Mr. Monk Gets Even (28 page)

“It’s much better when there’s someone to catch,” she said. “This feels kind of anticlimactic to me. The killer is dead.”

Stottlemeyer and Devlin strode up.

“Wow,” Devlin said. “You clean up nice.”

“I’m always clean,” Monk said. “When have you ever seen me dirty?”

“The name is Monk,” the captain said. “Adrian Monk.”

“Yes, I know that,” Monk said. “What is wrong with you and Natalie today? Why do you feel the need to tell me my own name? We don’t have time for this nonsense. Did you bring the key?”

“And the code for the gate,” Devlin said and went to the keypad.

I cleared my throat. “Are you forgetting something, Mr. Monk?”

He patted his chest and his pockets. “I don’t think so.”

I gestured to Ellen and suddenly it occurred to him.

“Oh yes, forgive me,” Monk said. “Captain Stottlemeyer, Lieutenant Devlin, I’d like you to meet my friend Ellen Morse. She sells crap.”

“One man’s crap is another man’s art,” Stottlemeyer said and offered her his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“It’s actual crap,” Monk said.

“Likewise,” she said to Stottlemeyer. “I know you’ve been a great friend to Adrian.”

“It’s not easy,” Stottlemeyer said.

Devlin opened the gate. “We’re in.”

We all filed past her and Monk led us to the backyard. The blood, bone, and brain matter had been hosed off the patio, and the flowers that Cleve Dobbs planted seemed to be thriving. His gloves and shovel were still where he’d left them, though, which was kind of creepy.

Monk held forth in front of the new flower bed.

“When Julie and I last saw Cleve Dobbs alive, he was standing here, working on his garden. He wanted to hire me to find whoever had killed Bruce Grossman, David Zuzelo, and Carin Branham.” Monk glanced at Ellen. “Grossman was the CEO who replaced Dobbs at Peach. Zuzelo was the high school math teacher who told Dobbs he’d amount to nothing. And Carin was his first love, who dumped him.”

“There’s no need to explain things to me that the others already know,” Ellen said. “I appreciate the courtesy, but please press on. Don’t let me slow you down.”

It was good advice, since we had only an hour left before the wedding and we still had to get clear across the bay.

“Very well, let’s go inside,” Monk said. “Julie, would you please bring those garden gloves with you?”

I couldn’t imagine why Monk wanted the gloves, but I didn’t ask. I wanted to keep things moving along.

Devlin led us to the house, unlocked the back door, and let us in. The house smelled strongly of cleansers, Pine-Sol on steroids, which indicated to me that the crime scene cleaning crew had come and gone. That was a good thing. Nobody wants to see a room splattered with blood before a wedding.

Now Monk took the lead, taking us upstairs to the office where Dobbs was killed. It was now as clean, white, and sparkling as a Peach store. All that was missing were the salespeople and all the products to try. The white walls made Monk really pop in his black tuxedo. He’d never looked so cool. I was tempted to take a picture.

“We found this room covered with blood that was spattered and spilled in the midst of a horrific attack. The blood was a storyteller, revealing Cleve Dobbs’ entire struggle with his knife-wielding wife, who backed him out onto the deck. Dobbs fell over the railing to his death on the patio below,” Monk said. “Lieutenant Devlin later found the bloody knife, part of a set in their kitchen, hidden in the trunk of Jenna’s car and wrapped in her bloody blouse.”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell us what we already know,” Devlin said.

“It’s what we thought we knew,” Monk said. “But that’s not what happened at all.”

“You aren’t making any sense,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Jenna Dobbs is innocent,” Monk said. “She’s not the one who killed her husband.”

“But her fingerprints were all over the knife,” Stottlemeyer said. “The DNA confirms that it was Cleve Dobbs’ blood on the knife and the blouse.”

“I’m sure that it was,” Monk said.

“You know how tight all the timing was,” Devlin said. “Based on the times of Dobbs’ call to his wife, his death, her call to 911, and the arrival of the first officers on scene, there’s no way another person could have been in the house when she got here and escaped being seen.”

“You’re right,” Monk said. “There wasn’t anybody else.”

“And the house was under surveillance after we left,” Devlin said. “So nobody could have planted the evidence later.”

“It wasn’t planted later,” Monk said. “It was planted in her trunk before.”

“Before what?” Julie asked.

“Before Cleve Dobbs was killed,” Monk said.

“But that’s impossible,” Julie said. “How could the murder weapon and the blouse, with her fingerprints on the knife and his blood over everything, have been put in her car before he was killed?”

“Here’s what happened,” Monk said.

I leaned toward Ellen and whispered, “I love it when he says that.”

“You will recall that Cleve Dobbs had a limp. He thought he’d sprained his ankle and that it wouldn’t go away. So he went to the doctor, who ran some tests and told him some very bad news. Cleve had an aggressive form of Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is an awful way to die. Knowing that the end was coming, Cleve finished his memoir and decided to die with his life balanced.”

“He killed the people he felt had wronged him,” Devlin said, “knowing he’d never have to pay for it.”

“That’s right,” Monk said. “He was going to get even with everyone, going all the way back to high school. But then we caught on to him, which he hadn’t planned, so he had to go right to the end of his list: his wife, who was cheating on him.”

“But he didn’t kill his wife,” Stottlemeyer said.

“No, he had something worse in mind for her,” Monk said. “He framed her for his murder instead.”

“How?” Ellen asked. She was completely caught up in the drama now.

Monk smiled. “Before Jenna left the house to see her lover, Cleve planted the bloody knife, which he knew she’d handled many times in their kitchen, and her blouse in her car.”

“But we saw him that afternoon, in his backyard, and he was fine,” Julie said. “There wasn’t a scratch on him.”

“He was establishing his alibi,” Monk said.

Devlin rubbed her forehead. “You’re saying the victim called you to establish an alibi for himself for his own murder.”

“Yes,” Monk said.

“That makes no sense,” Devlin said.

“It was a suicide made to look like a murder,” Monk said. “It was very important to him that we see him in the garden planting flowers and see that he wasn’t hurt.”

Ellen was staring at Monk with unabashed love and admiration. This was a side of him she’d never seen before and she liked it.

“So how did he do it, Adrian?” she asked.

“Two identical knives,” he said. “With the first knife, he cut himself and bled all over her blouse, then hid it all in her trunk before she went off to see her lover. After she was gone, he called us to visit him.”

“Where did he cut himself?” Julie asked.

“See for yourself,” Monk said and gestured to the garden gloves in Julie’s hands, which, until that moment, she’d forgotten that she was holding.

Julie looked at the gloves, then turned them inside out. The lining in both gloves was stained with blood.

“He cut his palms,” Julie said. “That’s why he didn’t take his gloves off when we saw him. You even accused him of plotting his own suicide when we were there. You meant it as a joke, but I’m sure he crapped himself thinking you might already be on to him.”

“I wish I had been,” Monk said. “The rest of his plot came down to precise timing. He called his wife around six thirty to find out when she was coming home. He then took the second knife and reopened the wounds on his palms so the medical examiner wouldn’t know they’d been slashed before and would appear to be defensive wounds. He then stabbed himself, playing out an imaginary scenario of pleading with his wife, spreading blood all over the room. Then he jumped off the deck.”

“You’re brilliant,” Ellen said.

“That’s a great theory, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “There’s just one big, glaring problem. Where’s the second knife?”

“Dobbs was a very smart man,” Monk said, then looked at Julie. “The two times that we met him, where was he?”

“Gardening,” Julie said.

“That’s right. In fact, the second time, he made sure we knew he was using potting soil in his flower bed, just so we wouldn’t suspect anything when we found the same dirt under his fingernails in the autopsy.” Monk walked out onto the deck and pointed to the potted plant. “That’s because he buried the knife in this plant before throwing himself over the rail.”

Devlin glanced at Stottlemeyer. He nodded his consent. She put on a pair of rubber gloves from her pocket, crouched in front of the potted plant, and carefully dug around in the loose soil.

“Damn,” she said, then slowly pulled the bloody knife out of the dirt.

Ellen actually gasped. I thought she might even applaud. Instead, she went over to Monk and kissed him right on the lips.

“Adrian, you are incredible,” she said.

And most amazing of all, Monk kissed Ellen right back.

Julie snapped a picture with her iPhone, capturing the moment forever.

I guess things had evened out for Monk, in more ways than one.

I glanced at my watch. His happiness wasn’t going to last long.

“It’s eleven thirty. Ambrose is going to be furious. There’s no way we’re going to make it to the wedding on time.”

Stottlemeyer smiled. “Don’t be so sure about that.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mr. Monk Goes to a Wedding

I
t was five minutes before noon, and Ambrose was contemplating whether to go forward with the wedding without us rather than start late, when the whole house shook.

He looked outside and saw an SFPD helicopter landing in the street in front of his house. Even more remarkable, he saw Julie and Ellen emerge, followed by me, carefully guiding out Monk, who was handcuffed and blindfolded with a black scarf.

Monk was terrified of helicopters. Restraining him was the only way we could get him into the chopper and it was a testament to his devotion to his brother that he consented to our taking him against his will.

I guess it wasn’t against his will if he gave us permission to do it, but he knew there was no way he’d be able to get in the helicopter unless he was bound, and no way he could endure the flight if he could see what has happening.

Even so, he screamed the whole way. Luckily, it was a very short trip and the rotors were very loud.

As soon as we were clear of the chopper, it rose up again and streaked back across the bay. I uncuffed Monk and removed his improvised blindfold. It wasn’t the most dignified way to arrive at a wedding, but at least we got there on time.

Monk went up to Ellen. “I know I squealed like a baby. Have you lost all respect for me?”

“On the contrary,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything more brave or met a brother who was more loving.”

Julie had a huge smile on her face. “This is the best wedding I’ve ever been to and it hasn’t even started yet.”

We straightened ourselves out and went to Ambrose’s door, where he was waiting for us in his tuxedo, a stern look on his face.

“Nice of you to make it, Adrian,” Ambrose said and opened the door.

The judge and the mailman were milling around in the living room. The judge was in his robes and easily in his sixties, his hair gray and his face sagging with wrinkles. He looked very judgelike to me. Andy the mailman had pressed his uniform to military crispness.

“Where’s Yuki?” I asked.

“Upstairs,” Ambrose said. “She doesn’t want us to see each other until the ceremony.”

“Let’s get this show on the road,” the judge said. “I have two more weddings today.”

As the maid of honor, I went upstairs to see how she was doing. I knocked on the bedroom door and announced myself. She told me to come in.

Yuki stood in front of a full-length mirror in her wedding dress. It was a strapless, silk-satin dress and tight above the waist, accentuating her curves. There were no frills or embroidery or other embellishments. Only a hint of the snake tattoo that wrapped around her spine peeked out from the back of her dress. It was a sleek, smooth, clean look, something I knew Ambrose would appreciate.

She looked at herself as if it were the first time she’d ever seen her own reflection.

“You’re beautiful,” I said.

“I’ve never looked so feminine in my life,” she said.

“You picked the right occasion for it,” I said.

She took a deep breath, ran a hand down her stomach, and turned to face me.

“You made quite a grand entrance,” she said with a smile. “Very impressive. Trying to show us up?”

“It was entirely unplanned,” I said. “Mr. Monk decided to solve a few murders on our way here.”

“If you were talking about anybody else, I’d say you were joking.”

“It’s better he solved the murders before arriving,” I said. “The last time I went to a wedding with him, there was a murder during the ceremony. I’m hoping he’s had his cosmic quota for the day.”