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

But I had more pressing things to consider than romance. I had to get Monk focused on Trevor’s case again. The sooner Monk solved it, the better things would be for everyone.

And then I could carefully consider the emotional perils of my sporadic love life.

Julie could tell there was something different about me that morning, but her radar wasn’t so well-honed that she could tell why.

She did, however, wonder why a man’s SFFD T-shirt was among the clothes that were folded and washed on the dryer.

“You’ve never seen this?” I said. “It was a gift from the fire station after Mr. Monk solved the case.”

In a way, it was true.

“Isn’t it a little big for you?” she said.

“It keeps me warm in bed,” I said. That was true, too. She seemed to sense the honesty in that, or she’d lost interest in pursuing the subject, so she let it go.

We went out to the car so I could drive her to school. But I only got the car a few feet out of the driveway before I noticed there was something very wrong with the steering. I got out, looked under the car and saw some gunky fluid all over the driveway. I didn’t know anything about cars, but I knew it wasn’t good when they started bleeding.

So I called another mother to pick up Julie, getting myself deeper into debt with the local moms, and then I called the auto club. While I waited for the tow truck, I called Monk to let him know I’d be late.

The repair shop told me that some doohickey or thingy had broken and that it would take a day to get the part and make the repair. They arranged for me to drive a little Toyota Corolla while my Jeep was in the shop.

Monk was standing outside his apartment building when I arrived in my compact car. He was pacing on the sidewalk, patting his chest and taking deep, luxuriant breaths.

“What are you doing, Mr. Monk?”

“Breathing,” he said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Yes, I hear it’s really catching on,” I said. “Pretty soon, everybody is going to be doing it.”

“Air.” He took another deep breath and let it out slowly, watching it dissipate like smoke. “I really, really like it. You should try it.”

“I’ve had plenty,” I said. “So what’s our next step in the investigation?”

“Breathing,” he said. “Lots of breathing.”

“How does that get us closer to discovering who killed Ellen Cole?” I asked.

Monk rolled his shoulders. “I’m thinking maybe Trevor did it.”

“No, you’re not,” I said.

“All the evidence clearly points to him.”

“It’s pointing in the wrong direction,” I said. “You proved that.”

“There’s no hard evidence,” Monk said.

“You saw what you saw,” I said. “That’s evidence enough for me. And it usually is for you, too.”

“All those things I said down there, all those things I think I saw, you can’t really take them seriously,” Monk said. “I was under the influence.”

“Of what?”

“Toxic gas,” he said. “It clouded my thinking.”

“Mr. Monk,” I said, “you know and I know that he’s innocent.”

“I can’t go back to Los Angeles,” Monk pleaded.

“You have to,” I said. “You owe it to Sharona. She saved you. Now you have the chance to save her.”

“I would be saving her by staying here,” Monk said. “Trevor is a bad, bad man.”

“She loves him,” I said. “You know what it’s like to lose someone you love. We both do. Do you really want her to feel our pain, too?”

He took a deep breath, savoring it. “But I like to breathe.”

“You can breathe down there,” I said.

“I don’t want to have webbed feet,” Monk whined.

“Now you’re incentivized to wrap up the case quickly.”

“Incentivized?” Monk said.

“It’s a common word, Mr. Monk. Even twelve-year-olds use it.”

We were about to head inside and, I hoped, make arrangements to return to Los Angeles when my cell phone rang. It was Captain Stottlemeyer.

“Hey, Natalie, welcome back. I hear Monk made quite an impression down in La-La Land.”

“He still has more work to do there,” I said.

“It will have to wait,” Stottlemeyer said. “I need him.”

“He’ll be back,” I said.

“I need him now, Natalie.”

“Mr. Monk is busy,” I said. “He has another case.”

“If duty calls, I have to answer,” Monk said, “even if it means I can’t leave San Francisco ever again.”

“The other client has my sympathies,” Stottlemeyer said, “but she doesn’t have Monk on a retainer, which means we come first.”

He was right, of course. Damn him.

“Is this a simple case?” I asked.

“Would I be calling Monk if it was?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mr. Monk Goes to the Beach

Baker Beach is an idyllic half-mile stretch of smooth sand beneath the Presidio’s steep bluffs, which were topped with forests of cypress and pine. To the northeast was a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge that dramatically illustrated how the span earned its name. I lived in San Francisco and I still wished I had a camera with me so I could take a picture of the bridge from this angle.

Captain Stottlemeyer was waiting for us on the sand, leaning against a brown-and-yellow sign that warned beachgoers of hazardous surf and treacherous undertow. His face seemed to carry the same warning.

Monk strode up to Stottlemeyer and rubbed his hands together eagerly. He was so eager to work he didn’t even bring up the point that the sand was uneven and should be raked.

“Okay, what have we got?” Monk asked. “Let’s catch us a murderer.”

Stottlemeyer eyed him suspiciously. “What are you so jolly about?”

“You’ve given him a temporary reprieve from having to go back to LA,” I said.

“You don’t want to be within a one-hundred-mile radius of that place,” Monk said. “You