by Lee Goldberg
“Like who?” I asked.
“Clovis talked his family and friends into investing with Sebes and they lost everything,” Stottlemeyer said. “How do you think they felt when they discovered Clovis was part of the scheme?”
“Hanging him from the deck also could have been meant as a message to others involved in the scheme,” Disher said.
“How so?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“In 1982, an executive with a private Italian bank, a guy known as ‘God’s banker’ because of his dealings with the Vatican, was hung from a bridge over the Thames in London. The bank was one billion dollars in debt and was supposedly owned by the mob. It was a huge scandal. The theory was that the banker was killed by the mob to prevent him from talking and as a warning to others to keep their mouths shut. Both that banker and Clovis were involved in financial scandals and hung near waterways. The symbolic similarities between the two killings may be a coincidence or maybe they’re not.”
Stottlemeyer looked thoughtfully at Disher for a long moment. “How did you know that story about the Italian banker?”
“It happened when I was a kid and it was something I never forgot.”
“That’s really good, out-of-the-box thinking. You may be on to something there.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, of course,” Stottlemeyer said. “Let’s put some men on it and see where it leads us.”
“How about the secret door?” Disher asked.
“Don’t push your luck,” Stottlemeyer said.
Disher hurried out and Stottlemeyer directed his attention back to the two of us. Frankly, I don’t know why we were still standing there. Stottlemeyer had made his point clear. Maybe the reason we hadn’t moved was inertia, exhaustion, or the knowledge that we had nowhere else we had to be.
“Sometimes Randy surprises me,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Mr. Monk does, too,” I said. “This is not the first time you’ve told him that the person he’s accused of murder couldn’t possibly be guilty.”
“I know, I know, I know,” Stottlemeyer said and sighed wearily. “This is where you bring up the astronaut again, whose alibi was that he was in outer space at the time of his girlfriend’s murder.”
“I could mention a lot of cases.”
“So now you’re going to remind me that I didn’t believe Monk when he said the killer was a guy who was in a coma at the time of the murders.”
“No, I’m going to tell you about the killer whose alibi was that he was in his house, wearing a tamperproof monitoring bracelet, and under constant surveillance by the media and the police, at the time of the murders.”
Stottlemeyer went behind his desk and sat down heavily in his chair, as if he weighed ten thousand pounds. “I don’t know why I am discussing this with you. You’re not part of this investigation.”
“You thought we should be included at three thirty this morning,” I said.
“I couldn’t leave Monk alone in my apartment,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Why not?” Monk asked.
“You know why not,” Stottlemeyer said. “You wanted to throw out everything I own. I brought you along to San Mateo to keep you out of trouble and to do you a favor.”
“If you wanted to do me a favor you would have let me throw out all of the contaminated trash in your condo,” Monk said.
“I knew you were personally interested in anything that might be potentially connected to the Sebes case,” Stottlemeyer said. “That was the favor I was doing by bringing you with me.”
“You were taking advantage of him,” I said. “Again.”
“We’re done discussing this. I have work to do.” Stottlemeyer reached into his pocket, took out a set of keys, and tossed them to Monk. “Go home, get some rest, and put everything of mine back where it was.”
Monk tossed the keys back to the captain. “I can’t stay in your home another night.”
“Is it because of this Sebes thing?”
“It’s because of the way you live,” Monk said. “No offense, but I can understand why your wife left you and your girlfriend became a psychopathic killer.”
“Where are you going to stay?”
Monk shrugged. “There are plenty of overpasses in this city. There must be space for another homeless, transient, hobo bum like me under one of them.”
He walked out and I followed him. We were almost at the stairs when Disher came running up to us and asked us to wait.
“I heard about the trouble you’re in,” Disher said. “I think I can help. I’ve got a job for you.”
“You’re going to bring us on as your consultants,” Monk said.
“I’m afraid not.” Disher reached into his pocket and handed me a piece of paper. “But here’s another offer. Fashion Frisson is a clothing store in the Bayview Mall. The manager owes me a favor and I happen to know that she needs two new salespeople.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Because I arrested them,” Disher said. “They had hidden cameras in the dressing rooms and got their jollies taking videos of the naked customers. I managed to keep their arrest quiet so the media never found out about it. Her business would have been ruined because of those two sickos and it wasn’t her fault.”
“You did a good deed,” Monk said.
“And now you’re doing another,” I said. “Thank you, Randy.”
“What are friends for?” he said. “It’s all worked out. You start tomorrow at ten.”
At least I had one less thing to worry about, even if it was barely more than a minimum wage job. But there was still the question of where Monk was going to stay. I asked him about that when we got into my car.
“Do you have a particular overpass in mind?”
“I wasn’t serious about that,” Monk replied.
“That’s a shocker,” I said. “You really had me going. So what’s your plan?”
“Take me to hell,” Monk said.
“An all-you-can-eat buffet?”
“Take me home,” he said.
“You can’t get into your apartment,” I said. “Not unless you want to break in.”
“I didn’t mean that home,” he said. “I meant home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mr. Monk Goes Home
The Victorian house in Tewksbury, just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, was unchanged since the time Monk grew up there with his older brother, Ambrose. The Monks don’t like change.
Ambrose was every bit as brilliant as Monk and just as messed up. He made his living writing instruction manuals, encyclopedias, and textbooks and could recite them entirely from memory in a dozen different languages (including Dratch, which is only spoken by elephant- nosed aliens on a cult sci-fi TV series). That made him a self-proclaimed expert on just about everything, something he was glad to demonstrate given the slightest opportunity.
He was also a fair handyman, able to do his own electrical, plumbing, and carpentry work and repair household appliances (it didn’t hurt that he’d written the owner’s manuals for most of them). I’d schlepped out to Tewksbury a dozen times just to have him fix my broken blenders, hair dryers, toasters, and answering machines.
Ambrose developed those skills out of necessity because he was afraid to leave the house. He’s only stepped outside twice in thirty years. That isolation meant he had little face-to-face exposure with people. Hardly anybody ever came to see him. Most of his interactions were conducted over the phone or the computer. So he was awkward and inexperienced in even the most basic of social interactions, especially with women.
But he was a sweet, exceedingly polite guy, and, despite his awkwardness, I liked him a lot. In many ways he was more self-sufficient than his younger brother, whom he admired as an outgoing, risk-taking, thrill-seeking rebel.
Yeah, I know, it’s hard to believe.
Ambrose must have heard us drive up, because his front door was open and he was standing several steps back from it in the shadows of the entr
y hall, as if he might inadvertently get sucked out into the street otherwise.
He had on his customary long-sleeve flannel shirt, buttoned at the collar and cuffs, an argyle sweater-vest over it, corduroy pants, and a pair of shiny Hush Puppies shoes tied with neat, perfect bows.
“Natalie, what a delightful surprise. Do come in,” Ambrose said, standing as stiffly as a soldier at attention. “You can come in, too, Adrian.”
“Thank you, Ambrose,” Monk said as we stepped inside.
Monk looked into the living room and scowled. It was lined with filing cabinets and crammed full with about forty years’ worth of newspapers and magazines, neatly stacked and laid out in perfect rows.
I knew that the cabinets contained every piece of mail that had ever been delivered to the house as well as the notes for Ambrose’s various books.
“You’re always welcome, Adrian. This is your house, too, though you’d never know considering how rarely you come to visit.”
“It’s not my house anymore,” Monk said. “It’s yours.”
“It’s ours,” Ambrose said. “It was left to both of us in Mom’s will.”
“But you live here.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you do,” Monk said. “The door is right there. All you have to do is step outside.”
“Not everyone is as fearless as you,” Ambrose said and nudged the front door closed with his foot. As soon as the door was shut, his whole body seemed to loosen up, as if he’d been released from suspended animation. “Can I offer you a marshmallow?”
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Are you sure? In 2000 BC, they were a pleasure reserved solely for the enjoyment of the pharaohs. Now everybody can have them whenever they want. But I save them for special occasions.”
“This isn’t a special occasion,” Monk said.
“It is for me. It’s not often that I have such beguiling guests.” Ambrose smiled at me, then glanced at his brother. “And you, too.”
“Maybe you’d have more visitors if you got rid of all this garbage.” Monk gestured to the newspapers and file cabinets.
“That’s probably what Julius Caesar said before he burned the Library of Alexandria. I suppose if you had your way we’d gut the Smithsonian as well.” Ambrose turned his back on Monk and devoted his attention to me. “How about a refreshing glass of chilled water?”
“You have water?” Monk said.
“Of course I do,” he said, still refusing to face his brother. “I can’t survive without it. Nobody can.”
“Oh my God, you haven’t heard,” Monk said. “I was afraid of that.”
“What are you talking about?” Ambrose asked, turning now to Monk again.
Monk took a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to say this. The news I am about to share is shocking and will change your life, so prepare yourself. There’s no more Summit Creek. It’s gone. We’re going to die.”
Ambrose looked at his brother for a long moment.
“That’s why you came all the way over here, to tell me that? I knew that Summit Creek was going under months before it happened.”
“You did?” Monk said. “How?”
“I’m living in a house, Adrian, not a cave.”
Ambrose turned his back on his brother again and walked into the kitchen. Monk rushed after him.
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“You’re a man of the world,” Ambrose said. “I figured you knew.”
“I didn’t,” Monk said. “It came as a horrible surprise.”
Ambrose took three glasses from a cabinet, set two of them on the kitchen table and one on the counter beside him. “Don’t you watch TV, read the newspapers, or surf the Web?”
“I don’t have as much idle time as you do.”
“So if you didn’t come here to warn me about the water, what brought you?”
Monk sat down at the table and laid his hands, palm down, on top of it. I sat down beside him.
“I’ve lost my water, my job, my life savings, and my home. It turns out I am not a man of great expectations after all. I have been bred to no calling and I am fit for nothing. So I have returned to whence I came, to my common little home on the marshes, for want of a clean bed to sleep in and a roof over my head.”
It was true that he’d suffered a tragedy of Dickensian proportions, but I still thought Monk was laying it on a little thick.
“Now you know why I don’t leave the house,” Ambrose said. “You definitely need a drink.”
He opened the refrigerator and took out three bottles of Fiji water and gave one to each of us. He remained standing. I’m not sure whether he stood as a courtesy to Monk or if he was just as phobic about symmetry and even numbers as his brother was and felt three people at a table for four would topple the balance of the universe.
Monk examined the bottled water. “What is this?”
“Rain that fell through the virgin skies of emerald blue on the pristine mountains of Viti Levu island in 1515 and percolated slowly through layers of silica, basalt, and sandstone into a subterranean chamber,” Ambrose said, “where it remained sealed and pure until it was drawn out and captured in the bottle you now hold in your hands.”
Monk held the bottle up to the light and licked his lips. “It looks good.”
“Have as much as you want.” Ambrose opened his bottle and poured it into a glass. “I’ve got a ten-year supply.”
I filled my glass and took a sip. “It’s delicious. I think it’s even better than Summit Creek.”
Truthfully, it tasted like tap water to me. But maybe that was five hundred years old, too.
“I spent weeks researching the best alternative to Summit Creek and this is what I found,” Ambrose said.
Monk unscrewed the cap on his bottle, closed his eyes, and took a tentative sniff of the water. “The fragrance reminds me of Mom.”
Ambrose nodded. “Me, too. That’s when I knew it was right.”
I sniffed my water but I couldn’t detect any fragrance at all.
Monk poured a little of the water into the glass. He swirled the liquid around a bit, held the glass up to the light, scrutinizing it for any impurities, then he took a tiny sip.
He rolled it around in his mouth and then swallowed it hard, like it was a golf ball instead of a teaspoon worth of water.
Monk waited a moment, as if expecting some sort of immediate, adverse physical reaction. When none came, he took another, larger sip and smiled at his brother.
“You’ve saved me, Ambrose,” Monk said, his eyes tearing up. He turned to me and pointed to his eyes. “That’s Fiji water.”
We spent the next few hours drinking five- hundred-year-old water and eating marshmallows as if we were the pharaohs of Marin County.
The more water Monk drank, the more relaxed and talkative he became. He told Ambrose all about the murders of Russell Haxby and Lincoln Clovis.
As I listened, I became absolutely convinced that Sebes was guilty and disheartened that there was no way we could prove it, especially since we were no longer even remotely associated with the investigation. And if we tried to nose around, we were sure to get slapped down hard by Captain Stottlemeyer.
Monk finished his story by declaring emphatically that Bob Sebes was the killer and that the alcohol reading on the Triax XG7 8210 proved it.
Ambrose nodded thoughtfully and sipped his water.
“There’s a major flaw in your theory, Adrian.”
“What’s that?” Monk asked.
“Bob Sebes couldn’t have committed the murders,” Ambrose replied.
Monk dismissed the argument with a wave of his hand. “You’re just saying that because he’s wearing a GPS monitoring unit and his house is surrounded by reporters and police officers.”
“There might be a way out of the house,” Ambrose said, “but there’s no way to beat the XG7 8210.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I wro
te the book on it. Well, the technical manual anyway. I’ve got one of the units upstairs.”
“So you could write about it?” I asked.
He nodded. “And because I like to wear it from time to time.”
At first I thought he might be joking, but the expression on his face was dead serious.
“Why would you want to wear it?” Monk said. “Is it so people will think that there’s a sane reason why you can’t leave the house?”
“I wear it as a precaution in case I ever wander out.”
“How would that happen?” Monk asked.
“What if I became a sleepwalker one night, wandered out the front door, and woke up hours later”—Ambrose glanced at the window and shuddered—“out there?”
“Is that something you dream about?” I asked.
“It’s something I have nightmares about.” Ambrose knocked back some water as if it was whiskey.
Monk shook his head. “That’s just silly. Who is going to come get you if your XG7 8210 sends out an alarm that you’ve left the house?”
Ambrose smiled at me. “I have it set to call Natalie.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because I know that I can depend on you.”
“Why not me?” Monk asked.
Ambrose looked at his brother. “Are you going to get in an automobile, find me wherever I am, and bring me home safely?”
“Of course I would,” Monk said. “I’d call Natalie, she’d pick me up, and we’d be right over.”
“I’m not family,” I said. “What makes you so sure you can depend on me?”
“Because Adrian does,” he said.
“I don’t depend on her,” Monk said. “I employ her. There’s a difference.”
“Are you employing her now?” Ambrose asked.
Monk shifted in his seat. “Yes and no.”
“Yes and no?” Ambrose said. “How does that work?”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” I said.
“She’s still working for me,” Monk said, “but I am not paying her for it.”
“Then why do you suppose she’s doing it if she’s not getting paid for it?” Ambrose asked.
