by Hy Conrad
My consolation was that I knew Ellen or thought I did. She wasn’t the type to go crazy and endanger herself. On the other hand, she did send three photos from Miranda’s bathroom with four exclamation points.
Her first evening at the Sanctuary had been fairly ordinary. Or so I later heard. She tried her best to blend in, perhaps asking a few more questions than normal and showing a tad more curiosity. By the end of the day, she was growing impatient and promised herself to be a little more proactive the next day.
During the deep meditation part of Saturday’s sunrise yoga, Ellen formulated a plan, one borrowed from a hundred old episodes of Charlie’s Angels. She would break into the Bigleys’ private residence on the main building’s second level and see what she could find.
She’d chosen the morning’s Actualization-Visualization session as her cover. Everyone would be there, including Teresa, who was leading the group, and Damien, who would be circling the floor monitoring their progress. Ellen would find a place at the rear, partly hidden behind a pillar, and sneak out during the last half hour, when even Damien and Teresa would be in a lotus position on a mat with their eyes closed, visualizing. Probably visualizing each other naked.
For Ellen, the session went on forever. But finally, all eyes were closed, all voices humming contentedly. Her exit from the back of the room went perfectly, as far as she could tell. Seconds later she was quietly bounding up the stairs, past the red velvet “Staff Only” rope, to a door marked “Residence.” It was the floor’s only residence and was armed, she discovered, with a state-of-the-art keypad system. So much for trusting your trusty followers.
Without even trying her luck, Ellen looked for an alternative and spotted a balcony at the end of the hallway. The French doors were unlocked and revealed a stunning view. In an act of architectural hubris, the entire building had been cantilevered out over the seaside cliff. On the main floor, this was impressive. On the second level, with the support beams extending the floor plan out over the cliff, it was breathtaking.
Ellen emerged onto the small balcony and, looking to her left, saw a matching balcony, less than twenty feet away, that opened off of the Bigleys’ private apartment. She also saw that this balcony’s French doors had been left tantalizingly open. Less than twenty feet away.
What had made Ellen think this was even possible? Maybe she was an experienced rock wall climber. Maybe she’d spent every weekend at Planet Granite in the Presidio, going up from one tiny foothold to another. I doubt it, but maybe. Whatever her rationale, Ellen was over the railing in an instant, climbing sideways across the stacked stone wall, the surf pounding a hundred feet below her.
I don’t mean to diminish the suspense of the next minute or so, but there’s more suspense coming, so let’s cut to the chase. Her foot slipped once or twice on the narrow footholds but she made it across.
Ellen grabbed the iron railing with both hands, pulled her torso over and found herself staring into Miranda and Damien’s spacious bedroom.
After all the derring-do of getting in, the suite itself was a letdown. A king-sized bed provided plenty of room for spreading out. The furniture was Mission style, probably Stickley, probably originals. The suite had two bathrooms, his and hers. Ellen focused on hers, snapped photos of pill bottles and monogrammed towels, and took the time to send them to me.
On a bedside table, she thumbed through a well-thumbed copy of Spiritual Solutions by Deepak Chopra and didn’t quite know what to make of it—one self-help guru using another one for her bedtime inspiration. She took another photo, decided not to send it, and proceeded to open drawers.
The very last thing she found made the danger of the climb worthwhile. It was in the top dresser drawer, underneath a pile of Damien’s folded socks. It was an odd place, Ellen mused, to stash a pearl necklace worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Especially odd since it had last been seen on Miranda Bigley’s neck, vanishing off the edge of a cliff.
The police assumed the necklace had been torn free, the pearls spread out over the ocean floor. But here it was, safe and sound and lying underneath her husband’s socks.
Ellen laid it out on the bed and was about to take a photo when she heard a soft whir coming from the living room. She assumed it must be the heating system kicking in. A moment too late she realized what it was: the electronic key system.
Rushing to the bedroom door, she was just in time to see Damien Bigley walking in. He must have left early, she thought. But why? Why would he leave an Actualization-Visualization session early?
Bathroom break. It was an educated guess and Ellen faded back into the bedroom and hid behind the open door.
Did I disturb anything? she wondered, frozen in her shoes. Yes, right here. Damien’s sock drawer, gaping wide. It was on the opposite side of the room from his bathroom, so maybe he wouldn’t notice. Through the crack by the hinges, Ellen watched as a large man in a forest green polo strolled past her and toward his bathroom.
Yes! Bathroom break. Just as she thought. Being a detective wasn’t that hard, she reasoned. It was certainly something she could handle. Climbing around a building perched over a cliff. Finding a big clue. Making an escape while the bad guy’s busy in his own bath … Oh, no! Damn it, no.
Damien must have seen it out of the corner of his eye. He turned, focused on the drawer, and crossed quickly to the bureau, just a few feet from the open door. Ellen didn’t stop to think through this next part. She just ran.
Startled by the swing of the door, Damien was slow to react.
He was just coming out the door when Ellen reached the top of the stairs and started taking them two by two, steadying herself on the banister. Neither one called out or said a word. By the time Ellen reached the outside, Damien was halfway down the stairs. No one else was in sight.
The grounds, too, were deserted. Ellen didn’t pause to think what her options might be: locking herself in her cabin and calling the police; running for the guard at the gate; trying to bluff her way out. She just ran toward the light and the open space, past the cabins and the great lawn, to where the promontory of land swung around again.
Toward the cliff.
“Miss Morse.” They were out of sight and out of earshot from anyone. Just the surf and the sky and the edge of the world. “Ellen.”
She had stopped running, while he had reduced his pace to a wary walk. “What were you doing?” he demanded.
“Nothing,” she shouted back. “I was using the bathroom, like you.”
“How did you get in?”
“It was open.”
“It wasn’t open.” He was getting closer. “Give it back and I won’t press charges. We’ll pretend this never happened.”
It wasn’t until he said this that Ellen realized she was holding the necklace in her right hand. Not her phone, like she’d half thought in all her excitement, but the strand of perfectly matched pearls that could probably prove something, although she didn’t know what.
“No,” Ellen shouted back, then turned to face the unforgiving cliff.
“Miss Morse. There’s no way out.”
And that’s when she jumped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mr. Monk and the Bullies
I wasn’t surprised when Ellen didn’t text again. I was relieved. Maybe she was finally listening to me and keeping out of trouble.
After a second helping of apple-cured bacon and a sourdough biscuit, I returned to my room to brush my teeth and figure out how to spend the day.
During a regular day, even on a weekend, my schedule was dominated by Monk, either work related or trauma related or both. Naturally, my thoughts turned to him now and by extension to Devlin and Stottlemeyer. Of the three, only Devlin had a Facebook page.
Her last entry, according to my phone, had been this morning. “I’ve got Cemedrin headache number twenty-two,” it started, playing off the old TV commercials. “Better yet, give Monk a couple of Cemedrins. That would cure things.”
It was a
morbid inside joke only the four of us would get. And I couldn’t help thinking it had been aimed my way. You can imagine how curious this made me. But I couldn’t just call up and ask. That would go against my whole idea of a work stoppage.
As I later found out, Monk had arrived at headquarters on his own that morning, shortly after nine. He knew something was up as soon as he entered Stottlemeyer’s office and faced the off-center widow’s peak of Joshua Grooms and the less annoying crew cut of George Cardea, FBI special agents.
Monk’s list of phobias does not include individual humans. If it did, these two would be near the top. My experience with Grooms goes back to a time when he was holding Monk in protective custody in a cabin in the woods. Grooms wouldn’t listen to us about a murder at a nearby cabin, and we wound up escaping by locking him in a bathroom. Our relationship went downhill from there.
The captain and lieutenant were already on the scene, shooting Monk the kind of looks that say, “Keep your mouth shut,” which usually results in Monk saying, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said.
“Monk.” Stottlemeyer jumped in before they could. “You remember special agents Grooms and Cardea.”
“Monk,” said Cardea in his booming voice. “How’s it going?”
“Living the dream,” Monk said with a shudder. “It’s not my dream, but it must be someone’s.”
“Monk, my man.” Grooms locked eyes with Monk and held out his hand, like a snake hypnotizing its prey. He loved to make Monk shake his hand, just to witness his anguished reaction. “Where’s your perky little assistant with the wipes?”
“Wipe,” Monk shouted. Devlin came to the rescue, giving him a handful from a pack on the captain’s desk. “Natalie is taking a personal day or week or whatever she’s doing. I don’t know.” He finally stopped wiping.
“Our friends at the FBI dropped by to see if they could help us with a case.” The captain was trying to gain some control of the moment. “The Dudley Smith case. Not the other case we’re working on. Just the Smith case.”
“What’s the other case?” asked Cardea.
“It’s none of your business, sir,” said Lieutenant Devlin. “With all due respect.”
“We got a ping from our database about a poison case involving U.S. currency and the U.S. mail. Imagine our delight when your names came up.”
That couldn’t have been a good feeling, knowing that the FBI’s computer system was keeping tabs on your cases.
Stottlemeyer managed a smirk. “Far as I know, the FBI has no jurisdiction. We cleared everything with the Secret Service and the Postal Inspection Service, and they were happy for us to take the lead in what is a local homicide. So, thanks for the visit.”
Grooms pursed his lips. “As long as you’re sharing with the appropriate agencies. Isn’t that the point of this post-nine-eleven world? We share our information and cover our butts.”
“The second we have any evidence that involves the FBI’s interests, we’ll share,” Devlin promised.
“Absolutely,” Stottlemeyer seconded.
Monk’s mouth was too dry for him to add anything but a grunt.
“I hear there’re clowns involved,” said Special Agent Cardea maliciously. “That’s what your prelim says.”
“Hey, Monk,” said Grooms, “I thought you hated clowns. Oh, maybe ‘hate’s’ not the right word. ‘Scared.’ ‘Frightened to death.’ Are those the right words?”
“Monk’s got it under control,” said Devlin.
“Under control?” said Grooms, fixing Monk with another snake stare. “Really? Without little Natalie around to act as your human tranquilizer?”
“How do you solve a clown case?” Cardea asked Monk.
“Are you going to interrogate a roomful of them?” said Grooms. “Maybe you should do a lineup.” They were on either side of him now, ping-ponging it back and forth.
“Or get a sketch artist. ‘Yes, Officer, I think his nose was a little bigger.’”
“Just don’t get into a car chase.” Grooms went into a high-pitched clown voice. “Oh, the humanity!”
They could see the effect this was having. That’s why they were doing it. It was the one way these bullies could get even after all the times he’d shown them up. They certainly couldn’t outpolice him or outthink him.
“I can see the wreck now. A few unicycles. A tiny car. The world’s smallest bike.”
“Enough!” Stottlemeyer shouted, and pointed to the door. “Out of my office. If you have any more clever things to say, put them in writing and go through the proper channels. This meeting is over.”
“No, Captain, they’re right.”
Monk was shivering head to foot. Devlin told me later that she’d never seen him shake so badly. “I thought I could do this, Leland, I really did.”
“You can, Monk. Don’t let these animals—”
“I can’t. I know I’m letting a germ brother down, but— ” And he turned and fled the room.
• • •
I don’t know what I’d been planning to do for a full weekend, besides sitting around being Ellen’s backup.
My first time killer consisted of taking a hike around the B-and-B. The gravel drive opened onto a dirt road that wandered behind the house, down to a small secluded inlet. It always surprised me how towns that seemed so overbuilt and that prized their priceless beachfronts would have so many secluded spots, little beaches like this with nary a house in sight.
I looked north along the cliffs to where I knew the Sanctuary must be, nestled between its tall stucco walls and the sea.
For the next hour I wandered the town’s Main Street, going into shops crowded with antiques and knickknacks and making a mental list of all the adorable things I couldn’t afford. Not that I’m complaining, but it gets a little old, always pinching pennies. I wondered how our partnership, Monk and Teeger, might positively affect my income—if there ever was to be a Monk and Teeger. At this point it looked iffy.
After sufficiently depressing myself, I strolled back to my Subaru and noticed my binoculars in the backseat. Ellen hadn’t called or texted since breakfast. She wasn’t scheduled until after lunch, so I was just a little bit anxious. I’m not sure “anxious” is the word. Concerned? Aware? I should ask Monk. He’s like an Eskimo. You know, the guys who have thirty words for snow? Monk must have at least fifty words for his various levels of anxiety.
Before I realized where I was going, I found myself driving to a turnout not far from the white stucco wall that marked the northern boundary of the BPM Sanctuary. Two weeks ago, this had been the prime gathering point for the TV trucks and photographers. I bowed to the wisdom of professional snoops and pulled in.
Taking my pair of vintage Bausch and Lombs, I crossed the Cabrillo Highway and began to scout out a place in the sandy scrub, a little shielded from the road, but still with a view over the north wall.
Sure, this was a pointless exercise. So is Pilates, at least for me.
But it made me feel better. It gave me a sense of control, knowing that, if Ellen was in trouble and had the wherewithal to stand on the lawn and wave a colorful distress flag, I would be there to see it and come to her rescue.
I’d been sitting there for perhaps forty minutes, just long enough to have my left leg fall asleep, when I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was a flash of color—red, maybe—moving between my cubbyhole and the road above.
I trained my binoculars on the spot. A second later, I saw it again. Could those be roses? Growing in this sandy terrain? No.
But, yes, I decided after taking another look. These were roses, profoundly red ones. And they were bobbing up and down and coming closer. Not only roses, but long-stemmed. Exactly ten of them, being held above someone’s head like a white flag.
“Natalie,” he moaned from a distance. “Please come back.”
I moaned as well. “Adrian.” Then I got up to shake my sleepy
leg. “How did you find me?”
Monk wobbled closer and closer, trying desperately not to let the sand get into his pant cuffs. “I knew you were still obsessed. So I called the Sanctuary and you weren’t registered. So I had Luther drive me here and we saw your car parked off the road.”
“Who is Luther?’
“He’s this guy. Here!” Monk stood in front of me, pushing the plastic roses into my face.
I had to hang the binoculars around my neck to accept them. “What am I supposed to do with these?”
“I don’t know. It’s part of the ritual. It seemed to work with Ellen.”
“Well, it’s not going to fix this. Who is Luther?”
“He’s this guy. What do you expect to see with those binoculars?”
“None of your business. Who’s Luther?”
“This guy. Can we please discuss this someplace not so sandy?”
“Sure.” Why not? This spying wasn’t getting me anywhere, and I had to find out who Luther was. I stretched my dozing leg again and handed him back the roses.
“No, those are for you.”
“I don’t want ten artificial roses.”
“Fine,” he said sulkily. “I’ll save them for someone else.”
“You do that.”
“Can you carry them back up to the car for me?”
“Carry them back yourself.”
“I’d prefer not to. They set me off balance. We can leave them here in the sand. Why don’t we do that? They’ll just return to nature.”
“They won’t return to nature. They’re plastic.”
I wound up carrying the roses in one hand and my binoculars in the other.
Up at the turnout, I was finally introduced to Luther and his car. “Good to meet you, Natalie.” The man was in a black suit, a white shirt, and a black tie and wore a cap that he tipped my way. “I’ve heard a lot.”
Monk nodded. “Mostly about how dirty your car is and how unreliable you are.”
I took Monk a few yards away, although I’m sure Luther could still hear. “A chauffeur? You hired a limousine and chauffeur?”
