Mr. Monk Gets Even (10 page)

“Even if there was a doomsday fart, I don’t think you have to worry about that now,” Devlin said. “Passing gas isn’t deadly.”

“It is if you have any shame,” Monk said. “And I have plenty.”

He turned and went into Carin Branham’s house.

Devlin looked at Julie. “How can you stand to be with him all day?”

“He pays me,” she said.

“It can’t possibly be enough,” Devlin said, and then the two women followed Monk inside.

The house was clean and contemporary. It had obviously been extensively renovated. Several walls had been removed to open up the state-of-the-art kitchen to the family room, which had a huge flat-screen TV and floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases with lighted niches to display awards, knickknacks, and antiques.

The shelves were full of hardcover and paperback books, a small law library, bound journals, and binder-style photo albums, though everything was distinctly organized by type of binding, which I’m sure was something that Monk appreciated.

Monk examined the books, but his attention was quickly drawn to the photo albums, which were on an upper shelf. He brought over a nearby stepladder and tentatively climbed up while gripping the shelf for dear life.

“He isn’t two feet off the ground,” Devlin said to Julie as she observed Monk’s ascent.

“He’s afraid of heights,” Julie said.

“It’s two feet,” she said.

“A fall from any height has the potential to break your neck,” Julie said. “I know a guy who broke both of his arms falling off a curb.”

“Was this curb over a cliff?”

“The point is, heights of any kind can be dangerous.”

“You’re just arguing his side to mess with me.”

“Yes,” Julie said. “I am. I have to do something to entertain myself.”

Monk spoke up. “This shelf is very dusty.”

“You’re not dusting the house,” Devlin said. “So if that’s what you’re thinking, you can forget it.”

“The only place where there isn’t dust on this shelf is in front of this album,” Monk said, “suggesting to me that it was removed and replaced today.”

He pulled the album out, an action that threw him off balance and sent him toppling off the stepladder. Julie bolted forward, catching his back with her hands and preventing him from falling.

Monk regained his footing and took a deep breath.

Devlin remained where she was, shaking her head.

“Thank you, Julie. You saved my life,” Monk said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Julie said.

“If I’d continued to fall, I would have cracked my head open on the edge of the coffee table and, at the very least, suffered severe brain damage.”

“Or actual decapitation,” Devlin said. “I hope that album was worth the enormous risk you took scaling the bookcase without rappelling gear and a safety net to get it.”

“It was,” Monk said, bringing the album to the coffee table, where Julie and Devlin joined him. “Do you recognize that scent?”

“What scent?” Devlin asked.

“The wonderful aroma of Windex,” Monk said. “The cover and spine of the album have been sprayed and wiped with it to remove fingerprints.”

“I have no doubt that you can recognize the smell of Windex, since you probably bathe in the stuff,” Devlin said, “but how do you know that’s what it was used for?”

“Because he’s a careful killer who wanted to remove any prints he left behind.” Monk opened the album, which contained family photos held in place by a thin layer of transparent plastic film that pressed them against the sticky surface of the underlying page. “And he also didn’t want us to know which pages he looked at because it could reveal his identity.”

“You mean there are photos of the killer in here?” Devlin asked.

“No, but there might as well be,” Monk said.

“I don’t understand,” Devlin said.

“You’ll notice that several of the pages are stuck together. That’s because they were damp. He sprayed them with Windex and wiped them down before he put the book away. Those are the pages that Carin showed him, and that he touched.”

With that buildup, Julie expected some dramatic photos. But the pictures weren’t that remarkable, just various shots of Carin’s kids at different ages, on trips and at sporting events. They were the kinds of photos that every parent has of their kids. I have boxes of them.

“So Carin was proud of her kids and was showing them off to the friend who came to kill her,” Devlin said. “I don’t see how that incriminates anyone.”

“Carin was very careful about the pictures she chose, picking key pages throughout the book rather than just flipping through it from beginning to end,” Monk said. “She only chose pictures that showed her kids alone or with her. She didn’t show him any photos that included her husband.”

“You think her killer was an old lover or boyfriend,” Devlin said.

“I don’t think so,” Monk said. “I know so.”

CHAPTER NINE

Mr. Monk and the Mistake

M
onk gave Devlin plenty to go on in the investigation and he had no problem walking away and letting her work on the leads without him.

That’s because he wasn’t the kind of detective who detected, at least not in the traditional sense of doing research, interviewing scores of people, and going through the forensics.

He was the kind who made his discoveries through the observation of people, places, and things, noticing what wasn’t quite right in what he saw, or what they said, or what they did, and putting it into order.

So he’d take whatever facts Devlin came up with and use them to interpret whatever he’d observed and, from that, make his brilliant deductions, seemingly from out of nowhere.

And it really pissed off Devlin, because she knew better than anyone that his startling “out of nowhere” deductions were often based on facts that she’d worked very hard to dig up, even if the conclusions that she’d reached from them were wrong.

But regardless, it was his deductions that got all the attention and that moved the investigations forward. Her work was usually forgotten or simply ignored. She rarely got any credit for any of the work she did that helped Monk make his stunning deductions.

I could understand her frustration and anger. But what she didn’t understand was that it wasn’t personal or intentional. Monk didn’t care about getting credit or attention. For him, it was all about restoring balance, cleaning up a mess, and making things right. It never occurred to him to thank or acknowledge anyone for their contribution to his process. The way he saw it, we were all fulfilling our obligation to maintain the natural balance of things. It would be like thanking someone for breathing.

That’s just my theory, of course, but it explains why he could walk away and leave Devlin on her own with three murders left to solve.

There was simply nothing for him to go on yet.

So, as if the day hadn’t been long and exhausting enough, he had Julie drive him that evening to Union Street and the stretch of trendy boutiques, galleries, and restaurants between Steiner and Octavia streets.

The shops there catered to the wealthy residents of Pacific Heights and most of the goods for sale were priced way outside Monk’s comfort zone. Then again, so is everything at the Ninety-Nine Cent Store. That’s because his wallet is hermetically sealed, figuratively and literally.

But that didn’t really matter because he wasn’t going there to shop. He was going to visit Ellen Morse, who’d opened up the West Coast outpost of Poop on Union Street.

Crap is a surprisingly high-end product, and on Union Street Ellen could find plenty of buyers who would spend twelve thousand dollars on a Swiss timepiece with a face made of fossilized dinosaur dung, or twenty-five thousand dollars on a sculpture of a swan carved from panda poop, or twenty-five dollars an ounce for a bag of Kopi Luwak, the gourmet coffee beans gathered from civet droppings.

There were less pricey things at Poop, of course. The discerning Pacific Heights shopper could also buy inexpensively priced dung-based stationery, salad dressings, and shampoos.

What made those buyers special wasn’t only their money. They were also trend-makers. If the women of Pacific Heights washed their hair with crap, then the women of Noe Valley, the Marina, and North Beach were sure to follow.

Monk never set foot in Poop. Julie always called Ellen to alert her that Monk was on the way so she could meet him outside.

It wasn’t enough for Monk that they meet outside of the store—they also had to be a safe distance away. This time, Monk suggested they meet at Lush, a handmade, natural soap store a few doors down from Poop.

Ordinarily, Julie would have simply dropped Monk off for his date and driven away as fast as she could for a date of her own, especially given an already packed and exhausting day that began with a tuxedo fitting in Marin County, hours at the hospital and a confrontation with Dale the Whale, and a visit to another crime scene. But she loved Lush almost as much as Monk did.

The soaps were displayed like piles of candies, cheese, and pastries and were described as if they were meant to be consumed, not used for cleaning, moisturizing, and rejuvenating.

While they waited for Ellen to arrive, Julie admired a vanilla-bean and cocoa-butter bath bar that promised not only to moisturize her skin but to release a jasmine, vanilla, and tonka-bean blend that would make her irresistible.

Monk examined some soaps that looked like assorted brownies and promised to brutalize dirt and grime while exfoliating and energizing with their decadent dark-chocolate and cocoa-butter blends.

Ellen came in and gave Monk a hug so intimate that a car could have parked between them. Monk immediately blushed.

“Isn’t this a wonderful store?” Monk said.

“It is,” she said. “I love the way it smells.”

“An alley would smell good compared to where you’ve been all day,” Monk said.

Ellen laughed at that, which is one of the reasons both Julie and I liked her so much. She was one of the few people—okay, actually the only person—who found Monk’s complaints and little digs adorable rather than infuriating.

“I look at these soaps and I want to have them all,” she said.

“Me, too,” Monk said. “There is nothing more wholesome, more admirable, than a soap store.”

“I sell soap,” she said.

Monk did a full-body cringe. “Yours is made of cow dung.”

“Which is every bit as natural as what they make these soaps from,” she said. “And handmade, too, just like these.”

That image provoked another full-body cringe from Monk. Ellen laughed again and gave his arm a squeeze.

“Don’t worry, I don’t make them myself,” she said. “My hands are clean. And, as we agreed, I didn’t wash them with any of the soap that I sell.”

“Let me buy you some soap,” Monk said. “Made with soap.”

“That would be wonderful,” she said, and went over to greet Julie. “How was your day today?”

“Murder,” Julie said with a smile.

“So business as usual,” Ellen said, then looked to see what was in my daughter’s shopping basket. Julie had picked up the vanilla-bean bath bar and was now examining a pink ball of soap that appeared to have a red rose embedded in the center. “What is this?”

“The end to the perfect Saturday night,” she said.

Ellen read the description of the soap, a bath bomb of jasmine, clary sage, soya milk, and something called ylang-ylang, all of which, when combined and dissolved in water, were supposedly among “nature’s most potent and seductive ingredients,” turning any bath into an aphrodisiac.

Ellen took one of the pink balls. “I’d like this one, Adrian.”

She tossed it to him and he caught it.

“What kind of soap is it?” he asked. As he looked it over, Ellen removed the display card with the description and hid it behind her back.

“Extreme antibacterial scrubber,” Ellen said. “They call it the Germ Nuker.”

“It’s pink,” he said.

“So as not to alert the germs to the utter annihilation that’s coming,” she said.

“Now that’s my kind of soap,” Monk said. He walked over and took two for himself.

“I hope so,” Ellen said.

Monk walked away from them and headed to the cash register.

Julie smiled at Ellen. “Do you think it will work?”

Ellen replaced the description card. “If anything is ever going to get Adrian in a romantic mood, it’s probably going to have something to do with soap or cleaning supplies.”

“That’s more than I ever wanted to know,” Julie said and went to the register herself.

Monk was in such a magnanimous mood that he bought Julie her soaps, too.

“I want to encourage you to lead a healthy lifestyle,” Monk said.

“Thank you,” Julie said.

“How did the tuxedo fitting go?” Ellen asked as they headed for the door.

“The tailor was a strange man. He supposedly respects fine garments but thinks nothing of drawing all over them with chalk to indicate where he needs to make his adjustments.” Monk held the door open for them and they stepped outside. “I objected, of course.”

“Of course,” Ellen said.

Julie looked at her and was surprised to see that Ellen was serious. Although Ellen sold Poop products, she and Monk shared an obsession with order, symmetry, and cleanliness. But Ellen was more in control of her OCD tendencies and was also much more socially well-adjusted than Monk.