by Lee Goldberg
“See, this is exactly what I warned you about. You’re letting your revulsion of Ellen Morse’s business cloud your judgment. You aren’t going to be able to think clearly, or solve crimes, as long as she’s on your mind.”
“Unless she’s guilty.”
“But what if she’s not? Then your inability to stop thinking about her might give a killer the opportunity to get away with murder and cause Randy to lose his job.”
“You’re right,” Monk said.
“I know I am.”
“She has to go.”
“That’s not what I was getting at.”
“We have to run her out of town for the good of the community,” Monk said. “Unless I can arrest her for burglary and murder first.”
“I don’t think you’re getting my point.”
Monk yawned. “But all of that will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m too tired to restore the balance of the universe tonight. Do you mind if we go back to the hotel?”
“Not at all,” I said.
We dropped the police car at the station. It was a nice night and we walked to the Claremont Hotel in comfortable silence.
We said our good nights and went up to our rooms.
The effects of the flight, the spotty bits of sleep since then, the periodic jolts of caffeine and adrenaline in between, and the junk food binge all worked together to completely screw up my internal clock and my metabolism.
I was dead tired yet wide-awake.
I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it wasn’t.
My eyes burned and my body was exhausted but my mind was too jacked up to sleep. I could almost hear the neurons firing in my skull.
I tossed and turned in bed in my tank top and panties for what felt like an eternity before I finally gave up and turned on the TV, flipping the channels through endless reruns of various versions of CSI and Law & Order, feeling nostalgic for the time when there used to be other shows on the air besides those two and their procedural, character-free progeny.
But somehow the kaleidoscope of CSI and Law & Order had a hypnotic effect on me and after a time—it could have been minutes or hours—I found myself locked in a strange trance, floating somewhere between consciousness and sleep, caught in a seemingly endless loop of heavy-headed David Caruso whipping off his sunglasses and Sam Waterston shaking his shar-pei face in dour disapproval.
And I might have stayed that way forever, my eyes wide, my jaw hanging open, drool running down my chin, if not for the rainstorm.
In my room.
I didn’t even hear the explosion, or feel the fire, that made the sprinklers in the ceiling go off.
I just felt the cold water, which snapped me out of my stupor and into another one: several long seconds of extreme disorientation as I tried to figure out who I was, where I was, why it was raining indoors, and what that shrill alarm was that was making my ears hurt.
And then it all clicked.
Fire.
And then something else clicked.
Monk.
I threw off the sheets, ran to my door, and opened it. The hallway was thick with smoke and as I turned toward Monk’s room, I saw fire licking out of what remained of his door.
Oh my God, no!
I ran in terror to his room. I was almost there when the door to the hotel room between his and mine flew open, releasing a blast of hot air, and Monk tumbled out fully dressed and wide-eyed, soaking wet and shaken, flames nipping after him like angry dogs.
That’s when I remembered.…
He had two rooms.
Without saying a word, I grabbed his hand and ran with him to the stairwell.
We rushed down the two flights as fast as we could and out the emergency exit to the parking lot, where a dozen other soaked hotel guests had already gathered and stood staring at the flames coming out of the windows of what had been Monk’s rooms.
He looked at me. “I definitely would not recommend this hotel to other travelers.”
14
Mr. Monk in the Attic
The first police officers to arrive, our friends Walter Woodlake and Raymond Lindero, were on the scene moments later, followed in short order by the fire trucks, an ambulance, and Randy Disher.
Monk covered me with his jacket, heavy and soaked with water, less out of courtesy than his own extreme discomfort at my near-nakedness.
Officer Lindero didn’t have a problem with it, though. He couldn’t resist leering at me and making a comment before running into the hotel with Officer Woodlake to help evacuate the guests.
“Last night you were wrestling women, tonight it’s the wet T-shirt follies. What’s it going be tomorrow? You’re like a one-woman Pussycat Lounge.”
My response was a profanity that amused the officers and shocked Monk, who asked, “Are you suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder?”
I turned to him.
“I was awakened last night by an intruder and tonight by a fire and both times I had to endure obnoxious remarks from those two police officers while I was half-naked. How do you think I should have responded?”
“Those remarks could have been avoided if you hadn’t gone to bed in an indecent state.”
“This is how I sleep,” I said.
“What you do in the privacy of your home is one thing, and still something you should reconsider, but when you’re traveling, you need to change your behavior.”
“I am not going to go to bed fully dressed,” I said.
“Then you have no reason to complain,” he said. “If you dress like a stripper, you will be treated like one.”
“Thanks for the understanding,” I said.
The paramedics began handing out blankets to all of the drenched and shivering hotel guests in the parking lot. I gladly took one and gave Monk his jacket back.
Because the fire department got there so quickly, they were able to quash the flames within minutes and limit the actual fire damage to the rooms that Monk had occupied. But the water and smoke damage was extensive. Nobody would be sleeping in that wing of the hotel for a while.
Monk and I leaned on the hood of a police car for the next hour or so and watched the firemen mop up as the officers took statements from the hotel guests.
Disher huddled with the fire chief, presumably getting briefed on the details of the fire. There was no question that the blaze was intentional or who was supposed to get incinerated.
We’d had a very hectic twenty hours, causing far more trouble for Randy than we’d resolved. I’m sure Randy was thinking the same thing and asking himself whether it had been such a great idea to invite us to Summit after all.
Sharona drove up and rushed over to us carrying a laundry bag over her shoulder.
“Are you both okay?” she asked.
“We’re wet, but we’re fine,” I said.
“I brought you some clothes,” she said, handing me the bag. “They might not fit just right, but they’re better than nothing.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I am not wearing someone else’s clothes,” Monk said.
Sharona glared at him. “They’re clean, Adrian.”
“Not if someone else has been wearing them.”
“Randy has been wearing them,” she said.
“Randy is someone else.”
“Randy isn’t some hobo, and I washed the clothes myself.”
“I don’t wear used clothing,” Monk said. “Nobody should. It’s unsanitary and disgusting.”
“So you’d rather stay in those soaking-wet clothes and catch your death from cold.”
“Without question,” Monk said and turned to me. “You should follow my lead on this.”
Sharona spoke up. “Those are my clothes that I’m lending her.”
Monk looked at me sternly. “Need I say more?”
“I am not some kind of skank,” Sharona said.
“I will be glad to wear your clothes,” I said. “And I appreciate your bringing them down here in the middle of th
e night for us.”
“It was the least I could do,” Sharona said. “You both could have been killed and it would have been my fault.”
“You’re right,” Monk said.
“That’s cruel, Mr. Monk, and unfair.”
“It’s accurate,” he said.
“You owe her an apology,” I said.
“She’s the one who dragged me across the country to this toxic, excrement-strewn hellhole of corruption,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here to be killed if it wasn’t for her. That’s a fact.”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Monk. This is not the first time someone has tried to kill us. I don’t like it, but if you’re going after murderers, you’ve got to expect that occasionally they’re going to come after you, too.”
Monk turned to Sharona. “She has PTSD.”
“She’s telling you to stop whining and I agree with her,” Sharona said to him and then looked at me. “I had no idea you were so tough.”
“A burglar attacked me in my home and I killed him in self-defense. That’s how I met Mr. Monk and ended up working for him. In the years since then, I’ve seen a lot of death and looked into the eyes of more than a few killers. If that didn’t make me tougher, I would have quit this job a long time ago.”
Sharona shook her head. “You didn’t stay because you got tougher. You stayed because you enjoy it.”
“I don’t like being scared, and I certainly don’t like violence and death,” I said, “but yes, I suppose it’s true that I’ve grown to like the work.”
“Of course you do,” Monk said. “You work for me and I’m a very easygoing, likable person.”
“And she likes the rush,” Sharona said.
I shrugged. “It beats staying home and folding laundry.”
Monk gave me a look. “When have you ever folded laundry?”
Disher finished his talk with the fire chief and came over to us.
“The chief says the incendiary device was a Molotov cocktail that was thrown through the window. It ignited the curtains and the bedsheets and spread rapidly from there,” Disher said. “You’re lucky you were in the other room, Monk, or you’d be toast.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Monk said. “I slept in room 204 last night, so I had to sleep in room 206 tonight.”
“Why?” Disher said.
“Balance,” Sharona said. “Adrian had two rooms, therefore he had to alternate which room he slept in.”
I could see that Disher still didn’t get it.
“It’s not enough that both rooms are even-numbered, adjacent, and symmetrical,” I said, “but the time he spends in them has to be as well.”
“I wasn’t raised by apes,” Monk said.
“Fine. Whatever,” Disher said. “I don’t get how you managed to drive someone into a murderous rage in just one day.”
“I’ve seen it happen in five minutes,” Sharona said.
“I’ve seen it happen in two,” I said.
“Ask Ellen Morse,” Monk said. “She has plenty of motive to want me dead. I told her I was going to take her down and she knew that I meant it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Adrian. Ellen didn’t throw a Molotov cocktail through your window,” Sharona said. “And besides, how would she have known which room you were staying in?”
“Sharona is right,” Disher said. “Only the police and the hotel staff knew that.”
“Then it’s got to be the hotel owners,” I said. “It’s Monk’s fault that their ghost scam was exposed and they were arrested. Thanks to him, they can kiss their hotel business good-bye, as well as their freedom. Speaking of which, are they still in jail?”
Disher shook his head. “They were released on bail this afternoon.” He motioned over Officers Woodlake and Lindero, who were chatting with a couple of firemen.
Woodlake gestured to us as he approached. “I thought these two were supposed to lower the crime rate around here, Chief, not jack it up.”
“Did I ask for your opinion, Woodlake?” Disher said. “I want you two to go find Harold, Brenda, and Rhonda Dumetz and bring them in for questioning. Find out where they’ve been the last few hours and secure their home and cars for the forensics unit.”
“Yes sir,” Lindero said. He gave a little salute and got into the driver’s seat of the police car we were leaning against. Woodlake got in on the passenger side. We stepped away and they drove off.
Monk glanced up at his hotel room, then over at a line of pine trees that was midway between the building and the street. He rolled his shoulders and tipped his head from side to side.
It was his tell.
Disher studied him. “What are you thinking, Monk?”
He was thinking that he’d solved a mystery. What I didn’t know was which one it was or how the hell he’d done it.
“I’m thinking I need to go to 218 Primrose Lane right now,” he said.
“What’s there?” Sharona asked.
“The home of David and Heather McAfee,” Monk said. “They were burglarized yesterday morning.”
“It’s three a.m., Monk,” Disher said. “Can’t this wait until morning?”
“Not if you want to end the spree of burglaries, catch a killer, and capture an arsonist.”
Monk had solved all three mysteries, but there must have been one last piece of evidence that he needed to prove it, and it was at the McAfees’ house.
I knew he wouldn’t tell me what it was, so I didn’t bother asking.
I ducked into the ambulance and changed out of my wet and smoky clothes into a pair of Sharona’s tight jeans and a scoop-necked shirt. It was more scooped than I was either comfortable with or had the bosom for, so I put a sweater over it, too.
I emerged from the ambulance and rejoined Sharona and Monk, who regarded me with a bewildered expression on his face. I guess it was odd for him to see me dressed like his former assistant. But Sharona nodded with approval.
“You know something? This fire may have been a blessing in disguise,” Sharona said. “That’s a terrific look for you. You ought to burn the rest of your clothes when you get home.”
“I’ve been telling her that for years,” Monk said.
“You don’t have to burn clothes that get stained,” I said.
“No, you don’t,” Monk said. “You can bury them, shred them, or send them into outer space.”
“If we did that, our first extraterrestrial encounter might be with some bug-eyed alien race wearing our secondhand clothes,” I said. “Imagine E.T. in stained Ralph Lauren. Do we really want that?”
Sharona laughed. “Now you sound like Randy.”
“His way of thinking is infectious,” I said.
“So are a lot of other things about him,” Monk said. “Which is another reason I don’t want to wear his dirty clothes.”
Sharona groaned and went back home to get some sleep while Disher wrapped things up at the hotel, then drove the two of us over to the McAfees’ house.
Disher knocked on the front door, which was answered by a very groggy barefoot man in striped pajamas and a bathrobe.
“Sorry to wake you up, Mr. McAfee. I’m Police Chief Disher, and we’re here about—” Disher turned to Monk. “What are we here about?”
“Your attic, Mr. McAfee,” Monk said, stepping up beside Disher. “I need to see it.”
“Why?” McAfee yawned. “There’s nothing up there except baby clothes, Christmas decorations, and old paperbacks. Can’t this wait until morning?”
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Monk said. “Or we wouldn’t be here.”
The man sighed. “Come on in. I’ll get the ladder.”
McAfee put on a pair of slippers, went to the garage, and got the ladder, which he brought into the house and carried upstairs.
All of this ruckus naturally woke up his wife and two young kids, who stood in the hallway as McAfee climbed the ladder, opened the trapdoor into the attic, and disappeared inside.
Monk dropped his blanket and w
ent up the ladder behind McAfee, just high enough to peek inside the attic.
“Why is that man all wet?” the little girl asked her mother.
“Maybe it’s raining outside,” Heather McAfee said.
“It’s not, Mom,” the little boy said.
“Maybe he ran through some sprinklers,” the little girl said.
Monk came right back down again.
“That’s it?” Disher said.
“I’m all done.” Monk picked up the blanket and wrapped it around himself again. “We can go back to the station now.”
“What did you see up there that was so important?”
“Insulation,” he said.
“I could have told you they had insulation,” Disher said. “All houses have it.”
“But you couldn’t have told me what kind. This house was recently remodeled and reinsulated with sprayed cellulose instead of blanketed with fiberglass.”
“What difference does that make?” Disher asked.
“A big difference,” Heather McAfee said. “It’s the greenest insulation on the market, made almost entirely from recycled paper that’s treated with fire retardant. If everyone went green, we could save the ozone layer and our children from skin cancer.”
“I appreciate your desire to conserve resources, limit greenhouse gases, and recycle stuff,” Disher said to her, then shifted his gaze back to Monk. “But I don’t see what that has to do with the burglary in this house yesterday.”
“It proves who did it,” Monk said.
15
Mr. Monk Proves His Case
The three of us went back to the police station. Disher and I remained in the dark about who the felon was because Monk refused to tell us. He was saving it for the right dramatic moment and, despite my weariness, irritability, and discomfort, I wasn’t going to try to deprive him of that pleasure. He’d earned it. Disher seemed to have the same attitude—one born from long experience—because he didn’t press Monk for answers, either.
