Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu (6 page)

Monk was in deep trouble.

“You should take a look at these files,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Monk said.

“There are things you need to know about these detectives the mayor has assigned to you.”

“I already know everything I need to know. They’re police officers.”

“You don’t understand. These are some deeply troubled people. They were thrown off the force because they were incapable of functioning in their jobs.”

“So was I,” Monk said.

He gave his badge one more fond look, then slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.

Sure, he was happy, but the giddy glee had waned, and I saw a hint in his downcast eyes of the sadness he always carried with him. That was when I realized that although he didn’t know any of these detectives, he probably understood them better than anyone else.

And maybe, just maybe, he was exactly the right person to lead them.

 

The homicide division was almost empty and surprisingly quiet when we arrived. A couple of uniformed officers were answering phones, but that was all that was happening. Take away the uniforms and the guns, and it could have been lunch hour in an accountant’s office.

Monk touched each desk lamp he passed as he made his way to the captain’s office. I’ve never understood why he needed to tap a row of identical objects, like parking meters and streetlights, and keep a running count. Maybe it calmed him down. Maybe it created the illusion that there was actually some order in the chaotic world around him.

He stopped in the doorway to the captain’s office and gazed at the clutter—the stacks of files (of cases past and present), the assorted coffee mugs (some used as pencil holders), the photographs (of Stottlemeyer’s family and fellow cops), the knick-knacks (like the acrylic paperweight that held a bullet taken from the captain’s shoulder), and the spare overcoat, jacket, shirt, and tie Stottlemeyer always kept on the coatrack.

The clutter had increased in recent months. Since the captain’s marriage had crumbled, the office had become his home. I was surprised he hadn’t moved his bedroom set in.

“I can’t work in here,” Monk said.

I nodded. It was going to be a monumental chore to organize the office to Monk’s liking. It could take months and every available officer on the force working twenty-four/seven to make it happen. It might even require the complete demolition of the building.

“I’m sure it can be straightened up,” I said.

He shook his head. “No, this is the captain’s office.”

“You’re the captain now.”

Monk walked away, heading across the squad room and down the corridor to the interrogation rooms. He entered the first one he came to. I followed him inside.

The room was stark and cold and dimly lit. The walls were the same gunmetal gray as the metal desk and the matching stiff-backed metal chairs.

Monk sat down in one of the chairs and faced the mirror, which, of course, hid the observation room.

“This will do,” he said.

“Do as what?”

“My office,” he said.

“Don’t you think it’s a little sterile?”

He smiled. “Yes, I do.”

A young female officer stepped into the room. “Excuse me, Captain Monk?”

Monk looked up, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Captain Monk?”

“You are Captain Monk, aren’t you?” the officer asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“He is,” I said, and introduced myself as his assistant.

“I’m Officer Susan Curtis,” she said. “I’ve been temporarily assigned to clerical duties in the homicide division.”

“How unusual that they’d pick a female officer for that,” I said.

“Yeah, what a surprise,” she said ruefully. “A real incentive not to catch the flu.”

It was a bonding moment between the two of us. Well, I
hoped
it was. We needed to have an officer on our side, or, at the very least, one who didn’t loathe us for being scabs.

“Is there anything you need, sir?”

“I need a hundred-page, spiral-bound notepad with exactly forty-two spirals. The pages should be white with thirty-four blue lines spaced an eighth of an inch apart. I’ll also need four paper clips, two square erasers, a desk lamp like the ones outside, a telephone, and ten unsharpened number two pencils.”

Officer Curtis left. Monk looked up at me. I looked back at him. There was a very uncomfortable silence.

“What do I do now?” he said meekly.

“You’re the cop, not me.”

“Give me a hint,” he said.

I sighed. “I suppose you could ask for the file on the Golden Gate Strangler case, go over the crime lab reports, and check to see if Lieutenant Disher discovered whether the victims all bought shoes from the same store.”

“Good idea,” Monk said. “You should get right on that.”

“I’m not a cop,” I reminded him.

“I can deputize you.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can.”

“This isn’t the Old West and you aren’t the town sheriff rounding up a posse.”

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with,” Monk said. “I’m a captain in the homicide division of the San Francisco Police Department.”

“Then start acting like it,” I said and walked out, nearly colliding with Frank Porter in the hall.

The retired detective hobbled into the squad room, with a young woman following two steps behind him, dragging her feet as if she were carrying a two-hundred-pound pack on her bony shoulders.

Porter wore an oversize cardigan sweater, a checkered shirt, and corduroy pants with crumbs caught in the ridges. His head reminded me of a vacant lot, dry and empty, with weedy patches of rangy hair. Drool spilled over the edge of his thin, chapped lips like water over an earthen dam.

“Frank Porter, reporting for duty.” He offered me his age-spotted hand.

“I’m Natalie Teeger, Captain Monk’s assistant.” I shook his hand lightly, feeling all twenty-seven brittle bones under his thin skin like twigs wrapped in tissue. “I’m not a police officer.”

“Technically, neither am I. This is my granddaughter Sparrow,” Porter said. “I guess you could say she’s my assistant. She looks out for me.”

Sparrow shrugged. “Beats slinging burgers at McDonald’s.”

“I hear you,” I said.

Sparrow was barely out of her teens, wore too much eyeliner, had a dozen studs lining each of her ears, and was working really hard to radiate boredom and discontent. I knew the look. I’d perfected it when I was her age.

I excused myself and hunted Monk down. He wasn’t in the interrogation room anymore. I found him in the evidence room, sitting at a table, looking at three right-foot running shoes that must have been recovered from the dead women. Each shoe was in a plastic evidence bag, and they were laid out in front of him in a vertical row.

“I can’t live with this,” Monk said.

It was true that three innocent women had been killed, but this wasn’t the first time Monk had dealt with murder. I didn’t understand why these deaths were affecting him so strongly.

“What happened to those women is a terrible thing,” I agreed. “But is this really any different from the other murder cases you’ve solved?”

“I’ve never seen such depravity. This is a crime against nature,” he said. “Wasn’t it enough to take their lives? Did he have to take one of their shoes, too? He’s upset the entire balance of the universe.”

“By taking
three
shoes?”

“Shoes come in sets of two; that’s the natural order,” Monk said. “Until those shoes are recovered and this madman is caught, life as we know it is over.”

“So you’re saying that not only do you have to catch a killer—you have to restore the balance of the entire universe.”

“It’s my awesome responsibility now.”

“At least you’re not putting too much pressure on yourself,” I said. “One of your detectives is here.”

Monk rose from the table and pointed at the shoes. “
That
is going to haunt my every waking moment.”

“I believe it,” I said.

“And my unawake moments,” he said as he walked out. “And the nanoseconds in between.”

I followed Monk into the squad room, where he strode right up to Porter and Sparrow with a smile on his face.

“Hello, Frank,” Monk said. “It’s been a long time.”

“You two know each other?” I asked.

“Frank is one of the best investigators I’ve ever met,” Monk said. “He can follow a paper trail to the tree it was milled from.”

I’d never heard Monk lavish such praise on anyone’s detective skills. Except his own, of course. I’d also never heard him use such a colorful metaphor. Or any metaphor, for that matter.

“Really?” I asked. “To the actual tree?”

“Of course,” Monk said. “Why else would I have said it?”

“I thought it might be a figure of speech.”

Monk looked at me as if I were insane.

“I haven’t had a bowel movement in three days,” Porter announced. “I need an enema.”

“Now?” Monk’s voice trembled.

“I can’t think when I’m stuffed up.”

“No one is asking you to think.” Monk looked at me. “Did you ask him to think?”

Porter narrowed his eyes at Monk. “I remember you. You’re the nut job who kept reorganizing my desk.”

Monk smiled. “Those were good times.”

“He’s afraid of milk,” Porter said to Sparrow.

“You are?” she said, momentarily showing interest in something besides looking uninterested. “Why?”

“It’s a bodily fluid in a glass that some twisted person intends to drink.” Monk cringed just thinking about it. “It’s unnatural.”

“It’s the most natural thing on earth,” Sparrow said. “Babies suckle their mother’s breasts for milk. That’s what breasts are for.”

“I breast-fed Julie,” I said.

Monk flushed with embarrassment and looked away from me.

“Maybe you were breast-fed, Mr. Monk,” I said.

“That’s impossible. I wouldn’t drink my own bodily fluids—why would I drink someone else’s?”

“Breasts aren’t just a fashion accessory,” Sparrow said. I was beginning to like this kid. Until she lifted her shirt and flashed Monk.

I thought Monk might scream. I noticed that her ears weren’t the only thing she’d pierced.

Porter slapped the desktop. “What’s my assignment?”

Monk filled Porter in on the Golden Gate Strangler case and asked him to double-check the victims’ credit card purchases. He also asked Porter to put together a board with all the crime scene photos and a map indicating where each murder took place.

“Gladly,” Porter said. “And you are?”

“Adrian Monk.”

“I remember you,” Porter said, and glanced at Sparrow. “He’s afraid of milk.”

Sparrow sighed—the sound was infused with all the frustration, boredom, and weariness she could possibly muster. She almost broke out in a sweat from the effort.

Officer Curtis walked up and handed Monk a slip of paper. “There’s been a homicide in Haight-Ashbury. There’s a detective waiting for you at the scene.”

“Who’s the victim?” Monk asked.

“Allegra Doucet, an astrologer,” Officer Curtis said. “You’d think she would have seen it coming.”

Ever since the mid-1960s, Haight-Ashbury has been mythologized as ground zero of the counterculture movement, home of psychedelic drugs, free-spirited sex, flower children, and the Grateful Dead. A lot of effort went into maintaining the illusion that it hasn’t changed, even though Jerry Garcia is dead, the Vietnam War is over, and Mick Jagger is getting the senior-citizen discount at Denny’s.

The Haight today is the sixties packaged and sanitized for retail sale. The street is lined with stores selling vintage clothing, “underground” comics, used records, and incense and crystals; and there are even a few head shops where you can buy tie-dyed shirts and Deadhead souvenirs for the folks back home in Wichita. What little edge there is comes from the tattoo parlors, bondage emporiums, and stores with fetish paraphernalia, but let’s face it, even kink has become mainstream these days.

Even so, it’s possible to fool yourself into thinking you’ve hurtled back in time to the summer of 1967, but the illusion is shattered if you wander onto the side streets, where the real estate values of the restored Victorian and Edwardian homes are in the millions, and most of the parking spots are taken by Range Rovers and BMWs. These flower children downloaded their free love from the Internet and got a psychedelic high from bidding on eBay.

The late Allegra Doucet lived on a side street that hadn’t been completely gentrified. A few houses and shops remained that looked as if they hadn’t been painted since Jefferson Starship was still an Airplane. Doucet’s wasn’t one of them. Her Victorian house was freshly painted blue with white trim. It had wide bay windows above flower boxes brimming with colorful, blooming roses. A sign in the window said ALLEGRA DOUCET—ASTROLOGER AND SEER. BY APPOINTMENT ONLY, in elegant calligraphy.

When we drove up, the street in front of her house was clogged with police vehicles, a coroner’s wagon, and a van from the scientific investigation unit. I didn’t bother trying to find a place to park. Monk was the captain now, so I just stopped in the middle of the street, handed the keys for my Jeep Cherokee to a police officer, and told him to make sure nothing happened to the captain’s ride.

Monk hurried out of the car while I was talking to the officer. He hadn’t looked at me since I mentioned at the station that I had breasts. I think he preferred to think of me as some kind of asexual creature.

He was met outside Doucet’s door by a striking Asian woman in her thirties with sharp features and a piercing gaze that gave her an unsettling intensity. She was dressed entirely in black except for the SFPD badge hanging from her neck, the cap of aluminum foil on her head, and the transistor radio attached to it with duct tape. I could hear the low, static crackle of the local news from the speaker. I didn’t think it was taped to her head so she could keep up on current events.