Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out (10 page)

“Don’t you want to sell customers the freshest possible products?”

“These products are still fresh and tasty,” Arthur said. “But they will go bad if we sell the newer products first. To meet demand, we get new shipments in all the time, even while there are still some unexpired packages of those same products on our shelves.”

“Wouldn’t you want to buy the freshest possible product?”

“It’s not about what I want to buy,” Arthur said. “It’s about what we need to sell.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You have to start thinking like a grocer instead of a customer. If we did it your way, we’d never sell anything and we’d waste a lot of perfectly fresh, healthy, and delicious products.” That’s when Arthur noticed two grocery carts full of cereal boxes at the end of the aisle. He cocked his head, curious. “Are all of those expired products?”

“No, those are damaged and defective goods.”

“They don’t look torn, dented, or opened to me.”

“They’re odd,” Monk said.

Arthur walked over to the cart and picked up one of the boxes. “This package of Cap’n Crunch doesn’t expire until November seventeenth. That’s four months from now. What’s odd about that?”

“The expiration date is the seventeenth day of the eleventh month,” Monk said. “The box might as well be contaminated with rat poison.”

Arthur shushed him, looking around to make sure that no one but me had overheard. Luckily, there was hardly anybody in the store.

“Do you want to create a panic?” Arthur said. “Never mention the word
contaminated
in a grocery store.”

“Not only is the expiration date wrong,” Monk continued, lowering his voice, “but ‘Captain’ is misspelled, there are three pieces of cereal in Crunch’s spoon and five tassels on his epaulets. What kind of quality control is that? The Quakers should be ashamed of themselves.”

“What Quakers?”

“The Quakers at Quaker Oats,” Monk said, pointing to the manufacturer’s logo, which depicted a man in old-fashioned Quaker garb. “William Penn would be outraged if he saw this box. You should write them a very stern letter.”

“Forget about cereal,” Arthur said, rubbing his temples in a way that immediately reminded me of Captain Stottlemeyer. “Why don’t you take your break?”

“This has been a break for me. I’m completely relaxed. You’ve really taken my mind off my troubles.”

“Maybe you don’t need a break, but I do,” Arthur said. “From you. I’m going to my office for a cup of coffee.”

“Take your time,” Monk said. “We’ll mind the store until you get back.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mr. Monk Rounds Up

B
efore Arthur left the floor on his break, he assigned Monk to the cash register next to mine. It seemed, at the time, like the safest place to put him.

The first thing Monk did was put on a pair of surgical gloves, the kind he often put on at crime scenes.

“Why are you doing that?” I asked.

“Because I don’t want to become a drug addict.”

“You can’t become a drug addict from handling money,” I said.

“I beg to differ. According to a 2009 study presented at the two hundred thirty-eighth National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, there are traces of cocaine on more than ninety percent of the paper money in circulation.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I wish that I was, Natalie. All it takes is one sniff of your unprotected hands after handling the wrong ten-dollar bill, and bang, you’re a crack whore.”

“Okay, I can see the leap to junkie, but why would I become a prostitute?”

“How are you going to afford crack on what you make here?”

“Good point,” I said.

“And the banknotes that aren’t coated in coke are infected with countless diseases, including, but not limited to, swine flu, E. coli, and flesh-eating Ebola.”

“Was that in the study, too?”

“It’s just common sense. The dirtiest thing in the world is money. You have no idea where it has been or how many hands have touched it.”

Monk went to his register and, after thoroughly cleaning the counters and cash register with Lysol, began ringing up customers.

He removed his gloves after each customer, cleaned his hands with a disinfectant wipe, then put on a fresh pair before handling the next transaction.

Monk insisted on putting each item in an individual plastic bag before putting them all together in the larger grocery bags, which he packed by food groups and household products.

He carefully wrapped apples and other easily bruised fruit and vegetables in paper towels, taped them securely, and bagged them as if they were Ming vases he was preparing to ship overseas.

The customers didn’t seem to appreciate all the extra attention he was giving to their purchases, or the slow, methodical pace at which he moved.

But I was too busy with my customers to try to speed him along. That’s because things were moving so glacially at his register that everyone was coming to mine.

Eventually, my line finally ebbed and I was able to take a little break and watch as Monk rang up his last customer, a tight-faced old lady with collagen fish lips, hip-hop hair extensions, and tattooed, arched eyebrows over the ones that had been tweezed into extinction.

“That will be twenty-four dollars,” Monk said with a smile.

“But the amount on the register says twenty-three fifty-seven,” she said, pointing a ruby-bejeweled finger at his register screen.

“It’s wrong.”

“Are you saying my purchases don’t add up to twenty-three fifty-seven?”

“I rounded up.”

“Why the hell did you do that?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Monk said. “You’re old enough to know that.”

Her eyes went wide. “Did you just call me old?”

“Pulling your brow up over the back of your head doesn’t change the fact that you’re sixty-seven.”

“I am not,” she said.

Monk sighed wearily. “You were born in San Francisco between December 1943 and January 1944. It’s obvious from the ruby birthstone ring that you’re wearing, which is from B. Barer and Sons, Nob Hill jewelers who designed a new setting every year that they were in business, from 1909 to 1982, when they sold out to a national chain.”

“It was my mother’s,” she said.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“An old one,” Monk said. “But you’re still not very good at it. Your wallet is open and I can see the birth date on your driver’s license.”

Her face turned so red it looked as if she’d been standing on her head for their conversation. “If you knew my birthday, then why did you go into all that rigmarole about my ring?”

“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

What he was doing was showing off his observational skills, his prodigious memory for irrelevant facts, and his total lack of social graces. I’m sure that it made him feel good, too, proving to himself that his skills were every bit as sharp as they’d always been, not that anybody doubted it, except perhaps himself. Being fired, and losing your life savings, can make a guy insecure, especially about the things he is certain of.

I’ve felt that way myself, which is why I didn’t step in and take away Monk’s moment.

The old lady stammered and huffed and puffed before finally speaking again, her voice dripping with moral indignation.

“My age doesn’t change the fact that you’re rude and you’re overcharging me by forty-three cents.”

“It’s a pittance,” Monk said.

“It’s a rip-off and I won’t stand for it, regardless of how small the amount happens to be. It’s the principle that matters.”

“Indeed it is,” Monk said. “Pay me the twenty-three fifty-seven and I’ll make up the difference myself.”

“But there is no difference,” she said.

Monk reached into his pocket and took out two quarters, which he slapped on the counter. “Now, if you’ll give me your money, please, I would appreciate it. You’re holding up the line with this nonsense.”

She looked behind her. There was no one there.

“You’re a crazy person,” she said, put her cash on the counter, and left.

“Thank you for shopping at Safeway,” Monk called after her. “Come again soon.”

Monk swept the money into his palm, put it into the register, then looked over at me as he peeled off his gloves. “Can you believe that woman? Some people have no manners.”

“You can’t round out the totals, Mr. Monk.”

“I have no choice. Nobody has come up with a cash register that will do it automatically. How hard could it be?”

“Nobody is going to pay more than what it says on the register.”

“I do,” he said, wiping his hands with a disinfectant wipe. “But you make a convincing argument.”

“I do? You’re convinced?”

“I am,” he said.

“Unbelievable,” I said.

“Why should the customers be penalized for the store’s mistake?” Monk said. “So I’ll just have to round down when the totals are uneven.”

“Then the store will lose money.”

“Maybe that will be an incentive for them to fix their registers.”

“More likely it will be an incentive for them to fire you,” I said. “They are in the business of making money. If you insist on rounding out the totals, you will have to make up the difference out of your own pocket every time.”

“I can live with that.”

“No, you can’t, because then it will cost you money to work here. How are you going to pay your bills if you give away your salary to your customers?”

“It will all even out.”

“How do you know?”

“Because everything always does,” Monk said, putting on a fresh pair of gloves. “It’s the natural law of the universe.”

I realized this was an argument I couldn’t win. I would just have to convince Arthur not to let Monk work the registers. Or stick price tags on items, because he’d round those numbers off, too.

I could see that this job wasn’t going to be any easier on me than assisting Monk on homicide investigations. In fact, it might even be harder, because in addition to doing my own job, I would have to simultaneously try to anticipate any problems Monk would face with his tasks and attempt to mitigate them before he caused too much trouble.

I was still thinking about this when Monk’s next customer came in and so did mine. Since Monk took ten times as long to handle a customer as I did, my line soon grew.

I tried to keep one ear and one eye on Monk while I helped my customers, but it wasn’t easy, especially when things began to get out of hand.

The following account is what I overheard, what I saw, and what I reconstructed after the fact.

Monk was ringing up groceries for a married couple in their forties. I guessed their ages and assumed they were married by their wedding rings and general body language.

The man was fashionably unshaven, his hair fashionably mussed, his shirt fashionably wrinkled. His wife was unfashionably wearing no makeup, her hair was unfashionably messy, and her blouse was unfashionably baggy on her thin frame.

It’s funny, and truly unfair, how what can look so good on men can look so awful on women. But I’m sure Monk didn’t like the look of either one of them.

The woman seemed to be holding on to the grocery cart for support, as if it was her walker.

“Are you all right?” Monk asked her.

“She would be feeling better if you’d hurry up with our groceries,” the man said tightly.

“It’s okay, Ted. He’s just being considerate and conscientious about his work, and that is rare these days. We shouldn’t stomp on it.”

Monk smiled. “Thank you for noticing.”

“I’m sorry,” Ted said. “Kimberley has been feeling lousy and I’d just like to get her home.”

Monk glanced at the groceries in front of him. Windex, aluminum foil, flour, sugar, butter, chocolate, antifreeze, a huge bag of apples, pie tins, aspirin, cassava beans, cherries, peaches, powdered sugar, whole and sliced almonds, apples, a box of cupcake cups, vanilla extract, paper towels, rhubarb, strawberries, Grape-Nuts cereal, a T-bone steak, sixteen cans of Campbell’s soup, Mylanta, Taster’s Choice Instant Coffee, and
People
magazine.

“You’re making her cupcakes,” Monk said.

“With extra buttercream frosting,” Ted said, giving his wife a smile. “She loves frosting. And I’m making apple tarts, almond cookies, almond brownies, strawberry-rhubarb pie, chocolate cake—”

“He’s trying to fatten me up,” she said with a grin.

“I just want you to eat,” he said. “So I’m blatantly tempting you with all of your favorite sweets.”

“You haven’t had much of an appetite?” Monk asked her as he began bagging the items.

“I’m nauseous all the time. I practically have to force myself to eat.”

“You won’t have to force yourself to eat cupcakes with triple frosting,” Ted said. “You won’t be able to resist, I promise.”

“My back hurts, my head aches, and my hands and feet won’t stop tingling, so I’m not getting much sleep, either,” she confided in Monk.

Ted turned to his wife. “You don’t have to give him your entire medical history. He’s a cashier, not a doctor.” He looked back at Monk. “Could you please cut the chitchat and hurry this up, buddy? We’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes already.”

“It sounds like you’re fighting an infection of some kind,” Monk said.

“That’s what the doctor says,” Kimberley said. “He just doesn’t know what kind.”

“I do,” Monk said.

And that was when I noticed something very strange: Monk hadn’t taken a step back. Usually, if someone sneezes, he’ll dive for cover, as if the room was being sprayed with automatic weapon fire.

But there he was, talking to a woman with a raging unidentified infection that made her look like a reanimated corpse, and he wasn’t even reaching for a disinfectant wipe.

I felt a tingle along the back of my neck. It was my unconscious mind alerting me to something that my conscious self was too stupid to notice. Why couldn’t my unconscious and my conscious learn to communicate better?

“I think I’ve read about people like you,” Kimberley said. “Are you one of those immigrants who was a respected doctor in his homeland but your degree isn’t recognized here, so you’re stuck doing a menial job you’re overqualified for?”

“No,” Monk said. “I’m one of those former homicide detectives who was thrown off the police force on psychological grounds, was hired back on as a consultant, but then was let go when the economy took a nosedive, property tax income tanked, and local government was forced to slash expenses.”

They both stared at him.

“So, in other words, you don’t know anything about medicine,” Ted said.

“But I know a lot about murder,” Monk said.

That was when a dozen uniformed police officers suddenly appeared from every direction, their guns drawn, totally surrounding us.

“Nobody move,” the lead cop yelled. “It’s all over now.”