Mr. Monk Gets Even (4 page)

“Which apartment was his?”

Julie pointed up. “Seventeenth floor, second balcony on the left.”

Monk staggered back and closed his eyes. Heights made him dizzy, even from the ground. “I’m going to need four bottles of Fiji water and fifty disinfectant wipes.”

That’s because he was afraid of elevators, which meant that he’d be taking the stairs to the seventeenth floor, counting each step and disinfecting the handrail with a wet wipe as he went along. The Fiji waters, the only water he drank (and brushed his teeth with), were to hydrate him during his climb.

If this had been Saturday afternoon, Julie would have wished him luck and told him she’d meet him at the apartment later. And while he was climbing, she’d have gone to a Starbucks, bought a coffee, and made a few calls before taking the elevator up to the apartment.

But it was Saturday night, her boyfriend was on our couch at home, and she didn’t want to waste time.

“I have a better idea,” she said. She tapped a key on her iPhone, then held the device up in front of the two of them. Julie’s iPhone was connected to the apartment’s wireless network and so was Devlin’s. An instant later Devlin appeared live on screen and they could see each other thanks to FaceTime.

“Are you two ready to come up?” Devlin asked. Her hair looked like she’d cut it herself blindfolded and using hedge shears. She was not a woman who cared much about her appearance. Not that she needed to. She was in great shape and had perfect skin, except for a few little scars here and there from the fights she’d been in.

“Mr. Monk won’t get in an elevator, so he’d have to take the stairs all the way up, which he’d be glad to do,” Julie said. “But since the apartment is on the seventeenth floor, that adds an unnecessary risk.”

Monk smiled at Julie with pride. She knew him so well.

Devlin looked bewildered. “What’s the risk?”

As far as Devlin was concerned, risk in any situation was a plus. It’s why she became a cop.

Monk leaned in so his face appeared on-camera. “This is Adrian Monk speaking.”

“Yes, I know,” Devlin said. “I can see you.”

“The risk is that it’s an odd-numbered floor,” Monk said. “Very high up.”

“So?”

“Look what happened to David Zuzelo,” Monk said.

“It’s not going to happen to you,” Devlin said.

“It could,” Monk said. “Or worse.”

“What could be worse than dying?” Devlin asked.

“I have a list,” Monk said. “It’s indexed. You can borrow Captain Stottlemeyer’s copy.”

“No, she can’t.” Stottlemeyer leaned in close to Devlin so his face was on-camera, too. Devlin moved the iPhone at arm’s length to include him. Even so, at the angle she was holding her phone, Stottlemeyer seemed to be peering over his own bushy mustache to look at us. “It’s a family heirloom. You know it never leaves the locked display case in our living room.”

The sarcasm was wasted on Monk, who didn’t understand it and couldn’t recognize it. But that didn’t stop people from using it on him anyway, mostly as a way to alleviate the stress he caused them.

“So you understand why I can’t come up,” Monk said. “Naturally, it would be different if the apartment was on the sixteenth or eighteenth floor.”

“Even you can’t tell what happened to the guy without seeing where it happened,” Stottlemeyer said.

“There’s a simple solution. All the apartments are identical,” Monk said. “Only the furnishings are different. There’s a vacancy on the fourteenth floor. You can re-create his apartment there and call me when you’re done.”

“That’s your simple solution,” Stottlemeyer said.

“You can thank me later,” Monk said.

“Get your ass up here, Monk, or I will have two officers handcuff you and bring you up in the elevator.”

“That won’t be necessary, Leland,” Julie said. She was far less formal with Stottlemeyer than I was. He’d asked her to refer to him by his first name before she’d started working for Monk and she saw no reason to change now. Besides, the captain didn’t seem to mind the informality. But I knew it bothered Monk. “You can show him the apartment with the iPhone camera. He can tell you what he wants to see.”

“Sure, we can give it a try,” Stottlemeyer said, then looked at Devlin. “You up for it?”

“Of course I am,” she said. “If this works, maybe he’ll never come to another crime scene again.”

Julie looked at Monk. “Are you willing to try it?”

He rolled his shoulders. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

“All right,” Devlin said. “Where do we start?”

“Walk in the front door, just like I would,” Monk said. “While you are on your way, what can you tell us about Mr. Zuzelo?”

“He’s single, lives alone, and taught math at Northgate High School in Walnut Creek for thirty years until his retirement,” Devlin said, keeping the camera on her face as she went to the door. “He inherited this apartment from his mother.”

“What do you think happened to him?” Monk asked.

“A dumb accident,” Devlin said. “He was standing on a chair, trying to change the lightbulb on his deck, lost his balance, and fell over the railing.”

Devlin reached the front door, turned around to face the apartment, and clicked the flip icon, switching to the camera on the other side of the iPhone.

Now Monk and Julie could see what Devlin saw: a narrow hallway that led to an open kitchen on the left, a hallway to the right, and a big room straight ahead that served as both the dining room and living room.

The far wall was dominated by a sliding glass door that opened to the deck and a view of the office building across the street. Stottlemeyer sat on a barstool at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room.

In the living room, against the wall to their left, was a couch with a coffee table in front of it.

“Proceed,” Monk said. “Slowly.”

Devlin did. And on Monk’s instruction, she aimed her iPhone into the kitchen, holding it at various angles. She was told to do the same on the floor, the ceiling, the artwork on the walls, and in the hall closet, where several coats were hung and shoes were stored. Monk’s instructions were giving my daughter and Devlin a startling and dizzying peek into how he looked at the world.

It made Julie want to take a Dramamine.

After what seemed like an eternity, Monk finally asked Devlin to walk into the living room, where he spotted a Jonathan Franzen novel on the edge of the dining table.

Monk asked Stottlemeyer to pick the book up and show it to them. Stottlemeyer did and they could see that the corner of a page was folded down.

“Open the book to the marked page, please,” Monk said.

“I’ve heard that reading Franzen has made some people want to kill themselves,” Stottlemeyer said. “But I doubt that’s what happened here.”

“Me, too,” Monk said.

Stottlemeyer opened the book and showed Monk the page. “So what difference does it make what the victim was reading before he died?”

“It makes no difference at all,” Monk said.

“Then why are we looking at the page?”

“So we can unfold the corner and iron it.”

Stottlemeyer closed the book and put it back on the table. “Moving on.”

“Okay, we can come back and do that later,” Monk said. “Could you push in the chair at the head of the table?”

“No,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Okay, we can do that later, too. Let me see the couch.”

Devlin walked over to the couch. There were two pillows on the left-hand side, one by the armrest and the other atop the back of the couch, suggesting that Zuzelo had rested his head against it while he was reading. There was a coffee cup on a coaster on the side table.

“Do you see those two pillows?” Monk asked.

“Yes,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Take the one on the top and put it beside the armrest on the opposite end of the couch.”

“We’re showing you the apartment, Monk, not redecorating it,” Stottlemeyer said.

“I understand,” Monk said. “The bowl of seashells and the other items on the coffee table are in disarray.”

The items appeared to be neatly arranged in the center of the table, but that wasn’t what made Stottlemeyer grimace. “You said you understood what I just told you.”

“I did, but this isn’t redecorating,” Monk said. “It’s making things right.”

Stottlemeyer turned to Devlin. “Let’s take him to the deck.”

“I am not done looking around inside,” Monk said.

“Yes, you are,” Stottlemeyer said and led them to the sliding glass door that opened onto an unlit narrow balcony with a wrought-iron railing, two wicker chairs, and a very small table with a lightbulb box on top. One of the chairs was tipped over and there was a big hole in the seat where it appeared Zuzelo’s foot had fallen through the wicker webbing. There was a broken lightbulb on the floor.

“Show me the fallen chair,” Monk said.

She did.

“Show me the light fixture,” Monk said.

She aimed the camera up at the round, recessed light socket in what was basically the bottom of the balcony on the floor above.

“Show me the lightbulb that’s on the tabletop,” Monk said.

It was a hundred-watt bulb, still in its protective cardboard box.

“Show me the broken lightbulb,” Monk said.

Devlin aimed the camera at the broken glass on the ground.

“Let me see the part that screws into the socket,” he said.

Stottlemeyer bent down and carefully picked it up. The stems that held the filament were still intact and there were some jagged bits of broken glass around the rim.

“Okay,” Monk said. “It’s obvious what happened here.”

“I told you so,” Devlin said.

“No, you told me he was changing a lightbulb, lost his balance when his foot went through the seat, and he fell over the railing,” Monk said.

Devlin hit the flip icon so the camera was now showing her angry face to Monk and Julie. “And that’s what happened. You saw the evidence.”

“I did,” Monk said. “That’s how I know it’s murder.”

CHAPTER THREE

Mr. Monk Sees the Light

“N
o way,” Devlin said.

She knew better than to question Monk’s conclusion. He was never wrong about homicide. But that didn’t stop her. He’d spotted something amiss that she had not, and it was a blow to her pride. What made it worse was that this was the second death in a week that she’d initially determined was an accident but that Monk immediately concluded was murder.

Captain Stottlemeyer knew how she felt, but he had long since stopped worrying about how his observational and deductive skills stacked up to Monk’s and instead chose to appreciate the results. Besides, the captain knew the price Monk paid for his brilliance and, all things considered, felt he had the better end of the deal.

But Devlin had a long way to go before she could achieve Stottlemeyer’s peace with Monk’s genius and stop taking it as a personal insult every time he solved something before she did. The captain knew that questioning Monk’s conclusions was a necessary step toward acceptance.

“There’s no other possible explanation,” Monk said.

“I just gave you one,” Devlin said.

As much as Julie liked Devlin, she would have preferred it if the lieutenant simply accepted Monk’s conclusions and moved on. It would be easier for everyone.

“Look around,” Monk said. “The place has been trashed.”

“Everything is clean and orderly,” Devlin said. “There’s no sign of forced entry or a struggle.”

“I didn’t say that anyone broke in or that there had been a fight,” Monk said.

“But you said the place was trashed,” she said.

“I did,” Monk said.

“But it hasn’t been,” she said.

Stottlemeyer sighed. “How about we agree that you both have different definitions of what constitutes a mess, okay? Tell us what happened, Monk.”

“Here’s what happened,” Monk said. “Zuzelo was sitting on his couch, reading a book, when someone rang the bell in the lobby. It was someone he knew, so he buzzed his friend up and set his book on the edge of the table on his way to answer the door. He greeted his friend and led him in. As they passed the dining room table, the friend picked up the book and, as Zuzelo turned, hit him across the face with it, knocking him out.”

“That’s pure speculation,” Devlin said.

“That’s how Zuzelo’s glasses got broken,” Monk said.

“What glasses?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“The reading glasses that he forgot to take off in his eagerness to greet his guest.” Monk nudged Julie, who produced the evidence baggie containing the glasses and held it in front of her so Stottlemeyer and Devlin could see it. “I found them beside the body.”

“Because he was wearing them when he fell,” Devlin said.

“The killer had to throw the glasses over the railing with the body to cover up the fact that they were broken first by the book. You’ll find some bits of the broken frame in the carpet by the table. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“I never pointed the camera at the floor,” Devlin said.

“You did when you aimed it at the book, which the captain picked up and held above the floor,” Monk said.

“And in that brief moment, on a tiny iPhone screen, you could see a speck of plastic in the carpet that you can positively identify as coming from a pair of glasses.”