by Hy Conrad
“I have a team working that angle, two of my best. But Nate was a widower. No romantic connections. No enemies. No heirs, except Bethany, who was in Thailand at the time. His murder could be connected to an old criminal case, I guess. That’s what we’re checking into.”
“Are you sure the judge was alone that morning?”
“As sure as we can be. A neighbor saw him leaving the house alone. The courthouse is a fifteen-minute walk. There were no injection sites on the body, we’re pretty sure of that. So it had to have been ingested.”
“It’s been weeks, you know. There’s a good possibility we’ll never find the source.”
“I know,” agreed Stottlemeyer. “That’s why I need to know if Monk is stalling.”
I paused to give it some thought. “I know Adrian pretty well. And he’s a terrible liar, even when it comes to body language. I don’t think he’s stalling or padding the bill. He’s as confused as the rest of us.”
“That’s too bad,” said the captain. “Nate was an old friend. You don’t get many old friends. I’d hate to see this bastard get away with it.”
“We’ll do our best. No stalling.”
“Thanks,” he said, pulling himself up to his feet. “And I’ll make sure you get paid.”
• • •
My lunch that day wasn’t with Julie. I’d lied. And it wasn’t even a lunch. It was a progress report to Sue O’Brien.
I had taken her case. I’d taken it against Monk’s unwritten rule about divorces and perhaps my own better judgment. In my defense, Sue was a sweet woman who really needed help, help that other investigators couldn’t supply. And, don’t forget, her plea had come at a moment when we had just been paid a two-hour rate for solving a complicated homicide.
During the last few days, while the lab and the guys in the hazmat suits were busy at work, I was skulking around on two fronts, trying to gather as much evidence as possible against Sue’s wayward husband while desperately trying to keep my activities off Monk’s radar, which probably rivals the radar capabilities of O’Hare International.
When I arrived at the mini-mall, my honey-blond client was waiting on the bench outside the door. I quickly ushered her in and we settled in a far back corner, just in case Monk’s radar was working in high gear.
“Any news?” she asked right off the bat.
“Precious little,” I had to admit. Then I went on to explain.
Her husband, Timothy O’Brien, had been easy to find. He was a named partner at Smith, Willard & O’Brien in a high-rise in the Financial District. He did not have a Facebook page or much other Internet presence, except for a few photos of him giving lectures at the San Francisco Law Library. For two days, I had followed him from the O’Brien manse in Pacific Heights to the office and back again.
“He does spend a lot of time with Gayle Greenwald.” Gayle, to bring you up-to-date, was the woman Sue had identified as the coworker and mistress. “They leave the office within five or ten minutes of each other. Then they go around the corner and meet at Jezebel’s Tavern. It’s one of those super-trendy bars that try to look like dingy dive joints but charge you fifteen dollars for a weak cocktail.”
“I know Jezebel’s,” said Sue with a wry smile. “And it’s a very fitting name.”
“Yesterday I managed to get the booth right behind them. I have a little recorder with a directional mic. It’s no good in court, of course, but it’s more reliable than taking notes.”
“And what were they talking about?” Sue asked. “Their plans for the future?”
“Business, mainly,” I had to admit. “They seemed very friendly. Pet names, that sort of thing, but nothing detailed. They were focused on some high-stakes divorce case they’re working on together.”
“You mean my divorce case?”
“You don’t have a divorce case,” I reminded her. “Not yet. If you want to listen to the tape yourself …”
Sue took a deep breath. “I would like that, yes.”
I retrieved the micro-recorder from my top drawer and slid it across to her, feeling pretty sleazy as I did so. This was one of the downsides of a traditional PI firm, the part that Monk hates: the spying and the sex and the raw emotions. Of course, the other part involves bloody corpses and grieving relatives. That part doesn’t bother him.
“It’s about twenty-five minutes long,” I said. “To my ears, there’s nothing incriminating, no talk of bank accounts or hidden assets. It doesn’t sound like they’re discussing you. But you may have a better insight into it.”
“I may indeed.” In slow motion, Sue took the recorder, gently placing it in her left palm and poising her right index finger over the play button. “Do you mind if I listen to this alone?”
“Not at all.” I was actually relieved. “Do you want some tea? I think we’re out of tea, so it gives me an excuse to go to the market a few doors down. They have some great teas. I’ll be sure to take my time. Make yourself at home.”
And that’s how I left her, looking vulnerable in the back corner of my office, her finger motionless over the button.
I took my time, as promised, roaming the crowded aisles of the cutesy little market. When I came back half an hour later with three selections of overpriced tea, Sue had already finished. She was sitting primly, stone-faced, exactly where I’d left her, her hands folded over the micro-recorder.
“So?” I asked, pointing to the recorder.
“You’re right. Nothing incriminating. Maybe they’re not having an affair.” There was a note of optimism in her voice. “Is there any way to find out for sure?”
“You could go on a trip,” I said. The idea had just occurred to me.
“On a trip? Why?”
“I can’t follow your husband everywhere. I don’t have the resources, and it’s too easy to get caught. But if you go away to visit a sick aunt or some old classmate, I can concentrate on your house.”
“No.” Sue gasped and covered her mouth. “You think they would do it in my house? In our own bed?”
“Yes,” I said. “From my limited experience, there’s nothing a mistress likes more than shacking up in what may become her future home. You can stay at a local hotel, someplace with a spa. I don’t think Timothy and Gayle will be able to resist spending a night together. If we’re wrong, that’s even better.”
“But if Gayle shows up?”
“Then we’ll go to phase two. We’ll get some assets transferred into your name and look for secret accounts. My daughter has some very savvy tech friends. We can bring them on board without raising any red flags.”
“I don’t know.” Suddenly she wasn’t so sure of herself. “Timothy is unpredictable. If he finds out I’m spying on him, I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying he can be physically dangerous?”
“Maybe,” she confessed. “He has a temper. And he doesn’t like to be fooled or to lose control.”
“All the more reason to get out of the marriage.”
“I know. I shouldn’t be having second thoughts. But if I suddenly disappear, you’ll know …”
“Disappear? Don’t say things like that.”
In the end, Sue agreed. She would tell him tonight. An aunt of hers in San Diego had taken ill and she would be gone for at least two days. Poor Tim would have to fend for himself. Then she borrowed my office phone and made a reservation at the Fairmont on Nob Hill, using her maiden name.
“Your maiden name is what?” It had sounded like a sneeze.
“Puskedra,” she enunciated. “It’s easy. You spell it the way it sounds.”
“Are you sure you didn’t make that up? No offense, but it sounds like just a bunch of letters strung together.”
Sue laughed. “The world had better get used to it, because I think Susan Puskedra is going to be my name again. My new old name.”
“Maybe you ought to stick with O’Brien. For humanity’s sake.”
“Not a chance.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next morning was my shift at the mini-mall.
Sue Puskedra O’Brien and I had our plan in place. She would be leaving home on her fictitious trip around two p.m., checking into the Fairmont for her two-day hideaway. By that time, her husband would be at his downtown office and I would be staking out the parking structure next door. I had even called his assistant, pretending to be an enormously wealthy dot-com socialite in need of a consultation with the famous Timothy O’Brien, only to be told that Mr. O’Brien was busy with back-to-back meetings in the office until six p.m. “Would I be available at six?” she asked. No, I replied, and quickly hung up. This left me fairly certain of Timothy’s whereabouts until six, although I still intended to spend my afternoon stalking him.
I was at my desk that morning, on the phone and the computer, doing another background check for Julie’s friends, the ones with the software company. Did you know that you can find out just about anyone’s real age and other general details by typing a total of five, maybe six words into your search engine? It’s true. I won’t tell you what those five words are, just in case you’re tempted to go and figure out my real age.
It was a warm, breezy day, even though rain was being predicted for the evening hours. I had the office door propped open and looked up to see Daniela Grace just as she was getting out of her car and heading next door. She saw me seeing her and made a detour to say hello.
“How is Paisley Printing working out?” I kept my tone cheery even though a little knot was forming in my stomach. “I know Peter and Wendy are a bit unorthodox.”
“Working out well,” Daniela replied, still standing in the doorway. “Although they’re not very fond of your Mr. Monk.”
“There is some history there,” I said, trying to be vague and diplomatic.
“So I gather. As soon as I said you recommended them, they became quite paranoid. Peter kept asking if this was some sort of prank. He made me show them my business card and my driver’s license. It’s the first time I’ve been carded in decades.”
“Monk has pulled pranks on them in the past.”
“Really? He doesn’t seem like a prankster.”
“He’s been hanging with a bad influence. Kids. What can you do?”
“Well, Peter and Wendy seem to be darling people. They’re very imaginative, with a great color sense. And I think they’re very trustworthy, which is exactly what I need for this job. Don’t look surprised.”
“I wasn’t surprised,” I lied. “I just thought they might be a little laid-back for your tastes.”
“They are,” she admitted. “But they remind me of myself back in the day. I was living in a free-love commune in the Haight during the Summer of Love, you know. I had my moments.” And she shook her hips, or what was left of them.
I didn’t know how to respond. I would have guessed Daniela had spent the summer of ’67 hosting teas for the Junior League. “Well, I’m glad Peter and Wendy are doing well.”
“They’re a little disorganized. But I’m giving them firm deadlines and it seems to be working. Please thank Adrian again for his recommendation. Well …” She threw me a little wave. “Gotta go crack the whip. Have a good day, dear.”
By the time Monk arrived for his shift, I had completed one more background check and was both anticipating and dreading this afternoon’s stakeout. I didn’t even think to ask about the poisoning case, not until Monk brought it up.
“I put in a full six hours yesterday.” I wasn’t sure if this was a boast or a confession. “The lieutenant was ready to strangle me. But he couldn’t say I wasn’t working. I was working.”
I watched as he centered his jacket on his private peg and arranged his umbrella in the office umbrella stand. “Did you really come up with nothing?” I asked. “I know we talked about stalling, but …”
“I’m not stalling,” Monk said. Finally satisfied with his jacket, he closed the door. “The forensics team did a thorough job and so did I. My opinion? The thallium was never in the house, not unless the killer came back and cleaned up, which is doubtful. The judge had a state-of-the-art security system and he seemed to use it diligently. Even his own daughter didn’t know the code.”
“So you’re saying the victim ingested the poison on his walk to work?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying.” And then he paused, his eyes unfocused. For a second, I thought he’d had one of his revelations. Until … “Holy Mother-of-pearl. What is that racket?”
“What racket?” Other than a little muffled street noise, I heard nothing. But as soon as Monk headed for the left-hand wall, I knew. “Peter’s playing his guitar.”
“Why is he so loud? It’s like a rock-and-roll concert.”
“He’s not loud. We just have thin walls.”
“I think I need to put up another poster about fresh baked hippies.”
“You are not putting up another poster,” I said firmly. “What you and Luther did was mean. You should be ashamed.”
“Me? I’m not the one carrying on like Woodstock.”
This was an argument I couldn’t win. If Adrian Monk can see details that no one else can, then he can hear them, too. No amount of protesting about gentle, barely audible guitar strums was going to convince him. “Adrian,” I pleaded. “We have a year and nine months on our lease. It would be nice if you could avoid alienating everyone on the block.”
“Okay. I’ll try.”
Two hours later, I was parked in a rare legal space in the Financial District, with a view of the main exit of Timothy O’Brien’s building and the only exit of his parking garage. I settled in beside a plastic bag of quarters to feed the hungry, expensive meter and made a final call to Sue’s cell. “Are you at the Fairmont?” I asked.
“I’m on my way,” she said. “I called Timothy to say good-bye, so I know he’s at the office. This is going to be a long day for you, Natalie.”
“Don’t worry about me. I haven’t had any liquids since this morning and I’ve got a full playlist of the Stones on my phone. What more does a girl need?”
“I don’t know about Gayle, but Timothy’s not leaving the office until six.”
“I just want to be sure,” I said. “Now get to the hotel and have a spa day. Tim’s treat.”
Sue was wrong about nothing happening before six. At five thirty-seven, just as I was stretching my legs and getting ready to feed a few more quarters, Gayle Greenwald came out, stood by the curb, and raised her hand for a taxi. One stopped for her almost immediately and they headed west, in the general direction of Pacific Heights.
At five fifty-two, Timothy O’Brien made his own exit, briefcase in hand, and strode up the ramp into the parking structure. I started my engine and waited for his charcoal Mercedes to pull out onto the one-way street. It had just started to rain.
It was kind of a nonevent, to be honest, and probably the easiest tail job I’ve ever done. The Mercedes was driven at a respectable speed, didn’t run any stop signs or lights, and wound up right where I’d expected it to, in the garage attached to the O’Briens’ faux Tudor mansion, one of those long, one-room-deep structures meant to impress. All curb appeal and no depth.
At a few minutes after six, it was dark enough to require indoor lighting, and I watched as the house gradually came alive, room after room. No one else seemed to be home. I was more than a little disappointed. Maybe the man wasn’t a cheat, after all, I thought. And then the yellow taxi pulled up.
The person who paid the driver and got out of the cab was not the person I’d expected. It wasn’t Gayle—not unless it was the male version, without the y, like the actor Gale Gordon from The Lucy Show. But I doubted it in this case.
It was a man in his mid-thirties, pencil thin and dressed to show it off, with skinny black jeans and a formfitting teal dress shirt. He dodged the rain to the covered porch and brushed himself off. When he knocked, the door flew open almost instantly. It was still wide-open when Timothy O’Brie
n and the man who wasn’t Gayle fell into each other’s arms and shared a passionate kiss.
Okay. This was interesting.
If this had been the only surprise of the evening, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. Many women have suspected their husbands of infidelity, only to discover that the man they were married to was gay. Even in this day and age. Even in San Francisco.
The bigger surprise came a few minutes later, after I had pulled around the corner and called Sue on her cell. After just two rings, an electronic voice informed me that the phone was no longer in service.
It had to be a mistake, of course. I dialed again and got the same message. Next I called the Fairmont Hotel and asked to be put through to Sue O’Brien’s room. I was informed that there was no Sue or Susan O’Brien staying there. Nor was there a Sue or Susan Puskedra. Or a Sue or Susan Puskedra O’Brien.
It took nearly forty-five minutes of rush-hour traffic to get from the curb appeal of Pacific Heights to the Fairmont on Nob Hill. The determined look in my eyes got me taken seriously by the head person on the desk that evening, a petite Asian girl not much older than my daughter.
We stepped into an inner office where she checked and rechecked, first with her computer, then with everyone who had been on the front desk since two p.m. No woman even remotely fitting Sue Puskedra O’Brien’s description had made a reservation.
“But I heard her make it,” I protested. “She used my office phone.”
“We have no record of the reservation,” the desk manager told me. “I’m sorry.”
It was at that moment that I recalled what Sue had said about her husband and if she suddenly disappeared. I didn’t know what was going on, but it definitely wasn’t good.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mr. Monk vs. the Rainy Night
Right away I knew I had to tell Monk and beg for his help. It would be embarrassing, yes, and he would be raging mad. Or else he would be hurt and disappointed, which would be worse.
In the past, I might have tried to solve the case myself. I might have trudged forward and tried to deduce what had happened to my client. But even I can learn from experience. The sooner I gave Monk all the facts and let him do his magic, the less damage there would be. And I suspected there would be damage somewhere. There usually is with a mystery like this.
