Mr. Monk in Trouble (14 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mr. Monk Hears a Theory

K
elton drove way over the speed limit, but I kept up with him, confident that nobody would pull me over for a ticket as long as I was in his official wake.

I thought about Slocum’s story and the questions that it raised. After a time, I turned to Monk.

“I’ve got a theory.”

“About what?”

“How the robbery was committed,” I said. “Let’s assume Slocum was telling the truth. I think DeRosso was the ring-leader but not an active participant.”

“What does that mean?”

“He knew trains but he had no criminal experience. So he recruited people who did and let them do their thing while he oversaw the operation.”

“He was the brains, not the brawn,” Monk said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Like the situation with us,” he said.

I wasn’t quite sure how to take that. Was he implying that I wasn’t smart? I was pretty sure that he wasn’t, but after being called a stinky tornado of filth, I was a little touchy.

“Since he couldn’t pay for their help—something else you can relate to—he had to come up with another way to convince them to work for him. So he leveraged the safety of himself and his family. But I believe it wasn’t a gamble at all, because he had every intention of honoring the deal.”

“So far it makes sense.”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” I said. “I’m brainy and brawny. We know the gambling car was sandwiched between the dining car and the freight car. Slocum and Gilman were in the dining car and I believe the third man was in the freight car.”

“But you’re saying it wasn’t DeRosso,” Monk said.

I nodded. “DeRosso was somewhere else. I don’t know where. Maybe one of the passenger cars. The third man was supposed to return to the freight car and hide the gold in a secret compartment. I believe DeRosso had some clever plan for off-loading the gold at the station right under the noses of the police. But it never got that far. I have two theories about what happened next.”

“So you have three theories,” Monk said.

“I have one theory with two theoretical outcomes.”

“A theory with sub-theories,” Monk said.

“Is there a rule against that in the detecting profession?”

“It’s frowned upon.”

“Is that why you’re frowning?”

“I’m not frowning,” Monk said. “This is my face in its normal, rested state.”

“What does it matter how many theories I have?” I said. “We’re just spit-balling.”

“We are absolutely not spitting, together or separately,” Monk said. “Now or ever.”

“So here’s theory number one,” I said, ignoring his protest. “What went wrong is that the third man decided to double-cross the others and take the gold for himself. When DeRosso showed up in the freight car—”

“How did DeRosso get there without going through the dining car first?” Monk interrupted.

“He went over it,” I said. “He climbed up and walked along the top.”

“While the train was moving?” Monk asked incredulously.

“He was an experienced train man,” I said. “They do it all the time.”

“They do?”

“Haven’t you ever seen Westerns or thrillers about train robberies?”

“Those are movies,” he said.

“The writers get their ideas from real life and go from there.”

“Then explain
The Wizard of Oz
to me,” Monk said. “Where in real life can you find flying monkeys, singing scarecrows, and munchkins?”

I pressed on, ignoring his question. “So DeRosso shows up in the freight car, discovers what the third man is doing, and there’s a struggle. The third man ends up throwing DeRosso off the train.”

“What happened to the gold?”

“The third man jumped off with it,” I said.

“In two burlap sacks?”

“Maybe he put the gold into something else and then jumped. Maybe he carefully planned ahead and had a car stashed in the woods and was long gone before people started searching for the gold.”

“Let me get this straight,” Monk said. “DeRosso is pushed off the train and dies. The third man jumped off the train with two bags of gold and survived.”

“Maybe the third man planned his jump for a curve or something where the train had to slow down,” I said. “I don’t know. I’m not an expert on trains.”

“Except you’re certain that people can just stroll across the top of a dining car while a train is speeding down the tracks.”

“I’ve seen people have kung fu fights on top of moving trains,” I said. “I think Steven Segal did it.”

“Oh, then it must be possible,” Monk said. “Who is Steven Segal?”

“Nobody,” I said.

“What’s your second theory on how the plan went wrong?”

“Actually, I have three theories about that.”

“You said you had two.”

“Well, I just thought of another one. Anyway, my second theory is that DeRosso fell while walking across the top of the dining car and never made it to the freight car,” I said. “The third man didn’t know what the rest of the plan was, or who the two other robbers were, so he made the best of a bad situation by jumping off the train with the gold.”

“And survived,” Monk said.

“Obviously,” I said. “If he was killed and the gold spilled all over the place, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

“What’s your third theory?”

“It’s the second theory with a twist,” I said. “The third man hid the gold in the secret compartment in the freight car as planned and managed to get it off the train before the police realized what was going on.”

“The police searched the train for secret compartments and didn’t find any,” Monk said.

“Maybe the third man emptied the gold and then dismantled the secret compartment.”

“And he did all that without anybody noticing?”

“He must have,” I said. “Because he got away with it.”

“That’s a terrible theory.”

“Do you have a better one?”

“No,” Monk said. “Because I don’t come up with theories. I come up with solutions.”

“So let’s hear your solution.”

“I don’t have one yet.”

“Then my theory could be correct.”

“Which one?” he said. “You have four of them.”

“I have one with three possible outcomes,” I said. “The solution could be one of them, or a combination, or a fourth outcome I haven’t come up with yet.”

“In other words, it could be something else entirely,” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I think you’re right,” he said.

“About what?”

“It’s something else entirely.”

By that point, we’d followed Kelton into a residential community that dated back to the 1950s with homes that looked like space-age, drive-in restaurants. The homes had sharp angles, flat roofs, lava-rock facades, floor-to-ceiling windows, and carports instead of garages. Gator Dunsen’s house was easy to spot because of the 1964 Thunderbird parked under the carport.

From a distance, it looked like Gator’s house and property were covered with snow. But as we got closer, I saw that it was white rocks, gleaming bits of shaved dolomite spread on the ground, driveway, and roof. There were some dry, prickly shrubs poking through the rocks here and there, but otherwise it was like the house was built in the middle of a marble quarry.

Kelton parked his cruiser on the gravel driveway behind the Thunderbird, presumably to stop anyone from making an escape with the car.

I parked on the street at the curb. There was a concrete front walk leading to the front steps, which was lucky for me, because otherwise Monk might have asked me to carry him across the rocks to the door. He doesn’t like uneven and unstable surfaces.

“Let me take the lead here,” Kelton said. “Gator has a long history of violence.”

“I guess that’s why they call him Gator and not Cuddles,” I said.

I was trying to be clever and flirty but it fell disastrously flat. Kelton was unamused and all business.

“We have to assume that he’s armed and dangerous, so I’m going to do this according to procedure. Understood? I want you two to stand back out of the line of potential fire until I determine that there’s no danger.”

Kelton climbed the steps and then stood to the right of the front door.

I followed his example and stepped onto the rocks and out of the firing line of the front door. Monk remained on the concrete walkway but leaned towards me as far as he could without tipping over.

Kelton reached out his left hand and knocked on the door. He kept his right hand on the butt of his gun. I motioned to Monk to come beside me. He shook his head. You’d think I was asking him to walk barefoot across hot coals.

“Who is it?” a gruff voice yelled from inside the house.

“Gator Dunsen?” Kelton asked.

“Who wants to know?”

“The chief of police of Trouble.” It was an honest reply and yet it sounded like the kind of cocky, smart-ass remark that Walker, Texas Ranger or Dirty Harry might say.

Gator replied in kind. He blasted a hole through the front door, the stray bullet shattering the right, rear passenger window of my car and my five-hundred-dollar deductible.

I bolted for cover behind the Thunderbird. Monk started to follow me, then hesitated, one foot suspended over the rocks, the other still planted on the front walk. He looked like he was demonstrating a martial arts stance.

Gator fired again.

Monk’s fear of getting shot overcame his fear of uneven surfaces. He ducked and ran over to the car, hunkering down next to me.

Kelton called over to us. “Stay where you are.”

He crouched low, spun into a firing stance in front of the door, fired twice, then scrambled inside the house.

We heard more gunfire. One of the windows on the side of the house blew out, spraying shards of glass into the rocks. From the sound of things, the gunfight seemed to be moving towards the rear of the house.

Monk plucked a piece of rock out of the tread of the Thunderbird’s right front tire, then peered around to examine the shiny chrome grill. I yanked Monk back behind the car.

There was another gunshot, followed by two more in rapid succession, and then a disturbing silence. The only sound I heard was the ringing in my ears from the gunfire.

We both stood up slowly and peeked out at the house. Up and down the block, people were beginning to cautiously emerge from their homes to see what was going on. I could hear sirens in the distance.

Kelton emerged from the house, his gun held at his side. He was bleeding from some tiny cuts on his face and arms from flying shards of wood and glass.

“He’s dead,” Kelton said.

I hurried across the rocks to him as he sat down on the stoop. Monk went back to the sidewalk, then up the front walk to join us.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Could I have one of those wipes?”

I reached into my purse and gave him one. He opened the packet and gently dabbed at the wounds on his face.

Monk walked past us into the house. I handed Kelton some more wipes and hurried after Monk. I didn’t particularly want to see what was inside, but it was part of my job.

The house had an open floor plan with very few walls dividing rooms. Instead, low counters, bookcases, and furniture were used to delineate the various spaces.

The living room opened onto the kitchen and a hallway. There was a contemporary-style couch, a leather La-Z-Boy recliner, a huge flat-screen TV, and an overturned coffee table riddled with bullet holes. A big bowl of chips, some dip, a bag of pork rinds, and several bottles of beer were spilled on the floor. There were two bullet holes in the recliner.

Monk held his hands out in front of him, palms out, as if he could feel the heat radiating from the embers of the recent violence. I could smell the onion dip, the sulfur of discharged weapons, and the slightly metallic scent of blood.

“It would have been nice if they’d cleaned up as they went along,” Monk said, stepping carefully to avoid the food on the floor.

“I think it’s difficult to shoot at each other if you’re holding a broom and dustpan at the same time.”

“Gator was sitting on the couch eating chips when the chief knocked on the door. He grabbed his gun, flipped over the table for cover, and fired those first two shots,” Monk said. “He could have cleared the table before he flipped it over. It would only have taken a moment.”

“He must have been deranged,” I said.

Monk nodded. “Gator was already moving to his second position when Kelton needlessly shot the recliner.”

He headed to the kitchen and the low counter/bar combination that separated it from the living room. I could see that the window over the kitchen sink was shattered.

“Gator took cover behind the counter and opened fire again,” Monk said. “Kelton returned fire and hit the window. Gator fired back and Kelton dove to the floor. Gator went down the hall.”

I was visualizing the action as Monk described it. I could almost see it playing out in front of me like ghosts.

Monk went down the hall and peeked into the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and cocked his head from side to side.

I stood behind him and peered over his shoulder into the room.

There was a big man, easily six feet tall and almost half as wide, lying on his back on the floor, his arms flung out at his sides. He was bald with an alligator tattoo that ran around his neck and over his head. He wore a tank top, long shorts, and flip-flops. There was a bullet hole right between his eyes and blood spatter all over the wall behind him.

I was glad that we’d missed lunch or I might have seen mine again at that moment.

Monk crouched beside the body. Once again, I was struck by conflicts in his behavior. He was repulsed by smashed butterflies on my windshield but he didn’t flinch while scrutinizing a man who had the back of his skull blown off. It made absolutely no sense to me. But I was self-conscious enough to know that I was only thinking about this familiar contradiction for the thousandth time to distract myself from the gore.

It wasn’t working.

“He has chapped lips,” Monk said. “They’re bleeding.”

“There’s a bullet hole in his head and his brains are on the wall, and you’re concerned about his chapped lips?”