Mr. Monk in Outer Space by Goldberg, Lee (best books to read for self development TXT) 📗

they could live above the riffraff they exploited and be certain that everyone could see the monuments to their success.

That’s still true today, whether your money is old or new or just on paper.

Stottlemeyer and Disher, being poorly paid civil servants, would have been uneasy around so much money and power, which is probably why they opted to let us see Veronica Lorber on our own. I think the captain believed that a black-sheep rich girl and a socially clueless detective would be more effective with the widow Lorber than they would be. Money and influence are kryptonite for people whose livelihoods depend on the whims of politicians.

So I parked at the cul-de-sac at the end of Broadway, where the street met the lush forest of the Presidio and the top of the Baker steps that led down to the Marina District.

I saw two painters with their easels standing at the top of the Baker Street steps facing the spectacular view. One artist was painting a picture of the bay, the other was painting the painter who painted the bay.

I looked over my shoulder as we walked to the Lorber mansion to see if maybe there was someone else above us perhaps painting a picture of a painter painting a picture of a painter painting the bay. I bet you can’t say that four times fast.

There were two stone lions, each with one paw on a stone ball, on either side of the Lorbers’ front gate. Monk was troubled by this; he liked the symmetry of the matching lions but felt they should have a ball under each paw.

He didn’t say that, but I could tell. I’d been with Monk a long time. And like I said before, he’s not real good about hiding his feelings.

I wasn’t wild about the lions either. Lots of rich people had them and I had no idea what they were supposed to symbolize. Why lions? And why did they have their paws on stone balls?

The front door, the size of the entrance to Oz, was opened by a uniformed butler. He looked like a turtle who’d evolved into a man fifty years ago and traded his shell for a tuxedo.

“Your lions only have one ball,” Monk said.

The butler raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“This is Adrian Monk and I’m his assistant, Natalie Teeger,” I said. “Captain Stottlemeyer of the San Francisco Police arranged an appointment for us with Mrs. Lorber.”

“Indeed,” the butler said, stepping aside. “She’ll see you in the study. This way, please.”

We stepped inside and followed him down a marbled corridor. My grandfather was right about everybody having teeth, but it looked to me like there was more money to be made in selling the food they chewed with them.

The butler led us into a massive room with a ceiling high enough to accommodate the space shuttle.

Monk staggered back from the study in horror and revulsion. I’ve seen him do the same thing when confronted with a bowl of granola.

It wasn’t the ceiling that freaked him out, it was the decor. It looked like the trophy room of a hunter’s lodge. The walls were crowded with mounted fish and the decapitated heads of deer, elk, antelopes, bears, and God knows how many other creatures. There were animal skins on the floors and draped on the furniture. An enormous stuffed bear stood in one corner in an eternal snarl at a glass-eyed tiger across the room.

I wondered if Brandon Lorber had personally shot every cow that Burgerville used for its beef. But he didn’t limit his killing to the animal kingdom. There was even a colorful collection of butterflies spread out in display boxes on a few of the tables.

Veronica Lorber sat in a chair beside the bear. She was probably the only trophy Lorber had bagged that wasn’t dead and stuffed.

If Dolly Parton fell into a vat of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream and ate her way out, she’d look like Brandon Lorber’s widow.

Her eyes were red, her cheeks tear-streaked. She clutched a balled-up tissue in her fist like a lifeline. It was a good thing the tissue was in her hand and not on the floor or Monk might have called in a strike team from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The butler announced us as if we were arriving at some grand ball. “Mr. Adrian Monk and Ms. Natalie Teeger are here to see you, madam.”

“Thank you, Maxwell,” Veronica said.

The butler gave a slight bow and shuffled away.

“Do come in, Mr. Monk,” Veronica said with a sniffle.

“I can’t,” Monk whispered to me.

“Just a moment, please,” I said to Veronica with a smile, then turned to Monk. “What’s wrong?”

“What isn’t?” Monk said.

I looked back at the room and tried to see it from Monk’s point of view. Animal heads of all sizes, shapes, and species everywhere. Nothing matched.

In Monk’s worldview, it was complete chaos. If they were going to have deer heads on the wall, there should have been an even number of the same size heads lined up in a neat row, not mixed with elk and antelope. Every animal should have had its own row. And don’t get me started on the butterflies. They shouldn’t even have been in the same room.

“I know that it’s a mess, Mr. Monk, and that the deer shouldn’t mingle with the elk and the butterflies,” I said, “but you can do this.”

“Who cares about the mess?”

“You do,” I said. “You always do.”

“That’s the least of the problems,” Monk said.

“Is it her sniffling that’s bothering you?”

“Open your eyes, woman!” Monk pointed into the room. “It’s a slaughterhouse!”

“What did you say?” Veronica asked.

“He says it’s a beautiful house,” I said, then lowered my voice to Monk. “Please keep your voice down. It’s just a trophy