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Authors: Lee Goldberg

Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop (26 page)

BOOK: Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop
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“That’s comforting,” Stottlemeyer said. “So, will you help me or not?”
“Of course I will,” Monk said.
“Me, too,” I said.
Stottlemeyer smiled. “Then I know this is all going to work out fine.”
 
“I hope he gets himself a good lawyer,” Monk said as we left the jail and headed for the Lexus, which was parked at a meter a short way up Seventh Street.
“Do you think he’s going to need one?”
“A good lawyer might be able to plea-bargain him down to a sentence that’s less than life in prison.” Monk tapped each meter that we passed. It was a habit of his that I had never understood.
“That won’t be necessary, because this case will never get that far,” I said. “You’ll prove him innocent long before a trial.”
“What makes you think I’m going to do that?”
“Because you just said you would,” I said.
“I said I would help him,” Monk said. “We’ll start interviewing criminal defense attorneys today.”
“What about investigating the murder and proving him innocent instead?”
“Are you kidding?” Monk said. “He did it.”
“How can you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because
he did it
.”
“You know Captain Stottlemeyer better than that,” I said. “He couldn’t murder anyone.”
“Until now. Did you hear all the evidence against him?”
“I wouldn’t care if they’d caught Stottlemeyer in the act, cinching the tie around Braddock’s throat.”
“Did they?” Monk asked.
“No, they didn’t,” I said through gritted teeth, withstanding the urge to slap him silly.
“Are you sure? We should double-check, because that’s the only thing they haven’t got against him.”
“If Leland Stottlemeyer says he’s innocent, then he is. You should believe that, too.”
 
I drove us straight to police headquarters so we could have a talk with that scoundrel Randy Disher.
We found him carrying a box into the captain’s office, which had been completely stripped bare of all of Stottlemeyer’s files and personal belongings.
Disher set the box on the empty desk and faced us grimly. “I heard that the captain had called you. I figured it was better that you heard the bad news directly from him rather than me.”
“I ought to slap you,” I said.
“That would be assaulting a police officer,” Monk said. “It’s a criminal offense.”
“Perfect, then I should do it,” I said. “Lieutenant Disher seems to enjoy arresting his friends.”
“It’s not Lieutenant anymore,” Disher mumbled. “It’s Acting Captain Disher.”
That was when I noticed that the box he’d brought in was full of stuff from his desk. I felt my face get hot.
“So that’s what this is all about. You sold out the captain for a promotion,” I said. “I see it didn’t take you very long to haul away his stuff and move yourself in.”
“It’s a temporary assignment and I had no idea the deputy chief was going to do it,” Disher said. “And it was Internal Affairs that cleaned out his office, not me.”
“They didn’t do a very good job,” Monk said. “There’s still dust on the shelves. If you give me Lysol, a rag, and some rubber gloves, I’ll take care of it.”
I pointed my finger at Monk.
“If you even try, I will break your arm like a chopstick.” Monk flinched and I turned to Disher. “Why did Internal Affairs take the captain’s things?”
“It is standard operating procedure in situations like this,” Disher said. “They are looking for evidence of other crimes he might have committed.”
“
Other
crimes?” The next thing I knew I was swinging at Disher’s face.
Disher didn’t raise a hand to defend himself or move out of the way. But before the flat of my hand could connect with his boyish cheek, Monk grabbed my arm and pinned it behind me.
“What’s the matter with you?” Monk said. He seemed truly distraught.
“It’s okay, Monk. Let her slap me. I deserve it for what I’ve done.”
“He’s right,” I said to Monk. “Let go of me.”
“Lieutenant Disher was only doing his job,” Monk said.
“Acting Captain Disher,” he corrected.
I tried to slap Disher with my free hand, but with Monk clutching my other arm, I was off balance and the blow fell short of the mark. Disher would have had to lean towards me for the slap to connect. I guess he didn’t want to be punished as much as he claimed or he would have.
“I know that I betrayed the captain,” Disher said. “But I was only following the evidence where it led. I had no choice but to arrest him. My only hope, and his, is that you can prove that he’s innocent.”
“You should be doing that,” I seethed. It’s amazing that I wasn’t foaming at the mouth.
“I’ll help you any way that I can, but it will have to be unofficially,” Disher said. “I am going to leave now and get myself a cup of coffee. While I am gone, you are absolutely forbidden to read the file in the box on the desk, because it contains all of the forensic reports, witness statements, and crime scene photos on the Braddock investigation. Is that clear?”
He gave us a big, exaggerated wink.
“Yes,” Monk said.
Disher nodded, closed the blinds on all of the captain’s office windows, and walked out, closing the door behind him. We were alone and out of sight. Monk let go of me and I jerked away from him.
“Are you having female problems?” he asked.
I glared at him in fury. “Did you actually just ask me if I have my period?”
“Ssssh,” Monk said, waving his hands frantically. “There’s no reason to start talking like a sailor.”
“I’ve got to meet this wretched sailor that you keep talking about,” I said. “No, Mr. Monk, I am not menstruating.”
“Ssssh,” Monk said, waving his arms again. “First you’re violent, now you’re a gutter mouth. What is wrong with you?”
“A good friend of mine was just arrested for a murder he didn’t commit—
that
is what is wrong with me and it should be wrong with you, too.”
I reached into the box and pulled out the Braddock file. Monk tried to grab it from me but I yanked the file away.
“Are you crazy? Acting Captain Disher said we are
absolutely forbidden
to read that file.”
“Which was his way of saying he wanted us to read it,” I said, laying the crime scene photos out on the empty desk.
“
Absolutely forbidden
means the opposite,” Monk said, gathering each photo up, one by one.
“But he meant the opposite of the opposite,” I said, laying out the forensic report and the photos of the evidence. “It was his way of saying we weren’t allowed to read the file but he was letting us read it anyway.”
“If that’s what he wanted to say, why didn’t he say that instead of
absolutely forbidden
?” Monk said, picking up the forensic report and photos.
“He was protecting his butt,” I said, laying out the witness statements. “He was saying that if we get caught reading it, we are on our own.”
“He was saying all that when he said we were
absolutely forbidden
to open the file.”
“Yes,” I said, dropping the empty file on the desk. “That’s why he gave us the big wink.”
“He probably had dust in his eye.” Monk shoved all the papers and photos back into the file and returned it to the box. “
Absolutely forbidden
means
absolutely forbidden
.”
Whether it did or not, I knew that Monk had seen every photo in the file and, whether he wanted to or not, had unconsciously noted every significant detail in them. He couldn’t help himself.
“If you say so,” I said. “How do you feel about visiting the crime scene?”
“Ambivalent,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
 
Mr. Monk and the Odd Floor
 
I
went to the front desk of the Dorchester and asked the clerk if I could rent a room. I didn’t think that they would let us just look around simply because we were private eyes, and I’m lousy when it comes to bribing people. Besides, I had Slade’s magic credit card.
“Of course,” the clerk said. He was so youthful, clean-cut, and gleamingly straight-toothed that he could have worked at Disneyland. “How long will you be staying?”
I glanced over my shoulder at Monk, who was busy arranging the suitcases at the porter’s stand by size, then returned my gaze to the clerk.
“One night,” I said. “I’d like room seven thirteen.”
The clerk cleared his throat with discomfort. “Perhaps you’d like a different room.”
“Is it occupied?”
“No,” he said, clearing his throat again.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“It’s just that the gentleman who was staying there most recently suffered a tragedy.”
“That’s a shame for him but what does that have to do with me?”
“I wouldn’t want to sleep in a room where someone died,” the clerk said.
“No one’s asking you to,” I said. “I’ve got a companion already.”
I tipped my head towards Monk, who was still busy lining up the suitcases.
The man flushed with embarrassment. “I wasn’t suggesting—I mean, I was just trying to be helpful.”
“By offering yourself to me?”
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong—” he stammered.
“We’re in a hurry,” I interrupted, handing him my Intertect credit card with a smile. “Could you make it snappy, Romeo?”
He quickly checked us in and handed me an electronic key card.
“Have a pleasant stay,” he said.
“I will.” I winked and took the card from him. It was fun flustering him. It was nice to know I could still fluster somebody.
I went over to Monk, who was admiring the row of suitcases, perfectly staggered from the smallest to the largest like the signal-strength icon on a cell phone.
“We’re in,” I said. “The room is on the seventh floor.”
I figured the uneven floor number was enough bad news for the moment—there was no reason to tell Monk yet that we were going to an odd room, too.
“You didn’t say anything about going to the seventh floor,” Monk said.
“That’s where his room is,” I said.
“He should have been on the fourth or sixth,” Monk said. “Or some other even-numbered floor.”
“But he wasn’t,” I said.
“No wonder he’s dead,” Monk said. “They shouldn’t even put rooms on those floors. It’s irresponsible, dangerous, immoral, and unnatural.”
“What should they do, just leave the odd-numbered floors empty?”
“Yes, for the sake of humanity,” Monk said. “It must have been unbearable for Braddock. Maybe he killed himself.”
“You think Braddock strangled himself with a tie because he couldn’t endure another night on an odd-numbered floor?”
“It’s the most logical alternative,” Monk said. “The captain should use that argument as the cornerstone of his defense strategy.”
I couldn’t take any more of his insanity and marched to the elevator. “I’ll meet you up there.”
I knew that he’d be taking the stairs. He was too claustrophobic to ride an elevator. But if I wasn’t there to meet him on the seventh floor, to physically drag him out of the stairwell if necessary, he might not make it to the room at all.
I got in the elevator, rode it to the seventh floor, and went to room 713. A maid was cleaning the room across the hall, the door propped open with her cart of cleaning supplies, linens, toiletries, and clean glasses.
I opened the door to room 713 and went inside.
There was nothing in the room to indicate that a murder had taken place there a few nights ago. The table was upright, the glasses were replaced, and the bed was made. It was all crisp and clean and smelled of disinfectant.
But I knew better.
A few months ago at a crime scene in another hotel room, Disher demonstrated to me how to use a device that shines a special light to illuminate all the bodily fluid stains that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye. He swept the light over the scene and revealed that everything in the room had been, at one time or another, splattered with bodily fluids—the bedspread, the headboard, the walls, the ceilings, the tabletops, the countertops, the lamps, even the TV remote control.
I couldn’t figure out how some of the stains got where they were. The remote control alone had looked as if it had been dipped in blood or drool or God knows what. It was disgusting to see, even for someone without Monk’s germopho bia. Now I couldn’t enter a hotel room without imagining all the bodily fluids that I knew were all over the place but that I couldn’t actually see.
BOOK: Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop
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