Mr. Monk Shakes His Groove Thing
We waited in Stottlemeyer’s office. I browsed through a well-thumbed old copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue that came with 3-D glasses. It was either that or last month’s Guns and Ammo. Monk busied himself reading the open case files on the captain’s desk.
I put on the 3-D glasses and opened the magazine. Dozens of supermodel breasts burst out of the pages at me like cannonballs. It was startling. I tried to imagine what my breasts would look like in 3-D instead of 1-D. I doubt anybody could tell the difference. There’s nothing remotely D about my bosom.
Disher came into the squad room escorting a handcuffed woman I assumed was Mrs. Lemkin, even though she didn’t look anything like I imagined she would. Since her husband was stepping out on her, and she was spending her time crocheting, I pictured her as a homely, pale woman in a plain dress with her hair pulled back tightly in a bun. But Mrs. Lemkin wasn’t like that at all. She must get out a lot for jogging and aerobics, and she knew how to wear makeup (a skill I’d never mastered). She was clearly proud of her trim body and showed it off in a sleeveless T-shirt and tight jeans, her long black hair tied back in a pony-tail that she looped through the back of a pink Von Dutch baseball cap.
Our eyes met for a moment, and what I saw in hers was pride, anger, and not a hint of remorse.
Disher handed her off to a uniformed officer for booking, then motioned for me to come out to talk with him.
“Was that Mrs. Lemkin?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” Disher said. “We found her sitting at her kitchen table, in front of her laptop, going on an eBay buying binge.”
“What was she bidding on?”
“Porcelain dolls,” Disher said. “Nothing like shopping to ease the pain of gunning down your husband.”
“She didn’t look like she was in much pain to me.”
“Maybe it’s because of the glasses,” he said, motioning to my face.
I had forgotten I was still wearing them. I took them off and grinned to hide my embarrassment. “I was just reading some of the articles in Sports Illustrated.”
“Those glasses certainly help the words spring off the page, don’t they?”
“And a lot of other things too,” I said. “If these glasses worked on all magazines, I bet men would read a lot more.”
“I certainly would,” Disher said. “I meant to tell you back at the crime scene that I did that favor for you. Joe Cochran was one of the firemen who got hurt last night.”
I know this is a cliché, but it felt like my heart dropped down to the floor. I guess people use that expression a lot because that’s the only way to describe what bad news feels like. Tears started to well up in my eyes. Disher must have noticed, because he quickly spoke up again.
“He’s fine, he’s fine,” Disher said. “It was just a mild concussion and a few bruises. They sent him home this morning.”
I was relieved and wiped the unspilled tears from my eyes, but I still felt a tremor of worry. What would happen the next time he ran into a burning building? Would he be so lucky? That was his job, and if I kept seeing him, I would have to get used to it.
“Thank you,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“By the way,” Disher said, lowering his voice to a whisper and opening his notebook, “his record is clean, no arrests or outstanding warrants, but he does have three unpaid parking tickets. He’s never been married, at least not in this country, but he lived with a woman three years ago. Her name was—”
I interrupted him. “You ran a background check on Joe?”
Disher nodded proudly. “I figured as long as I was checking his health, I’d check out everything else.”
“I don’t want to know about everything else.”
“But everything else is who he is.”
“Which is why he should be the one to tell me about it,” I said. “Or I should discover it for myself.”
“That’s taking a big risk, Natalie. I’ve been burned too many times,” Disher said. “I never go out on a date anymore without knowing everything about a woman.”
“That’s why you don’t go out on dates anymore,” I said. “Every relationship needs a little mystery. Discovery is half of romance.”
“That’s the half I don’t like,” Disher said.
I made him rip out the pages that contained the details of Joe’s past from his notebook and tear them up. Disher wasn’t pleased but I didn’t care. Even though I wasn’t the one who snooped into Joe’s past, I felt guilty for violating his privacy.
Disher looked past me and noticed, for the first time, what Monk was reading. He rushed in and snatched the case files from Monk.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Disher said.
“Passing the time,” Monk said.
“By reading confidential case files of open homicide investigations?”
“You didn’t have the latest issue of Highlights for Children,” Monk said. “You really should renew your subscription.”
“We never had one,” Disher said.
“I love to spot the hidden objects in the drawings,” Monk said to me. “It keeps me sharp.”
Disher started to put the files back on the desk one by one.
“Wait,” Monk said and pointed at the file in Disher’s hand. “The gardener.”
“What?” Disher said.
“The gardener is the killer,” Monk said. “Trust me on this.”
“Okay, we’ll keep that in mind,” Disher said dismissively, set the file down and started to put down the next one.
“The mother-in-law,” Monk said.
“You read the file just once and you know that for a fact?”
“Definitely the mother-in-law,” Monk said. “It’s a no-brainer.”
Disher set another file on the desk.
“The twin brother,” Monk said.
And another.
“The shoe-shine man.”
And another.
“The bike messenger.”
Disher plunked down the rest of the stack on the desk all at once.
“The beekeeper, the long-lost aunt, and the podiatrist,” Monk said in a rush. “You dropped a file.”
Disher bent down and picked it up.
“The nearsighted jogger,” Monk said. “He couldn’t possibly have seen the woman in the window. He wasn’t wearing his glasses.”
“I hope you were taking notes,” Stottlemeyer said as he entered the office with a scowl on his face.
“Didn’t have to,” Disher said, tapping his forehead. “It’s all right here.”
“Write it down,” Stottlemeyer said.
Disher nodded, took out his notebook, and started writing.
“How did it go with the deputy chief?” Monk asked.
“It didn’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “He won’t let me authorize the search.”
“Why not?” Monk asked.
“Because he doesn’t think we have a case,” Stottlemeyer said. “In fact, I’ve been ordered to stop harassing Breen, a respected member of the Police Commission, with baseless and offensive accusations. I’ve been told to start looking in other directions.”
“He got to them,” Monk said.
“Big-time,” Stottlemeyer agreed, then looked up at Disher. “Randy, have the crime lab go down to the firehouse and check the firefighting gear on the off chance they might find Breen’s fingerprints or DNA remaining on whatever coat, helmet, boots, or gloves he borrowed.”
“Sir, we don’t even know which ones Breen used.”
“I’m aware of that,” Stottlemeyer said. “But we can at least eliminate the ones that the on-duty firemen were wearing the night of the fire.”
“But another shift has come on since then, so there’s a good chance that all the gear has been used and cleaned more than once since the murder.”