EQMM, June 2012

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The woman lowered her window as I approached. The first thing I noticed was the heavenly smell of the Ranger Rover's plush, leather interior. I'd never owned a car upholstered in anything but vinyl or cloth.

  The driver was a cute pug-nosed woman in her thirties, wearing a man's long-sleeved flannel shirt and a faded pair of jeans. Her face was red around her eyes and the bridge of her nose, as if she'd been wearing ski goggles.

  “Good morning,” I said. “May I see your license and registration, please?”

  She already had them out on her lap and handed them to me. She had a nasty blister on her palm, just below her thumb.

  “What's the problem, Officer?” she asked.

  I glanced at her license, which identified her as Kelsey Turek, though her photo reminded me of Katie Holmes in her Dawson's Creek days, before Batman, Tom Cruise, Scientology, and age robbed her of that adorable, woman-child quality.

  “Are you aware of the speed limit on this highway?” I asked.

  “Fifty-five,” she said.

  “And do you know how fast you were driving, Ms. Turek?”

  “Fifty-five,” she said.

  “Perhaps it would surprise you to know the actual speed you were driving,” I said and realized I didn't know either. I looked across the top of the car to Monk, who stood on the passenger side and was peering through the window at Turek. “How fast was she going, Mr. Monk?”

  “Fifty-four,” he said.

  I glared at him. “So why did we pull her over? Was it so you could commend her for traveling at an even-numbered rate of speed or to ticket her for driving too slow and impeding the nonexistent traffic?”

  “Her car is splattered with mud,” Monk said. “And there's a piece of plastic bagging snagged on her trailer hitch.”

  “That's not a traffic violation,” I said.

  “May I go now?” Turek asked, looking uncomfortable, like a child watching her parents arguing.

  I handed her back her driver's license and registration. I saw a white band of skin at the base of the ring finger on her left hand where she'd perhaps taken off a wedding ring. It made me think of the one that I once wore.

  It was years after Mitch was shot down over Kosovo before I finally stopped wearing my ring. It took a surprisingly long time for that band of pale skin to tan and I was painfully sad when it did.

  “Officer?” she prodded.

  “Yes, I'm sorry,” I said. “You can go.”

  “No, you can't,” Monk said to her.

  I sighed and turned back to Turek. “Forgive me for asking, but would you mind washing your car when you get back to Summit? My partner would really appreciate it.”

  “Sure thing,” she said. “Whatever you want, Officer.”

  “We can't let her go and we certainly can't let her wash her car,” Monk said.

  “Why not?” I demanded.

  “Because she could wash away important evidence.”

  “Of what?” I said. “That her car was dirty?”

  “That she murdered her husband,” Monk said.

  That last word was barely out of his mouth when Turek floored it, the car speeding away and spraying us with loose dirt and gravel.

  I staggered back, my face stung by the bits of rock, my eyes full of dirt.

  “I'll take that as a confession,” Monk said.

  “What the hell?” I said, still stunned by Kelsey Turek's unexpected and very sudden flight.

  “Don't just stand there in a daze,” Monk said. “She's getting away.”

  I hurried back to the car, blinking hard as I ran, trying to clear my eyes. We got in, I hit the siren, and we sped after Turek's Range Rover. I still had a speck of something in one eye and kept blinking until I had tears rolling down my cheeks.

  Monk took the radio and called the dispatcher, informing her that we were now in the pursuit of a killer. He didn't even qualify his statement by saying “suspected” killer because he was that sure of himself. And he had every right to be. He was never wrong when it came to homicide, but that didn't make his unexpected pronouncements of guilt or smug self-confidence any less irritating.

  We closed in on the Range Rover, which was going at about ninety miles an hour now, and one of my tears finally washed the speck from my eye.

  “We can add driving at excessive speed to her list of heinous crimes,” Monk said, then looked at me. “Don't worry, Natalie, it's okay. We'll catch her.”

  “I'm not crying,” I said, wiping the tears away with the back of my hand. “Why would I be crying?”

  Monk shrugged. “Shame? Embarrassment? A crippling sense of inadequacy?”

  There was a truck ahead of Kelsey. She swerved around it, right into oncoming traffic. Two cars veered off the road onto the shoulder to avoid her. One of the cars crashed through a fence into an open field, another spun out.

  I had to slow down to weave around the truck and the two cars while Kelsey gained even more distance between us, disappearing around a curve.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked Monk.

  “I'm answering your question,” he said.

  “I had something in my eye, that's all,” I said. “But what I'd like to know is why you think I'd feel inadequate.”

  “Because you're crying over almost letting a murderer go.”

  “I had no idea she was a murderer,” I said.

  “That's what I mean,” he said. “Are you going to start crying again now?”

  “No, because I don't have anything in my eye anymore,” I said as we caught up to Kelsey's Range Rover again. “What makes you think she murdered her husband? Was there a corpse in the back of her car that I didn't see?”

  “Of course not. She has already disposed of the body. She covered the body with big black plastic garbage bags, dragged it out of the car into a shallow grave, poured lye over it, and then buried it.”

  Turek's Range Rover charged up behind a Honda Accord and then passed it, intentionally sideswiping the vehicle as she went by.

  The driver of the Accord, startled and fighting for control of his car, swerved wildly across both lanes, cutting us off and forcing us onto the inclined shoulder to avoid a collision.

  Our car tipped hard to the right, slamming Monk against the door as I raced along the shoulder. We passed the Accord and then I wrenched the wheel hard to the left, vaulting our car back up onto the asphalt again with a sharp bounce that set off sparks that I could see reflected in the side-view mirror.

  Turek had managed to gain some ground on us. I floored the gas pedal and tightened my grip on the wheel.

  “How can you possibly know that's what happened?” I asked.

  “Because I am not legally blind,” he said.

  “You really don't want to criticize me while I'm in the middle of a high-speed pursuit, Mr. Monk. Just give me the facts, okay, so I know why the hell I'm doing this.”

  “The organic matter in the mud on her car clearly indicates that she was in the forest. You can see where some of the mud was dragged off her rear bumper when she pulled out something heavy wrapped in a black plastic trash bag from the cargo area,” Monk said. “The bag snagged on her trailer hitch, leaving a shred of plastic behind.”

  “That doesn't mean she killed her husband and dumped his corpse.”

  We were now only a few yards behind her vehicle and closing fast.

  “The missing wedding ring indicates there was tension in her marriage and the fresh, disgusting blister on her palm is clearly from digging with a shovel.”

  “It is?”

  “She should have been wearing leather work gloves,” Monk said. “Instead, she was wearing rubber gloves, which protected her hands from the lye, but not from the friction of holding the shovel handle while digging. For further protection, she was also wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans and goggles, which she cinched too tight, hence the redness on her face. After she buried the body, she got rid of the shovel, her goggles and gloves, and the lye somewhere, but she forg
ot about the unopened jug of vinegar, perhaps because, in and of itself, it wasn't obviously incriminating.”

  “What's the vinegar for?” I looked ahead to see if there was any traffic besides the SUV we were pursuing. There wasn't.

  “To neutralize any lye that got on her skin before it burned her.”

  “Vinegar neutralizes lye?”

  “You didn't know that?”

  “Why would I know that?” I asked.

  “Basic human survival. It's like asking if I know how much exposure to radiation is fatal or how long I'll live from a rattlesnake bite without immediate medical attention.”

  “I don't know either of those things.”

  “It's a wonder you're alive.”

  Now I really did want to cry, and not because his brilliant deduction made me feel stupid for missing everything. It was because I didn't miss any of it.

  For the first time, after years of training myself to be more observant, I'd finally managed to see all the details that he did. I saw the mud and scrap of the Hefty bag on her trailer hitch. I noticed how she was dressed, the blister on her hand, her missing wedding ring, and the impression the tight goggles left on her face. I even saw the bottle of vinegar.

  And I still couldn't put all the pieces together.

  How dense could I possibly be?

  Maybe it was because I lacked his extreme sense of order.

  Maybe it was because I didn't have all the obscure knowledge that he did.

  Or maybe it was because I just didn't have his gift.

  No matter how hard I tried, I doubted I'd ever be as observant as he was or have the insight, the artistry, to recognize the significance of what I saw.

  On the other hand, there was the very real possibility that his talent for detecting arose from his crippling psychological disorder, one that had deprived him of enjoying so many of the simple and profound pleasures in life that I'd experienced.

  It wasn't a trade I would like to make.

  Perhaps, I thought, it was time that I accepted my limitations.

  The hell I will.

  I pressed the gas and edged past Turek on her driver's side until the patrol car's right front edge was beside her left rear bumper.

  “Careful,” Monk said. “You're going to hit her.”

  “That's the idea,” I said.

  “Are you insane?”

  That's when I executed a standard Pursuit Intervention Technique maneuver, something I'd seen cops do on TV in real-life car chases but that I'd never tried myself, mainly because I'd never had a reason to before.

  I turned to the right and clipped the edge of the SUV. The Range Rover abruptly spun sideways directly in front of us and I rammed it, pushing the SUV off the road onto the shoulder, Monk shrieking in terror the whole way, his hands on the dash.

  I stopped the car, quite pleased with myself. I hadn't solved the murder but at least I was able to pull off the PIT maneuver without any training besides sitting in front of the evening news.

  Monk and I both got out, our guns drawn and aimed at the vehicle. The airbags in Turek's car had deployed and one had burst open right in her face. So she was sitting in the driver's seat, unhurt but dazed, as we approached her vehicle.

  “Come out with your hands up,” I said.

  Turek blinked hard and looked at me as if waking from a dream.

  “Now,” I said. “Nice and slow.”

  She opened the door and staggered out, immediately collapsing to her knees on the pavement, more out of dizziness than submission.

  While Monk kept her covered with his gun, I holstered my weapon, got behind her, and handcuffed her hands behind her back.

  “You're under arrest for murder,” I said.

  “I don't believe this,” she said. “How did you know what I did?”

  I looked up at Monk, who holstered his weapon, rolled his shoulders, and tipped his head from side to side, setting himself and the world right again.

  “We're police officers,” Monk said.

  * * * *

  Randy Disher, Summit police chief and acting mayor, showed up in his Suburban SUV police cruiser twenty minutes after the forensics team, the tow trucks, and the paramedics, whom I'd called for Turek just to be on the safe side. He was in full uniform, and that included a wide-brimmed Ranger-style hat with the Summit police emblem on the front, which not only looked too big for his head, but for his body as well.

  Despite the powerful leadership positions he now held, Disher still looked like an eager-to-please boy to me and I had a hard time taking him as seriously as he wanted to be taken, especially since we'd been friends for so long. But I made the effort, because I genuinely liked him and he was, after all, my present employer.

  He surveyed the wrecked cars, which the forensics team was examining and photographing, and glanced at Turek, who sat handcuffed in the back of an ambulance, being checked out by the paramedics, before he finally worked his way over to us, where we were standing on the side of the road.

  “You caught a murderer before anyone even knew a murder had been committed,” Disher said. “That's impressive even for you, Monk.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” Monk said.

  “I wish you could have apprehended her without smashing a quarter of our fleet in the process.”

  “That's her fault,” Monk said, pointing at me.

  “Thanks for the support, partner,” I said.

  “I also wish you had evidence,” Disher said. “You know, something like a dead body, before you decided to run her off the road.”

  “She fled the instant Mr. Monk accused her of killing her husband,” I said.

  “Freaking out isn't quite the same thing as a confession,” Disher said.

  “She also asked how we knew what she did,” I said, “which is sort of like a confession.”

  “It's not,” Disher said, “but even if it was, did she ask you the question before or after you read Mrs. Turek her rights?”

  “Before,” I said glumly.

  “Has she told you where she buried the body?”

  I shook my head. “She's not talking and has demanded a lawyer.”

  Disher sighed. “So, in other words, we have nothing but a smashed hundred-thousand-dollar Range Rover, a smashed police car, and Monk's hunch.”

  “There's more,” Monk said.

  “I certainly hope so,” Disher said.

  Monk told him about the blister, the missing wedding ring, the bottle of vinegar, the shred of plastic bag, and the leafy mud on her bumpers.

  “Which means,” Disher said, “that all we have to hold her on is a speeding ticket and reckless driving.”

  I cleared my throat. “We didn't give her a ticket.”

  “Because she sped off before you could write it?” Disher asked.

  “Because she wasn't speeding,” I replied. “That wasn't why we pulled her over.”

  Disher looked at Monk. “Are you telling me that all she had to do was drive by and you knew that she was a murderer?”

  “No,” Monk said. “Of course not.”

  “Then why did you stop her?”

  “Her car was filthy,” Monk said.

  “So you pulled her over without any probable cause whatsoever and then you accused her of being a murderer.”

  “She is,” Monk said.

  “No wonder she sped off. She thought you were insane.” Disher took off his hat, regarded it for a moment as he held it by the rim, then threw it like a Frisbee out into the open field beside the highway. The three of us watched the hat sail through the air, then land in the tall weeds.

  “What did you do that for?” Monk asked.

  “Because I'm finished,” Disher said, tipping his head towards Kelsey Turek. “She's a very rich woman. She's going to sue us and when she wins, and owns Summit outright, the first thing she's going to do, even before she renames the place Kelseyville, is throw me out.”

  “Would it help if we found the body?” Monk said.

  “Ye
s, Monk, that would make a big difference.”

  “She may not want to talk,” Monk said. “But her car will.”

  He marched over to her Range Rover and we trailed after him. I thought I knew what he had in mind and I wanted to stop him before he made a big mistake.

  “We can't look at her GPS navigation system without a warrant, Mr. Monk, because if we do, and we find the body as a result, the evidence will be thrown out as fruit from the poisonous tree and she'll walk.”

  Disher gave me a look. “You watch a lot of Law & Order, don't you?”

  “What do you think I do in San Francisco when we don't have a case to investigate and I'm stuck in Mr. Monk's apartment while he cleans?”

  “Contemplate suicide?”

  “Now you know why I accepted your job offer,” I said.

  “I don't need to access her GPS unit to know where this car has been,” Monk said.

  He walked around the vehicle, his hands out in front of him framing his point of view. He stopped here and there to crouch, cock his head, stand on his tiptoes, and basically examine the car from every angle. When he was done, he turned to us and presented his findings.

  “There are pine needles, bark, and decaying leaves in the mud, which indicates she was in a forested area,” he said.

  “That's a big help,” Disher said.

  “Thank you,” Monk said, oblivious to Disher's sarcasm. “But there's more. The dirt on the car was still moist when we stopped her, so, given the composition of the mud, the amount of water in it, the temperature and humidity of the environment, and the speed at which she was driving, I believe she couldn't have traveled more than five miles from the grave.”

  “You know how fast mud dries?” Disher said.

  “Of course I do,” Monk said. “It's a matter of basic human survival.”

  “It is?” Disher asked.

  I spoke up. “It's like knowing what a fatal dose of radiation is or how long you'll live after a rattlesnake bites you.”

  “I've never been exposed to deadly levels of radiation,” Disher said, “or been bitten by a rattlesnake.”

  “Yet,” Monk said.

  “Let's say you're right about how fast mud dries,” Disher said. “Knowing the body is within a five-mile radius doesn't narrow it down much.”