by Hy Conrad
“Nothing. You can come with me if you want.”
“Okay, I will.”
“Good. Come along.” This was exactly what I’d wanted and I was relieved that my plan had worked so well.
“What about lunch?”
“What about lunch?” I echoed.
“I brought Spam sandwiches on white bread.” He held up a brown paper bag that he’d bleached white. “As a treat for you.”
“We’ll bring them along. Put them in my tote.”
We made it to the offices of Grace, Winters, and Weingart in plenty of time for our eleven forty-five appointment. Monk found the one chair in the waiting room that fit his needs, and luckily for everyone, it was unoccupied. I took the chair next to him and we waited.
“You know we can’t take on a case,” Monk whispered. “Maybe after skull-and-bones Saturday. But not now.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “But we’ll make a little time. Daniela is paying us a retainer.”
“Wait. What?” He was reacting like he’d never heard this before, which was technically true. “We’re on a retainer?”
“Yes. It seemed like a good idea, getting paid to be available.”
“Well, we’re not available.”
“Adrian, please, as long as we’re here …”
“We?” He scowled. “You tricked me. I didn’t come prepared to work.”
“Well, prepare yourself.”
“Mr. Monk, thank you.” It was Daniela, of course, at exactly eleven forty-five. “Natalie said she’d try to drag you along. Welcome to our little digs.” She proceeded to lead us back through the warren of wood-paneled spaces to a corner office, decorated in British colonial furnishings with a stunning view of the Transamerica Pyramid. Why can’t I have an office like this? I wondered. It probably has a bathroom. Just add a microwave and a wine rack and I could live here.
Daniela closed the door, offered us the chairs in front of her blank expanse of a desk, and quickly brought Monk up to speed.
The intricacies of the initial public offering were complex. Even what her client did was a little fuzzy in my mind—some social media company that had a best-selling phone app that let you spy on your friends, presumably with their consent.
This app was now worth hundreds of millions. In three months it might be worth billions or next to nothing. That’s why the app company wanted to do an IPO as soon as possible. They also needed to keep the details hidden until just the right moment, from both a legal and a profitability standpoint. That’s where the law firm of Grace, Winters, and Weingart came in, to comply with all the filing requirements and produce the thousands of pages necessary—government forms, offering documents, glossy brochures—all for the big day.
Out of all of this detail, the only part Monk and I needed to understand was that the company’s name was JAS, Joyful App Services, and that they had a leak. “To be absolutely accurate, GWW has a leak.” Even with her mahogany door closed, Daniela said it under her breath. “One of our other contacts in the software business heard the rumor and gave us a heads-up. We denied the leak came from us, of course. We’re professionals. We deal with clients’ secrets all the time. So we all worked overtime, the JAS people and us, to change some details of the offering, just enough to mitigate any damage or possible lawsuits.”
“And it happened again,” said Monk.
“Right,” said Daniela, looking embarrassed. “Only this time, we accidentally got a few numbers wrong. We corrected them here at the office, not at the JAS office. These corrected numbers were the ones that got leaked the second time, just yesterday.”
“So it’s clear,” said Monk. “Your firm has a leaky employee.”
“It appears that way,” said Daniela. “We’ve narrowed our working group to just a few, which makes the work all the harder. But we can’t afford another leak. Even with our liability insurance, it could put us out of business.”
Daniela had seen Adrian Monk pull off instant miracles and she needed him to do it again. Monk understood her predicament. And he didn’t care. “We can’t do this right now.”
“Yes, you can. That’s why I’m paying you.”
“No. We have a murder and two attempted murders. We don’t need something with four squares or some disgruntled birds on a phone.”
“We can devote today to your problem,” I said guardedly, my eyes focused on Monk in my patented don’t-contradict-me stare. “Tomorrow is the weekend. But we can come back on Monday, if we need to.”
“But not tomorrow,” said Monk. “Tomorrow is skull-and-crossbones day.”
Daniela had no idea what that meant, but she was fine. “I suppose I can’t force you to work weekends. But if you can wrap this up in the next few hours, that would be perfect.”
“We’ll do our best,” I said.
“Then it’s settled.” Daniela stood up and straightened her lightweight pink tweed jacket.
Before I knew what was happening, she had escorted us to the cubicle just outside her door. “This is Booker, my paralegal and right hand. Booker knows everything. He’ll give you a rundown on the others you need to speak to.”
“Mr. Monk. Ms. Teeger. Daniela has told me so much. I’m a big fan.”
“Don’t gush or they’ll raise their fee,” said Daniela, only half-joking. Just before she closed her mahogany door, when Booker wasn’t looking, she tilted her head in his direction and raised a plucked eyebrow. Message received: Even her right hand was not above suspicion.
Booker Sessums was a short, thin, neatly put-together black man in rolled-up shirtsleeves and a tie. Mid-twenties was my guess. As I get older I’m finding it harder to estimate age. It’s easier to just separate adults into four groups: my daughter’s age, younger than me, my age, and older than me. He was my daughter’s age, plus.
Booker’s work space was large and fairly private for a cubicle. He removed a folder full of files from a chair. Monk didn’t look like he wanted to sit, so I did. “I’ll help as much as I can,” said the paralegal. “We’re pretty slammed, but I know it’s important.”
“We’ll try to make this quick,” I promised. “How many people are on the JAS team?”
“Before the last leak there were seven. Now there are four, including Daniela and me.”
“Only four,” I said for Adrian’s benefit. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”
Booker sat down and reached over to his keyboard. A machine out in the corridor began to whir. “I’m printing out their vitals from the personnel files. If there’s anything else …”
“We’ll need to meet with each one.”
“I can take you by their offices,” said Booker. “Whenever you want.”
I lowered my voice and leaned in. “What can you tell us about Daniela? Is she a good boss?”
Normally I wouldn’t consider Daniela a suspect. She was the one who had hired us, and the one with the most to lose. On the other hand, she did once try to murder someone, so nothing was off the table.
“She’s great,” Booker said without hesitation. “Honest, straightforward, funny at times. A good boss.”
“Then why are you quitting?” Monk had wandered his way around the cubicle and was now on Booker’s other side, flanking him.
“Quitting?” Booker looked stunned, but he didn’t deny it.
“The other men came to work in a sport coat or blazer. You came in a suit, a new one.” Monk pointed to a jacket on a hook. “The breast pocket is still sewn up. Your shoes are freshly shined. Obviously, you’re going somewhere important. During lunch, because you keep checking your watch.”
“That doesn’t mean …”
“I’m not through,” said Monk.
“Booker.” I smiled sympathetically. “It’s less painful if you don’t interrupt him.”
Monk pointed to the man’s trash can and continued. “There’s a crumpled-up invitation to a baby shower. It’s obviously work-related, since it was sent to the office. You threw away the RSVP notice along with the invitation, so it
seems like you’re ready to burn some bridges. I don’t blame you. Baby showers!”
“That doesn’t mean …”
“I’m not through.”
“Less painful,” I repeated.
“You used to have things on your wall, but the empty picture hooks show you’ve been removing them. Also, you’re an organized worker with a file cabinet, but there was a folder on Natalie’s chair. When you moved it, you placed it facedown on the other side of your space. Personal files to take home, I hope? Not business ones?”
“Yes. Personal,” said Booker. He looked defeated.
“I’m not through.”
“Mr. Monk, please,” Booker Sessums whispered. “I am leaving the firm. I’m having lunch with my new boss today and leaving as soon as this leak situation is solved.”
“No two-week notice?” I asked.
“With Daniela Grace, there’s no grace period. You quit and you’re out.”
“And why are you leaving?” I asked.
“He’s going to law school at night.”
“Adrian, let him tell his story.”
“It’s faster my way.”
“Just try to be polite.”
“He’s right,” Booker admitted. His voice was so low I almost had to read his lips. “I’m in law school. My new place promised to accommodate my schedule. Daniela is a lot of great things, but accommodating isn’t one of them.”
“This place you’re going,” Monk said. “Do they represent any of the competing IPOs?”
“They do not. It’s family law. Less pressure and more meaningful. I’ll give you their contact information, but you have to promise to be discreet.”
I made the promise, even though I was sure Monk could have figured out the firm’s name, given another minute of glancing around. Booker had just handed me his future boss’ card when my tote began to vibrate. I excused myself, went out to the hallway, and answered.
“Nat, girl?”
“The name is Natalie. What is it, A.J.?”
“The name’s Lieutenant. We did your garbage search. Two unhappy patrolmen scouring through six bags. I tell you, everybody’s got a Monk story.”
I should have known he’d get someone else to do the dirty work. “You separated the family garbage from the boys?”
“It was pretty obvious. Whole Foods versus Domino’s Pizza.”
“And?”
“Here’s the highlights reel. Empty box of nine-millimeter rounds. Empty box of forty-five caliber rounds. Each one a hundred-round value pack.”
“So they have two guns?”
“Two illegals, at least. But the boxes aren’t enough for a search warrant. I checked. Neither are the tags and receipts of two cartridge belts. We also have tags and receipts for four duffel bags. Camouflage colored from the looks of it.”
“No ski masks?” I was remembering the attack in the alley behind the Thurman house.
“If they bought ski masks, it was probably at some earlier date.”
“Right,” I said. “Looks like skull-and-crossbones Saturday will be eventful.”
“I wish we could go in and arrest them now. It seems like probable cause. But there’s no law against buying ammo or cartridge belts or circling dates on your calendar.”
“I know.” For once, A.J. and I were in agreement. “Let me put Adrian on.”
While Adrian was on with the lieutenant, getting whatever other details he could out of the garbage team, Booker retrieved the personnel records from the printer and pointed me in the direction of the last two leakster suspects. Compared with what the blond Nazis were planning in the basement, this seemed like such small potatoes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mr. Monk and the Stakeout
The day didn’t end with a breakthrough. Our defecting paralegal answered a few more questions, then donned his suit jacket and sneaked out for lunch with his new boss. We commandeered his cubicle for our own lunch of Spam sandwiches, washed down with mini bottles of Fiji Water and topped off with individually wrapped oatmeal cookies.
Adrian and I stayed for another two hours, interviewing the head of the firm’s finance department and a fourth-year associate who had yet to be named a partner, even though she’d been promised it. They seemed like reasonable suspects to me, both of them nervous and overworked and seemingly frustrated by the unstoppable leak.
“I don’t see how it could be anyone at GWW,” said the fourth-year associate. “It damages the firm. And even if I did it and had another job lined up, it would be doomed. No one likes a spy.”
“And yet there is a spy,” I pointed out. I looked to Monk to say something clever or point out that the associate raised carrier pigeons that could sneak secrets out of the high-rise window. But he seemed to be losing interest. We wound up sneaking out of the wood-paneled confines of Grace, Winters, and Weingart without checking in with Daniela or saying good-bye.
“What do I say when she calls?” I asked.
“Tell her sometimes the magic works. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
“I can’t tell her … Wait. Are you quoting something? From a movie or a book? It’s not like you to quote things.”
“I’m quoting Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, who might have been quoting a movie or a book. I don’t know which one. If it’s important, you can call him up.”
“It’s not important. I was just surprised.”
“Well, you can tell Ms. Grace that I can’t create evidence like magic. Sorry to disappoint.”
Daniela Grace called twice that evening. Both times I let her go to voice mail and didn’t listen to the messages. I went to bed early and tried to put skull-and-crossbones Saturday out of my mind. But even when I managed this feat, there were other thoughts right behind it: Daniela’s unanswered call, disappearing Sue, and the hacking cough coming from the guest room all night. Several times that night I woke up to hear Randy shuffling through to the kitchen. The light scent of chamomile tea should have been soothing to me, but it wasn’t.
The next morning, before leaving the house, I knocked on his door and poked my head in. “Are you surviving? Is there anything I can get you?”
The Summit police chief looked like a little boy, dressed in blue pajamas, with the covers almost pulled up to his neck. The bed was littered with used tissues, but he reached out and made an effort—a noble, painful effort—to clear a spot for me. I chose the chair by Julie’s old homework desk and wheeled it over to within five feet. No closer.
“I feel so horrible,” Randy rasped.
“I have some NyQuil,” I offered. “It may be a few years old.”
“Not about the cold. Not just about the cold. I feel horrible about coming all this way and taking over your house like a hospital ward.”
“It’s not your fault. It was so generous of you to drop everything and try to help.”
“Some help I turned out to be.” Throughout a lifetime of treating colds and flu attacks, I’ve learned that one of the most common symptoms is a bout or two of self-pity. I don’t mean to belittle it. This is a real symptom and needs to be treated like any other.
“You’re a big help,” I replied. “Your journal brought up some details no one remembered. And the captain. Did you see the way he lit up when you walked in? Oh, and then there was the gunfight in the alley. You were the only one on our team who got off a shot.”
Randy thought this over and sniffled. “Maybe. But it just reminded me of the old days, when you and Monk and the captain did the important stuff and I was just along for the ride.”
“Randy, you were never along for the ride.” That didn’t come out right. “You know.”
“I do. It was always Randy and his stupid theories.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Remember when I suggested that Dale the Whale committed murder by using liposuction to get rid of six hundred pounds of fat, then had reverse liposuction to put all the weight back on and fool us? The whole department was laughing.”
�
��That was before my time,” I said. “But I heard the story.”
“Exactly. Everyone heard the story. If I ever came back, it would be the same thing.”
“Randy, that was a long time ago. You’re smarter now. You’re a police chief.”
“I still make mistakes.”
“So what’s the answer?” I asked. “I say go back to New Jersey and make mistakes on your own.”
He considered my advice. “I guess the grass is always greener, huh? When I was here, I always wanted to be the guy in charge. Then I got to be the guy in charge and I felt lost. I missed being part of a team. Then I showed up here and I’m suddenly a third wheel.”
“I think you mean fifth wheel.”
“Fifth wheel?” Randy coughed phlegm into another tissue. I rolled back my chair another two feet. “Isn’t this a bicycle comparison? Two wheels versus a useless third wheel?”
“No, I think it’s a car analogy,” I said. “Four wheels versus a useless fifth wheel.”
“Hm.” He gave it some thought. “What if you’re referring to a couple? That’s only two. You’d be the third wheel, right?”
“You’re right,” I had to agree. “When you’re talking about a couple, then it’s a third wheel. I think I’ve heard it used both ways.”
“Of course, in reality there are three of you guys and I’m the useless fourth. So maybe we should make it a tricycle analogy. I’m the fourth wheel—of a tricycle.” He sighed. “All I know is I should go home.”
“Not until the captain’s safe and you’re over your cold. Now, how about that NyQuil?”
I spoon-fed the police chief a full dose of the green liquid, tucked him in bed, and still kept to my schedule.
A stakeout team had been on-site at the urban château through Friday night into Saturday morning. At ten a.m., the “A” team would take over.
When Monk and I arrived, A.J. was already there, his Honda Accord having just replaced an unmarked patrol car. A.J. saw us driving up, held up his phone for us to see, and pressed a speed dial button. I don’t know why but I was flattered to realize I was on his speed dial.
“Morning, sunshine,” he quipped. “You guys park on the next block. We already have a two-vehicle presence.” I could see him point around the corner of the big corner lot.
