Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii (13 page)

“I’m busy.”

We watched as he tried to rake the sand without actually stepping in it, but he couldn’t, not without creating vertical lines, and that was a problem, since the trap had been raked horizontally before.

After several minutes, Monk set the rake aside, walked into the trap, and began wiping out all the rake marks by dragging the side of his shoe across the sand.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Erasing and starting over.”

I could see a foursome waiting to tee off, and judging by their body language—the way they were standing there, hands on their hips, pacing back and forth—they weren’t happy.

“You’re holding up the next set of players,” I said.

“Go on without me,” Monk said. “I’ll catch up.”

“What about the foursome?” Kealoha asked.

“They can play around me,” Monk said. “Besides, they’ll appreciate the care I’ve taken to restore the bunker.”

“You don’t have to rake it,” I said. “You just smoothed it out with your shoes.”

“It’s not the same,” Monk said. “It doesn’t match the other bunkers.”

He picked up the rake and began to work, careful to make his lines straight and even.

Kealoha just shook his head.

The foursome behind us started to play, hitting their balls down the first leg of the fairway. Soon there would be golf balls whizzing over our heads like bullets.

Monk finished and regarded his work. “That’s better.”

He took out a putter and squatted beside his ball, eyeing the lay of the green.

But then something caught his attention, something beyond the hole. I followed his gaze. He was looking at the houses along the fairway. A mailman was delivering a box to one of the homes. Monk checked his watch, rose to his feet, and put the ball in the hole with one putt. Four strokes. Par for the hole.

He turned to us with a smile. “That was fun, though what this hole really needs is a castle. Or a moat.”

Kealoha looked back at the fairway, where the other golfers were staring at us. “We’d better move on to the next tee.”

“I have a better idea,” Monk said. “Let’s catch a burglar instead.”

Kealoha drove the electric cart along a narrow asphalt road that crossed the golf course and branched off into a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood of fairway homes. At Monk’s direction, Kealoha parked behind the U.S. Mail truck idling at the curb and we all got out.

The houses didn’t seem any more extravagant than your average tract home on the mainland, but these were probably worth well into seven figures by virtue of where they were. There were no fences between the homes, only plants—and in some cases, low, decorative lava-rock walls that also served to mark boundaries. The landscaping of the homes was as manicured and lush as the golf course they faced.

The mailman was dropping off some boxes from Amazon on the front porch of a home and returning to his truck when we approached him. He was a muscular Polynesian man wearing an untucked, short-sleeved, blue U.S. Postal Service uniform shirt, dark blue shorts, and a safari hat. His eyes were hidden behind reflective, wraparound sunglasses.

“Can I help you?” the mailman asked.

Kealoha turned to Monk. “I don’t know, can he?”

“Are you the regular mailman on this route?” Monk asked.

“Yeah,” the mailman said.

“How long have you been doing it?”

“A couple of years.”

Monk turned to Kealoha. “He’s the guy. Well, one of them, anyway.”

“What guy?”

“He’s responsible for at least half a dozen of your unsolved burglaries, maybe more.”

The mailman started for his truck again. “I don’t know who you people are, but I’ve got mail to deliver and a schedule to keep.”

“And that was your undoing,” Monk said.

The mailman edged past Monk, but Kealoha stepped in front of him and lifted his shirt, revealing his round belly, his badge, and his gun.

“Hold up, brah. Police.” Kealoha turned to Monk. “You think he’s the burglar?”

“I haven’t done nothing,” the mailman said.

“Whoever committed the burglaries knew when the homes were occupied or empty, could get into security buildings and gated communities with ease, and was able to steal large items like computers and stereos in broad daylight without being seen.”

“How does that point to him?” Kealoha asked.

“People file vacation holds or forwarding addresses for their mail when they go out of town, and that lets him know when the houses are going to be empty. He has the code or the keys for security buildings and gates so he can deliver mail and his presence isn’t suspicious. And he carts out his stolen goods in Priority Mail boxes, so it looks like he’s simply picking up or delivering parcels.”

“Dat’s a good theory,” Kealoha said. “I’m gonna need a lot more than that to arrest this guy.”

“Arrest me? For what? I haven’t stolen anything,” the mailman said. “See? My hands are empty.”

“All the burglaries that you could pin down to a specific day or time took place on weekdays in broad daylight,” Monk said. “Never at night, never on Sunday.”

“The same schedule a mailman keeps,” I said.

“They also all occurred at specific times of day in the same neighborhoods,” Monk said. “The break-ins in this neighborhood, for instance, always happened around noon. The ones farther west happened at the end of the day.”

“At the end of the mailman’s daily route,” Kealoha said, glancing at the suspect, who wisely stayed silent.

“I wanted to go golfing this morning to see who came through the neighborhood at noon,” Monk said. “When I saw the mail truck, it all made sense.”

“There’s just one problem,” Kealoha said. “We don’t have any proof.”

“Yeah,” the mailman said with a sneer.

“Impound the truck and get a search warrant,” Monk said. “I guarantee you’ll find burglar’s tools, some empty boxes, maybe even some stolen goods in the back.”

“I suppose it’s worth a shot.” Kealoha looked at the mailman. “What do you think, bruddah?”

The mailman answered by barreling past Kealoha into the driver’s seat of his idling truck and speeding off, tires screeching.

Monk dashed to the golf cart, got behind the wheel, and floored it. As the tiny cart zipped past me, I jumped onto the back and grabbed hold.

“What are you doing?” I yelled as Monk steered us between two of the homes and across their backyards.

“Cutting him off,” Monk said. “The road weaves around to the other side of the block.”

“But we’re in a golf cart. He’ll mow us down.”

“Hand me a pitching wedge,” Monk said as we bounced along the grass.

I grabbed the club and was about to hand it to Monk when we burst through a hedge of bougainvilleas. I let go of the club and grabbed an armrest to avoid toppling out of the cart.

We were nearing the street. The mail truck was coming our way. If we didn’t stop, within moments our two paths would cross.

“Hurry,” Monk said.

I yanked another club from the bag and passed it up to Monk, who wedged it against the power pedal and his seat.

And then he casually jumped out of the moving cart onto the soft lawn.

I was stunned. It took me a second before it sank in that I was in the cart alone. I leaped off just as the cart shot into the street, directly into the path of the speeding truck.

The mailman swerved too hard to avoid the golf cart and the truck tipped over, sliding on its side across the asphalt in a shower of sparks before slamming into a palm tree.

The driverless golf cart scooted along between two more houses and out onto the golf course beyond.

Monk and I scrambled to our feet, ran to the postal truck, and pulled the dazed mailman from his seat. He had a few cuts and bruises, but he’d survive. We laid him down on the grass and then took stock of each other. My knees were scraped and Monk had some grass stains on his new pants, but otherwise we were both fine.

“Thanks a lot,” I said to Monk.

“What did I do?”

“You jumped out of the cart!”

“Of course I did,” Monk said. “I didn’t want to get killed.”

“What about me? You could have told me you were going to jump.”

“You saw me, didn’t you?”

“That’s not the point,” I said. “Before the driver jumps out of a moving vehicle he has an obligation to notify his passengers first.”

“I beg to differ.”

“It’s common courtesy!”

That was when Kealoha came running up, drenched in sweat and totally out of breath.

“Why did you do that?” Kealoha managed to spit out between gasps.

“He was getting away,” Monk said.

“We’re on an island,” Kealoha said, still huffing. “He was driving a mail truck. Where was he gonna go?”

“Oops,” Monk said.

At that moment I happened to glance at the golf course, just in time see our cart as it splashed into the lake and abruptly sank, taking our clubs down with it.

I was glad the rentals were on Monk’s credit card and not mine.

Although burglary tools and stolen goods were found in the mail truck, I was hoping the destruction of two vehicles, the loss of three bags of clubs, and the outrage of the golf course officials would dissuade Kealoha from passing along any more of his unsolved cases to Monk.

Not that Monk cared about the damage he’d caused. Playing a single hole of golf and chasing a bad guy left him in an ebullient mood and eager to do more sleuthing.

I was ready to do nothing more strenuous than lie in a hammock. I’d had enough excitement for one day.

Fortunately, there wasn’t any detecting to do until Kealoha could get back to us with more background on Lance Vaughn and Roxanne Shaw. I figured I had some time, since Kealoha was going to have his hands full dealing with the events of the morning.

So we had a late lunch at Poipu Beach Park. We grabbed some tuna fish sandwiches at Brenneke’s Deli. Monk had them cut off the crusts and he loaned them his tape measure so they could cut the sandwich exactly in half. We took our lunch across the street to one of the scattered picnic tables on the grass leading to the sand.

The beach beyond the park was packed with families and their kids, who were Boogie boarding and frolicking in the water. There was a fat monk seal basking in the sand, his slumber captured for posterity by two dozen camera-toting tourists.

“You know what that is?” I said.

“A monk seal.”

“I understand they’re the only seals that clean their fish before they eat them.”

“Been working on that one long?”

“Since this morning,” I admitted.

After we finished our lunch, we drove back to the hotel and parked in the self-parking lot beside another Mustang convertible. Monk got out and examined the other car.

“This is Brian’s rental car,” he said.

“Half the cars in this parking lot are Mustang convertibles. How can you tell?”

“A little innovation we call the license plate.”

“You memorized the plate?”

“And the vehicle identification number,” Monk said. “Besides, I recognize the three dings and the scratch.”

“Good for you.”

“They replaced the windshield and the soft-top.” Monk peered in the driver’s-side window. “The seat isn’t stained anymore.”

“So they cleaned it. That should make you happy.” I headed for the lobby.

“But it was a permanent stain,” Monk called after me.

“Apparently not.” I kept going.

He caught up with me. “I think they replaced the seat.”

“Okay.”

“Why would they go to the expense of replacing the seat to get rid of one stain but leave red-dirt-soiled carpets, the dings, and the scratch?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Monk. More important, who cares?”

“It’s just something to think about.”

There were a million things I’d rather think about, but there was no point in telling Monk that. This was, after all, the same man who memorized the VIN of someone else’s rental car.

We were walking across the lobby toward the elevators when we were intercepted by a short Hawaiian man in a silk aloha shirt, slacks, and nice leather shoes.

“Excuse me, Mr. Monk, may I have a word?” He offered Monk his hand. “I’m Martin Kamakele, manager of hotel operations.”

They shook hands. I had a wipe ready before Monk could ask for it.

“You’re in charge of how the minibars are stocked,” Monk said, disinfecting his hands.

“Yes, that’s one of my many responsibilities. I understand you instructed the cleaning personnel on the fourth floor to fold the bath towels instead of rolling them.”

“There’s no need to thank me.”

“I appreciate that you have a personal preference for folded towels, and we very much want you to be comfortable during your stay,” Kamakele said. “But we can’t fold all the towels in the hotel.”

“It’s the only way to treat a towel.”

“It’s the most time-consuming way. Folding towels takes three times as long as rolling them, and our cleaning crew is on a very tight schedule. Following your instructions made them fall two hours behind in their duties.”

“Do their duties include stocking everybody’s minibar with one extraneous Toblerone?”

“We will gladly fold your towels, but I’m afraid we’ll continue to roll the others.”

“But I’ll know they’re rolled,” Monk said. “How do you expect me to sleep in a building filled with rolled towels?”

Kamakele looked to me for a little help, but he wasn’t going to get any. This was between him and Monk.

“I don’t know what to tell you, sir,” Kamakele said.

“Tell me you’ll fold the towels,” Monk said.

“I’m sorry.”

Now Monk and Kamakele were both looking at me for help. I sighed and addressed the manager.

“This towel situation is going to make it very hard for Mr. Monk to concentrate. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but he’s working closely with the Kauai Police Department on the investigation of Helen Gruber’s homicide. He’s a very famous detective.”

“I’m familiar with Mr. Monk’s reputation,” Kamakele said. “Before I came here, I was head of operations at the Belmont Hotel in San Francisco.”

“Then you know how quickly he works when he’s thinking clearly. He could solve this murder before word reaches the mainland that it even happened. But if he’s distracted…well, this investigation could plod on for weeks and the inevitable negative publicity would have time to spread. Who knows what impact that might have on your occupancy rate?”

“I see.” Kamakele chewed on his lip for a moment. “I think we can work something out. How would you like to stay in the bungalow formerly occupied by the late Mrs. Gruber? It’s fully detached; you won’t be in a building with rolled towels. Your towels will all be folded.”

“But it’s a closed crime scene,” Monk said.

“Not any longer. The police officially released it this morning.”

“We can’t afford five thousand dollars a night,” I said. “Or anything close to that.”

“Guests who can afford those rates won’t stay at the scene of a homicide,” Kamakele said. “Until we can completely renovate the bungalow and offer it as entirely new, I’m afraid it’s going to stay empty. You can have it for what you’re paying now.”

I looked at Monk, commanding him with my gaze to agree to the offer. He did.

“Excellent,” Kamakele said. “I’ll have your things moved over immediately.”

“Did you ever meet Mrs. Gruber?” Monk asked.

Kamakele nodded. “She was referred to me by the front desk. Mrs. Gruber was driving them crazy. She said she was hearing voices. I’m sure she was, but they were all in her head. It’s so sad when that happens.”

“Did you offer to move her?”

“Yes, but all of our bungalows were occupied. I offered her one of our suites in here instead, but she refused. She said if the noise was loud out there, it must be even worse in the building.”

“What about her husband?” Monk asked. “Did you ever talk with him?”

“We exchanged pleasantries when I welcomed him and his wife to our hotel, escorted them to their bungalow, and presented them with a complimentary bottle of our finest champagne. Beyond that, no, we never spoke. But they seemed very much in love.”

“You mentioned you worked in San Francisco,” I said. “Did you know Dylan Swift back then?”

“He conducted his Great Beyond seminars at the Belmont. When I came to Kauai to oversee the remodeling of the hotel for the new owners and I learned they were adding a production facility, I was instrumental in convincing Dylan to produce half of his TV shows here.”