Repulsed, Monk stopped in his tracks. “How can he do that?”
“He’s obviously a man who loves animals,” I said.
“I’m not,” Monk said.
“Really?” I said in mock surprise.
“You go talk to him,” Monk said. “I’ll stay here.”
“Don’t you want to ask him some questions?”
“I can read lips.”
“You can?” I asked.
“This is as good a time as any to learn,” Monk said.
I was hardly a natural at this detecting business, as I’d proved already. On the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice to talk to Joe without Monk there?
“I can ask him to come over,” I offered weakly.
“No,” Monk said. “The cats might follow him. I could sneeze to death. It’s a horrible way to die.”
“Fine,” I said, glancing back at Joe. My heart fluttered. It felt like high school all over again. “Any advice for me?”
“Remember to enunciate.”
I took a deep breath and headed over to the hunky fireman. Hunky. Those were the terms in which I was thinking. How was I going to ask probing, sleuthful questions of Firefighter Joe when I’d mentally devolved into an adolescent girl?
“Joe Cochran?”
He looked up at me. “Yes, ma’am?”
Ma’am. He was brawny and polite. And God, what a smile.
“I’m Natalie Teeger,” I said. “I work for Adrian Monk, the detective.”
I motioned to Monk, who waved.
Joe rose to his feet and waved at Monk. The cats leaped off of him. “Why won’t he come over here?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. “The reason we’re here is because my daughter, Julie, is a student in one of the middle-school classes you visit each year. She heard about what happened to Sparky.”
At the mention of his dog’s name, Joe’s eyes grew moist. It endeared him to me even more.
“The kids care that much?” he said.
“So much that she hired Mr. Monk to find whoever killed him.”
“Excuse me.” He turned his back to me and took a few steps away before wiping the tears from his eyes. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hold him, and comfort him, and wipe those tears away myself.
I swallowed hard and waited. After a moment he faced me again. “Forgive me, Miss Teeger.”
“It’s okay. Call me Natalie, please.”
“As long as you call me Joe.” He overturned another bucket, set it down beside his own, and offered me a seat. I took it.
Monk whistled and stirred the air with his finger. I got the message.
“Do you mind if we turn around?” I said, turning so I faced Monk.
“Why?” Joe asked.
“Mr. Monk needs to see our faces,” I said. “He reads lips.”
“Is he deaf?”
“No,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Is he a good detective?”
“The best,” I said. “But eccentric.”
“If he can find the son of a bitch who killed Sparky, I don’t care if he likes to run naked through Golden Gate Park singing show tunes.” He immediately caught himself, his cheeks reddening in embarrassment. “Oh, my God. I forgot. Can he really read lips?”
“I doubt it,” I said, and waved at Monk. He gave me a thumbs-up.
Joe exhaled, relieved, and picked up one of the cats. “What do you need to know, Natalie?”
I liked hearing him say my name. Did I mention his voice wasn’t the least bit squeaky?
“Do you know of anyone who’d want to hurt Sparky?”
His face tightened, but he continued to gently stroke the cat. “Only one person. Gregorio Dumas. He lives a few doors down from the station house.”
That would certainly make it easy for him to know when the company responded to a fire and if the station was empty.
“What does he have against Sparky?”
“Love,” Joe said. “Sparky was smitten with Letitia, Gregorio’s French poodle.”
“And Mr. Dumas didn’t approve of the relationship?”
“Letitia is a show dog,” Joe said. “Gregorio was afraid Sparky would ruin her career. He warned me that if he caught Sparky in his yard again, he’d kill him.”
“Anybody else have a problem with your dog?”
Joe shook his head no. “Sparky was a smart, sweet, trusting animal. I’d take him to the cancer ward at the children’s hospital, and he was so good with those kids, even the tiniest, frailest child. Everybody loved him.”
“Somebody didn’t,” I said, and immediately regretted it.
His eyes started to tear up again, but this time he didn’t try to hide it from me. “He wasn’t just a dog to me, Natalie. He was my best friend. I know how corny that sounds, ‘a boy and his dog.’ But this job, and the hours I keep, aren’t conducive to relationships, if you know what I mean.”
Unfortunately, I did. Being a single mother who works for an obsessive-compulsive detective doesn’t make for a great social life, either.
“I spend a lot of time alone. But I wasn’t really alone, not with Sparky,” he said. “Now I am. He was all I had. I feel gutted and totally adrift. Do you know what that’s like?”
I took his hand, gave it a squeeze, and nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
I suddenly felt self-conscious. I withdrew my hand and stood up.
“Mr. Monk will find whoever did this, Joe.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because he’s Monk.”
“I’m told he’s got a long story,” Joe said. “I’d like to hear it sometime.”
“Here are my numbers,” I said, writing them down on a piece of paper. “Please give me a call if you think of anything later that might help Mr. Monk’s investigation.” I took a deep breath. “Or if you want to hear that story.”
“I will,” he said with a smile.
I didn’t know what else to say, so I just smiled back at him and headed back to Monk, who hadn’t so much as taken a step from where he had been standing.
“How much of that did you get?” I asked.
“Just the part about enemas, Astroturf, and Wayne Newton’s hair.”
“None of those things came up.”
“I see,” Monk said. “I must have been reading the subtext.”
There was subtext all right, but that sure as hell wasn’t it.
For dinner I made Julie, Monk, and myself Dijon chicken breasts, petite peas, and mashed potatoes. Monk helped by counting out the peas onto our plates (we each had exactly twenty-four peas per serving) and laying them out in rows. He also served our mashed potatoes with an ice-cream scoop so they formed neat balls, which he carefully smoothed out with a butter knife.
Julie watched all this with rapt attention. It took her mind off her sadness, that’s for sure.
While we ate, I filled her in on what we’d learned so far, which didn’t sound very substantive to me but seemed to impress her. She gave Monk a hug and went back to her room to IM her friends.
I told her once that when I was her age we didn’t have instant messaging to communicate with our friends. We used something called a telephone. You know what she said to me?
“I’m glad I live in the modern age.”
I felt like a dinosaur.
Monk insisted on doing the dishes after dinner, and I didn’t argue with him. While he worked I sat at the table and relaxed with a glass of wine. I decided there were some definite benefits to having a clean freak as a houseguest. I wondered what it would take to get him to do the laundry, but then I imagined him trying to sort our bras and panties without touching them, or even looking at them, and knew it would never work. On the other hand, it might be amusing to watch.
The phone rang. What would some anonymous cold caller in Bangladesh try to sell me tonight? I was tempted to let Monk answer the phone and put Rajid through the living hell he deserved, but I was merciful and snatched up the receiver myself.