Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out (8 page)

We all stared at Monk for a long moment.

“Okay,” Bob said softly, carefully. “I’ll soak my feet in some baking soda.”

“Acid would be better,” Monk said. “Or amputation.”

“We didn’t come here to criticize his personal hygiene,” Stottlemeyer said to Monk.

“Perhaps if somebody did a long time ago, he wouldn’t have committed his heinous crimes,” Monk said. “The fungus has probably gone to his brain and rotted it away. He’s got fungal foot brain. That’s what happens when you engage in wanton pestilence!”

There it was again,
wanton pestilence
. Monk really liked that phrase. I was waiting for him to throw the word
feculence
, another of his favorites, into the discussion, too.

“Thanks a lot, Monk,” Disher said. “You’ve just handed Bob Sebes his entire defense strategy on a silver platter.”

Stottlemeyer turned to Disher. “What’s he going to say? ‘I’m innocent, Your Honor. I had athlete’s foot’ ? ”

“It’s the fungal-foot brain defense,” Disher said.

“It’s absurd,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Oh, really?” Disher said. “Thirty years ago, Dan White assassinated the mayor of San Francisco and a city supervisor and his defense was that he ate too many Twinkies. That got him off with voluntary manslaughter instead of premeditated murder.”

“You’ve got a point,” Stottlemeyer said. “I stand corrected.”

Bob looked at Monk. “Could athlete’s foot fungus really spread to the brain?”

“It can spread everywhere,” Monk replied. “It’s probably creeping toward us right now.”

Monk took a big step back. So did Disher.

Stottlemeyer rubbed his temples. “Let’s forget about the foot fungus for a moment and talk instead about Russell Haxby. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted him dead?”

“Are you saying he was murdered?” Anna asked.

“I’m saying it’s a possibility. It looks like he died in an accident, but until we’re sure, we’re treating it as a homicide.”

“Any of his coconspirators in the fraud could have done it,” Bob said. “Or any of the victims of his crime.”

“Or you,” Disher said.

“I couldn’t have killed Haxby. Maybe you haven’t noticed, Detective, but I can’t even go outside and pick up my morning newspaper without it being broadcast live on CNN. Besides, even if I could leave the house, this ankle bracelet tracks my every move. You can probably tell me the last time I walked from the kitchen to my bedroom. So how could I possibly have killed anyone?”

“You could have hired someone to do it for you,” Disher said.

“I needed Haxby alive,” Bob said. “But even if I wanted him dead, I don’t know any hit men and I don’t have any money to hire one if I did, do I?”

“You tell me, Bob,” Stottlemeyer said. “Perhaps you’ve got some money stashed away in an offshore account somewhere. Or your wife does. If you do, you know we’re going to find it and any recent withdrawals either of you might have made.”

“We’re broke,” Bob said.

“That makes three of us,” I said.

“But at least we aren’t being consumed by a flesh-eating fungus,” Monk said. “I guess that proves there really is some justice in this world.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mr. Monk and the Zapper

A
s soon as we stepped outside of Sebes’ house, Monk took about a dozen wipes from me and rubbed them on his hands, his face, and his neck.

“Once that man is in prison,” Monk said, “this house has to be burned to the ground and the ashes launched into outer space.”

“Just because he has athlete’s foot?” Disher asked.

“Any athlete with a foot like that would cut it off.” Monk shoved the dirty wipes into a plastic Baggie, sealed it, and handed it to me for later disposal.

“Then he wouldn’t be much of an athlete anymore,” Stottlemeyer said. “Unless his sport was arm wrestling.”

“Or hot dog eating,” Disher said.

“Bob Sebes is the killer,” Monk said. “There’s no question about it.”

“You’re just saying that because he stole all your money, sullied the word
clean
, and has foot fungus,” the captain said.

“Of course I am,” Monk said. “What more evidence do you need?”

“We usually like to start with a murder.”

“Take me to the crime scene and I’ll prove it’s a homicide.”

“Have you forgotten that the captain fired you?” I said. “You are no longer employed as a consultant to the police department. You aren’t employed at all. You’re broke.”

“So you’re saying that I have plenty of time on my hands to spend at the crime scene.”

“No, that’s
not
what I am saying.” I looked to Stottlemeyer for some support. “You tell him.”

The captain shrugged. “What could it hurt? A drive out to Tiburon might take his mind off his troubles.”

“Oh, now I get it,” I said, feeling my face flushing with anger. “You didn’t let Mr. Monk in to see Sebes out of sympathy for his plight. You did it because you knew he’d get hooked on this case. You took advantage of him.”

“I want to do this,” Monk said.

“Of course you do, and the captain knew you would.” I glowered at Stottlemeyer. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

I would have slapped him but I didn’t want to make a scene in front of the press and get myself arrested for assaulting a police officer. I’d have a hard enough time finding work without a recent, and very public, arrest hanging over my head.

So I glowered at him some more and marched away.

I didn’t speak to Monk as we followed Stottlemeyer over the Golden Gate Bridge to Tiburon. I was too angry at Monk and at the captain to speak without saying something I’d regret. I was also terrified about where my next paycheck was going to come from. It certainly wouldn’t be coming from Monk now.

What kind of job could I find that would take me and Monk as a package deal?

And how long could I afford to keep looking for that elusive job before I had to abandon him and find something just for myself?

But even if I was freed of Monk, what job could I hope to find in this troubled economy? I didn’t have qualifications for much of anything. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even qualified to be Monk’s assistant when he hired me.

I felt a twinge of anxiety in my stomach. That’s where I felt all my twinges, good and bad. It wasn’t a pain or a cramp; it was more like a quiver, the strumming of a taut guitar string. I had so many worries building up in me that it felt like someone was doing an anxiety guitar solo in my stomach.

We followed Stottlemeyer to a house high in the densely wooded hills above Tiburon. The picturesque village still looked a lot like it did a hundred years ago. Many of the original buildings were still intact, while others were refurbished houseboats that were brought ashore when the lagoon was filled in back in the 1940s. Tiburon had a lot of charm.

Haxby’s house was covered with cedar shingles and looked like four different houses of different heights that had been crammed together. The gabled and flat roofs intersected at odd angles, creating a collision of geometric shapes. Errant beams seemed to jut out like broken bones and the windows looked like enormous glass shards.

The house was an intentional rebuke of architectural symmetry and Monk regarded it like it was Bob Sebes’ feet.

And yet, I liked it. Despite all the bizarre angles, and the extraneous structural elements that looked as if someone forgot to saw them off, the sprawling house blended naturally into the wooded surroundings.

There were houses just like Haxby’s all over Marin County and the California coast. But since Monk didn’t get around much, he hadn’t been exposed to what architects would call the New Shingle or Shed Modern style. I called it Rich Hippie Chic. Monk had a different name for it.

“That house is an abomination. It should be demolished.”

“The crime scene is around back,” Stottlemeyer said, ignoring Monk’s architectural review.

We followed the captain, our feet crunching and crackling on the loose gravel and pine needles. Monk grimaced, trying and failing to find a clean path.

“This is like walking on hot coals, except that I would prefer the coals.”

“They’d burn your feet off,” Disher said.

“And any germs along with them. Walking on pine needles is deadlier than walking on used syringes. One poke and you’re dead.”

We reached the backyard and Monk jumped on the wooden patio as if it was a life raft. From where he stood, we could survey the yard.

Thick bushes had been planted to create a green border around the backyard that didn’t obstruct the view of the bay. It could be seen between the trees from the first- floor windows of the house or from the hot tub, which looked like a large wooden barrel that had been cut in half and set into the patio. Just outside of the bushes, at the far end of the property, was a cedar-shingled tool shed that matched the style of the house but had a half-moon cutout in the door.

The hot tub was empty now and cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape that was tied around two deck chairs and two of the posts of the wooden overhang that shaded the patio.

“The zapper was hanging from a hook on one of these two-by-fours.” Stottlemeyer pointed to one of the slats that made up the top of the overhang. “The hook was old and rusty. Maybe a gust of wind came up and knocked the zapper into the hot tub.”

“If the zapper was plugged into a ground fault circuit interrupter outlet, Haxby would have survived,” Monk said.

“But it wasn’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “The house was built in the 1960s and I guess Haxby never got around to upgrading his outlets.”

Monk squatted and examined the electric plug against the house.

“This is a new outlet,” he said.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“The screws are all shiny.” Monk walked around and examined the other outlets. “These are all new outlets. Why would someone replace the outdoor outlets and not upgrade them to National Electrical Code standards?”

“Because he was an idiot, or lazy, or cheap,” Stottlemeyer said. “Maybe he hired an unlicensed electrician who didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Violating the National Electrical Code isn’t evidence of a murder.”

Monk approached the hot tub, his head cocked to one side, his hands framing the scene in front of him.

“Did Haxby live here alone?” Monk asked.

“Yes, but he often had guests,” Disher said. “Of the single-female variety.”

“How often did he use the hot tub?”

“His neighbors say they could hear it going every night,” Disher said. “Sometimes he was alone, and sometimes he had little parties in there with several guests of the single-female variety at one time.”

“So, in other words, a variety of single females of the single-female variety,” Stottlemeyer said.

“I guess so,” Disher said.

“That’s a lot of variety,” Stottlemeyer said, almost wistfully.

Disher glanced at the big house, the view, and the empty hot tub that Monk was circling. “Some guys have it all, Captain.”

“And some guys get parboiled in their Jacuzzi and then don’t have anything but a tombstone,” Stottlemeyer said. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

Disher brightened up immediately. “So that means we win.”

“It’s not a competition,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Of course it is,” Disher said. “I’m having a birthday and he’s not. So who needs women and money?”

Stottlemeyer and Disher shared a look, as if to say,
Who are we kidding?

“I don’t,” Monk said.

“That’s not entirely true,” I said. “You need me.”

“Not in the same way,” Monk said, stepping gingerly behind the nearest border of shrubs. “And you’re not a woman.”

“I’m pretty sure that I am.”

“Not to me,” he said.

“Then what is she, Monk?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“A Natalie.”

Disher smiled at me. “You’re still a woman to me.”

“Don’t get fresh, birthday boy,” I said and turned to Monk. “You also need money.”

“Not in the same way,” Monk said, crouching behind the shrubs so all we saw was the top of his head. “I don’t need it to support an extravagant lifestyle.”

“I think that having a full-time assistant doing every little thing for you is a pretty big extravagance,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Is that what I am?” Disher said. “An extravagance?”

Stottlemeyer gave him a look. “You’re not my full-time assistant.”

“Since you got divorced, you’re at the office eighteen hours a day. So am I. The only time I am not at your beck and call is when you’re asleep, and even then I’m often doing every little thing for you.”

“It’s not the same at all,” Stottlemeyer said, lowering his voice. “Monk can’t function without Natalie.”

“You can’t function without me, either,” Disher said.

“Of course I can,” Stottlemeyer said.

Monk popped up from behind the shrubs like a jack- in-the-box.

“There’s a rectangular impression in the dirt back here,” he said. “And the dirt has been raked from here all the way back to the tool shed.”

Stottlemeyer frowned. “What’s your point, Monk?”

“It’s just an observation.” Monk headed for the tool shed and we all followed after him.

“Your work for me doesn’t extend beyond official police business,” Stottlemeyer said to Disher.

“How is going to the drugstore to buy you Metamucil official police business?”

Monk opened the tool shed door and leaned his head inside.

“If I’m not regular I can’t think clearly and it takes longer to solve the thorny crimes,” Stottlemeyer whispered.

It was a good thing Monk didn’t hear that. I wished that I hadn’t, either.

“Besides, the city is paying you and I’m not, so it’s not an extravagance—it’s chain of command,” the captain said. “End of discussion.”

“Thank God,” I said.

Monk leaned his head out of the tool shed. “It was definitely murder.”

“How do you know?” the captain asked.

Monk took a handkerchief out of his pocket, reached into the tool shed, and picked up a foam rubber mat, the kind you use to cushion your knees while you’re gardening.

“This rubber mat fits the rectangular impression in the dirt beside the hedge,” Monk said.

“The gardener could have used it,” Disher said. “He could have raked the dirt, too.”

“True, but that doesn’t explain this.” Monk put the mat back in the shed and pulled out a rake. “There are charred bugs between the tines of this rake. Here’s what happened. At some point, either on the night of the murder or over a period of time before, the murderer replaced the outdoor electrical outlets with non-GFI ones. Last night, the killer crept behind the hedge, rested his knees on this rubber mat, and waited for Haxby to get into the hot tub. Once Haxby was in the water, the killer used the rake to lift the zapper off the hook and drop it into the hot tub.”

“Wouldn’t the killer have been electrocuted when the rake touched the live wires on the zapper?” Disher asked.

Monk shook his head. “The rubber mat protected him from that. After the murder, he raked his footprints, put everything back in the shed, and slipped away.”

Stottlemeyer nodded. “It’s a murder.”

“I want to be there when you arrest Sebes,” Monk said.

“He couldn’t have done it,” Stottlemeyer said.

“What about his wife?” Monk said. “Was she out last night?”

“Yes, she was,” Disher said.

“Ah-ha,” Monk said. “Does she have an alibi?”

Disher shook his head. “She took a long drive.”

“To Tiburon to kill Russell Haxby and prevent him from testifying against her husband,” Monk said. “Case closed.”

“She couldn’t have done it, Mr. Monk,” I said.

He looked at me with astonishment. “How would you know?”

“Anna Sebes has arthritis in her hands,” I said. “It’s what ruined her career as a concert violinist and it’s why she wears gloves. She couldn’t have used a screwdriver to replace the outlets or lifted that rake, snagged the bug zapper, and dropped it into the hot tub.”

“I’m telling you Sebes did this,” Monk said. “He could have hired a hit man.”

Stottlemeyer sighed wearily. “We’ve already been over this. His money is frozen, his phones are tapped, and he’s wearing a GPS ankle bracelet. How could he contact a hit man?”

“Through his wife,” Monk said.

“You don’t find hit men in the yellow pages, Monk. And even if you could, they don’t work without being paid. It’s much more likely that a pissed-off investor, unable to take his revenge out on Sebes, took his anger out on Haxby instead. The killer could be any of a thousand people.”

“It could be one of your crime scene investigators, for example,” I said.

Stottlemeyer gave me a nasty look. “Or the murder could have nothing to do with Sebes at all. Maybe it’s a female of the single variety who didn’t appreciate him entertaining other females of the single variety in his hot tub.”

Monk shook his head. “No, it was Sebes.”

“I appreciate the help you’ve given us today, Monk, especially after what Sebes has done to you. But that’s another reason why you can’t be involved in this case.”

“That didn’t stop you from dragging him out here and using him,” I said.

“You can’t be objective,” Stottlemeyer continued, ignoring my remark. “Your judgment is clouded.”