I wasn’t sure what Monk meant. Was it murdering a man for his coat or throwing away disinfectant wipes that revealed the depth of Breen’s inhumanity? I didn’t dare ask.
Stottlemeyer pointed to the corpse. “You’re telling me this guy was wearing Lucas Breen’s overcoat?”
Monk nodded and blew his nose. “He must have rooted around in the Dumpster the night of the murder. He was a man with a death wish, and it came true.”
“It wasn’t going Dumpster diving that killed him,” Stottlemeyer said.
Monk took a Ziploc bag from his pocket and stuffed the Kleenex into it. “If the coat hadn’t been the agent of his demise, it would have been a hideous flesh-eating Dumpster disease and a horrible, drooling death.”
“Agent of his demise?” Stottlemeyer said.
“Horrible, drooling death?” I said.
“Thank the Lord for Wet Ones,” Monk said.
“How the hell did Breen know this guy had his coat?” Stottlemeyer asked.
I knew the answer to that one, and it didn’t make me feel clever. Quite the opposite.
“When we were talking to Breen in the lobby of his building, the guy passed by with his shopping cart. Breen saw him.”
“Breen must have crapped himself,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s sitting there with a homicide detective and the two of you accusing him of murder, and a guy walks by wearing the one piece of evidence that could send him to death row. Breen has probably been searching like a maniac for this guy ever since.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And we spent the day wading through all the trash in San Francisco for nothing.”
Stottlemeyer glanced up at the night sky. “Somebody up there is having a nice laugh on all of us.”
“Has the medical examiner been here?” Monk asked.
“She left just before you got here.”
“Did she say how long this man has been dead?”
The captain nodded. “About two hours.”
“Maybe there’s still time,” Monk said.
“To do what?” I asked.
“To stop Breen from getting away with three murders,” Monk said.
20
Mr. Monk Plays Cat and Mouse
The Bay Bridge, which connects Oakland to San Francisco, is really two bridges—one that goes to Yerba Buena Island and one that leaves it, depending on which side of the bay you’re coming from. The two bridges are connected by a tunnel that cuts through the middle of the island.
Adjacent to Yerba Buena Island is Treasure Island, a flat, man-made patch of land that was created to host the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and that the United States government seized during World War II for a naval base.
Treasure Island got its name from flecks of gold found in the Sacramento River Delta soil that was dumped into the bay to make the isle. But if you ask me, the real Treasure Island is across the bay, north of San Francisco in Marin County.
Belvedere Island is a one-mile-long, half-mile-wide enclave of the superwealthy, who gaze upon San Francisco, the Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge from the windows and decks of their multimillion-dollar, bayfront homes. There may not be flecks of gold in the soil, but a handful of dirt on Belvedere is worth more than an acre of land just about anywhere else in California.
So if it were up to me, and for the sake of accuracy in island naming, they’d strip the title “Treasure Island” from that pile of Sacramento dirt dumped in the middle of the bay and slap it on Belvedere instead.
Of course, Belvedere Island is where Lucas Breen lived, because anywhere else just wouldn’t have the same cachet. He and his wife inhabited a lavish and ostentatious Tuscan mansion with its own deepwater dock for their sailboat. (Not that I have anything against being rich; I come from a wealthy family, even though I don’t have much money of my own. It’s the attitude of entitlement and superiority among the rich that I can’t stand.)
To get to Breen’s house, we had to take the Golden Gate Bridge out of the city, drive across Sausalito, then go over a causeway to the island and wind our way up a thickly wooded hillside. Even with a siren and flashing lights, it took us a good forty minutes to get there. Stottlemeyer did turn off everything as we were crossing the causeway, though. He didn’t want to panic the residents.
The gate to Breen’s property was wide-open. It was almost as if he expected us, and that couldn’t be good.
Breen’s mansion was at the end of a circular driveway built on a hillside that gave him sweeping views of Angel Island, the Tiburon Peninsula, the San Francisco skyline, and the Golden Gate Bridge—when the sky wasn’t pitch-black and all fogged in as it was when we arrived.
We pulled up behind Breen’s silver Bentley Continental sports car and got out. Stottlemeyer stopped and put his hand on the Bentley’s sleek hood.
“It’s still warm,” he said, and caressed the car as if it were a woman’s thigh. “How do you think I’d look in one of these, Monk?”
“Like someone sitting in a car.”
“This isn’t just a car, Monk. It’s a Bentley.”
“It looks like a car to me,” Monk said. “What else does it do?”
Monk was dead serious.
“Never mind,” Stottlemeyer said, and marched up to the front door. He leaned on the doorbell and held his badge up to the tiny security camera mounted over the door, though Breen probably knew we were there from the moment we drove through the gate.
After a minute or two Lucas Breen opened the door. His eyes were red, his nose was runny, and he was wearing a bathrobe over a warm-up suit. He looked miserable. Good, I thought, the more miserable the better.
“What the hell are you doing here? I was just getting ready for bed,” Breen said. “Haven’t you heard of a telephone?”
“I’m not in the habit of calling murderers for an appointment,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Captain, I’ve got a terrible cold, my wife is away, and all I want to do is go to sleep,” Breen said. “We’ll do this another time.”
Breen began to close the door, but Stottlemeyer shoved it open and pushed his way inside. “We’ll do it now.”
“You’re going to regret this,” Breen said, his stuffy nose and watery eyes making him look—and sound—like a petulant child.
“Fine with me,” Stottlemeyer said. “Without regrets I wouldn’t have anything to think about and no excuse to drink.”
We followed the captain past Breen and into the two-story rotunda, which was topped with a stained-glass dome. Monk covered his nose and gave Breen a wide berth, even though Monk was sniffling, too.
The rotunda overlooked a living room dominated by a set of French doors and large windows that framed a spectacular view of the San Francisco skyline, the city lights twinkling in the fog. To our left, just next to a grand staircase, was a book-lined study, where a fire roared in a massive stone hearth.
“I believe you were told to stop harassing me,” Breen said, wiping his nose with a handkerchief.
“I go where the evidence takes me,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You’ll be going on job interviews pretty soon,” Breen said. “What’s so important that it’s worth throwing away your badge?”
“A homeless man was murdered tonight,” Stottlemeyer said.
“That’s a shame. What do you expect me to do about it?”
“Confess,” Monk said.
“Tell me, Mr. Monk, are you going to accuse me of every murder that occurs in San Francisco?”
“He was wearing your overcoat.” Monk sneezed and held his hand out to me for a tissue. I gave him several.