by Lee Goldberg
“That will be twenty-four dollars,” Monk said with a smile.
“But the amount on the register says twenty-three fifty-seven,” she said, pointing a ruby-bejeweled finger at his register screen.
“It’s wrong.”
“Are you saying my purchases don’t add up to twenty-three fifty-seven?”
“I rounded up.”
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Monk said. “You’re old enough to know that.”
Her eyes went wide. “Did you just call me old?”
“Pulling your brow up over the back of your head doesn’t change the fact that you’re sixty-seven.”
“I am not,” she said.
Monk sighed wearily. “You were born in San Francisco between December 1943 and January 1944. It’s obvious from the ruby birthstone ring that you’re wearing, which is from B. Barer and Sons, Nob Hill jewelers who designed a new setting every year that they were in business, from 1909 to 1982, when they sold out to a national chain.”
“It was my mother’s,” she said.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“An old one,” Monk said. “But you’re still not very good at it. Your wallet is open and I can see the birth date on your driver’s license.”
Her face turned so red it looked as if she’d been standing on her head for their conversation. “If you knew my birthday, then why did you go into all that rigmarole about my ring?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
What he was doing was showing off his observational skills, his prodigious memory for irrelevant facts, and his total lack of social graces. I’m sure that it made him feel good, too, proving to himself that his skills were every bit as sharp as they’d always been, not that anybody doubted it, except perhaps himself. Being fired, and losing your life savings, can make a guy insecure, especially about the things he is certain of.
I’ve felt that way myself, which is why I didn’t step in and take away Monk’s moment.
The old lady stammered and huffed and puffed before finally speaking again, her voice dripping with moral indignation.
“My age doesn’t change the fact that you’re rude and you’re overcharging me by forty-three cents.”
“It’s a pittance,” Monk said.
“It’s a rip-off and I won’t stand for it, regardless of how small the amount happens to be. It’s the principle that matters.”
“Indeed it is,” Monk said. “Pay me the twenty-three fifty-seven and I’ll make up the difference myself.”
“But there is no difference,” she said.
Monk reached into his pocket and took out two quarters, which he slapped on the counter. “Now, if you’ll give me your money, please, I would appreciate it. You’re holding up the line with this nonsense.”
She looked behind her. There was no one there.
“You’re a crazy person,” she said, put her cash on the counter, and left.
“Thank you for shopping at Safeway,” Monk called after her. “Come again soon.”
Monk swept the money into his palm, put it into the register, then looked over at me as he peeled off his gloves. “Can you believe that woman? Some people have no manners.”
“You can’t round out the totals, Mr. Monk.”
“I have no choice. Nobody has come up with a cash register that will do it automatically. How hard could it be?”
“Nobody is going to pay more than what it says on the register.”
“I do,” he said, wiping his hands with a disinfectant wipe. “But you make a convincing argument.”
“I do? You’re convinced?”
“I am,” he said.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“Why should the customers be penalized for the store’s mistake?” Monk said. “So I’ll just have to round down when the totals are uneven.”
“Then the store will lose money.”
“Maybe that will be an incentive for them to fix their registers.”
“More likely it will be an incentive for them to fire you,” I said. “They are in the business of making money. If you insist on rounding out the totals, you will have to make up the difference out of your own pocket every time.”
“I can live with that.”
“No, you can’t, because then it will cost you money to work here. How are you going to pay your bills if you give away your salary to your customers?”
“It will all even out.”
“How do you know?”
“Because everything always does,” Monk said, putting on a fresh pair of gloves. “It’s the natural law of the universe.”
I realized this was an argument I couldn’t win. I would just have to convince Arthur not to let Monk work the registers. Or stick price tags on items, because he’d round those numbers off, too.
I could see that this job wasn’t going to be any easier on me than assisting Monk on homicide investigations. In fact, it might even be harder, because in addition to doing my own job, I would have to simultaneously try to anticipate any problems Monk would face with his tasks and attempt to mitigate them before he caused too much trouble.
I was still thinking about this when Monk’s next customer came in and so did mine. Since Monk took ten times as long to handle a customer as I did, my line soon grew.
I tried to keep one ear and one eye on Monk while I helped my customers, but it wasn’t easy, especially when things began to get out of hand.
The following account is what I overheard, what I saw, and what I reconstructed after the fact.
Monk was ringing up groceries for a married couple in their forties. I guessed their ages and assumed they were married by their wedding rings and general body language.
The man was fashionably unshaven, his hair fashionably mussed, his shirt fashionably wrinkled. His wife was unfashionably wearing no makeup, her hair was unfashionably messy, and her blouse was unfashionably baggy on her thin frame.
It’s funny, and truly unfair, how what can look so good on men can look so awful on women. But I’m sure Monk didn’t like the look of either one of them.
The woman seemed to be holding on to the grocery cart for support, as if it was her walker.
“Are you all right?” Monk asked her.
“She would be feeling better if you’d hurry up with our groceries,” the man said tightly.
“It’s okay, Ted. He’s just being considerate and conscientious about his work, and that is rare these days. We shouldn’t stomp on it.”
Monk smiled. “Thank you for noticing.”
“I’m sorry,” Ted said. “Kimberley has been feeling lousy and I’d just like to get her home.”
Monk glanced at the groceries in front of him. Windex, aluminum foil, flour, sugar, butter, chocolate, antifreeze, a huge bag of apples, pie tins, aspirin, cassava beans, cherries, peaches, powdered sugar, whole and sliced almonds, apples, a box of cupcake cups, vanilla extract, paper towels, rhubarb, strawberries, Grape-Nuts cereal, a T-bone steak, sixteen cans of Campbell’s soup, Mylanta, Taster’s Choice Instant Coffee, and People magazine.
“You’re making her cupcakes,” Monk said.
“With extra buttercream frosting,” Ted said, giving his wife a smile. “She loves frosting. And I’m making apple tarts, almond cookies, almond brownies, strawberry-rhubarb pie, chocolate cake—”
“He’s trying to fatten me up,” she said with a grin.
“I just want you to eat,” he said. “So I’m blatantly tempting you with all of your favorite sweets.”
“You haven’t had much of an appetite?” Monk asked her as he began bagging the items.
“I’m nauseous all the time. I practically have to force myself to eat.”
“You won’t have to force yourself to eat cupcakes with triple frosting,” Ted said. “You won’t be able to resist, I promise.”
“My back hurts, my head aches, and my hands and f
eet won’t stop tingling, so I’m not getting much sleep, either,” she confided in Monk.
Ted turned to his wife. “You don’t have to give him your entire medical history. He’s a cashier, not a doctor.” He looked back at Monk. “Could you please cut the chitchat and hurry this up, buddy? We’ve been standing here for fifteen minutes already.”
“It sounds like you’re fighting an infection of some kind,” Monk said.
“That’s what the doctor says,” Kimberley said. “He just doesn’t know what kind.”
“I do,” Monk said.
And that was when I noticed something very strange: Monk hadn’t taken a step back. Usually, if someone sneezes, he’ll dive for cover, as if the room was being sprayed with automatic weapon fire.
But there he was, talking to a woman with a raging unidentified infection that made her look like a reanimated corpse, and he wasn’t even reaching for a disinfectant wipe.
I felt a tingle along the back of my neck. It was my unconscious mind alerting me to something that my conscious self was too stupid to notice. Why couldn’t my unconscious and my conscious learn to communicate better?
“I think I’ve read about people like you,” Kimberley said. “Are you one of those immigrants who was a respected doctor in his homeland but your degree isn’t recognized here, so you’re stuck doing a menial job you’re overqualified for?”
“No,” Monk said. “I’m one of those former homicide detectives who was thrown off the police force on psychological grounds, was hired back on as a consultant, but then was let go when the economy took a nosedive, property tax income tanked, and local government was forced to slash expenses.”
They both stared at him.
“So, in other words, you don’t know anything about medicine,” Ted said.
“But I know a lot about murder,” Monk said.
That was when a dozen uniformed police officers suddenly appeared from every direction, their guns drawn, totally surrounding us.
“Nobody move,” the lead cop yelled. “It’s all over now.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mr. Monk Cashes Out
“Drop your weapons and raise your hands,” the lead cop said.
Everyone raised their hands, but there were no weapons in sight besides the ones the cops were holding.
“Lock down the store,” the cop said.
The officers fanned out, moving all around us, patting down me, Monk, and the handful of customers in the place for weapons.
Arthur came rushing up from the back of the store and nearly got himself shot. The lead cop spun around and aimed his gun squarely at him.
“I’m the store manager,” Arthur said, raising his hands. “What’s going on here?”
“A robbery,” the lead cop said. “One of the cashiers tripped the silent alarm.”
“That was me,” Monk said, waving his hand.
“So where are the robbers?” the cop asked, his face as craggy as the Grand Canyon, his eyes as flinty as, well, flint. There was something overwhelmingly stony about the guy.
“There was no robbery,” Monk said.
The stony cop holstered his weapon with an angry scowl. “Then why did you set off the alarm?”
“To stop a murder,” Monk said.
“Whose?” the cop asked.
“Hers.” Monk motioned to Kimberley, the woman in front of him.
“What are you talking about?” she said, clearly stunned by Monk’s declaration. “No one is trying to kill me.”
“Your husband is,” Monk said. “He’s been killing you for weeks.”
“Are you insane? I love my wife,” Ted said, putting his arm protectively around her waist. “I’m doing everything I can to nurse her back to health.”
“He is,” Kimberley said.
“The evidence says otherwise,” Monk said.
The cop stepped up beside Monk. I was able to read his name tag now. His name was Travis Morgan. “What evidence?”
“It’s right here in front of you,” Monk said.
Morgan glanced at the groceries. “Cake mix? Fruit? Almonds? These aren’t exactly lethal weapons.”
“He’s killing me with kindness,” Kimberley said, looking lovingly at her husband.
“That’s true,” Monk said.
“You hit the silent alarm because a customer was baking cupcakes for his wife?” Arthur said, looking at Monk incredulously.
Monk nodded. “With triple buttercream frosting.”
“Oh my God,” Arthur said, covering his face with his hands. “What have I done?”
Morgan motioned to another officer. “Call headquarters. Tell them we need to get someone down here for a psych evaluation pronto.”
I cleared my throat and stepped out from behind my counter. “Excuse me, Officer Morgan. There is something you should know about this man.”
“He’s nuts,” Ted said. “That’s obvious to everyone.”
“His name is Adrian Monk,” I said. “And until yesterday, he was a consultant to the Homicide Department, working directly with Captain Leland Stottlemeyer.”
Morgan nodded, regarding Monk in a new light. “I’ve heard of this guy.”
“What have you heard?” Monk asked.
“That you’re nuts,” the cop said.
“If Mr. Monk says that this man is killing his wife, then he is,” I said.
“And you are?” Morgan asked.
“Natalie Teeger, Mr. Monk’s assistant.”
“And you’re working as a cashier, too?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Everybody stay right where you are. Don’t move. Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right back. I’ve got to make some calls.”
“We can’t wait around here while you deal with this lunatic,” Ted said. “My wife isn’t feeling well. She needs to get home to bed.”
“He’s right,” Monk said. “Your first call should be to the paramedics. This woman needs to get to a hospital right away.”
“We just got back from the doctor,” Kimberley said. “He gave me some antibiotics and said all I needed was plenty of bed rest.”
“That’s because it didn’t occur to your doctor that there might be nefarious forces at work,” Monk said.
“Nefarious forces?” Ted said.
“I’m talking about you,” Monk said.
“Enough,” Morgan said. “Save it for the detectives.”
“I am a detective,” Monk said.
“I’m talking about the real ones,” the cop said. “You know, the ones with badges instead of aprons.”
The paramedics arrived first, laid Kimberley down on a gurney, and put her on an IV, but they didn’t take her away. The police had instructed them to wait, unless her health was in immediate danger.
Her husband, Ted, stood beside her, holding her hand and glaring hatefully at Monk.
Ted wasn’t the only one. Arthur paced in front of the aisles, looking up every so often to glower at Monk, who didn’t seem bothered at all by the nasty looks he was getting. In fact, he appeared positively chipper.
His spirits rose even more when he spotted Captain Stottlemeyer coming in. The captain huddled for a moment with Officer Morgan, sighed wearily as he listened, then ambled over to Monk.
“I didn’t know you were working at Safeway now,” the captain said.
“It’s our first day,” Monk said. “But I think it’s going really well.”
I glanced over at Arthur and, from the expression on his face, it was clear that he didn’t agree with Monk’s assessment. The captain, who’d worked with Monk for a very long time, didn’t need to look at Arthur to know Monk’s point of view wasn’t shared by his employer.
“Aren’t you a little overqualified for the job?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“These are desperate times,” I replied. “We can’t be picky about where our next paycheck comes from as long as we get one.”
“It wasn’t meant as a criticism, Natalie. I’m just laying the g
roundwork for my theory.”
“What theory?” I asked.
“I think Monk is so bored intellectually by this job that his mind is working overtime, finding crimes where none exist.”
“The crime is right here,” Monk said, motioning to the groceries in front of him.
“You want to arrest the guy for encouraging an unhealthy diet?”
“It’s fatal, Captain.”
“This is nothing,” Stottlemeyer said. “You should see what I buy at the grocery store.”
“His wife is suffering from chronic poisoning,” Monk said. “Her next meal at home is likely to be her last if we don’t do something.”
“How they eat is their choice, Monk. It’s not a police matter.”
“She told me about her symptoms: her loss of appetite, her nausea, the tingling in her hands and feet. Those are all classic symptoms of arsenic poisoning.”
“And the same symptoms can come from divorce, filing your income taxes, and listening to Rush Limbaugh,” the captain said.
“She also suffers from back pain, dizziness, and headaches.”
“So do I,” Stottlemeyer said. “It’s called stress, Monk.”
“But those are also typical signs of poisoning by ethylene glycol,” Monk said, hefting the canister of antifreeze. “Which is found in antifreeze.”
“Her problems could come from lots of things,” Stottlemeyer said. “I called her doctor on my way down here and he says she’s got an infection.”
“That’s because he didn’t see her husband’s grocery list. Ethylene glycol tastes sweet—that’s why he’s making fruit pies and all those cakes with triple frosting. It’s so she won’t detect the poison in her food. Cherry pits, peach pits, cassava beans, hydrangea flowers all contain cyanide, which tastes like almonds. That’s why he’s making so many almond desserts. Now he’s adding arsenic to the mix.” Monk hefted the big bag of apples to illustrate his point. “Apple seeds are rich in arsenic.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve listened to enough of this crap,” Ted said, stepping forward. “Those apples are for apple pie, you idiot. All the ingredients you think are poison are common, ordinary foods we eat every day. You could look at anybody’s groceries and make the same outrageous accusations. Are you going to call the police every time somebody buys the ingredients to bake a cake? Or when somebody buys bug spray, rat poison, and Ding Dongs?”
