Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants by Goldberg, Lee (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📗

simply colleagues in the gender-studies department, ” Dr. Bayliss said.

“Do you give all your colleagues your sperm?” Sharona asked.

“I’d be happy to,” Dr. Bayliss said.

“Let’s change the subject again,” Monk said, “to one that doesn’t involve that, um, stuff.”

“You mean sperm?” Dr. Bayliss said—deliberately, I think, for the pleasure of seeing Monk squirm.

Monk motioned to me for a wipe. Just the word seemed to make him feel dirty. I gave him one.

“How did your wife feel about your ‘donation’?” Sharona asked.

“I didn’t tell her,” he said. “Isabel didn’t find out until Lieutenant Dozier and Ian Ludlow came to our door.”

“What was Ludlow doing there?” Monk looked up from the headline he was reading off the Daily Bruin in the garbagecan. It was something about shoplifting problems at the student store.

“He was some kind of consultant or observer or something, ” he said. “Frankly, I’m surprised at all the third parties involved with the police in this investigation.”

“How did your wife take the news?” I asked.

“Not well,” he said. “But, to be honest, our relationship has been troubled for some time. She’s become less and less flexible when it comes to my sexual availability.”

I glanced at Monk. He seemed more interested in a hole in the coattail of the sport jacket hanging on the coatrack than in our discussion. But I knew better than to assume Monk wasn’t hearing, absorbing and at least subconsciously analyzing every word. I would have to watch him carefully, though, to make sure he didn’t poke a hole in the other coattail just to make the jacket even.

“You mean she didn’t like you cheating on her,” Sharona said.

“She’s not as tolerant of a humanity-embracing life-style as she used to be. She felt that impregnating another woman, even artificially, crossed some kind of line.” He shrugged and shook his head, as if to suggest her point was absurd. “But the so-called infidelity in and of itself didn’t bother her. I’ve always been actively multisexual.”

“Excuse me?” Monk said.

“I could have sex with anyone in this room,” Dr. Bayliss said, “including myself.”

“Uh-huh,” Monk said.

And immediately left the room. And the building.

Sharona glowered after him and continued glowering for some time. I think the way she saw it, Monk was abandoningher as opposed to, say, fleeing from a potbellied pervert who consorted with cockroach-covered lesbians.

Not that I was being judgmental.

“He seems awfully uptight,” Dr. Bayliss said.

“And you seem awfully loose,” I said.

“Thank you,” Dr. Bayliss said. “It’s what I strive for. It’s the essence of multisexuality.”

“Don’t you mean bisexuality?” Sharona said.

“That term is rigid and inadequate, particularly when describing me,” he said. “I am currently in an erotic relationship with a lesbian.”

He said it as if he expected us to applaud his accomplishment.

“She’s not a lesbian anymore if she’s sleeping with you,” I said.

“Sally didn’t renounce her lesbian self to get involved with me,” Dr. Bayliss said. “She’s simply attracted to my lesbian qualities.”

“You’re a man,” Sharona said.

“Who is in touch with his inner lesbian,” he said. “I relate to her from a female rather than male perspective. I make love to her like a woman. It’s not a male-female coupling in the conventional heterosexual sense at all.”

“Whatever you call it, I’m sure Ellen Cole was furious,” I said. “She came to you to help her and her partner start a family. But instead, you ultimately destroyed her family. You took away her lover and their child.”

“I bet she didn’t take that well,” Sharona said. “What did Ellen do, Doc? Did she threaten to expose your life-style? Did she threaten to go to your wife? To the faculty? To the media?”

“If she did, then killing her would have been a foolish move, since it has resulted in my private life becoming public, hasn’t it?”

“People don’t always think straight when they’re angry,” Sharona said.

“Which is clearly the case here,” Dr. Bayliss said. “You’re angry that your husband killed Ellen Cole. And rather than accept it, you are lashing out at innocent people like me and Sally. You seem to have forgotten that both Sally and I were in front of not one, not two, but dozens of people at the time Ellen was murdered. Neither one of us could be responsible for this.”

“They’re great alibis,” Sharona said. “Almost too good to be true.”

“And what about your husband’s alibi?” he asked. “How good is it?”

Before Sharona could answer, we were distracted by the sound of footsteps approaching in the hallway.

I turned, expecting to see Monk. Instead, I saw two uniformed campus police officers coming our way. They were both men, one Asian, the other Hispanic. No one could accuse the campus police of not being multiethnic in their hiring practices.

Sharona and I had to practically climb up on the bookshelf and the desk to let the two officers in. Their name tags identified them as Officers Tran and Dempsey.

“Dr. Bayliss?” Officer Tran asked.

“Yes?” he responded.

"We’re here because of a tip from Adrian Monk,” Officer Tran said.

Dr. Bayliss grinned. “I didn’t know that multisexuality was a crime.”

Officer Tran shared a look with his partner. “Multisexuality? ”

“He could have sex with anyone in this room,” Sharona said.

“The hell he can,” Officer Dempsey said, absentmindedly putting a hand on his holster.

“We’re not here about your sexual activities,” Officer Tran said. “We’re investigating the shoplifting from the student store.”

My cell phone rang. I answered it. It was Monk, who said he was calling from a pay phone in Ackerman Union, which housed the student store.

“The man you’re talking to is a freak,” Monk said. “A kleptomaniac freak.”

“You better do the talking,” I said to him as I put the phone on speaker and held it up for everyone to hear. “It’s Mr. Monk.”

“Dr. Bayliss