Mr. Monk Gets Even (14 page)

“This guy Monk,” Dobbs said. “They say he’s solved every case he’s ever investigated.”

“He has,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’ll solve this one, too.”

“So what do you do?” Dobbs said.

“I get to make the arrest and go home early,” Stottlemeyer said.

“But right now Monk suspects my husband is the killer, which is absolutely absurd,” Jenna said. “If any of that man’s insane accusations get picked up by the media, you’ll be hearing from our lawyers. It will sound a lot like a firing squad.”

“Message received,” Stottlemeyer said. He walked away toward the house and Julie joined him, leaving Dobbs and his wife behind in the garden.

“What do you think?” Julie asked him.

“He’s the guy,” the captain said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mr. Monk and the Perfect Storm

“T
hat was you behaving yourself?” Stottlemeyer asked Monk when they got to the car.

“Yes,” Monk said.

“The first thing you did was ask him to confess.”

“He asked what he could do for me,” Monk said. “I answered honestly. Did you expect me to lie?”

“No, I expected you to be you, and you certainly were,” Stottlemeyer said. “Which allowed me to be clever and crafty.”

“I don’t understand,” Monk said.

Julie sighed. “Leland is saying that you did exactly what he expected you to do.”

“And, as a result of throwing you out, I got into his good graces,” Stottlemeyer said. “He thinks I’m on his side.”

“His wife wasn’t with him when the murders happened,” Monk said. “She’s lying.”

“Of course she is,” Devlin said.

Monk turned to her. “You agree with me?”

“As much as I hate to admit it, yes, I do.”

“So do I,” Stottlemeyer said. “She’s the second-worst liar I’ve ever seen.”

“Who’s the first?” Monk asked.

“That would be you,” Stottlemeyer said.

“So you know that Cleve Dobbs is a murderer,” Monk said. “A serial killer, in fact.”

“I do,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Then why aren’t you arresting him?”

“Because we have absolutely no evidence and no motive,” Stottlemeyer said.

“But what if he kills someone else?” Julie asked.

“He might like to, but he won’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “He knows we’re on to him now. If he’s got other people on his kill list, he’s going to wait until the pressure is off him before he strikes again.”

“It won’t be,” Monk said. “I am going to be on him like disinfectant on a countertop until he’s behind bars.”

“I’ll dismantle his alibis for starters,” Devlin said.

“Even if we can prove that his wife lied for him,” Stottlemeyer said, “that still doesn’t put Dobbs at the crime scenes.”

“So how are you going to do it?” Julie asked. “You’ve already collected all the evidence and there’s nothing directly linking Dobbs to the murders.”

“There is,” Monk said. “There has to be. We just haven’t seen it yet.”

“How can you be so sure?” Julie said.

“Because he killed those people,” Monk said. “Everybody leaves a mess wherever they go. It’s inevitable. But most people aren’t as good at cleaning them up as I am.”

“And that, in a nutshell, is how Monk always gets his man,” Stottlemeyer said.

“You ought to be president of his fan club,” Devlin said.

“I am,” Stottlemeyer said. “I am also its only member.”

Monk nudged Julie.

“I’m a member, too,” she said.

Stottlemeyer smiled. “We’re growing by leaps and bounds.”

• • •

The traffic was terrible in San Francisco. Drivers who were trying to avoid the street closures caused by the truck accident north of Union Square were creating near-gridlock everywhere else. Even with the siren, Stottlemeyer was forced to take a circuitous route that avoided major north–south streets like Divisadero and Van Ness.

Devlin was up front with Stottlemeyer, and Monk and Julie sat in the back. Julie craned her neck to see the swarm of news and police choppers hovering over Union Square. Every so often a medevac chopper would rise up and then streak south toward the Mission District and San Francisco General.

Monk followed Julie’s gaze and rolled his shoulders. “What do you know about this accident, Captain?”

“Just what I heard on the news. The brakes failed on a truck this morning on Powell Street, and it rolled down the hill and slammed into a cable car and a bus,” Stottlemeyer said. “Couldn’t have happened in a worse place or at a worse time.”

“Can you find out more?” Monk asked.

“That shouldn’t be too hard.” Stottlemeyer turned on the radio to KCBS, the all-news AM station, and got an immediate update.

The newscaster basically repeated what Stottlemeyer had already told Monk, but far more colorfully, describing the “perfect storm” of a large moving truck roaring out of control down one of San Francisco’s steepest streets, becoming a “runaway freight train of bloody carnage” at the exact moment that both a bus and a crowded cable car overflowing with tourists were crossing in front of it on Powell Street.

The speeding truck first T-boned the bus, turning it on its side and creating “a massive battering ram of twisted metal and showering sparks” that smashed into the cable car, “obliterating one of San Francisco’s historic icons like a piñata.”

Rescue personnel arriving on the scene likened the devastation to the aftermath of an earthquake or a bombing.

Four people were killed, and the number of those hurt, many critically, was in the dozens and climbing, overwhelming the emergency rooms of San Francisco General and other local hospitals. Medevac units were already taking some of the injured across the bay to hospitals in Berkeley.

It was shaping up to be one of the worst traffic accidents in San Francisco’s history. The driver of the truck had not been found or identified.

“Oh my God,” Monk said.

Stottlemeyer sighed. “With the steep hills we’ve got in this city, an accident like that was bound to happen one of these days.”

“But it didn’t happen on any day,” Monk said. “It happened the day after Dale the Whale checked into San Francisco General for surgery.”

Stottlemeyer glanced up at the rearview mirror to get a look at Monk. “You think he got someone to rent a truck and let it loose on Powell Street?”

“I think the only hope Dale has of escape is creating so much chaos in the hospital that it would be impossible for the security team to stay on top of everyone who is coming and going.”

“Damn it,” Stottlemeyer said, slamming his palm against the steering wheel. “Get hold of the security teams, Amy. I want confirmation that Dale is secure. And tell them we are on our way.”

• • •

The security teams admitted that keeping the hospital buttoned down wasn’t easy with all the ambulances and medevac choppers arriving, but they said no patients had left the hospital that the officers hadn’t seen coming in.

That report, received by Stottlemeyer in the car on the way to the hospital, didn’t do much to alleviate his concern or Monk’s. They still hadn’t heard from the officers stationed outside the ICU and in the adjacent recovery rooms since no cell phones were allowed in those areas.

As soon as they arrived at the hospital, they rushed into the ER, which was overflowing with patients, paramedics, orderlies, and medical personnel.

Dr. Jessup was running around marking everybody up with his colored pens and, much to Monk’s chagrin, not bothering to use new ones with each patient.

“He’s making a deadly situation far worse,” Monk said to Julie, who had never seen anything like the carnage she now saw. It seemed like everybody was covered with blood and wailing in agony.

“I think germy marking pens are the least of the problems these people have right now,” she said.

“Now perhaps,” Monk said. “But not later, when they are virulent with horrific diseases far worse than the injuries they’ve sustained.”

Monk and Julie hurried to keep up with Stottlemeyer and Devlin as they weaved their way through the crowds.

Monk shoved his hands in his pockets and drew himself in as much as he could to avoid contact with any of the injured people, concerned relatives, and beleaguered hospital staff that he passed, but that just wasn’t possible in such tight quarters. He was bumped and jostled the whole way.

“My clothes are going to have to be incinerated when this is over,” Monk said. “And this is my favorite coat.”

“It’s identical to all your other coats,” Julie said, doing her best to literally run interference for Monk without actually pushing anyone aside.

“But this was the first one I bought,” Monk said. “It held a special place.”

“The first in the row hanging in your closet,” Julie said.

“Now you understand,” Monk said. “It also means another coat will have to be sacrificed.”

“So you have an even number again.”

“It’s a tragedy all around,” Monk said.

“It could be worse,” she said. “You could be one of the people injured in the accident.”

“I am collateral damage,” he said.

They followed Stottlemeyer and Devlin up the stairs and down the corridor toward the ICU and the two officers stationed outside the door, who were checking patients as they came in and out.

“Where’s Dale?” Stottlemeyer asked one of the officers.

“They moved him and the other lipo patients out of ICU and into another ward to make way for all the incoming wounded,” the officer said. Obviously, this was a man who’d previously served in the military or at least had watched a lot of episodes of
M*A*S*H
.

“Where’s the ward?”

“Down the hall and around the corner, into to the next wing,” the officer said.

Stottlemeyer rushed off in that direction. Devlin, Monk, and Julie almost had to run to keep up with him.

They rounded the corner and at the end of the long, crowded hall, they could see a doctor in blue scrubs and a lab coat talking heatedly to two more uniformed officers. One of the officers, a woman built like a wrestler, kept pointing to the door behind them as she spoke, her face flushed with anger.

Julie didn’t take this as a good sign.

The doctor was a big-boned man with a square jaw, deep-set eyes, and a strong nose. He was all edges and no smoothed corners.

“I’m a doctor, not a cop,” he said. “My job is to take care of patients.”

“Then the least you should know is where the hell your patients are,” the cop said, and that’s when she noticed Stottlemeyer approaching with Devlin, Monk, and Julie. She grimaced. “We just found out, Captain.”

“Found out what, Claire?” he asked.

“We’ve lost Dale the Whale,” she said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mr. Monk Goes Whaling

S
tottlemeyer took a deep breath to calm himself and turned to Claire’s partner. “Okay, you get on the radio to every cop and security guard in the building. I want this hospital locked down.”

“Yes, sir,” the cop said and went off to follow the captain’s order.

Stottlemeyer looked at the doctor. “Who are you?”

“I am Dr. Donald Auerbach,” he said. “I share the plastic surgery practice with Dr. Wiss. As he may have told you, he’s on vacation and I’ve taken over his rounds and the care of his three patients from yesterday.”

“How did you lose Dale?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“I didn’t,” Dr. Auerbach said firmly. “All three of our patients—Jason McCabe, Frank Cannon, and Dale Biederback—were here when I checked on them this morning.”

“I can explain,” Claire said, adjusting her utility belt. “The accident at Union Square brought a lot of critically injured people into the ICU, more than they could handle. They had to move Dale and the two other patients out to accommodate the emergency cases.”

“Jason McCabe and Frank Cannon,” Dr. Auerbach added.

“You stayed with Dale, didn’t you?” Devlin asked Claire.

“Of course we did, but there was only the two of us up here and it was like a fast game of musical chairs. People on gurneys everywhere, getting in our way. On top of that, all three of the guys who were lipo’d were wrapped up like mummies on identical gurneys. We couldn’t tell them apart.”