Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu (15 page)

“You should tell him to what he should do with those tickets.”

“I will,” Monk said.

“You
will
?”

The officer returned and handed me the tickets, my license, and my registration slip. “You should drive more attentively in the future, Ms. Teeger, for your own safety and the good of the community.”

I looked at Monk. “Don’t you have something to say to the officer?”

Monk cleared his throat. “I’m the captain of homicide; are you aware of that?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Good, then listen very carefully. Here’s what I want you to do with those tickets.” Monk leaned across me and looked the officer in the eye. “Make copies and mail them to her in case she loses the originals.”

“I’ll do that,” Officer Nakamura said, a little bewildered, and walked away.

“Thanks a lot,” I said to Monk.

“I’m just looking out for your best interests.”

“How, exactly?” I said.

“If you lose them and fail to pay the fine, they could issue a warrant for your arrest,” Monk said. “Then who would drive me?”

The Richmond District was once a foggy wasteland where the city buried its dead. Now it’s become a multicultural, multiethnic neighborhood of dim-sum restaurants and Italian bakeries, French bistros and Russian tearooms. Turn-of-the-century Edwardian homes stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Victorian row houses and stucco apartment blocks. It’s a quirky place, on the cusp of becoming
très
chic and
très
unaffordable. The city’s only Church of Satan is in the neighborhood, but you won’t find that mentioned by many real estate agents or highlighted in any of the tourist guides.

Scott Eggers’s corpse was in the alley behind his pastel-colored house on Tenth Avenue. There was a white plastic grocery bag over his head and cinched around his neck.

Eggers wore a tank top and shorts. He had the sculpted muscles of a man who worked out with weights rather than the natural physique of someone who got buff from his labors.

The body was between a shiny Lexus convertible and a bunch of trash cans, which were making it difficult for Monk to concentrate on the task at hand.

Monk stood a few feet away from the body and kept his eye on the cans as if they might suddenly pounce and gobble him up.

A woman in an unflattering white jumpsuit, emblazoned with the letters SID across the back in big yellow letters, crouched over the body, her long red hair tied in a ponytail and stuffed under her collar so she wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. She was in her late thirties and freckle-faced. She introduced herself to us as Terri Quinn.

“Here’s what I think happened—” she began, but stopped midsentence when Monk held up his hand.

“There’s a set of keys under the car, and the back of the victim’s head is matted with blood,” Monk said. “So it’s clear he was on his way to his car, taking his keys out to disable the alarm, when he was struck from behind. He fell facedown. The killer grabbed a grocery bag from the trash, pinned the victim down, and suffocated him.”

“How do you know the bag came from the trash as opposed to the killer bringing it with him?” Terri asked.

Monk pointed to the store logo on the bag. “We passed that grocery store on Clement Street on our way over, so I’m assuming that’s where the victim shops and that his garbage can is full of those bags.”

“You’re good,” Terri said.

“I’m sorry,” Monk said. “Usually I’m better than that.”

It was a remark that would have come off as arrogant if he didn’t deliver it with such genuine disappointment in himself.

Terri gave me a questioning look. I didn’t know how to convey the answer with an expression, not that I even had an answer to give her.

“Mr. Eggers was struck with a blunt object, like a pipe or crowbar. Whatever it was, we haven’t recovered it,” Terri said. “There’s a bruise on the victim’s back, presumably from where he was pinned down by the killer’s knee, and there are plenty more of those grocery bags in the trash.”

“What a horrible way to die,” I said.

“It could have been worse,” Terri said. “He could have been conscious when it happened. He basically died in his sleep, and it was all over in less than five minutes. Mr. Eggers never knew what hit him.”

“Or
who
hit him,” Monk said. “It was all done behind his back.”

“Makes sense to me,” Terri said. “This guy was strong. I wouldn’t want to take him on in a fair fight, and I’ve got a black belt.”

“What is this car worth?” Monk said.

I shrugged. “I’d guess close to a hundred thousand dollars.”

“I wonder why the killer didn’t take it,” Monk said. “It would have been easy. The keys are right there on the ground.”

“Maybe the car has LoJack and the killer was afraid the police would activate it and pinpoint his location,” I said.

“The killer didn’t take Eggers’s wallet, either,” Terri said. “There’s two hundred dollars in cash and several credit cards in it.”

Monk frowned, rolled his shoulders, and fiddled idly with the top button of his collar, as if his clothes were itchy or didn’t fit right. But it wasn’t his clothes that were irritating him; it was the facts of the case.

“How long has he been dead?” Monk asked.

“I’m guessing about an hour. His body was still warm when we got here. His lover came back from a run in the Presidio, found the body, and called it in. That’s him, with the baseball cap.” She motioned to a man in front of the crowd that had gathered on the other side of the yellow caution tape. The man was dressed in a bright blue running suit, and there were tears running down his rough, unshaven cheeks. “His name is Hank Criswell.”

“Thank you, Terri,” Monk said.

“It’s what they pay me for, sir,” she said with a smile. A flirty smile. I almost did a double take. Monk missed the implications of her smile, of course. He is an incredibly observant man except when it comes to the subtleties of human behavior.

If I thought Monk was open to the idea of dating, I would have pointed out to him what he’d missed. But he was still in love with his late wife and, as far as I could tell, wasn’t the least bit interested in pursuing a romance. I wondered what it was about Monk that attracted her to him.

He walked up to the police line and casually flipped open his badge for Hank Criswell to see. Monk enjoyed it so much, he flipped his badge case twice more to the uniformed cop.

“I’m Adrian Monk. I’m investigating the homicide of Mr. Eggers. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“There’s nothing to investigate. Go arrest Merle Smetter,” Criswell said, wiping the tears off his cheeks with the palms of his hands. “He killed Scott.”

“How do you know?” Monk said.

I would have asked who Merle Smetter was first, but I wasn’t the detective.

“Smetter put a redwood deck and a hot tub on his roof without getting any of the necessary permits. He parties up there all the time. The noise from that is bad enough, but the pool equipment is right outside our bedroom window, whining and gurgling day and night,” Criswell said. “So we filed a complaint against him with the city, and they’re making him tear everything out.”

“It seems like a minor dispute between neighbors,” Monk said. “Not something that would lead to murder.”

“People kill each other for pocket change. It’s costing Smetter a hundred and sixty thousand dollars to remove everything and restore the roof to its original condition, and he blames us for it,” Criswell said. “It could cost him more if we win the lawsuit.”

“You’re suing him?” I said. “What for?”

“We’re artists, graphic designers. The noise is causing us to lose sleep, which affects our creativity and our business. So we’re demanding one-point-five million for lost income and intentional infliction of emotional distress,” Criswell said. “But that amount is going to go way, way up now. I am suffering
extreme
emotional distress.”

More tears spilled from Criswell’s bloodshot eyes, and he was racked with fresh sobs.

“Where can I find Mr. Smetter?” Monk asked.

Criswell sniffled and pointed an accusing finger at a man who would stand out in any crowd.

Smetter looked like a cross between a munchkin and a ferret. He was a bald, beer-bellied man with tufts of body hair poking out from underneath his collar, and a waxed mustache that curled at the ends.

He was also barely five feet tall.

The only way Merle Smetter could have attacked Scott Eggers from behind was if he launched himself at him from a pogo stick.

Monk and I shared a look. He didn’t seem convinced, either.

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Criswell,” Monk said. “I’d like to have an officer take your statement, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“You’re not arresting Smetter?”

“Not just yet,” Monk said.

We walked over to one of the officers. As we got closer, I recognized him as Officer Milner, the guy who loaned Monk the binoculars at McKinley Park. He smiled warmly when he saw us.

“I didn’t know your beat extended across the entire city,” I said.

“With this flu bug going around, the department is spread pretty thin,” Officer Milner said. “So I’m going wherever they need me.”

“Officer, could you get statements from Hank Criswell, Merle Smetter, and any other neighbors with homes that overlook this alley?” Monk asked.

“Sure thing,” Officer Milner said enthusiastically.

“You don’t mind helping Mr. Monk out?”

“It’s my job, isn’t it?”

“I was thinking with the flu and all, you might have a problem with our being here.”

Officer Milner shrugged. “We’ve all got to make a living. Look at me—I’m taking all the overtime I can get.”

“Then perhaps you could also round up some other officers and look for anyone who could verify that Hank Criswell was actually jogging in the park at the time of the murder,” Monk said.

“Will do, Captain,” Officer Milner said. “How’s the Strangler case coming? Has the mayor’s reward brought in a lot of leads?”

“Nobody has come forward yet,” Monk said.

“Someone will,” Officer Milner said. “There are people who’d finger their own kid for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Millner took out his notebook and walked over to Criswell. I watched him go. He was a good-looking guy.

“You think Criswell killed his lover and then pretended to discover the body?” I asked Monk.

Monk shook his head. “I’m just being thorough. Criswell wouldn’t have attacked Eggers in broad daylight in the alley behind their home. There’s too much of a chance he’d be seen and recognized.”

“So what’s your theory?”

“I don’t have one,” Monk said. “Nothing about this homicide is right.”

“There’s a right way to kill someone?”

“If this was a robbery, why go to the trouble of suffocating him when he was already unconscious and defenseless? And why wasn’t anything taken?” Monk said. “If this was a premeditated murder, why attack him in broad daylight? If the killer intended to suffocate him from the outset, why not bring a bag rather than digging through the trash for one?”

Monk shuddered at the thought of it.

“It looks as if the killer improvised the whole thing in a hurry,” Monk said. “No attempt was made to make this seem like anything except what it is.”

“Which is what?”

“A homicide that isn’t right,” Monk said.

Monk stood in the doorway to the homicide squad room in stunned silence. I was pretty astonished myself.

Porter, Chow, and Wyatt, their assistants, and Officer Curtis were at their desks, either talking on the phone, using their computers, or sorting through papers, and were only gradually becoming aware of our arrival. But seeing them all hard at work wasn’t what was so amazing.

It was the squad room itself. In our absence it had been transformed into a showroom for the principles of balance and order.

All the desks were lined up in rows and spaced apart so evenly, it looked as though someone had actually measured the distance between them to the centimeter.

The telephones, lamps, legal pads, computer monitors, keyboards, pencil holders, and other desktop items were each in the same spot on every desk, as if they’d been permanently glued in place.

Every pencil cup contained exactly four pencils of equal length, four pens (two black and two blue), two pairs of scissors, and two rulers.

Every poster, photograph, map, and bulletin board on the walls was centered, straightened, spaced evenly apart, and arranged by size, shape, and color. Even the papers, photos, and notes on the individual bulletin boards were aligned by size, shape, and color.

The place had been thoroughly Monked.

The only corner of the squad room that remained untouched was Captain Stottlemeyer’s office, which, by comparison, looked as if it had been ransacked.

By the time Monk had taken it all in, everyone in the office had set their work aside and turned to face him. He was so moved by what he’d seen that he could barely summon the breath to speak.

To be honest, I had tears in my eyes. I was happy for Monk and genuinely touched by what these strangers had done to show their appreciation and respect for him.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I won’t let you down.”

He wanted to say more, but couldn’t find the words. He simply smiled, nodded a few times, and retreated to the interrogation room that he was using as his office.

Wyatt grimaced. “What the hell was he talking about?”

“He’s obviously nuttier than a can of cashews,” Chow replied.

“He sure is,” Porter agreed. “Whoever he is.”