Mr. Monk in Outer Space (5 page)
Read Mr. Monk in Outer Space Online
Authors: Lee Goldberg
“No, it isn’t,” Monk said.
“It certainly looks like a murder to me,” Disher said. He ate a piece of candy and shoved a couple more in his pocket for later. I cringed again.
“But it’s not,” Monk said.
I stared at Stottlemeyer and Disher. “How could you put those candies in your mouth?”
Stottlemeyer shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s because we like coffee candy, Natalie.”
“But a man died in here.” I tipped my head towards the corpse behind the desk for emphasis. “He’s sitting right there.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Stottlemeyer said. “So what?”
I couldn’t believe they couldn’t see the problem.
“There’s deadness all over it,” I said.
“Deadness,” Stottlemeyer said. “I can’t say that worries me. How about you, Randy?”
“Nope,” he said.
“Okay, fine,” I said. “How do you know the candy isn’t poisoned? Maybe that’s what killed Lorber.”
“If he’d eaten a candy before his death, there would be a wrapper somewhere,” Monk said. “There isn’t one.”
I looked at him. “I thought you, of all people, would agree with me on this.”
“Deadness?” Monk said. "C’mon, Natalie. That’s just silly.”
As opposed to, say, running your doorknobs through the dishwasher once a week. But I didn’t bring that up. I had better ammunition.
“Then how come you aren’t having some candy?”
“It causes tooth decay,” Monk said, examining a piece of candy and putting it back as if it had scalded his fingers. “Decay and I are mortal enemies.”
“I’m surprised, Monk. Everything decays. It’s a natural law,” Stottlemeyer said. “Like gravity.”
Stottlemeyer grinned, pleased with himself. Monk gave him a cold look.
“Why would someone shoot a man who was already dead?” Disher asked.
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Stottlemeyer said.
“If the medical examiner can establish that Lorber was already dead when he was shot, then there’s no crime here.”
“Yes, there is,” Monk said. “Someone has desecrated a corpse.”
“What I meant, Monk, is that it’s not a homicide and therefore it’s not a crime that I’m responsible for investigating.”
“So who is?” Disher said.
Stottlemeyer shrugged. “I don’t know, Randy. The Desecration Squad, I suppose.”
“Do we have a Desecration Squad?”
Stottlemeyer looked at Disher for a long moment. “Yes, we do.”
“We do?”
“In fact, you’re in charge of it,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I am?”
“You are now,” Stottlemeyer said.
“My own squad,” Disher said, beaming. “Do I get a raise?”
“The honor is its own reward, don’t you think?”
“Can we call it a special unit instead of a squad?” Disher asked.
“Call it whatever you want. Just get the medical examiner to rush the autopsy on Lorber so I can clear this case off my desk,” Stottlemeyer said, then turned to us. “We’re not going to need your services on this one, Monk. You can go home and work on that carpet stain.”
“It’s a hopeless cause,” Monk said with a groan.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Stottlemeyer said.
Not as sorry as I was.
“Now you can go get the wrinkles ironed out of your shirt,” Monk said.
“I will,” Stottlemeyer said. “The first chance I get.”
“This is it,” Monk said.
“I can’t just drop everything to get my shirt ironed,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“But this is a personal emergency,” Monk said. “And we had an agreement.”
“Yes, we did.” Stottlemeyer sighed and glanced at Disher. “You’ll have to wrap things up here without me, Randy. I’ve got to go get my shirt pressed.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Monk said.
“Don’t count on that,” Stottlemeyer said as he walked out of the room.
4
Mr. Monk Goes Home
The carpet wouldn’t be installed for two more days, but Monk couldn’t live in the same apartment as that coffee stain. And yet he had no problem moving into my place, where he knew that countless stains were hidden under furniture and rugs.
It’s a contradiction, but don’t expect me to explain it. I have a working knowledge of many of the Rules of the Monk Universe, but not all of them. If I tried to learn them all, I’m afraid I would go insane.
The last time Monk stayed at my house in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco, he called a moving company and had them bring all his furniture, clothes, and even the food in his refrigerator. So I considered myself lucky when I got him out of his apartment with only eight suitcases, a case of Sierra Springs water, and all of his dishware.
On the way to my place, I laid down the law. I told him he couldn’t rearrange my furniture, my artwork, or anything else. I told him he couldn’t go through my cupboards, my drawers, or my closets. I told him he couldn’t try to change my personal habits, no matter how repulsive, objectionable, or dangerous he might think they were. My home was my space to do as I pleased, regardless of how it made him feel.
But I did cut him a little slack. I gave him permission to do all the housecleaning, dishwashing, and laundry that he wanted.
That made him happy and, to be honest, he’d be doing me a favor. I hadn’t done much housecleaning. The fact is, after a day spent with Monk, I’d usually had as much cleaning and disinfecting as I could take, even if I wasn’t the one who was doing it. I actually took pleasure in my slovenliness after being with him. It became a form of relaxation and maybe even a little rebellion.
I’m afraid Julie followed my poor example. Her room looked like a hurricane had swept through it. I was afraid of what I might find in there, but I probably wasn’t as frightened as Monk was going to be when he saw it.
At least the guest room was the way Monk had left it the last time he stayed with us. I guess I’d known on some level that he would be back someday.
We walked into the living room, each of us carrying two of his matching suitcases. We were halfway down the hall to the guest room when he froze, cocking his head to one side.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“What’s what?”
“That noise,” he said.
I listened. I heard a little rumble.
“Oh, that’s just the wheel,” I said.
“What wheel?” he asked.
“Hammy’s wheel,” I said. “She’s on that all day.”
“Who’s Hammy?”
“Julie’s hamster,” I said, ignoring the handmade DO NOT ENTER, NO TRESSPASSING, and HAZARDOUS WASTE signs and opening Julie’s bedroom door. “I’m taking care of Hammy while Julie’s away at camp.”
The three-level cage was on a piece of newspaper near Julie’s bed. The hamster was running on her wheel, moving so fast she was almost a blur.
So was Monk.
When I turned around, his suitcases were there but he was gone.
Monk’s older brother, Ambrose, still lived in the Victorian-style two-story home where they’d grown up, in the quaint little town of Tewksbury, just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County. In fact, Ambrose never left. He suffered from agoraphobia.
Ambrose was socially awkward, which is to be expected from a guy who had little or no interaction with people. But he was extremely well-read on hundreds of obscure topics and he’d taught himself to speak six languages, including Mandarin, skills he put to use writing technical manuals, encyclopedias, and textbooks.
As far as I know, Ambrose had left the house only twice in thirty years, once when the place was on fire and again when he needed emergency medical care because he thought he’d been fatally poisoned.
Monk had something to do with both of those incidents, which, as it happened, were tied to murder investigations. Those are long stories, so I won’t bore you with them now, but in light of those experiences, it was only natural that Ambrose showed some trepidation when he opened his front door and saw the two of us standing there.
He grabbed the doorframe as if he was afraid we might drag him out into the front yard.
Ambrose wore an argyle sweater vest, a long-sleeved flannel shirt buttoned at the cuffs, corduroy slacks, and a pair of Hush Puppies so shiny they made Dorothy’s ruby slippers seem dull by comparison. Like Monk’s, his shirt was buttoned at the collar.
“Hello, Adrian,” Ambrose said hesitantly. He did just about everything hesitantly. “Hello, Natalie.”
“It’s good to see you, Ambrose,” I said.
“It’s an unexpected pleasure to see you, Natalie.” Ambrose looked at Monk. “Who died?”
“Nobody,” Monk said. “I’m visiting.”
“You never visit. You only come if I call, and I didn’t call. So if someone didn’t die, why are you here?”
“Does a man need a reason to visit his ancestral home?” Monk asked.
Ambrose looked past Monk and smiled at me. “Not when he’s accompanied by such a beautiful woman.”
I blushed. Ambrose had a little crush on me. I don’t think it was due to either my sparkling personality or my ravishing beauty. The truth is, he’d had a thing for Sharona, too. We were the only two women who’d come to see him in years.
But I was flattered anyway. His feelings were genuine, and feelings, especially genuine ones, are hard to find in a man these days. At least for me.
In the year or so since I’d met Ambrose, I’d spent a few evenings with him, playing checkers and eating popcorn. He was a sweet guy. But I was careful not to see him too often because I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea about us.
He motioned us inside. We came in and he immediately closed the door behind us and latched the dead bolt.
I was surprised to see that the living room was still stuffed with file cabinets full of mail and thirty-five years’ worth of newspapers stacked nearly to the ceiling.
Ambrose had been saving it all for their father, who went out for Chinese food in 1972 and didn’t return until a few months ago, when he unexpectedly called Monk for a favor. Their father, who had become a trucker, was in jail on an outstanding warrant for unpaid parking tickets or something minor like that. He needed Monk to get him out of jail or he’d lose his job for not making his delivery on time.
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