Mr. Monk in Trouble

by Lee Goldberg

  "You first, Mr. Monk."

  "I'm trying to be," he said. "But you won't let me."

  Kelton put on his shirt and came over to us. Wilder was heading our way, too, a large evidence bag under her arm.

  "Are you in trouble?" I asked Kelton. "I don't mean the town. I know where we are. I mean--"

  "I know what you mean," Kelton interrupted. "I've been in worse, though not while sober."

  Wilder faced us. "This is a hell of a mess."

  "I know," Monk said. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her before it gets any worse."

  "What are you talking about?" Wilder asked.

  Monk tipped his head towards the car. "Natalie won't let me break the other window."

  "I thought Gator Dunsen shot the window," Wilder said.

  "He did," Monk said. "So now it's imperative that someone break the other one. You could order her to do it as a matter of public safety."

  "Are you on drugs or off your meds?"

  "Ask her yourself," Monk said, gesturing to me. "Because I had the same question."

  Wilder looked at Kelton. "This just gets worse with every passing minute."

  "I agree," Monk said.

  "You came here to question a suspect without jurisdiction and without notifying local law enforcement," she said to Kelton, ignoring Monk. "You approached a violent suspect without backup and exchanged gunfire with him. You killed the suspect and then sat outside while two civilians, one of them mentally unstable, trampled the unsecured crime scene."

  "We aren't civilians," Monk said. "And Natalie seemed stable at the time."

  "You aren't police officers," Wilder snapped at Monk.

  "I was one," Monk said. "Now I consult for the San Francisco Police."

  "But you don't consult for this police department," she said.

  "I'd be glad to," Monk said.

  "I'll send you a rate card," I said.

  "We aren't interested." She turned back to Kelton. "The irresponsibility you've shown today is staggering. How did you ever become the chief of police?"

  "I drank my way into the job," Kelton said.

  "This isn't a joke," she said. "A man is dead."

  "A cop killer," Kelton said. "He murdered Manny Feikema, the retired San Francisco cop who put him in prison. Any police officer who showed up at Gator's door was facing a bullet."

  "All the more reason you should have contacted my office before coming here," she said.

  "I might have been a bit overzealous," he conceded.

  "You were dangerously reckless. You're lucky that Dunsen is the only one dead today and that no one else was seriously injured." She took the evidence bag from under her arm and held it up for us to see. "Do you have any idea what these are?"

  The three of us drew close and looked at the pictures.

  "These are photos of the interior of the Gold Rush Museum in Trouble," Monk said.

  Most of the pictures were taken from various angles of the prospecting diorama.

  "It's where Manny Feikema worked as a security guard," Kelton said. "Our theory is that Gator came into the museum during the day, hid somewhere, and attacked Manny during his rounds that night. It looks to me like Gator was casing the museum for a hiding place and chose the cabin in the diorama."

  Monk rolled his shoulders but didn't say anything.

  Wilder stuck the evidence bag back under her shoulder and looked at Monk and me.

  "You two are free to go." She glanced at Kelton. "But I'm not done with you yet. We have a lot more to talk about."

  She made it sound like a threat.

  On our way out of Jackson, I stopped by an office supply store, bought a cardboard box, a box cutter, and two rolls of duct tape. I cut out a piece of cardboard from the box and taped it over the broken window. And, as a courtesy to my aggrieved employer, I taped a piece of cardboard over the intact, left rear passenger window as well. It was a compromise, and a peace offering, that Monk accepted with a grateful nod.

  We'd skipped lunch and I was starving, so I stopped at a 7-Eleven and got us both our own boxes of Wheat Thins and bottles of Summit Creek water for a snack. I'm not a big Wheat Thins fan, but I knew they were square and if I got something as unpredictable in size and shape as potato chips, he'd have a fit.

  Monk was quiet as we headed back to Trouble. The only sound in the car was the snap of the crackers as we ate them and the whistling of the air buffeting the cardboard in the right, rear window.

  I'd been expecting Monk to demand that we return to the spot where I'd scarred the highway with my tires. But he didn't. Which meant something was wrong, something so wrong that it was distracting him from the wrong that I'd committed.

  "What's bothering you, Mr. Monk?"

  "Something Chief Kelton said to Detective Wilder."

  "He said lots of things," I said. "Could you be more specific?"

  "Chief Kelton told Detective Wilder that Gator Dunsen killed Manny Feikema."

  "Gator did," I said. "Didn't he?"

  "No," Monk said. "He didn't."

  "I don't usually argue with you about this kind of thing, but the evidence against Gator is pretty compelling. Manny sent Gator to prison. Gator was in Trouble before the killing, asking around about Manny. He took pictures of the prospecting diorama in the Gold Rush Museum. He shot it out to the bloody end with Chief Kelton rather than face arrest. All of that screams killer to me."

  "He wasn't in Trouble," Monk said.

  "Bob Gorman saw him," I said. "Gorman talked to him."

  "Bob Gorman lied to us."

  "How do you know?"

  "You can't get in or out of Trouble without driving through the migrating butterflies," he said. "But Gator's Thunderbird is perfectly clean."

  I gave Monk a look.

  "I can't believe that the same man who wanted me to abandon my car because it was a little bit dirty is now criticizing someone for keeping his car sparkling clean. That Thunderbird was Gator Dunsen's most prized possession. He probably washed and waxed it every day. That's why there are no signs of obliterated butterflies on the car. Besides, the museum photos that Detective Wilder found in Gator's house prove that he was in Trouble and casing the museum."

  "They prove that Gator is innocent," Monk said.

  "I don't see how," I said.

  "Because you didn't see what I didn't see."

  "You mean what you did see," I said.

  "No, what I didn't see."

  "How could I not see something you didn't see?" I said. "That makes no sense at all."

  "I didn't see the prospector's pick that Manny was killed with in the photos of the diorama," Monk said. "If the pictures were taken before he was killed, the pick should have been there. It wasn't."

  "Oh," I said. "I didn't see that."

  "I didn't see it, either."

  "You saw it," I said. "But what you saw was what you didn't see. I didn't see what you saw, which is what wasn't there and what I should have seen if I was paying attention to what I saw."

  "That's what I said. Do you think you've just stated it more clearly?"

  "No," I said, rubbing my forehead with one hand. "I think I'm having a stroke."

  "That would certainly explain your behavior today."

  "Why didn't you tell Kelton about this while we were still at Gator's place?"

  "Because he was in enough hot water with the Jackson Police as it was," Monk said. "I didn't want to humiliate him and make the situation worse."

  I smiled at him. "I'm impressed, Mr. Monk. That was very sensitive of you."

  "I'm a very sensitive guy," he said.

  It was true that he was sensitive about a lot of things--an endless number, in fact--but other people's feelings weren't ordinarily among them. I didn't say that, of course, because I was actually sensitive to his feelings and to the fact that insulting your employer isn't the best way to stay employed.

  "So if Gator Dunsen was innocent, why did he shoot at us?"

  "He was innocent of Mann
y Feikema's murder but that doesn't make him an innocent person. As you pointed out, his name was Gator and he had a tattoo. He had to be guilty of something terrible."

  "What are you going to tell Chief Kelton?"

  "Nothing until I have more evidence," he said. "But this is our first real break in the case."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "Someone planted that file of photos in Gator's house and Gorman lied to us," Monk said. "Not that I'm surprised by Gorman's dishonesty. I knew he couldn't be trusted, and was most likely a communist, the instant I saw him pick up that fork with his dirty hands and dip his pancakes into his egg yolk."

  "Are you going to confront Gorman with what you know?"

  "I'm not sure that's the best move right now. We might learn more by playing dumb and seeing what happens."

  "Do you think you can play dumb?"

  "I'm a genius and people know it," Monk said. "But someone out there is underestimating me. I'm hoping that whoever it is will keep on doing it if I stay quiet."

  "That's not going to be easy for you," I said. I knew how much Monk liked touting his brilliance.

  "I'll just have to draw on my reserves of fortitude," he said, "assuming that I have any left after we drive through those butterflies again in this death car."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Mr. Monk Gets a Phone Call

  It was getting dark as we arrived in Trouble and I had to stop for a burro crossing the road at the corner of Main and Second streets.

  The burro took his time, stopping directly in front of our car to chew on something and stare at Monk.

  I happened to glance to my left, towards the Gold Rush Museum, and saw someone I recognized leaving the building.

  "Mr. Monk," I said. "Isn't that Clifford Adams?"

  Monk followed my gaze as Adams climbed into a rusted old pickup truck that made my car look like a new Mercedes by comparison.

  "Yes, it is," Monk said. "I wonder why he decided to visit the museum today."

  "Maybe his conversation with us made him nostalgic," I said.

  When the pickup crossed the beam of our headlights, the angry scowl on his face was illuminated in the brief flash of light as he passed by us.

  Monk rolled his shoulders. "Maybe."

  Once Adams' truck left the intersection, I noticed Bob Gorman standing on the corner. He watched Adams drive off and then his gaze settled on us.

  I forced a smile and waved at the liar. He smiled, waved back, and continued on towards the museum.

  Monk watched him as warily as he did the burro. "There's a good reason they call this town Trouble."

  The burro finally moved on and we drove the few blocks down to our motel. I dropped Monk off and continued on to the gas station, where I filled up the tank and did my best to clean the bugs and dirt off the windshield with a wet, soapy squeegee. It took some real scrubbing to get the goop off. It was like I'd driven through a rainstorm of slime.

  I found a hose behind the station and sprayed water on the rest of the car, but it was a superficial rinse at best. It would have to do until the broken window was replaced.

  I drove back to the motel and knocked on Monk's door to see if he was interested in grabbing some dinner with me at the Chuckwagon.

  "I'm fine with my box of Wheat Thins," Monk said.

  "What are you going to do for the rest of night?"

  "Shine my shoes," he said.

  "That sounds exciting," I said.

  "I dodged blazing bullets, kamikaze butterflies, and rampaging burros today," Monk said. "I need to unwind."

  "I understand," I said. "Have a good night, Mr. Monk."

  "You, too, Natalie," he said and closed the door.

  I went back to my room and called Julie to see how she was doing. I was glad to catch her at home on a school night, studying for a history test. At least that's what she told me she was doing. She could have been doing anything.

  Julie was too old now to be treated like a child but too young to be treated as an adult. It was a tricky time to be a mom, especially as a single parent. But I trusted her. She'd never given me a reason not to.

  "How are you enjoying your vacation with Mr. Monk?" she asked mischievously.

  "It's not a vacation," I said. "It's a business trip."

  "That's what you said about Germany and France."

  "Those trips became investigations," I said. "This started as one. But now it's become two."

  "I'm not surprised," Julie said. "Mr. Monk is like the Angel of Death. He's so not coming to my high school graduation."

  "You have to invite him," I said. "But we'll think of a way to make him decide on his own to politely decline."

  "You can tell him that some of the students have chicken pox," she said. "Or that they are purposely wearing mismatched socks."

  "Either would work," I said.

  "Then we'll do both, just to be on the safe side."

  "Okay," I said and then I filled her in on everything that had happened since we'd arrived in Trouble, especially the discovery that Monk had a crime-solving ancestor with all the same brilliance and personality quirks.

  "Wouldn't it be cool if Abigail Guthrie turned out to be related to you? You ought to look into it."

  "I don't want to know," I said.

  "Now you sound like Mr. Monk," she said.

  "I do not," I said. "I am nothing like him."

  "He doesn't want to know that he's related to Artemis Monk and you don't want to know if you're related to Abigail Guthrie."

  "But he is related to Artemis Monk," I said. "I wouldn't mind being related to Abigail Guthrie if she had nothing to do with a Monk. But if I am related to her, the coincidence would just be too terrifying to contemplate."

  "What would be so scary about it?"

  "It would mean that I've never really had any control over my life. I've always been doomed to this fate."

  "Even if you aren't related to Abigail Guthrie, what makes you think that you weren't destined to be working for Mr. Monk?"

  "I like to think that I have free will," I said. "Don't you?"

  "Yes," she said. "But my mom won't let me have it."

  "You're on your own right now, aren't you?" I said. "For all I know, you're naked with three guys and snorting coke."

  She gasped. "Oh my God, how did you find out?"

  "Very funny," I said.

  "Why do you think Mr. Monk won't admit that Artemis Monk is his ancestor?"

  "Maybe he's afraid that if his problems are hereditary, there's no way he'll ever get better."

  "Mr. Monk doesn't think he has problems," she said. "He thinks it's everybody else who is screwed up."

  "He knows he has problems. That's why he sees a shrink."

  "Mom, he sees a shrink because he likes it. He enjoys whining and being the center of attention."

  "You're forgetting that he had a complete mental breakdown after his wife was killed. He was booted off the police force because he was psychologically unfit for duty and for years he needed a full-time nurse at his side just to be able to function."

  "That was the past. He's changed," Julie said. "If he still needed a professional nurse, you wouldn't have a job. Dr. Kroger and Captain Stottlemeyer hired Sharona, but Mr. Monk hired you on his own. Because the job wasn't about his mental health anymore. Mr. Monk doesn't think he has problems, but I'm sure that he thinks that you do."

  She had a good point. It had been years since I'd last heard Monk talk about how he wanted to be reinstated to the force. He seemed content doing exactly what he was doing. And he was always criticizing me for engaging in unhealthy behavior, like wearing a wrinkled blouse, eating tossed salads, petting dogs, and not rinsing my toothbrush with boiling water before and after using it.

  I came to the frightening realization that maybe Monk and I were more alike than I thought. Nobody cherished the notion of controlling himself and his environment more than Adrian Monk did. Perhaps acknowledging his relation to Artemis Monk, a man so star
tlingly similar to himself, meant accepting the inevitability of fate and that he was powerless to shape the direction of his own life.

  I wasn't ready for that, either, and I wasn't nearly as uptight as he was.

  I'd become so attuned to the differences between us that I'd become blind to all the things that we shared, common aspects of our personalities that might draw us closer together rather than further apart.

  Monk was partly to blame for it. He was the one who made lists of his phobias and his rules and made it my job to make his immediate environment as comfortable for him as possible. I'd been encouraged--no, trained--to watch out for the things he would find irritating or out of place, most of which wouldn't bother me at all, and mitigate them before they caused him trouble. I'd become attuned to our differences as a way of spotting things he needed to be protected from.

  A few moments earlier, I'd told Julie that I was nothing like Monk. But maybe, deep down, Monk and I were much more alike than I ever thought before.

  If that was true, perhaps he wasn't so complicated to understand after all. Or maybe I was as messed up as he was, only in my own way.

  Now that was a frightening thought.

  I made a promise to myself to start paying more attention to the important things that we shared rather than the ten thousand insignificant things that we didn't. It might just make me a little more understanding and my job less stressful, too.

  "When did you get so smart?" I asked Julie.

  "I always have been," she said. "It's just taken you seventeen years to notice."

  "I love you," I said. "I've always noticed that."

  "I know you have," she said. "I love you, too. Promise me you'll be careful."

  "I will be," I said. "But if that isn't enough, I'm with the most careful man on earth."

  "He's weird," she said. "But sometimes it's a good weird."

  I hung up, stuck the phone in my purse, and wandered down to Dorothy's Chuckwagon for dinner.

  Crystal DeRosso wasn't working that night and there was nobody I knew in the place, so I was able to wolf down two cheeseburgers and a shake in complete anonymity and without feeling the least bit self-conscious about it.

  I went back to my room, got into bed, and opened up Abigail Guthrie's journal to read more about Artemis Monk before going to sleep.