Mr. Monk on Patrol (15 page)

“Randy has been wearing them,” she said.

“Randy is someone else.”

“Randy isn’t some hobo, and I washed the clothes myself.”

“I don’t wear used clothing,” Monk said. “Nobody should. It’s unsanitary and disgusting.”

“So you’d rather stay in those soaking-wet clothes and catch your death from cold.”

“Without question,” Monk said and turned to me. “You should follow my lead on this.”

Sharona spoke up. “Those are my clothes that I’m lending her.”

Monk looked at me sternly. “Need I say more?”

“I am not some kind of skank,” Sharona said.

“I will be glad to wear your clothes,” I said. “And I appreciate your bringing them down here in the middle of the night for us.”

“It was the least I could do,” Sharona said. “You both could have been killed and it would have been my fault.”

“You’re right,” Monk said.

“That’s cruel, Mr. Monk, and unfair.”

“It’s accurate,” he said.

“You owe her an apology,” I said.

“She’s the one who dragged me across the country to this toxic, excrement-strewn hellhole of corruption,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here to be killed if it wasn’t for her. That’s a fact.”

“Oh, come on, Mr. Monk. This is not the first time someone has tried to kill us. I don’t like it, but if you’re going after murderers, you’ve got to expect that occasionally they’re going to come after you, too.”

Monk turned to Sharona. “She has PTSD.”

“She’s telling you to stop whining and I agree with her,” Sharona said to him and then looked at me. “I had no idea you were so tough.”

“A burglar attacked me in my home and I killed him in self-defense. That’s how I met Mr. Monk and ended up working for him. In the years since then, I’ve seen a lot of death and looked into the eyes of more than a few killers. If that didn’t make me tougher, I would have quit this job a long time ago.”

Sharona shook her head. “You didn’t stay because you got tougher. You stayed because you enjoy it.”

“I don’t like being scared, and I certainly don’t like violence and death,” I said, “but yes, I suppose it’s true that I’ve grown to like the work.”

“Of course you do,” Monk said. “You work for me and I’m a very easygoing, likable person.”

“And she likes the rush,” Sharona said.

I shrugged. “It beats staying home and folding laundry.”

Monk gave me a look. “When have you
ever
folded laundry?”

Disher finished his talk with the fire chief and came over to us.

“The chief says the incendiary device was a Molotov
cocktail that was thrown through the window. It ignited the curtains and the bedsheets and spread rapidly from there,” Disher said. “You’re lucky you were in the other room, Monk, or you’d be toast.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Monk said. “I slept in room 204 last night, so I had to sleep in room 206 tonight.”

“Why?” Disher said.

“Balance,” Sharona said. “Adrian had two rooms, therefore he had to alternate which room he slept in.”

I could see that Disher still didn’t get it.

“It’s not enough that both rooms are even-numbered, adjacent, and symmetrical,” I said, “but the time he spends in them has to be as well.”

“I wasn’t raised by apes,” Monk said.

“Fine. Whatever,” Disher said. “I don’t get how you managed to drive someone into a murderous rage in just one day.”

“I’ve seen it happen in five minutes,” Sharona said.

“I’ve seen it happen in two,” I said.

“Ask Ellen Morse,” Monk said. “She has plenty of motive to want me dead. I told her I was going to take her down and she knew that I meant it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Adrian. Ellen didn’t throw a Molotov cocktail through your window,” Sharona said. “And besides, how would she have known which room you were staying in?”

“Sharona is right,” Disher said. “Only the police and the hotel staff knew that.”

“Then it’s got to be the hotel owners,” I said. “It’s Monk’s fault that their ghost scam was exposed and they were arrested. Thanks to him, they can kiss their hotel business good-bye, as well as their freedom. Speaking of which, are they still in jail?”

Disher shook his head. “They were released on bail
this afternoon.” He motioned over Officers Woodlake and Lindero, who were chatting with a couple of firemen.

Woodlake gestured to us as he approached. “I thought these two were supposed to lower the crime rate around here, Chief, not jack it up.”

“Did I ask for your opinion, Woodlake?” Disher said. “I want you two to go find Harold, Brenda, and Rhonda Dumetz and bring them in for questioning. Find out where they’ve been the last few hours and secure their home and cars for the forensics unit.”

“Yes sir,” Lindero said. He gave a little salute and got into the driver’s seat of the police car we were leaning against. Woodlake got in on the passenger side. We stepped away and they drove off.

Monk glanced up at his hotel room, then over at a line of pine trees that was midway between the building and the street. He rolled his shoulders and tipped his head from side to side.

It was his tell.

Disher studied him. “What are you thinking, Monk?”

He was thinking that he’d solved a mystery. What I didn’t know was which one it was or how the hell he’d done it.

“I’m thinking I need to go to 218 Primrose Lane right now,” he said.

“What’s there?” Sharona asked.

“The home of David and Heather McAfee,” Monk said. “They were burglarized yesterday morning.”

“It’s three a.m., Monk,” Disher said. “Can’t this wait until morning?”

“Not if you want to end the spree of burglaries, catch a killer, and capture an arsonist.”

Monk had solved all three mysteries, but there must have been one last piece of evidence that he needed to prove it, and it was at the McAfees’ house.

I knew he wouldn’t tell me what it was, so I didn’t bother asking.

I ducked into the ambulance and changed out of my wet and smoky clothes into a pair of Sharona’s tight jeans and a scoop-necked shirt. It was more scooped than I was either comfortable with or had the bosom for, so I put a sweater over it, too.

I emerged from the ambulance and rejoined Sharona and Monk, who regarded me with a bewildered expression on his face. I guess it was odd for him to see me dressed like his former assistant. But Sharona nodded with approval.

“You know something? This fire may have been a blessing in disguise,” Sharona said. “That’s a terrific look for you. You ought to burn the rest of your clothes when you get home.”

“I’ve been telling her that for years,” Monk said.

“You don’t have to burn clothes that get stained,” I said.

“No, you don’t,” Monk said. “You can bury them, shred them, or send them into outer space.”

“If we did that, our first extraterrestrial encounter might be with some bug-eyed alien race wearing our secondhand clothes,” I said. “Imagine E.T. in stained Ralph Lauren. Do we really want that?”

Sharona laughed. “Now you sound like Randy.”

“His way of thinking is infectious,” I said.

“So are a lot of other things about him,” Monk said. “Which is another reason I don’t want to wear his dirty clothes.”

Sharona groaned and went back home to get some
sleep while Disher wrapped things up at the hotel, then drove the two of us over to the McAfees’ house.

Disher knocked on the front door, which was answered by a very groggy barefoot man in striped pajamas and a bathrobe.

“Sorry to wake you up, Mr. McAfee. I’m Police Chief Disher, and we’re here about—” Disher turned to Monk. “What
are
we here about?”

“Your attic, Mr. McAfee,” Monk said, stepping up beside Disher. “I need to see it.”

“Why?” McAfee yawned. “There’s nothing up there except baby clothes, Christmas decorations, and old paperbacks. Can’t this wait until morning?”

“It’s a matter of life and death,” Monk said. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”

The man sighed. “Come on in. I’ll get the ladder.”

McAfee put on a pair of slippers, went to the garage, and got the ladder, which he brought into the house and carried upstairs.

All of this ruckus naturally woke up his wife and two young kids, who stood in the hallway as McAfee climbed the ladder, opened the trapdoor into the attic, and disappeared inside.

Monk dropped his blanket and went up the ladder behind McAfee, just high enough to peek inside the attic.

“Why is that man all wet?” the little girl asked her mother.

“Maybe it’s raining outside,” Heather McAfee said.

“It’s not, Mom,” the little boy said.

“Maybe he ran through some sprinklers,” the little girl said.

Monk came right back down again.

“That’s it?” Disher said.

“I’m all done.” Monk picked up the blanket and wrapped it around himself again. “We can go back to the station now.”

“What did you see up there that was so important?”

“Insulation,” he said.

“I could have told you they had insulation,” Disher said. “All houses have it.”

“But you couldn’t have told me what kind. This house was recently remodeled and reinsulated with sprayed cellulose instead of blanketed with fiberglass.”

“What difference does that make?” Disher asked.

“A big difference,” Heather McAfee said. “It’s the greenest insulation on the market, made almost entirely from recycled paper that’s treated with fire retardant. If everyone went green, we could save the ozone layer and our children from skin cancer.”

“I appreciate your desire to conserve resources, limit greenhouse gases, and recycle stuff,” Disher said to her, then shifted his gaze back to Monk. “But I don’t see what that has to do with the burglary in this house yesterday.”

“It proves who did it,” Monk said.

The three of us went back to the police station. Disher and I remained in the dark about who the felon was because Monk refused to tell us. He was saving it for the right dramatic moment and, despite my weariness, irritability, and discomfort, I wasn’t going to try to deprive him of that pleasure. He’d earned it. Disher seemed to have the same attitude—one born from long experience—because he didn’t press Monk for answers, either.

Evie was waiting for us when we came in. I didn’t expect to see her there so late at night. She held a dark blue police uniform that was wrapped in plastic.

“The chief asked me to get this for you,” she said, presenting the uniform to Monk. “It’s brand-new, never worn, and is about your size.”

Monk accepted it with a smile and turned to Randy. “Thank you, Chief.”

“No problem, Monk,” Disher said.

“For the record, I don’t approve of this one bit,” Evie said. “He’s impersonating a police officer.”

“Monk won’t be wearing the badge, or the hat, or carrying a weapon,” Disher said.

“He’ll just be wearing the uniform and driving one of our police cars,” she said.

“Exactly,” Disher said.

“If it makes you feel better,” Monk said, “I am a former San Francisco police officer who rose up to the rank of homicide detective. I still meet all the legal, professional, and physical requirements to serve.”

“What about the psychological ones?”

“Do you?” I asked her.

She reached behind the counter and I flinched, half expecting her to come out with her gun. But instead she pulled out my soggy purse.

“The firemen were able to recover this from your room,” she said and tossed it to me. It was like catching a leather bucket full of water and I got nice and wet.

“Thanks,” I said.

Disher pointed Monk to the side door.

“You can go change out of those wet clothes in the locker room down the hall. I’ll see to it that nobody comes in.” Monk headed off to change. Disher turned back to Evie. “Are Lindero and Woodlake back yet?”

She nodded. “They brought the Dumetz family clan in with them. The forensics unit is on the way out to the Dumetz place and we’re having the Dumetzes’ cars towed in.”

“Good work,” Disher said. “I really appreciate your coming in to help out.”

“It’s what I live for,” she said.

She was so sour-faced I couldn’t tell whether she meant it or if she was being sarcastic, not that it really mattered. I followed Disher down the hall into the squad room, which was occupied only by Lindero and
Woodlake, who sat at their facing desks doing paperwork.

Lindero looked up as we came in. “We’ve got the Dumetz family in the interrogation room.”

“Did they give you any trouble?” Disher asked.

“Docile as lambs,” Lindero said. “They claim we woke ’em and that they’ve been home all night.”

“But they can’t corroborate that,” Woodlake added.

“In the morning, once the stores open up, I want you to visit the businesses along Springfield Avenue and get their exterior security camera footage from tonight,” Disher said. “Maybe one of the cameras got a shot of the Dumetzes’ car passing by around the time of the firebombing or caught them on foot.”

“Will do,” Lindero said.

Monk came in wearing the uniform, which seemed to have imbued his stride with a heroic swagger. Either that, or he had a nasty case of hemorrhoids, which I considered highly doubtful.