Mr. Monk Goes to Germany (4 page)

“How can you possibly say that?” Monk cried out. “Didn’t you hear anything I told you today? I am in crisis. I need help now more than ever.”

“And you’ll get it,” Dr. Kroger said. “I’ve arranged for Dr. Jonah Sorenson to see you while I am away.”

Monk gasped. “The one-armed guy?”

“He’s an exceptional psychiatrist and a wonderful human being.”

Monk had seen Dr. Sorenson for one session last year when Dr. Kroger briefly flirted with retirement. The session lasted less than five minutes.

“But he’s got a big problem,” Monk said.

“Not that I can see,” Dr. Kroger said.

“He’s only got one arm!” Monk shrieked.

“I don’t see that as a problem,” Dr. Kroger said.

“Are you blind?”

“In fact, I see his disability as an asset in your treatment. By sharing your feelings with him, and discovering what a sensitive and knowledgeable person he is, you’ll feel less threatened by people who are physically different from you.”

In theory, that was a great idea. In practice, it was never going to work. I knew it with absolute certainty and I had no psychiatric training whatsoever, except for what I learned listening to Dr. Laura on the radio. So why didn’t Dr. Kroger realize it? Then again, maybe he did and just didn’t care. All he wanted was a vacation from Monk.

I could sympathize. I almost got away for a Monk-free week in Hawaii but he showed up uninvited on the plane. He was armed with a fresh prescription from Dr. Kroger for Dioxynl, the mood-altering drug that relieved his phobias and enabled him to fly without fear. I’ve always suspected that Dr. Kroger put Monk up to it to avoid being harassed night and day while I was away.

“Dr. Sorenson is unbalanced,” Monk said. “How can you leave your patients in the care of an unbalanced person? That’s a clear case of malpractice.”

“I’m going to Germany tomorrow, Adrian, and nothing you say or do is going to change that.” Dr. Kroger stepped into his office and closed the door in Monk’s face.

Monk didn’t move. He just stared forlornly at the door.

“We have to go now,” I said.

“I’m staying right here,” Monk said.

“What good will that do?”

“If he thinks about it for a moment, I’m convinced that he’ll come to his senses and cancel his trip.”

“He seemed pretty adamant about it to me.”

“I felt that I got through to him at the end,” Monk said. “As he was closing the door in my face, I could see that he was wrestling with some major doubts.”

“There were no doubts,” I said.

“We’ll see when he comes out,” Monk said.

“He’s not coming out,” I said.

“Great,” Monk said. “I’ll stand here until my next appointment. If you want to see real endurance, and the true strength of the human spirit, just watch me.”

Monk put his hands on his hips and planted his feet in place and stared firmly at the door. I guess that stance was supposed to mean he was in this for the long haul. I’m sure the door was very intimidated.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Monk yelled. “And neither are you.”

There was no response. Monk shifted his weight.

“You’ll thank me later,” Monk yelled.

There was no response.

“Or you could thank me now,” Monk yelled. “Either way is fine with me.”

“Doesn’t the back of his office open onto an atrium?” I asked.

Monk nodded.

“And doesn’t that atrium have a door that leads to the tenant parking garage?”

Monk shifted his gaze to me. “You don’t think he would do that, do you?”

“I think he already has,” I said.

Monk opened the door. The office was empty. Dr. Kroger had fled.

“I’m doomed,” Monk said.

I was, too.

CHAPTER FIVE

Mr. Monk Falls Apart

As soon as we got in the car, Monk wanted me to drive him to Dr. Kroger’s house. I refused.

“That would be invading his privacy,” I said.

“I’m family,” Monk said.

“You’re one of his patients,” I said.

“It’s the same thing,” Monk said.

“No, it’s not, Mr. Monk. It’s crossing a line. He is a doctor and you are his patient. You are not his family. He is paid to listen to you and offer his guidance and advice.”

“We’ve gone past that,” Monk said.

“You have,” I said. “He hasn’t. He’s a professional and I’m not going to help you stalk him.”

Monk sulked for a long moment before speaking up again. “He doesn’t see me three times a week because he’s paid to. He cares about me.”

“I’m sure that he does, Mr. Monk. He wouldn’t be much of a doctor if he didn’t care about his patients.”

“It’s more than that. I share all my fears and anxieties with him.”

“You share them with everybody,” I said. “The ones you don’t exhibit in your behavior you have listed, indexed, and leather-bound for people to reference.”

“But he knows them all by heart. He actually listens. He’s there for me,” Monk said. “Or at least he was.”

“He still is,” I said. “But he has a life. That’s his priority. You are his job.”

“I see,” Monk said. “The only reason he cares about me, listens to my problems, and offers me emotional support is because I pay him. If I didn’t, he’d be gone.”

“I’m afraid so,” I said.

“That’s the way it is,” Monk said.

“Yes, it is,” I said.

I felt like we had made a real breakthrough. Perhaps, I thought, I should consider becoming a shrink. I seemed to have a knack for it.

“Is that how it is with you?” Monk asked.

So much for my knack. I didn’t see that question coming. The car suddenly felt very cramped to me. I broke into a sweat.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

I knew what he meant, of course. I was just trying to buy some time to think of how I was going to talk myself out of this one.

“Would you still care about me if I wasn’t paying you?”

“You hardly pay me as it is, so it’s a moot point,” I said with what I hoped was a lighthearted smile, which is hard to pull off when, in fact, you have a heavy heart. A two-ton heart.

Monk stared at me. I cleared my throat.

“You aren’t just a job to me, Mr. Monk. I honestly care about you. And I would whether I worked for you or not.”

“Then is it so hard to imagine that Dr. Kroger might feel the same way?”

He had a good point. I pulled over and looked at him. I didn’t want what I was going to say to appear tossed off.

“You’re right, Mr. Monk. I’m sorry. I don’t know how Dr. Kroger feels about you and it was wrong of me to assume that I did.”

Monk nodded. “Apology accepted.”

“Thank you,” I said, and glanced over my shoulder to check for traffic before moving back into the street.

“So will you take me to his house now?”

“No,” I said.

“Fine,” Monk said. “I’ll just have him arrested.”

“On what charge?”

“Abandonment,” Monk said.

“That’s not a crime,” I said.

“It is when you go off on a vacation and leave your children home alone unattended and unsupervised,” Monk said.

“You aren’t his child. You’re his patient.”

“Same thing,” Monk said.

“You’re an adult,” I said.

“That’s open to debate,” Monk said.

I couldn’t argue with him there. Monk started to make a strange mewling noise.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m weeping,” Monk said. “Can’t you see that?”

“There aren’t any tears,” I said.

“I’m tearless weeping,” Monk said.

“You can’t weep without tears,” I said.

“Then what am I doing?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Dr. Kroger would know,” Monk said.

I took Monk to his apartment. He told me he was too depressed to work, not that we had any cases anyway, and he sent me home. I watched him creep in the back way to avoid the cannibals, and then I drove away.

I made pork chops and Caesar salad for dinner. But when I set the plates down on the kitchen table, Julie rolled her eyes theatrically and groaned. I don’t know where the audience was that she was playing to, but the performance wasn’t entertaining me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We always have the same things for dinner,” she said.

“Last night we had spaghetti.”

“With salad,” she said. “And we had chicken the day before.”

“Chicken isn’t pork,” I said.

“It’s meat,” she said. “With a salad.”

“You don’t like meat and salad?”

“It’s boring,” she said.

“What do you want instead?”

“I don’t know,” she said. That’s what she always said. I was expected to read her mind.

“You always have complaints, but never any suggestions. How am I supposed to know what you want to eat? I don’t have a crystal ball.”

No sooner did I say that than I cringed. My mom used to say the same thing to me. Is it inevitable that we all eventually become our parents? Would Julie be saying that to her daughter in fifteen years?

“We could go out,” she said.

That’s all she ever wanted to do. Food wasn’t good unless you ordered it off a menu.

“We’re eating at home. This is what is being served. If you don’t like it, there’s cereal in the pantry.”

I started to eat. It was tasty, if I do say so myself.

She glared at me. “Cereal is breakfast food. You don’t eat breakfast food for dinner.”

“Now you sound like Mr. Monk,” I said.

Julie gave me a withering look, with all the wither a teenager can muster.

“You always have to blow everything out of proportion. I don’t like the culinary monotony in this house, so you compare me to a crazy person. That’s really mature.”

“Culinary monotony?” I said. “Where do you get this stuff?”

“I read, Mom.”

“I can’t remember the last time I saw you open a book or a newspaper.”

“I don’t read cave drawings either,” she said. “There’s this new thing called the Web—maybe you’ve heard of it.”

“When did you become so snotty?”

She was talking her way right into being grounded when my phone rang, sparing her. I answered it.

“Help,” Monk croaked.

“What is it, Mr. Monk?” I glanced at Julie, who poked at her food with her fork like she was preparing to dissect a frog.

“He’s up there,” he said. “I can hear him hopping around on one foot.”

“Good,” I said. “You should feel secure knowing exactly where he is.”

“It’s the incessant beat of imminent death,” Monk said. “Hop. Hop. Hop.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” I said.

“Hop. Hop. Hop.”

“Try earplugs,” I said. “Or cotton balls.”

“Hop. Hop. Hop.”

“Put a pillow over your head,” I said.

“Hop. Hop. Hop.”

“I get the point, Mr. Monk. I’m sure he’ll sit down soon for dinner.”

“That’s what I am afraid of,” Monk said.

“Good-bye, Mr. Monk.” I hung up and looked at Julie, who was eating her food with an overly dramatic show of joylessness.

“It could be worse,” I said. “You could be eating your toes.”

She looked at me as if I was losing my mind. I wasn’t. Yet. That was still a couple of hours away.

The first call came at about one a.m. I clawed my way out of a deep sleep and reached blindly towards my nightstand for the phone. I knocked it off the table and almost fell out of bed searching for it on the floor in the darkness.

I was dangling out of my bed, my head nearly touching the floor, when I found the phone and answered it.

“Yes?” I said.

“He’s stopped moving,” Monk said.

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” I said. “Go to sleep.”

“How can I sleep not knowing where he is?” Monk said.

“Get a grip, Mr. Monk.” I am not very sympathetic when I am rudely awakened and I’m nearly upside down, with all the blood rushing into my groggy head.

“He could be outside my door right now, licking his lips and sharpening his pickax.”

“Relax,” I said. “He’s never eaten anyone’s flesh but his own.”

“Maybe he wants to broaden his palate,” Monk said. “And break the culinary monotony.”

Culinary monotony?
Again? I struggled up into a sitting position in bed.

“Have you and Julie been talking?”

“No,” Monk said. “But do you think she would talk to me? I could use someone to talk to. Put her on.”

“I am going to bed,” I said. “Don’t call back.”

I left the phone off the hook, lowered the volume, and shoved it under a pillow. And then I went back to sleep.

Here’s a piece of advice. Always remember to turn off your cell phone when you’re charging it or you could get a call at 4:42 a.m. from an obsessive-compulsive detective having a mental meltdown.

I didn’t hear the call, since the charger is in the kitchen. But Julie heard it. She padded into my room and shook me awake.

“What is it?” I asked. “Are you sick?”

She held the cell phone out to me. “It’s Mr. Monk. He’s sick.”

I took the phone from her and shouted into it. “I told you not to call.”

“It’s a medical emergency,” Monk said hoarsely.

“So call 911,” I said.

“I did,” Monk said. “But they wouldn’t come.”

“What’s the emergency?”

“I can’t swallow,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I forgot,” Monk said, and began tearlessly weeping. “I’ve forgotten how to swallow. I’m going to die.”

“What did the 911 operator tell you to do?”

“She told me to swallow.”

“Good advice,” I said and removed the battery from my phone.

When I arrived at Monk’s house the next morning, I found him in his bed, fully dressed, holding a can of Lysol in each hand, aimed at the door.

“Have you been lying like that all night?” I asked.

“I’m under siege,” he said.

“There’s nobody around,” I said.

“Germs,” Monk said. “They are everywhere.”

“That’s not exactly a revelation,” I said. “You’ve known that all of your life.”

“But they weren’t coming to get me before,” Monk said.

“What makes you think they are coming now?”

“I can feel it,” Monk said and started spraying all around him until he was surrounded by a cloud of Lysol mist.

“Is it safe for you to be breathing that stuff?”

“It’s disinfectant,” Monk said. “It’s safer than air.”

I didn’t share that belief, so I stepped out of the room. I used the moment of privacy to ponder my next move. Monk was falling apart, his shrink was on his way to Europe, and I was completely alone. It could only get worse. What was I going to do?

On the bright side, Monk seemed to have remembered how to swallow.

The phone rang, so I answered it.

“Good morning, Natalie,” Captain Stottlemeyer said cheerfully. “How is Monk today?”

“A complete wreck,” I said.

“Even though Randy’s dogged investigation led to the recovery of his lost sock?”

“Dr. Kroger went on vacation,” I said.

“Oh hell,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Monk didn’t call you?”

“Thankfully, no.”

“He called me twice last night before I disconnected my phones,” I said. “Why didn’t he call you?”

“He knows I would have shot him to put him out of his misery,” Stottlemeyer said. “And mine.”

“It was a serious question,” I said.

“He used to call me all the time, day and night, to complain about dust bunnies and potholes and God knows what else. My wife was furious. She wanted me to get a restraining order against him. So I finally had to tell Monk that he was ruining my marriage and that if he called me at home again, I’d fire him. I guess it hasn’t sunk in yet that I’m divorced. Please don’t remind him.”

“You’ll have to give me something in return,” I said.

“How about a murder?” he said.

“You’re going to kill Monk for me?”

“I am standing beside a dead guy and I have no idea who killed him,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m thinking that a murder case might be exactly what Monk needs right now.”

I never thought that I’d ever welcome the news that a person had been murdered, but I’m ashamed to say that, in this situation, I did.