Stottlemeyer forced an insincere smile of his own. “Tell Mr. Breen that I appreciate how busy he is and that I need only a moment of his time to apologize.”
“You’re here to apologize?” she said, arching a perfectly tweezed eyebrow.
“I’m here to prostrate myself at his feet,” he said.
“Me, too,” I said.
“He likes that,” the receptionist said. This time her smile was real and vaguely sadistic.
“I’m sure he does,” Stottlemeyer said.
She called Breen and told him why we were there. I don’t know what he said, but after a moment she nodded at us.
“You may enter.” She tipped her head toward Breen’s office. I wondered if she was real or a vaguely lifelike robot, and if when she hummed, it sounded like the music we heard in the elevator.
The doors to Breen’s office slid open as we approached. Breen stood in the center of the room, looking nothing like the man we saw the previous night. He was completely recovered from his cold and dressed in one of his custom-made suits.
“You’re looking better this morning,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You have sixty seconds,” Breen said, checking his watch. I could see the monogram on his cuffs.
“That’s all I’ll need,” Stottlemeyer said. “I just wanted to apologize for all the trouble I’ve caused you over the last few days. You told us from day one that you’d never set foot in Esther Stoval’s house.”
“I never met the woman,” Breen said. “But you wouldn’t listen. Instead you accused me of committing every murder in this city.”
Stottlemeyer held up his hands in a show of surrender. “You’re right; I was wrong. I listened to Monk when I should have listened to you. I don’t blame you for being pissed off.”
Breen sneezed and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “Indeed. Speaking of Monk, where is he?”
“He’s got a problem with elevators,” I said. “So he stayed down in the lobby. But I can call him on my cell phone. I know he’d like to say a few words to you.”
I took out my phone, hit speed dial, put it on the speaker setting, and held it out so we could all hear what Monk had to say.
“This is Adrian Monk,” he said over the speaker. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Testing, one, two, three,” Monk said.
Stottlemeyer took the phone from me and yelled into it, “We can hear you, Monk. Get on with it. Mr. Breen doesn’t have all day. We’ve wasted enough of this man’s time.”
Breen nodded appreciatively at Stottlemeyer, sniffled, and dabbed his nose with his handkerchief. His eyes were beginning to get teary.
“I want to say how sorry I am for intruding on you last night,” Monk said. “I hope you will accept this gift as a small token of remorse for the discomfort you’ve been through.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a big, white, fluffy cat, a Turkish Van with tan markings on her head and tail, and held it out to Breen.
He immediately started sneezing and backed away. “I appreciate the gesture, but I’m allergic to cats.”
“So you wouldn’t have one in your house,” Monk said.
“Of course not.” Breen glared at the phone as if it were Monk standing there, then shifted his look to me. “Would you mind getting that cat away from me, please?”
I stowed the cat in my open bag.
“You didn’t have a cold last night; you had an allergy,” Monk said. “Your overcoat was covered in cat dander from Esther Stoval’s house. You trailed dander all over your den when you brought your coat in to burn. That’s why I was sneezing, too. I’m also allergic to cats, which is how I know you murdered Esther Stoval, Sparky the firehouse dog, and the homeless man.”
It was the cat in the Marmaduke comic that sparked Monk’s realization. He remembered sneezing when he first met the homeless man on the street days ago and again at the man’s lean-to under the freeway last night. He’d assumed the man slept with cats, but there were no cats anywhere near the man’s shelter.
Breen’s face reddened with fury. He turned his watery glare at Stottlemeyer. “I thought you came here to apologize.”
“I lied. I came to arrest you for murder. Since we’re on the subject, you have the right to remain silent—”
Breen cut him off. “I’m allergic to pollen, mildew, and one of my wife’s perfumes. A runny nose doesn’t prove a damn thing.”
“The cat hair does,” Monk said. “Esther got that Turkish Van only a few days before her murder. It’s a rare breed. I’ll bet we’re going to find dander from that cat, and others that she owns, in your house and in your car.”
“We’re searching your house now,” Stottlemeyer said. “We’ll do a DNA analysis and compare the dander we find to what we’ve recovered from the homeless man’s body and Esther’s other cats. It’s going to match.”
“Yet you said you don’t own a cat and that you’ve never set foot in Esther Stoval’s house,” Monk said. “That leaves only one explanation. You’re a murderer.”
It was a strange experience. Monk was summarizing his case and nailing a killer without even being in the same room. It couldn’t be half as satisfying for Monk as being able to look his adversary in the eye. It certainly wasn’t for me. But it was enough. Breen wasn’t going to get away with murder. He was going to prison.
Breen sneered, which was a lovely sight to see. It was a weak, halfhearted sneer. It lacked the sleazy power and smug self-confidence of all the other sneers he’d blessed us with over the past few days.
“You planted the evidence to frame me as part of some twisted, personal vendetta.”
“Save it for your trial,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’re coming with us.”
Breen ignored Stottlemeyer and marched out to the reception desk. “Tessa, get my lawyer on the phone immediately.”
We followed him out and, just as we reached him, he whirled around, grabbed the cat out of my bag, and flung the screeching animal at Stottlemeyer’s face. He staggered back, struggling with the furious, clawing cat.
Breen bolted for his office, aiming his remote at the doors as he passed. Stottlemeyer pulled the cat off of his face, dropped it on the receptionist’s lap, and chased after Breen, but the doors slid shut with a solid clank in his face just as he reached them.
“Damn,” Stottlemeyer yelled.
“What’s going on?” Monk demanded over the phone.
“Breen is getting away,” I told him; then I turned and confronted the receptionist, who was casually petting the cat. “Open the doors.”
“I can’t,” she said.
I wanted to strangle her.
“Okay.” Stottlemeyer took out his gun and, for a moment, I was afraid he was going to shoot her. “I’ll do it.”
He aimed at the doors.
“They’re bulletproof,” she said.
Stottlemeyer swore and holstered his weapon. “Does he have a private elevator in there?”
She didn’t answer.
The captain spun her chair so she faced him, leaned down, and got nose-to-nose with her.
Tiny rivulets of blood streamed down his face from the cat’s scratches. I don’t know how she felt about his scary visage, but the cat was terrified. The cat leaped out of her lap and scrambled up my leg and into my bag.
“I asked you a question,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Save your questions for Mr. Breen’s lawyer,” she said, her voice cracking just a bit.
“How would you like to be charged as an accessory to murder?”
“You can’t do that,” she said. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You helped a triple murderer escape. I’m sure the jury will be very sympathetic to you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Monk said from my cell phone. “They’ll see right away what a warm, honest person you are.”
She blinked once. “Yes, he has a private elevator.”