by Lee Goldberg
The sad thing was she didn’t have the talent to capture the vibrant colors or the natural beauty of the bouquet. Samples of her other paintings, sketches, and sculptures were everywhere, and, I have to say, I’ve seen better artwork at Julie’s middle school open house.
The only sculptures worth studying were her breasts, enormous implants like two basketballs tucked into her loose-fitting denim shirt. She had three buttons opened to reveal a provocative glimpse of her deep cleavage.
“I’m Adrian Monk, and this is Natalie Teeger,” he said. “We’re assisting the police in their investigation of Esther Stoval’s murder.”
Monk stared at her chest. She was clearly flattered, but I knew it wasn’t her bosom that enthralled him. It was the three buttons. If she didn’t open one more button, or button one up, he might have a stroke.
“I’d like to ask you three some questions,” he said.
“Three?” she said.
“I think he means three questions,” I said. “Don’t you, Mr. Monk?”
“Did you see or hear anything unusual Friday night?” Monk said to her buttons.
“I wasn’t home,” she said. “I was at work. I’m a bartender at Flaxx.”
I knew the place. It’s a hot club on Market Street. It’s where the beautiful, young, rich people go to admire how beautiful, young, and rich they are. I tried to get a job there once, but I didn’t have the right qualifications. Monk was staring at hers.
“You’re not an artist?” I said.
“It’s who I am, but it’s not what I do. It’s what sustains me, but not what I live on. It’s—”
“I think I get it,” I said, interrupting her.
She looked back at Monk, who was still fixated on her buttons.
“When did you get back from work?” It was getting increasingly difficult for him to concentrate. Or breathe.
“After midnight,” Lizzie said. “The whole street was closed off. There were firemen everywhere. I couldn’t believe what had happened.”
His unwavering attention to her chest finally became too much even for her. She bent her knees to look him in the eye, but he matched her move, crouching to stay focused on her buttons.
“Mr. Monk, you haven’t looked me in the eye once since you came into my house.”
“I’m sorry; it’s your buttons,” Monk said. “They are very distracting.”
“My buttons, how sweet.” Lizzie straightened up and smiled with false modesty. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. They’re new, and I guess I like showing them off.”
“You should have two,” Monk said.
“That’s what God intended.”
“Or four,” Monk said.
“Four?”
“But this isn’t natural,” Monk said, pointing at her cleavage. “You should really fix those.”
“What did you just say to me?” Her smile morphed into an angry sneer. It wasn’t pretty.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” I said, which was like trying to stop a runaway train after it had already jumped the tracks and plowed into an orphanage. “He doesn’t mean what you think he means.”
“There’s no reason to get upset; it’s very easy to correct,” Monk said. “You can do it yourself.”
She marched to the door and held it open. “Get out. Now.”
Monk held up his hands in surrender, gave me a look, and left. I tried to apologize, but she hustled me out and slammed the door behind me.
“Can you believe some people?” He shook his head in disbelief. “They get so worked up over nothing.”
8
Mr. Monk Straightens Up
Julie sat on the rim of the bathtub watching me while I stood at the mirror, fixing my hair and putting on a little makeup for my date with Firefighter Joe. The bathroom door was closed, so I knew there was no chance of Monk invading our privacy. Julie knew it, too.
“You’re not really going to leave me alone with him, are you?” Julie said.
“Mr. Monk is a very sweet man,” I said.
“He’s strange.”
“Stranger than Mrs. Throphamner?” I said, referring to her usual babysitter. “At least Mr. Monk won’t take his teeth out and put them in a glass while he watches television.”
“Mom, he wouldn’t let me tie my shoes this morning because the two ends of my shoelaces weren’t even. And then after I relaced the shoes, he measured the laces to be sure they were right.”
“That’s his way of showing how much he cares about you.”
“That’s not all. He insisted on tying my shoes because the bows I make aren’t ‘symmetrical.’ ”
“Things will be just fine tonight if you follow a couple of simple rules. Don’t ask him to make choices. Don’t create disorganization of any kind. And whatever you do, don’t make popcorn.”
“Why not?”
“No two kernels are the same. It makes him crazy.”
“Gee, how can you tell?” she said. She’d recently discovered sarcasm, the perfect tool to express her growing frustration, common among all kids her age, with having to tolerate parental authority.
“He likes Wheat Thins. They’re squares. There’s an unopened box in the pantry.”
“Why can’t I come with you?”
“It’s a date,” I said.
“Who says you can’t bring your daughter on a date?”
“You don’t see me inviting myself to your sleepovers with your friends, do you?”
“You’re going to sleep with him tonight?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “That wasn’t what I meant. I’m just saying that sometimes I need a little time to myself. Would you like me to come along on your dates?”
“I don’t date,” she said. “You won’t let me yet.”
“Well, if you did, would you want me there?”
“Fine.” She sighed, and it came out more like an anguished groan. “What are we supposed to do while you’re out having fun?”
I started to clean up the mess I’d made at the sink. “Do what you always do. Watch a movie. Read a book. IM your friends.”
“What about Mr. Monk?”
I looked at the wet towels draped over the shower curtain rod, at the razor I had used to shave my legs, and at all the cotton balls on the floor that had missed the garbage can . . . and I hatched an evil, insidious plot: I decided to leave them.
“Don’t worry about Mr. Monk,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “He’ll be busy getting an early start on tomorrow’s shower.”
I gave myself one last critical appraisal in the mirror, decided there was nothing left I could do without expensive cosmetic surgery, and left the bathroom. It was perfect timing because Firefighter Joe was already knocking at the door.
Monk opened it with a handkerchief, perhaps in case someone infected with bubonic plague had touched the doorknob while we weren’t looking.
Firefighter Joe looked just as good in a leather bomber jacket, polo shirt, and brown corduroy pants as he did in uniform. I had a hunch he looked good in everything. He held a nice bouquet of roses, carnations, and morning glories in one hand and a tiny gift box in the other.
“You’re right on time.” Monk tapped his watch. “To the second. That’s very impressive.”
“Mr. Monk?” Joe said, brow furrowed with confusion. “I didn’t realize that you and Natalie were—”
“We’re not,” I interrupted. “Mr. Monk is staying with us while his apartment building is being fumigated. You look great, by the way. Not that it’s an afterthought. I mean, I noticed it right away, which isn’t to say—”
“Mom,” Julie said. She knows I tend to babble when I’m nervous and does her best to stop me, mostly to save herself, rather than me, from embarrassment.
“These are for you,” Joe said as he offered me the flowers and Julie the gift box.
“What is this for?” Julie asked.
“Open it and see,” he said.
Julie let out a little
gasp when she saw what was in the box. She took out a tiny red badge, similar to the one that Captain Mantooth gave Monk, only this one had a dog-bone emblem.
“It’s Sparky’s fire dog badge,” Julie said. “I can’t take this.”
“I want you to have it,” Joe said. “For caring about Sparky so much that you hired the best detective in San Francisco to find his killer.”
It didn’t matter what Joe might say or do on the date; he’d won me over already. Julie, too. She gave Joe a hug.
“Mom said I could come with you.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said quickly, before Joe could reply. “You’re staying here with Mr. Monk.”
“It’s going to be fun,” Monk said. “We can play with LEGOs.”
“I’m twelve,” Julie said indignantly. “I don’t have any LEGOs.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought mine,” Monk said.
“You play with LEGOs?” Julie said, astonished.
“Are you joking? I’m a red-hot LEGO demon. I’ve got the building-block fever.”
Julie gave me a pleading look, as if I were abandoning her to wolves. “Mom, please. The man has LEGOs.”
“It can get pretty intense,” Monk said. “But we’ll start with some simple structures before we increase the excitement.”
“Don’t get her too excited,” I said to Monk. “She’s got school tomorrow.”
I gave her a kiss and got Joe out of there as fast as I could.
This isn’t a story about me or my love life; it’s a story about Adrian Monk and how he solved two puzzling murders, so I won’t bore you with a lot of details about my date with Firefighter Joe. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s my book and I’m going to talk about whatever I feel like. If you don’t like it, flip ahead a couple of pages.
Some guys try to impress you on a first date by taking you to either a fancy restaurant or a trendy one or on some creative excursion. But I think a date is all about introducing a person to who you are, what matters to you, and what your approach to life is. I guess, in some ways, you’re getting that when a guy tries to wow you with extravagance or cleverness. He’s telling me he’s not the guy for me.
Joe took me to his favorite restaurant in Chinatown, a ten-table, family-owned place with dead ducks hanging in the window as an enticement to come in and sample the menu. Monk would have run away screaming.
Everyone knew Joe there, so it was almost like going to dinner with his family. The food was good, and it was cheap. Another woman might have walked away with the impression that Joe was a cheapskate. Not me. It showed me that Joe was a confident, easygoing guy who was well liked by others and comfortable with his life. Besides, as a single mother on a limited income, I’m always looking for affordable places to eat. It also told me that he was stable and reliable—a guy who runs from relationships and commitments doesn’t go to the same restaurant for years and make friends with the staff.
We talked about the usual first-date stuff. We told each other abbreviated versions of our life stories. I tried to tell mine without dwelling too much on Mitch’s death so as not to depress myself or Joe. I learned that he was raised in Berkeley, that his father was a poet and his mother was a park ranger, and that he’d never been married.
The conversation then turned to firefighting. He told some exciting stories about fires and the colorful history of his firehouse, which was built after the 1906 quake on the site of a rooming house that was the final hideout of desperado Roderick Turlock, the notorious train robber who bedeviled the Pinkertons with his daring gold thefts.
Talking about the firehouse, of course, brought up the investigation into Sparky’s death. I filled Joe in on what we’d learned, that on the night of Sparky’s murder Gregorio Dumas claimed he saw a fireman leave the station a half hour after the rest of the company went to put out the fire at Esther Stoval’s house.
Joe said Gregorio had to be lying, since all the firemen on duty were at the fire. Nobody was left behind at the station or sent back for any reason later.
I could see that talking about Sparky was bringing him down, so I told him some stories about Monk, who amazes me because he can untangle the most perplexing, complicated murder mysteries but is afraid to step into a telephone booth.
We left the restaurant and walked aimlessly around Chinatown for a while, then stopped in at City Lights Bookstore at Broadway and Columbus to browse. I liked that we could enjoy each other’s company even when we weren’t saying anything, but were just standing near each other looking at books.
The clock was inching toward midnight by the time he drove me home. We were only a few blocks away when he pulled over at Dolores Park, at the corner of Church and Twentieth. The park was a scary place at night, full of vagrants and drug dealers.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked.
“I’d like to pay my respects,” he said.
Joe pulled over, got out of the car, and went over to a fire hydrant, which was painted gold. I got out and joined him, looking around to make sure no killers, rapists, or junkies were heading our way.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“This was the little fire hydrant that saved San Francisco after the 1906 quake,” he said, gazing at it thoughtfully.
I glanced at the hydrant. It never struck me as special, though I’d certainly noticed it over the years, usually when some dog was peeing on it.
“This one?” I said. “It seems so far away from downtown.”
“The quake knocked out all the other hydrants. But it was water from this one that finally tamed the firestorm. Every year after that, at five A.M. on April eighteenth, survivors of the quake would show up here and give it another coat of gold paint. Some still do, but mostly it’s up to members of the St. Francis Hook and Ladder Society to carry on the tradition. I’ve missed the last couple of anniversaries.”
I thought he might salute the hydrant or something, but he just gave it a nod and we got back in the car. I wondered if every fireman was as into the lore and legend of San Francisco firefighters as Joe was.
He got me from the park to my doorstep in about two minutes and walked me to my door. I wanted to avoid any awkward moments, so I took the initiative and gave him a friendly kiss on the lips.
“I had a great time,” I said. “A really, really great night.”
“So did I,” Joe replied. “I hope we can do this again sometime soon.”
I wasn’t going to leave him hanging. Or myself. “When are you off duty again?”
He gave me a big smile. “Wednesday.”
“It’s a date,” I said. “Same time?”
“Same time.” He gave me a kiss, a little friendlier than the one I had given him.
I unlocked the door and went inside. I immediately froze. Something wasn’t right. I mean, I was definitely in my house—these were my things—but there was something wrong. Off-kilter. Weird. Like I’d stepped through the door into an alternate universe. It was as if I weren’t standing in my house, but in a brilliant re-creation, like a movie set.
I blinked hard and looked around again. What was it that was giving me that feeling of being in another dimension?
Monk came out of the kitchen with a glass of milk. “Did you enjoy your date?”
“He’s a very sweet man,” I said.
I told Monk the story about the firehouse and the train robber and the reasons Joe thought Gregorio Dumas was lying about seeing a fireman at the station. Monk mulled all of that for a moment, working out that nonexistent kink in his neck.
“How did things go tonight with you and Julie?” I asked.
“We worked the LEGOs for a while.”
Monk gestured to the kitchen. I looked past him and saw a massive and elaborate LEGO castle, complete with drawbridge, turrets, and a moat, erected on our table. It would have taken me a year to build that.
“She’s got the touch,” he said proudly.
“Really?”
“With the right training and lots of
practice, I think she could become a LEGO master.”
“Like yourself.”
“I don’t like to brag.”
“So what did you do with the rest of your evening?” I asked, still feeling unsettled and off balance.
Monk shrugged. “I straightened up a little bit.”
So that was it.
I looked around the room again and saw what I’d only registered unconsciously before. Monk had done exactly what he said: He’d literally straightened the place. He must have taken a T square and a level to everything in the house. All my stuff was still there, only it had been adjusted. Aligned. The furniture was centered and each piece was repositioned at uniform, measured distances from the others. All the pictures on the wall had been rehung, so that the spaces between them were consistent. The knickknacks and framed photos on the tables and shelves were grouped by height and shape and spaced evenly apart. The magazines were arranged by name and stacked chronologically. He’d reorganized my books alphabetically, by size, and, for all I knew, by copyright date as well.
The living room—and I assumed the entire house—was clean, organized, and utterly sterile. It looked like a model home. I hated it.
“Mr. Monk, everything in here is level and centered and perfectly organized.”
“Thank you.” He beamed with pride, which only frustrated and infuriated me more.
“No, it’s wrong. Don’t you see? You’ve taken all the personality and charm out of my house.”
“Everything is still here,” Monk said. “Except the dirt, the dust, and half a grilled cheese sandwich I found under the couch.”
“But there’s no more clutter,” I said. “It looks like robots live here.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“People live here, Mr. Monk. Eight years of marriage, twelve years of parenting, a mother and daughter living together; that all leaves a trail. I like that trail. It comforts me. It’s the muddled arrangement of photos on the shelf, the half-read book left open on the arm of a chair, and yes, even the forgotten grilled cheese sandwich. Clutter and disorganization, those are signs of life. It is life.”
