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

first old biddy Lance has married and outlived,” Kealoha said. “She’s the third. There was Elizabeth Dahl, age seventy-six, in Philadelphia, and Beatrice Woodman, age sixty-eight, in Seattle.”

A lumberjack holding a porcelain doll.

Woodman and Dahl.

Once again, two more images from Swift were on the money. Could those other spirits Swift said were trying to communicate with him about Lance have been Elizabeth Dahl and Beatrice Woodman?

I tried to give Monk a look, but he wouldn’t look back at me, so I nudged him. He still ignored me. He knew what I was thinking and didn’t want to deal with it. Either Swift did a lot of very quick digging into Lance’s past or he was getting good information from the beyond.

I knew what Monk’s explanation would be.

But what could it hurt to go back to Swift and ask what else the spirits were telling him? Even if Swift were a fraud, he could save us some time repeating research he’d already done.

But I didn’t want to say any of this to Monk, at least not in front of Kealoha.

“Were Dahl and Woodman murdered?” Monk said.

“Cleveland cops tell me they died of natural causes.” Kealoha brought the cart to a stop not far from where our golf balls lay on the grass. “Lance sure knows how to pick ’em, though Helen was his youngest and healthiest wife yet. She was also the richest.”

“Maybe he got tired of waiting for nature to take its course,” I said.

“You said you’re talking to the other guests on the Na Pali catamaran trip,” Monk said. “Have you spoken to Roxanne Shaw yet?”

Kealoha shook his head. “Nope, which one is she?”

“The one with the G-string,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” Kealoha said. “I remember her from the video.”

“I bet you do,” I said.

Kealoha stopped the cart a few yards from our golf balls and we got out.

“I was looking forward to talking with her,” Kealoha said. “Snorkel Rob says she only bought one ticket. Meaning she’s traveling alone. There’s nothing lonelier than being by yourself in paradise. I was thinking maybe she’d like some companionship from a lovable Hawaiian while she’s on the island.”

“I don’t think so,” Monk said, his back to us as he looked at the homes along the fairway. “We saw her with Lance last night. And she’s from Cleveland.”

Kealoha whistled, impressed. “You one sly mongoose, Mr. Monk. I’ll check her out and we can talk to her together. But her alibi is as good as his.”

I followed Monk’s gaze. I could see some gardeners at one home, a pool man at another.

“Did the Cleveland PD check Lance’s bank accounts?” I asked.

Kealoha nodded. “If Lance paid someone to kill his wife, the money didn’t come from his account or his wife’s. I’ll ask the Cleveland PD to look at Roxanne’s piggybank, but I gotta wonder if maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction.”

“Lance is the only one with a motive to kill his wife,” Monk said.

“But how could he have done it without hiring someone else? He wasn’t on the island at the time of her murder, and neither was Roxanne. Their alibis are confirmed by videotape and the other haoles on the boat.”

“I know,” Monk said.

“Maybe it was a thief who did it,” Kealoha said.

“One who didn’t steal anything?”

“It could happen.” Kealoha carefully selected a three iron from his bag. “Maybe he freaked after clobbering her.”

I wasn’t worried about Lance’s perfect alibi. After all, in Monk’s last case, the suspect was having open-heart surgery at the time of the murder. And Monk still proved she did it. So I had faith, even if Kealoha didn’t, that Monk would find the fatal flaw or the trickery in this alibi, too.

“You don’t want to use that club,” Monk said.

“Why not?”

“It’s a three,” Monk said. “Use a four or a six iron.”

“But a three is better for this shot,” Kealoha said.

“Three is never better,” Monk said. “Trust me on this.”

Kealoha gave me a look, put the three iron back, and took out a four. He went over to his ball and made his shot. The ball flew low and landed well short of the green. He scowled at Monk.

“I’m gonna start looking into the thief theory for the murder,” Kealoha said.

“It’s a waste of time,” Monk said.

I also used a four iron and didn’t do much better than Kealoha. Monk used a four and ended up landing in the sand bunker.

“Tough one.” Kealoha suppressed a smile and climbed into the golf cart.

I couldn’t resist rubbing it in myself. “Run into many sand traps around those windmills, Mr. Monk?”

We got back in the cart and drove up to the green. Monk was quiet, his gaze on the homes. Someone was installing a satellite dish on the roof of one of the houses. Monk checked his watch.

At the green, we each approached our golf balls and assessed the shots we had to make. Monk walked around the perimeter of the bunker. His ball sat in the center of the smoothly raked sand.

Monk stood there at the edge of the bunker, staring at the ball as if it were atop quicksand. I knew what he was thinking: How could he get to his ball without disturbing the raked sand? He was starting to sweat.

Kealoha, meanwhile, made his play. It took him one swing with an iron and three putts to get his ball into the hole for a score of two over par.

“Pretty okay,” he said. “For me.”

I glanced back at Monk, who wasn’t paying any attention to either of us. He stepped gingerly across the bunker to his ball, a sand wedge in his hand.

Kealoha and I both stopped to watch him now.

Monk looked at the hole, then looked at his ball and swung. The ball shot up out of the bunker in a spray of sand and landed on the green, rolled, and stopped about one putt short of the flag.

“Excellent shot, Mr. Monk,” I said, genuinely impressed.

But Monk was scowling. He backed out of the bunker, placing