by Lee Goldberg
“She’s going to love that,” I said. “That’s all she’s wanted since I got the car.”
“Call Danielle on her cell phone and tell her to meet us there, too, but in her own car.”
Monk obviously didn’t want Slade to be able to track our movements anymore.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Linda Wurzel will be tied up with the authorities and the media for at least another hour and then she’ll want to go home. That gives us barely enough time to get organized.”
“For what?”
“Around-the-clock surveillance,” Monk said. “We aren’t letting Linda Wurzel out of our sight.”
“For how long?”
“Until hell freezes over,” Monk said. “And we’ll know when that happens because she’ll be covered in ice.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mr. Monk and the Abandoned Warehouse
It was getting dark when we swapped cars with Julie outside of Monk’s apartment. She couldn’t wait to pick up her friends and put some miles on the Lexus cruising around San Francisco, which was just fine with Monk and less fine with me.
I didn’t think she’d be in any danger from Nick Slade. I was more concerned about the trouble that she and her friends might get into on their own.
As soon as Julie left, Danielle pulled up behind us in her Mini Cooper convertible and we met on the sidewalk for a quick briefing.
I didn’t want to tell her the whole story yet, and Monk agreed with me, so we left out the part about Nick Slade being a triple murderer.
All she needed to know was that we were keeping an eye on Linda Wurzel.
Danielle probably suspected that there was more going on than we were letting on, but she didn’t press the point. She pulled out a map of Sea Cliff, an exclusive, very wealthy neighborhood that was tucked between the Presidio and Lincoln Park and boasted breathtaking views of the Pacific, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin headlands, and, on clear days, Mount Tamalpais.
Linda Wurzel lived on a curving street. If we parked a car at either end, we could keep her house in sight and follow her no matter which direction she took when she left.
By keeping in touch via cell phone, we could then tail her wherever she went, switching off who was behind her so she wouldn’t notice that she was being followed.
That was how the professionals did it and, for the first time, I actually felt like one.
“What are we following her for?” Danielle said.
“We’ll know when we see it,” Monk said.
He ran into his apartment to get Wheat Thins, water, and extra wipes and then we sped off to Wurzel’s estate.
Two stone pillars on the western and eastern corners of Twenty-fifth Avenue and El Camino Del Mar marked the entrance to Sea Cliff so that everyone knew that this was a neighborhood set apart from the rest of the city.
Nobody needed a couple of pillars to know that. The smell of money was enough.
The immaculately maintained Mediterranean mansions of Sea Cliff were surrounded by gardens of sculpted shrubs and beautiful pines set against sweeping bay views.
We parked on the west end of the street, Danielle took the east.
I rolled down the window a crack so I could enjoy the brisk sea breeze and hear the waves crashing against the cliffs below.
Wurzel’s house was huge and stately, surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence with security cameras discreetly placed in key positions along the perimeter. The bushes on the property were pruned to look like swirling tornadoes of green and her trees were shaped like enormous balls. A polished cobblestone driveway curved past the front door on its way to the garage to the western side, presumably so a chauffeur could drop Wurzel off before parking the car.
We timed things just right. A few moments after we parked, Wurzel passed us in a two-toned, silver-and-gray Maybach that made an S-class Mercedes look like a Toyota Corolla.
The gates of her mansion swung open and she drove into her compound, parked at her front steps, and hustled into the house.
She’d driven herself to and from Chinatown. What was the point of having such a huge car if you weren’t going to enjoy the luxury of riding in the reclining, heated, double-quilted, nubuck leather backseat, the Wall Street Journal spread out on your gold-trimmed cherrywood desk while CNN played on one of the four flat-screen TVs?
That was why I didn’t get the same setup in my Buick.
For the first four hours that we sat there, I passed the time trying to think of ways that we could prove that Nick Slade was guilty of murdering Peschel or Braddock.
I came up with a few ways but then I shot them down myself without even telling Monk about them.
My first thought was that maybe someone had seen his Bentley parked in Peschel’s neighborhood the morning of the murder.
But even if we could establish that the Bentley was his, that wouldn’t prove he had killed Peschel, only that he had visited with him, which he’d done a few times before.
And what if Slade hadn’t taken his distinctive Bentley to Peschel’s but chose to be discreet by using one of the cars from his fleet instead? Wouldn’t his tracking system have a record of where he went?
Then again, the record wouldn’t prove he was in the car, or that he’d killed Peschel. And that was assuming Slade hadn’t erased the record so the car’s travel history couldn’t be dug up.
I was getting nowhere proving that Slade killed Peschel, so I shifted my thinking to the Braddock case.
Obviously Slade was the guy in the elevator in the beefeater suit. If there was footage of Stottlemeyer entering and leaving the hotel, wouldn’t there be tape of Slade, too?
Then again, so what if there was?
Even if he was there at the time of the murder, that wouldn’t prove he’d killed Braddock, only that he was in the hotel. And he could claim he was there for a number of legitimate reasons-to have a drink, to visit friends, or to check up on his operatives, who were, after all, responsible for security at the Dorchester.
And since Intertect controlled the surveillance system, Slade probably had the ability to erase himself from the video if he wanted to.
Monk was right: Stottlemeyer was screwed. And I wasn’t sure what sitting on Linda Wurzel would do to change that. But maybe I was just tired and grumpy. I also regretted not using the bathroom while we were at Monk’s apartment.
I called Danielle to check in on her. She was listening to an unabridged audiobook of Anna Karenina, sipping green tea, eating trail mix, and generally having a grand time on her first stakeout.
I had the Murder, She Wrote book in my purse, but I couldn’t read it because turning on the interior light would alert Wurzel and her neighbors that we were sitting out there. There had already been a couple of private security patrols but we’d ducked down each time they’d passed.
So I napped.
It seemed like I’d closed my eyes for only a second when Monk nudged me awake. It was after midnight and Wurzel was leaving her house in the Maybach and heading in Danielle’s direction.
I gave her a call, alerted her that Wurzel was coming, and started the car.
I have to admit it was exciting. I’d never tailed anyone like this before. And Danielle sounded thrilled, too. We stayed in constant contact by phone so that we could take turns driving behind or in front of Wurzel.
She led us east across the city to Mission Bay and the long-abandoned, decaying Bethlehem Steel warehouses, foundries, and machine shops on the piers.
It wasn’t exactly a cheery place.
The huge buildings were decomposing like corpses, the weathered brick chipping away, the windows shattered, the corrugating metal peeling off in rusted, rotting strips.
If you’ve ever watched a cop show, then you know only bad things happen when you visit abandoned warehouses at night.
The last time I’d been here it was to see the body of a murdered cop who’d made the mistake of meeting the wrong person in the darkness of this decay
ing industrial wasteland.
Once it was clear where Wurzel was going, we hung a few blocks back, our headlights turned off, watching as her car disappeared into one of the hangar-sized buildings.
I turned to Monk. “Now what?”
“We follow her,” Monk said.
I didn’t like that idea much at all. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”
“Why?”
“Because this could be dangerous,” I said.
“But no crime has been committed,” Monk said.
“There have been three murders,” I said. “I’d rather there weren’t three more.”
“Call Danielle and tell her we’re sneaking into the warehouse and to join us inside,” he said. “Let’s see who Linda is meeting with so late at night in such a desolate place.”
I called Danielle, then the two of us went on foot to the warehouse, Monk trying hard not to brush against anything dirty or step in anything that might stain his shoes.
There was a sign outside of the warehouse. It featured an architect’s colorful drawing of a quaint Mediterranean village, complete with a marina and gardens, under a headline that read, A NEW RETAIL AND RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT COMING SOON FROM DALBERG ENTERPRISES.
This is going to sound stupid, but after I saw that sign, I felt safer, as if I were shielded from harm by the powers of gentrification.
There was a door ajar at the back of the warehouse and we crept inside.
The space was lit by the glare of high-beams from Wurzel’s Maybach and Slade’s Bentley, which were parked in the center of the massive machine shop. Wurzel and Slade stood face-to-face in front of the cars, lit like two singers on a stage. But I doubted that they’d come to sing and dance.
I could hear their voices but I couldn’t make out what was being said. She sounded angry, though.
We cautiously and quietly weaved around piles of broken bricks, twisted pipes, and piles of rusting machines that could have been the skeletons of huge metal beasts.
Wurzel and Slade were only a few yards in front of us. I muted the ringer on my cell, so no incoming calls would inadvertently reveal our location, and hit speed dial.
“It happened so long ago I actually stopped worrying that anyone would find out,” she said. “What went wrong?”
“We were victims of the vagaries of old age,” Slade said. “But I took care of it.”
“If you did, they wouldn’t have come to me,” she said. “How did they connect me to any of it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Slade said.
“Of course it does,” she said. “You made this mess. I expect you to clean it up.”
“I intend to, Linda.” Slade pulled out a gun from inside his jacket. He took a silencer from a pocket and screwed it onto the end of the gun. “You’re going to sleep with the fishes tonight.”
She started to back up. “You’re not seriously considering shooting me.”
“Only if you don’t dive off the pier into the bay on your own,” he said. “Don’t worry, being in the water will do wonders for your complexion. The fish will eat all of your dead skin. You can have an open casket at your funeral.”
He aimed the gun at her. We weren’t armed. There was nothing we could do to stop this.
Monk stepped out of hiding. “It’s over, Slade.”
I stepped out beside him.
Slade seemed more amused than startled by our sudden appearance.
He kept the gun on Linda Wurzel, who stood frozen in place, her mouth hanging open in shock.
“So I guess that’s not you driving my Lexus all over Berkeley,” Slade said. “I underestimated you both.”
For a moment, I forgot all about Slade, the gun, and the deadly situation we were in.
What was Julie doing out after midnight in Berkeley? Who was she with? I was tempted to call her right then and give her hell.
“I knew that she would call you in a panic but I didn’t expect you to kill her,” Monk said.
“I’m on a spree,” Slade said jovially. No one seemed to find it very funny except him.
“It’s over,” Monk said. “Put down the gun.”
“Not until I’ve shot her and the two of you,” Slade said.
“I don’t think so,” I said, raising my voice so it echoed through the warehouse. “We called the police. Any minute now this pier will be crawling with cops.”
I hoped that Danielle was hiding in the darkness somewhere out there and made the call or we were dead.
“I don’t believe you,” Slade said. “But even if you’re telling the truth, we’ll be done in just a few moments. Tell me, Monk, what was my undoing?”
“You killed Steve Wurzel instead of arresting Linda Wurzel,” Monk said.
“I mean besides that,” Slade said.
“You didn’t make any mistakes,” Monk said. “You covered your tracks flawlessly.”
“And yet, here you are,” Slade said.
“Because we believe Stottlemeyer is innocent. Nobody else thinks so. You were the only one who knew Stottlemeyer, Peschel, and Braddock and attended the conference. And you shared something else with Peschel: an investment in InTouchSpace stock that changed your lives ten years ago.”
“But where’s the evidence?”
“There isn’t any,” Monk said. “Unless she talks, or you do.”
Slade smiled. “That was my thinking, too.”
“So there’s no reason to kill me,” Wurzel said. “It would be suicidal for me to talk.”
“I’m playing it safe,” Slade said. “You might make another stupid mistake like you did tonight or go as nutty as Peschel did someday.”
“She already has,” Monk said. “You should see what she puts on her face.”
“Shut up, you fool,” Wurzel said. “You’re not helping any of us.”
I had to agree but I kept my mouth shut. The more they talked the more likely it was that the police would show up before we got killed.
“Don’t be angry at Monk,” Slade said. “I’ve already made up my mind.”
He lifted his gun and aimed at Wurzel’s head. Her time, and ours, had just run out.
That was when Danielle leapt from atop a pile of bricks with a banshee scream, flying through the air like an arrow, her legs extended in front of her.
She slammed into Slade before he could react, knocking the gun from his hand as he fell, his errant shot blasting one of the tires on Wurzel’s car.
Slade popped up on his feet almost immediately and so did Danielle. The two of them danced across the floor in a violent ballet of karate kicks, spins, and chops.
Wurzel, Monk, and I searched for the gun. I found it at the same moment Wurzel did. I elbowed her out of the way and snatched up the gun just as Slade trapped Danielle in a choke hold and turned to face us.
Danielle gurgled, her face bright red, her eyes bulging out. She couldn’t breathe.
“Drop the gun or I will break her neck,” Slade said.
I took aim. “You do and I’ll blow your head off. I’ll do it anyway if you don’t let her go in the next ten seconds.”
Wurzel stood to my far left, clutching herself and shaking. I didn’t know whether it was from fear or fury or both.
“You don’t have any firearms training,” Slade said. “You’re probably a lousy shot.”
Danielle looked as if she were close to passing out. A few more seconds and it wouldn’t matter whether I shot him or not.
“My husband was a navy fighter pilot,” I said, trying to keep my voice and my hand steady. I told myself that I was Dirty Harry in a bra. “Do you really want to gamble that he didn’t teach me how to shoot?”
“I did a thorough check on you,” he said.
“Then you know I met Mr. Monk after I killed an intruder in my home with my bare hands,” I said. “Whether I’m a lousy shot or not, this has got to be easier than that was.”
“Actually, you used a pair of scissors,” Monk said.
“That were in my bare hands,�
� I said.
“It’s not the same thing,” Monk said.
“The point is that I’m capable of killing, and giving me a gun makes it easy.” I turned back to Slade. “Shall we see if I’m right?”
“You might hit Danielle instead,” Slade said.
She gurgled some more, becoming deadweight in Slade’s arms.
“If I’m lucky, the bullet will go through her and into you,” I said. “If not, I’ll shoot again.”
“Maybe you should reconsider,” Monk said to me.
“Maybe he should,” I said.
Slade studied me like a poker player trying to detect a bluff. The pot at stake was Danielle’s life and his freedom. If he judged wrong, he could die.
He released Danielle and raised his hands, palms out.
She dropped to her knees, clutching her throat and gasping for breath. I hoped she didn’t hate me too much.
Monk sagged with relief.
I wasn’t ready to relax yet. I kept the gun trained on Slade. I could hear sirens outside, drawing closer. This would all be over soon.
“Step away from her, Nick,” I said.
He did.
“Are you okay?” I asked Danielle. She staggered to her feet and nodded to me, going to Monk’s side. A more sensitive man than Monk would have tried to comfort her in some way.
“Now what?” Slade asked casually.
“We wait for the police to arrive and arrest you,” Monk said.
The sirens were louder now, maybe only a couple of blocks away.
“On what charge?” Slade said. I found his calmness unnerving. Didn’t he know that he was finished?
“Three counts of murder and one of attempted murder,” Monk said. “For starters.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Slade said. “I came here to protect Linda while she surveyed her property. This is a dangerous place to be at night.”
“You just tried to kill her,” Monk said.
“Says who?” Slade replied.
“All of us,” Monk said.
“Not her,” Slade said, tipping his head towards Wurzel. “She’s not going to press charges or back up your crazy accusations. To do that, she’d have to confess to hiring me to murder her husband and she’s not going to do that. Are you, Linda, dear?”
