Mr. Monk on Patrol

by Lee Goldberg

  “How did Morse know the sensor in the window frame was broken?”

  “Maybe she didn’t and just chose the window because it was easier to open than one of the doors.”

  “Then she was taking a big risk. She was assuming that if a siren went off, the police wouldn’t get here in time and that it wouldn’t draw the attention of the neighbors.”

  Monk looked over his shoulder at one of the neighboring houses. An old man was watching us from a second-floor window. He was wearing a bathrobe over a cardigan sweater and had a face like a raisin.

  “How come he didn’t see anything?” Monk asked. “Is he blind?”

  That was a good question. I scanned the police report for details from their canvass of the neighborhood.

  “It says here that Mr. Baker was in the hospital that day. He’d been taken away by an ambulance the previous evening with chest pains. Turned out it was indigestion but they kept him overnight for observation anyway.” I closed the file. “So if Ellen Morse is the burglar, how did she know that he’d be gone, too?”

  “Maybe she gave him a bottle of that Moroccan poo-oil that night,” Monk said, cringing just from the thought of it.

  “Let’s ask him,” I said, eager to rule Morse out as a suspect so Monk could focus and solve the crime so I could finally get some sleep.

  But as I turned to go next door, I heard an alarm go off in the distance, perhaps a block or two away, judging by how loud it was.

  I looked at Monk, who cocked his head like a dog. His ears even seemed to perk up.

  “It’s a home alarm,” he said. “Another burglary.”

  “Or it’s someone setting off their own alarm by accident, or it’s the wind shaking a window, or it’s someone who forgot their code,” I said. “Those alarms go off in my neighborhood all the time. It’s like car alarms. Who pays attention to them anymore?”

  “Let’s call the dispatcher and see,” he said.

  We hurried to our patrol car. I got inside, picked up the radio handset, and checked in.

  I won’t lie to you, I got a real thrill out of identifying myself as “One-Adam-Four” and asking if there was a 211 in progress in the vicinity of our 10-20.

  “Ten-four, One-Adam-Four,” the dispatcher said. “We have an alarm call indicating a possible two-one-one in progress at 218 Primrose Lane.”

  I typed the address into our GPS. The house was only a few blocks away. Monk snatched the mike from me and called in.

  “Ten-four, Dispatch. Unit One-Adam-Four responding, Code Two.”

  He replaced the handset and looked at me. “What are you waiting for? Hit it.”

  “But we aren’t cops. We don’t have badges and we don’t have weapons.”

  “But we’re nearby, we have moral authority, and we have the police car.”

  And the siren. Logic be damned, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

  I switched on the lights, turned on the siren, and floored the gas pedal, burning rubber as I peeled out, pinning Monk to the back of his seat.

  He didn’t complain. He was getting as big a thrill out of the action as I was, if not bigger.

  I was wide-awake now, the siren amping up my pulse and giving my bloodstream a shot of adrenaline. With the GPS as my guide, I sped to the scene, taking the turns fast and hard, reveling in the screech of the tires sliding on the asphalt and the fishtailing of the car.

  It was fantastic.

  As I rounded the final corner, I saw a cop car that had come from the opposite direction and was already parked in front of the house. Two officers were getting out of the car as I skidded to a stop, our front bumpers nearly touching.

  The cops were Raymond Lindero and Walter Woodlake, the guys we’d met at the hotel earlier that morning. They didn’t look too happy to see us. To be fair to them, having two civilians ride up in a black-and-white for a possible burglary-in-progress call wasn’t something they were used to.

  But I didn’t want to give them too much time to think about it or they might send us back to our car. I approached them, trying to exude all the confidence and authority that I didn’t feel.

  “What’ve we got, guys?” I had to raise my voice to be heard over the shrill alarm. I noticed that nobody was coming out onto the street or peering at us through their windows.

  “We just arrived ourselves,” Lindero said. I was once again distracted by his muscles. A great white shark would probably spit him out because he was too tough to chew. “You know what we know.”

  “You got here fast,” Monk said.

  “It’s a small town,” Woodlake said, his cheeks red. He was already catching his breath and he was just getting out of his car. “It ain’t San Francisco.”

  “Our shift is just about over,” Lindero said. “We were on our way to the station to clock out.”

  “Have you seen any cars speeding away?” Monk asked. “Anyone running off on foot?”

  “Nope,” Woodlake said. “Have you?”

  “Maybe this is a false alarm,” I said. “A bird flying into a window or something.”

  “Or the bad guys are jumping the back fence while we’re standing here chatting.” Lindero drew his gun and headed for the backyard.

  Woodlake drew his weapon and went to the front door, probably because that required the least amount of exertion. Monk followed Lindero and I followed Monk.

  Lindero opened the gate and crept along the side of the house, which was lined with rosebushes, to the backyard, where there were more rosebushes, a freshly watered lawn, and a broad patio with a dining set, chaise lounges, a barbecue, and an outdoor pizza oven. That backyard was better furnished than my entire house.

  There was a sliding glass door leading to the kitchen. The glass pane beside the latch was broken.

  Lindero grabbed the latch with his free hand, gently lifting the door as he slid it open so it wouldn’t catch, either because the door was warped or the track was. I had the same problem with my sliding door at home and it drove me crazy.

  He stepped cautiously into the kitchen, careful to avoid the broken glass, and we followed him.

  The kitchen was recently remodeled and had stainless-steel appliances, an industrial-style stove, marble countertops, and dark-stained wood cabinets with fancy moldings.

  “Hello? Anyone home?” Lindero called out. “This is the police.”

  It was a futile gesture. If anyone was in the house, it would have been hard for them to hear his voice over the alarm.

  Monk paused to look at the sliding door, then bent down, took a pair of tweezers from his jacket pocket, and picked up a little round washer from amid the broken glass.

  Out of habit, I grabbed a baggie from my purse and held it open for him. Meanwhile, Lindero went to the front door and let in his partner, who typed the security code given to law enforcement agencies into the panel, shutting off the alarm.

  The silence was a welcome relief.

  Monk dropped the washer into the baggie and went into the entry hall to join the two officers. I followed close behind. From the hall, there was the living room to our left, a study to our right, and a grand staircase curving up to the second floor.

  Lindero went up the stairs while Woodlake took the less strenuous path and peeked into the living room.

  Monk glanced into the study, which had been ransacked. The desk drawers were open and the floor was covered with books, which had been swept off the shelves that lined the room.

  Lindero came back down the stairs, holstering his weapon. “All clear.”

  Woodlake came out of the living room and holstered his weapon, too. “Ditto.”

  He reached for the mike on his shoulder, which was connected to the walkie-talkie on his belt, and called the dispatcher to report that the house was clear and to request a forensics unit to process the scene.

  “Do you know the people who live here?” Monk asked.

  Lindero picked up an Architectural Digest from a side table and looked at the subscription label. “David
and Heather McAfee? Nope. Why would I?”

  “You said it’s a small town.”

  “It isn’t that small,” Lindero said, tossing the magazine back on the table.

  “So you can’t tell us what’s missing,” Monk said.

  “It’d be hard to, since we’ve never been in this house before,” Lindero said in a slow, patronizing tone, as if talking to a complete moron. “Why? Have you already deduced what’s been taken?”

  “No, but if it follows the pattern of the other crimes, what’s going to be missing will be electronics, jewelry, and loose cash.” Monk squatted down in the doorway to the study, took out his tweezers again, and picked up a strand of yellow lint flecked with blue from the carpet.

  I handed the baggie with the washer in it to Lindero to hold on to while I reached into my purse for another baggie, which I held open for Monk.

  “What’s this?” Lindero asked, holding the baggie up to his face.

  “A washer,” Monk said as he plucked up several more strands of lint and dropped them into my baggie.

  “I can see that,” Lindero said. “Why are we bagging it?”

  “Because it’s how the burglars temporarily foiled the alarm system, which is an old Amtek 670,” Monk said. “The sensor is a metal rod embedded in the top of the sliding door that makes contact with a magnet in the frame. If that magnetic field is broken, the alarm goes off. The burglar slipped that washer in between the door and the sensor.”

  It was so ridiculously simple and low-tech.

  “The washer stuck to the magnet and maintained the connection when he opened the door,” I said. “So why did the alarm go off anyway?”

  “In the burglar’s hurry to get out, he forgot that the track was warped,” Monk said. “He dislodged the washer when the sliding door got stuck as he jerked it open.”

  “How come neither the alarm nor our siren attracted any attention?” I asked the two cops. “It’s like this street is deserted.”

  “Have you taken a good look at these homes?” Woodlake said. “They cost a fortune to own and maintain. Most of the people who live on this block are married professionals who both work in the city.”

  “If they’ve got kids, they’re in private school or in day care or with their nannies,” Lindero said. “And nothing is going to tear those nannies away from their telenovelas.”

  Woodlake glanced at his watch. “This would happen right as our shift was ending. Just our damn luck, Ray. And we aren’t even going to get overtime for it.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “The mayor and chief, who now happen to be the same guy, suspended overtime payments for all city workers because of the scandal,” Woodlake said. “There’s no money.”

  “It’s okay, you can go,” Monk said. “We’ll secure the scene until the forensics team gets here.”

  “You will?” Lindero asked.

  “I know you’ve had a long shift,” Monk said. “I was there at the start, remember?”

  “How can I forget?” Lindero said, handing the baggie back to me and giving me a grin. “The image is seared into my memory. I don’t often get to see a catfight between two women, at least not without a cover charge and a two-drink minimum.”

  “You’re a classy guy,” I said.

  The cops walked out the front door and Monk headed to the backyard. I trailed after him. Those chaise lounges suddenly looked very, very inviting.

  Monk crouched beside the grass and seemed to be studying the blades.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “The grass is wet,” Monk said. “But there are no wet footsteps or mud in the house. There don’t appear to be any footprints in the grass or in the dirt along the fence.”

  “So the burglars came from the street, just like we did.”

  Monk stood up and rolled his shoulders. “But how did they get away?”

  The forensics team arrived ten minutes later, just as I was dozing off in one of the chaise lounges.

  Monk asked me to drive him back to the police station because he wanted to go through the case files and examine the map. We stopped at Office Depot and picked up some pins on the way.

  By the time we got to the station, my adrenaline high had worn off completely, my energy was sapped, and I could barely keep my eyes open.

  I went to Disher’s empty office and collapsed on his couch, which was upholstered with the same vinyl as the backseat of a 1975 Ford Country Squire station wagon and no, I’m not going to tell you how I know that. But I wouldn’t have cared if it was upholstered with sandpaper. I was so tired that the floor would have seemed inviting to me.

  I curled up and instantly fell asleep.

  It felt like five seconds later when Monk shook me awake. But it was getting dark outside, so at least four or five hours had passed. I was hungry, groggy, and not entirely sure where I was.

  “You need to get up now,” he said.

  “Why?” I said, turning my back to him, drawing my knees up against my chest, and pressing my face into the warm vinyl where it had been before.

  He rolled me back over. “There’s been another burglary.”

  “Have someone else take you,” I said. “I’m sleeping.”

  “This time someone was home,” Monk said. “And she was killed.”

  12

  Mr. Monk and the Pain

  The crime scene on Hobart Avenue was only a couple of blocks away, but I used the siren to get us there anyway. I’m sure it didn’t shave more than a minute or two off our journey, but that’s not why I did it. I needed the adrenaline kick that driving fast would give me to cut through my grogginess. What I really needed was a couple of Red Bulls or about thirty cups of coffee, but Monk was in too big of a hurry to let me stop by 7-Eleven or Starbucks on the way.

  The neighborhood where the homicide had occurred was a lot like the one we’d been to earlier that day. This time, though, there were a couple of dozen people on the sidewalks, watching the police activity. House alarms might not draw attention, but portable lights, a morgue wagon, cop cars, and a forensics unit always do.

  Disher met us as we got out of the car. He had a grim expression on his face, yet I also detected a glimmer of excitement in his eyes.

  “This is the first murder in Summit since I got this job,” he said. “The whole city is going to be watching how this goes down.”

  And I knew that for a former big-city homicide detective like Randy Disher investigating this murder was going to be a lot more exciting than writing speeding tickets, chasing shoplifters, solving break-ins, or being interim mayor.

  It was tragic, of course, that someone had died, but perhaps for the first time since Disher had arrived in Summit, he was on familiar ground.

  “Don’t worry, Chief. Mr. Monk has solved every murder he’s ever investigated,” I said.

  “I’m not exactly a newbie at this, Natalie. There are a lot of guys sitting on death row in San Quentin ruing the day that they ran up against this badass hombre.” He poked himself in the chest with his thumb just in case we weren’t sure which badass hombre he was talking about. “It’s that reputation as a relentless lawman that got me this job.”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” I said.

  “But I am spread a little thin now,” he said. “So I’m grateful to have a couple of seasoned pros at my side on this one. We need to catch this perp fast.”

  I was ridiculously flattered that he included me in that statement.

  “Then you need to talk to Ellen Morse,” Monk said.

  “How did you know about her?” Disher asked.

  I felt my heart skip a beat. “She’s dead?”

  “No, she’s the Goldmans’ next-door neighbor,” Disher said. “She’s the one who called it in.”

  “A coincidence?” Monk said. “I don’t think so.”

  “So who is the victim?” I asked.

  “Pamela Goldman,” Disher said. “Her husband, Joel, is some kind of famous financial guru.
Writes books and does motivational seminars on how to get rich quick or increase the riches that you already have.”

  Disher led us to the house, which was in the center of a corner lot. It was classic Georgian style with some Cape Cod flourishes. The two-story, pitched-roof home was white and symmetrical, with wood siding and decorative shutters and—with the exception of the chimneys—not a touch of stone. The two flat-top, one-story additions on either end were lined with low, ornamental balustrades, giving the home an almost nautical look, a place to stand and look out at the sea.

  But there was no sea. Instead, the balconies overlooked an expanse of perfectly manicured grass and a curving driveway that led back to a detached garage, which appeared to be in the process of being remodeled into a guesthouse. The area around the garage was covered with construction materials—sacks of cement mix, rolls of fiberglass insulation, stacks of wood, and pallets of drywall, among other things. An enormous trash bin was nearly overflowing with garbage.

  “Joel Goldman came home early tonight on the 5:17 train out of Penn Station, ran into Ellen on the street on his walk home, so they headed back together,” Disher said. “He invited her in and they found his wife’s body in the kitchen. Ellen called 911.”

  “Morse did it,” Monk said.

  “She couldn’t have,” Disher said. “The ME puts the time of death at around lunchtime. She was at her store all day. We have witnesses.”

  “So she’s in on it with the husband,” Monk said. “They were having an extramarital sex affair.”

  “Joel Goldman was in his office, doing a live Skype webinar, interacting directly with people from all over the world, at the time his wife was killed,” Disher said. “There’s no way he could have done it.”

  “Maybe Morse has an identical twin sister,” Monk said. “Or he has an identical twin brother.”

  Disher nodded, mulling the idea, because it was just the kind of theory he would have come up with himself. “That’s a possibility. I’ll look into that. Good thinking, Monk.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

  “Oh really?” Monk said. “And how many impossible murders have you solved?”