Mr. Monk Is a Mess

by Lee Goldberg

  Another lucky accident?

  Fat chance.

  So did they catch her?

  And if they did, what happened next? Were they holding her captive somewhere? Was her life in danger?

  Or was she already dead?

  I didn’t even want to contemplate that. But if she got away, why hadn’t she called Ambrose or the police?

  What I really needed was a detective to figure this out. Supposedly, I was one (well, technically I was a cop, which was close enough), but all I had was questions and no idea where to start looking for answers, except maybe in that box of Oreo cookies. In my experience, opening a box of Oreos was always a good start for anything.

  I was heading for the pantry when I heard the front door opening behind me. My heart skipped a beat and I grabbed the handiest potential weapon that I could find, the pizza slicer with the rolling blade, and whirled around to confront the intruder.

  My daughter, Julie, walked in and broke into a smile when she saw me girded for battle with my deadly pizza slicer.

  “Expecting trouble from Papa John?” she asked.

  I dropped the slicer on the table and gave her a big hug. “It’s so good to see you. What are you doing here?”

  Julie took a step back, and as I looked at her, so confident and mature, her car keys in her hand, it really hit me that she wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a woman.

  “You may not remember this, Mom, but I grew up on this street, so when some stranger dies in our bathtub and a whole bunch of cops show up at my house, word gets back to me,” she said. “What surprises me is that I heard it from my friends and not from you.”

  She didn’t say it with anger or bitterness, more with bemusement than anything else, but still her words stung. I’d been back home for two days, and I’d been so caught up in the mysteries of Michelle Keeling and Yuki Nakamura that I forgot all about calling Julie.

  “I am so sorry,” I said. “I’m a terrible mother.”

  “No, you’re not. You have a life, one I’m not as big a part of anymore, and believe me, I’m okay with that. It’s something I’ve been looking forward to.”

  “You have?”

  “Of course. Nobody my age wants their mom constantly looking over their shoulder. I don’t even mind that much that you didn’t tell me you were back in town. But you really need to call me right away when you find a dead body in our house.”

  “And vice versa,” I said, then quickly added, “though I hope that never happens to you. Before Mr. Monk came into our lives, I would have been certain that it wouldn’t, but now it wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Don’t worry, I understood what you meant,” she said. “How many times while I was growing up did I find myself involved in a murder investigation in some way? How many killers have I met? It has to be way higher than the national average for most kids.”

  “You have a good point. Want to share a box of Oreos with me?”

  “Wow, you must really have a lot on your mind.”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Sure, let’s pig out and tackle your problems,” she said and we headed into the kitchen. I took the box of cookies while Julie got out a carton of milk and two glasses.

  We sat down at the table and pushed aside the piles of mail, the box from the post office, the pizza carton, and my laptop.

  “So, what’s bugging you, Mom, besides the usual stuff with Mr. Monk?”

  I opened the Oreos and she filled two glasses with milk. She liked to dip her cookies in milk but I was an Oreo purist and liked mine straight up.

  “Well, there’s the dead woman in our house, and the matter of some stolen federal sting money that she had with her, and there’s Ambrose’s girlfriend, Yuki, who is missing, or perhaps abducted, or maybe even dead, but that’s not really what I need to talk to you about.”

  “There’s more? My God, no wonder you’re distracted.” She dipped her cookie into the milk.

  I reached into my pocket and put my badge on the table between us. Julie’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Who did you steal that from?”

  “It’s mine,” I said. “Randy offered me a job as a police officer in Summit, New Jersey.”

  She stared at me, holding her wet cookie over her glass. “You? A cop? You’re joking.”

  “I’ve actually been working as a uniformed police officer on a temporary basis for the last three weeks. And you know something?”

  “Obviously I don’t know anything,” she said and ate her cookie.

  “I liked it. And I was good at it. So I took the job.”

  “You did?” Julie sat back in her seat.

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “Surprised, that’s all. It’s not like it’s a big stretch. You’ve been working with the police for years. But still, you as a cop? That’s going to take some getting used to. Do you have to wear a uniform?”

  “And carry a gun,” I said and took a bite of my cookie.

  “I can’t picture it,” she said.

  “I’ll be sure to have someone take a photo when I get back to New Jersey. Are you okay with me moving there?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not up to me, Mom. It’s your decision.”

  “But what you think matters to me.”

  She took another cookie and pondered its complex mysteries before answering. “I think it’s a big change in your life. But I also know how exciting big changes can be. I don’t see why I should be the only one having all the fun.”

  Satisfied with herself, she dunked the cookie in her glass and took a bite.

  “I’d be far away,” I said.

  “I love you, but some distance between us might be a good thing.”

  “You just got done chewing me out for not keeping in touch.”

  “When you find a dead body in our house,” she said. “I’ll miss you, but we have phones, video chat, and e-mail. And we can get together for Christmas.”

  “But where?” I said. “If I go to Summit, that means selling this house, or at least renting it out. We won’t have a home anymore.”

  “I have a home. At the moment, it’s an apartment in Berkeley that I’m sharing with two other girls. Yours is wherever you want it to be.”

  “Your father and I bought this house together. You lived here all your life. Don’t you care about what happens to it?”

  “I care about what makes you happy,” she said. “If staying here does, then that’s great. But I honestly didn’t expect you to stay here forever.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “You moved around a lot before I was born, tried lots of different jobs. I figured that once I was out of the house, you’d get restless again. Apparently I was right.”

  “Gee, you know me better than I know myself.”

  “I’ve had twenty years to study you.”

  “So how come I can’t figure you out? I had no idea you were this perceptive. I really thought you’d be upset about this.”

  “Is that why you were avoiding me?”

  “Maybe, on some subconscious level,” I said.

  “I’m not thrilled that you’re becoming a cop, and the danger that it will put you in, but at least you won’t be Mr. Monk’s babysitter anymore.”

  “Well . . .” I began. But before I could say more, there was a knock at the door. I got up to answer it.

  “Don’t forget this,” Julie said, holding up the pizza slicer.

  “Very funny,” I said and went to the door. I opened it to find Monk and Stottlemeyer standing on my porch.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mr. Monk on His Own

  But before I get to what brought Monk to my door, maybe I’d better go back and tell you what happened after I left him on the sidewalk outside the Federal Building (which, of course, I only found out about later from everyone involved).

  He stood at the curb, waiting for me to come back. He was certain that I wasn’t serious about leaving him behind and had just driven around the block to make some irrat
ional point that only I, in my female delirium, understood.

  But after ten long minutes he realized that I wasn’t joking and that I’d done something truly insane.

  I’d abandoned him.

  For the first time in eight years, he was entirely on his own.

  Even worse, he was on his own on a sidewalk crowded with people.

  And their filth.

  And their germs.

  And their pets.

  And the gum, dirt, garbage, excrement, spit, food, and other lethal detritus, not to mention the uneven surfaces, cracks, and paving materials that were underfoot.

  A civilized person, in his view, would have taken him home before abandoning him.

  Or at least left him with a cyanide pill he could take in case of an emergency, like a bird crapping on his head.

  Now what was he going to do?

  He’d been on his own on the streets of Summit, but that was different. This was the big city. The streets of Summit were deserted compared to those of San Francisco, where the sidewalks were teeming with mobs of perspiring, sneezing, coughing, oozing, and drooling couriers of horrific diseases and certain death.

  He looked back at the Federal Building, the San Francisco home of the FBI, a law enforcement agency respected around the world.

  Surely they would help him out of his plight.

  How could they not?

  So he took a deep breath, drew into himself so he took up as little space as possible, and plunged into the treacherous currents of foot traffic.

  He kept his head down and his eyes open, deftly weaving amid the people coming and going, careful not to brush against anyone or anything as he made his way to the doors of the Federal Building.

  He waited for someone to enter or leave the lobby so he wouldn’t have to open the door himself. He had only a few wipes on him, so it was imperative that he ration them until he got home.

  Assuming he ever made it back alive.

  Monk slipped into the building as a man was leaving, barely squeezing through before the door closed. Once inside, he approached the agent who’d searched my bag.

  “I require your immediate assistance,” Monk said.

  “What for?” she asked.

  “I’ve been abandoned.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My assistant, Natalie Teeger, just left me on the street, alone and bereft.”

  “Isn’t that the woman who just tried to steal a bunch of stuff from the evidence room?”

  “Yes, and now this. Clearly she’s insane. So you can appreciate my plight. I need to get home.”

  “There’s a bus stop on the corner,” she said.

  Monk shook his head. “There are people on buses.”

  “So call a cab,” she said.

  “They’re even worse,” Monk said. “Drunks ride in the back and vomit all over everything. People even copulate back there. Cabs are chariots of death driven by Grim Reapers with unpronounceable names.”

  “So call a friend. Or walk.”

  Monk rolled his shoulders. “What I need is for you to have an agent drive me home.”

  “We aren’t a taxi service.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t clear. I’ve been abandoned.”

  She stared at him. “You’re a grown man.”

  “You are a law enforcement agency. You have a moral, ethical, and legal responsibility to make sure I get home safely.”

  “Maybe if you were a five-year-old kid, or someone with a serious physical handicap, or a developmentally disabled person who, without supervision, presents a grave danger to himself or others. But you don’t fit any of those descriptions.”

  “If I am attacked by hobos or sniffed by a dog or contract a deadly disease, you will be racked with guilt every waking moment of your life,” Monk said. “Are you prepared to live with that on your conscience?”

  She looked him right in the eye. “Yes.”

  Monk glanced at the other agents and guards, who were watching this scene unfold with mild amusement.

  “What about the rest of you?” Monk asked the crowd and they all nodded in agreement. “This is a disgrace. Can you at least hold the door open for me?”

  “With pleasure.” The woman stepped forward, held the door open, and beckoned Monk outside with an elaborate bow and sweep of her arm.

  Monk put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, drew his shoulders into himself, and stepped past her.

  “This is a sad, sad day for America and the future of our republic,” he said.

  But once he was out on the sidewalk, amid the crowd of people, he felt something in his pocket that he’d forgotten was there.

  His badge.

  It reminded him that he was a police officer. He was required to be courageous, to set an example for others to follow.

  And he realized that he was protected by the same authority that the badge imbued him with.

  He suddenly felt empowered, almost impervious to harm.

  So he stood up straight, took a deep breath, and marched a few yards northeast on Mission Street, then made a sharp right on Seventh. He was determined to make the arduous journey to police headquarters, which was at the corner of Bryant, just past the Bayshore Freeway overpass.

  It was less than half a mile away.

  A mere three blocks. Five minutes by car and maybe fifteen minutes on foot.

  And his short walk would be through the trendy, and highly gentrified, neighborhood known as SoMa, short for “South of Market” and San Francisco’s would-be equivalent of New York’s SoHo. The streets were lined with upscale apartments and renovated lofts, cafés and clubs, and a few car repair places and bodegas.

  But he might as well have been walking barefoot across the Gobi Desert.

  Everywhere he looked he saw potential peril.

  And yet he persevered, thanks to the badge in his pocket and the distractions of counting parking meters and making sure he didn’t step on any cracks on the sidewalk.

  He was a block down the street when he saw a stray dog heading his way. It was a panting black Labrador with a jauntiness to its step that any other person would have recognized as a sign of a sunny disposition.

  But Monk saw it as a symptom of rabies.

  He froze in place and held his breath, so as to appear inanimate, but then feared the dog might mistake him for a tree or a fire hydrant and urinate on him.

  Faced with that horrific possibility, he decided he’d rather be bitten, so he started walking slowly forward, careful not to make eye contact with the rabid beast and provoke an attack.

  The dog abruptly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, arched its back as if to sit, but then began defecating instead.

  “No!” Monk yelled. “Bad dog!”

  But the dog didn’t listen. Monk looked around for firefighters, police officers, animal control officers, paramedics, or a clergyman—anybody who could help deal with this crisis.

  There was no one, not even another passerby.

  When he turned around again, there was a pile of crap on the sidewalk and the dog ambled right past him.

  Faced with dog manure on the sidewalk, Monk could not go forward on either side of the street. That whole section of the block was contaminated as far as he was concerned.

  So he walked back to Mission, turned to his right, walked a block west, then took Sixth Street down to Folsom, turned right, and headed back to Bryant to continue his southward journey, the dog poop a safe distance behind him. He made a mental note to call the Department of Health to send a hazardous materials team to evacuate the nearby businesses and clean the street.

  Midway down the block he strolled past a Motor Moe’s Automotive Center and its iconic sign featuring a cartoon depiction of a smiling, bow-tied mechanic wearing a beret and holding an oilcan in one hand and a wrench in the other. The garage’s four car repair bays were open and there were three vehicles up on lifts and a Chevy Malibu on the ground, its hood open. The mechanics had stained overalls and thei
r hands were black with oil, grease, tar, and God knew what. The shelves were in disarray and there were stains on the garage floor.

  Monk tried to ignore it and move on, but he couldn’t. He had a responsibility, not only as an officer of the law but as a civilized human being. He approached a mechanic working on one of the cars.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Monk said. “Where can I find Motor Moe? I would like to have a word with him.”

  The mechanic poked his head out from under the hood. He had a dab of grease on his forehead and wasn’t wearing a bow tie or a beret.

  “Very funny,” he said. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “You could summon Motor Moe,” Monk said.

  “There are a hundred and fifty Motor Moe locations,” he said. “If he exists, and works at one of them, it’s not here. What’s your problem?”

  “You have three cars raised,” Monk said.

  “We’re working on them.”

  “You have four cars in the garage.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You need to raise your car, too,” Monk said.

  “But this one doesn’t need to be raised for me to work on it.”

  “Then you need to lower one of the other cars,” Monk said. “You also need to clean this place up. There’s oil and grease everywhere.”

  “It’s a garage,” he said.

  “And look at yourself. You’re a disgrace. Motor Moe would be very disappointed in you.”

  The mechanic stepped up to Monk. “What did you call me?”

  “Look at Motor Moe,” Monk said, pointing to the sign. “He’s clean and wearing a tie and a beret. Now look at yourself. You’re out of uniform and a mess.”

  The mechanic stared at Monk for a long moment, then nodded. “You know, you’re right. We’ll close up shop right away, clean up everything, and get ourselves some berets.”

  “And bow ties,” Monk said.

  “Right,” the mechanic said. “Bow ties. Don’t know what I was thinking, coming to work in a garage without one.”

  Monk smiled, missing the man’s sarcasm entirely. “Your judgment was probably clouded by that beer you’ve been drinking.”