Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii by Goldberg, Lee (best large ebook reader .txt) 📗

a woman in her sixties with a tattoo like that? That’s the kind of woman she was. She didn’t care what anybody thought about anything. She grabbed what she wanted in life. She did things her way, without apology or regret, and I loved her for it.”

“You live like that,” Kealoha said, “you make a lot of enemies.”

“You think she was killed by bad karma?”

Kealoha shook his head. “I think she was killed by a bad man.”

It took a moment before the meaning sank in. Lance’s hands curled into fists and he looked Kealoha in the eye. “You’re saying she was murdered? Why would anyone want to kill my wife?”

“Das what we’re going to find out,” Kealoha said. “We need to ask you some questions.”

“Why don’t you have a tattoo on your right wrist?” Monk asked.

Kealoha regarded Monk with bewilderment. I’m sure Kealoha was trying to figure out what that question had to do with the investigation. Poor guy.

“I guess I never got around to it,” Lance said.

“Don’t you think it’s time you did?”

“Where were you this morning, Mr. Vaughan?” Kealoha said.

Lance glared at the cop. “I know what’s going on here. You look at me, you see a man much younger than Helen, and you immediately assume I married her for her money. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“It’s happened before,” Kealoha said unapologetically.

“I bet there are tattoo parlors all over Kauai,” Monk said. “You could get it done today.”

Kealoha gave Monk a hard look. Monk ignored it; he was too busy giving Lance a hard look of his own.

“Two years ago I was a personal trainer in Cleveland. Women threw themselves at me,” Lance said. “I had my pick of twenty-two-year-old, surgically enhanced blond bimbos, but you know why I fell in love with Helen?”

“Because she was rich?” I said.

“Rich in character, Ms. Teeger. Rich in intelligence. Rich in her no-holds-barred appreciation of life. She was authentic. A real woman in every sense. She ignored her age, and so did I. She was the sexiest woman I’ve ever met.”

“And probably the wealthiest, too,” Kealoha said.

Monk took a pen out of his pocket. “Use this.”

“For what?” Lance said.

“To draw barbed wire on your wrist until you can get into a tattoo parlor. You’ll thank me later.”

“Are you crazy?” Lance said.

“I’m not the one with mismatched wrists,” Monk said.

“Where were you between the hours of eight and eleven A.M., Mr. Vaughan?” Kealoha interrupted.

“Snorkeling on the Na Pali Coast,” Lance said. “I was on a Snorkel Rob cruise with two dozen other people. Snorkel Rob can tell you. I made the reservation two days ago.”

“Why didn’t your wife go with you?”

“She said if she wanted to look at goldfish, she would have gone to a pet store instead of flying all the way to Hawaii. But she didn’t want to stand in the way of my having a good time,” Lance said, choking up again. “If only I’d stayed, maybe I could have saved her.”

“I could draw the barbed wire for you,” Monk said. “I’m not much of an artist, but then again, neither was the guy who did your tattoo.”

“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill your wife?” Kealoha said, as if Monk hadn’t spoken at all.

He shook his head.

“Is anything missing?” Kealoha asked.

“A tattoo on his right wrist,” Monk said. “Am I the only one who can see it?”

“Jewelry, money, important documents, something of value?” Kealoha elaborated.

“I don’t know,” Lance said. “I haven’t looked.”

“Would you mind taking a look-see now?” Kealoha waved over an officer. “Go through the house with Mr. Vaughan, okay?”

Lance got up and led the officer into the house.

Kealoha turned to Monk. “What do you think?”

“He’s dangerously unbalanced,” Monk said.

“You think he’s violent?” Kealoha said.

“I think he’s got a tattoo on one wrist and not on the other one,” Monk said. “A man who is capable of that kind of insanity is capable of anything.”

While Kealoha checked out Lance’s alibi, I was determined get down to the beach and soak up some of the Hawaiian sunshine. I didn’t care what Monk wanted to do with the rest of the day.

I headed straight back to my room with Monk in tow and already fidgeting with nervous energy. He was anxious to investigate something, anything, but he had nothing to go on until he heard back from Kealoha. I for one hoped that wouldn’t happen for another couple of days.

I went into my room, slammed shut our adjoining door, and changed into my bikini, still simmering over the fact that Monk managed both to ruin my friend’s wedding and stumble on a murder on his first full day in Hawaii.

The wedding part I could almost forgive him for, since he saved Candace from marrying a pathological liar and would-be bigamist, but I deeply resented the corpse.

Most people can go their whole lives without getting involved with a murder. Monk is lucky if he can go outside and get his morning paper off his stoop without tripping over a dead body. Murders happen around him with such astonishing frequency that it’s long since gone beyond coincidental and borders on supernatural.

I guess on some level I knew the moment Monk showed up on the plane that it was inevitable that, one way or another, I’d get dragged into a homicide investigation in Hawaii. All I could hope for now was that Monk would find the killer quickly or that things would move slowly enough to leave plenty of time for me to lie in hammocks, take long walks on the beach, and float lazily in the pool.

I was slathering on suntan lotion, and continuing to bemoan my sad situation, when I heard Monk’s voice on the other side of the door between our rooms. He was talking to someone.

I put on a bathrobe, out of temporary deference to Monk’s timidity when it came to exposed female flesh, and opened the door to his room.

Monk stood at his refrigerator with one of the assistant managers from the front