Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

by Lee Goldberg

  Of course, Monk didn’t tell us why someone killed three people born on the same day, or why other lives might be at stake. That would make life far too easy.

  Monk has this incredibly irritating habit of making big, dramatic announcements like that and then keeping all the details to himself until he can find the missing piece that confirms what he already knows.

  So why doesn’t he just keep his mouth shut until he’s got that obscure fact or crucial evidence?

  I think it’s because he enjoys seeing us all look at him in slack-jawed amazement, and he gets a thrill out of keeping us in suspense.

  The only thing he enjoys more than that is the summation, the moment when he can tell us exactly who committed the crime and how it was done. But the thrill he gets from that doesn’t come from showing off and proving how much smarter he is than everybody around him. It’s the satisfaction of knowing with absolute certainty that he’s cleaned up an ugly mess.

  At Monk’s insistence, he and I went out to Allegra Doucet’s house. Chow and Jasper followed us in her black Suburban with a dozen antennae on top and windows tinted so dark, she must have relied on radar to drive her car.

  Doucet’s place was exactly as we left it, except for the tape across the front door and the official notice designating the place as a sealed crime scene.

  We broke the tape and went inside. Monk went directly to Allegra’s desk, carefully avoiding the big bloodstain on the floor, and asked Chow to turn on the computer.

  “Can you call up the astrological chart that was on this screen when she died?” Monk said.

  “Sure.” Chow sat down in front of the computer and started clicking and typing. Monk wandered off to the rear of the house.

  “Aren’t you afraid of being seen by them?” I was referring, of course, to the computer monitor and the cameras hidden inside.

  “I dismantled the monitor the last time we were here,” she said. “It was clean. The black-ops agents must have removed the cameras before they left.”

  “How do you know they haven’t been back since then and reinstalled them?”

  Chow froze, and Jasper glared at me. I know he was pissed at me for provoking her paranoia, but I couldn’t resist. Sometimes I enjoy a little mischief.

  She shrugged off her hesitation and resumed her typing.

  “With what we’ve discovered, we’re dead already,” Chow said. “There’s no place on earth we can hide now.”

  Monk returned wearing a flowery apron and yellow dish gloves and carrying a bucket of soapy water. He crouched beside the bloodstain, took a sponge out of the bucket, and began scrubbing.

  There was a time when I might have questioned what Monk was doing. I might have pointed out to him that it wasn’t his house or his responsibility to clean up the mess. I might have mentioned that simply scrubbing the stain was insufficient, even if any obvious signs of it were gone, and that eventually someone would hire professional crime scene cleaners to remove all traces of the blood and bodily fluids that had seeped into the floors.

  But Monk knew all that, and I’ve learned the futility of arguing with him about cleaning up anything that has spilled anywhere he happens to be.

  This was a double treat for him: He got to clean up two messes at once—the stain and the murder that caused it. Monk was practically whistling with happiness.

  I was surprised, though, that Jasper hadn’t whipped out his PDA to take more notes about Monk’s obsessive-compulsive behavior. I guess Charlie Herrin was occupying Jasper’s professional interest now.

  “Here’s the chart,” Chow said.

  Monk didn’t bother getting up or even looking at the screen. He continued scrubbing.

  “I can’t read an astrology chart,” he said, “but I’m certain it’s for someone born on February twentieth, 1962.”

  “It is,” Chow said, astounded. “How did you know?”

  I’m glad she asked that instead of me. If I ever print up those T-shirts with the questions on it, I’ll give her one.

  “Because whoever it was written for witnessed her murder,” Monk said.

  “Isn’t his name on the chart?” I asked.

  Chow shook her head. “Doucet plugged in the date and the software spit out the chart. She hadn’t saved it yet when she was killed. I saved it and gave it a file name.”

  “Wait a sec,” Jasper said. “How does any of this prove there was a witness?”

  “The proof was right in front of us the very first time we walked in here,” Monk said as he worked. “Here’s what happened.”

  And as Monk explained it all, I could almost see the scene playing out in front of me, the ghostly images of the people involved moving through the room, all of them faceless except for Doucet herself.

  Allegra Doucet was meeting with a client, preparing his astrological chart, when he excused himself and went to the bathroom. A few moments later the killer came in. It was someone Doucet knew and didn’t feel threatened by. She rose to face him and was stabbed. Taken totally by surprise, she had no real opportunity to defend herself.

  Her client flushed the toilet, started to open the door to the bathroom, and saw Doucet being murdered. He fled out of the bathroom window, breaking the towel rack in the process.

  The killer never got a good look at the witness. All the killer had to go on was the birth date on the astrological chart.

  “So now Allegra Doucet’s murderer is killing anybody born on February twentieth, 1962,” Monk said, and stood up to admire his work. The bloodstain was gone. “That also explains the seemingly improvised nature of the killings. The murderer had no time to prepare. He was in a hurry. All he cared about was accomplishing the murders, and didn’t give any thought to covering up his crimes.”

  “There must be tens of thousands of people who were born on that date,” Jasper said. “How is the killer narrowing it down? How did he pick Yamada, Truby, and Eggers out of everybody?”

  “I don’t know,” Monk said, and carried the bucket of dirty water back into the kitchen.

  “It’s obvious,” Chow said. “They are only targeting those people who were part of the alien crossbreeding program, and are tracking them through computer chips implanted in their skulls at birth.”

  Monk came back into the room. He was no longer wearing his apron and gloves. I turned to him and asked him the question that was puzzling me about all of this.

  “If what you say is true, why hasn’t the witness come forward and reported what he or she saw to the police?”

  “Perhaps the witness was among the three people who have already been killed,” Monk said. “But there’s no way the murderer can be entirely sure, so he has to keep on killing.”

  “The witness was one of the children of the alien crossbreeding program,” Chow said. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  If that sounded logical to her, I couldn’t imagine what would qualify in her mind as a really crazy idea.

  “Let’s suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the killer isn’t tracking his victims using computer chips or lists of alien offspring,” I said.

  “You’re wasting your time,” she said.

  “Humor me,” I said. “What other way is there of narrowing down the field of possible victims so you can save the next person on the list from being killed?”

  Monk sighed heavily. “I wish I knew.”

  Chow tapped the screen. “I’ll analyze this chart. It could be the key that will unlock the entire alien conspiracy on Earth.”

  Or she could just ask the aliens next time she was abducted.

  My cell phone rang. It was Officer Curtis again. Before she spoke, I knew by now what she was going to say. A murder had been committed somewhere in the city, and they needed Monk to come down and look at the corpse.

  I was right.

  But what she said next was a shock. The victim was a cop. And it was someone Monk and I knew.

  To the east of Potrero Hill, the derelict Bethlehem Steel warehouse
s, foundries, machine shops, and welding sheds rot away on Pier 70, their windows broken, their bricks weathered, and their rusted, corrugated metal siding peeling off like flakes of dry skin.

  Officer Kent Milner’s body was sprawled on the concrete floor in front of his black-and-white police cruiser, which was parked inside the cavernous remains of a brick-walled machine shop. The ceilings were high and gabled like a church, light spilling in from a thousand broken windows and skylights. Birds flew among the exposed rafters overhead.

  There seemed to be far more uniformed police officers around than were necessary to secure the scene, but their attendance was understandable. One of their own had been killed.

  Monk clipped his badge to his jacket as we walked in, just in case anyone was unaware of his new status as a captain in the homicide division. The crowd of officers and SID techs parted to let us through, revealing Captain Stottlemeyer in front of us, crouching over Milner’s body, and Lieutenant Disher standing behind him, taking notes.

  The captain quickly glanced up at us, acknowledged our presence with a barely perceptible nod, then returned his attention to the victim.

  Monk crouched across from Stottlemeyer, the corpse on the concrete floor between them. There was a bullet hole in the center of Milner’s forehead and a look of wide-eyed surprise frozen on his face.

  I turned away. It was hard enough for me to see the dead bodies of strangers. But seeing the corpse of someone I knew, even someone who was barely an acquaintance, was too much.

  But I looked back, and the longer I stared at the corpse, the less it resembled Officer Milner. This wasn’t the Officer Milner I spoke to yesterday; it was a wax likeness with glass eyes and a hole in his head.

  And, for a moment, I felt what must be the cold, professional detachment that Monk, Stottlemeyer, and Disher have toward death.

  I didn’t know whether to be proud of it or feel sorry for myself.

  “Captain?” Monk said. “What are you doing here?”

  “My job,” he said.

  “What about your flu?”

  “An officer is down, Monk,” he said. “That trumps everything.”

  “How did you find out about this?” Monk asked.

  “I’ve sort of been monitoring the police band while I’ve been sick,” Stottlemeyer said a bit sheepishly, like he expected to get some flak about it. He didn’t get any from us.

  “I know him.” Monk tipped his head toward the body.

  “Officer Kent Milner. Potrero Hill was his beat,” Stottlemeyer said. “He was at the park, securing the scene. He loaned you some binoculars.”

  “We saw him again yesterday in the marina at the scene of another homicide,” I said. “He told us he was working all over town and trying to accumulate some overtime.”

  “He was married with two kids,” Disher said, not looking up from his notes. “Ages four and six.”

  Monk pointed to Milner’s gun belt. “He didn’t draw his gun. The holster isn’t even unsnapped. He wasn’t expecting trouble.”

  “These docks are patrolled by private security,” Stottlemeyer said. “There was no reason for him to be down here, unless he saw something suspicious or was rousting some vagrants. But he would have called that in to dispatch. Since he didn’t call in or tell anybody he was going to be here, I’m thinking he was meeting an informant. Either his snitch shot him or he was set up.”

  “I bet the shooter tossed the gun into the bay afterward,” Disher said, still conspicuously not looking at either Monk or me. “It might be worth having some divers spend a few hours checking out the water off these docks.”

  “Good idea,” Stottlemeyer said, nodding his approval. “Get the dive crew out here.”

  “Milner was a young patrol officer.” Monk stood and wandered over to the police car. “Wouldn’t it be unusual for him to be meeting with informants?”

  Stottlemeyer shrugged. “Maybe he was a better cop than anybody thought. Maybe he got a line on something big and stupidly tried to pursue it himself instead of alerting his commanding officer.”

  “Maybe he saw whatever it was as his ticket to a gold shield,” Disher said.

  “That’s a lot of maybes.” Monk opened the driver’s-side door of the police car. There were travel brochures and car magazines on the passenger seat.

  “Chasing the maybes. That’s what detective work is all about, for most of us anyway,” Stottlemeyer said. “Whatever Milner’s story is, we’ll find out. We’re working this twenty-four/seven until the shooter is either behind bars or on a slab in the morgue.”

  I was getting annoyed by Disher’s refusing to look at us, so I stepped in front of him and leaned my head over his notebook. “Is something bothering you, Randy?”

  “You’re consorting with the enemy,” Disher said.

  “I haven’t consorted with anyone in so long, I may need lessons before I can do it again.”

  “Monk sold us out for filthy lucre,” Disher said.

  “First off, Mr. Monk wouldn’t touch anything filthy,” I said. “Second, what lucre?”

  “The badge.” Disher snorted. “Isn’t that the ultimate irony? He betrayed it to get it.”

  Consorting? Lucre? Irony? Hmmm.

  I narrowed my eyes at Disher. “Have you been taking an English class of some kind?”

  Disher blinked hard, stunned. “How did you know?”

  My God, I made a deduction. And was Monk there to witness it? No. He was busy peering into Milner’s cruiser. Stottlemeyer milled around behind him, pretending he wasn’t looking over Monk’s shoulder.

  “Just a hunch,” I said.

  I sounded like a thousand TV cops. Nobody but TV crime solvers ever say, “Just a hunch,” so I savored the opportunity to use it in proper sleuthing context.

  “Since I had some time on my hands, I thought I’d finally get started on that novel I’ve got in me,” Disher said. “So I signed up for a university extension class taught by Ian Ludlow, the Tolstoy of the mean streets.”

  “I didn’t know you had a novel in you,” I said.

  “I have all kinds of stuff in me,” Disher said. “I’m filled with complexity.”

  Monk sat down in Milner’s cruiser, picked up a copy of Motor Trend magazine off the passenger seat, and began flipping through it.

  Stottlemeyer dropped any pretense of doing anything but waiting to see what Monk came up with.

  Disher watched Stottlemeyer for direction and, getting none, simply followed his lead. He waited, too.

  “For the record, ‘Golden Gate Strangler’ was a lousy name for Charlie Herrin,” Disher said to me. “ ‘The Foot Fiend’ was much better and more alliterative.”

  “Did the Tolstoy of the mean streets tell you that?” I asked.

  “He’s very attuned to the savage heart of the urban wilderness,” Disher said. “Like me.”

  “This is odd,” Monk said. “Officer Milner marked down the corner on an article about German luxury cars.”

  “I know you find marking down corners offensive,” Stottlemeyer said, “but lots of people do that when they want to save their spot or read an article later.”

  “But he couldn’t afford to buy a BMW.” Monk unfolded the corner and smoothed the page out. “He was also reading Hawaii travel brochures and a magazine of new home listings in Marin County.”

  “So he liked to dream,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’ve got a magazine on Caribbean cruises in my bathroom. I like to picture myself on one of those ships, sipping a tropical drink. I’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

  “Officer Milner was behaving like a man with money to spend,” Monk said. “I find that unusual for someone at the lowest pay grade in the department and who was risking the scorn of his fellow officers by working overtime during a labor dispute.”

  “Are you saying that you think he was on the take?” Stottlemeyer said.

  “I’m saying something just doesn’t fit,” Monk said.

  I rolled my shoulders, preceding Monk’s rol
ling of his shoulders by a second. I’m not sure whether I did it because my shoulders were stiff or because I was unconsciously mimicking what I knew he was about to do.

  I caught myself before I tipped my head from side to side in tandem with Monk, too, but not before Stottlemeyer noticed what I was doing.

  “We’ll check out his bank account,” Stottlemeyer said. “But I don’t think we’re going to find anything unusual.”

  “Okay.” Monk got out of the car and motioned to me for a wipe. I gave him one, and he cleaned his hands. “I guess I’ll go home now. Give me a call if you need anything.”

  “You can’t go home,” Stottlemeyer said. “Your shift isn’t over.”

  “But you’re back,” Monk said.

  “You’re still a captain,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “I am?”

  “Until the mayor says otherwise,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’ve got four open homicide cases to close, and a squad of detectives waiting for your instructions. Since I was the first on the scene here, I’d like to take this one while you stick with the others.”

  “That’s up to you, Captain,” Monk said. “You’re the boss.”

  “You’re a captain, too, Monk. We have equal rank. You don’t work for me. I’m asking you this as a colleague.”

  “That is so wrong,” Disher muttered.

  “No, Randy, it’s not,” Stottlemeyer said pointedly. “It’s the way it is. So, Monk, what’ll it be?”

  “Whatever you want, Captain.”

  “Thanks, Captain,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “My pleasure, Captain.”

  “Can we please stop calling each other captain now?”

  “Sure,” Monk said. “Captain.”

  18

  Mr. Monk and the Helpful Horoscope

  The astrological chart from Allegra Doucet’s computer was tacked to the board in the squad room along with all the other information on the four murders.

  Cindy Chow and Sparrow were talking to each other in front of the board while Porter, Wyatt, Jasper, and Arnie sat around, waiting for something to happen. I think that something was us.

  Everybody turned our way as we walked in. Wyatt got up.