by Lee Goldberg
I swallowed my ice cream and went for another scoop. “Is it that obvious?”
“It’s only natural,” she said. “I’ve done it four times and it’s never any easier. But once the actual move is over and things settle down, I’m always grateful that I took the risk and made the change. You have one advantage, though, that I never had.”
“What’s that?”
“Me,” she said, taking a spoonful of ice cream herself. “Someone who has already been down the road you’re traveling. I’ve got your back. I’ll start by looking for your new place here while you’re settling your affairs in San Francisco.”
“You make it sound like I’m going back for a funeral,” I said. “Come to think of it, I am. I’m burying my old life.”
“Oh, stop being so melodramatic,” she said, carefully exposing and removing a big chunk of cookie, like an archaeologist finding a rare fossil. “You’re making a change, that’s all.”
“I’m beginning to understand why Mr. Monk hates change so much.”
“Don’t you love your new job?”
“I do,” I said. “Even the mundane stuff is a thrill for me.”
“Don’t you like Summit?”
“I do,” I said. “I feel very comfortable here.”
“So you should be excited about what’s ahead.”
“I am,” I said. “But it’s not as simple as that.”
“Of course it is,” she said.
“For the last twenty-plus years, my life has been in San Francisco,” I said. “It’s where I married Mitch, bought a house, and raised Julie.”
Sharona waved away my argument. “Your husband has been dead for over a decade. Stop using him as an excuse not to have a life.”
“It’s more than that. How is Julie going to feel about me moving to Summit to become a cop?”
“Doesn’t she know that you’re already working here?”
“She knows that Mr. Monk and I are here helping Randy out,” I said. “But I haven’t told her that I’m actually working as a police officer.”
“Or that you’ve already accepted Randy’s job offer.”
“This is big stuff. I need to tell her face-to-face,” I said. “I don’t want her to be hurt.”
“What does she have to be hurt about?”
“That I made the decision without consulting her, for one thing.”
“It’s your life,” Sharona said. “Not hers. You don’t have to consult anyone.”
“I’m being selfish,” I said. “I’m abandoning her and our life together.”
“I’ve got a news bulletin for you, honey. Julie is an adult. She’s got a life of her own now, apart from yours. And I’ll bet that she’s not calling you to consult on every decision that she makes.”
“I wish she would,” I said.
“You should follow her example. You aren’t responsible for raising a child anymore. You have your life back. You can do as you please without anyone or anything tying you down. There are a lot of people who’d envy the opportunity that you have now to reinvent yourself.”
“But I’ll be leaving our house behind, the one thing Julie and I both have left that we shared with Mitch,” I said. “How can I do that?”
“She did,” Sharona said.
“She left to go to college, but it wasn’t like she went all the way to, oh, Summit, New Jersey. She went across the bay to Berkeley. She knew that she could always come home,” I said. “Where will home be now?”
“The one she makes for herself. It’s just a house and San Francisco is just a city. It’s the memories that matter and they’re going with you.”
“But the San Francisco Bay Area is where Mr. Monk has lived his entire life.”
“And Adrian is coming here, too. That alone should tell you something.”
“But what if he changes his mind and decides to stay in San Francisco?”
“Ah, now we’re getting to the heart of it.” Sharona got up, went to the cupboard, took out a package of Oreo cookies, and set it on the table. “You’re afraid to leave him.”
“He needs me, Sharona,” I said.
“Sure he does.” She opened the package, took out some cookies, and dropped them into the container of Oreo Cookie ice cream. “But does he need you as much as you need him?”
She began to mash the cookies into the ice cream with her spoon. I could see why she’d brought out the extra Oreos. I’d need the reinforcement. This was heavy stuff.
“Mr. Monk has come a long way in the last few years,” I said. “I’m sure he’s capable now of living on his own. But I worry that if there isn’t someone running interference for him, cutting down on the little distractions and smoothing out his misunderstandings with others, then the frustration, confusion, and fear could build up in him, become too much, and he could crack.”
“He could,” she said. She stopped mashing and took a big cookie-filled scoop for herself. “But it’s not your problem.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said before I dug out a spoonful of ice cream and stuffed it in my mouth. It was delicious. Pure Oreo heaven.
“Do you think it was easy for me to leave Adrian?” she said. “He was much less capable of taking care of himself back then than he is now. But one thing was true then and is still true today: Adrian becomes your life and pretty soon you forget you have one of your own. I knew if I didn’t go, I’d end up sacrificing my life and my happiness for his and I wasn’t willing to do that. But I also knew I couldn’t face walking out on him. So one day I just didn’t show up. I left without even saying good-bye. And you know what? He survived. He found you.”
“What if he doesn’t find someone else?”
“I think he already has,” she said.
As if on cue, that’s when Monk returned from his dinner date and walked in on us in the kitchen.
“Are you two drunk?” Monk asked.
“No, of course not,” I said. “What makes you say that?”
“Because that’s the only thing that could explain such reckless and unsanitary behavior,” Monk said.
“There’s nothing wrong with sharing ice cream, Adrian,” Sharona said.
“Did you both floss and brush your teeth before eating out of the same container of ice cream?”
“No,” I said.
“So what you’re actually sharing is ice cream slathered with hot saliva teeming with millions of germs, bits of undigested food, and flecks of plaque. I hope you’re not thinking of putting that massive petri dish in the freezer and preserving it. That’s how the Black Death started.”
“With Oreo Cookie ice cream?” I said. “Did they even have Oreos back then?”
“Relax, Adrian,” Sharona said. “We intend to finish it here and now and with no regrets.”
“I’ll be sure to quote that in your eulogies,” Monk said and went to the refrigerator to get himself a bottle of Fiji water. He cleaned the top with a disinfectant wipe, then unscrewed the cap and drank directly from the bottle.
“Rough night?” Sharona asked.
“I told Ellen that I needed to find a place to live,” Monk said.
“And that made you feel anxious,” Sharona said. “Don’t worry, Adrian. While you’re in San Francisco, I’ll start looking for first-floor apartments that are even numbered, symmetrical, and spotlessly clean.”
“She pointed out that her house has four bedrooms, two baths, and was extremely clean and symmetrical,” Monk said.
“That’s true,” I said. “It’s got the same disinfected operating-room smell as your place.”
“She offered me a room in her house for as long as I wanted,” Monk said.
I shared a look with Sharona. “What did you say?”
“Naturally, I declined,” Monk said.
“Because you’re not ready for that kind of commitment,” Sharona said. “And everything that it implies.”
“It’s not the rental agreement that concerns me,” Monk said.
“She was asking you
to live with her, Adrian,” Sharona said.
“Strictly as a tenant,” Monk said.
“No, she wasn’t,” I said. “She wants to be with you, Mr. Monk.”
“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” Monk said. “She’s not that kind of woman.”
“Then why did you say no?” Sharona asked.
“Because I can’t live in the same house with someone who collects excrement art and uses excrement products.”
“It hasn’t stopped you from spending every free minute you have with her at her house,” I said.
“That’s because she put her personal excrement collection in hiding and refrained from using products derived from excrement while I was around,” Monk said. “But it’s still there. She still engages in excremental conduct. It’s the elephant excrement in the room we don’t talk about.”
“So what did you tell her?” I asked.
“That I’d be living with you,” Monk said.
“But you won’t be,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Of course I will.”
“Let me make this perfectly clear,” I said. “I will never share a home with you. Here or anywhere else.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because I have a life of my own,” I said.
“That revolves entirely around me,” Monk said. “Think how much easier it will be once we’re living in the same house.”
Sharona looked at me triumphantly. “I rest my case.”
CHAPTER SIX
Mr. Monk Goes Home
Disher drove us to Newark Airport in the morning for our flight back home. Before we got out of the Suburban, he handed us leather wallets containing our badges.
“You may be going back to San Francisco,” he said, “but you’re still Summit police officers.”
It was a very shrewd move on his part, a way to make sure we didn’t get too comfortable back home and begin to second-guess our decisions to make our temporary jobs permanent.
It also played on his understanding of our histories and vulnerabilities. Monk had fought for years to get reinstated to the SFPD after being thrown off for psychological reasons following his wife’s murder. Now Disher was showing his confidence in Monk by handing him a badge without making him struggle to earn it.
I’d bounced around for years, doing all kinds of jobs, before I stumbled into the role of Monk’s assistant. Even so, I wasn’t sure if I had any real, marketable skills or if I’d made any meaningful contributions to his investigations. Only recently had I begun to think that police work was something that I might not only have an affinity for, but might actually enjoy doing. By handing me a badge, Disher was officially recognizing my abilities. It was like the Wizard of Oz proving the Scarecrow had a brain by giving him a diploma.
We didn’t have any luggage, since our belongings had burned in a hotel fire (which is another story), so we checked in at one of the computer terminals and made our way to the gate.
Monk brought plastic booties to wear on his feet when he went through security without his shoes, and he didn’t object to walking through the X-ray machine this time.
Perhaps it was because he felt a kinship with the TSA agents. When they saw our badges, they asked us if we had any weapons to declare, and I said just my hands. I think they thought I was serious. They seemed to treat us with a deference reserved for law enforcement officers and Monk wasn’t going to jeopardize that by making any kind of scene.
One of Monk’s big phobias is flying. Usually, the only way to get him on a plane for a long flight is to give him an experimental drug that diminishes his OCD but turns him into a jerk. The other is to slip him a mickey, which is what we did to get him out to New Jersey. Much to my surprise, and despite his fury about being drugged before, he actually requested a strong sedative before getting on the flight. Once again, I credit the badge.
So while Monk slept through most of the five-hour flight, I sat in quiet contemplation, thinking about the tumultuous changes I was about to make in my life. After weeks of sleeping on Disher’s couch, I was looking forward to my own bed and the comforts of my own home, one I was about to abandon for a new career on the other side of the country.
As a cop.
Officer Natalie Teeger.
Wow.
It was hard to believe, but I had the evidence right there in my hands.
My badge.
I spent hours staring at the badge and appreciating what it represented about me and what it promised for my future.
I also had to admire once again how clever Disher was to give us those badges. Up until then, I’d never thought of him as being that smart or manipulative. Then again, I never saw him as chief-of-police material, either. I was obviously a lousy judge of character.
I wasn’t looking forward to packing up and saying good-bye to everyone, and yet I was eager to see how my parents, my daughter, Julie, and Captain Leland Stottlemeyer—Monk’s oldest friend and our boss at the SFPD—would all react to my badge.
We arrived at San Francisco International Airport in the early evening and I led a stumbling, very groggy Monk to my car in the long-term parking lot.
It’s a good thing that Monk was practically sleepwalking, because if he’d been alert and had seen the thick layer of dirt and bird crap on my car, he would not have gotten in, and would probably have called the Department of Health. Lucky for us both, he fell asleep moments after I sat him down and buckled him in.
I paid the attendant at the exit booth a parking fee roughly equal to the Kelley Blue Book value of my car, an expense that Disher would reimburse, and drove us into the city.
I hadn’t taken a sleeping pill and yet there was a dreamlike quality to the drive. All the passing scenery was familiar, but I felt removed from what I was seeing, as if it were already a memory.
San Francisco was the same as it was when I left it, but I didn’t return as the same person I was before. I’d changed in fundamental ways, and not just because I had a badge in my pocket.
While I was in Summit, I shot a man in the line of duty. I did so without the slightest hesitation. He’d survived and I felt no remorse for my quick action. It wasn’t just pulling the trigger that changed me—it was the knowledge that I could and that I would.
It surprised me. And I knew I’d be making more discoveries about myself in the coming months. It was scary and exciting at the same time.
I glanced over at Monk and wondered if, when he wasn’t sedated, he was feeling the same mix of excitement and anxiety that I was. Then again, feeling anxious was his usual state of mind.
I pulled up to his Art Deco–style apartment building on Pine, a shrinking pocket of affordability tucked between the old money and Victorian mansions of Pacific Heights to the north and the new money that was gentrifying the Western District to the south.
I walked him to his door, opened it for him, and then led him all the way in to his bed. He collapsed facefirst on his comforter. I took off his shoes, but beyond that, I left him as he was. If I so much as removed his jacket, he’d be humiliated and outraged when he woke up.
Most homes that have been closed up for weeks smell musty and stale, but not Monk’s place. It smelled as if it had just been thoroughly cleaned. I credited that inexplicable freshness to the accumulation of disinfectants and cleansers over the years. I was certain that I could bottle the air in his apartment and use it to disinfect operating rooms. On my way out, I checked a few tabletops and shelves and couldn’t find even a particle of dust.
But I was sure that when Monk awoke he would survey the apartment and decide it was caked in filth and nearly uninhabitable. At least it would make moving out easier for him to accept.
I slipped away, locked the door behind me, and headed south on Divisadero, across Market Street, and into Noe Valley, the quirky, self-consciously bohemian neighborhood where I lived on a tree-lined street of Victorian row houses, most of which were occupied by young families with lots of kids and dogs and credit card debt.
I parked in the driveway and immediately felt the emotional tug of home. I fought the urge to run to the door and, instead, walked slowly across the grass and up the steps of my front porch to appreciate my little piece of San Francisco real estate.
I unlocked the door and turned on the lights as I stepped inside. My house didn’t smell musty and stale, as I was expecting it to. Instead, it smelled like pizza, which was odd, since I couldn’t remember having one before I left.
Not only that, but there were two empty beer bottles on the coffee table.
And I don’t drink beer.
That left only one inescapable conclusion.
Someone has been living in my house.
My first thought was that Julie had used my house to party while I was away and, since she didn’t have any warning that I was returning, hadn’t had a chance to clean up the evidence.
I didn’t see her car out front, but just in case she and some boyfriend were in the house in the middle of something I didn’t want to walk in on, I announced my arrival.
“Julie, I’m home.”
I was standing there, waiting for a reply, or for some sound of movement, when I noticed something else unusual.
All the family photos of me, Julie, and Mitch were gone from the walls and bookshelves.
Why would Julie remove those?
She wouldn’t.
Something wasn’t right. I reached for the gun I didn’t have in the holster I wasn’t wearing. Since I had no weapon, I dropped my purse and grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the door. Hefting it like a batter waiting for a pitch, I moved slowly into the kitchen.
The table was set for a breakfast for two. There was an assortment of cereal boxes and jams, two cups of coffee, a carton of milk, a mushy bowl of cut watermelon, and a plate of dry toast.
Someone has been living in my house.
There was a pizza carton on the kitchen counter, four empty wine bottles in the recycle bin, and the dish rack was full of clean dishes.
Someone has been eating my food.
At least whoever it was had the courtesy to wash my dishes. So why did he leave the empty bottles in the living room and the untouched breakfast on the table?
