I always intend to spend that special “alone” time pampering myself with a good book, or a long walk, or a luxurious soak in a hot bath. But I inevitably end up running errands and catching up on all the things I’ve fallen behind on, like doing laundry, shopping for groceries, cleaning up the house, and paying bills.
So on that Saturday afternoon I was free to assist Monk, who been hired by my daughter to investigate the murder of a firehouse dalmatian.
Our first stop was the fire station, which was over in North Beach, the neighborhood between Chinatown and Fisherman’s Wharf. There’s no beach there, of course—that was buried under a landfill, and the waterfront extended farther north decades ago, so the name is kind of a cheat. It’s perhaps better known locally as Little Italy, even though now there’re as many Chinese living there as Italians, so maybe that name is a cheat, too.
North Beach is also known for beat writer Jack Kerouac, and stripper Carol Doda, whose enormous hooters used to be up in lights in front of the Condor Club. There are a few remaining vestiges of the neighborhood’s beatnik past, mostly for the sake of the tourists. A couple strip joints still cling to life on Broadway, but their seedy allure is almost comically dated, and they’re losing ground fast to coffeehouses and art galleries.
Gentrification, beautification, and renovation are everywhere, my friends. It’s not just happening with buildings and neighborhoods. Go down to L.A. and you can see they’re gentrifying, beautifying, and renovating people there now, too.
The streets were still damp from Friday’s intermittent rains, but the skies were clear and bright, with a crisp, cold wind blowing off the white-capped bay. I could smell the sea, mingled with a hint of fried food wafting up from Chinatown.
The firehouse was on top of a hill with dramatic views of the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower. It was a redbrick building from the mid-1900s with a stone carving of the SFFD emblem, an eagle with its talons gripping crisscrossed axes over licking flames, mounted above the arched garage doors.
“When I was a kid,” Monk said, “I wanted to be a firefighter.”
“You did?” I said.
“I loved everything about it,” he said. “Except the firefighting part.”
“Then what was it about being a firefighter that you loved?”
“This.”
Monk turned to the firehouse and opened his arms as if to embrace the sight in front of him. Both of the garage doors were open, letting the breeze stream into the station, where half a dozen firemen scrubbed and shined the two gleaming fire trucks, the sunshine glinting off the sparkling chrome and polished red metal.
“Isn’t it great?” He sighed.
I followed his gaze as he took in the fire hoses, neatly folded atop one another on the fire trucks; the spotless cement floors of the garage scrubbed and mopped to a marblelike sheen; the neat rows of fire hats, coats, and helmets aligned in open racks of dazzling steel; the pickaxes, shovels, and other tools mounted on the wall in order of size, shape, and function. The beauty of cleanliness, efficiency, and order.
His eyes were wide in childlike awe and appreciation. He was ten years old again, though I must confess that in a lot of ways I’m not convinced he’s ever really grown up.
Monk approached the captain, who stood beside a rolling cart of neatly folded white towels and a laundry basket, watching his men at work. His short-sleeved blue uniform was perfectly pressed and starched, his badge gleaming so bright that it was nearly pure light. He was in his fifties, with the kind of hard, chiseled features that only soldiers, comic-book characters, and statues usually possess.
“May I help you?” the captain asked.
“Actually, we’d like to help you,” Monk said. “I’m Adrian Monk and this is my assistant, Natalie Teeger.”
“I’m Captain Mantooth.” He offered his hand to Monk. “You’re the detective, right?”
Monk shook his hand, then held his open palm out to me for a disinfectant wipe. I gave him one. If Mantooth was offended, he didn’t show it.
“I’ve been hired to investigate Sparky’s murder,” Monk said as he wiped his hands.
“Are you working for Joe?” Mantooth asked.
“Who is Joe?” Monk replied, and handed the wipe back to me.
“Firefighter Joe,” I supplied, stuffing the wipe into a Baggie in my purse. By the end of a day my purse was usually overflowing with little Baggies of wipes. “He and Sparky were a team.”
“They were much more than that, Miss Teeger,” Mantooth said. “Joe Cochran rescued that dog from the pound ten years ago, and they have been inseparable ever since. Sparky wasn’t my dog, but I still feel like we lost one of our men last night. We all do.”
Monk picked up one of the folded towels from the cart and gestured to the fire truck. “May I?”
Mantooth shrugged. “Sure.”
Monk went over to the truck and buffed one of the sparkling chrome headlights. When he turned back to us he had a big, boyish grin on his face.
“Wow,” he said.
The captain and I watched Monk polish a valve. The other firemen on the truck watched him, too. I could see we might be there for a while, so I decided to press on.
“Can you tell us what happened last night?”
“We responded to a residential fire four blocks from here. Must have been around ten o’clock, but I can check the logs for the exact time. A woman fell asleep on her sofa while she was smoking a cigarette. It’s the most common cause of fire death worldwide and easily the most preventable,” Mantooth said. “We knocked the fire down and got back here about two A.M. We knew something was wrong the minute we pulled into the garage. Usually Sparky runs out to greet us, tail wagging. But he didn’t this time. . . .”
Monk approached us, but it wasn’t to ask a question or actually participate in some meaningful way in his own investigation. It was to drop his used towel into a basket and get a fresh one.
“This is so cool,” he said, then grinned giddily at us both and got to work scrubbing a spotless door handle. Mantooth couldn’t stop staring at him.
“Were there any signs of a break-in?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, tearing his gaze away from Monk and back to me. “The firehouse wasn’t locked.”
“Was it unusual to leave the firehouse open and the dog by himself?”
“Not at all,” Mantooth said. “That’s one of the reasons, historically, that we have dalmatians. They guard the firehouse. Joe is full of facts like that. He can tell you all about dalmatians.”
“Has anyone ever tried to steal anything from the firehouse before?”
“Not before and not last night,” Mantooth said. “As far as I can tell, nothing is missing. It’s a safe neighborhood, or at least it used to be.”
I didn’t know what to ask next, so I turned to Monk, who was, after all, the legendary detective around here.
“Mr. Monk?” I said.
He kept polishing.
“Mr. Monk,” I repeated, more firmly this time. He turned around. “Isn’t there something you’d like to ask Captain Mantooth?”
Monk snapped his fingers. “Of course. Thank you for reminding me.”
He tossed the dirty towel in the basket and looked at the captain. “Do you have any of those honorary-fireman badges?”
“You mean the ones we give the kids?”
“No, the ones you give the honorary firemen,” Monk said.