Mr. Monk in Outer Space

by Goldberg, Lee

  But on closer examination, there were a few things that didn’t fit in, like the stack of junk mail on the communications console, the unlaced sneakers on the floor, the half-eaten bag of Doritos on the command podium . . . and the gun resting on the captain’s stool.

  “Beam me up, Scotty,” Stottlemeyer said.

  27

  Mr. Monk Finds Himself

  Ernest Pinchuk sat at the table in the interrogation room, his arms folded across his chest, glaring defiantly into the mirror that he knew hid the four of us who were in the observation room watching him.

  Monk studied Pinchuk as if the man was some weird creature on exhibit in a zoo.

  “He hasn’t said a word,” Stottlemeyer said. “He just gurgles.”

  “That’s Dratch,” I said. “I’ve heard that it’s hard to speak the language clearly with only one tongue.”

  “Why won’t he speak English?” Disher asked.

  “His girlfriend told us that he’s protesting the changes to Beyond Earth,” I said. “He’s vowed to speak Dratch until they cancel the show or agree to do a version that’s true to the original.”

  “You’d think now that Stipe and Mills are dead he’d feel he’s made his point,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Has the network announced that the show is canceled or that they’ll be doing a loyal version?” I asked.

  Stottlemeyer shrugged. “Not that I know of.”

  “Until they do, I don’t think he’s going to talk to us. At least not in English.”

  “Oh, he’ll talk,” Stottlemeyer said. “By the time I’m done, he’ll confess and save us a lot of needless hassle in court.”

  “Why would he do that?” Monk said.

  “He may not want to speak English, but he understands it. When he’s confronted with the enormity of the evidence against him, he’s going to want to make a deal.”

  “What do you have to offer him?” I asked.

  Stottlemeyer smiled at us. “Watch and learn.”

  A few moments later, Stottlemeyer wheeled a TV/DVD combo into the interrogation room and closed the door. Monk, Disher, and I watched quietly.

  The captain smiled at Pinchuk. “You are looking at a very happy man, Ernie. You want to know why? This is a dream case for me. I can get a conviction and a lethal injection for you without even making an effort.”

  Pinchuk sputtered and snorted.

  “What’s that you say? I have trouble understanding you with that thing on your nose. Maybe this will help.”

  Stottlemeyer yanked the trunk off of Pinchuk’s face and tossed it in a corner.

  Pinchuk shrieked, not in pain but like someone who’d been stripped naked in public. He covered his exposed nose with his hands as if it was a much more private part of his body.

  I was shocked by what the captain did. I know it was only a rubber nose, but given who Pinchuk was, and what the trunk meant to him, it seemed like an act of brutality.

  I’m sure that was exactly what Stottlemeyer intended.

  “Is that better?” Stottlemeyer asked. “Can you breathe more clearly now?”

  Pinchuk hissed and coughed and glugged.

  “I guess not. But that’s okay. There’s nothing you have to say. The evidence speaks for itself.”

  Stottlemeyer turned on the TV. The security camera video of the Kingston Mills shooting played out on the screen.

  “There you are, Ernie, in living color, killing Kingston Mills for ruining the show you love. Ballistics has matched the bullets recovered from the body to the gun we found in your house. Case closed. I just wanted to personally thank you for making my job so easy. I’m going to get home early tonight.”

  Pinchuk made some more disgusting noises. Stottlemeyer started to leave, then reconsidered.

  “Oh, wait, I almost forgot. There’s more. I wish all serial killers were as considerate as you about supplying us with ironclad evidence of their crimes. We’ve got your first murder on tape, too.”

  Stottlemeyer played the Stipe video. Pinchuk gurgled during the playback with such intensity that he was practically spitting.

  Disher grinned. “This is so great.”

  I wasn’t entertained. From the moment Stottlemeyer ripped off the trunk, I found the whole experience unsettling. I was seeing a side of the captain that I didn’t like very much. Not that I was rooting for Pinchuk—he was a murderer. But he was still a human being.

  “Gee, he’s dead and you still can’t stop hating Stipe for selling you all out,” Stottlemeyer said. “Even without the gun on this one, it’s an open-and-shut case. That’s because you were thoughtful enough to wear the same new uniform that you bought this week in both killings. It would have been really nice if you’d worn a name tag, too. But, hey, I’m not criticizing.”

  Pinchuk was barking and huffing like a seal, perspiration forming on his brow.

  “I think the jury is going to set a new record for the fastest delivery of a guilty verdict in U.S. history. What do you think? Will they be out in ten minutes? Five minutes? Or just thirty seconds? I guess it depends if they want the free lunch first or not.”

  Pinchuk’s face was bright red. He was definitely under pressure now. He might even be having a stroke.

  “He’s going to crack,” Disher said.

  I glanced at Monk, whose head was tilted to one side, observing Pinchuk from a different angle. I wondered what he saw.

  Stottlemeyer leaned across the table in front of Pinchuk.

  “With all this evidence against you, you’re going to get the needle, no question about it. But if you want to confess, and plead guilty, you can take a stand against the corporate bastards who ruined your show and then you can spend the rest of your life in prison, watching Beyond Earth reruns all day. That could be paradise. It’s your choice. It makes no difference to me. I win either way.”

  Pinchuk burst out with a passionate stream of coughing, gagging, gurgling, barking, and mewling. He was saying something, and saying it forcefully.

  Monk turned to me. “Call Ambrose.”

  I hit the speed dial on my cell phone and followed Monk, who marched out of the observation area and directly into the interrogation room.

  Stottlemeyer looked up, obviously surprised to see us, especially since things were going so well.

  “This isn’t a good time, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said.

  Monk went to the TV, froze the image of Mr. Snork shooting Stipe, and looked at me. “Have you got Ambrose on the line?”

  At that moment, Ambrose answered the phone.

  “Hello, you’ve reached the Ambrose Monk residence. This is Ambrose Monk speaking.”

  “Hi, it’s Natalie. Hold on a moment.” I nodded to Monk, hit the SPEAKER button, and held up the phone. “He’s on.”

  “Ambrose, we’re with Ernest Pinchuk, leader of the Galactic Uprising, who has just been arrested for the murder of Kingston Mills.” Monk faced him. “Did you also kill Conrad Stipe? Is that you on the security video?”

  Pinchuk seemed to repeat the same saliva-spewing tirade that we’d just witnessed. Monk was careful to move out of the range of any spit.

  Monk looked at the phone as if it were Ambrose himself in the room. “What did he just say, Ambrose?”

  “He’s saying that the gunman is wearing a first-season uniform with second-season ears, which we know is obvious. He says it’s a violation, an abomination, and an insult to everything Beyond Earth stands for, and on a personal note, I would have to agree.”

  “Ambrose speaks Dratch?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “He can lip-read it, too,” I said.

  “If I look up ‘pointless’ in the dictionary after today,” Stottlemeyer said, “that’s going to be the new definition.”

  Pinchuk looked, and sounded, like he was choking on a hairball.

  Ambrose spoke up again. “He’s saying that Conrad Stipe betrayed himself, his principles, and all of fandom by allowing that snake Kingston Mills to ruin Beyond Earth. But whoever is wearing that mi
smatched uniform is doing the same thing. He says that man is besmirching Earthers everywhere and Mr. Pinchuk wouldn’t do that. That is not him. He says he’s an honorable man.”

  “You gunned down a guy in a parking lot this morning, ” Stottlemeyer said to Pinchuk. “I wouldn’t call that honorable. That was murder.”

  Pinchuk did some more hacking and snorting while Ambrose did a running translation.

  “He’s saying that it wasn’t murder, it was an execution for crimes against humanity. He’s admitting that he shot Kingston Mills. In fact, he wishes that he could have shot whoever was wearing the wrong uniform when he murdered Stipe. He believes the shooter’s purpose was to offend, belittle, and disrespect Earthers. His theory is that it was an act of aggression by someone from Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica fandom to turn the world against Beyond Earth.”

  “He’s upset about the uniform,” Stottlemeyer said. “But not the murder. I find that offensive.”

  Pinchuk kept talking, if you can call it that. Ambrose spoke up.

  “Mr. Pinchuk maintains that he didn’t kill Conrad Stipe. He was certainly angry enough to do it, but despite what Stipe did, he was still the creator of Beyond Earth and Mr. Pinchuk respects that.”

  “There you have it,” Monk said. “This man killed Kingston Mills but not Conrad Stipe.”

  “Let’s step outside,” Stottlemeyer said, motioning Monk and me to the door.

  He led us out of the interrogation room and into the hallway, where Disher joined us.

  “That was amazing,” Disher said. “I’ve never seen an interrogation like that before.”

  “Neither have I,” Stottlemeyer said, and gestured to my cell phone. “Could you tell Ambrose you’ll call him back?”

  “Sure,” I said and did as he asked.

  After I ended the call, Stottlemeyer turned to Monk.

  “I didn’t want to have this discussion in front of the murderer or your brother. You’re embarrassing yourself, and it’s painful to watch.”

  “I’m doing what I always do,” Monk said.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem. You’re refusing to acknowledge anything that doesn’t fit the way you want it to.”

  “That’s how I solve murders,” Monk said.

  “Not this time,” Stottlemeyer said. “The guy in that room is nuts. You’re taking his word, in some make-believe language, as some kind of gospel. It’s not. It’s the babbling of an idiot.”

  “I believe him,” Monk said.

  “Because he’s playing you, Monk. He’s telling you what you want to hear.”

  “I know this man,” Monk said.

  “You only met him two days ago,” Disher said.

  “He’s me.”

  We all stared at Monk in disbelief. It certainly wasn’t the first time, as you know. But this was a particularly outrageous statement for him to make.

  Two days earlier, Monk was calling the Beyond Earth fans drug-addicted freaks. He was ready to disown his brother and have him committed for associating with them. And now he was joining their ranks?

  Something was very wrong with Monk. Had he finally snapped?

  “He’s nothing like you,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “He’s me,” Monk said. “And he’s my brother.”

  Stottlemeyer pointed at the door to the interrogation room. “He’s got pointed ears and an elephant nose!”

  “Ernie had an elephant nose,” I said. “Until you tore it off of him in an act of police brutality.”

  Stottlemeyer gave me a withering look. “It’s a rubber nose. I took it off of him, I didn’t beat him with it.”

  “You might as well have,” I said.

  Stottlemeyer turned his attention back to Monk, dismissing my objections by showing me the back of his head.

  “He lives in a house that’s been remodeled to look like a spaceship,” Stottlemeyer said. “He speaks a made-up language. He’s not you or Ambrose.”

  “Technically, Ambrose does speak the language and knows the show inside out,” Disher said. “So Pinchuk isn’t Monk, but maybe he’s a little bit Ambrose.”

  Stottlemeyer gave Disher the same withering look he’d given me, but before he could rip Disher’s head off with his bare hands, Monk spoke up.

  “Ernest Pinchuk is a messed-up, probably drug-addictedfreak, no question about it,” he said. “But in his deranged mind, he’s living according to the natural order of his universe. His life fits. He’s making sure every detail is correct. He wouldn’t wear a first-season Confederation uniform with second-season ears any more than I would walk down the street with mismatched socks.”

  “You’d kill yourself first,” I said.

  “I’d have you change my socks and then kill me,” Monk said. “I wouldn’t want to be seen dead with mismatched socks either.”

  “But if you were buried with mismatched socks, that would definitely be a desecration,” Disher said. “And you have my word that the Special Desecration Unit wouldn’t rest until we caught whoever did it.”

  “Is there a point here somewhere?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “Ernest Pinchuk is a lunatic but a man of principle,” Monk said. “Look at what he’s doing right now. He’s sticking to his vow to speak Dratch, even when his life is at stake, because he believes it’s a necessary step to restore the natural order of his world. I understand him because we’re the same. Only I’m not insane.”

  This was a revelatory, life-changing moment for Adrian Monk. That was the point that Stottlemeyer was missing.

  Monk had just taken a monumental step forward in understanding himself and others. Dr. Kroger would probably call it a breakthrough.

  By comparing himself to Pinchuk, Monk was actually empathizing with someone whose beliefs and life-style were fundamentally different from his own.

  It was incredible!

  It was what I’d been trying to get him to do for years and even more intensely since this case began. I wanted him to see how similar he was to Ambrose, the Earthers, and other people he criticized for not being just like him.

  And now he was getting it. Or at least he seemed to be.

  I hoped this new understanding would stick, though I wasn’t convinced by the argument he was making as far as the actual case was concerned.

  “I’m telling you, Monk, you’re being manipulated,” Stottlemeyer said. “That guy probably knows all about you and is taking advantage of it.”

  “Even if that’s true, he’s admitted to one murder,” Monk said. “If he did the other one, too, what would he have to lose by admitting it? That alone should indicate to you that your scenario just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Mine doesn’t? If I hold up the evidence for my theory against your gum, candy wrapper, and this guy’s idiotic blathering, it’s no contest which one adds up to the more convincing case,” Stottlemeyer said. “Any reasonable person, and more importantly, any jury of twelve of my peers, would agree that I’ve got the shooter responsible for two murders.”