Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out

by Lee Goldberg

“There is now,” Monk said.

  I could see that I would have to employ preventative measures right away if I wanted to stop Monk from having a nervous breakdown.

  I hustled him out of the supermarket. He probably thought we were heading off in search of the mythical black market in bottled water. But I intended to take him straight to his shrink. Dr. Neven Bell could deal with Monk’s problem while I relaxed in the waiting room with a hot tea and the latest issue of the New Yorker.

  But my ingenious plan went awry the second my cell phone rang and I saw who was calling.

  It was Death.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mr. Monk and the Impossible Murder

  Okay, maybe that last line was a bit melodramatic, but whenever Captain Leland Stottlemeyer called me, it was usually because he needed me to bring Monk to the scene of a murder.

  The captain was careful to only summon Monk on those cases that he knew couldn’t be solved quickly or easily, that were unusual in the circumstances of the crime, the complexity of the situation, or the crippling lack of evidence left behind.

  But Monk would often show up uninvited at crime scenes and, more often than not, he’d solve the murder right on the spot to everyone’s amazement. Stottlemeyer was impressed and grateful but I knew it also pissed him off. Those were cases that he and his detectives would have solved eventually without Monk’s help. It wasn’t necessary for Monk to show up and make them look like fools (not that Monk realized that was what he was doing).

  It explained why Stottlemeyer wanted to use Monk as infrequently as possible. Each time Monk was called it was a tacit admission that there were some mysteries that the police couldn’t solve without him. And that was almost worse for the department’s image than not closing those cases at all.

  But there was a far more compelling, personal reason that the captain didn’t like calling him in.

  Monk drove him absolutely crazy.

  So I knew before we got to the crime scene at the intersection of Van Ness and Sutter that we were going to be faced with a puzzling mystery.

  What I didn’t know was whether Monk would be able to concentrate on homicide or if he’d only be thinking about where his next drink of water would be coming from.

  The southbound lanes of Van Ness were closed off to traffic. The police were redirecting the cars to side streets, which caused a massive traffic jam. That’s because Van Ness wasn’t just a major boulevard; it was the link through the city between the northern end of the 101 Freeway, which tapered off near the Palace of Fine Arts, and the southern end, which picked up again at Mission and Twelfth streets and went straight down to Los Angeles.

  I didn’t have a siren or a bubble light for my car, even though I’d lobbied hard for them, so we would have been stuck in traffic with everybody else if I’d driven to the scene. But luckily for us, the Safeway was on Pine Street, just a few blocks north of Van Ness and Sutter, so we left my car there and walked to the crime scene.

  The center of attention was a four-door BMW sedan with tinted windows that was parked behind the crosswalk in the lane closest to the grassy median.

  The driver’s-side door of the BMW was open, the window shattered. Crime scene investigators in white jump-suits were all over the car, taking pictures and dusting for prints.

  An unmarked Ford Crown Victoria sedan from the police fleet was parked right behind the BMW. A U.S. Mail truck and a Toyota Prius were in the next lane and were also being closely examined by the CSIs.

  Captain Stottlemeyer leaned against the driver’s-side door of the Crown Vic, his arms crossed over his chest, irritably chewing on a toothpick and glowering at everything and everyone, including Lieutenant Randy Disher, who was talking to some people on the sidewalk and taking notes with his usual eager intensity.

  The captain saw us just as Monk spotted the BevMo liquor store on the corner. Monk abruptly turned and went into the store, surprising me and Stottlemeyer, who tossed his toothpick into the street and started marching angrily our way.

  I hurried into the store after Monk, who was approaching the young woman behind the register.

  “Do you carry Summit Creek bottled water?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t,” she said with a big smile. “I’m afraid they’re no longer in business.”

  “Of course you’re afraid—any rational person would be. So how come you’re smiling?”

  “Because it’s a pleasure to serve you.”

  “But you haven’t,” Monk said. “And now we’re going to die.”

  Her eyes widened and her smile faltered. “Die?”

  “He means from your kindness,” I said to her and her smile perked back up. I grabbed Monk by the arm and yanked him out the door. “Harassing cashiers isn’t going to change anything. You’re just making things worse.”

  “They can’t get any worse. Didn’t anyone see this coming? Didn’t anyone realize the severity of the situation?”

  “I know that Summit Creek was your favorite, and it’s a shame that it’s gone, but it’s not like there’s no more drinking water left on Earth.”

  “That’s exactly what it’s like,” Monk said. “Open your eyes, woman. The apocalypse is nigh.”

  “Nigh?” I said. “Are we suddenly living in the Middle Ages?”

  “Now you’re beginning to understand the gravity of the situation.”

  Stottlemeyer walked up to us. “Is there something in that liquor store I should know about?”

  “They don’t carry Summit Creek bottled water,” Monk said. “Nobody does. You have to do something.”

  “As serious as that is,” Stottlemeyer said, “I think a murder takes priority.”

  “It is a murder,” Monk said.

  “Whose?” the captain asked.

  “Mine,” Monk said.

  “Since you’re still breathing, let’s investigate this murder first,” Stottlemeyer said. “We’ll get to yours next.”

  “What does it matter?” Monk said. “We’re all going to die anyway.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Stottlemeyer said. “Look at the bright side.”

  The captain wasn’t being sarcastic. For Monk, that was as bright as things got.

  “What happened here?” I asked the captain.

  “I have no idea and it happened right in front of me.”

  The captain started walking back toward his car and we followed, though I still had to drag Monk along to get him to move.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “You witnessed the murder?”

  “We did and we didn’t,” he said. “Mike Clasker, the former CFO of Big Country Mortgage, was on his way to testify in court and Randy and I were following as his escort. He insisted on driving himself because he was afraid that if he arrived in a police car, or accompanied by cops, that he’d be seen as a criminal.”

  “Because he is one,” I said.

  “Clasker was given immunity in return for testifying against his boss,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “That doesn’t make Clasker any less guilty,” I said. “It just means he’s getting away with it.”

  “Getting away with what?” Monk asked.

  We both looked at him.

  “Don’t you read the newspaper or watch the news?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  Monk shook his head. “It’s too scary and depressing. I’m already scared and depressed. I don’t need more reasons to feel that way.”

  “But you are aware of the subprime loan debacle, the collapse of the U.S. housing market, and the resulting global economic crisis,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “No,” Monk said.

  “How can you not know about those events?” Stottlemeyer said. “Don’t you go out into the world? Don’t you talk to people?”

  “I try to avoid it,” Monk said. “You should, too.”

  Stottlemeyer sighed, stopped beside his car, and rubbed his temples.

  “Okay, Monk, here it is in a nutshell. Big Country Mortgage gave very low, adjustable-rate
loans to people so they could buy homes that they actually couldn’t afford. Many of those people then borrowed against the equity in those homes to buy even more things they couldn’t afford.”

  “Were they insane?” Monk asked.

  “They were deceived,” Stottlemeyer said. “Big Country convinced them that there was no risk and that the loans were within their means. But then interest rates went up, property values fell, and people ended up owing Big Country more money than their homes were worth. Hundreds of thousands of people are losing their homes, their savings, everything.”

  “I could have been one of them,” I said. “I nearly fell for one of those subprime loans myself.”

  Monk looked at me with surprise. “How could you?”

  “Because I’m paid a pittance and I thought that I could tap into the equity in my house for some quick cash.”

  “What do you need more money for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Frivolous stuff like food, clothing, and electricity.”

  “What do you do with all the money I give you?”

  “I pay my mortgage,” I said.

  “And what do you do with what’s left over?”

  “There is nothing left over,” I said.

  “You obviously don’t know how to handle money,” Monk said. “Maybe if you ironed your cash, you’d learn to appreciate it more.”

  “I took out one of those loans, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said, coming to my rescue. “It was the only way I could afford an apartment after my divorce.”

  “You don’t iron your money, either,” Monk said.

  “Nobody does,” Stottlemeyer said. “Only you do.”

  “Maybe that’s why everybody else is losing their homes, their savings, and their jobs and I’m not.”

  “You’re a sensitive guy, Monk.”

  “How are you holding up, Captain?” I asked.

  “I’m barely holding on, especially now that the city is forcing detectives to take three weeks off without pay to cut costs. But I’ll manage,” Stottlemeyer said with a sigh, then turned back to Monk. “Getting back to Big Country, the guy who ran the company, Jack Moggridge, knew how toxic those loans were, but he lied to investors and regulators, and cashed out all of his company stock right before the market collapsed.”

  “That’s fraud and insider trading,” Monk said. “It’s also cheating.”

  “Yes, it is,” Stottlemeyer said. “Clasker was going to help us put Moggridge away.”

  “And in return, Clasker got to walk free with his millions and his Pacific Heights home,” I said. “That infuriated a lot of the people who were swindled by Big Country.”

  “That’s why we were following him from his house to the court, to protect him,” the captain said. “Everything was fine until we hit the red light at this intersection. When the light turned green, he didn’t move. People started honking their horns. So we got out to see what was wrong.”

  The captain turned to look at the BMW and so did we. The tinted windows were so dark that it was impossible to see inside the BMW from where Stottlemeyer’s car was parked.

  “I couldn’t see anything until my face was practically pressed against his driver’s-side window,” he continued. “That’s when I saw what had happened. There was blood all over. The door was locked, so I had to break the window with the butt of my gun to get inside.”

  “How was Clasker killed?” Monk asked.

  “He was strangled with piano wire.”

  “Was there anybody else in the car?” I asked.

  “He was all alone,” the captain said. “We walked him from his house to his car, so I know there was nobody in it then. We didn’t see anybody enter or leave the vehicle from the moment we left the house until now. And we haven’t moved from this spot since it happened.”

  Monk stepped up behind the BMW and crouched down to look underneath it.

  “The car isn’t parked over a manhole, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Stottlemeyer said. “It was the first thing that I checked.”

  “I was looking for this.” Monk picked something up and then turned to show it to Stottlemeyer. It was the toothpick that the captain had tossed earlier.

  “That’s mine,” the captain said.

  “I know,” Monk said, motioning to me. I took a Baggie out of my purse and held it open for him. “Littering is a crime. You are setting a very bad example for your men.”

  “Sorry,” the captain said.

  “Littering is just the beginning. Then the rot sets in. The next thing you know, you’re planting evidence, soliciting bribes, and drinking hard liquor.”

  Monk dropped the toothpick in the Baggie, which I stuck back into my purse to throw out later. I have a very large purse to accommodate the disinfectant wipes, Baggies, antiseptic ointment, rubber gloves, bottled water, Windex, rattlesnake antivenin, and everything else that Monk has me carry around. If my purse was any larger, it would need wheels.

  A short, pudgy forensic technician wearing a white jumpsuit, white bags over his shoes, and a white shower cap climbed out of the backseat. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I wanted to poke him in the tummy to see if he’d giggle.

  “There’s no hidden exit in the floor, Captain,” Pillsbury said, peeling off a pair of white garden gloves. “The only way in or out of that car is through the four doors or the skylight.”

  “I want this car towed back to the lab and completely dismantled anyway, Pete,” the captain said. “The answer is in there somewhere.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pillsbury Pete said and walked back to the forensics van to confer with the other techs. I suddenly had a craving for slice-and-bake cookies.

  Monk walked around to the driver’s side and peered inside. Clasker’s body was gone but the seat, dashboard, and windshield were still covered with his blood spatter. It was a gruesome sight. I lost my craving.

  “This is probably a stupid question,” I said. “But could it have been suicide?”

  “He was practically decapitated by that piano wire,” Stottlemeyer said. “Even if you could do that to yourself, which I doubt, there are easier, far less painful ways to kill yourself.”

  “So you’re saying that somebody garroted Clasker in a locked car on a busy street in broad daylight right in front of two police officers and got away unseen.”

  “That about sums it up,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “You know what you’re saying is impossible.”

  “I do,” Stottlemeyer said. “That’s why I called Monk.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mr. Monk and the Black Market

  Monk circled the car several times, holding his hands up in front of him, framing what he saw.

  Stottlemeyer and I stood together, watching him. We’d seen Monk’s little Zen dance a thousand times but it was still oddly mesmerizing. Or maybe we simply found it reassuring in a very basic way. After all, we knew that eventually Monk would find the answers that eluded us. This was just the first step.

  If only Monk could solve the really big mysteries in our lives and his own with the same certainty.

  Disher joined us and regarded Monk for a moment himself before speaking up.

  “None of the pedestrians saw anything, sir.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Stottlemeyer said. “We’re two trained law enforcement professionals. We were staring right at the car and we didn’t see anything.”

  “It’s a locked-room mystery,” Disher said. “Only in a locked car.”

  “I suppose it is,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Maybe the killer was a monkey,” Disher said.

  Stottlemeyer turned and glared at him. “Why would you think it was a monkey?”

  “Because the classic locked-room mystery of all time is Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ ” Disher said. “And a monkey did that.”

  “Thanks for ruining it for me,” I said.

  “Were you planning on reading it?” Disher asked.

  “No,”
I said. “But if I ever wanted to, now I can’t.”

  “We were behind Clasker’s car the whole time, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said. “Did you see any monkeys?”

  “No, but they didn’t see any monkeys in the Rue Morgue, either. They found out about the monkeys later. Maybe we will, too.”

  “I don’t think so,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “We should keep an open mind,” Disher said.

  Stottlemeyer glanced at Monk, who was making his fourth or fifth walk around the car. “What do you think?”

  Monk stopped, sighed, and looked up at the sky with a frown. “I have thirty bottles of Summit Creek left. If I eat a lot of fruit and drink only a few teaspoons of water a day, maybe I could make them last for two months.”

  “I was asking about the murder,” Stottlemeyer said.

  Something across the street caught Monk’s eye. I followed his gaze and saw three homeless men standing on the corner, watching the activity.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Those hobos over there,” Monk said. “I need to talk to them.”

  “I already did,” Disher said. “They don’t know anything.”

  But Monk wasn’t listening; he was already on his way across the street. I was about to go after him when Stottlemeyer gently tugged on my sleeve.

  “This is important, Natalie. Clasker got killed right in front of two cops. The press is going to make us look like morons. We have to solve this fast. Please try to get Monk to focus.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  He let go of me and I went after Monk, who was waiting for me on the sidewalk and eyeing the three men. “They hold the secret.”

  “To what?”

  “The black market,” Monk said. “It’s where they do all their shopping. Watch and learn.”

  Monk rolled his shoulders, unbuttoned his collar, and strode over to the three men, snapping his fingers as he went.

  “Hey, dudes,” he said. “What’s up?”

  They stared at him.

  “Far out,” he said, snapping his fingers some more. “Do you know where I can score some primo water?”

  They walked away.

  “Groovy,” Monk said, waving at them. “Keep on truckin’.”