by Lee Goldberg
I didn’t like being the crazy person in our relationship. So what if I got mauled by a bear or fell off a cliff? I decided that would be better than him getting to be smug and superior.
“The trail is over here.” I turned on my flashlight and marched past him. “Follow me.”
It didn’t take us long to get to the spot beside the muddy pond where I’d found Leupolz’s body. Remembering the corpse while standing there in the dark made me very nervous.
Monk aimed his flashlight into the bushes, then out over the pond. Something in the trees at the far edge of the pond reflected the light.
I’d seen a dog’s eyes reflect light at night. What if Monk’s beam had just passed over a wolf?
“What’s that?” Monk asked.
“A beer can, maybe?” I said. “Or a pack of slavering wolves.”
“Slavering?” He swept the trees again with his light and caught another glimmer.
“Wolves slaver,” I said. “Especially when they are rabid and hungry.”
“Let’s go see,” he said and started walking, not waiting for my reply.
We followed the perimeter of the pond. I shifted my gaze and the beam of my light back and forth, between the woods and the brown water.
Was the pond full of leeches lusting for a taste of my blood? Which was a worse way to go? Feasted on by slavering wolves or bloodthirsty leeches?
Beyond the trees, a few yards from the pond, we found a weedy clearing where a rotting wooden shack stood. It blended so well with the trees that we hadn’t seen it yesterday. On one side of the shack there was a pile of firewood where seemingly a thousand spiders lived. They, too, probably hungered for my sweet flesh.
Monk aimed his flashlight at the shack, the beam slicing through the gaps between the boards to illuminate a pile of rusty paint cans inside, creating the reflection that had drawn him here like a fish to a lure.
And I knew what happened to fishes lured by lures. They ended up scaled, gutted, and grilled.
“This looks like a good place to hide a corpse to me,” Monk said, which is exactly what you don’t want someone to say in the middle of the woods at night, not when you’re already so scared that you find the thought of grilled fish frightening.
“Great,” I said. “We can come back in the morning and check it out.”
But Monk was already opening the door and going inside.
“I’ll wait here,” I said.
That was when I heard a twig snap in the woods behind me.
I whirled around, letting my beam play out over the trees and the murky water. I didn’t see anything.
It was a relief. It was also terrifying. I went inside the shack and slammed the door shut behind me, just as I thought I heard another twig snap.
Monk was crouched in the far corner, examining something.
“Look at this,” he said.
I walked up behind him. There were some white feathers on the ground at his feet.
“Pillow feathers,” he said. “Bruno Leupolz was here.”
“But we can’t prove that Dr. Rahner was,” I said.
“Those paint cans are rusted through and leaking,” Monk said, motioning to the cans behind me. “You’re standing in a puddle of dry paint on the ground. I bet we can find some of it on Dr. Rahner’s shoes, maybe even his socks or pant legs.”
“Don’t you think he would have washed them or thrown them out by now?”
“Oh,” Monk said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe there’s something else in here that will be his undoing.”
“We’ll have better luck seeing it in daylight,” I said.
“But we’re here now,” he said. He sniffed. “Do you smell gasoline?”
I sniffed. “It could be the turpentine.”
“Is there turpentine?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if there’s paint around, there’s probably some turpentine, too.”
“Maybe we can find that on his shoes,” Monk said, going over to examine a rotting bag on the ground, its contents of white granules spilled on the floor. “What’s this?”
“Looks like fertilizer to me,” I said. “Not that I am any kind of expert.”
“Maybe we can find some of these granules in the treads of his shoes.”
We were crouching to examine the bag when the wall beside us burst into flames in a loud, crackling whoosh.
The heat, the sound, and the sudden light made us scramble back in shock and terror. Instinctively, we both went for the door.
But it wouldn’t budge. We slammed our bodies against it to no avail. It was jammed tight.
“Were you smoking?” Monk asked me.
“I don’t smoke,” I said.
“Then how did the fire start?”
I remembered the smell of gasoline. Someone wanted to kill us.
Another wall ignited, the dry wood catching fire remarkably fast, the flames licking out for us like the tongues of ravenous monsters.
I glanced at the paint, the turpentine, and the fertilizer and knew what they would soon become.
A bomb.
In a few seconds we would be dead.
The heat was unbearable—each breath felt like a knife jammed down my throat. I looked around, and through the flames and disintegrating wood consuming one wall I could make out the muddy pond several yards away.
Without thinking, I grabbed Monk’s hand, closed my eyes, and ran screaming into the wall.
The wood seemed to shatter like glass. I felt a thousand white-hot stings and knew that my clothes were on fire. I ran blindly, tripped in the muck, and fell facefirst into the thick water of the pond, losing my grip on Monk.
It was like falling into pudding. I had to fight to get up, the weight of the mud and my clothes pushing me down into the shallow pond.
When I came up for air, I was standing in water up to my chest, sludge dripping off my scorched clothes and singed hair.
Monk emerged beside me, sputtering and coughing, draped in weeds like a swamp monster. His lapels were blackened from the flames and it looked like a dozen people had tried putting out their cigarettes on his jacket.
We both turned to look at the shack as it exploded, sending canisters shooting up into the air like fireworks, trailing embers. The explosion seemed to suck the air out of the fire. The shack collapsed on itself and became a big bonfire that lit up the pond. I could feel the hot air against my face.
“Whoo-wee!” Monk shrieked happily, wiping muck from his brow. “That was a rush.”
I stared at him. I’d never heard him say “whoo-wee” or anything remotely like it. I couldn’t believe he was happy, standing there waist-deep in sludge, his hair still smoking from the fire. I could only imagine how I must have looked, but I knew how I felt.
“Someone just tried to murder us,” I said.
“It was fun,” he said with a smile.
“Fun? We were nearly burned alive! We’re about to be attacked by bloodsucking leeches!”
“Now we know we’re on the right track,” Monk said.
I wanted to wipe that dopey smile off his face and make him as miserable and angry as I was. And I wasn’t beyond rubbing salt in his wounds to do it.
“But any evidence that might have connected Dr. Rahner to Bruno Leupolz’s murder has literally gone up in smoke.”
“Wrong,” Monk said.
“You can’t prove the body was hidden in the shack or that Dr. Rahner was ever there because”—I pointed to the fire— “the shack is gone.”
“Who cares?” Monk said.
“You do!” I shouted. “Dr. Rahner is going to get away with murder.”
“Bullpucky.”
“Did you just say ‘bullpucky’?”
“This is our lucky night,” he said. “If we hadn’t been on fire, we never would have found this.”
He reached into the muck with both hands and pulled up a big black trash bag that was cinched tight, the yellow plastic drawstrings tied in a neat double bow.
/> “I present the missing stuff from Bruno Leupolz’s apartment, ” Monk said.
“Or somebody else’s trash,” I said. “Who knows how many people have ditched their garbage in here?”
“This is a Norwegian Reef Knot, is it not?” He tipped his head towards the drawstrings and began to giggle. “Knot, not. Get it? Knot, not. Who’s there? The Monkster, that’s who!”
I was starting to regret saving his life. I might have corrected that error then and there if not for the sound of approaching sirens and the possibility of getting caught in the act.
Fire trucks roared up a logging road on the hillside above us and a few minutes later a dozen firefighters spilled down on the clearing carrying shovels and fire extinguishers.
While they doused the bonfire with foam and shoveled dirt on the embers, we slogged out of the pond and sat on a log to await the arrival of the police.
Mosquitoes drawn by the lights buzzed by my ears. I swatted at them and searched my body for leeches as best I could without stripping entirely.
Monk gazed up at the stars and sighed contentedly.
“This is nice,” he said.
I paused for a moment to stare at him. “We’re breathing smoke, soot, and toxic chemicals. We’re being bled dry by mosquitoes and leeches. We’re soaking wet, covered in mud, and smell like we died yesterday. And you think this is nice?”
“I wish we had some marshmallows,” Monk said. “We could put them on sticks and roast them over the embers. Wouldn’t that be tasty?”
Stoffmacher and Geshir approached us. I didn’t even notice their arrival on the scene.
“When I heard where this fire was, I had a feeling we’d find you here,” Stoffmacher said. “Would you like to tell us what happened?”
“We went to Berlin and found out why Dr. Rahner murdered Bruno Leupolz,” Monk said. “The reporter discovered that the doctor isn’t a doctor and that he’s swindling the investors in his resort.”
“Here.” Stoffmacher thrust his finger in the direction of the firefighters. “I want to know what happened here.”
“We found out where Dr. Rahner hid Bruno Leupolz’s body before dumping it on the trail,” Monk said. “It’s that shack over there.”
“It was,” I said. “Now it’s ashes.”
“Dr. Rahner must have seen us park at the Franziskushohe tonight and guessed what we were after,” Monk said. “So he followed us down here with a gasoline can and a match.”
“What evidence do you have to back up your accusations?” Stoffmacher demanded.
Monk looked at me. “Why does everybody keep asking me that question?”
“They’re detectives,” I said.
“That’s no excuse for repetition,” Monk said. “It’s tiresome.”
“So are these encounters with you, Mr. Monk,” Stoffmachersaid. “If you don’t show me some proof right now, I will arrest you for arson.”
“You think that we burned down the shack and did this to ourselves?” I said. “That’s insane.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Stoffmacher said. “Mostly since you both arrived in Lohr.”
“We have this,” Monk said, motioning to the big trash bag. “You’ll notice that it’s tied in a Norwegian Reef Knot, the same knot Dr. Rahner uses to tie his shoes and the shoes of people he kills and dumps on hiking trails.”
“Oh God.” Stoffmacher groaned. “Not the knots again.”
“Knot, not,” Monk said to me with a giggle. “Get it?”
Stoffmacher glared at him. “I don’t see anything funny about this. We’re lucky the entire forest didn’t go up in flames.”
“Oh, relax,” Monk said. “Don’t get yourself all twisted in a tizzy.”
“What’s a tizzy?” Geshir asked.
“If you’ll give us a ride up to the Franziskushohe we can wrap this whole case up tonight,” Monk said.
“Can’t it wait until morning?” I said. All I wanted to do was get in a hot shower for about two hours and check my body for leeches.
“Why wait?” Monk said.
“Because if you could see yourself right now, you’d die,” I said.
“I can see myself,” Monk said.
“Tomorrow you’ll die,” I said.
“All the more reason to do it now.” Monk picked up the bag, rose to his feet, and faced Stoffmacher. “Where’s the car?”
Baffled, Stoffmacher looked at me. “Is he on drugs?”
“Yes,” I said.
The bluntness of my answer seemed to surprise him.
Stoffmacher looked back to Monk. “We’ll go to the hotel and I’ll allow you to confront Dr. Rahner if you will promise me that no matter what happens, you’re done. You won’t pursue your investigation any further or trouble Dr. Rahner ever again.”
“Deal,” Monk said.
“He can’t make a deal,” I said. “He’s on mind-altering drugs.”
“Then maybe we should arrest him,” Stoffmacher said pointedly.
We were screwed no matter what. Monk was going to have a lot to regret in the morning.
“We’ll take the deal,” I said.
“Wise decision,” Stoffmacher said.
“Great,” Monk said. “Who’s driving?”
“I am, but you’re walking,” Stoffmacher said and handed him his flashlight. “You aren’t stinking up my car.”
Stoffmacher and Geshir turned their backs to us and walked away.
“We were almost killed tonight,” I yelled after them. “Is this how you treat victims of violent crime around here?”
They ignored me. I made a very unladylike gesture with my hand in their wake. I’m sure they would have understood its meaning if they’d seen it.
I turned and saw Monk squinting at me.
“What?” I said, daring him to criticize my actions.
“Is that a leech on your neck?” Monk asked.
I grabbed at my neck, but there was nothing there.
“Gotcha.” Monk laughed, turned away from me, and headed jauntily towards the trail with a skip in his step.
I thought that was cruel and unfair. I never made fun of his plethora of phobias, not that what I was experiencing was anything less than sensible, rational, and totally reasonable.
I vowed to myself that I would make him pay for this. Dearly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Mr. Monk Has a Brand-new Bag
Mildred, the woman who had taken the picture of Dr. Kroger and Dr. Rahner, was setting up her collage of conference photographs on an easel in the center of the lobby as we came in dripping sludge.
