Mr. Monk on Patrol (2 page)

The Victorian house at the corner of Cole and Hayes streets was listed for sale at two million dollars, which was a fair price considering it was newly remodeled, immaculately maintained, and only a short walk from the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, and Haight-Ashbury. However, it was going to sell for a lot less than the asking price, if it ever sold at all. I wasn’t a real estate expert, like the dead woman on the entry hall floor, but I knew that murder always brought down property values.

The dead Realtor’s name was Rebecca Baylin. She was twenty-seven years old, shirtless, and her head was caved in. Ordinarily, Adrian Monk wouldn’t be able to look at a topless woman, but there he was, framing the scene between his hands and tipping his head from side to side to examine her from different angles.

Monk would be repulsed by someone with a bit of lettuce stuck between his teeth, or a missing button on her shirt, or a single pierced ear, or a zit on someone’s chin, and yet he had no qualms about staring at all
manner of horrific violence perpetrated on the human body.

It made no sense to me, but then again, there was a lot I didn’t understand about my obsessive-compulsive boss, even after all my years as his underpaid and overworked assistant, agent, driver, shopper, researcher, publicist, and all-around emotional punching bag.

I’ll make a guess, though. Maybe the reason he could look at Rebecca Baylin was that her nakedness was negated by her lifelessness. He didn’t see her as a woman anymore, or even as a person. She’d become something that was out of place, a disorder that had to be made orderly, a mess that had to be cleaned up, a question that had to be answered. He wouldn’t be able to rest—and by extension neither would I—until he’d figured out what had happened to her, caught her killer, and restored the balance that had been disrupted by her murder.

And I knew that Monk would. He always did.

This was a fact that Captain Leland Stottlemeyer had come to rely upon. It was why Stottlemeyer fought countless political battles to employ Monk as a consultant. It was why he found the patience to tolerate and forgive all of Monk’s aggravating eccentricities. And it was why he called us down to that open house on that foggy Saturday morning to meet with him and Lieutenant Amy Devlin.

“This home was Baylin’s listing,” Devlin said. “She was supposed to host an open house here this morning. A couple came by at ten a.m. to see the place, found the door unlocked, and walked in on this.”

Devlin gestured to the body on the floor.

“We’ve got the couple sitting in the backseat of a black-and-white if you’d like to ask them a few questions,” the captain said, standing beside me and chewing
on a toothpick, the tip tickling the hairs of his bushy mustache as he watched Monk work. Stottlemeyer wore a wrinkled off-the-rack suit and a tie that had gone out of style with disco.

“That’s not necessary,” Monk said. “You can send them home. They didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?” Devlin stood across from us. She had short black hair that looked like she’d had her gardener trim it with a weed whacker, and she wore faded jeans and a gray hoodie under a leather jacket.

“It’s obvious from the rigor mortis and other physical indications that she’s been dead for at least eight hours.”

“That doesn’t mean they didn’t kill her last night and then came back this morning so they could discover the body and rule themselves out as suspects,” Devlin said.

She watched Monk with obvious impatience, her hands on her hips, parting her jacket to reveal the badge and gun that were clipped on her belt, not that there was anyone around at the moment who’d be impressed by them. She’d transferred to homicide recently after a long string of undercover assignments, and I think on some level she enjoyed advertising that she was a cop instead of working so hard to hide it.

Or maybe she just wanted easy access to her gun so she could shoot Monk if he continued to irritate her.

“That sounds awfully convoluted to me,” Stottlemeyer said. “Almost Disher-esque.”

“Disher-esque?” she said.

The captain was referring affectionately to Randy Disher, the cop she’d been brought into homicide to replace after he took a job as the police chief of Summit, New Jersey.

“Never mind,” Stottlemeyer said. “Were you serious
with that theory about the couple who found the body?”

“Of course not,” Devlin said. “But it’s exactly the kind of ridiculous conclusion that Monk usually comes to.”

“Except that when he comes to a conclusion,” I said, “he’s always right.”

Stottlemeyer gave me a cold look. He hated it when I brought up Monk’s perfect record in front of people. It only stoked Monk’s ego and Devlin’s animosity toward him. But defending Monk was a reflex for me.

If Monk heard the compliment, he didn’t acknowledge it. He turned his back on us, walked around the body one more time, then drifted off into the adjacent living room.

Devlin sighed with frustration. “I don’t see what the big mystery is here.”

“How about who killed her?” Stottlemeyer said.

“Beyond who the actual perpetrator is,” Devlin said, “the circumstances of her death don’t strike me as a mind-boggling puzzle requiring outside assistance.”

She had a point, not that I would give her the satisfaction of hearing me admit it.

It used to be that Stottlemeyer called Monk in on only the most difficult, unusual, or high-profile murder cases. But ever since the captain remarried, he’d begun bringing Monk in on more and more of the routine homicides, particularly if they happened on weekends, just so he could get home sooner. That’s because Monk often solved cases on the spot that would take an average detective a day or two to sort out.

Monk’s amazing eye for detail used to rile the captain. But nowadays, Stottlemeyer didn’t have as much ego invested in proving that he and his detectives were capable of doing the job without Monk’s help.

The same couldn’t be said for Amy Devlin. She
never denied Monk’s abilities, but she found him enormously irritating and wanted to do her job herself, even if it took a little while longer for her to close the case.

Since Monk was busy wandering around the living room, Stottlemeyer focused his attention on Devlin. “So, what do you think happened, Lieutenant?”

“Baylin stopped by last night to prep the house for today’s showing and either she left the door unlocked or someone came by pretending to be interested in the house. Whoever it was tried to sexually assault her. When she resisted, he brained her with a heavy object and fled.”

Monk turned around, nodding to himself as he drifted back in our direction.

“You agree with her, Monk?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“No,” Monk said. “I need to meet the owners of this house right away.”

Nobody had mentioned them at all, so it was a surprise to me that something about the crime had led Monk to them. “You think they might have something to do with this?”

“Of course not,” Monk said. “They are people of class, distinction, and impeccable moral character. They would have nothing to do with a murder.”

“You don’t know their names and you’ve never met them,” Devlin said. “So how can you possibly make any assumptions about their character?”

“Look at how they live, Lieutenant. Everything is clean, orderly, and tastefully organized. They are a remarkable family and I want them in my life.” Monk picked up a framed family photo from the coffee table. It showed a young couple on the beach, standing behind their two children and their two golden retrievers. The whole family was dressed in jeans and white shirts.
“Look at them, so balanced and symmetrical. If more families followed their example, we’d have fewer divorces, a lower crime rate, and far less gum on the sidewalks.”

“It’s not going to happen,” I said.

“I don’t see why not,” he said.

Monk had an incredible eye for detail, but because he was clueless about the nuances of basic human interaction, there was still a lot that he missed, which was why he was lucky to have me around.

“Because those people are models,” I said.

“For all of us,” Monk said. “Everybody should follow their extraordinary example. They are true Americans.”

“What I mean, Mr. Monk, is that the family does not exist. They are professional models who were hired to pose for those pictures. This whole house is staged.”

Monk looked around, seeing everything anew. “You’re saying that this Realtor was perpetrating a massive fraud? How do you know?”

I started to reply, but Devlin cut me off, eager to take the opportunity to trump Monk.

“Because it’s too orderly, too clean. Everything is perfect,” she said. “It’s an idealized version of a home. Nobody actually lives like this.”

“I do,” Monk said.

“This was a spec home,” Stottlemeyer explained. “The owner bought it, remodeled it, then hired a company to dress it like a movie set to maximize its features, hide its shortcomings, and make it more attractive to buyers.”

Monk regarded the picture again, this time with sadness. “I wish they were my family.”

“That’s the point,” I said. “To make this house, and the idea of living in it, as alluring as possible on every
level. What we buy is often based more on emotion than practical considerations anyway.”

“No wonder she was murdered,” Monk said. “Think of all the people she’s tricked with this elaborate ruse.”

“You’re the only one,” Devlin said. “Nobody is fooled by this. It’s like a commercial. We all know it’s fake.”

“But it could be real,” Monk said, “if everybody made just a little effort.”

“The only thing that’s real in this house is the dead body on the floor,” Devlin said.

“Speaking of which, could we please focus on the murder?” Stottlemeyer said. “Tell me you have something, Monk.”

Monk set the photo down on the coffee table. “Someone wants us to think that the murder happened exactly the way Lieutenant Devlin thinks it did, but it didn’t.”

“What makes you say that?” Devlin said.

“The murder weapon, a heavy object of some kind, is missing. And because everything is orderly and in place, it’s clearly not an object that was already here, within immediate reach, that was grabbed in the heat of the moment. Everything is where it is supposed to be.”

“Because he brought the weapon with him,” Devlin said. “And left with it, too.”

“Wouldn’t it be more likely that an assailant would bring a knife or a gun rather than a brick or a bat?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t rule it out,” Devlin said. “Maybe clubbing women over the head and then molesting them when they are unconscious is his thing.”

“Then why was she bashed multiple times?” Monk asked. “And why didn’t the assailant complete the assault?”

“Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her and walked away because he’s not into necrophilia,” Devlin said. “Or
maybe this is exactly how he gets his jollies, but he doesn’t complete the act with the victim.”

“Yuck,” I said.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Monk said to Devlin. “But where’s the blood? Her hair is thick with dried blood but there is only a little on the floor. Scalp wounds bleed a lot. There should be a large puddle of blood, not to mention some spatter on the walls from the force of those blows. But there isn’t any. The place is immaculate.”

“Because he’s seen
CSI
and cleaned up after himself,” Devlin said.

“I don’t smell any cleansers,” Monk said.

“Your nose could be wrong,” Devlin said.

Stottlemeyer shook his head. “There are bloodhounds that could take lessons from Monk.”

“She was definitely killed somewhere else and dumped here,” Monk said. “The murder is as staged as everything else in this house of lies.”

“Then we’d better go get ourselves some facts,” Stottlemeyer said.

Five Star Realty occupied a storefront unit on the ground floor of a new, four-story office building on Geary, just west of Divisadero.

Inside, there was a curved reception desk in front of a wood-paneled partition adorned with a picture of the San Francisco skyline. The receptionist sitting there looked like she was anchoring the eleven o’clock news.

Behind the partition was a warren of about two dozen cubicles bordered by a half circle of five glass-windowed offices and a conference room, which was filled with a dozen shell-shocked Realtors who were comforting one another as we came in.

On one wall of the reception area were dozens of photos of various homes being offered for sale, including the one Baylin was killed in.

On the opposite wall were five framed photographs, each showing one of the Five Star partners sitting at his desk and holding his chin in one of those businesslike poses that photographers love but that nobody ever strikes on their own.

While Stottlemeyer and Devlin badged the receptionist and made their introductions, Monk drifted over to the row of photographs of the partners. He cocked his head from side to side, then began straightening each photo, until he got to the fifth, which he took off the wall and gave to the receptionist, a twentysomething woman in a too-tight minidress with hair so blond you needed sunglasses to look at her.