Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii (16 page)

“They must have hired someone to kill Helen.”

“I don’t think so,” Monk said.

“Then how did they do it? There’s no doubt they were on the boat at the time of the killing.”

Monk stopped and looked back toward the condo. “Maybe we should ask the other detectives.”

“What other detectives?”

“The ones staying next door to Lance and Roxanne,” Monk said. “They don’t mind investigating on their vacation. They might be able to give us a new perspective on things.”

“I’m sure they could. But they aren’t detectives. They’re swingers.”

“I’m a pretty good dancer myself.”

“They have sex with other couples, Mr. Monk. That’s what they meant by investigating people. They enjoy an entirely different kind of detecting.”

He grimaced as if he’d just eaten something very sour and marched on toward the hotel. “What does this island do to people?”

“It must be the balmy air.”

Thinking about the swinging couple again reminded me of something significant that happened during that conversation outside Roxanne’s door. It had slipped passed me in the midst of all my frustration with Monk and his dirty shoes.

I suppressed a smile. “What did you think of Roxanne’s breasts?”

“I don’t notice that kind of thing.”

“You saw her heart-with-wings tattoo, so you must have had a good look at her hooters.”

“I saw the tattoos but I blocked out everything else,” Monk said. “I’m still blocking it out.”

“I see. So what do you think—are her breasts real?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“They have an unnatural shape, and she has tiny surgical scars near her armpits.”

“So if you saw all that, what exactly are you blocking out?”

“As much as I can.”

“What’s left?

“I don’t know,” Monk said. “I’m blocking it out.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You avert your gaze from any woman in a bikini, but you obviously gave Roxanne a thorough once-over.”

“I was looking for clues,” Monk said. “It’s an entirely different kind of looking than other looking.”

God help me, but I understood what he was saying. He saw the details, the pixels instead of the picture, while searching for anything that might not fit together the way it should.

It was what made him Monk. It was what made him such a brilliant detective.

His life was all about organization, symmetry, and order. And mystery is, by nature, disorder. He approached an unsolved murder the way he approached life: putting every piece of evidence, every fact, in its proper place, restoring order, and, with it, uncovering the solution to the crime.

“But that’s how you always look at everything,” I said. “So why avert your gaze at all?”

Monk shrugged. “It’s who I am.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “You’re a complicated man, and no one understands you but your woman.”

Monk nodded. “I’m the cat who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about.”

“Monk,” I said. “Adrian Monk.”

“Right on,” he said.

I went to sleep early that night, sinking deep into the plush comfort of my $5,000-a-night bed. I don’t know if the bed was really any plusher than the one in the hotel room. I couldn’t tell you if the mattress springs were made of gold or if the pillows were stuffed with the down of some rare Peruvian goose, but I figured they weren’t just charging for the view and the square footage.

My dreams were all about Mitch, and they played out like a fast-forward scan through home videos of our life together. It’s a dream I’ve had before, and I usually wake up from it in tears. But that morning I awoke at peace, perhaps because in some way I felt Mitch was also at peace.

I credit that to Dylan Swift. I didn’t know whether or not he was really in contact with Mitch. But Swift helped me overcome the guilt and anger I’d been carrying around since the day a navy officer showed up at my door to give me the news that Mitch was dead. I wondered if Swift could do the same for Monk, thereby accomplishing what years of therapy couldn’t achieve.

I knew Monk would never stop trying to solve Trudy’s murder, and nobody, least of all me, would expect him to. But maybe hearing from Trudy through Swift would relieve some of Monk’s guilt and help him accept that it was okay to move on with his life, even to find love again with another woman.

Of course, that would mean Monk would have to set aside his doubts about Swift. Because the thing is, it didn’t matter if Swift was a medium or not. Just the exercise of pretending that he was might help Monk finally deal with his complicated feelings of loss.

But I knew there was no way Monk could ever ignore his misgivings about Swift, not for a moment of wishful thinking or even, dare I say it, a genuine contact with the spirit world.

When I finally got out of bed, it was gray and rainy outside, but it was still pleasantly warm and the air smelled pure and fresh. I was energized, completely relaxed, and ready to take on the day.

Monk was standing on a chair in the living room, shifting his gaze between one of the ceiling fans and his watch.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Not really.”

I went to the kitchen. I’d set the timer on the coffeemaker the night before, so there was a fresh pot of Kona coffee waiting for me. The aroma was rich and enticing.

“You mean because you know Lance and Roxanne killed Helen Gruber but you can’t prove it.”

“That’s not it,” Monk said.

“Okay.” I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.

“How can you sit there calmly in the midst of this disaster?”

“Blissful ignorance,” I said. The coffee was wonderful. I made a mental note to take a couple pounds of Kona beans home with me. Maybe a crate.

“You can’t hear it? You can’t see it?”

“What? The rain? The weather will probably get better, but even if it doesn’t, it’s still Hawaii, and it’s beautiful even when the sun isn’t shining.”

“Not that,” Monk said. “It’s the ceiling fans.”

I looked up at them. “They’re working, aren’t they?”

“At different speeds,” Monk said. “I’ve been watching them all night.”

“All night?”
I said. “You haven’t slept?”

“How could I? I could hear the difference in pitch.”

“No way,” I said. “That simply isn’t possible.”

“I really need a stopwatch to get the precise timing of each fan. You didn’t bring a stopwatch, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Neither did I. Can you believe that? That’s what happens when you pack in a hurry. You always forget something essential.”

I got up and poured Monk a cup of coffee. “I’m sure the hotel can fix the fans. Why don’t you sit down and have some coffee? It’s from Kona beans grown right here on the islands. You’ll love it.”

“What if they can’t fix them? Then they’d want us to move back into the hotel, which is teeming with rolled towels.”

“Teeming?”

“It isn’t pretty.” Monk stepped off the chair and sat down across from me at the table.

“The fans weren’t bothering you yesterday.”

“They were working then.” Monk took a sip of his coffee.

“You don’t think that maybe you’re projecting your frustration onto the fans?”

“What frustration?”

“At not being able to prove Lance and Roxanne killed Helen Gruber.”

“I’ll prove it,” Monk said, his gaze drifting up to the fans. “Can’t you hear that?”

“How?”

“Be quiet and listen real hard.”

“I’m talking about the murder,” I said. “How are you going to prove they did it? Even the police have given up on Lance and Roxanne.”

“It will come to me. I’m thinking of nothing else.” Monk stood up and pointed at the ceiling. “Look at that. The third fan is doing at least one revolution less per minute than the first fan. And the fifth fan…well, don’t even get me started on that one.”

I set my coffee cup aside.

“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” I said. “We’ll order breakfast from room service and then we’ll go sightseeing. And while we’re gone, the staff can fix the fans.”

“These are precision instruments, Natalie. I doubt the staff is up to the task. They didn’t even know how to fold towels. Maybe I should stay and supervise.”

“You’re coming with me, Mr. Monk,” I said. “You need a change of scenery. It will do you good.”

“I’m not a big fan of scenery.”

“Do you want to solve this case or not? You need to focus and you can’t do it here, staring at the ceiling fans.”

He sighed. “Can we look around for a stopwatch?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s not like we can get along without one.”

“Then I’m in.”

The rain stopped while we were eating breakfast, but the skies remained clogged with clouds, blocking the sun but doing little to cool the heat. I could almost feel the moisture evaporating up off the asphalt as we walked out onto the parking lot.

I headed to where I thought I’d parked our Mustang but it wasn’t there. There were so many identical cars in the vast lot, it wasn’t going to be easy pick out ours. I looked at the key fob in my hand and saw a panic button that would set off the car alarm.

I aimed the fob out in front of me and hit the panic button. No alarms went off. I aimed it in a different direction and tried the same thing.

“What are you doing?” Monk asked.

“I’m trying to find our car,” I said. “I forgot where I parked it.”

“No, you didn’t,” Monk said. “It was parked here. Fifth row, eleven spaces in from the left, right beside the car Brian rented, which is this one. I remember the VIN number.”

“Then where’s our car?”

“It was stolen sometime last night.” Monk crouched and examined the asphalt around the car parked in our spot, a Ford 500. “It’s dry under this car, which means it was parked here before the rain. It started raining at two-eleven
A.M
.”

“You can tell the exact time it started raining from examining the ground?”

Monk shook his head. “I was up.”

“That’s right. I forgot.” I took out my cell phone and called Lieutenant Kealoha. He showed up about ten minutes later with an amused expression on his face.

“Crime seems to follow you two around,” he said.

“Not me,” I said, tipping my head toward Monk. “Him.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourselves; this kinda thing happens all the time. We’ll get the car back.”

“How can you be so sure?” Monk asked.

“Where are they gonna take it? We live on an island, brah. Just about everything we have, from cars to milk, has to be shipped in by boat or plane. Even the sugar now comes from somewheres else. Probably some kids took the car for a joyride.”

“And if it wasn’t kids?” I asked.

Kealoha shrugged. “It’ll be stripped for parts, but we’ll find what’s left of it. Not a lotta places to ditch a car here.”

“We’ll need a police report to take back to the rental agency,” I said. “And a ride there.”

“I hope you took the insurance.”

While I filled out a bunch of forms at Global Rental, Monk went across the street to EconoRides to pick out our next fresh-off-the-boat ride. Even though it wasn’t our fault, I figured Global wouldn’t be too eager to rent us another car after we had lost the brand-new one they rented us before. I was right.

Over at EconoRides, Monk managed to find us another Mustang convertible that came off the same boat as our previous car and had only four miles on it, about the distance from Nawiliwili Harbor to the rental lot.

I filled out another stack of forms and made sure to get every insurance plan offered. I neglected to mention that the last car we’d rented ended up getting stolen.

By the time we got on the road, the sun was peeking out through the clouds. I put the top down and steered us north toward Makana Peak, which was the mythical Bali Hai in
South Pacific
. I wanted to see those idyllic beaches set against that famous peak.

Monk was quiet, wrapped up in his own thoughts, so I turned on the radio to a station playing soft Hawaiian music that was heavy on ukulele.

The glimmering blue ocean was to our right. The lush mountain rain forests were to our left. The music of the islands carried on the wind. The air was rich with the sweet scents of a thousand tropical flowers. I was completely immersed in the Kauai experience. For all of two minutes before Monk spoke up.

“We have to get a stopwatch.”

“We will,” I said, trying in vain to regain that feeling of complete immersion. It was like trying to get back to sleep in a hurry to jump back into your dream after being rudely awakened. “Enjoy the fresh air. Look at all the beautiful scenery. Who knows when—or if—you’ll ever get back here again.”

“We should get it now.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“This way we can stop by the hotel and drop it off for the workmen; otherwise they might not get the timing of the fans exactly right.”

“The hotel is in the opposite direction. We’re not going back that way just to drop off a stopwatch. Try to relax. If the timing of the fans is still wrong, we’ll have the repairmen come back.”

“But what if they’ve already gone home for the day?”

“We’ll turn the fans off,” I said. “Then they’ll all be moving at the same rate. A dead stop. Problem solved.”

I saw a sign for the Wailua Falls and nearly passed the turnoff. I made a neck-snapping, hard left turn onto a narrow road riddled with potholes. The road snaked toward the mountains through fields choked with overgrown weeds.

We bumped along for twenty minutes until we saw cars parked in the red muck on either side of the road, which ended in a muddy cul-de-sac where a couple dozen tourists stood, their backs to us.

A Hawaiian man in a yellow rain slicker sold pineapple and coconut wedges from the back of a pickup truck. He cut the fruit with a small ax and served the halves to the tourists on newspapers. Roosters, clucking and crowing, scurried amidst the people.

I made a U-turn and found a parking spot on the road facing back toward the highway. We got out and joined the tourists who were pressed up against a chest-high Cyclone fence that overlooked the Wailua Falls and the verdant canyon below.

We had to stand on our tiptoes and peer over the hedge of weeds on the other side of the fence to see the twin falls, which spilled down eighty feet into a dark pond that fed a tiny river in a thick grove of trees. In the distance, the serrated ridges of the mountains were shrouded in haze. It made a pretty picture, one that I told Monk was used in the main titles of
Fantasy Island
.

“Minus the roosters, the weeds, and the potholes, I assume,” he said.

“Yes.”

“No wonder it was called Fantasy Island. The reality is pretty miserable.”

“I think there’s something very appealing about the undeveloped feel of this weedy lookout,” I said. “If this sightseeing spot were anywhere else in the world, the parking lot would be paved, there would be signs telling us where to take the best photos, and there would be a gift shop selling hot dogs instead of that guy hacking pineapples with an ax.”

“Exactly,” Monk said. “Let’s go there.”

Adrian Monk was a study in contradictions. He could walk into a blood-splattered crime scene and examine a decaying corpse without hesitation, and yet he was totally unnerved by some wild roosters and a little mud.

We drove back to the highway and over the rickety bridge that spanned the picturesque Wailua River. To our left, the abandoned and decaying Coco Palms Hotel, its thatched-roof bungalows pummeled by Hurricane Iniki in ’92, sat on the edge of a dense coconut grove overlooking the golden beach where the river met the sea. The resort was a tiki icon, harkening back to another era. Looking at the building, I could almost hear Elvis Presley singing “Blue Hawaii.”

Actually, I
was
hearing it. On the radio. It was too perfect.

Once we crossed the bridge, the Kuhio Highway became the main drag of Wailua, a ramshackle town of Western-style storefronts and minimalls. My stomach was growling, so I parked in front of Namura Saimin, a place I’d read about in the guidebook.

“What are we doing here?” Monk asked.

“Having lunch. This is supposed to be the best saimin place in the Hawaiian islands,” I said, getting out of the car before he could argue with me.

Monk eyed the place dubiously. “What’s saimin?”

“It’s like a soup. Noodles, boiled eggs, bok choy, green onion, pork, peas, wonton, and SPAM all in a dried-shrimp broth. It’s a delicacy. They also make wonderful pies.”

“I wonder if they have gecko on the menu."

“If not on the menu,” I said with a smile, “certainly on the walls.”

We opened the screen door and walked in. There were no tables, just a very low counter with tiny stools that must have been designed with the Menehune in mind.

The restaurant was crowded with locals slurping from enormous bowls of saimin. I saw two empty stools. I hurried over and sat down on one of them before someone else could walk in and snag them. I moved so fast that I scraped my knees again trying to fit them underneath the counter.