Mr. Monk Is a Mess

by Lee Goldberg

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mr. Monk and the Milestone

  For an instant, Stottlemeyer was too stunned to move, but Devlin reacted quickly. She pushed past the captain and charged Monk, who grabbed a frying pan from the drainer to defend himself as he chewed and swallowed the pills.

  “Call 911,” she said to Stottlemeyer.

  “What were you thinking, saying that to Monk?” the captain said. “Couldn’t you see how vulnerable he is?”

  “I’ll handle Monk,” she said.

  Monk swallowed some more of the pills that were in his mouth and then said, “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m going to jam my fingers down your throat and make you vomit,” she said.

  “Are you insane?” Monk said, taking another swing at her. “I’d rather kill myself.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Devlin said.

  “Listen to me, Adrian.” Stottlemeyer took a step toward him, hands out at his sides in a gesture of openness. “It’s going to be okay, I promise you. Natalie may be gone, but I’m still here. You’re not alone. You’re valued. Taking your life isn’t the answer.”

  “What makes you think I want to commit suicide?”

  “You said you were bereft and alone and then you swallowed a bottle of allergy medication,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “That wasn’t allergy medication,” Monk said.

  Devlin picked the bottle up off the floor. “This is prescription-strength Benadryl. It says so on the label.”

  “They’re placebos. All of those pills are,” Monk said, tipping his head toward the other bottles. “They’re harmless combinations of xantham gum, cellulose, sugar, whey, lactose, cornstarch, and yeast coated with shellac to keep them from dissolving and to prevent people from tasting or smelling the ingredients.”

  “How do you know those pills are fakes?” Devlin asked.

  “I recognized them. They are the same ones Sharona and Dr. Kroger tried to trick me with whenever they were too lazy to address my legitimate medical and psychiatric concerns.”

  Devlin looked back at Stottlemeyer, who sagged with relief.

  “You actually believe him?” she said incredulously. “You honestly think he can spot a placebo just by looking at it?”

  “I do,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s impossible,” she said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Monk said. “There are distinct differences in shape and density between the fakes and the real drugs.”

  Devlin gave him a long, cold look. “Maybe I should make him puke just to be safe.”

  Monk took a step back and held up his frying pan, ready to strike. “What you should do is arrest Andy Bartlett.”

  “Who?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “The pharmacist who lives next door in the obscenely big house,” Monk said.

  “Not the damn house again. We can’t arrest a man for adding on to his home and making it larger than the others on his street,” Stottlemeyer said. “At most, it’s a building code violation.”

  “That’s a grave injustice,” Monk said. “But at least there are still laws in this country against murder.”

  “You think Bartlett killed Goodman?” Devlin said. “Didn’t you hear one word of my rundown of the case?”

  “I did, and that’s what proves it.” Monk gestured to the pills. “These medications were prescribed by three different doctors. But what they have in common is that the prescriptions were filled at Andy Bartlett’s pharmacy. Here’s what happened: Bartlett wanted to expand his grotesque home even more, but his neighbors refused to sell. When Goodman began having allergy problems, Bartlett saw his chance. He filled the prescriptions with placebos, knowing that would mean that Goodman’s nose would remain stuffy and he wouldn’t be able to smell a thing. Bartlett also knew Goodman was a barbecue enthusiast who grilled every meal. So Bartlett sabotaged the gas and simply bided his time until . . .”

  “Boom,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Devlin said. “It’s pure supposition without a shred of evidence.”

  “No, it’s not,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “What more have we got than Monk’s outrageous theory?”

  The captain smiled. “We have Monk.”

  She looked back at Monk. “What about him?”

  “He’s alive and well, and if those pills were real, he’d be on the floor by now, wouldn’t he?” Stottlemeyer said. “That’s why he ate them, to prove his point.”

  Devlin was frustrated, and she was pissed, but she couldn’t deny the obvious: Monk was perfectly healthy.

  “Even if he’s right about the placebos, how do we know that Bartlett is the killer?” she said. “Anybody could have switched out the pills with fakes.”

  “Goodman lived alone,” Monk said. “Bartlett was the only one who had access to all the drugs from the three different doctors and could make absolutely sure that Goodman only got placebos.”

  “Where’s Bartlett now?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  Devlin tipped her head toward the window. “Next door.”

  “Arrest him,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “And tell him that’s what happens when you start breaking patterns,” Monk said. “It leads to this.”

  Devlin gave Monk a nasty look and stormed out of the kitchen without another word.

  “She’s a barbarian.” Monk set the frying pan in the dish drainer, took a wipe out of his pocket, and cleaned his hands. “What kind of person would even think of putting her fingers down someone’s throat?”

  “You should be flattered that she wanted to save your life. You’ve given her plenty of incentive not to.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for starters, you humiliated her here today.”

  “She was wrong,” Monk said. “Are you suggesting I should have let the pharmacist get away with murder, in addition to building a grotesquely oversized home, just to spare her feelings?”

  “No, but you could have pointed out her error in a more thoughtful and collaborative manner.”

  “I don’t see how,” Monk said.

  “You could have complimented her on everything that she got right and then shared with her the tiny detail that she missed, one you only caught because of specialized knowledge that she didn’t have,” Stottlemeyer said. “Instead, you slipped into the kitchen and swallowed a bottle of pills.”

  “Placebos,” Monk said.

  “You took a huge risk just to dramatically show her up,” Stottlemeyer said. “What if you had been wrong about those pills? You’d be dead now.”

  “At least I wouldn’t have to change.”

  “Too late for that,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’ve just made a major one. I’d even go so far as to say it’s life-altering.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you realize what happened today?”

  “Natalie abandoned me,” Monk said.

  “And you walked to the police station by yourself, went to a crime scene, and solved a case. That’s a milestone, Monk. It’s huge.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “You got to the station and did your job on your own, without an assistant. It means you’re finally self-sufficient again. You can let Natalie go and not have to hire anyone else.”

  Monk rolled his shoulders. “And be all alone?”

  “Of course not. I meant what I said before. I’ll be here for you.”

  “Will you do my shopping?”

  “I can see we’re going to have to define exactly what I mean by ‘here for you.’”

  “Yes!” Monk cried out, startling Stottlemeyer. “My God, it’s finally happened.”

  “What has?”

  “My years of hard work and extraordinary patience have paid off. Now you know that it’s necessary to list, define, and categorize your rules of conduct. This is your long-awaited breakthrough. Others may have doubted that you’d achieve it, but I never lost faith in you, Leland.”


  “Your faith was my guiding light, Monk,” the captain said, entirely for his own amusement, since he knew that his sarcasm was completely wasted on Monk.

  “When we get home,” Monk said, “you can borrow some of my rules and use them as a model for your own.”

  * * *

  “There’s no need,” Stottlemeyer said, heading toward the front door. “I still have the eight-volume set you gave me for Christmas.”

  Stottlemeyer’s mistake was walking Monk to his door and, in retrospect, even he wasn’t sure why he did it. If the captain had stayed in his car and just dropped Monk off, he might have made a clean getaway and I might have been spared a measure of discomfort.

  But he didn’t. Stottlemeyer was there when Monk opened the door to his apartment and recoiled in shock at what he saw.

  “My apartment has been ransacked, pillaged, and desecrated,” Monk said and ventured cautiously inside.

  Stottlemeyer strode in and went right past him into the living room.

  Sure, the furniture and artwork weren’t precisely positioned so that everything was centered, balanced, and symmetrical, but the place was still neat and orderly.

  All that was lost was the cold, sterile feeling the apartment had before, and as far as Stottlemeyer was concerned, that was an improvement.

  “You should be thankful, Monk. It looks to me like they were very careful and tried to put everything back the way they found it.”

  “Are you blind? It looks like a horde of rampaging, deranged Vikings rode through here on horseback. No, wait—that’s too civilized to describe what has happened here.”

  Monk was right that it felt like people had been in his home, but not in a bad way. For the first time, the apartment actually looked lived in to Stottlemeyer, as if people had sat on the furniture, opened a drawer, or read a book from one of the shelves.

  “So a chair isn’t in exactly the right place, a picture isn’t perfectly straight,” Stottlemeyer said. “Big deal. It adds character.”

  “It looks like a pack of rabid wolves chased a deer through here, attacked it, ripped the corpse apart, then dragged the steaming entrails through the entire house before relieving themselves in my kitchen on the way out.”

  “You’re overreacting, as usual. It’s nothing a little straightening up can’t fix.” Stottlemeyer walked past Monk to the door. “And now I’ll leave you to it.”

  “The hell you will,” Monk said, joining him. “This is too big a job to tackle this late in the afternoon. There’s no way that I’ll be able to make this place habitable enough to sleep here tonight. It could take weeks.”

  “You’re not staying with me,” Stottlemeyer said.

  Monk grimaced and came to a tough decision. “All right. Take me to Natalie’s.”

  “I thought she abandoned you.”

  “She did, but even she wouldn’t make me live on the street like a hobo bum.”

  “Aren’t you the guy who called her house a pit with carpet stains that would drive a person to suicide?”

  “It’s a risk I’ll have to take,” Monk said.

  “You’re missing my point. You insulted her home. What makes you think that she’ll welcome you inside after that?”

  “Because she knows I spoke up out of a deep and abiding concern for her safety and well-being,” Monk said. “Hopefully she’s come to her senses by now and will show the same concern for me.”

  And that’s how they ended up at my door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mr. Monk Gets Even

  When I opened my door and saw the two of them standing there, I wasn’t aware yet of all of the milestones that they’d reached or the crime that they’d solved in my absence.

  I’d figured that Monk would walk back to the police station to get a ride, but I didn’t think he would come to see me. I could think of only one reason that they’d both shown up at my door.

  “Has there been a break in one of the cases?”

  “Nope,” Stottlemeyer said. “But I see there’s been another break-in on your block. With your police experience, you ought to start a neighborhood watch program.”

  “I’m not going to be here much longer,” I said.

  Monk shouldered past him into the house, sniffing the air. “What is that intoxicating fragrance?”

  “Disinfectant,” I said.

  “Yes, that’s it. Industrial strength,” he said, and then he spun around, looking at the room in awe. “My God, it’s beautiful. What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “It was the crime scene cleaners.”

  “They did a spectacular job,” Monk said. “It’s as if they burned the house down and rebuilt it from scratch.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” I said. Stottlemeyer stepped in and I closed the door behind him.

  “I need to get them to my apartment right away,” Monk said, heading down the hallway, presumably to inspect the rest of the house.

  “Feel free to roam around the house,” I said, knowing full well that Monk couldn’t hear me and wouldn’t appreciate the sarcasm if he did. “Go through the drawers and closets, too. No need to ask.”

  “Hey, Julie.” Stottlemeyer went over to the kitchen table. “It’s good to see you. How are you doing at Berkeley?”

  “Real well, Captain,” she said.

  “You’re a young woman now and you don’t work for me,” he said. “I think it’s time you started calling me Leland.”

  “What do you think about Mom becoming a cop, Leland?” she asked, testing out his name to see how it rolled off her tongue. It did so clumsily.

  “She’s going to be a hell of a detective.” He helped himself to a cookie. “She already is.”

  “You’re just saying that so I won’t object to you eating my cookies,” I said. “What happened at Mr. Monk’s place?”

  “The FBI searched it and left a few things off-center, nothing anyone except Monk would ever notice,” Stottlemeyer said. “But he did, so his suitcase is in the car.”

  “Suitcase?” I said.

  “And a carton of Fiji water,” Stottlemeyer said with a grin.

  “My home is uninhabitable,” Monk said, returning from his inspection of my house. “I need to stay here until the crime scene unit can renovate it.”

  “Why go to the trouble?” Stottlemeyer said. “You’re moving to Summit anyway.”

  Julie looked at me. “He’s going with you?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Monk said.

  “Randy hired him, too,” I said. “If Mr. Monk goes, we’ll be partners.”

  “Of course you will.” Julie shook her head. “Are you still going to call him Mr. Monk and hand him his wipes?”

  “She could refer to me by my rank, which will certainly be higher than hers, if that will make her more comfortable,” Monk said, then gestured to me for a wipe, snapping his fingers.

  “What do you want a wipe for?” I said. “You just got done telling me the place looks spectacular.”

  “Except for that disgusting box from the post office that you’ve put on the table,” he said, “where we eat.”

  “We?” I took the box off the table, dropped it on the floor, and swept my piles of mail into it. “Happy now?”

  “I will be after I clean the table,” he said. “May I?”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “In answer to your earlier question, Captain, I’ll never get my cleaning deposit back if I leave my apartment the way it is now,” Monk said and he went to the cupboard under the sink to get my cleaning supplies, which he’d bought for me as a birthday present. “And what if I want to stay? I have a moral obligation to restore the residence to a sanitary condition.”

  Julie took the cookies and her milk and carried them to the coffee table in the living room. I handed my glass of milk to Stottlemeyer, picked up my laptop, and followed her.

  “Is that security camera footage I see?” he asked, looking over my shoulder as he followed me to the couch.
r />   “It’s from Beach’s grocery store,” I said. “The last place Yuki went before she disappeared.”

  “That reminds me,” Stottlemeyer said. “We ran her prints and got her sheet. Yuki Nakamura isn’t her real name.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Monk said, scrubbing the table.

  “Her name is Erika Ito. She was convicted of embezzlement and involuntary manslaughter in Missouri and was sentenced to eight years in state prison.”

  “Ambrose is a marvelous judge of character,” Monk said.

  “She didn’t serve her full sentence,” Stottlemeyer said. “The judge made some kind of procedural error in his jury instructions, so she was released on appeal after serving three years.”

  “Who did she embezzle and kill?” Monk asked. “A lonely bachelor living at home?”

  “She hacked into Juanita Banana’s accounting department and stole a million dollars from their accounts,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Why did she pick a company that sells bananas?” I asked.

  “Devlin and I didn’t get a chance to dig much deeper than the general facts,” he said. “Maybe they just happened to have the easiest software to hack.”

  “Who did she kill?” Julie asked.

  “An operative with Blackthorn, the security firm that Juanita Banana hired to trace their stolen money. I don’t have the details, but I can get them.”

  “And this is the woman you want to reunite with Ambrose,” Monk said to me. “For shame.”

  “She did her time,” I said.

  “She got out on a technicality,” Stottlemeyer said.

  I glared at him. “Now you’re taking his side?”

  “No, I’m entirely neutral.”

  “Good. Then watch this security camera footage and tell me what you think,” I said and showed Stottlemeyer and Julie the video while Monk did his best to ignore us, though I saw him steal a glance or two at the screen. Afterward, I shared my analysis of the video with them.

  “You’ve really thought this out,” Julie said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Really?”

  “Honest to God,” she said. “What about you, Leland?”

  He nodded in agreement. “I can’t think of anything that she missed.”