by Lee Goldberg
“I’ve seen you solve enough of them to know that identical twins is not the answer to this one,” I said. “You aren’t thinking clearly, Mr. Monk. You’re biased against Morse because she sells crap.”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
I gestured to Disher. “He’s not.”
Monk narrowed his eyes at Disher. “That’s right. Why haven’t you done your duty and arrested her?”
“For murder?”
“For selling people poop,” Monk said.
“Because there’s no law against it,” Disher said. “Besides, Dino Dung is cool.”
“There’s nothing stylish, trendy, artistic, culturally significant, or personally enhancing about a toxic pile of extremely old, extremely disgusting fossilized excrement.”
“Unless it’s from a dinosaur,” Disher said. “Imagine owning something that actually came from a T. rex’s ass.”
“It would be like owning a chunk of radioactive waste,” Monk said.
“It’s not the same thing at all,” Disher said. “The closest comparison would be owning a piece of a meteor. Now imagine if that piece of space rock was eaten by a Brontosaurus and he crapped it out.”
“I can’t,” Monk said, cringing.
“Prehistoric meteor dino dung,” Disher said. “That’d be priceless.”
I smiled to myself. It was nice to know that power and authority hadn’t changed Disher at all.
We walked along the driveway to the backyard. Monk glowered at the mess around the garage as if it were a tethered wild animal straining against its chain.
A man in a business suit sat crying on the edge of a chaise lounge, face in his hands, a uniformed cop standing beside him, looking very uncomfortable, unsure what to do around so much grief. It didn’t take a detective to figure out that it had to be Joel Goldman on the chaise.
I spoke up. “Were there any signs of a break-in?”
Disher gestured to the house. “The glass is broken on the French doors.”
“It fits the MO of the other burglaries,” I said. “Was Mrs. Goldman supposed to be somewhere today?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Disher said. “She had a hair appointment that got canceled, so she came back home.”
“And walked in on the burglars,” I said. “How come the alarm didn’t go off when they broke in?”
“Because it wasn’t on. She set it when she left the house at eleven a.m., but then she must have come back in for her car keys or something, because she deactivated it thirty seconds later and forgot to set it again when she went back out.”
It was a fatal mistake.
We stepped through the French doors into the kitchen, where Pamela Goldman’s body was covered with a sheet. Monk squatted down and lifted the sheet so we could get a look at her.
She was maybe in her forties, casually dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting blouse, with long brown hair that was now thickly matted with dried blood. She’d been killed by a blow to the back of the head with the ever-popular blunt object.
“Have you found the murder weapon?” Monk asked.
“It was a rolling pin,” Disher said. “The intruder probably just grabbed the nearest object and clobbered her with it.”
I glanced over at Joel Goldman, who seemed to have collected himself a bit. He dabbed his face with a handkerchief. His Brioni suit was perfectly tailored to his lean body and his hair was as neatly trimmed as his clothes. Everything about him was clean, crisp, and refined, except for his bloodshot eyes and wet cheeks. Grief was messy, disorganized, and rough.
Disher followed my gaze and took a deep breath. “I hate this part of the job. It never gets any easier.”
He headed over to Goldman and we tagged along.
“Mr. Goldman, I’m Chief Disher. I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I want to assure you that finding whoever is responsible for this is my top priority.”
“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Goldman said. “This is a nice town, a safe neighborhood.”
“Do you feel up to answering a few questions?” Disher asked.
“What can I possibly tell you that could help?”
“You’d be surprised.” Disher gestured to us. “This is Adrian Monk, a homicide consultant to the San Francisco Police Department, and his assistant, Natalie Teeger. They’re working with me on this.”
Monk tipped his head toward the garage. “Where are the construction workers?”
“There was no one today,” Goldman said. “I’ve been doing it myself and hiring day laborers.”
“On your own?” Disher asked.
“I built a cabin at Spirit Lake from scratch, so I figured it wouldn’t be any harder converting the garage into a home office. Once it’s done, I won’t have to make the commute into the city anymore, and Pamela and I can spend more time together.…”
His voice drifted off as he realized he was describing a dream that was never going to come true.
Disher took out his notebook. “These day laborers, were they always the same people or new ones each time?”
“A mix,” Goldman said. “They huddle on the corner outside of the Home Depot. I honk, they climb into the car, and I pay them cash at the end of the day. A couple of the guys have been back here a few times. You don’t think one of them is responsible for this…?”
“It’s one possibility,” Disher said.
“That would make it my fault that she’s dead,” Goldman said, lowering his head.
“You can’t think that way,” I said.
“Was anything taken?” Monk asked.
Goldman’s head shot up, his eyes flashing with anger.
“How the hell should I know? The most important thing in my life was just taken from me. Do you think I stopped to check if my stereo was still there? Do you think I even give a damn? How can you ask me something like that?”
“Mr. Monk meant no offense,” Disher began, but Goldman interrupted him.
“Do you have any idea what this feels like?” Goldman snapped at Monk. “Do you?”
“Yes,” Monk said, then glanced at me. “We both do.”
It was a commonality that we rarely acknowledged, much less discussed. There was too much pain there. But it was one of the many things that created a bond between us that was much more complex than just employer and employee.
“Mr. Monk’s wife was murdered,” I said. “My husband was killed in Kosovo.”
Goldman looked at us as if seeing us for the first time. Even Disher was looking at us differently. I’m sure he rarely, if ever, thought about that aspect of our lives. But it was never far from my mind or, I’m sure, from Monk’s.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” Goldman swallowed hard.
“It’s all right,” Monk said.
Goldman regarded him with a plaintive, almost pleading look. “Tell me, please, how will I ever get past the pain?”
Monk rolled his shoulders. “You won’t.”
13
Mr. Monk and the Second Room
I leaned against the police car while Pamela Goldman’s corpse was wheeled out to the morgue van in a body bag. Disher and two of his officers canvassed the neighborhood looking for possible witnesses, and Monk roamed around inside the Goldman house, trying to deduce what might have been taken. I couldn’t see the backyard, but I assumed Joel Goldman was still there, sitting on the chaise lounge, in a state of shock.
I was too tired to do much of anything, and was seriously considering sneaking away for a Big Mac and fries, when Ellen Morse walked over from her house with two mugs of hot coffee, one of which she handed to me.
“You look like you could use this,” she said.
“You mean I look like a zombie,” I said, taking the mug.
“I know you’ve had a long day.”
I took a sip of the coffee. It had the rich, silky taste of fine cocoa crossed with a dark, bitter roast and had enough caffeine that I felt my heart race, my eyes dilate, and my energy level jack up before the fluid ha
d even reached my throat.
“This coffee is incredible,” I said.
“It ought to be. It’s Kopi Luwak, the rarest, most expensive coffee in the Western world. Only five hundred pounds of it are made annually.”
“What did I do to deserve this?”
“It’s what you’re going to do,” she said. “You and Mr. Monk are going to catch whoever killed Pamela Goldman.”
“Do you have any idea who that might be?”
She shook her head and took a sip of her coffee. “Pamela was an angel. She spent all of her time raising money for local schools, museums, the arts. She was a giver, not a taker. I’m not a detective, but I’m sure that she wasn’t killed because of who she was, but what she walked into.”
“Have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around the house lately?”
“Joel has brought in a lot of day workers to help him out with his garage project. I don’t want to sound racist or superficial, but some of them were people I’d never invite into my car, much less lead to my home, where they could see all the material things I have that they don’t.”
Which, apparently, included a supply of the priciest coffee in the United States. I was savoring it. The flavor was amazing, incredibly full-bodied, by far the best coffee I’d ever had. I was so alert now, thanks to the caffeine, that I could probably have heard the flutter of a butterfly’s wings from a hundred yards away.
I wondered if it would be rude to ask for a refill.
“I’ve never had anything like this coffee before,” I said. “Where did you find it?”
“In my store,” she said.
My stomach cramped. “Your store?”
“I import the Kopi Luwak from Indonesia, where ironically it’s known as ‘the poor man’s coffee’ because it’s gathered from the ground by people without any land of their own on which to grow coffee bushes.”
I relaxed a bit. “So it’s made from fallen coffee beans.”
“Yes and no. There’s an animal called a civet that forages on the big coffee plantations, eating the fruit of the coffee bush, then later poops out the undigested beans, which are gathered up, roasted, and ground into coffee.”
So I’d just guzzled a mug of civet poop. I handed her back the empty cup and fought back the urge to vomit. “Do not tell Mr. Monk about this. Ever.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll have you arrested for poisoning me and then take me to the ER to have my stomach pumped.”
She smiled. “Do you think that I’ve poisoned you?”
“I certainly wouldn’t have sipped from that mug if you’d told me it was hot liquid crap.”
“But you thought it was delicious before you knew that the coffee beans had passed through an animal before being processed and reaching your cup,” she said. “So why does it make any difference now? Why is it any more disgusting than drinking cow’s milk?”
“Mr. Monk thinks that’s poison, too.”
“Yes, but do you?”
“No, I’m fine with milk. Sausages, too. But from now on, I’m not eating or drinking anything you give me until you’ve disclosed whether or not it came out of some animal’s butt. You picked a very odd and inappropriate time to play a trick on me.”
“That wasn’t what I intended,” she said. “I thought I was doing you a favor. Kopi Luwak is a rare and expensive delicacy, sought after and savored by the finest gourmands in the world.”
“Well, I’m not one of them. I wouldn’t know the difference between a fine bottle of wine and a Two-Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s, but as open-minded as I am, I draw the line at drinking actual crap.”
“I apologize,” she said.
“No harm done,” I said, my stomach churning. “I hope.”
“Don’t worry, Natalie. The coffee is safe and perfectly healthy, full of antioxidants. The washing, roasting, and brewing process leaves it as clean as bottled spring water.”
Monk emerged from the house, froze for a moment when he saw who I was talking to, then marched over.
“Bottled water happens to be Mr. Monk’s favorite drink,” I said.
“You’re joking,” she said, following my gaze.
“Nope,” I said. “In fact, he’s a bottled water connoisseur. He can sip a glass and tell you how old the water is, where it came from, and the minerals that it contains.”
“Incredible,” she said.
Monk stopped in front of us and glowered at Morse. “Do you have a twin sister?”
“I’m an only child,” Morse said.
“Are you having an extramarital sex affair with Joel Goldman?”
“Of course not,” she said. “How can you even ask me a question as rude as that?”
“Because anyone who washes herself with poop is clinically insane, has no moral or ethical scruples, and wouldn’t think twice about committing adultery or killing another human being.”
“You may be impolite but at least you’re honest,” she said. “I’m going to change your mind about me yet, Adrian.”
“Not as long as you keep selling excrement.”
“I’d like to invite both of you to my house for dinner tomorrow night,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said.
“I promise that nothing on the menu will be predigested,” she said.
“Gee, that sounds enticing,” Monk said. “But I’d rather have dinner with Charles Manson than break bread with you, and by ‘break,’ of course, I mean cut into even halves.”
“You are adorable,” she said.
“You are reprehensible,” he said.
I spoke up. “All this talk of food reminds me that I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I don’t think Mr. Monk has, either. So if you’ll excuse us, Ellen, I think we’ll head for the nearest set of Golden Arches that we can find.”
I opened the car door for Monk and practically shoved him inside, then got in myself and drove us away. My stomach growled so loudly it sounded like a small animal was in the car with us. Apparently, drinking a cup of hot civet poop hadn’t diminished my appetite. If anything, it had stimulated it.
“Was anything missing in the house?” I asked.
“It appears some jewelry and cash were taken,” Monk said. “It’s consistent with the previous burglaries.”
“But something isn’t sitting right with you.”
“It’s her,” Monk said.
“I don’t think that she’s been burglarizing houses and that Pamela Goldman caught her in the act and was killed for it.”
“Why not?”
“Ellen Morse would have to be awfully stupid to burglarize her next-door neighbor’s house.”
“Maybe she did it because she’s fiendishly clever. She anticipated that someone like you would think that she’d be too smart to burglarize her own neighbor and would rule her out as a suspect. It’s a shrewd ploy and you’re falling for it.”
“You’re forgetting that she has an alibi. She was seen in her store at the time of the murder.”
Monk waved it off. “I’ve heard better.”
I sighed because I knew what was coming and was already tired of it. Actually, I was just plain exhausted all the way around.
“You’re going to mention the guy in outer space again, aren’t you?”
“And the one in the coma. Those were top-notch, ironclad alibis, a lot more clever and challenging to crack than ‘I was in my store all day selling excrement.’”
“Okay, let’s say she was able to be in two places at once.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all day.”
“When did she burglarize the other house today?”
“Which other house?”
“David and Heather McAfee’s. The one where you found the washer and the lint. Are you suggesting that after we left her store, Morse went out and immediately burglarized the McAfee house and then hit the Goldman place a couple of hours later?”
“Why not?”
&nb
sp; “She’d have to be crazy,” I said.
Monk gave me a look. “I think we’ve clearly established that fact beyond any reasonable doubt.”
I found a McDonald’s and parked out front. I knew Monk would like the restaurant because it served the same items, in the same way, with exactly the same flavor, no matter which location you visited. He liked consistency.
The only thing that was different was the layout of each individual restaurant, but as disconcerting as that was, he could always depend on them being impeccably clean inside. The place reeked of cleaning supplies and, unfortunately, most of the food tasted like it as well.
I ordered two Big Macs, french fries, and a Coke for myself and got Monk a Big Mac minus the bun (he hated the “chaos of sesame seeds”) and not assembled. He preferred all the ingredients boxed separately. I also got him an order of french fries, which I knew he would trim with his knife and fork so all the pieces were the same size.
For a beverage, he had one of the bottles of Fiji water I kept in my ridiculously large purse, the kind mothers with newborns carry around to lug all of their baby stuff.
The fact was, I had a lot of the same things in my purse that those mothers have in theirs. Disinfectant wipes, baggies, and even some snacks—little packets of Wheat Thins that I’d forgotten all about until that moment. I could have helped myself to Monk’s snacks instead of starving all day.
We took our food to a booth and ate in silence, mostly because I was too intent on devouring my meal. I ate it so fast that I didn’t even taste it, which was probably a good thing, considering where we were dining.
Monk ate carefully and methodically with his knife and fork, as if performing surgery on the food rather than eating it. I could see that the lack of sleep, lack of food, and the stress of his long day were beginning to take their toll on him. He looked pale, there were dark circles under his eyes, and he was moving more slowly than usual.
“What did you do while I took my nap?” I asked.
“I read through all the files on the burglaries and looked for patterns and inconsistencies.”
“What did you find?”
“That I couldn’t stop thinking about Ellen Morse,” Monk said. “It just shows how corrupt this city really was that she was allowed to open that business on their main street. What I can’t understand is why Randy has gone along with it.”
