Mr. Monk Gets Even (20 page)

Monk’s face lit up when he saw me. He approached me, his arms outstretched like a robot, his way of preparing himself for a hug.

He put his hands lightly on my sides and leaned toward me at the waist.

I had no patience for this and pulled him into a tight hug. Much to my surprise, he didn’t resist much.

“I am so glad to see you,” he said, his head on my shoulder and mine on his.

“Me, too,” I said.

He stepped back and looked at me. “You’ve become a cop.”

“You knew that,” I said.

“No, I mean it’s on your face and in your stature,” he said. “You aren’t easygoing, sweet Natalie anymore. You’ve got authority.”

“Not with me she doesn’t,” Julie said. “So don’t get any ideas, Mom. I’m an adult now.”

Ellen emerged from the kitchen. Of all the people in the room, she was the one who’d actually seen me a few times since I’d left, so this wasn’t a reunion for her.

“It’s good to see you back home,” she said. “You must be starving after your long trip. Sit down. Dinner is ready.”

We all took our seats at the table, Julie and I on one side, Monk and Ellen facing us on the other.

Ellen served us meat loaf (sliced into perfect squares) with rice (which she served using an ice cream scoop so we all got perfect, round balls), twelve peas, and two spears of asparagus to start with.

Ellen and I had wine, Julie and Monk had Fiji water. I know Julie would have preferred a Coke, but the balance of beverages had to be maintained.

The meal was tasty, symmetrical, and balanced, and each entrée item was kept in its own segment of our plates. I felt like I was eating a TV dinner.

The dinner conversation had nothing at all to do with the investigations or the troubles that Monk faced. Instead, I told them what Disher and Sharona were up to and shared stories about some of my adventures in Summit, including the Tide detergent caper, which I knew Monk would enjoy.

“That was exceptional police work,” Monk said. “And for a noble cause.”

“Isn’t all police work for a noble cause?” Ellen asked.

“Some causes are nobler than others,” he said.

I noticed the easy rapport that Monk and Ellen had and it made me feel good. They were relaxed and comfortable with each other, which is no small feat where Adrian Monk is concerned. She fit right in. And that, especially, was meaningful to Monk. He liked things that fit. It meant they were where they should be, that balance and symmetry had been achieved.

Perhaps Monk had, at long last, found a companion. Besides me, that is. Although my role in Monk’s life had been entirely different, and didn’t really apply anymore. I was just a visitor now.

Julie’s cell phone rang. She answered the call. She listened for a moment, then replied.

“I’ll pass along the message, but in the future, and until further notice, call Mr. Monk directly at home. I’ve resigned as his assistant.” She listened for a moment. “No, it was completely amicable and my own choice. I’ll tell you about it some other time. Hold on a moment.” She put the phone down. “It’s Amy.”

“Have they caught Dale?” Monk asked.

She shook her head. “It’s about Cleve Dobbs.”

“He’s killed someone else,” Monk said.

“No,” she said, hesitating. “Someone has killed him.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Mr. Monk Is Wrong

M
onk leaned back in his chair, the color draining from his face. Ellen put her hand on Monk’s arm. He let her.

First Dale had escaped, then Stottlemeyer’s badge was taken away, and now the unthinkable had happened: Monk had been proven wrong.

Cleve Dobbs wasn’t a killer. He was a murder victim, and he’d become one mere hours after he’d asked for Monk’s help. But Monk hadn’t believed Dobbs was in any danger. Quite the opposite, in fact. He’d believed Dobbs was a threat to others.

Julie spoke very softly. “Amy wants to know if you’d like her to send a patrol car to bring you to the scene.”

I answered for him. “That won’t be necessary, Julie. We’ll drop you off at home and I’ll take him.”

Monk looked at me. “You will?”

“Until I go back to New Jersey on Monday, I’m your new assistant. Would you like to see my résumé and references?”

“You’ll do,” he said and went to get his coat. Was that sarcasm? From Adrian Monk?

I made a note to analyze the remark later to be sure, because if it was sarcasm, it was a big step for Monk under pretty dark circumstances.

I hate to admit it, but I was actually thrilled at the prospect of going to the scene of a homicide, of helping Monk solve a string of murders.

I tried my best to hide it and to look grim instead, because let’s face it, that was what things were. If Monk was truly wrong, and if the man he’d identified as the killer was innocent, then this was a cataclysmic event for him.

And, a cause for celebration for Amy Devlin. But as much as she’d want to rub Monk’s nose in this, I was betting that she wouldn’t, because this victory had come at the price of a man’s life. Besides, with Stottlemeyer gone and Dale on the loose, she needed Monk now, imperfect or not.

I rose from my seat and turned to Ellen. “It was a lovely dinner. I’m sorry this had to happen in the middle of it.”

“It comes with Adrian’s job,” she said.

“It might not be my job any longer,” Monk said, rejoining us. “Not after word gets around about this.”

“You don’t know anything about the murder yet,” Ellen said.

“I know that I thought Cleve Dobbs was the killer and now he’s been killed,” Monk said. “That’s enough.”

Monk trudged to the door as if going to his own execution.

Julie handed me the keys to the car. “Welcome home.”

• • •

I flashed my badge to the officer who secured the scene at the end of the block, and then we drove the car right up to Dobbs’ gate. When we pulled up to the curb Monk gave me a look. Despite the pain and insecurity that he was undoubtedly feeling, I saw warmth in his eyes. And I’m sure he saw the same thing in mine.

It was great to be together again at a crime scene, even if it was the case that could be the unmaking of his perfect record. We might never be able to say again that Monk was always right when it came to homicide, no matter how perfect the suspect’s alibi might be or how outlandish Monk’s reasoning might seem.

We got out of the car and, as we approached the house, I folded my badge wallet in such a way that it allowed me to put it in the front pocket of my jacket and display my shield.

Some of the officers on the scene knew me casually from before and seemed startled to see the badge and, I presume, the gun. I walked a little bit straighter, trying to exude that authority Monk thought I had.

We followed the path to the backyard, which was lit up by all the available outdoor lights already on the property and augmented by more brought in by the police.

Amy Devlin was wearing gloves and stood over Dobbs’ corpse, which was splayed faceup on the patio. His body was twisted in such a way—his arms and legs and neck and back bending in places where there were no joints—that it was obvious that most of his bones had to be broken. His white shirt was slashed and torn and soaked with blood, indicating that he’d been stabbed multiple times.

It was a horrific sight, made even more troubling since it was someone I knew, not personally, but as the ubiquitous face of Peach. Dobbs was seemingly everywhere, on the cover of his bestselling book, on billboards, and in commercials and other advertisements.

Devlin looked up at us as we approached, her eyes drifting to my badge. I tensed a bit, preparing myself for a snide remark about wearing a badge she didn’t think I’d earned.

“It’s good to see you, Natalie. We could use your experience on this one.” She shifted her gaze to Monk. “We need you at your best, Monk. Can I count on you?”

It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting, either. I admired her for saying the right thing to both of us. I decided that she might have the makings of a captain after all.

“Of course,” he said.

“Here’s what we know. Dobbs’ wife, Jenna, was out shopping when she got a call from him at six thirty, asking her when she’d be home and what she wanted to do for dinner, to eat in or go out.”

“What did she choose?” Monk said.

“I don’t know. She didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

“You might want to follow up,” he said.

“I’ll put that at the top of my list. When she got home a half hour or so after the call, she found him like this,” Devlin said, gesturing to the body. “Someone attacked him with a knife in his office upstairs. The fight spilled out onto the deck and Dobbs toppled over the railing to the patio. The fall killed him on impact, but the medical examiner says he would have died regardless. He was mortally wounded already.”

“So he was killed after he called his wife and before she came through the door,” I said. “That’s a tight window.”

Monk tipped his head and made a circle around the body, doubled back, and circled again. I studied the body, too. There were slash and stab wounds all over his chest and stomach, defensive cuts across his arms and palms, but no wounds on his back.

The attacker had faced Dobbs head-on. He wanted Dobbs to see who was betraying him.

But the wounds indicated that Dobbs hadn’t turned to run, that he’d faced his attacker and took him on.

A gutsy and ultimately fatal move motivated by anger and ego rather than self-preservation.

It must have been a savage, bloody, and horrifically one-sided fight: an unarmed man, still reeling from the shock of betrayal and that first stab wound, up against an enraged killer wielding a large knife.

“Have you found the murder weapon?” I asked.

Devlin shook her head. “But there’s a big knife missing from the set on the counter in the kitchen. We’re checking the street to see if it might have been ditched in a drain or a trash can.”

“How did the killer get past the locked gate and the alarm system?”

“Dobbs must have buzzed in whoever it was, which means that the killer was someone he knew, just like the other three victims. Did Monk tell you about them?”

“Julie did,” I said.

Monk looked over at the flower bed that Dobbs had been working on that afternoon. It was finished now, the perennials planted in neat rows, the shovel propped against a bench, the gloves laid out on the seat.

“This isn’t anything like the other killings,” Monk said. “Those were staged to look as if they were accidents. This was a brutal, angry attack.”

“All the killings were about rage,” Devlin said. “But the rage was always directed at Dobbs, not the people that were murdered. That rage came out when the killer finally got to Dobbs himself.”

Monk rolled his shoulders and shifted his weight. “Why now? Why not continue killing the people who’d helped, in their own way, to make him the success that he was?”

“Maybe the point of the first three killings was to scare Dobbs and implicate him at the same time,” Devlin said. “But we got onto Dobbs too quickly. He knew that if Dobbs was being watched, any new murders would clear him rather than dig the hole deeper. It took the fun out of murdering anyone but Dobbs himself.”

“Did Dobbs mention having a guest when he spoke to his wife on the phone?” I asked.

“Nope,” Devlin said. “He didn’t give any indication that he wasn’t alone.”

“I’d like to see the office,” Monk said.

Devlin led us into the house and up the grand staircase to a second-floor landing that was large enough to be the banquet hall at the Hyatt.

There were three large sets of double doors leading to the three upstairs suites. One set led to the master bedroom, another to the guest room, and the third to Dobbs’ office. That set of doors was open.

I could smell the copper scent of blood even before we stepped through the open doors of the office, which was like stepping into one of his white, airy Peach stores.

The blood was everywhere, as if someone had taken a bucket of it and splashed it on the walls and floor. It was hard to believe one man’s body could contain so much blood. Several forensic techs were taking pictures and measurements and collecting samples.

Monk held his hands up in front of him, framing his view so he took in the room in sections, rather than all at once. He moved methodically around the office, tracking the blood like it was a map to the solution of the murder.

The office was an open and uncluttered space, with bleached hardwood floors, a glass-topped desk with just a Peach computer, a Peach device, a notepad, and a phone on top. The desk chair was wing-backed, all chrome and black leather, something from the Dr. Evil / SPECTRE collection.

The walls were adorned with silver-framed photos of Dobbs with politicians and actors, but also of a young Dobbs slaving over early prototypes of the Peach and other products his company produced.

I was struck by how cold and impersonal the office was and wondered which came first, his office or the identically designed Peach stores that were now in every upscale shopping mall in America.

Monk followed the blood trail out to the deck, his hands out in front of him. The potted plant was spattered with blood and so was the side and top of the plexiglass railing.