“Nope,” Stottlemeyer said. “I was on my way into the office and thought I’d stop by with the good news. We’ve got Breen.”
“We had Breen yesterday,” Monk said.
“We had cat hair yesterday,” Stottlemeyer said. “Today we’ve got a fingerprint. The crime lab found his prints inside a firefighter’s glove. He might have been able to explain away the cat hair, but he can’t talk himself out of that. You came through for me again, Monk, like you always do.”
“You too, Captain,” Monk said. “In fact, there’s something you can do for me right now.”
“Retie my shoes? Adjust my belt to a different loop? Change the license plate on my car so all the numbers are even?”
“Yes, that would be great,” Monk said. “And when you get a moment, could you also arrest Mrs. Throphamner?”
I glanced back at Mrs. Throphamner, who was coming out of her backyard with the hose.
“Don’t you think you’re going a bit overboard, Mr. Monk?” I said. “She fell in your lap by accident.”
Stottlemeyer looked past me. “That’s Mrs. Throphamner?”
“Yes,” Monk said.
“And she was in your lap?”
“Yes,” Monk said.
“Maybe it’s you I should arrest,” Stottlemeyer said.
Monk scowled at Stottlemeyer and went over to Mrs. Throphamer, who was rolling up the hose.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Throphamner?” Monk said. She turned around. “You’re under arrest for murder.”
“Murder?” I said. Actually, Mrs. Throphamner, Stottlemeyer, and I all said the same thing in unison. We sounded like a chorus.
“Her husband isn’t in a fishing cabin near Sacramento,” Monk said. “He’s buried in her backyard. That’s why she planted the most fragrant roses she could find and kept changing them—to hide the smell of his decomposing corpse.”
I knew that he was always right about murder, but this time he just had to be wrong. Mrs. Throphamner, a murderer? It was ridiculous.
Mrs. Throphamner sagged and let out a weary sigh. “How did you know?”
“It’s true?” I said, utterly shocked.
Mrs. Throphamner nodded. “I’m glad you found out. I’m so tired of tending the garden, and the guilt was driving me mad. I loved him so much.”
“I know you did,” Monk said. “That’s why you couldn’t entirely let go. That’s why you kept his teeth.”
“His teeth?” Stottlemeyer said.
“His dentures,” Monk said. “She’s got them in her mouth right now.”
“She does?” He narrowed his eyes and stared at her mouth, but she closed her lips and turned her head away. “How could you possibly know that, Monk?”
“When she babysits, Mrs. Throphamner likes to set her dentures on the table beside her while she watches TV,” Monk said. “I had the chance to examine them. They’re obviously male dentures. The maxillary lateral incisors are prominent and large, while a woman’s are narrower. Also, a male’s alveolar bone has a heavier arch, and the internal portion of the dentures—”
“Okay, okay,” Stottlemeyer interrupted, still watching Mrs. Throphamner’s face, waiting for a glimpse of her husband’s teeth. “I believe you. What tipped you off?”
“The flowers that Firefighter Joe brought on his date with Natalie,” Monk said. “He said they were to cover any lingering smell on him from the dump. That got me thinking about Mrs. Throphamner, and it all fell together after that.”
It took me a second, but then it all fell together for me, too. That was two days ago. I felt my whole body tighten with anger. My fists clenched. I think my toes did, too.
“Milton was cheating on me after forty years of marriage; can you believe that?” Mrs. Throphamner said. “The only thing he was fishing for in Sacramento was hanky-panky. I had to kill—”
“Wait a minute,” I snapped, cutting her off. I turned to Monk. “You’ve known since Wednesday that she’s a murderer and you didn’t tell me?”
“I was distracted by a lot of other things,” Monk said defensively. “I had three unsolved murders on my plate. We were both very busy.”
“You let me leave my daughter alone with this monster?”
“I knew how badly you needed a babysitter while we were on the case.”
“She’s a murderer!” I yelled.
“Well, yes. But other than that she’s very dependable,” Monk said.
“Dependable?” I took a step toward him, and Monk took five steps back. “She’s sucking on her dead husband’s teeth!”
“That’s exactly my point,” Monk said. “She only kills husbands. One husband, actually. She hasn’t had a second one yet. And she probably won’t. So Julie was safe.”
“You aren’t,” I said, and turned to Stottlemeyer. “Take Mr. Monk with you. Get him away from me before I kill him and bury him in my garden.”
As I stomped off, I heard Monk say something to Stottlemeyer then that any court in the land would agree was a reasonable and excusable provocation for murder.
“Women,” Monk said. “They’re so irrational.”
Read on for an excerpt from the next book starring Adrian Monk, the brilliant investigator who always knows when something’s out of place . . .
Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
Coming in July 2006
I had to leave the house at five a.m. to make my eight-o’clock flight to Honolulu. I drove to the airport, stowed my car in long-term parking, and took the shuttle to the terminal. I stood in a long line at check-in and another long line at security and still got to the gate with twenty minutes to spare before boarding.
Adrian Monk was the furthest thing from my mind as I settled into my narrow economy-class seat for the five-hour trip.
The flight attendants were all Hawaiian or Polynesian women wearing floral aloha shirts and red hibiscus flowers in their hair.
A video of palm trees, waterfalls, and pristine Hawaiian beaches screened on all the plane’s TV monitors. Hawaiian music—that gentle rhythm of ukulele, ukeke, steel guitar, and native chants flowing like the tide, lapping at the white sand—played softly throughout the cabin.
I closed my eyes and sighed. The plane was still on the tarmac at LAX, but mentally and emotionally I was already more relaxed than I’d been in weeks. The clatter of passengers getting settled, the murmur of conversation, the wail of babies crying, the hum of the engines, and even the sweet Hawaiian music all faded away.
And before I knew it, I was sound asleep.
I was awakened seemingly an instant later by the gentle nudge of a flight attendant asking me if I wanted breakfast.
“You have a choice between a cheese-and-mushroom omelet, macadamia-nut pancakes, or a fruit platter,” she said, pulling out trays from her cart and showing me the entrees.
All of the choices looked gross to me. Even the fruit looked as if it had been soaked in grease.
“No thanks,” I said. I glanced at my watch and was surprised to discover I’d actually slept through takeoff and had been snoozing away for forty-five minutes.
“If she’s not going to have it, I’ll take it,” a man said. I knew the voice, but I had to be wrong. It couldn’t possibly be who it sounded like.
“You already have a meal, sir,” the flight attendant said. I tried to see who she was talking to, but I couldn’t see past her cart.
“But I’m almost finished with my omelet, I’m still hungry, and I’d like to sample the pancakes,” he said. “If she’s not going to eat her meal, what difference does it make who does?”