Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants (33 page)

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Authors: Lee Goldberg

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“Back to your house,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“Why?”
 
 
But just as I asked that question, I noticed to my great surprise that my Jeep Cherokee wasn’t parked in front of Monk’s place anymore. It was gone. Stottlemeyer’s car was parked right where my car used to be.
 
 
“Somebody stole my car,” I said.
 
 
“It wasn’t stolen,” Stottlemeyer said. “It was towed away.”
 
 
“Who towed it?” I said. “I wasn’t parked illegally and I don’t have any unpaid parking tickets.”
 
 
“That’s not why we towed it,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“We?” I said.
 
 
But Stottlemeyer didn’t say another word. I didn’t like the sound of that.
 
 
The street in front of my house was clogged with official police vehicles—black-and-white cruisers, unmarked detective sedans and a couple vans from the crime-scene investigation unit.
 
 
The last time I had a party like that at my house was when I killed an intruder who tried to kill me. That was how I met Monk.
 
 
Now my house was a crime scene again. That meant that a crime had been committed in the house or items related to a crime could be found there. I didn’t like the implications of either scenario. Regardless of the explanation, I was sure my neighbors were already circulating a petition demanding that I move.
 
 
Captain Stottlemeyer had remained silent during the short drive but when we pulled up to the curb in front of my house, he looked over his shoulder at me in the backseat and finally spoke.
 
 
“I didn’t know anything about this,” Stottlemeyer said. “Neither did Randy. I heard about it after I left Monk’s place. Ludlow went over our heads.”
 
 
“Ludlow?” Monk said. “What’s he got to do with this?”
 
 
“It’s his show,” Stottlemeyer said as we all got out of the car.
 
 
Ian Ludlow, Disher and Sharona were waiting for us in my living room. There were other uniformed cops, plainclothes detectives and forensics guys scurrying around. I didn’t know what they were doing that was keeping them so busy or why they were doing it.
 
 
I’d left the house locked. Now all these people were in my house, going through my stuff, without asking me first. It pissed me off. I was sure they had a warrant, but that still didn’t make it right.
 
 
Disher looked as grim as his boss, and Sharona was radiating anger. I couldn’t figure out why she’d been dragged to my place. Then again, I didn’t know why I was there, either.
 
 
“Thanks for coming down,” Ludlow said.
 
 
“I live here,” I said testily.
 
 
“Indeed you do,” Ludlow said.
 
 
“Another brilliant deduction,” Monk said.
 
 
“What are we doing here?” Sharona asked.
 
 
“I thought you’d like to know who killed Ellen Cole,” Ludlow said.
 
 
“You were the one who said it was my husband,” Sharona said.
 
 
“I was wrong,” Ludlow said. “When I heard what Monk told Lieutenant Dozier, I realized I’d been misled by the evidence and I immediately resolved to let nothing stop me from getting to the truth.”
 
 
“And you’ve found the truth in my living room?” I said.
 
 
“As a matter of fact,” Ludlow said, “I have.”
 
 
“So spit it out,” Sharona asked. “Who killed Ellen Cole?”
 
 
Ludlow smiled at Sharona. “You already know the answer to that.”
 
 
“If I did,” Sharona said, “I wouldn’t be asking.”
 
 
“
You
killed Ellen Cole,” Ludlow said to her.
 
 
I glanced at Monk. He seemed perplexed, his features all scrunched up as he grappled with this new concept.
 
 
Stottlemeyer and Disher were both looking at Sharona.
 
 
“You’re lucky there are two cops standing here,” Sharona said, glaring furiously at Ludlow. “Or you’d be flat on the floor, looking for your teeth.”
 
 
“That’s your best argument?” Ludlow said. “More violence?”
 
 
“First you say my husband killed her,” Sharona said. “Now you’re saying that I did. What have you got against us? Did we run over your cat or something?”
 
 
“I’ve known Sharona for years,” Stottlemeyer said. “I just don’t believe she’s capable of murder.”
 
 
“It’s exactly that predisposition that provoked me to go over your head to the deputy commissioner to arrange for this search warrant and for Captain Toplyn to serve it,” Ludlow said, motioning across the room to a stocky man, who I presumed was Toplyn.
 
 
Toplyn acknowledged our glances with an expressionless nod. He was within earshot but outside our circle, standing beside a cardboard box full of bags of collected evidence.
 
 
But evidence of
what
?
 
 
“I knew that you’d be too biased to see things in an objective light,” Ludlow said.
 
 
“Convince me that I’m wrong,” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
If Ludlow thought Sharona was a killer, why were the cops crawling all over
my
house and
my
car instead of hers? What did I have to do with any of this?
 
 
“Sharona killed Ellen Cole and framed her husband for the murder,” Ludlow said. “She did it to get out of an abusive marriage.”
 
 
“If I wanted out of my marriage, I wouldn’t have had to kill anyone,” Sharona said. “I would have just walked out. I’ve done it before.”
 
 
“Yes, you have. You did it because Trevor is a creep, a loser and a lousy father. But what happened? He came back. You got sucked into the marriage again, even though you know he’s the same loser that he’s always been,” Ludlow said. “You are helpless against his charms and you know it.”
 
 
Monk nodded in agreement. Sharona glared at him.
 
 
“What are you nodding for, Adrian? He’s accusing me of murder here,” Sharona said. “Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
 
 
“I’m listening,” Monk said.
 
 
“You’re listening and nodding,” Sharona said.
 
 
“Only to the part about Trevor,” Monk said, “not the part about you murdering someone.”
 
 
“I didn’t murder anyone,” Sharona said. “That’s the point, Adrian. You have to tell him he’s wrong.”
 
 
“You knew that there was only one way to save yourself and your son,” Ludlow said. “You had to find a way to get Trevor out of your life for good.”
 
 
“So why wouldn’t she just kill him?” Stottlemeyer said.
 
 
“Because she would have been the most obvious suspect, ” Ludlow said. “It made far more sense to kill a complete stranger who couldn’t be connected to her, frame her husband for the crime and get him locked away forever.”
 
 
“Oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense,” Sharona said, “if you’re insane.” She looked at Monk again for support, but he seemed distracted, lost in his own thoughts.
 
 
“Is that going to be your defense?” Ludlow said. “Temporary insanity?”
 
 
“She’s not going to need a defense, because you’ve got nothing on her,” Stottlemeyer said. “It’s all wild speculation. Where’s your proof?”
 
 
“All the evidence against Trevor, for one thing,” Ludlow said, turning to Sharona. “It points right back at you.”
 
 
“How do you figure that?” Stottlemeyer asked.
 
 
“The person in the best position to set up an eBay account in his name using his checking-account number and to plant the stolen goods in his truck was you,” Ludlow said. “You had unfettered access. And in your most brazen act, you told Lieutenant Dozier how you did it.”
 
 
“I told him how
somebody
could do it,” Sharona said.
 
 
“Perhaps the most revealing thing of all is that you never called your old employer, Adrian Monk, to help you,” Ludlow said. “He’s one of the best detectives on Earth, and yet you didn’t seek his help. Why? Because you knew he’d discover the truth, that you killed Ellen Cole.”
 
 
“I didn’t go to Adrian for help because I thought he hated me for leaving him and because I thought Trevor was guilty,” Sharona said. “I was wrong on both counts.”
 
 
“But in a cruel twist of fate, you encountered Monk and his new assistant, Natalie, anyway,” Ludlow said. “And your carefully plotted scheme began to unravel.”
 
 
I realized that Ludlow wasn’t so much speaking as he was writing aloud. Everything he was saying would be coming out of his hero Detective Marshak’s mouth by the time the book was written.
 
 
“There are a thousand ways a reasonable person could interpret everything you’ve told us,” Stottlemeyer said, “and reach an entirely different conclusion.”
 
 
“For instance,” I said, looking at Ludlow, “maybe you killed Ellen Cole.”
 
 
I turned to Monk, waiting for him to run with that, but he remained silent. I was shocked. Stottlemeyer was probably relieved. I was sure that the last thing the captain wanted to deal with were two absurd theories about the murder from two bullheaded egotists at once.
 
 
Even so, I wish Monk had stepped up. I wish he had done it for Sharona. But once again, he was letting her down when she needed him most. And I didn’t know why.
 
 
"C’mon, that’s just stupid,” Disher said to me. “We’re talking about Ian Ludlow here. He’s the man.”
 
 
“What about me, Randy?” Sharona said. “Do you really think that I’d kill a woman I don’t even know and frame my husband for it?”
 
 
“You’re more likely to do it than the greatest crime writer of our generation,” Disher said, then turned to Ludlow. “But I just don’t think you’re right about this. You don’t have any evidence to support your charges.”
 
 
“Three days ago I didn’t,” Ludlow said. “But then you called and asked me to come up here to figure out how someone was killed on a nude beach by an alligator.”
 
 
“How does Ronald Webster’s murder prove that Sharona killed Ellen Cole?” I asked.
 
 
Ludlow smiled at me. “Because
you
murdered him, Natalie.”
 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
 
 
Mr. Monk Loses an Assistant
 
 
Ludlow might as well have punched me in the stomach. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t find the air to speak. His accusation was so wrong, so unfair, so terrifying that it left me numb.
 
 
I didn’t know where to begin. How do you argue against something that goes against all logic and everything you know to be true?
 
 
It was surreal. At first, I thought he was just getting back at me for my crack about him being the killer. But I could tell by the way he was studying me for telltale signs of guilt that he meant it.
 
 
The best I could muster, once I found air in my lungs again, was to say with all the moral conviction, truthfulness and outrage that I could muster: “That’s not true!”

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