Mr. Monk Gets on Board (6 page)

“You didn’t respond to my hypothetical argument,” he said. “I would switch rooms with you.”

“Really? Then let’s pretend you did. Thanks for the room, Adrian. I appreciate it.” And I got up to leave.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “What about my disaster?”

“I’m going inside,” I said over my shoulder. “I’m chilly.”

“What room are you in? Natalie?”

I pretended not to hear.

   CH
APTER SEVEN

Mr. Monk and the Lifeboat

A
ccording to the schedule, the captain’s welcome cocktail party would last until six thirty. After abandoning Monk on the Valencia deck, I had time to slap on my red name tag and hurry down to the lobby. Once there, I got my hands on a much-needed glass of white wine and began scouring the room for Malcolm. We had made loose plans to meet here and then sit together at dinner.

As I walked into the lobby atrium with its winding staircase and polished marble, I saw a fair number of the passengers milling among the display of raw vegetables and plastic wineglasses. A large ice sculpture gleamed in the center of it all.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting from this at-sea business conference. Perhaps more business? By my rough estimate, about half of the people here were older couples or families with children, none of them with red name tags, and none who might be interested in Monk and Teeger’s shiny new brochure.

At a little raised platform at the front of the lounge was Mariah Linkletter. The captain had just finished with his welcoming remarks, and she had taken back the microphone to tie up the last few details.

“Thank you, Captain Sheffield,” she said, as if a king had just deigned to speak. “We are so excited to have you all with us on the
Golden Sun
. I have to confess this coastal cruise to Mexico is my favorite of all of our itineraries. The forecast for the next week looks wonderful. And we’re so glad to welcome the B. to Sea Conference. This is their tenth time with us and every time, we all have such great fun.”

There was a smattering of applause and a few little whoops. Then Mariah continued, outlining the exciting schedule for this evening and tomorrow. I would try to list the events for you, but honestly, I wasn’t even listening.

“I missed you at the B. to Sea orientation.” It was Malcolm, a concerned smile on his lips, coming directly at me with a glass of white wine in each hand. I took the larger one.

“I had a little emergency,” I whispered.

A serious-looking man in a blue blazer shushed us. We apologized with a nod and stayed shushed through Mariah’s cruise director pitch, which ended with a standard plea to please let her know if there was anything she could do to make our voyage more enjoyable. Something about the way she said it actually made you believe. Here was a girl who seemed to treat every little cruise like a brand-new adventure. I knew that was all part of her job, but it didn’t stop me from liking her.

At the end, I led an enthusiastic round of applause, then turned back to Malcolm. We toasted with our white wines.

“Did I miss much at the orientation?”

“Yes and no. It was a chance to introduce yourself, which would have been helpful. You said you had an emergency?”

“My phobic, OCD partner decided to join us at the last minute.”

“He’s here?” Malcolm instantly seemed to understand. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“No, it’s not,” I said emphatically.

“Good.” He sipped at his wine, using the moment to glance around the lounge. “So, what do you think?”

“I thought this cruise was going to be all business,” I said, letting my disappointment show.

“I thought so, too. Apparently the organizers couldn’t fill the ship. Natalie, I’m sorry. The last time I did this, it was packed.”

“It’s still packed. Just not with the right people.”

“It’s going to be great.” He slipped his hand on my arm to reassure me. “I met some contacts already. One’s a top-notch defense lawyer. He’s dying to meet you.”

“You’ve been talking about me?” What a simpering thing to say! I could have kicked myself.

“And I hope you talk about me.” Malcolm hadn’t seemed to notice my simper. “That’s how networking works. It’s better to build someone else up. You can return the favor for me.”

“Right,” I said. “Good strategy.”

“I’ll be sitting at the lawyer’s table tonight. I’ll save you a seat.”

“That would be great,” I said and watched as he waved hello to a man across the floor in a gray, expensive haircut and a Tommy Bahama shirt.

“So I can count on you?” he added. “You have to start making connections right away.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

A pair of toddlers, dressed identically in polka-dot skirts with bows, started playing a noisy game of tag in the space between us, and when I glanced up again to find Malcolm, he was gone. Just as well. I sipped my wine and pretended to mingle.

I have had my share of standing alone at cocktail parties. There are certain tricks you can do to make yourself look less pathetic, such as appearing to search the crowd for someone or standing near a conversation and pretending you’re taking part.

Captain Sheffield, still looking freshly pressed in his whites, was in one of these groups, and I absentmindedly drifted his way. A woman near his age, stylish and expensively dressed, was hanging off him, looking attentive. I don’t know how I knew this was his wife, but I did. Perhaps it was the proprietary death grip she was exerting on his arm.

“Hello,” said the captain as I made eye contact. It took him a second before remembering me. “Did your friend get his problem straightened out?’

“I’m sure he’s dealing with it,” I said, then took the opportunity to make my formal introduction. “My name’s Natalie Teeger.” If I was going to make a success of this week, I had to get used to introducing myself.

The captain responded by taking my hand between both of his and cupping it warmly before letting it drift away. “Nice to officially meet you, Natalie.”

“And my name is Sylvia. I’m the captain’s wife.” The expensively dressed woman did not offer to shake. “Did Ms. Teeger have a problem, Dennis? You didn’t mention a problem.”

“It was just a cabin thing,” I said apologetically. “We shouldn’t have even bothered him.”

“I see,” said Sylvia. And within the next ten seconds, she guided the captain’s arm and his attention back to the rest of their little group, edging me out of their inner circle. Time for a second drink.

I had just joined the line at the makeshift bar when Mariah fell in behind me. “I see you’ve met Sylvia Sheffield,” she said in an even voice.

“Yes,” I said. I never know how to respond to lines like that, so I make a habit of remaining neutral.

“Is that why you need another glass of wine?”

I chuckled. “Probably. Does she always travel with the captain?”

“This is the first time I’ve met her, so I guess the answer is no.”

“Well, I can see why she decided to come. The captain has a very friendly handshake.”

“Only with pretty, single women,” said Mariah. I was flattered that she seemed to include me in that group.

The white wine was nearing the end of its run. We had our glasses refilled and crossed away in the direction of the casino. Through the closed glass doors, we could see the twinkly lights and the dealers getting ready for our arrival into international waters.

“I was thinking about your friend,” said Mariah. “Tomorrow we’re docking in Catalina, you know.”

Of course I’d known. It was on the schedule. But until this moment it had never dawned on me as an escape route. We’d been so focused on getting him into a new room, we hadn’t thought of this. Monk could get off in Catalina and fly home.

“That’s a great idea,” I said. “I’ll mention it to him.” I didn’t explain that this would entail forcing Monk onto an airplane. One crisis at a time. Besides, he’d been on planes before.

As the lobby started emptying out, I thanked Mariah again for her suggestion and headed out to the lingering dusk and the open air. Dropping Monk off in Catalina? Hmm. How would that work exactly?

The evil part of me wanted to see him gone. I’d have a much better time and probably make a better impression on potential clients. But Monk deserved to be here. He was the essence of Monk and Teeger. And it wasn’t totally his fault that he hadn’t understood the concept of single supplement.

On the other hand, if Monk got off in Catalina, how would he get back to San Francisco? Would I be forced to get off with him? No, that would be unacceptable. It would mean a huge waste of money and a lost opportunity.

On the third hand, what about Ellen?

Ellen Morse was Monk’s part-time girlfriend. I don’t quite know how to define their relationship. They had met in Summit, New Jersey, back when Monk and I were doing some work for the Summit police chief, our old friend Randy Disher. Ellen owned a boutique in Summit called Poop, which sold a seemingly endless variety of items made from animal dung—everything you could imagine and some things you were better off not imagining.

For some reason, Ellen and Monk had hit it off, so well, in fact, that Ellen opened a second Poop store, this one on Union Street in the heart of San Francisco’s trendy shopping district. She had done it to be close to him, although he didn’t always return the love. In fact, he had never stepped foot inside either of her stores. He just couldn’t. And he continued to ridicule them every chance he got.

I’m making him sound like a horrible boyfriend. I’m sure he wasn’t. But I did wonder if, after the death of his beloved Trudy, there would ever be another real relationship in his life.

So, back to my third hand. What about Ellen?

I knew Ellen was in San Francisco this month. And she was sympathetic to Monk’s OCD, having long suffered from symptoms of her own, on a smaller scale. Perhaps she would be willing to fly down to Catalina tomorrow, take Monk off my hands, and let me continue on my cruise. They might even want to spend a night on the romantic little island before flying back, if they could find a hotel clean enough.

I was ambling along the Granada deck on level three, enjoying the ocean’s gentle sway. I could only imagine how Monk must be reacting to the sway, wherever he might be. I could almost hear him moaning softly with each little roll of the ship’s deck. Wait a minute! I could hear him moaning softly. For real.

I stopped in my tracks and spun around. There was nothing—just me and the deck and the hull of the ship. Plus the railing and the Pacific Ocean. And the lifeboats. A line of orange lifeboats lay evenly spaced on the deck, each attached to a pair of davits that could pick up each rubberized craft and swing it out over the water.

It wasn’t hard to isolate the right lifeboat. It was the one with the cover unfastened from its grommets but laid perfectly back in place. It was also the one that was moaning, emitting a steady low hum of anxiety, almost like a sound machine.

“Adrian?” I pulled back the cover and there he was, lying faceup and frozen like a corpse in a coffin, perfectly centered on one of his favorite blankets from home. He was still dressed in his orange life vest. “Are you okay, Adrian? Are you seasick?”

“Seasick?” He thought about it. “No, I don’t get seasick. Do you think I should?”

“No. Don’t even think about it.” Why did I bring that up? “I just wondered what you were doing here.”

“Trying to survive,” he said, still not moving. “Natalie, I thought I could do this. But the ship and the ocean and all the people. People are everywhere. It’s like China.”

“Adrian, you can’t hide out in a lifeboat. You can’t.”

“Why not? It’s safe. It’s clean. And when the ship does decide to sink, I’ll be the first one in.”

“I’m going to get you off the ship tomorrow,” I said. “Promise.”

That’s all it took for him to sit up and smile. Then he frowned. “Okay, what’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch.”

I sat down on the edge of his lifeboat and explained the plan, about Catalina and Ellen and a quick plane ride back to the safety of his protective Pine Street apartment. He wasn’t too wild about the plane ride, but the rest of it must have sounded pretty good.

“You’re going to talk to Ellen and have her come for me? Great.” His expression turned embarrassed. “Ellen might be surprised to hear I’m gone.”

“Wait,” I said. “You didn’t tell your girlfriend you were leaving town?”

“I thought she might slip up and tell you. It was a very hush-hush operation.”

“Fine,” I sighed. “I’ll straighten it out with Ellen. But you have to promise to go back to your cabin. Darby’s not so bad. All you have to do is make it through the night.”

Monk agreed to take care of himself, to try to put up with Darby, and, most important in my mind, not to sleep in the lifeboat. Just to make sure, I helped get him and his blanket safely out, then spat in the bottom of the rubberized boat. Not a big spit. Not a loogie. But any spit was enough.

“Ugh,” Monk said, and threw his hands over his eyes. “What did you do that for?”

“To make sure you keep your word. And I’m going to spit in at least two more lifeboats. At random. Just to make sure.”

“You would never do something so disgusting.”

“You want to bet your hygiene on that, buddy?”

“Natalie, you don’t know what you’re doing. Now I’ll never be able to abandon ship.”

“Good,” I said. “Meanwhile, I have dinner to eat and some schmoozing to do. See you in the morning.”

This was my version of tough love, although in any other world, it wouldn’t seem so tough. My partner was on a cruise ship with a full, friendly staff to take care of him. He could survive.