Mr. Monk on Patrol (19 page)

“Ready to roll?” I asked him.

“Yes, but just so there’s no confusion out there on the mean streets, let me remind you that I’m the senior officer here.”

“Gotcha. But just so we’re clear, let me remind you that you aren’t my boss now. Randy Disher is. So until this job is over, we’re partners, not employer and employee.”

Monk cocked his head. “So that means I don’t have to pay you while you’re on the Summit Police Department payroll.”

“I suppose it does,” I said.

That made him smile. “Then I’m absolutely fine with it.”

We’d see if he still felt that way once we were out on the street and I wasn’t assisting him anymore.

We strode from the locker room into the hallway, where Evie was waiting for us, shaking her head with disapproval.

“Here’s the address of the home that Lindero and Woodlake say they were burglarizing at the time Pamela Goldman was killed.” She handed me a slip of paper.

“Thanks, we’ll check it out,” I said. “You don’t approve of our being cops, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” she said. “But it’s better than having two civilians driving around in a police car. At least
now you will be doing something useful, assuming you don’t shoot someone by accident.”

“We’ll try to keep the shooting to a minimum,” I said and we walked out.

It was a completely different feeling driving out of the station parking lot in the patrol car that morning, now that I was in uniform and carrying all that stuff.

This time it was infinitely cooler and the
Police Woman
theme was blaring so loud in my head that it was as if the orchestra were in the backseat. It felt like I was in the opening credits of my own series.

As we cruised down Springfield Avenue, I kept my eyes peeled for criminals, people in distress, crimes in progress, and suspicious activity of any kind.

“Pull over,” Monk said.

He was staring at the Poop storefront.

“What for?”

“To enforce the law,” he said.

“Do you see a crime being committed or someone in trouble?”

“I see an affront to human decency.”

I nodded and kept driving.

He turned to me. “I told you to stop.”

“And I ignored you,” I said.

“You haven’t been on the job for five minutes and already you’re committing insubordination.”

“I don’t work for you,” I said. “Remember?”

“I am your senior officer.”

“But not my boss. Chief Disher specifically ordered me to keep you from harassing Ellen Morse,” I said. “And that’s what I’m doing. So unless you see someone robbing her store or vandalizing it, we’re moving on.”

Monk looked away from me, folded his arms across his chest, and sulked until we got to 4374 Brewster
Street, the home of one Blake Prosser, according to the note Evie gave us.

Prosser’s place was a low-slung and sprawling house that had been restored to all of its original 1960s space-age glory. The sharp corners and aerodynamic roofline reminded me of
The Jetsons
, a cartoon I watched when I was a kid. But instead of a personal flying saucer in the driveway, Prosser had a new Jaguar that was every bit as sleek as his house.

I parked beside the Jag and we got out, which isn’t so easy when you’re carrying a sporting goods store and an armory around your waist.

I knocked on the front door. After a moment, Prosser opened it. He was in his thirties, his black hair wet and slicked back, and from the way he was dressed, it looked like he’d made a wrong turn on his way to Miami. He wore an off-white silk shirt with a light floral pattern, opened wide to show off his undershirt and a gold chain around his neck, as well as white slacks and white loafers without socks.

“How can I help you, Officers?” he asked, flashing a set of teeth the same shade of white as his pants.

“You could put on socks,” Monk said.

“Has there been a complaint about my feet?”

“There is now,” Monk said.

“We’re investigating a burglary, Mr. Prosser,” I said.

“Where?” he asked.

“Here,” I said. “May we come in?”

“Of course,” he said and stepped aside, looking confused. We walked past him into the wide, marbled-floored entry hall. I couldn’t help noticing that by the door he had a Louis Vuitton briefcase that was probably worth more than my car.

His home had a very open floor plan. The entry hall led into a vast family room dominated by a massive flat-screen
TV beside a high-end stereo system, gaming consoles, and an impressive computer setup. The adjacent kitchen was filled with countertop appliances, from an espresso machine to a smoothie maker.

“I love gadgets,” he said, following my gaze. “Fortunately, I’m in the electronics business, so I can get my hands on just about any gizmo that comes along.”

“Are you missing anything?” I asked.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

“You’re missing a pair of socks,” Monk said.

“I can assure you that they weren’t stolen,” Prosser said, adjusting the Rolex on his wrist so I’d notice it. The man was flirting with me with his accessories. “It was a choice.”

“A bad one,” Monk said. “Unless you’re a fan of foot fungus.”

“So you’re certain that your home wasn’t broken into,” I said.

“Absolutely certain,” he said. “Everything is accounted for. Why do you ask?”

“You have a broken window,” Monk said, pointing to the dining room, where a side window had a pane covered with cardboard and duct tape.

“Oh, that. A bird flew into it,” Prosser said. “It happens all the time in this neighborhood, as you probably know. They get drunk on the berries from the trees on the street. Maybe you should cite them for flying drunk.”

Prosser was joking but Monk had no sense of humor. And I could see from the way Monk’s hand was suspended over his ticket book, he was actually tempted by Prosser’s suggestion.

“Is that why you’re here?” Prosser asked. “Because you saw a broken window?”

“Actually,” I said, “we got a report that this house was burglarized yesterday.”

“You did? From whom?”

“Two burglars,” Monk said.

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why would they confess to a crime that they didn’t commit?”

“To avoid going to prison for a crime that they did,” Monk said.

“I’ve got a lot of high-end electronics in here,” Prosser said, gesturing to the TV. “Like that sixty-five-inch, 3-D Triax flat-screen.” The way he said it, and the way he looked at me while he said it, he might as well have been describing a particular part of his body. But I didn’t measure a man’s virility by the size of his screen. “Don’t you think I would have called the police myself if someone had broken in and stolen anything?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “We’re just being diligent.”

“Which is why we urge you, in the strongest possible terms, and in the name of God, to wear socks,” Monk said.

“I’ll take that under advisement.” Prosser smiled and opened the front door for us. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of work to do. But if you’re looking for a deal on an iPad or a PlayStation, stop on by. Consider me your friend in the electronics biz.”

“Thank you for your time,” I said.

We walked past him out to our patrol car just in time to see a bird fly into the windshield, stagger back in a daze, then lift off again in a zigzagging path down the street.

Monk shook his head in disgust. “Stores selling excrement. Cops breaking into homes. People wearing shoes without socks. Birds flying around drunk. The downfall of Western civilization is beginning right here in Summit. I hope we’re not too late to stop it.”

“You and I are going to save Western civilization from ruination,” I said. “Do you really think that’s possible?”

“I’m confident that we can do it,” Monk said.

“Don’t you think that’s a little ambitious?”

“We’ll do it one sock at a time, if necessary.”

“You may want to call for backup,” Monk said as we drove up to a house not far from Prosser’s place. We were responding to a domestic disturbance call. The front lawn and shrubs were covered with men’s shirts, slacks, underwear, ties, and socks.

A disheveled guy in a wrinkled business suit stood on the front walk, holding his briefcase and looking up in exasperation at the second-floor windows of the house.

Several of his neighbors were out on their front lawns, watching the drama unfold, coffee cups in their hands. I guess it beat watching
Good Morning America.

“What do we need backup for?” I said to Monk. “This doesn’t strike me as a dangerous situation.”

“Look at the size of that mess. Everything has to be gathered up, cleaned, and folded. That’s more than a two-man job.”

“It’s not our problem,” I said.

“It’s disorderly conduct,” he said.

“It’s disorder,” I said. “Not conduct.”

“Throwing it out the window was the conduct.”

“Throwing clothes out the window isn’t a criminal offense,” I said.

“It has to be,” he said.

“It isn’t,” I said.

“My God, is there no law at all in this town?”

“There’s a law against disturbing the peace,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”

“The peace of not having clothes strewn over shrubbery,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Well, that’s the way I’m going to interpret it.”

I parked in the driveway and we got out. The man turned and groaned when he saw us.

“You really don’t need to be here,” he said. “I’ve got it all under control.”

“It doesn’t look like it to me,” Monk said. “Your yard is a mess.”

“She’s a drama queen, that’s all,” the man said. “You can go. It’s all over.”

“You’re done fighting?” I said.

“Probably. There are no more clothes left for her to toss out. She’s out of ammo.”

That was when a computer monitor sailed out of an upstairs window. I shoved the man aside and the monitor smashed on the ground where we’d been standing.

“Now you’ve gone too far,” he yelled, pointing at the broken glass and plastic. “That was a seven-hundred-dollar monitor, you crazy bitch!”

“You’d better open your umbrella, Dave!” A woman in a pink bathrobe leaned out of an upstairs window. “Because I’m just getting started.”

She pulled a ring off her finger and threw it out. Dave chased after it into the shrubs.

“That’s a five-thousand-dollar diamond,” he said. “Are you insane?”

“You throw one more thing out the window and I’ll place you under arrest,” Monk said.

“Me?” she yelled. “I’m not the adulterer. I’m not the one who spent the night banging his secretary.”

Dave emerged from the bushes, holding the ring. “I told you, Martha—I pulled an all-nighter working late on the big presentation. Nothing happened. It’s all in your imagination.”

Monk rolled his shoulders and looked up at Martha. “Come down here right now and bring the shampoo and soap from your shower with you.”

“What for?” she said.

“Because I’m the law,” Monk said, then turned to Dave. “How long have you been up?”

“Twenty-four hours straight, sweating at my desk, slaving over a massive presentation I have to deliver in Pittsburgh next Tuesday. And you know why I do it? To provide for my family. And this is the thanks I get.”

Martha came out, her feet in big furry slippers. She was holding a shampoo bottle in one hand and an eroded bar of soap in the other.

“He’s a lying pig,” she said.

Monk sniffed the shampoo and then sniffed the bar of soap. “Yes, he is.”

“How can you say that?” Dave said. “You don’t have any of the facts.”

“I know that you had an extramarital sex affair with your secretary and that you showered afterward so your wife wouldn’t smell her on you,” Monk said. “You thought you were being smart using the same brands of shampoo and soap as you have at home, but that was also your mistake. If you’d really spent all night sweating over your work, you wouldn’t still have those distinctive fragrances on you.”

“It’s strong soap,” he said. “That’s why I use it. Read the box. It says it offers twenty-four-hour protection.”

“Perhaps,” Monk said. “But you also took your clothes off to have your extramarital sex affair and washed them to be absolutely certain you wouldn’t bring home a stray hair of hers or, perhaps, of one of her pets. The wrinkles on your shirt aren’t from working but from not ironing your clothes after they came out of the spin dry.”

Dave laughed, a little too heartily. “My God, you’re as crazy as Martha. That’s pure fantasy.”

“Your secretary uses fabric softener when she washes
clothes.” Monk picked up a shirt from a juniper bush. “Your wife doesn’t.”

“You can’t tell that from just looking at a shirt,” Dave said.

“You can if you aren’t blind,” Monk said.

That would make 99.9 percent of us blind compared to Monk, but regardless, it was obvious from the look on Dave’s face that he was guilty as charged.

Monk pointed at Dave. “You’re leaving. But first you’re going to neatly fold all of these clothes and take them with you. Be sure to wash them before you wear them.”

“Why should I bother to fold them if they’re just going into the wash?”

Monk got up in his face. “Because you don’t want me to shoot you.”

“You’re crazy,” Dave muttered.

“Then you’d better hope I don’t stop you on your way out of here and find a single item of clothing unfolded.” Monk looked over at Martha. “And I expect you to clean up after that computer monitor.”

“Yes sir,” she said.

Monk nodded and marched to the car. I tried to suppress a smile as I got into the driver’s seat.

“Aren’t you the tough guy,” I said, starting the car.

“I hate cheaters,” he said.

“I don’t like adulterers much myself,” I said.

“I can’t stand people who try to shirk their obligation to fold their clothes,” Monk said. “There are some lines you simply can’t cross.”