by Hy Conrad
“You think it’ll be another attempt on the captain?”
“I can’t say. Maybe if I went back in … But I’m not going. No way.”
“Then how do we find out what they’re up to?”
“You go back. You’re a detective. Meanwhile, I’m heading to bed and trying for another forty-eight minutes. I’m hanging up now. Don’t call until after I’m done.”
I had just hung up myself and was heading back into our storefront when Julie signaled me from the doorway. “I have a class in an hour,” she said, then noticed my expression. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong.”
“It’s just Adrian. He’s being pigheaded.”
“You know I can handle him pretty well.” Her smile was instant, warm and manipulative. “If I was in the office every day, I could get closer to him… .”
“We are not hiring you as an intern,” I told her, cutting to the chase. “It’s a dangerous, dead-end job that won’t look good on your law school résumé.”
“I’m not going to law school.”
“Julie, please. I have too much on my mind to get into this discussion.”
Her smile flicked off like a switch. “Fine. It’s on your screen. And next time, get someone else. This work’s too dangerous and dead-end for me.” And she walked off in the direction of the BART station.
I hate arguing with my little girl, but it’s part of my job. At least she hadn’t stolen the family silver and wound up with prison tats. I should count my blessings.
The image on the screen was not as good as I’d hoped, but not as bad as I’d feared. It was definitely Sue, cropped to the size of a blurry, off-kilter mug shot. Perhaps if I showed it around, someone might be able to put a real name to the face. But where to show it? I had joked about renting a billboard. But how about a flyer taped to a telephone pole? “Have you seen my fuzzy client? Answers to the name Sue. Reward.”
I printed out a copy and taped it on my wall, right beside the piece of notepaper with the mysterious numbering that Monk had retrieved from my wastebasket—the eighteen rows of crossed-out numbers and letters “0-0,” “1-2,” “A-B.” Monk hates when I tape things up. But I find it helps me focus, a reminder of the puzzles yet to be solved.
A minute or so later when the phone rang, I picked up without looking. “Natalie? Don’t hang up.” There was no way I was going to hang up.
“Where are you?” I said as soon as my head stopped spinning. “Who are you?”
For lack of a better name, it was Sue. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I know I put you through a lot. But I can explain.”
I focused on the fuzzy picture. “I’d love to hear you explain.”
“That day …” She lowered her voice. “I was scared. I wound up not checking into the hotel and I ditched my phone. I thought they might be tracking me.”
“They? Who’s they?”
“Can I trust you, Natalie? I have to know I can trust you.”
“Of course you can. The point is, can I trust you?”
“I’m sorry for lying and using you like that. It was terrible. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Is your name even Sue?”
“Yes. Suzanne.”
“Puskedra? Because I did some Internet searches and there’s no Sue Puskedra in the entire world.”
“You were right. It’s a made-up name. If I told you my real last name, you’d know what this is about.”
“I would?” That was oddly reassuring. There actually might be some explanation. “So tell me. Why did you say you were married to Timothy O’Brien?”
“I needed to find out something. And you helped, even if you didn’t know it.”
“How did I help? Was it legal?”
She didn’t answer my questions. “I know you went to see Timothy. What did he say about me?”
“Say about you? He has no idea who you are. No one does.”
“He’s lying, the scumbag. How about Gayle Greenwald? What did she say?”
“No one knows who you are, Suzanne.” I was almost shouting.
“Oh, they wish they didn’t know me. It would make everything easier. But they’re lying, Natalie.”
“Why would they lie? Sue. Suzanne, you have to tell me what’s going on. You owe me that.”
There were several seconds of dead air and I’d thought she’d hung up. “Not over the phone.”
“You’re sounding paranoid now. Come to the office.”
“No, they could be watching. You come to me. You remember that place I said had a fitting name? Don’t say the name out loud, just yes or no.”
“Yes.” She was talking about Jezebel’s, the trendy bar around the corner from her nonhusband’s office. “You think someone’s listening to us?”
“Better to be safe. Meet me there as soon as you can.”
“Is this your new number?” I said, and looked at my screen.
“I’m calling from a pay phone. It’s safer.”
“I can meet you now if you want.”
“Good. Don’t let yourself be followed.”
“Then give me a half hour. Be safe.”
“You, too.”
We hung up and I went into warp speed. I grabbed my key ring, locked up the office, turned on the alarm, and checked my surroundings on the street. It’s times like these that my years of unofficial PI training come into play. One of the hippies next door, Peter, was in his hand-painted VW van, just pulling out of the parking lot. We waved hello or good-bye and I waited another two minutes. When nothing passed by except the usual midmorning street traffic, I got into my Subaru.
Between the usual traffic and my diversionary tactics, it took almost thirty minutes before I turned onto Market Street and scooted up the ramp to the first parking structure on the right. It was a textbook move, guaranteed to lose anyone who wasn’t directly behind you. I traveled the last two blocks on foot.
By the time I walked into Jezebel’s and checked my phone, thirty-five minutes had passed. The place had just opened and seemed deserted, except for a bartender who was emptying a steaming rack of glasses from the dishwasher. I gravitated to the booth I’d used last week to eavesdrop on the nonhusband, sat down, and waited.
I didn’t start to worry until after I’d nursed my way through two club sodas. I checked my phone—just over an hour at the table. What the hell could have happened? I’d been a few minutes late, but that shouldn’t have made a difference. Could I have been followed? Had she been followed? Was she in danger? Or had she just changed her mind?
As long as my phone was out and staring at me, I pressed “call last.” After four rings, a recorded voice came on, informing me that the phone was not receiving calls. A lot of pay phones do that.
“Another one on the house?” asked the bartender gently. A few early lunchers were straggling through the door and soon he would be busy.
“No, thanks,” I said. “Just the check.”
He crossed to the register and touched the screen a few times. “Waiting for someone?”
“I was.”
“Bummer. Be right with you.”
As he slipped the printout into a check holder, I rummaged through my tote, reaching past my wallet and my Glock and my keys to the folded piece of paper I’d taken off my wall. He pushed the check holder my way. I unfolded the paper and pushed it his. “Have you ever seen this woman?”
“What are you, a private detective?” he joked.
“I am.” Usually I love saying that, but this time it didn’t cheer me up.
“Surveillance?” he guessed, examining the grainy black-and-white shot, enlarged and photoshopped to within an inch of its life. “Sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” I needed specifics.
“I see a hundred women in here like that. Do you have a name? Or a better shot?”
“I’ve got nothing,” I said. “Just that.”
When he left to process my card, I used the time to make another call. “Adrian?” I’d promised to keep Monk in the l
oop on the Sue case from now on, and I was keeping that promise.
He was still upset. “You should have called me right after she called you.”
“You told me not to interrupt your nap.”
“Honestly, Natalie, there’s no winning with you.”
“That’s what I was going to say.”
“This Sue woman is bad news. She lies, manipulates, disappears… .”
“Maybe she’s just in trouble. Who do you think she is?”
“Someone not named Sue or Suzanne.”
“She said if she told me her real name, I would automatically know what this is about. She said it was some crime or scandal involving Timothy O’Brien.”
“She said that to gain your sympathy.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. No, that’s not true. My guess is better, and I don’t even have a guess.”
“Or maybe she was telling the truth. What do you think happened?”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll never find out. If we’re lucky, it’s all over and done with.” His sigh lasted a good five seconds. “Of course we’re never that lucky, are we?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Mr. Monk Waits for the Weekend
“Randy, buddy, I hear you’re a bit under the weather.” Captain Stottlemeyer had wandered to the front window of his living room where the cell reception was better.
“Sir?” Lieutenant A.J. motioned his boss to move away from the window. The captain motioned back, rejecting the request, then switched the phone to speaker mode.
“It’s just a cold,” said Randy, his voice a lot raspier than when I’d last heard it. “Unless you don’t think it’s a cold. What does Monk think?”
“What do I think?” Monk spoke in the general direction of the cell phone.
“You think it could be poison? Those neo-Nazi skinheads were pretty angry.”
“Not at you,” Monk pointed out.
“I know they didn’t attack me with an umbrella,” said Randy. “But maybe when I unfolded my folding chair. I think I saw some dust.”
“But you have the symptoms of a cold,” I said. “My money’s on Sharona, not heavy-metal poisons.”
“Randy, you should drive yourself to the hospital and get tested,” said the captain. “Just to be sure.”
“Thanks, Captain. Good idea.” Randy’s mood was brightening. “I’m going now.”
“And after they tell you it’s a cold, get back to bed and drink plenty of liquids. Monk, Natalie, and Lieutenant Thurman will hold down the fort. Don’t worry about us.”
Monk had enough self-control to wait until the captain hung up. “What do you mean Lieutenant Thurman? We’re not working with him.”
“Yes, you are, Monk. The three of you need to learn to get along. This will be good training.”
“We can do it on our own,” insisted my partner.
“No, you can’t,” said A.J. He was hobbling across the room, his right leg heavily bandaged beneath his khaki slacks. My guess was that a lot of painkillers were involved.
“The lieutenant’s in no condition,” I said.
“Nattie, I’m fine. I’m running an investigation, not a track-and-field event.”
“He’s been cleared for duty,” the captain agreed.
“What about your father?” I asked the lieutenant. “If he only has a few days, don’t you want to be there?” It wasn’t my best moment, bringing up his dying father, but I was desperate.
“You leave my dad out of this,” said A.J. There were times when he would just hover by his father’s bedside, so concerned about Arnold Senior’s health, and other moments, like this one… .
A.J. sat down on the edge of a sofa. “The captain stretched the rules when he let you guys investigate with a visiting officer. You’re consultants. Imagine if this ever goes to trial and you’re asked to testify about a chain of evidence. The defense will have a field day with your habit of wiping down everything with sanitized wipes. All a lawyer has to do is shake hands with you and there goes our credibility.”
“I have never wiped down evidence,” Monk sputtered, which wasn’t quite true. Luckily, in that particular instance, the suspect had already confessed and it didn’t matter. “Never,” he repeated for emphasis. “I was a detective first grade when you were still in diapers.”
“Yeah,” said the thuggish detective. “You must have been something back in the day. But the only Monk I know is a basket case who waves his hands around and makes lucky guesses half the time.”
“Monk’s the best detective I know,” said the captain sternly. “Keep that in mind.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain was fully dressed. His arm was still in a shoulder sling, held tight with a Velcro strap. He looked healthy enough. But I knew he was under orders from his doctor and from his security detail and, most important, from his wife to stay away for a few more days. “On the other hand, Lieutenant Thurman is my second-in-command. I trust him the way I always trust my partners.”
“Thank you, sir,” said A.J. “I will consider any input from any private investigators the department wants to hire.”
“It’s not just input,” growled Stottlemeyer. “We have a dead judge and two attempts on my life. You guys work it out.” There was no arguing with that tone of voice. Monk and A.J. nodded reluctantly.
“Do you think it was the Willmotts? Monk?” It was A.J.’s first attempt at trying to be cooperative.
“They’re guilty of something,” said Monk. “Their release corresponded with the attack on Judge Oberlin. They’re angry. They had access to poison, possession of a nine-millimeter handgun … and they’re planning something secret for Saturday.”
“How do you …” A.J. rephrased it. “How do we know that?”
Monk explained about the Willmott visit, about the missing gun and the calendar and the skull and crossbones for Saturday. “I’m eighty-two percent sure about the gun and ninety-five percent about Saturday. The expedited-passports theory is only seventy-one percent.”
“You see?” A.J. interrupted. “This is what I’m talking about. These crazy percentages. What the hell do they even mean?”
“Well, the captain always asks how sure I am about things. This is my way of quantifying. You may have noticed that seventy-one percent is lower than ninety-five.”
A.J. came nose to nose, way too close for comfort. “Are you ridiculing me, Monk?”
“No, no. But you’re not making it easy.”
Lieutenant Thurman shook his head and started to pace, wincing violently with each step. “You know what, Monk? You know what? I’m ninety-eight percent sure you’re crazy. And one hundred percent sure I don’t give a damn.”
“That’s enough,” said the captain. “Lieutenant, you listen to Monk. If things get heated or you have real concerns—real concerns—then you call me and I’ll take over.”
“You can’t do fieldwork,” I said.
“Wanna bet?” The captain sighed and winced and pressed a hand to his throbbing, injured arm. “This is going to be one long investigation.”
• • •
The next day was Friday, otherwise known as the day before skull-and-crossbones Saturday. Since we weren’t expecting any real developments, Monk didn’t argue with A.J. being in charge of surveillance. The lieutenant kept in close contact with the two units, one parked in front of and one on the side street of the urban château in Pacific Heights. At a little before eleven a.m. he called in a report, keeping his tone relatively civil.
“There was a FedEx delivery at ten forty-one,” he told me. “The mother sent the driver around to the basement door. The one with the lightning bolts took the delivery.”
“Two envelope-sized packages?” I asked.
“Yeah. The driver let me check his tablet. They were both from the passport center on Hawthorne Street, just like Monk said.”
“Good,” I said, resisting the temptation to rub it in. Monk said someth
ing from his desk across the office and I relayed the message. “Today is garbage day in Pacific Heights.”
“How does Monk know that?”
“He just does.”
Monk kept talking and I kept relaying. “If the cans are on the street and haven’t been emptied, they’re fair game, legally. Adrian wants you to go through them. Let us know what you find.”
“I’m not going through their garbage.”
“Then have a patrolman do it.”
“I can’t spare a patrolman right now.”
“Is the big lieutenant too squeamish?” Monk taunted loudly from the other side of the room. “Afraid to get his hands a little dirty?”
“Adrian, stop it. Lieutenant, get a pair of gloves and make a list of what you find. We’re not interested in food. Anything else. And try not to be seen.”
“I need to call the captain.”
“You don’t need to call the captain.”
“Does the big lieutenant need the captain to sort his garbage?”
“What did Monk say?”
“Nothing. Look, if their garbage can help us get a handle on what they’re doing tomorrow …”
“I got it,” said A.J. “That doesn’t mean I like it.” And he hung up.
“Adrian, please. Don’t antagonize him any more than you have to.”
“My antagonism is just the right amount, thank you.”
“Fine.” I checked the time on my phone, then gathered my keys and my tote. “I’m off to see Daniela Grace. Can I trust you not to insult the hippies or fight with the pawnshop or start a fire?”
“Why are you seeing Daniela? She’s not going through a divorce, is she?”
“No. No divorces, I promised you.”
“How about murder? She’s not planning another murder?”
“No murder.” Monk and I had first met Daniela at a low point in her life when she, a successful trial attorney, was actually trying to kill someone. I won’t go into the details, but Monk talked her out of it. I make a point of checking the obituaries, and the object of her murder plot is still alive and well. But Adrian’s been a little wary of her ever since.
“Then why are you seeing Daniela? What are you keeping from me?”
