Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

by Lee Goldberg

  “It can’t be great as long as the world’s crookedest street is here,” Monk said. “What would be great is a city with the world’s straightest street. Just think of all the tourists who would come here to see it.”

  “Millions of tourists do come to see Lombard Street,” the mayor said.

  “To ridicule us,” Monk said. “Where do you think the phrase ‘those crazy Americans’ comes from? Lombard Street. Fix the street and they’ll never say it again.”

  “Right now, I’m more concerned about the lack of police officers reporting to work. Most of the patrol officers are on the job; it’s the detectives and supervisory personnel who aren’t showing up,” the mayor said. “It’s creating a serious public-safety issue. We don’t have the manpower to investigate major felonies. You know how important the first forty-eight hours are in an investigation. Tracks are getting cold. Something must be done about this, especially with this strangler on the loose. They couldn’t have picked a worse time to pull this crap.”

  “You could drop your demands for big cuts in police salaries and benefits,” I said. “I bet that would bring the detectives back to work.”

  “Sure, I could give the police officers what they want,” the mayor said, shooting me an angry look before shifting his gaze back to Monk, “but then where would the money come from to straighten Lombard Street?”

  Monk glanced at me. “He has a point.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said. “With all due respect, Mr. Smitrovich, these people lay their lives on the line for us. We owe them a decent wage, affordable medical care, and a comfortable retirement.”

  “And what should I tell the sewer workers, the schoolteachers, and the firefighters who aren’t enjoying the same benefits, Miss Teeger? And what do I tell the citizens who want new schools and cleaner, safer, straighter streets?”

  The last bit was clearly for Monk’s benefit, but Monk wasn’t paying attention. He was tipping this way and that, trying to peer around the mayor.

  The mayor looked over his shoulder to see what was distracting Monk. All he saw were the two window cleaners, running their blades across the glass, wiping away the soap.

  “You didn’t invite Mr. Monk down here to give him the city’s party line on the labor negotiations,” I said. “You want something from him.”

  “That’s true, I do,” the mayor said, addressing Monk. “I’d like your help solving the city’s homicides.”

  But Monk was busy waving at the window cleaners. They waved back. Monk waved again. They waved back. Monk waved again and they ignored him.

  “Mr. Monk consults for the police because of his special relationship with Captain Stottlemeyer,” I said. “He’s not going to work for another detective.”

  I looked at Monk for confirmation, but now he was wiping the air with his hand palm-out in front of him. The window cleaners finally understood and soaped the window again. Monk smiled approvingly as they wiped it with their blades.

  “I don’t want him to work for any other detectives,” the mayor said. “I want them to work for him.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “I want to reinstate him to the San Francisco Police Department,” the mayor said, “and promote him to captain of the homicide division.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I asked. “Because if it is, it’s cruel.”

  “I’m completely serious,” the mayor said.

  Monk marched over to the window and tapped on the glass. “You missed a spot.”

  The window cleaners shrugged. They couldn’t hear him. He mimed spraying the window and wiping the glass in front of him again. They shook their heads no.

  I looked at the mayor. “Now I know you’re joking.”

  “He’s got a better solve rate than all the detectives in the homicide department put together, and at a fraction of the cost. With Monk at the helm, the homicide department could do the same job, or better than, they’ve been doing, with at least half as many men. Besides, I think he’s ready for command.”

  “Are we talking about the same man?” I said. “Look at him.”

  Monk shook his head at the cleaners and pointed to the spot they had just cleaned. The two cleaners started hoisting their platform up to the next floor. Monk banged on the glass.

  “Get back down here,” Monk yelled.

  The mayor smiled. “I see a man with an incredible eye for detail and a commitment to sticking with a task until it’s done right.”

  Monk turned to me. I hoped he’d finally say something about the mayor’s outrageous offer.

  “I need a wipe,” Monk said.

  “Excuse us for a moment,” I said to the mayor, then went over to Monk and handed him a wipe. “Did you hear what the mayor just said?”

  Monk tore open the packet, took out the wipe, and began scrubbing the glass with it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Monk looked at his wipe and shook his head. “Silly me, the shmutz was inside.”

  He turned to the mayor and held up the wipe. “Crisis solved. You can relax now.”

  “Then you’ll take the job?” the mayor said.

  “What job?” Monk asked.

  “Captain of the homicide division,” the mayor said.

  Monk looked at the wipe in astonishment, then at me. “This was all I had to do? All these years I’ve been working to get back in and it comes down to this?”

  “Mr. Monk,” I said quietly, so the mayor couldn’t hear me. “He’s taking advantage of you. He’s using you as a ploy to break the strike. You’ll be a scab.”

  Monk winced with revulsion. “A scab? That sounds disgusting.”

  “They are,” I said. “You’d be relieving some of the pressure on the city and undermining the officers’ efforts to get a better contract.”

  “But he’s offering me my badge,” Monk said.

  “He’s offering you Captain Stottlemeyer’s job,” I said.

  Monk handed me the dirty wipe, then faced the mayor. “I want the job, but not at the captain’s expense.”

  “You’d just be filling in until this labor situation is resolved, commanding a handful of other reinstated detectives who, for various reasons, had to leave the department,” the mayor said. “But if you do a good job, and I know you will, this temporary assignment could become a permanent position at another division. I know you want to support the captain, but think about all those crimes going unsolved. Do you want people getting away with murder?”

  Monk looked at me. “How can I say no?”

  “Repeat after me,” I said. “No.”

  Monk considered that for a moment, then turned to the mayor. “I’ll do it.”

  4

  Mr. Monk Takes Command

  Before we left his office, Mayor Smitrovich gave Monk a badge and me a stack of personnel files on Monk’s team of detectives. I was more than a little leery about them. They’d been booted from the force. That meant they could be corrupt or inept. They could be alcoholics or drug addicts. They could be certifiably insane. Or they could be all of the above.

  How much could Monk really depend on them? Or trust them?

  Monk certainly couldn’t expect to get support from any of the competent, able-bodied cops who were still on the job. The officers had to know that if Monk and his motley crew of detectives succeeded, the rank and file would end up with lower wages and lost benefits. And the cops who’d walked out, especially Stottlemeyer and Disher, were going to look at what Monk was doing as a flat-out betrayal.

  Even if Monk’s reinstatement continued after the contract dispute was resolved, his fellow cops would never forget—or forgive—how he got his badge back. He’d be ostracized. He’d be an outsider in the department he so desperately wanted to be a part of again.

  But whatever worries I had about the task ahead, Monk certainly didn’t share them. He practically skipped out of the building into the Civic Center Plaza, his gold badge in his hand. I wouldn’t have been surprised if
he broke into song.

  To be honest, I was pissed at him, and not just because he was blithely ignoring the pitfalls of his decision.

  I’m a die-hard liberal, and while I wasn’t 100 percent behind the police sick-out, I was a big believer in supporting labor unions.

  There weren’t any actual picket lines, but I felt as if we’d crossed one anyway. And I was pretty sure Stottlemeyer and Disher and anybody else in blue would feel the same way.

  And yet I knew Monk had only two goals in life: to get his badge back and to solve his wife’s murder. For a long time, both seemed hopelessly out of his reach. And now the mayor was offering to make one of those dreams come true. I knew what that badge meant to Monk. It was an acknowledgment to himself and the world that he’d finally put his life back together after years of lonely struggle.

  Monk was right: How could he possibly say no? Who was I to begrudge him this opportunity?

  Nobody.

  I was his employee. My job, literally, was to support him. No one else was going to; that was for sure.

  So I tried to put my anger and frustration aside and focus on what I was paid to do, which was to make his life easier.

  I found a bench in the plaza and sat down to go through the files.

  Monk stood off to one side, silently admiring his badge, seeing how it caught the light. I think he was trying to convince himself that it was real.

  I opened up the first personnel file. The rugged, grim face of Jack Wyatt stared back at me with flinty eyes and gritted teeth. It was as if he were having a colonoscopy while the picture was taken.

  Wyatt was a veteran detective in his forties with an amazing case-closure rate and a body count to match it. His violent, unconventional methods earned him the nickname “Mad Jack” on the street and within the department. According to the file, he once ended a high-speed chase with a suspected serial killer by lobbing a hand grenade into the guy’s car. (I couldn’t find any explanation for why Jack was carrying around explosives.)

  It wasn’t until the city lost several lawsuits arising from Wyatt’s cases that his violent behavior and complete disregard for civil rights finally caught up with him. His badge was yanked three years ago. Since then, he’d been working as what was euphemistically called a “security consultant” in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan.

  What a charming guy.

  There was no picture of Cynthia Chow in her personnel file and not a lot of information, either. Someone had taken a Magic Marker and blacked out any names, dates, locations, and identifying details because her cases were still classified. That was because Chow spent much of her police career undercover, leading a dangerous double life where the slightest mistake or miscalculation could get her killed.

  To survive undercover, she had to live in a constant state of paranoia, which came naturally for her. It gradually became clear as I read that she was a paranoid schizophrenic. She saw conspiracies everywhere and believed that she was under constant surveillance. That much, at least, was true. Her superiors got increasingly concerned by her erratic behavior and kept a very close eye on her, telling her it was all part of the case. It wasn’t.

  After the resolution of her last undercover case, she was put into therapy and reassigned to homicide. But her paranoid delusions only got worse. By the time she was relieved of her badge, she claimed the government was listening to her thoughts, and space aliens were trying to impregnate her.

  The file didn’t say what she’d been doing since then. That had been redacted, too.

  Frank Porter’s file was actually several bulging folders strapped together with thick rubber bands. He’d spent forty-five years on the force, the last two decades in the homicide division.

  There were two pictures of him in the file. One was a faded black-and-white photo of a gangly young officer with a crew cut, presumably taken at his graduation from the academy. The other picture was in color and showed a heavier man with jowls, bags under his eyes, and a wide, garish tie that was cinched too tight around his thick neck.

  He’d earned an impressive number of commendations over the years for his steady, dependable police work. He probably would still be at a desk in the homicide department if health problems and “the clear onset of senility” hadn’t forced him to retire last year.

  I closed the files, snapped the rubber bands back into place, and reviewed what I’d learned. Monk’s team of crack detectives was comprised of a violent sociopath, a paranoid schizophrenic, and a senile old man.

  Monk was in deep trouble.

  “You should take a look at these files,” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” Monk said.

  “There are things you need to know about these detectives the mayor has assigned to you.”

  “I already know everything I need to know. They’re police officers.”

  “You don’t understand. These are some deeply troubled people. They were thrown off the force because they were incapable of functioning in their jobs.”

  “So was I,” Monk said.

  He gave his badge one more fond look, then slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.

  Sure, he was happy, but the giddy glee had waned, and I saw a hint in his downcast eyes of the sadness he always carried with him. That was when I realized that although he didn’t know any of these detectives, he probably understood them better than anyone else.

  And maybe, just maybe, he was exactly the right person to lead them.

  The homicide division was almost empty and surprisingly quiet when we arrived. A couple of uniformed officers were answering phones, but that was all that was happening. Take away the uniforms and the guns, and it could have been lunch hour in an accountant’s office.

  Monk touched each desk lamp he passed as he made his way to the captain’s office. I’ve never understood why he needed to tap a row of identical objects, like parking meters and streetlights, and keep a running count. Maybe it calmed him down. Maybe it created the illusion that there was actually some order in the chaotic world around him.

  He stopped in the doorway to the captain’s office and gazed at the clutter—the stacks of files (of cases past and present), the assorted coffee mugs (some used as pencil holders), the photographs (of Stottlemeyer’s family and fellow cops), the knick-knacks (like the acrylic paperweight that held a bullet taken from the captain’s shoulder), and the spare overcoat, jacket, shirt, and tie Stottlemeyer always kept on the coatrack.

  The clutter had increased in recent months. Since the captain’s marriage had crumbled, the office had become his home. I was surprised he hadn’t moved his bedroom set in.

  “I can’t work in here,” Monk said.

  I nodded. It was going to be a monumental chore to organize the office to Monk’s liking. It could take months and every available officer on the force working twenty-four/seven to make it happen. It might even require the complete demolition of the building.

  “I’m sure it can be straightened up,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, this is the captain’s office.”

  “You’re the captain now.”

  Monk walked away, heading across the squad room and down the corridor to the interrogation rooms. He entered the first one he came to. I followed him inside.

  The room was stark and cold and dimly lit. The walls were the same gunmetal gray as the metal desk and the matching stiff-backed metal chairs.

  Monk sat down in one of the chairs and faced the mirror, which, of course, hid the observation room.

  “This will do,” he said.

  “Do as what?”

  “My office,” he said.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little sterile?”

  He smiled. “Yes, I do.”

  A young female officer stepped into the room. “Excuse me, Captain Monk?”

  Monk looked up, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Captain Monk?”

  “You are Captain Monk, aren’t you?” the officer asked.

  “I’m not sure,
” he said.

  “He is,” I said, and introduced myself as his assistant.

  “I’m Officer Susan Curtis,” she said. “I’ve been temporarily assigned to clerical duties in the homicide division.”

  “How unusual that they’d pick a female officer for that,” I said.

  “Yeah, what a surprise,” she said ruefully. “A real incentive not to catch the flu.”

  It was a bonding moment between the two of us. Well, I hoped it was. We needed to have an officer on our side, or, at the very least, one who didn’t loathe us for being scabs.

  “Is there anything you need, sir?”

  “I need a hundred-page, spiral-bound notepad with exactly forty-two spirals. The pages should be white with thirty-four blue lines spaced an eighth of an inch apart. I’ll also need four paper clips, two square erasers, a desk lamp like the ones outside, a telephone, and ten unsharpened number two pencils.”

  Officer Curtis left. Monk looked up at me. I looked back at him. There was a very uncomfortable silence.

  “What do I do now?” he said meekly.

  “You’re the cop, not me.”

  “Give me a hint,” he said.

  I sighed. “I suppose you could ask for the file on the Golden Gate Strangler case, go over the crime lab reports, and check to see if Lieutenant Disher discovered whether the victims all bought shoes from the same store.”

  “Good idea,” Monk said. “You should get right on that.”

  “I’m not a cop,” I reminded him.

  “I can deputize you.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “This isn’t the Old West and you aren’t the town sheriff rounding up a posse.”

  “Perhaps you’ve forgotten who you’re dealing with,” Monk said. “I’m a captain in the homicide division of the San Francisco Police Department.”

  “Then start acting like it,” I said and walked out, nearly colliding with Frank Porter in the hall.

  The retired detective hobbled into the squad room, with a young woman following two steps behind him, dragging her feet as if she were carrying a two-hundred-pound pack on her bony shoulders.