Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants (15 page)

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Authors: Lee Goldberg

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The whole store rumbled. My first thought was an earthquake, but I quickly realized it was just a car driving into the parking structure overhead. I hoped the rent was cheap.
 
 
“Voilà,” Monk said, stepping back from the table. It looked pretty much as it had before, except every stack was even. “Done.”
 
 
“What did you do?” Lorinda asked.
 
 
“Someone completely messed up the books on this table. I put them back into their original order.”
 
 
“Original order?”
 
 
“The way you had them before,” Monk said. “Arranged by copyright, the number of printings, and the date they were signed, with the most recent book on top and the oldest on the bottom.”
 
 
“Right,” Lorinda said. “The original order. Thanks.”
 
 
Monk seemed to notice her for the first time and was troubled by what he saw. Sharona and I shared a weary look. We both knew what was coming. It was inevitable.
 
 
“You’re missing a safety pin,” he said, gesturing to her nose.
 
 
“No, I’m not,” she said.
 
 
“You’ve lost the one in your other nostril,” Monk said.
 
 
“My other nostril isn’t pierced,” she said.
 
 
“It should be,” Monk said.
 
 
“One is cool,” she said. “Two would look ridiculous.”
 
 
I didn’t see the distinction myself. I think anybody with a paper clip, a nose ring, a bone or anything else in their nose looks stupid.
 
 
“Faces are symmetrical. It’s a law of nature. You don’t want to break a law of nature.” Monk nodded toward Sharona. “She’s a nurse. She’d be glad to stick another safety pin in your nose for you.”
 
 
“No, I wouldn’t,” Sharona said.
 
 
While they argued, the last of the readers who’d come to have their books signed by Ian Ludlow filed out of the store with their purchases. The man with the rolling suitcase was so distracted by Monk’s gas mask that he nearly ran over my feet.
 
 
“You took the Hippocratic oath,” Monk said. “It’s your duty as a nurse to save this poor woman.”
 
 
“There’s no medical reason to stick a safety pin in her nostril, Adrian.”
 
 
“Have you taken a good look at her face?” Monk said. “It’s hideous.”
 
 
“Hideous?” Lorinda said.
 
 
“You better be careful, Monk. They keep a shotgun behind the counter,” Ian Ludlow said, a cocky grin on his face as he strode up to us. “And Lorinda has been looking for an excuse to use it.”
 
 
“You know Mr. Monk?” I asked.
 
 
“Of course I do. I’m a huge fan of his work. I was teaching a creative writing course up in Berkeley during the police strike six months ago when Monk solved the Golden Gate Strangler case,” Ludlow said. “I toyed with turning it into a book, but the serial killer genre is getting stale.”
 
 
“As opposed to police detectives who solve murders,” Lorinda said. “That never gets old.”
 
 
“Cute, isn’t she?” Ludlow said.
 
 
“Not with only one safety pin in her nose,” Monk said. “Her face is an asymmetrical nightmare.”
 
 
“I’ll take my safety pin out if you take off your gas mask,” she said.
 
 
It was a draw.
 
 
“I’m Sharona Fleming and this is Natalie Teeger,” Sharona said to Ludlow. “We’re his associates. Lieutenant Dozier said we could find you here. We’re investigating the murder of Ellen Cole.”
 
 
“Your husband did it,” Ludlow said. “Case solved. Can I autograph a book for you?”
 
 
“I don’t think so,” Sharona said.
 
 
“It makes a great gift for a loved one in prison,” Ludlow said.
 
 
“He’s not guilty,” Sharona said.
 
 
“That’s not what the evidence says,” Ludlow said.
 
 
“But it’s what
he
says.” Sharona gestured at Monk.
 
 
“Well, that changes everything,” Ludlow said.
 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE
 
 
Mr. Monk and the Brooch
 
 
"A
re you being sarcastic?” I asked Ludlow because I honestly couldn’t tell.
 
 
“Not at all. I have enormous respect for Monk’s abilities, ” Ludlow said. “Who am I, a mere scribbler, to argue with a legend in homicide investigation? May I sign a book for you?”
 
 
“Sure.” I picked up one for myself, then two more to give as Christmas gifts. I handed them to Lorinda along with my credit card. She rang up my purchase.
 
 
“How did you get involved in this case?” Monk asked Ludlow.
 
 
“As soon as I finish writing a book, I hang out with Lieutenant Dozier for a couple of days until a murder comes along that intrigues me.”
 
 
“But this wasn’t a bizarre or unusual case,” I said. “It almost seems mundane.”
 
 
“That’s exactly what drew me to it,” he said. “I have found that what may seem simple or ordinary on the surface can turn out to be more compelling and complex than you ever imagined. That’s a trademark of my books.”
 
 
“That and every description of a female character beginswith her breasts,” Lorinda said, handing me my receipt to sign.
 
 
“I like to give my books a little sizzle,” Ludlow said. “What’s the crime in that?”
 
 
“What’s the sizzle in the Ellen Cole story?” Sharona asked.
 
 
“Are you kidding me?” Ludlow said. “You start with a lady conked on the head by an intruder, but you dig just a little bit and you get warring lesbian lovers, a heart-wrenching child-custody battle, a political battle in the capitol over gay marriage, academic backstabbing at a major university and a steamy affair with a married man. I couldn’t make up anything that good. It has enough sizzle for
two
Detective Marshak novels. And the gardener did it, the ultimate surprise ending.”
 
 
“But he didn’t,” Sharona said. “Someone else did.”
 
 
“Another shocking twist,” Ludlow said. “This story keeps getting better and better.”
 
 
“I’d read it,” Lorinda said, putting my copy of the receipt in one of the books and handing them to me.
 
 
“See?” Ludlow said. “It’s a grabber.”
 
 
“Where does adultery fit in?” I asked as I handed my books to him to sign.
 
 
“That’s what broke up the relationship. Sally cheated on Ellen,” Ludlow said as he signed and dated my books, “with a
man
. Dr. Christian Bayliss. And if you think that’s a twist, get this: He was their secret sperm donor. And he’s married, or at least he was until this story broke.”
 
 
“And you still thought my husband was the most likely suspect?” Sharona said. “These two have a million reasons to want to kill Ellen Cole.”
 
 
“That’s the thing. Sally and her lover were the obvious suspects. Bor-ring,” Ludlow said. “So while Dozier was banging his head against a wall trying to nail them, I looked in another direction.”
 
 
“The least likely suspect,” Monk said.
 
 
“You got it. The guy nobody was looking at for this. Trevor had means and opportunity,” Ludlow said. “All that was missing was a motive. Dozier did some checking and found out Trevor was known back east as a two-bit hustler always looking to make a quick buck. I stumbled on his eBay account and it all fell into place.”
 
 
“Except you were wrong,” Sharona said.
 
 
“So I’ve been told,” Ludlow said, turning to Monk. “What’s your theory?”
 
 
“That Trevor didn’t do it,” Monk said. “And someone else did.”
 
 
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know,” Ludlow said. “It’s going to make a hell of a book.”
 
 
We stayed at the Holiday Inn at the foot of Santa Monica Pier that Tuesday night. We had rooms 204 and 206. Monk stayed in one room and Sharona and I shared another.
 
 
Monk put his own sheets and pillows on the bed and had some of the food he brought with him for dinner. I’m not sure, but I think he spent the rest of the night cleaning the bathroom. I don’t know how he ate with the gas mask or if he slept with it on. I didn’t ask.
 
 
Sharona and I had a pizza delivered and ate out on the deck, overlooking the parking structure of a shopping mall. But if we leaned over the railing and craned our necks, we got a nice view of the pier and the glittering Ferris wheel at the end.
 
 
The pier was a pleasant sight, if you were in the dark and looking at it from a distance. Up close, the decaying midway, loud arcades and shabby rides resembled one of those scummy traveling carnivals that show up for a weekend in shopping center parking lots.
 
 
The darkness also hid the homeless who congregated in the long, cliffside park that overlooked the bay and that ran parallel to Ocean Avenue. They probably had the best view of any homeless encampment in America.
 
 
Sharona went inside the room to try to call Trevor at the jail. She told me that she wanted to tell him that she believed him and was fighting for him, but they wouldn’t put her call through. So we decided that I’d drive her downtown in the morning to visit him and then we’d go have a talk with Sally Jenkins, Ellen Cole’s ex-girlfriend.
 
 
Yesterday, Sharona was my mortal enemy. But my feelings toward her had changed. I realized that it was more than just fear about losing my job that drove me. It was also jealousy.
 
 
She was like me in so many ways. We both had twelve-year-old kids and raised them, more or less, on our own. And we’d both worked for Monk, an experience that no one, with the possible exception of Captain Stottlemeyer, could truly appreciate.
 
 
But there were some significant differences.
 
 
She would always be in first position with Monk. No matter how long I remained with him, I would still be the replacement, the consolation prize.
 
 
She had a profession, and I didn’t. I had never found my true calling, though until Sharona came along, I was beginning to think it was being an assistant to a detective.
 
 
And she had her husband. If we weren’t so much alike, maybe that fact, out of all the others, wouldn’t have made me so jealous. But it did.
 
 
I was thinking about these things as I nibbled on the last cold slice of pizza and Sharona leaned over the rail again to look at the ocean and the pier.
 
 
“All it would take is one shove and you wouldn’t have to worry about me taking your job ever again,” Sharona said.
 
 
“It occurred to me,” I said. “But if I tried to make it look like an accident, Mr. Monk would see right through it.”
 
 
“He might let you get away with it anyway,” Sharona said, standing up straight again. “Because if I’m dead, and you go to prison, who is going to take care of him? He is, after all, the most selfish man alive.”
 
 
“Good point,” I said. “Take another look at the view.”
 
 
We both smiled.
 

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