Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out

by Lee Goldberg

  “He’s got a point, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s easy to prove chronic poisoning once you know what to look for. His wife can have her blood and hair tested for arsenic and cyanide or she can have a biopsy done of her kidney to determine if she has oxalate crystals. The results will speak for themselves.”

  “I am not going to stick needles in my wife and put her under a knife just to satisfy the paranoid delusions of a crazy stranger,” Ted said. “All we want to do is go home and put this miserable day behind us.”

  “It’s my decision,” Kimberley said, sitting up on her gurney. “Not yours.”

  Ted turned around in surprise. “You don’t actually believe him, do you?”

  “Do you have a big life insurance policy?” Monk asked her.

  “One million dollars,” she said.

  “Has there been any change in your financial situation?”

  She studied her husband suspiciously. “We both lost our jobs and have had to downsize.”

  “How can you look at me that way? How can you even think for one second that I could hurt you?” Ted said. “You know how much I love you.”

  “You cried when we had to sell your Porsche,” she said.

  “Of course I did. Any man would,” Ted said, looking to Stottlemeyer for support.

  “I’ve never had a Porsche,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “But if you did, wouldn’t you cry if you had to give it up?”

  “I’m not a big crier,” the captain said.

  “I also didn’t start feeling sick until you insisted on taking over the cooking,” she said.

  “I wanted to help out more around the house, that’s all, especially after we had to let the cleaning lady go,” Ted said. “And how do you thank me? By accusing me of attempted murder? I’m shocked and deeply hurt. I’m going to assume it’s your infection talking, not you.”

  “What do we have to lose by taking the tests?” she asked.

  “Our deductible, maybe even the entire cost of the tests. You know how little money we have now. We shouldn’t throw any of it away to appease a lunatic Safeway cashier.”

  She nodded and turned to the paramedics. “Take me to the hospital. I want those tests.”

  The paramedic wheeled the gurney out the door, Ted following after them, a definite, sorrowful drag to his step.

  Stottlemeyer motioned one of the officers over. “Follow him to the hospital. I’ll be there shortly.”

  The officer nodded and headed out.

  “He’s guilty,” Monk said.

  “I know and so does she,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “You’ve saved her life, Mr. Monk,” I said.

  Stottlemeyer waved Officer Morgan over. “Gather up all these groceries. It’s evidence.”

  Arthur approached us. “Shouldn’t the couple pay for all of that before they leave?”

  “We’ll give you a receipt for it,” Stottlemeyer said.

  “It’s not the same as cash,” Arthur said. “Or credit.”

  “No, it’s not,” Stottlemeyer said, shifting his gaze to us. “We’re having a little party for Randy at the station at six p.m. You’re both invited.”

  “What did you get him?” Monk asked.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Everything you need is right here,” Monk said. “You can use our employee discount.”

  “No, he can’t,” Arthur said.

  “I intend to buy it myself and have the captain reimburse me,” Monk said.

  “You can’t,” Arthur said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re fired.”

  Arthur was being totally unfair and I wasn’t going to stand for it. “This was inconvenient, and maybe cost you a little business, but he did a good deed. He saved a life. It was no different than if he performed CPR on somebody who collapsed in an aisle. Would you fire him for that?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I’m firing him because he intentionally overcharged every customer he’s had today, and, if that wasn’t reason enough, he accused another of being a dishonest old coot.”

  “She was,” Monk said.

  “I can’t believe she actually called you to complain,” I said.

  “She’s my mother,” Arthur said. “Complaining is her job.”

  At least there was somebody out there who still had one.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Mr. Monk Goes to a Party

  Getting fired after just one day on the job was a big blow to Monk, but he didn’t hold a grudge. He still bought Disher’s birthday present at Safeway. Stottlemeyer did, too, along with the cake and drinks, since he didn’t know if he’d get another chance to leave headquarters without Disher before the party.

  Arthur offered to let me stay on, but I wasn’t willing to abandon Monk for a job, at least not yet, and certainly not for this one.

  We collected our paychecks for our single day of work and left the grocery store. Monk walked to my car with his shoulders slumped and his head down, as if he was carrying fifty pounds of shame on his back.

  “Do you think I’ll still be welcome to come back and clean the store at night?”

  “Why would you want to after how you’ve been treated?”

  “I still help the police for free. They have no hard feelings.”

  “They don’t,” I said. “But you should.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “Because you have been treated unfairly. Don’t you have any self-respect? You should stand up for yourself.”

  “That’s why I have you.”

  “But what if you didn’t have me?”

  Monk stopped walking and faced me, his eyes wide. “Are you leaving me?”

  “No, but I’m not with you all the time.”

  “You could be if you like. I’m not standing in your way.”

  “You’re missing my point. If you don’t value yourself, no one will.”

  “They don’t anyway and I don’t want to discourage the few who do by getting them angry.”

  “That’s pitiful,” I said.

  “That’s my life. Haven’t you been paying attention all these years? The only time people respect me is when I’m solving a crime.”

  “That’s because it’s also the only time you respect yourself.”

  When Monk solved a crime, the world felt to him like it was in perfect balance and everything was in its place. In that moment, he was in complete control, confident, self-assured, and virtually free of the anxieties that plagued him.

  Even if he hadn’t told me that was how he felt, I knew it to be true because I could hear it in his voice and see it in his stature, even in the intensity of his gaze when he confronted a killer and summed up exactly how the murder was committed.

  That was when Monk was as happy, and secure, as it was possible for Monk to ever be.

  Monk looked at me glumly, as if reading my thoughts. “And now I’ve lost that, too.”

  Lieutenant Disher had been sent out of the station on some meaningless errand before we got there and when he came back everybody yelled “Surprise” and whooped and hollered, just the way Stottlemeyer had ordered them to. The captain figured that if we did that, then the office gathering would technically qualify as the surprise party that Disher was hoping for.

  If Disher was disappointed, he didn’t show it. He was all grins, high-fiving everyone and making a big show out of blowing out the candles on his Safeway cake and opening his presents. He didn’t even complain that none of them came from his gift registry at Nordstrom.

  Monk gave him Q-tips, Stottlemeyer gave him a $50 Best Buy gift card, and I got him a DVD of the first season of the old cop show The Streets of San Francisco.

  “I love this show,” Disher said, admiring the cover photo of Karl Malden and Michael Douglas against a backdrop of the San Francisco skyline.

  “Because you’re a cop in San Francisco,” I said.

  “People mistake me for Michael Douglas all the time and the captain is a dead
ringer for Karl Malden, only without the crunched nose, the hair, the hat, or the overcoat.”

  Stottlemeyer frowned. “So what’s left that makes me a dead ringer for him?”

  “You’re a grizzled old detective at the end of his career and I’m a brilliant young hotshot with an amazing future.”

  It was Disher’s birthday, so Stottlemeyer let that comment slide with a forced smile, picked up his piece of cake, and went back to his office.

  We stayed for another hour or so, long enough for me to get hit on by two detectives and for Monk to clean up after everyone and sweep the floor. On our way out, Stottlemeyer took us aside, out of Disher’s earshot, and thanked us for coming.

  “Randy is our friend,” Monk said. “Why wouldn’t we come?”

  “We would have been hurt not to have been invited,” I added.

  “I’m glad, and more than a little relieved, to hear you say that,” Stottlemeyer said. “It’s nice to know you aren’t taking this job thing personally.”

  “It’s not Randy’s fault that you fired Mr. Monk,” I said pointedly.

  “I didn’t fire him,” Stottlemeyer said. “The city did.”

  “But the city is a big, amorphous, faceless thing,” I said. “You are standing right in front of me.”

  “So you just want to take your anger out on somebody and it’s me.”

  “Can you think of a better person?”

  “William Hanna or Joseph Barbera,” Monk declared. “Take your pick.”

  Stottlemeyer and I both looked at him.

  “Who are they?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “The men responsible for Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, both of whom were drawn with only three toes on each foot and four fingers on each hand,” Monk said. “Everybody knows that’s inaccurate, even among Stone Age people. They perpetuated a fraud in a cartoon that misled countless numbers of children and they were never prosecuted for it.”

  “What does that have to do with you getting fired as a consultant to the police department?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Monk said. “But they deserve your anger more than Captain Stottlemeyer does.”

  “I appreciate that, Monk,” the captain said. “By the way, you were right about that lady at the supermarket. The tests came back positive for poisoning. She’ll be in the hospital for a few days but her husband will be in jail for years.”

  “I’m right about Bob Sebes, too,” Monk said.

  “He’s a crook. I agree with you on that,” the captain said. “But he’s not Haxby’s killer. It’s impossible.”

  “I could prove it if you’d let me,” Monk said.

  Stottlemeyer shook his head. “Sorry, Monk. You’re just going to have to leave the police work to us from now on.”

  “But if you’ve ruled out Sebes because it was impossible for him to have committed the murder, then you’ll never arrest him for it.”

  “That’s true. We’ll arrest the person who actually did it instead,” Stottlemeyer said. “This may come as a shock to you, Monk, but we actually do solve murders without your help.”

  “Not the impossible ones,” Monk said.

  I dropped off Monk at his apartment on my way home. As I passed by Mama Petrocelli’s Italian restaurant, I thought of Warren Horowitz, the proprietor, and what he’d asked me every time I went in to order a pizza.

  I made a U-turn, parked illegally in front of the restaurant, and ran inside. As it happened, Warren was behind the maître d’ stand, waiting to seat customers.

  “Every time I come in for a pizza you offer me my old waitressing job back,” I said. “Are you serious? Or are you just flirting with me?”

  He seemed startled at first, but then his surprise quickly gave way to a big smile. “Both.”

  “I’ll take the job on one condition,” I said.

  “I have to marry you,” he said.

  “You have to hire Adrian Monk, too.”

  “Done,” he said.

  “Don’t you even want to know anything about him?”

  He shook his head. “The only thing that matters to me is that I will get to see you every day and that my life will be brighter as a result.”

  “But you’ll have to cut back on the flirting,” I said. “Once I start working for you, it will be sexual harassment.”

  I was teasing him, and he knew it.

  “There’s nothing sexual about it,” he said. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”

  “You don’t?” I said.

  “At least not until we’re married,” he said. “Then we’ll do it twice a day, three times on weekends.”

  “You’ve obviously never been married,” I told him.

  I brought home a Matzorella Pizza, courtesy of Warren Horowitz, and found Julie in the living room, rubbing her hands with moisturizing cream.

  She’d gotten the job at the car wash and now her fingertips were raw and shriveled from holding wet towels all day. But she told me she was surprised by how much she actually enjoyed herself, despite how hard and occasionally demeaning the work was.

  “What was demeaning about it?” I asked.

  “Some kids from my school brought their car in and I had to wash it. They made me go over it five or six times, just because they could. How was your first day?”

  “I got fired,” I said, then corrected myself. “Actually, Monk got fired and I quit in solidarity.”

  I told her the whole story, and informed her about the new jobs as we ate our pizza.

  I expected her to complain that all of her friends went to Mama Petrocelli’s and that she would be humiliated if I ever waited on them. But she didn’t raise a single objection. Either her experience at the car wash made whatever humiliation I might bring her seem inconsequential by comparison, or she realized that whining about it wouldn’t get her anywhere.

  Whatever her reasoning, it was nice not to have an argument over dinner for a change. But telling her about the job reminded me that I’d forgotten to notify Monk about our new employment, which would be starting the following day. So after we ate I gave him a call and filled him in.

  He was thrilled. He only had one concern.

  “Does he provide the compasses, T squares, and tape measures, or do we provide our own?”

  “We’re not engineers, Mr. Monk. We’re making pizzas.”

  “How do you think they make each pie perfectly round and each piece a true triangle?”

  I sighed. “You should probably bring your own pizza measuring equipment.”

  “Gladly,” he said.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mr. Monk Makes a Pizza

  We came in before noon and Monk’s first assignment was cleaning the kitchen and setting the tables—tasks he not only loved but tackled with genuine enthusiasm, immediately winning over his new boss.

  “This man is amazing,” Warren said to me. “The kitchen has never been so clean and the tables have never looked so good.”

  “He’s just doing what he loves.”

  “Nobody loves cleaning and table setting. I did it to break his spirit and test his mettle from the get-go.”

  “Is that why you have me grating cheese, slicing pepperoni, and cutting onions?”

  “No, I just like having you with me in the kitchen,” he said.

  “If you really want to make Mr. Monk happy, ask him to wash the dishes, scrub the floors, and clean the restrooms.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Honest,” I said. “He’ll thank you for it.”

  So Warren followed my advice and asked Monk to wash dishes during the lunchtime rush and clean the bathroom afterward. Monk thanked him and happily tackled both assignments. Warren was stunned.

  Mama Petrocelli’s has a big lunch crowd, so I was kept busy waiting on tables with one other waitress, Erin, a bubbly twenty-two-year-old aspiring hairstylist. Erin offered to cut my hair and Julie’s for five bucks each if we stopped by her beauty college during her class. She needed people to practice on and off
ered each customer the same opportunity she’d given me.

  Waitressing came back to me as if I’d never stopped doing it. And so did the sore feet.

  Warren was mighty impressed with Monk. He must have thanked me fifty times for bringing him in. Monk also expressed his gratitude as we sat in one of the booths during our early afternoon lunch break.

  “This is a fantastic job. Thank you so much for recommending me for it.”

  “My pleasure,” I said.

  “I think the boss is giving me preferential treatment. I’m getting all the plum assignments.”

  “Like cleaning the bathrooms.”

  “I hope you don’t feel slighted.”

  “Not at all. You deserve it.”

  “It’s true,” Monk said. “I do seem to have a natural affinity for the restaurant business. Who knew?”

  “See, Dr. Bell was right—you’re discovering new things about yourself already.” I gestured to the cheese pizza that we were supposed to be sharing but that he hadn’t touched. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  He leaned toward me and whispered, “I can’t eat that. It’s deformed.”

  I nodded. “It’s not a perfect circle.”

  “Warren is such a nice man and he’s already given me so many opportunities. I don’t know how to tell him that his pizzas are repulsive to look at.”

  “So don’t do it. Volunteer to make pizzas, instead. That way, instead of raising a complaint and offending him, you can show him by example how to do it right.”

  “That’s a great idea, Natalie. Besides, it’s a chance to impress Warren by volunteering for one of the menial jobs without being asked.”

  “Ingratiating yourself with the boss never hurts. Speaking of which, I wouldn’t mention that you consider making pizzas menial labor.”

  “Of course not,” Monk said. “What kind of person do you think I am? I’m not tactless.”