Mr. Monk Goes to Germany (11 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Mr. Monk Makes a Discovery

Stoffmacher was right: We couldn’t just go back to the bed-and-breakfast and wait. And I doubted I could work up much enthusiasm for sightseeing after what we’d already seen. This is why I don’t recommend hanging around corpses on a vacation.

There weren’t a lot of options open to us. Ordinarily we’d go off and start investigating on our own. But that wasn’t possible here. We didn’t have the authority, we didn’t know the town, and we didn’t speak German.

I was at a loss as to what to do next. But Monk wasn’t.

“Dr. Kroger needs to know about this,” Monk said as we stepped outside the duplex of death.

“Can’t it wait until your appointment tomorrow?” I said, trying to give Dr. Kroger a little peace, not that he deserved it.

“This is a major development in the investigation of Trudy’s murder,” Monk said. “He’s the only one who truly understands what I have been through because he’s been there from the start. He’s felt my pain. This is going to mean as much to him as it does to me.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go or anything else we could do.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I needed some air, so I suggested that we walk up to the hotel. Monk was fine with that.

“Do you want to take the road or one of the trails through the forest?” I asked.

“The road,” Monk said. “There’s less nature.”

“You say that like it’s a good thing.”

“It is,” Monk said.

“What’s wrong with nature?”

“It’s full of dirt, germs, bugs, and animals,” Monk said. “And the things that animals leave behind.”

“We all leave things behind, Mr. Monk. It’s natural.”

“See?” Monk said. “Nature again. We spend most of our lives cleaning up after it.”

“
You
do,” I said.

“Mother Nature was obviously a very filthy person,” Monk said.

The houses in the neighborhood were spaced widely apart and loosely followed the line of the forest. There weren’t any fences, though there were a few plants and low rock walls marking property boundaries.

The road got gradually steeper. I wondered if there was a shortcut we could have taken through the woods. But if we’d taken it, I would have missed an oddity. At first I mistook it for a group mailbox atop a post, but as we got closer, I saw it was actually a cigarette vending machine. There were pictures of various brands of cigarettes and a knob under each one to pull after the proper number of coins had been inserted in the slot.

We both stood there staring at the machine as if it was a meteor. I’d never seen a vending machine on a residential street corner, much less one that sold cigarettes, and I’m pretty sure that Monk hadn’t either.

“That’s odd,” I said.

“No odder than anything else in this town,” Monk replied.

“I wonder what other vending machines they have in the neighborhood and what they sell.”

“I guarantee disinfectant isn’t one of the things,” Monk said.

“You’re probably right,” I said.

“I usually am.”

We continued walking. We crossed a bridge over a tiny creek and were on the Franziskushohe property.

“Don’t you ever doubt yourself?” I asked.

“All the time.”

“About what?”

“What shirt to wear,” Monk said.

“All your shirts are the same.”

“That’s what makes the choice so hard,” Monk said.

“I mean about big things,” I said as we crossed the bridge we’d driven over yesterday. “Decisions you’ve made about your life, about love, about the future.”

“When I make a decision about something, it’s based on the facts and how things are supposed to fit together,” Monk said. “Facts are immutable and things only fit together one way, so how can I be wrong?”

“Facts can change and things don’t always fit the way they should.”

“That’s heresy,” Monk said. “I’d keep your voice down if I were you. They burn women at the stake for that here.”

We took the steps up the hillside rather than following the winding road. It was steeper, but seemed like a more direct route to me. Monk followed my lead without comment.

“Look at you and me,” I said. “If you consider the facts about us and our lives, we shouldn’t fit together at all, and yet we’ve worked together for years.”

“That’s a poor example,” Monk said. “I made a decision about you, based on the facts and how things are supposed to fit together, and I was right.”

“I don’t see it,” I said, stopping to catch my breath. I needed to get more exercise. “What facts? What fit?”

“My longtime nurse had left, so I was looking for a capable person to protect my interests, anticipate my needs, and keep my life as even as possible.”

“Exactly,” I said and started up the steps again. “And I wasn’t a nurse, a secretary, or a psychic. I was a bartender and a single mother. Those are the facts and it made me a lousy fit for the job.”

“You’re forgetting that Sharona was a single mother, too,” Monk said.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You hold your home together, struggle with finances, and face countless small disasters, all while providing a safe, productive, predictable, and nurturing life for your child. Those are facts, and I needed someone with those same skills for me. You fit right into the space left by Sharona. Fact and fit—that’s why it’s worked.”

Before Sharona and me, there had been Trudy, who kept him more than together. From what I’ve heard, when she was around, he had all his anxieties in check. He was almost normal, and yet still possessed his amazing skills as a detective.

The difference, of course, between her and us was that Monk loved Trudy and she loved him.

We cared for him, and he probably did for us, but there was no love in his life anymore. That was a fact, and a sad one. I don’t think he was looking for anyone to fit into his life that way again and maybe he never would. At least not until he could solve her murder and relieve himself of some of the undeserved guilt he carried for her death.

“So you are always right,” I said.

“On matters of fact and fit,” Monk said, “yes.”

“And are there any matters that don’t involve fact and fit?”

“Not in an orderly world,” he said.

“But we don’t live in one,” I said.

“I’m working on it,” Monk said.

We reached the hotel parking lot and headed for the lobby. Up on the hillside, under the long, covered patio, I could see a dozen people gathered, chatting and holding tall glasses of beer. It was some sort of outdoor buffet. Dr. Kroger was among them. He intercepted a muscular man in gray sweats who jogged in off one of the hiking trails.

“Mr. Monk,” I said, “Dr. Kroger is up there.”

Monk followed my gaze and smiled. “He’s going to be so excited. We’ve waited so long for this.”

He hurried past me, quickly climbing the log steps placed in the dirt. I was right behind him.

As we went up the steps, I could see a middle-aged woman with a camera motioning Dr. Kroger and the man in sweats to pose together for a picture.

“Don’t be bashful. This is for the conference collage,” she said with a heavy Cockney accent. “Give us a big smile.”

“Looking at you, Mildred, how could we have anything less on our faces?” Dr. Kroger said.

“You charmer,” she replied.

The man put his arm around Dr. Kroger’s shoulder and the two of them smiled for her camera. The man had a rugged, earthy handsomeness, like the Marlboro Man, only without the cigarette dangling from parched lips.

Mildred snapped the picture and her camera flashed just as we reached the patio.

Monk staggered back, letting out a pained cry.

“Blinded by the flash?” I asked.

“I wish,” he said, staring at Dr. Kroger, who was just noticing us.

“Adrian?” Dr. Kroger said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Monk kept moving backward, stumbling on the steps and losing his balance. I had to grab him to keep him from falling over.

“Mr. Monk,” I said, “what’s wrong?”

“It was all a lie,” Monk said. He was still staring at Dr. Kroger. “He never wanted to help me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“He kept me from the truth. Nothing was real. My life has been an illusion.”

Monk wasn’t making any sense, but I was used to that. Whenever he solved a mystery, he saw how the bits and pieces of evidence fit together in a revelatory moment of startling clarity. It took him a minute to process the information so we could see it as clearly as he did.

But those realizations were usually moments of joy and contentment for him. What I heard in his voice and saw in his face now was horror. And what mystery was he solving?

I turned to Dr. Kroger, hoping for some guidance in this situation.

And that’s when I realized that it wasn’t Dr. Kroger whom Monk was looking at. He was looking at the man who was standing beside Dr. Kroger and had his right arm around the psychiatrist’s shoulder.

The man had six fingers on his right hand.

A shiver ran through my whole body like an electric shock. I felt dizzy and sick. And I’m sure my reaction wasn’t one tenth of what Monk was feeling.

“Adrian.” Dr. Kroger took a step forward, an expression of concern on his face. “I think you need help.”

Monk shook his head, turned around, and ran down the steps. He kept on running until he disappeared from sight below the hotel. I watched him go. There were tears stinging my eyes.

I couldn’t imagine the horror and betrayal that Monk was feeling. His whole world had just been turned inside out— and mine along with it.

Dr. Kroger came up behind me. “What has gotten into him, Natalie?”

I read a story once about a man who couldn’t get his desktop computer to work properly. After spending three fruitless hours on the phone with customer support, he threw his computer out the window of his tenth-floor apartment. Unfortunately, the computer, the monitor, and the keyboard all landed on the roof of a police car.

When the police officers asked him why he did it, he shrugged and said, “I just snapped.”

He threw away thousands of dollars. He could have killed someone on the street. Didn’t he consider for one second what he was about to do? I didn’t understand it, at least not until that moment in Lohr when I snapped.

I whirled around and punched Dr. Kroger in the face. And as he staggered back, his eyes wide with shock and his nose bloody, I threw myself at him. We landed on the ground with my hands around his throat. I saw stars, but I think it was just the flash of Mildred taking more pictures.

Several men grabbed me by the arms, pulled me off of Dr. Kroger, and dragged me away.

Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I know what happened. I made the same connections that Monk did and lost control. Monk ran. I attacked. We’d both realized that the man Monk had trusted to gain control of his anxieties and phobias may actually have been doing everything he could to exacerbate them.

The man he’d trusted to help him become psychologically stable enough to return to the police force may actually have been working to keep that from ever happening.

The man he’d trusted with his most intimate feelings and fears may have been helping the man who murdered Monk’s wife avoid ever being caught.

Thinking about it again made me want to hit Dr. Kroger some more. I lunged for him, but the men held me back.

Dr. Kroger looked at me like I was some kind of wild animal, which, at the moment, I guess I was.

The man with eleven fingers helped Dr. Kroger to his feet and handed him a napkin to hold under his bloody nose.

“What is going on, Charles?” the man asked. He had a deep baritone voice that embodied authority and an undefined European accent. “Who are these people?”

“As if you didn’t know,” I said to him, struggling against the men who held me. I wanted to hit that guy, too.

Monk was right. The man who hired someone to put a bomb in Trudy’s car had fled to the last place on earth Monk would ever visit. But then Dr. Kroger made the mistake of going there, leading Monk directly to his wife’s murderer.

“The man is Adrian Monk, one of my patients,” Dr. Kroger said, clutching the napkin to his nose. “This is Natalie Teeger, his assistant.”

“They stalked you all the way to Germany?” the man said. Everyone turned and looked at me with disbelief. “I’m calling the police.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Dr. Kroger said.

“The hell it isn’t,” I said. “Call them. If you don’t, I will.”

Dr. Kroger approached me slowly, with his head cocked. I wasn’t sure if he was doing that to stop the bleeding or to regard me with curiosity.

“I’m not going to press charges,” Dr. Kroger said. “But I would like to understand why you attacked me.”

“How can you look me in the eye and ask me that question after what you have done?” I said. “You might as well have killed Trudy Monk yourself.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Dr. Kroger asked.

“You tell me, Doctor,” I said and nodded towards the man next to him. “Does he have six fingers on his right hand or am I hallucinating?”

Dr. Kroger looked back at the man, then again at me. There was an expression of horrified realization on his face as the full impact of what was happening sank in.

“Oh my God,” he said.

“The charade is over,” I said. “And you’re both going to prison.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mr. Monk and the Perfect Storm

A hush fell over the patio. All the people there, with the possible exception of Dr. Kroger and Trudy’s murderer, were stunned. It’s not often you see a woman attack someone and accuse him of murder.

“What is she talking about?” asked the man with eleven fingers.

“A terrible misunderstanding,” Dr. Kroger said.

“You can both stop pretending,” I said. “It’s all over now.”

Dr. Kroger faced the two men who were holding me. “You can let her go.”

“She could hurt you or herself,” said one of the men who held me.

“Natalie won’t hurt anyone,” Dr. Kroger said.

“Don’t count on it,” I said.

“This woman is clearly violent and unstable,” said the other man who held me. “She should be restrained and sedated.”

“I respect your opinions, doctors, but considering the situation, her reaction was entirely understandable and justified, ” Dr. Kroger said. “She believes I betrayed her friend in a profound and deeply disturbing manner.”

“You did,” I said.

“I can see how it would appear that way,” Dr. Kroger said and then gestured to the man with eleven fingers. “But he is not the man you think he is and I haven’t done what you think I have done. I can explain everything.”

The two men let me go but stood warily at my side, ready to grab me again if I suddenly went for Dr. Kroger’s throat. That was wise of them, because that was exactly what I intended to do.

“Come with me, Natalie,” he said. “We’ll go somewhere quiet and talk this out.”

“How about a jail cell?” I said. “I hear that they are very quiet.”

“You have nothing to lose by hearing me out,” Dr. Kroger said. “I am not going anywhere and neither is Dr. Rahner.”

“Who is Dr. Rahner?”

“That would be me.” The man behind Dr. Kroger raised his six-fingered hand and waved it at me. “The one you just accused of murder.”

“You’re all witnesses,” I said to everyone else on the patio. “You know what you saw and what you heard. Remember that if anything happens to me before the police get here.”

“You are perfectly safe,” Dr. Kroger said. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

I marched away from the covered patio and down the steps to the parking lot. Dr. Kroger followed me, holding the napkin to his nose. I could see the people up on the patio watching us.

“This is as far as we go,” I said. “I am staying out in the open where we can be seen.”

“Do you really think that I would harm you?” Dr. Kroger said.

“I know from experience that murderers will do just about anything when they are cornered and exposed.”

“I am not a murderer, Natalie.”

“No, you just help them get away with it,” I said. “What I don’t understand is why.”

“I don’t blame you or Adrian for making all the wrong assumptions,” Dr. Kroger said. “This is a perfect storm of coincidences.”

“Mr. Monk doesn’t believe in coincidences,” I said.

“They happen,” Dr. Kroger said.

“Not like this,” I said.

“That’s why I called it a perfect storm,” Dr. Kroger said. “You think that Dr. Rahner is the man who arranged for Trudy’s murder and, because you’ve seen us together, that we’re involved in a conspiracy together to deceive Adrian. You believe I have been keeping Adrian incapacitated and off the force to protect Trudy’s killer.”

“Prove me wrong,” I said.

“It’s preposterous,” Dr. Kroger said. “Surely you can see that.”

“What I see is you with a man who has six fingers on his right hand, just like the killer Mr. Monk has been pursuing for years. What are the odds of that happening if it’s not a conspiracy?”

“Astronomical,” Dr. Kroger said. “But think about it. Why would I risk my freedom, my practice, and my reputation to help a killer get away with murder?”

“Money? Blackmail? I don’t know. You tell me.”

“I came here to attend a psychiatric conference. Dr. Rahner is a world-renowned psychiatrist and the conference organizer. He specializes in studying the psychological, social,and emotional impacts of physical abnormalities on the individuals who have them and on the greater society that they live in. That’s what this conference is about and why I am here, along with three dozen other psychiatrists from around the world. There is nothing sinister about it and it certainly has nothing to do with Adrian or his wife.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because you are a rational person.” Dr. Kroger examined the bloody napkin. “Usually. Think about it, Natalie. If I was involved in such a vast conspiracy, would I really be stupid enough to be seen in public, even half a world away, with the killer?”

I was torn.

When I saw Dr. Kroger and Dr. Rahner together, I made the same connections that Monk did. Monk and I didn’t usually think alike, but this time we reached the same immediate, unavoidable, and visceral conclusion: Trudy’s killer was here and Dr. Kroger was helping him. Everything fit together and made sickening sense.

But Dr. Kroger made a compelling argument. Why would he get involved in such a complex conspiracy? Why would he allow himself to be seen openly and publicly with a man who matched the description of Trudy Monk’s murderer? Could Dr. Kroger be both that coldly manipulative and that unbelievably careless?

If it was, as Dr. Kroger suggested, a perfect storm of coincidences, then it was a cruel cosmic joke on Monk.

But if it wasn’t, then Dr. Kroger was shrewd, evil, and very dangerous.

“I don’t know what to believe right now,” I said. “But I’m not the one who has to be convinced.”

“The truth is not going to be easy for Adrian to accept,” Dr. Kroger said. “I will need your help.”

That put me in a lovely position. Either an innocent man was enlisting my aid or an accomplice to a killer was trying to make me part of his conspiracy to play with Monk’s mind.

I wasn’t going to make that decision on my own.

“I’m going to call Captain Stottlemeyer right now and let him know what’s happened,” I said. “He’ll look into your story and find out the truth.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Dr. Kroger said. “Adrian trusts Captain Stottlemeyer.”

“Mr. Monk trusted you, too.”

“He still can,” Dr. Kroger said.

“We’ll see about that,” I said, turning my back to him and walking away.

As I went down the hill, I took out my cell phone and called Captain Stottlemeyer. I didn’t care what time it was in San Francisco. This was more important than a good night’s sleep.

“Yeah?” Stottlemeyer grumbled groggily.

“It’s me again,” I said.

“You do understand that there is a time difference between San Francisco and Germany, right?”

“We found the man with eleven fingers,” I said. “His name is Dr. Martin Rahner.”

“Is he the guy who killed Trudy?”

“We don’t know,” I said.

“So why are you calling me? I’m sure the police over there can handle it.”

“Because we found him having his picture taken with Dr. Kroger. It turns out they know each other.”

“I still don’t know what you want from me.”

“Don’t you see the significance?”

“I’m not even sure I am having this conversation,” Stottlemeyer said.

“If Dr. Rahner is the one who killed Trudy Monk, then he could have been using Dr. Kroger to keep Mr. Monk too messed up to ever solve the case.”

“That’s pretty far-fetched,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Or if they aren’t in cahoots, it’s the biggest coincidence in the history of coincidences.”

“Did you just say ‘cahoots’?”

“Whether it’s a conspiracy or a coincidence, it’s still hard to believe. That’s why we need you to run a background check on Dr. Rahner to see if he has any connection to Dr. Kroger, Mr. Monk, and Trudy Monk.”

“Would you like me to also stop by your house, maybe water your plants, collect your newspapers, or wash your car?”

“I know that I’m intruding on your sleep—”

“Again,” he interrupted.

“—and that what I’m asking is an imposition—”

“Again,” he interrupted.

“But think of what it means to Mr. Monk.”

“You’ve already used that as leverage with me before tonight, ” Stottlemeyer said.

“Did it work?”

“I’ll call you when I have something,” Stottlemeyer said. “No matter what time it is.”

“You just want to get even by waking me up, too.”

“Brilliant deduction,” he said as he hung up.

I put my phone back in my purse and that was when I spotted Monk, huddled under a tree, hugging his knees to his chest. He looked like a frightened child.

I sat down next to him and put my hand on the back of his head.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I just found out that my psychiatrist has been conspiring with the man who killed my wife to keep me off the police force,” Monk said. “I’m dandy.”

“What if it’s all just a cruel coincidence?”

“And dogs can talk, the earth is flat, and granola won’t kill you.”

“Granola isn’t dangerous,” I said.

“The last few years of my life have been a complete illusion, ” Monk said. “I may not be who I think I am.”

“You are still Adrian Monk,” I said.

“But I might not have any psychological problems at all. I could be the most together person in San Francisco,” Monk said. “We’ve only got Dr. Kroger’s word that I need counseling. Maybe I don’t need any help at all.”

“Maybe you don’t,” I said. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Monk said. “I can’t concentrate.”

“Because you don’t know what to believe anymore or who to trust.”

“Because of that rock wall over there,” he said. “Not a single rock is the same shape. Who can think with all of that going on?”

I followed his gaze. There was a low rock wall along one end of the hotel property made up of hundreds of different stones. They weren’t making any kind of ruckus that I could hear.

“So stop looking at it,” I said.

“I can still feel them,” Monk said.

“Then let’s go somewhere else,” I suggested.

“You can’t run from something like that,” he said. “It haunts you.”

I think that statement pretty much answered the question of whether or not Monk still needed psychological counseling, but I let it go. Instead, I shared with Monk everything that Dr. Kroger had told me about Dr. Rahner and the “perfect storm” of coincidences.

“Dr. Kroger insists that there’s no connection between this eleven-fingered guy and the one responsible for Trudy’s murder,” I said. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“Neither do I,” Monk said. “About Dr. Kroger or about myself.”

“I called Captain Stottlemeyer and asked him to look into Dr. Kroger’s story. Whatever he digs up should help us determine the truth,” I said. “But what you believe about yourself is entirely up to you, Mr. Monk. It always has been. You decide who you are. No one else has that power.”

“Ever since Trudy was killed, I’ve been told that I’m not psychologically or emotionally capable of functioning on my own or being a police officer anymore. I believed what they told me.”

“You think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” I said. “They tell you that you’re a certain person and you become that person.”

“It could be a conspiracy to make me think I’m crazy when, in fact, I’m the epitome of sanity.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said.

“It was Dr. Kroger who said I couldn’t take care of myself, who said I needed a nurse,” Monk said. “What if Sharona was in on it, too? That way they could brainwash me day and night.”

“Sharona would never do anything to hurt you,” I said. “She cares about you, just like I do.”

Monk looked at me, scrambled to his feet, and backed a good three feet away from me as if I was contagious. I knew what was coming next.

“Maybe you’re in on it, too,” he said, pointing his finger accusingly.

“You found me, Mr. Monk. Remember?”

“No, Captain Stottlemeyer did,” Monk said. “Come to think of it, he also won’t support my reinstatement. Maybe he’s in on this, too. Maybe you all are.”

“Okay, now you’re just being paranoid,” I said.

“Am I?” Monk said. “Did Dr. Kroger tell you to say that? Does he want to add paranoia to the crippling self-image he’s crafted for me?”

“Mr. Monk, listen to yourself,” I said. “You’re becoming unhinged.”

“I’ve solved every murder I’ve ever investigated except the killing of my wife. And now I know why. Everyone has been working against me, clouding my mind with lies and illusions so I wouldn’t see the truth.”

“If I am in cahoots with Dr. Kroger, why did I help you to come to Germany?” I said. “Why would I risk exposing our conspiracy? I’d have to be incompetent to do that.”

Monk mulled that over for a moment. “You’ve got a point.”

“And you would have asked yourself those same questions if you’d given it one moment of thought,” I said. “You have to calm down and think things through.”

“If you were part of it, you would have found a way to stop me from getting on that plane,” Monk said. “At the very least, you would have tipped Dr. Rahner off that I was coming so he wouldn’t be here when I arrived.”

“That’s right. Now think about Captain Stottlemeyer,” I said. “If he was on their side, would he have hired you as a consultant to the police, let you build up your confidence, hone your skills, and reestablish your reputation and credibility as a detective?”

Monk nodded. “No, he wouldn’t. He would have shut me out and made me think I’d lost my mojo.”

“I agree with you that something very strange is going on here, Mr. Monk, but you can’t let paranoia cloud your judgment.”

“I have to clear my mind and concentrate only on the facts.”

“Now you’re talking,” I said.

“Because if I give in to paranoia, they win.”

“They?” I asked.

“Everyone who is out to get me,” he said.