Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii (5 page)

There were hundreds of chaise longues around the pool and on the sand, each topped with luxuriously thick cushions and shaded by umbrellas that resembled thatched roofs. There must have been a state law that made James Patterson and Nora Roberts required reading because everybody seemed to be engrossed in a book by one of those two authors.

Hammocks were strung between the dozens of lazy palms that lined the beach—they were all occupied, mostly by couples curled up close to one another. I made up my mind to snag a hammock for myself this week, even if it meant getting up at dawn to do it.

The private cabanas erected on the sand were attended by hostesses in skirts and bikini tops, serving drinks and food and offering thick white towels and plush bathrobes to the sun-shy tourists ensconced inside.

The beach was a sandy crescent that curved in front of the Kiahuna Poipu’s half dozen exclusive four-thousand-square-foot bungalows, each with private palm-shaded lap pools and hot tubs. The properties were lushly landscaped, giving the rich and famous plenty of natural shade and privacy, even from above. Still, I’ve seen a few grainy
Enquirer
photos, taken with long lenses from boats on the water, of topless movie stars sunning themselves beside those private lap pools.

I glanced at Monk, who seemed more content and relaxed than I’d ever seen him before.

“It’s paradise,” I said.

Monk nodded. “What took us so long to get here?”

I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I answered it anyway. “Money and opportunity is my excuse. What’s yours?”

“Fear,” he replied without hesitation. “And guilt.”

I understood the fear, but not the guilt. He saw the look on my face and answered the question evident in my expression.

“Trudy and I always talked about coming here but never seemed to find the time,” Monk said. “After she was killed, I couldn’t bring myself to come. For a long time I couldn’t even bring myself to step outside.”

“So what changed your mind today?”

“Fear and powerful pharmaceuticals,” Monk said. “And you.”

I knew what he meant, and I was touched. He wasn’t saying he loved me or anything of that magnitude. What he was saying was that he
needed
me, and that he’d miss me if I were gone. But what meant the most to me was the acknowledgment that he felt safe with me, comfortable enough that he could take some emotional risks as long as I was there for him to lean on.

He was saying I was his friend.

I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got the rehearsal dinner in an hour. What are you going to do?”

“Explore the grounds a bit; then I think I’ll go swimming.”

I smiled at him. “
You
want to go swimming?”

Monk said, “The pool looks like fun.”

“Do you even own a bathing suit?”

“I’ll buy one,” Monk said.

This is one amazing drug,
I thought. If Monk took it once or twice a month, he could accomplish a lot of little things that are usually major undertakings for him. Like buying new socks. Getting his hair cut. And grocery shopping.

I wondered if there was more to Monk’s decision not to take the drug than the loss of his detecting skills.

“I’d like to have a look around, too,” I said. “Give me a minute to change and I’ll go with you.”

“Okay.”

I went back into my room and, as I changed, I realized that I’d just blown my first opportunity to be alone. Monk was ready to go off on his own, and I’d invited myself along with him. I did it without thinking, and not out of worry or a sense of responsibility.

I did it because we’re friends. Even though he could be more irritating than any person on earth, I enjoyed being with him. I guess when you get right down to it, that was how I was able to put up with all his eccentricities.

That, and he was paying me.

It took Monk less than five minutes to buy a bathing suit from the Ralph Lauren store in the resort’s shopping arcade right off the lobby. He just picked a simple pair of blue swim trunks off a sale table, checked the size, paid for it, and that was it. No biggie for anybody else, yet an amazing accomplishment for Monk.

We wandered out into a large, palm-lined garden on the other side of the hotel from the pool. The garden faced the beach and was filled with people sitting on white lawn chairs. At first I thought it was another wedding, but then I saw the TV cameras and recognized the man in front of the audience. It was Dylan Swift, the famous medium, taping an episode of his syndicated daily TV show.

I knew who he was, of course. I would have even if he didn’t divide his time between Hawaii and San Francisco, where he started his shtick a few years ago on a local television station.

Everybody knew Dylan Swift. His books, with his smiling face on the cover, were in every bookstore, grocery store, and 7-Eleven in the country. No matter where you went, Swift was watching you with his intense preternatural gaze, daring you not to look into his eyes and buy his book. It was kind of creepy.

Swift’s popularity was helped in no small measure by the fact that he was incredibly good-looking. Today he wore a casual Tommy Bahama aloha shirt and tan slacks. His silk shirt was open just enough to show off his hairless chest and his brawny pectoral muscles. But his most prominent feature was his matinee-idol cleft chin, reminiscent of both Kirk Douglas and Dudley Do-Right. The question of whether his chin was natural or man-made was debated more often, and with more intensity, by his critics than whether or not he was a genuine psychic.

“Who is he?” Monk asked.

I’d long since stopped being shocked by Monk’s total ignorance of American popular culture.

“Dylan Swift,” I said. “He talks to dead people and relays their messages to their loved ones.”

“That can’t be done,” Monk said.

“Tell that to the millions of people who watch his show and buy his books.”

Swift moved through the crowd as if pulled along by some invisible force. The garden was like a giant Ouija board, and he was the game piece in the center.

“I’m getting something…. It’s a name. It beginswith the letter ‘G’…yes, I clearly see a ‘G,’” Swift said. He closed his eyes, cocked his head, and listened to something. “’G’ could be someone sitting here or it could be the name of someone close to one of you who passed on.”

A man jerked his arm into the air and waved it around, bobbing excitedly in his seat in front of Swift as if he’d just won a prize. He was in his sixties, a tubby little man in a bright aloha shirt and pleated shorts that he buckled practically at his chest. He wore sandals and white tube socks that nearly went up to his knobby, pale knees.

“My name is Gary,” the man said, his double chin wobbling. “Could it be a message for me?”

“Yes, it is for you,” Swift said. “Someone from the other side is whispering to me. A woman who was very close to you.”

“My sister?”

“I’m sensing her name began with an
M
or an
E,
or perhaps contained both letters.”

“Margaret,” Gary said. “You’re talking to Margaret?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Swift said. “She died recently.”

“About three years ago,” Gary said.

“Margaret looked out for her little brother,” Swift said.

“I was her older brother,” Gary said.

“Yes, but she was still very protective of you, wasn’t she? As if you were her little brother. In fact, she saved your life once, didn’t she?”

Gary nodded enthusiastically and squeezed his wife’s hand. She was shaped just like him and dressed almost identically.

“When we were kids, we were fishing on the lake and I fell out of the boat,” Gary said. “I got tangled up in the anchor line and almost drowned.”

“Yes, and you would have, but she was there for you then and wants you to know she’s still looking out for you now,” Swift said.

I turned to go, but Monk was transfixed. I guess curiosity was one aspect of his personality no drug could deaden.

“She’s tried very hard to touch you from her realm,” Swift said. “Margaret says you know when. She says it was in that moment of your darkest despair. When you got the news you hoped you’d never hear.”

“You mean when I got the cancer diagnosis?”

Swift nodded. “That voice you heard in the back of your mind, the one that said, ‘This isn’t my time to die; I will fight,’ that was her whispering to you. She wanted you to know you were going to be all right. And you are, aren’t you?”

“I’m in complete remission.” Gary began to sob. “Yes, I heard her. Tell her I heard. Tell her she gave me the strength to fight.”

Swift put his hand on Gary’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “Margaret knows that. And she wants you to know she loves you now and for eternity from the other side.”

I applauded along with the rest of the audience. Swift lifted his head up and met Monk’s gaze for a moment. Monk didn’t look away. I’d seen that expression on Monk’s face before; it was one he usually reserved for men he was intent on proving were killers. It was an unspoken challenge:
You can’t fool me.

The psychic was gravitating toward Monk. The last thing I wanted was Monk, in his drugged-out state, confronting Dylan Swift on national television.

“Maybe we should go, Mr. Monk,” I said, taking him by the arm and leading him away.

“The man is a fraud,” Monk said.

“Nobody has been able to prove it yet,” I said.

“I could,” Monk said.

“You’re on vacation, remember?” I said. “You’re here to have a good time.”

“I’d enjoy it,” Monk said, but he tagged along with me anyway.

I looked over my shoulder and saw Swift watching us go, a bemused expression on his face.

I would have liked to see Monk swimming.

I would have liked to have some pictures of it, too, as evidence to show Stottlemeyer and Disher that it really happened. I couldn’t imagine Monk getting into a pool crowded with half-naked, sweaty, lotion-slathered adults and squealing kids with runny noses and full bladders.

But I missed that historic event. Instead I went to my best friend’s rehearsal dinner. As much as I love Candace, I would have preferred to be in the pool with Monk.

None of her relatives nor any of Brian’s were among the guests, just two dozen of their mutual friends from L.A. Her parents were on safari and couldn’t be bothered to adjust their plans for something as insignificant as their daughter’s wedding. Brian was an orphan whose parents died in a car accident, so he had neither parents nor relatives to invite.

There wasn’t much to rehearse, either. The wedding was going to be quick and casual, out on the luau garden tomorrow morning. All I really had to do was stand beside Candace at the altar and remember to give her Brian’s ring.

The dinner was a Hawaiian buffet served in an open-air restaurant on the lagoon, the terrace lit by torches. I’d tell you all about the food and the conversation but I was slammed by jet lag and too many of those tropical drinks, and headed to bed by ten. I called Julie to let her know I arrived safely, asked my Mom not to spoil my daughter beyond rehabilitation, and went to sleep.

I was awakened at seven the next morning by whimpering. No, it was more like mewling, and it was coming from Monk’s room.

I dragged myself out of bed, pulled on a bathrobe, and shuffled over to the door between our rooms. I pressed my ear against the door.

“Mr. Monk?” I said. “Is that you?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ve been asking myself the same question since dawn.”

I tried the knob. The door was unlocked.

I walked in to find Monk standing in the corner, his back to the wall. He was wearing his usual suit, with his starched white shirt buttoned up to his neck. The bed was made, though the bedspread had been removed, folded, and placed out on the lanai. The aloha shirt and the bathing suit he’d worn yesterday were folded and placed in the garbage can.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I woke up in bed,” Monk said. “Beneath that bedspread.”

He tipped his head toward the bedspread as if it were a wild animal.

“Do you know how many people have sat on that bedspread?” Monk said. “Toilet seats in public restrooms are more sanitary, and
I slept under it
.”

Monk shivered from head to toe, then shook his head. He held out his hand toward me.

“Wipe,” he said.

“I don’t have any, I’m sorry. I haven’t had a chance to pick some up yet.”

“I didn’t pack any either,” he said. “Can you believe it? Was I insane?”

“Actually, you were more or less normal,” I said. “Compared to other people, that is.”

“It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Monk said. “Or Bruce Banner and the Hulk.”

“You have no memory of what you did yesterday?”

“Worse,” he said. “I remember it
all
.”

He cringed and I cringed for him.

“You have to put it all out of your mind or you’ll be paralyzed,” I said. “I suggest you take another pill and grab the next flight home.”

“I’m staying,” Monk said.

“Why?”

“Because I’ll go crazy at home by myself,” Monk said. “I’m not very good alone. Besides, I need to unwind.”

“Isn’t that what you did yesterday?”

He recoiled from the thought, doing that full-body shiver of his.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Monk. That was a low blow.”

Monk acknowledged my apology with a slight nod. “If you really want me to go, I will.”

I almost said yes, but then realized that if I did, I’d feel even guiltier than I had leaving him behind in San Francisco.

“If you’re going to stay, we need to have an understanding. You have to be on your best behavior.”

“You won’t even know I’m here. Except that I’m going to be with you all the time. More or less. Mostly more.”

“Exactly, so this week doesn’t count as my vacation. This is work. I still have all my vacation days coming to me.”

“You don’t have any vacation days.”

“We’ll have that fight another time,” I said. “I’m here to relax.”

“Me, too. You should start packing.”

“Packing? For what?”

“Our move to new rooms,” Monk said. “I can’t stay in this one.”

“Why not?”

His gaze drifted over to the desk. I saw three envelopes and four pieces of hotel stationery. I stifled a smile. In a strange way, it was a relief to have the Monk I knew back again.

“I see,” I said.

I walked over to the desk, tore one of the pieces of stationery in half, and dropped the pieces into the trash can.

“Problem solved,” I said.

I called housekeeping to come empty Monk’s garbage and take his bedspread away before he set fire to it. Then I called the concierge to see if there was any place on the island that carried Sierra Springs bottled water, the only water Monk drank, and Wet Ones disinfectant wipes, the only wipes Monk trusted.

God was on my side. The hotel had a plentiful stock of Sierra Springs water and the gift shop sold Wet Ones. Crisis averted. I asked them to charge a case of each to Mr. Monk’s account and bring them up to his room right away.

I also asked them to bring up a bowl of Chex cereal for him (he loves those little squares) and an order of macadamia pancakes, fresh pineapple, and hot coffee for me.

I showered, put on a sundress, and met Monk on his lanai for breakfast. He was still wearing his shirt, jacket, slacks, and loafers, despite the humidity and the heat.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable in all that?” I asked.

He gave me a look. “No.”

“Okay, but you’re going to be overdressed for the wedding,” I said. “It’s Hawaii-casual.”

“I can be Hawaii-casual.” He went into his room, took off his coat, hung it up in the closet, and came back out on the lanai. “Voilà.”

I was suffocating just looking at him.

“How about opening up your collar and rolling up your sleeves?”

“Maybe I should do a whole striptease while I’m at it,” Monk said. And then he was stricken by a new thought. “Wait. Is this a
nudist
wedding?”

“No, of course not.”

He sighed with relief and wagged a finger at me. “You had me going there for a minute.”

“We’re here to have fun, aren’t we?”

“Not that kind of fun,” he said.