Mr. Monk on the Couch

by Lee Goldberg

  But Dr. Bell was no Hef. His standard attire leaned more toward cable-knit sweaters and corduroy pants. He greeted me in the waiting room, where Monk was busy organizing the magazines on the coffee table by name and publication date.

  “What kind of person leaves a mess like this?” Monk said. “Your patients need serious psychiatric help.”

  Dr. Bell ignored Monk and smiled at me. “Adrian tells me you’re taking on a case.”

  I glanced over at Monk. “I didn’t think he noticed.”

  “I notice everything,” Monk said.

  “But you haven’t shown much interest in it,” I said.

  “That’s because I have none,” he said.

  I handed Dr. Bell the snapshot of the nurse and the little girl. “What do you make of this?”

  Dr. Bell glanced at the photo, then looked up at me. “What do you make of it?”

  “Please don’t psychoanalyze me,” I said. “Analyze the picture.”

  “I can’t,” Dr. Bell said. “The meaning of the picture depends entirely on the interpretation of the person who is looking at it. What I see is irrelevant. Each of us is going to see something different.”

  “It’s not an abstract painting,” I said. “It’s a straightforward photograph. What’s there is there. We all see the same thing.”

  “Really?” Dr. Bell turned to Monk and held up the picture. “Adrian, what’s the first thing you notice when you look at this?”

  Monk glanced quickly at the picture, then returned to his magazine sorting. “The house isn’t symmetrical.”

  Dr. Bell turned to me. “Did you see that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I rest my case,” Dr. Bell said. “What do you see in the picture?”

  “I made a list,” I said, reaching into my purse for the notebook.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Dr. Bell said, then held up the picture in front of my face. “What do you see? Don’t think about it. Tell me the first thing that pops into your mind.”

  “I see a nameless man desperately holding on to a faded memory as he dies alone in a dark hotel room.”

  Dr. Bell handed the photo back to me. “That’s not in the picture.”

  “But that’s what I see,” I said.

  “Then that’s where you have to start.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Monk joined me. “Now you know how I feel after every session. One of these days, Dr. Bell might actually offer a solution instead of spewing enigmatic poppycock.”

  “If you believe our sessions aren’t helpful to you, Adrian, why do you keep coming back?”

  Monk rolled his shoulders and shifted his weight. “Sometimes I just need to hear myself think.”

  “You don’t need me for that,” Dr. Bell said. “You could talk to your brother, Ambrose, for instance.”

  “I can’t talk to him,” Monk said.

  “Why not?” Dr. Bell asked.

  “He’s crazy,” Monk said.

  “He’s agoraphobic,” Dr. Bell said.

  “Which is another word for crazy,” Monk said. “How else would you describe someone who is afraid to leave the house we grew up in?”

  “Agoraphobic,” Dr. Bell said. “But I thought you told me that he went on a road trip in a rented motor home with you and Natalie not so long ago.”

  “Yes, but we had to knock him out with drugs and abduct him first,” Monk said.

  Dr. Bell looked at him incredulously. “You took him against his will?”

  “Of course we did. He wouldn’t leave the house otherwise,” Monk said. “Because he’s crazy.”

  “You didn’t mention that.” Dr. Bell crossed his arms under his chest and took a decidedly disapproving posture.

  “I told you he was crazy two minutes ago. Don’t you listen to anything I say?”

  “I’m talking about the kidnapping, Adrian.”

  I cleared my throat. “Mr. Monk is covered by doctorpatient privilege, am I right?”

  Dr. Bell turned to me. “You helped him do this?”

  “Nobody is pressing charges,” I said.

  “Ambrose thanked us later,” Monk said.

  “Really?” Dr. Bell said, clearly dubious.

  “He enjoyed the trip so much that he bought the motor home we had rented,” I said. “He likes the idea of leaving home without leaving a home, so to speak.”

  “He’ll probably still have to be drugged to get from his house to his motor home,” Monk said. “But he’s got an assistant to help him with that now.”

  Dr. Bell looked at me sternly. “You’re dispensing narcotics now?”

  “Oh no, not me,” I said. “One Monk is more than I can handle. Ambrose has hired a young woman we met on our road trip. She was a researcher for an investigative reporter named Dub Clemens, who passed away. She’s also going to help Ambrose with his work. Ambrose writes owner’s manuals and technical guides. Up until now, he mostly interacted with the outside world through—”

  I had a sudden realization and stopped myself short. I knew where to go to decipher the mysteries of the snapshot, and maybe a few other things, too.

  “Thank you, Dr. Bell,” I said. “I think we’ve had a major breakthrough.”

  Dr. Bell smiled. “Great. I’ll send you my bill.”

  “I hope you’re not referring to his poppycock about ‘starting with what you feel,’ ” Monk said. “Because what you feel is probably indigestion.”

  “I’m visiting your brother,” I said. “Care to join me?”

  Ambrose Monk lived in Tewksbury, a Marin County community that was across the bay from San Francisco and was so liberal, so thoroughly mired in the 1970s, I felt like I should remove my bra and light a joint as soon as I crossed the city limits.

  The Monk family home, a well-preserved Victorian, was perhaps the only property in town that didn’t have an outdoor hot tub, and I’m including city hall, the library, and the churches in that statement.

  We hadn’t been back to see Ambrose since we’d returned from our road trip. The restored motor home, fixed up after our little adventure, was parked in his driveway, and it gleamed. It was a class C, one of those strange vehicles that looked like a Ford truck that backed into a camper and then got stuck. There was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle beside it.

  Monk scowled at the motorcycle as we walked up to the front door. “Our front yard looks like the parking lot of a biker bar.”

  “Have you been to many biker bars with just one motorcycle and one RV parked out front?”

  “This is how it starts,” Monk said. “Before you know it, the Hells Angels will be camping here for the winter.”

  He knocked on the door.

  “Listening to rock-and-roll music way too loud,” he added.

  He knocked again.

  “Smoking marijuana joint cigarettes,” he added.

  He knocked again.

  “And applying scary skull tattoos on each other that don’t wash off,” he added. “Ever.”

  He knocked again.

  “Where is he?” Monk asked.

  “Maybe he stepped out.”

  “He’s afraid to step out,” Monk said. “He’s in the house all the time.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was joking.”

  He turned to face me. “What’s humorous about saying he stepped out when we both know that he would never step out?”

  “It’s the contradiction that creates the humor.”

  “That’s not humor. This is humor: A Japanese woman experiences discomfort in her eye, so she goes to see a qualified ophthalmologist. After a thorough examination, the doctor tells the Japanese woman that she has a cataract. She says, ‘No, I don’t. I have a Lincoln Continental.’ ”

  I stared at him. “That’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is. Here’s why: Some Japanese immigrants have trouble speaking English or do so with a heavy accent. She confuses a Cadillac with a cataract. She believes he is talking about American luxury automobiles when, in
fact, he is telling her that she has an opacity on the lens of her eye that’s inhibiting the passage of light, causing a loss of visual acuity. It’s the miscommunication that creates the hilarity.”

  “Natalie is right,” a woman said. “It’s not funny.”

  We turned just as Yuki Nakamura, Ambrose’s assistant, opened the front door. She was barefoot, wet, and wearing a bathrobe.

  She was in her twenties, with long black hair that went midway down her back, where I knew, and Monk didn’t, that she had a snake tattoo coiled around her spine.

  “The joke is racially insensitive and perpetuates a nasty and ugly stereotype,” Yuki said. “Besides, it’s dated. They haven’t made Lincoln Continentals in years. When did you hear that joke? In 1975?”

  “Actually, it was April 27, 1972, at 3:14 p.m.,” said Ambrose, stepping up behind Yuki. “Dad told it to us as an example of a joke.”

  “A knee-slapper, to be specific,” Monk said. “Which means it was a very good one.”

  They kept talking, but I have no idea what they said because I’d stopped paying attention. I was too distracted by the fact that Yuki and Ambrose were both wearing bathrobes and nothing else. And they were both dripping wet.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mr. Monk and the Girl with the Snake Tattoo

  Monk noticed how they were dressed, or rather undressed, and drew his own conclusions. “You didn’t answer the door right away because you were both showering at the same time.”

  “That’s correct,” Ambrose said.

  “That wasn’t very wise,” Monk said. “You know what happens when you run two showers at once in this house. It causes a significant drop in water pressure and rapid depletion of the hot water.”

  “That wasn’t an issue,” Yuki said.

  Monk cocked his head and looked at Ambrose. “Have you upgraded the pipes and improved the pressure?”

  “His piping and pressure are terrific,” she said with a sly grin.

  Ambrose blushed and spoke up quickly. “What brings you here, Adrian?”

  “It was my idea,” I said. “I wanted to ask for your help with something, but I really should have called first.”

  “Why?” Monk asked me. “He’s always here.”

  “Because he has a life,” I said.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Monk said.

  “Yes, he does. I’m sorry for intruding on you, Ambrose. We’ll come back another time.” I grabbed Monk by the arm and started to lead him away. “Let’s go.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Ambrose said. “Please, come in.”

  Yuki stepped aside and ushered us in. We walked past her into the entry hall and she closed the door behind us.

  I looked around. The living room was still lined with stacks of newspapers going back decades and rows of file cabinets containing every piece of mail that had ever come to the house. The décor everywhere else was the same as it had always been. It looked as if nothing had changed in the house since our last visit several weeks earlier. But I knew that wasn’t true. The evidence was standing in front of me in bathrobes.

  “Can I offer you some Fiji water? Marshmallows? Perhaps some cinnamon Pop-Tarts?” Ambrose asked, leading us into the dining room.

  “No, thank you,” Monk said. “Here’s something I bet you didn’t know, Ambrose. Natalie has worked as my assistant for years and not once has she taken a shower at my house.”

  “That’s a shame,” Yuki said.

  “She arrives for work already bathed and clean,” Monk said. “You should arrive that way, too.”

  “I don’t have to arrive,” Yuki said. “I live here.”

  Monk went wide-eyed and turned to Ambrose. “She’s a full-time, live-in assistant?”

  I knew the idea was a dream come true for Monk. It was a nightmare scenario for me. And that wasn’t even factoring in the aspects of the situation that Monk still hadn’t grasped.

  “It’s been very advantageous,” Ambrose said.

  “I hope she’s not staying in my room,” Monk said.

  “Of course not,” Ambrose said.

  “That would be sacrilegious,” Yuki said. “From what I’ve been told, that room has been kept in the same state since the day you left for college. There should be a red velvet rope across the doorway.”

  Monk glowered at her. Ambrose spoke up quickly, directing his remarks to me.

  “So, Natalie, what do you need my help with?”

  Ambrose sat down at the table and we followed his lead, taking seats as well.

  I gave him a quick rundown on the man who died in the hotel room, what Monk had deduced about his life in Mexico, and Stottlemeyer’s discovery that his fingerprints weren’t in the system and that his identification was fake.

  “He had this snapshot in his hand when he died,” I said and passed the picture to Ambrose. “I’d like to find out who he was, why he was in San Francisco, and locate any family he might have left behind.”

  “What name did he leave when he registered at the hotel?” Yuki asked.

  “Jack Griffin,” I said.

  “The Invisible Man,” she said.

  “He shouldn’t be,” I said. “All lives mean something. Someone must have cared about him, and whoever it is deserves to know about his fate.”

  “I’m talking about his name,” Yuki said. “Jack Griffin was the name of the Invisible Man, as portrayed by Claude Rains in the 1933 movie adaptation.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “His name was just ‘Griffin’ in the H. G. Wells novel,” she said. “They added the first name ‘Jack’ for the movie. The name changed many times over the years in subsequent adaptations.”

  Ambrose beamed with pride. “Isn’t she amazing? She’s full of facts like that.”

  “That’s handy if you are frequently in need of trivial knowledge,” Monk said.

  “Knowledge is knowledge, Adrian. The value of it is situational. What might seem trivial one moment could be vital the next,” Ambrose said. “This might be one such instance.”

  “It’s not,” Monk said.

  “He chose that name on purpose,” I said. “It’s telling.”

  “I agree,” Ambrose said. “It clearly indicates that all of this man’s actions were carefully premeditated, that he was very self-aware, and that he didn’t want to be seen, even in death.”

  “Maybe we should honor that,” Monk said.

  “You make a good point, Mr. Monk. But I just can’t do that. Maybe that’s selfish of me, and maybe it will turn out to be a mistake, and then you can say ‘I told you so.’ ”

  “I will,” Monk said. “But I won’t be petty and vindictive about it.”

  “Just smug and superior,” I said.

  “Thoroughly and justifiably,” Monk said.

  I turned to Ambrose. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to help.”

  “I would be glad to assist you,” Ambrose said.

  “Me, too,” Yuki said. “I know something about how terminal cancer affects a man. As Dub got sicker, nothing else mattered to him except finishing his last story. Maybe, in his own way, Griffin was trying to do the same thing.”

  Ambrose nodded. “Isn’t she incredible?”

  Monk groaned.

  “Thank you both,” I said. “I’m hoping that the photograph and his belongings will give us clues that could explain who he was and why he came to San Francisco to die.”

  I took out my notebook and shared with them my inventory of items, as well as my observations and questions. While I spoke, Yuki went to the living room, got a notepad and pen, and made some notes of her own.

  When I was done, Ambrose picked up the picture again, sat back in his chair, and nodded. “That’s an excellent start, Natalie. But I think there’s a lot more information we can extract from this photograph.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Well, there’s the materials used in the roofing, the setback of the home from the street, the location and type of sewer grate in t
he curb, the dimensions of the sidewalk, and the shape, height, and position of the streetlamp,” Ambrose said. “From all of that, we can make some informed assumptions about the building codes and utility requirements that were in force at the time, which could help us pinpoint where and when this picture was taken. We might also be able to determine the manufacturer of the roofing, the sewer grate, the streetlamp, and so forth.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I never thought of that. I wouldn’t know where to begin to find that information.”

  “Of course you do or you wouldn’t be here,” Ambrose said. “It’s with me. I wrote the book on sewer grates.”

  Knowing Ambrose, I assumed he meant that literally. He probably wrote the books on roofing materials and streetlamps as well.

  “There’s also the snapshot itself,” Yuki said. “We might be able to determine the type of photo paper and the process used to develop it, and from that, the type of camera that took the picture. If you let us hold on to the photo, I’ll scan it and e-mail you a high-res jpeg so you can examine it in detail.”

  “Isn’t she wonderful?” Ambrose said.

  “You’re sweet, Ambrose. I’m going to go get dressed.” She got up and nodded to Monk and me. “It was nice to see you both again. Don’t be strangers.”

  Monk watched her leave the room, and the instant she was gone, he turned to Ambrose.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Why do you say that, Adrian?”

  “You don’t even know that woman,” he said.

  “I know more about her than you knew about Natalie before you hired her,” Ambrose said. “And I know how I feel.”

  “You’ve lived in this house for decades,” Monk said. “Frankly, you are naive in the ways of the world and how predatory and dangerous it is out there.”

  “Why do you think that I’ve stayed inside all of these years?” Ambrose asked.

  “Well, now you’ve opened the door and let that outside world right in,” Monk said.

  “I would have done it sooner if I’d known it would be Yuki. She’s changed my life,” Ambrose said. “And I have the two of you to thank for it. If you hadn’t taken me on that road trip for my birthday, I never would have met Yuki. I feel reborn. That road trip was the greatest present anyone has ever given me.”