Mr. Monk Gets Even (13 page)

“For you, no,” Devlin said. “But for a billionaire, yes.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mr. Monk and the Billionaire

B
eing rich is certainly better than being poor, but it doesn’t mean you’re less likely to become a murderer, or get yourself killed, than anybody else. I can think of more than a dozen times that murder investigations led Monk to a mansion in Pacific Heights, where the city’s elite live, supposedly above all the troubles that afflict us mere mortals.

The ruthless robber barons who built the city picked this spot in the 1800s as their Mount Olympus, using their gold and railroad riches to erect their castles high above everyone else, granting spectacular views of their domain.

Back then, and even more so today, to attain the kind of wealth required to live in Pacific Heights, and to keep it once you have it, you must be a strong-willed, aggressive, and fiercely protective person capable of going to extraordinary lengths to get what you want. Those are certainly great attributes for a murderer to have, and also the kind of personality traits that would make someone want to slit your throat.

Cleve Dobbs didn’t rise to the top of the tech world, and make Peach a household name (except in Monk’s household), without being tenacious and vicious and without plowing through any obstacles, human or otherwise, in his path.

I could see him as a murderer. Then again, after working so long for Monk, I could see anyone as a killer.

Even with the siren, it took Stottlemeyer nearly forty-five minutes to make his way to Dobbs’ house, which was just a few doors down from the Victorian mansion that once belonged to Veronica Lorber, widow of Burgerville founder Brandon Lorber, whose murder Monk had solved a few years back.

Like I said, we’d been to the Heights a lot.

Veronica ended up marrying a twenty-four-year-old male model, who was easily thirty years younger than her, and moved to Marbella, where she died a mysterious death—but that’s another story and not one we were involved with.

Dobbs’ house took its design cues from Vaux-le-Vicomte castle in France. It didn’t have the moat, but it did have a stone bridge over a large pond full of exotic and colorful fish.

Stottlemeyer rang the bell and held his badge up to the security camera. Monk, Julie, and Devlin stood behind him.

“May I help you?” a woman’s voice asked over the speaker.

“Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, SFPD. We’d like to see Cleve Dobbs. It’s urgent.”

“Come right in,” she said.

There was a buzz and the gate unlocked. They walked over the bridge to the front door, which was elaborately carved out of wood and probably thick enough to withstand an assault with a battering ram. The iron knocker was a lion with a ring in its teeth, which was no surprise. I saw them on the doors of rich people’s homes all the time. I’m not sure why people think the knocker, or a statue of a lion with his paw on a stone ball, is so classy.

A woman opened the door. Her long, prematurely gray hair was in sharp contrast with her youthful features, perfect skin, and radiant blue eyes.

“I’m Jenna Dobbs, Cleve’s wife. Can you tell me what this is regarding?”

“We really need to speak with him,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Very well.” She ushered them inside.

The entry hall had two vast, curving staircases that looked as if they’d been carved from two huge slabs of marble and a gigantic chandelier that resembled the mother ship in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. It probably was.

Julie had to suppress an urge to take a picture of it with her iPhone.

Jenna led them through the entry hall to the great room, which was two stories tall with a breathtaking view of the garden. The meticulously landscaped yard, also modeled after the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte, sloped downward in such a way that it created the illusion that their property stretched clear out to the Golden Gate beyond, as if the bridge and the bay belonged to them, too. A vast second-story balcony, supported by vine-wrapped Romanesque pillars, gave a commanding view of the bay from the upper floors.

My daughter had never been in a house that big, ostentatious, and opulent before, and it was all she could do not to gasp.

Devlin didn’t seem impressed. If anything, the wealth seemed to irritate her. Julie couldn’t read Stottlemeyer, but based on what she knew about him, she figured he wouldn’t let himself be intimidated by the trappings of money and power and would treat Dobbs like anybody else.

Monk, of course, was interested only in how clean, orderly, and symmetrical everything was and, on that score, he had to be impressed.

Jenna led them outside, where they found Cleve Dobbs on his knees, planting roses. He stood up as they approached. He was deeply tanned and was dressed in a sunhat, polo shirt, and cargo shorts. He wore thick leather garden gloves and he had rubber pads strapped to his knees with Velcro.

“Cleve, this is Captain Stottlemeyer with the San Francisco Police,” Jenna said. “He says it’s urgent.”

“Is this about my parking tickets?” Dobbs asked, limping slightly as he approached them.

“I’m not in parking enforcement,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m in homicide. This is Lieutenant Devlin, our consultant Adrian Monk, and his assistant, Julie Teeger.”

Dobbs pulled off his gloves and stuck them in the pockets of his shorts. “What can I do for you?”

“You could confess,” Monk said.

Stottlemeyer gave Monk a sharp look of warning, then shifted his gaze back to Dobbs. “We’re investigating the deaths of Bruce Grossman and David Zuzelo.”

“I heard on the news that Bruce fell off a cliff or something a few days ago,” Dobbs said. “What happened to Mr. Zuzelo?”

It’s funny how we think about the teachers we had as kids. No matter how many years have passed since we were in their classes, or how old we get, they will always be Mr. or Mrs. Whoever to us.

“He fell from the deck of his seventeenth-floor apartment here in the city,” Stottlemeyer said.

“That’s terrible,” Dobbs said.

“Who was he?” Jenna asked.

“My high school math teacher,” Dobbs said.

“The one who said you would never amount to anything?” Jenna said.

“Yeah,” Dobbs said. “In fact, those were his exact words, pun intended.”

“What pun?” Monk asked.

“Amount to anything,” Dobbs said.

“I don’t get it,” Monk said.

“He was a math teacher,” Dobbs said. “And he was referring to what he considered my lack of mathematical comprehension.”

“I still don’t get it,” Monk said.

“It doesn’t matter, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said, then turned back to Dobbs. “The point is, Mr. Dobbs, that they weren’t accidents. Both men were murdered.”

“By someone they knew,” Devlin added.

“I’m sure they knew lots of people besides me,” Dobbs said. “So why are you here?”

“Because yesterday Carin Branham drowned in her swimming pool,” Stottlemeyer said. “And that wasn’t an accident, either, though someone tried to make it look like one.”

Dobbs sighed and rubbed his arm, the one with the “CaringForever” tattoo. “I see.”

“I don’t,” Jenna said.

“Three people were murdered in what initially appeared to be accidental deaths,” Devlin said. “And the one thing they had in common was that they all knew your husband.”

“And he hated them,” Monk said, then gestured to Dobbs’ feet. “You wear a size twelve shoe.”

“Yes, I do,” Dobbs said. “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. And I certainly didn’t hate any of those people. Quite the contrary. I owe them the success that I have today.”

“How do you figure that?” Devlin asked.

“I wanted to prove Mr. Zuzelo wrong. That’s what motivated me to get past my fear of math and to embrace it. I would never have been able to write the code for the Peach software without that,” Dobbs said. “If it wasn’t for Carin dumping me, and the heartbreak that drove me into seclusion, I probably never would have created the Peach. And if Bruce hadn’t fired me, and taken over my company, I would never have realized and acknowledged the serious management mistakes that I’d been making that would have doomed the company if I’d stayed on. Thanks to him, I was able to come back to Peach and make it a bigger success than it was before.”

That was pretty much the rationale that Devlin predicted he’d use, so she must have been pleased with herself.

“You have scratches on your ankle,” Monk said.

“That’s what you get when you work in a rose garden,” Dobbs said. “Roses have thorns. What’s your point?”

“I think you got those scratches when you stood on the wicker chair on Zuzelo’s deck and your foot went right through the seat,” Monk said. “The limp, too.”

“You’re kidding me,” Dobbs said. “You think I threw my high school math teacher off a roof?”

“His deck,” Monk said.

“We aren’t saying that,” Stottlemeyer said firmly.

“I am,” Monk said.

“This is going well,” Devlin whispered to Julie.

“I find your insinuations highly offensive,” Jenna said. “My husband has been limping for a while now. In fact, he went to the doctor about it last week.”

“Sprained my ankle playing racquetball and it won’t go away,” Dobbs said, but he kept his eye on Monk. “You think I pushed Bruce off a cliff and drowned Carin, too?”

“No, we don’t,” Stottlemeyer said.

“I do,” Monk said.

“Why would I do that?” Dobbs said.

“I don’t know,” Monk said.

“Isn’t that something you should know before accusing someone of multiple murders?” Dobbs asked.

“We aren’t accusing you of anything,” Stottlemeyer said.

“He is,” Jenna said, pointing her finger at Monk. “And I’ve had enough. When did these murders happen?”

Devlin told her the approximate times of death and the days when the murders occurred.

“Well, that settles it,” Jenna said. “He was here with me all of those times. On the morning Bruce was murdered, we were having breakfast on our deck. When that math teacher was killed, we were in bed together, watching Jimmy Kimmel.”

“I love that guy,” Dobbs said.

“And when Carin was killed,” she continued, “I was inside but I saw Cleve out here puttering away in the garden.”

“That’s good to know,” Stottlemeyer said. “But an alibi isn’t really necessary. The reason we’re here is because you seem to be the only connection between these three victims. We’re hoping you can offer us some insight into who might be doing this.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dobbs said.

“It is to me,” Monk said.

“My book just came out and is a huge best seller. Clearly some twisted individual, someone who resents me for some reason, is killing people who played a significant role in shaping the man that I have become,” Dobbs said. “What you should do is read my book, identify other possible targets, and warn them that they could be in danger.”

“Or you could just give us your list,” Monk said.

“I don’t know how a killer thinks,” Dobbs said.

“Oh, sure you do,” Monk said.

“That’s enough, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said, then looked at Devlin. “Take him back to the car, Lieutenant. He’s done here. If he won’t go, put him in handcuffs and drag him out.”

“With pleasure,” Devlin said, then grabbed Monk by the arm and led him away.

This put Julie in an awkward position. Her reflex was to leave with Monk. On the other hand, she was tempted to stay, just in case anything was said that might prove useful later on in Monk’s investigation. Then again, she was afraid of what Stottlemeyer might do if he saw her lingering.

So she split the difference. She walked away, but didn’t leave. She stayed within earshot, admiring the house and the big balcony with its well-tended potted trees and flower boxes. She imagined what it would be like to live in such a place.

“I apologize for my colleague,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Adrian Monk,” Dobbs said. “I’ve heard of him. He’s supposed to be brilliant.”

Monk would have liked hearing that.

“He is,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s also a difficult personality.”

“People have described me the same way,” Dobbs said. “So how can I help?”

“Your theory about the murders makes a lot of sense,” Stottlemeyer said. “Except for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Whoever killed these people wasn’t some wacko off the street,” Stottlemeyer said. “At least two of the victims invited the killer into their homes.”

“That’s scary,” Jenna said.

“I don’t know, but I’d be cautious if I were you,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’d also warn your friends to keep their eyes open and be extra careful, but that’s not going to be easy.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The killer could be someone close to you,” Stottlemeyer said. “Someone you trust. The person you warn could actually be the one you should be afraid of.”

“If he’s been close to us for that long,” Dobbs said, “why start killing now?”

“That’s a good question,” Stottlemeyer said. “Something you did, or something you said in your book, must have ticked him off and sparked these killings.”

“I’ve got no idea who that could be,” Dobbs said.

“Unfortunately, neither do we.”