 
 
“No,” Disher said. “That’s why it’s rusty. From lack of use.”
 
 
“There were other witnesses?” I asked.
 
 
“A few people in the parking lot saw it and so did some others from the windows of their hotel rooms,” Disher said. “We would have had even more witnesses if the gunshot hadn’t been muffled by an airplane coming in for a landing.”
 
 
“If you’ve got all those witnesses and the shooting on tape,” I said, “what do you need Mr. Monk for?”
 
 
“We don’t know who did it or why,” Stottlemeyer said. “Or where to find him.”
 
 
“Isn’t that true at the outset of most murder investigations? I thought you only brought Mr. Monk in for the really tough ones.”
 
 
“This one is a little more complicated than it seems, Natalie,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“Much more.” Monk scowled at the corpse. “This man had a lot of enemies who wanted him dead. It could take us the rest of our lives to find them all.”
 
 
“Why do you say that?” Stottlemeyer asked.
 
 
“Because he was a nasty, foul, disgusting human being,” Monk said. “And nasty, foul, disgusting human beings make enemies.”
 
 
“You don’t know anything about him yet.”
 
 
“He chewed gum,” Monk said, as if that said it all.
 
 
“Lots of people chew gum, Monk. That doesn’t make them bad people.”
 
 
“This man stuck a glob of cud soaked in his putrid bodily fluids under the seat of a taxi. If he hadn’t been killed here today, this taxi would have driven off, picked up another fare, and some innocent, unsuspecting, clean-living person would have sat on that seat. God only knows what might have happened then.”
 
 
“I’ll grant you that he wasn’t very considerate. But that’s not what makes this case a challenge.”
 
 
Monk glared at the corpse. “I hope you burn in hell.”
 
 
He said some other things, perhaps even profane things, but they were drowned out by a plane passing overhead. It was so low that I instinctively ducked to avoid being decapitated by the landing gear or crushed by the collapse of the building. Once the plane passed, I spoke up.
 
 
“It’s not like the guy drowned in midair or was attacked by an alligator or was found in a room locked from the inside. I don’t see what’s so complicated about this.”
 
 
“That’s funny,” Stottlemeyer said, “because five minutes ago you didn’t think you were qualified to offer an opinion.”
 
 
I shrugged. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”
 
 
“You’ll understand the complexity of the situation after you’ve seen the surveillance tape,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’ve got it queued up and waiting in the manager’s office.”
 
 
The captain motioned to the guys from the morgue to take away the body, then led Monk, Disher, and me across the parking lot to the lobby.
 
 
“By the way, Monk, I got the medical examiner’s report on Lorber this morning,” Stottlemeyer said. “You were right. He was dead for at least ten minutes before he was shot. It’s not my problem or yours anymore.”
 
 
“It’s a case for the Special Desecration Unit,” Disher said. “Or SDU, as it’s known in law enforcement circles.”
 
 
“What ‘law enforcement circles’?” Stottlemeyer asked.
 
 
“This one. You and me,” Disher said, making a circle with his finger. “And Monk and Natalie.”
 
 
“I’m not in law enforcement,” I said.
 
 
“But you are in the circle,” Disher said, twirling his finger again. “So you know. Everyone in the circle knows.”
 
 
“The SDU has another case,” Monk said.
 
 
“We do?” Disher said excitedly.
 
 
“The desecration of that taxi.” Monk pointed at the car and then at the body bag being wheeled away on a gurney. “By that man.”
 
 
“He’s dead,” Disher said. “There’s not much more we can do to punish him.”
 
 
“Justice must be served, Lieutenant,” Monk said. “He needs to be held accountable, even if it’s in name only.”
 
 
“What
is
his name, by the way?” I asked.
 
 
“Conrad Stipe,” Stottlemeyer replied.
 
 
The name sounded familiar to me. “Why do I know that name?”
 
 
“You’ll see,” Stottlemeyer said and opened the door to the lobby.
 
 
He took us into a cramped, windowless room behind the front desk, where there was a bank of eight VCRs and several monitors.
 
 
“Detectives from Vice and Narcotics have raided this place a few times over the years,” Disher said. “So the management put cameras in plain sight everywhere to try to discourage solicitation and drug dealing.”
 
 
What a charming place to stay.
 
 
Monk rolled his shoulders. “So why did the killer shoot him here? Why not somewhere else, where he wouldn’t be on camera?”
 
 
“Because he wanted to be seen,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
Disher hit PLAY on the VCR. The display on the monitor was separated into quarters, each one showing a different angle on the loading dock as the taxi drove up.
 
 
Stipe got out of the car. A man stepped out from behind the Dumpster, shot him once in the forehead, and then ran into the convention center.
 
 
It was sudden, violent, and shocking, and it happened just the way I’d said it did.
 
 
Well, almost.
 
 
The killer didn’t look anything like I’d imagined. I’d pictured a tattooed gang member. But the actual shooter was wearing a bright orange shirt with a silver starburst insignia on the chest, black pants, and black boots.
 
 
The killer also had pointy ears, vertebrae visible under his forehead, and an elephant’s trunk in the center of his face that dangled down to his chin.
 
 
I recognized him immediately.
 
 
“Oh my God,” I said. “It’s Mr. Snork.”
 
 
7
 
 
Mr. Monk and the Fan
 
 
Monk studied the freeze-frame image of the elephant-nosed killer. “You know that freak?”
 
 
“Of course I do,” I said.
 
 
“Is he an old boyfriend?”
 
 
“No,” I said. “Don’t you recognize him?”
 
 
“I don’t associate with freaks,” Monk said.
 
 
“That’s Mr. Snork, security chief of the starship
Discovery
,” I said. “Well, not him exactly, but someone dressed up to look like him.”
 
 
And that’s when I realized why the victim’s name was familiar to me.
 
 
“Wasn’t Conrad Stipe the creator of
Beyond Earth
?”
 
 
Stottlemeyer nodded.
 
 
“It’s one thing to shoot somebody. But this was more than that,” I said. “Stipe was gunned down by a guy dressed up as one of the TV characters he created. Someone is sending a message.”
 
 
“Now you’re beginning to grasp the situation,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“How hard could it be to find a freak like that?” Monk said, pointing at the screen. “He ran into the convention center. With all those witnesses around, somebody must have seen him. It’s not like he’s going to blend in.”
 
 
Stottlemeyer glanced at Disher. “Show Monk the feed from the floor of the convention center.”
 
 
Disher hit some buttons and the image on the monitor was replaced by four views of a very large banquet hall that was full of hundreds of people. They were crowded into long, narrow aisles, browsing the dozens of vendors selling T-shirts, books, videos, models, and posters.
 
 
Most of the people were dressed in different-colored versions of the outfit the killer was wearing, with the same starburst insignia on the chest. And easily a third of those people also had pointed ears and elephant trunks. Another third had an alien mix of fangs, fur, tails, claws, scales, multicolored skin, and an assortment of extra appendages.
 
 
Monk leaned forward and stared at the screen in disbelief.
 
 
“Arrest them all,” Monk said.
 
 
“On what charge?” Stottlemeyer asked him.
 
 
“Are you kidding?” Monk said. “They’re obviously high on LSD. They’re tripping out, man. Go ask Alice.”
 
 
“Who’s Alice?” Disher asked.
 
 
“It was a book, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“It was a lyric in a Jefferson Airplane song,” I said.
 
 
“It was a warning, my friends, and you’d best heed it,” Monk said. “Say no to drugs or you’ll rip out your own eyeballs.”
 
 
“I don’t remember Alice ripping out her eyeballs,” I said.
 
 
“It was the subtext,” Monk said.
 
 
“I don’t see any evidence of drug use here,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“Look at them, Captain. They are drug-crazed hippies. What other explanation could there be?”
 
 
“It’s a
Beyond Earth
convention, Mr. Monk,” I said. “They’re all dressed up like aliens from the TV show.”
 
 
“What TV show?” Monk said.
 
 
“The one Conrad Stipe wrote and produced back in the seventies,” Stottlemeyer said. “It has a cult following.”
 
 
“Ah, so they’re a cult,” Monk said, nodding knowingly. “Now it all makes sense. We’d better arrest them now before they sacrifice a virgin.”
 
 
“There’s a virgin?” Disher said. “Where?”
 
 
“They’re probably all virgins,” I said.
 
 
“I’d like to make an arrest, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’d like it to be the killer. But how are we going to pick him out of that crowd? There’s got to be a hundred Mr. Snorks in there. It would be like picking a needle out of a box of needles.”
 
 
“I could pick a needle out of a box of needles,” Monk said.
 
 
“I know. That’s what I’m counting on,” the captain said, “because when the killer ran into the convention center, he immediately got lost in the crowd. Nobody would have given him a second look. If anyone can spot him in there, it’s you.”

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