“Someone needs to clean this place with a flamethrower and then send the scorched bricks into outer space.”
This was one time I actually agreed with him.
“It’s not our problem,” I said.
“It’s the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “If there is a hell on earth, we’re standing in it.”
I gently took his arm. “Let’s go, Mr. Monk. We’ll walk out of here together.”
“I can’t move.”
“Yes, you can. We’ll go very slowly.”
“What if I step on something?”
“We’ll watch our step.”
“What if I lose my balance while I’m watching and I fall against one of those walls?”
“I won’t let that happen.”
He turned around slowly, and arm in arm we carefully negotiated a path among the dried gum on the ground toward the mouth of the alley where we came in.
Our heads were down, and we were so intent on what we were doing, we didn’t see the three young people coming in until they tried to brush past us, nearly pushing us against the sticky wall.
Monk grabbed me for dear life and let out a frightened yelp.
The three of them—two girls and a guy—looked about the same age as my daughter. I pegged them as students, a brilliant deduction based on their age and the Cal Poly logo clothes they were wearing. They were chomping on gum, so I didn’t have to be a detective to guess what they’d come here to do.
“Don’t even think about it,” Monk said to them.
“Huh?” the boy said.
“You are not sticking gum on that wall,” Monk said.
“Chill, it’s cool,” he said.
“Not anymore. This is a crime scene,” Monk said, “and you are contaminating it.”
“Are you some kind of cop?” one of the girls asked.
“Yes,” Monk said. “Now back out of here, slowly and carefully retracing your steps, and don’t ever come back.”
The kids shared a look.
“This guy is crazy,” the other girl said. “He’s scaring me.”
“You should be scared,” Monk said. “For your life.”
That did it. The girls hurried out. The guy followed them, but he wasn’t too pleased about it. He took a wad of gum out of his mouth and defiantly tossed it at the wall as he passed Monk.
“Call the police,” Monk demanded.
“I’m not calling the cops on that kid.”
We reached the sidewalk, and Monk took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, relieved to have escaped with his life.
That’s when I noticed that the gift store on one side of the walkway entrance had a gumball machine in the window full of gum the size of golf balls. In fact, now that I was looking for it, I could see that several stores in the immediate vicinity were selling gum, even those shops that otherwise sold only clothes, soap, or jewelry.
“This entire alley is a crime scene,” Monk said. “I’ll secure it while you make the call.”
“The gum has been on these walls for a very long time, Mr. Monk. I’m sure the authorities here know about it. The merchants here certainly do. The cops aren’t going to come out here for that.”
“They’ll come for the murder,” Monk said.
I felt a horrible, oppressive sense of dread. It was like a physical weight pressing down on my entire body.
“What murder?”
Monk gestured past me to the vagrant sleeping on the ground in the alley.
“His,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mr. Monk and the Murder
N
o matter where Monk went, he inevitably discovered a murder.
Statistically, it just didn’t seem possible that one person could stumble across so many dead bodies. Any reasonable person would, if she knew how often this happened, keep herself and her loved ones as far away from him as possible.
I guess I wasn’t as reasonable as I thought I was. I was still with him. But I wasn’t happy that another corpse threatened to ruin our trip. And, irrationally, I blamed Monk for it.
“You’re just desperate to find a murder to investigate. You weren’t close to that homeless guy. How can you be sure he’s dead? Maybe he’s sleeping.”
“It’s the eternal rest, Natalie. And he’s not homeless, either.”
I looked back at the guy, and all I could see from where we stood was the ratty Cal Poly blanket that covered most of his body.
“How do you know?”
“He’s a young man. His hair is freshly cut, his fingernails are neatly trimmed, his skin is pale, and his leather sandals fit perfectly and are clean,” Monk said. “None of that is what you’d expect to see with someone who lived on the streets.”
“Maybe he’s a homeless person who takes good care of himself,” I said, knowing it was a stupid comment and hearing my desperate need for him to be wrong as a distinct whine that underscored my words like music.
“I know he’s dead because he’s wearing shorts, and his naked ankles are sticking out from under the blanket. I can see the purplish discoloration of his skin that indicates postmortem lividity, the pooling of the blood in the body that occurs once the heart stops pumping and gravity takes over. It also tells me that he was killed here.”
I resigned myself to defeat and, since I’d left my purse and cell phone in the RV, went into the gift shop next door and used their phone to call 911.
I told the operator about the murder and gave her our names and Captain Stottlemeyer’s contact information for the police so we could shortcut Monk and me being treated as suspects.
The uniformed police officers arrived first, followed by the paramedics, the medical examiner, the forensic team, and finally the lead detective. He was sandy haired and sunburned, wearing a polo shirt over faded jeans, a badge, and a gun clipped to his belt. He looked more like a tennis pro than a cop. He introduced himself as Detective Terry Donovan.
“I checked you two out with Captain Stottlemeyer in Frisco. He vouched for you, but here’s the funny thing: He didn’t seem surprised at all that I was calling. It was almost like he was expecting it. What’s with that?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“So tell me what happened,” Donovan said.
We did. Donovan looked at Monk incredulously.
“Let me get this straight. You chased a guy into an alley because you saw him stick gum on the wall?”
“I am a concerned, law-abiding citizen doing my civic duty,” Monk said.
The medical examiner motioned to Donovan, who stepped aside to have a word with him out of our earshot. I looked back into the alley. The body was being taken away in a body bag and the forensic team was putting the Cal Poly blanket in a large, transparent evidence bag.
Donovan returned to us. “The ME says that the guy has been dead for several hours, maybe even since last night. His wallet is gone, and he was stabbed in the chest. Looks to me like we’re dealing with a simple mugging gone tragically bad.”
“Were there any defensive wounds on the victim?” Monk asked.
“Nope. I guess it happened too quick.”
Monk rolled his shoulders and tipped his head from side to side. “What mugger brings along a vagrant’s blanket to drape over the body?”
“Maybe the mugger was a homeless person who was sleeping in the alley and left his blanket behind when he ran off.”
“He’d have to be crazy to do that,” Monk said.
“Most of the homeless in this town are mentally ill, so that’s not much of a stretch.”
“I think it is. The victim was stabbed in the chest, which means he was facing his killer. There are no defensive wounds because the young man didn’t see the knife and didn’t think he was in any danger. That wouldn’t be the case if he was that close to a homeless man,” Monk said. “No, the killer wasn’t a hobo. The killer brought the blanket to make the victim look like a sleeping vagrant and to delay the discovery of the body.”
“That’s one theory,” Donovan said.
“It’s what happened,” Monk said.
“He’s never wrong about murder,” I said.
“Captain Stottlemeyer mentioned that,” Donovan said. “Sorry, but I don’t buy it.”
Monk gestured to the walls covered with gum. “You need to get the DNA from all those pieces of gum.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s tens of thousands of wads there,” he said. “It would take years, maybe even decades.”
“Time well spent. Every one of those people has to be hunted down and prosecuted.”
“The murder occurred hours ago, but that gum goes back years. We don’t even know if the killer left a piece on the wall. It’s not a practical use of our time and limited resources to test all that gum for DNA.”
“So you’re going to let them all get away with it?”
“This is Gumball Alley,” Donovan said. “Putting gum on the wall is a local tradition.”
“Do you also have alleys where people can spit tobacco, blow their noses, and urinate on the walls, too?”
It was a good thing that Monk didn’t know that in the mid-1800s, bear-baiting shows, a blood sport in which a bear chained by one leg to a post fended off a pack of ravenous dogs, were regularly held in the park outside the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa for the amusement of the locals.
“No, we’ve just got this,” Donovan said. “It’s community folk art. I’ve stuck a few pieces on the wall myself over the years.”
“Ah, so that’s it,” Monk said.
“Now you understand,” Donovan said.
“I do. You’re only interested in covering up your own corruption. Surely there’s at least one honest cop on your police force.”
Donovan’s casual demeanor abruptly evaporated, and his expression hardened. “We’re done here. We’ll be in contact if we need anything more. You are free to go.”
Monk pointed at the alley. “That wall of gum is responsible for that man’s death.”
Donovan couldn’t help himself—he had to ask: “How do you figure that?”
“It’s a symbol of the rampant lawlessness that’s allowed to exist in this town. It’s a sign that says to everyone that anything goes here. The killer knew he could act with impunity.”
“If this town disgusts you so much,” Donovan said, “why don’t you just get the hell out of here?”
“I intend to,” Monk said. “Just as soon as I find the murderer.”
“That’s my job,” Donovan said.
“You can’t even keep those walls clean,” Monk said. “How do you expect to catch a killer?”
I spoke up before Donovan did something rash, like chain Monk by the leg to a post and set a pack of dogs on him.
“We’re leaving now,” I said, taking Monk by the arm and leading him away. “Good luck with your investigation.”
Monk came along with me, but he wasn’t happy. “You expect me to walk away from this murder, too?”
“This one and every other one that you might come across on our trip.”
“You think there will be more?”
“I hope not, but knowing you, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“I have an obligation,” Monk said.
“Yes, you do, to your brother and to me and to this road trip. You do not work for the San Luis Obispo Police Department.”
“What about my obligation to the murder victim?”
“You don’t have one,” I said.
“I do now,” he said. “What if this murder never gets solved?”
“It will,” I said.
“If I investigate it,” he said.
“Even if you don’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“We’ll check in with Detective Donovan after we get home from our vacation,” I said.
“And if it’s not solved, you’ll bring me back here?”
“Sure,” I lied.
“And to Santa Cruz, if that case isn’t solved, either?”
“Of course,” I lied again.
“Maybe we’d better hold on to the motor home for a while after the trip,” Monk said. “We might need it.”
We crossed the street and returned to our RV. I could see Ambrose staring at us wide-eyed through the window. We weren’t doing a very good job making the outside world look enticing, a fact that he made very clear as soon as we stepped inside the motor home.
“I’m never going outside,” he said.
“I know this looks bad,” I said, “but what happened today is a fluke.”
“Hardly. This is the second murder we’ve come across in two days. It’s a wonder that you’ve survived as long as you have out there.”
“It’s really not as dangerous as it seems,” I said.
“It’s worse,” Monk said.
I glared at him. “You’re not helping.”
“I want to,” he said, “but you won’t let me.”
“That’s not the help I am talking about,” I said, gesturing to Ambrose. Monk looked at me blankly, not getting the message or willfully ignoring it. “Never mind. Buckle up.”
I got into the driver’s seat and hit the gas, not waiting for them to get settled. They were nearly knocked to the floor, but I didn’t care.
We fled San Luis Obispo even faster than we’d escaped from Santa Cruz the day before. I needed to put miles between Monk and the investigation and to put emotional distance between Ambrose and another crime scene. I had to distract them both and I had to do it quickly.
We passed an enormous billboard for Pea Soup Andersen’s restaurant and hotel, with its cartoon illustration of a fat chef holding a mallet and chisel over a pea, and I saw the answer to my problems.
Pea Soup Andersen’s wasn’t the answer. That was
where
it was located, just outside of Solvang, a mere fifty-six miles south and only a few miles off the highway.
Solvang was built by Danish settlers in the early 1900s to emulate the architectural style of their homeland. They didn’t know they were creating California’s first theme park, minus the roller coasters and Ferris wheels.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see Solvang. The place struck me as a blatant tourist trap pretending to be something of genuine cultural and historical significance. Maybe it was once, but not anymore. To me, Solvang had a fake, Disneyfied look, born more out of animated cartoons than anything in Copenhagen, and that made the place feel like an enormous themed shopping center rather than an actual town.