Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

As it turned out, Dr. Bell’s hunch was right. I arrived at Monk’s apartment the next morning to find him already hard at work at his kitchen table, a rolling cart of files at his side.

More cases from Intertect.

Black belt or not, I was going to kick Danielle’s tight little butt into the street.

“Where is she?” I demanded.

“Who?” Monk asked.

“Danielle Hossack.”

“I have no idea,” Monk said. “But I hope that wherever she is she’s getting me the information that I asked for.”

“Then if she isn’t here, who brought you all those files?”

“A detective from Intertect came to my door first thing this morning,” Monk said. “All that publicity must have brought in a slew of new cases. It’s a good thing we don’t have anything to go on with the Peschel case yet because I’m swamped. I can get these cases out of the way first.”

I turned and headed back to the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Down to Intertect to see if I can give Danielle a hand.”

I was thinking of giving it to her the same way that Stottlemeyer gave it to Braddock.

“That’s a good idea,” Monk said. “I’m so glad to see you two are working so well together.”

I kept on walking so he couldn’t see my red-faced anger. I broke a few speed laws heading downtown and was worked up into a fine rage by the time I got to Monk’s office at Intertect.

Danielle was sitting at her desk, typing away on her computer. I stabbed a finger in her direction.

“Come with me,” I said, marching past her into Monk’s office. As soon as she was inside, I slammed the door behind her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked oh so innocently.

“You are,” I said. “You’re fired.”

Her eyes went wide. “Why?”

“I told you not to send any more files to Mr. Monk and you did it anyway,” I said. “You’re looking out for Intertect, not for Mr. Monk. That’s unacceptable.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Another one of those rolling file drawers was delivered to his apartment this morning. It didn’t roll to his place by itself.”

“I didn’t send them,” she said angrily, but I could tell that it wasn’t directed at me. “I wouldn’t do that to him or to you.”

“If you didn’t, then who did?”

Her face tightened and she glanced towards the door. “There is only one person with the authority to send files to anyone.”

The way she said it left little doubt who she was talking about. I knew I owed her an apology, but I didn’t want to do anything that would slow my momentum or cool my anger.

I threw open the door, marched down the hall, and blew past Slade’s buxom secretary, opening the door to his corner office and entering uninvited. His secretary tried to chase after me, but she was too top-heavy to keep up.

Slade was hunched over a putter, knocking golf balls into what looked like a silver dustpan, which was engraved with the words, INTOUCHSPACE INVITATIONAL GOLF TOURNAMENT. His office was larger than Monk’s apartment. There were lots of pictures on the walls of him with his arm around celebrities, most of them women.

“Are you insensitive, greedy, or just plain stupid?” I said.

“I can be all of the above,” Slade said. “I suppose it depends on the situation and how much alcohol is being served.”

Slade waved his secretary away and she closed the door behind me.

“You’ve heard of killing the goose that laid the golden egg? Well, that’s exactly what you are doing with Mr. Monk,” I said. “You’ve giving him way too much work to do.”

“And I’m paying him handsomely for it. Not only that, he’s closing the cases as fast as I can give them to him. He enjoys it.”

“Kids like ice cream, but that doesn’t mean you let them gorge themselves on the stuff,” I said. “He can’t keep up this pace.”

“I haven’t heard any complaints from him.”

“You’re hearing it from me,” I said. “As of now, he’s taking a break.”

“He’s only worked four days and he already wants a vacation? That’s got to be a record.”

“So is the number of cases he’s solved for you this week,” I said. “This is nonnegotiable. If you don’t like it, fire him.”

“Maybe I’ll just fire you,” he said.

“Mr. Monk will go with me,” I said.

“Why? He doesn’t have to rely on you anymore,” Slade said. “I can give him all the assistants that he wants.”

“So fire me and see what happens,” I said.

He looked at me for a long moment, then broke into a smile. “Let’s not overreact, Ms. Teeger. Monk has certainly earned a breather. We can revisit this discussion next week.”

“No, we won’t,” I said. “All his cases will go through me from now on and I will divvy them out to him as I see fit.”

“You’re very protective of Mr. Monk,” Slade said.

“If you’re smart, you will be, too. He’s going to be worth a lot of money to Intertect if you treat him right. I suggest you start now.”

I turned on my heel and walked out. Danielle was waiting outside the door along with Slade’s startled secretary. I blew right past them and headed back towards Monk’s office. Danielle hurried behind me, catching up with me once I got inside. She closed the door behind her as I sagged into the seat behind Monk’s desk.

I started to shake. I think it was from all that excess adrenaline in my veins.

“I owe you an apology,” I said.

“No worries,” she said. “You were terrific.”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard what you said to Nick. The whole office did.”

“I was that loud?”

“You were practically roaring. Mr. Monk is very lucky to have you in his corner.”

“He might not think so when he finds out what I’ve done.”

“It’s what you do that allows him to succeed,” Danielle said. “He’s the world’s best detective because you are his assistant.”

“If you’re kissing up for a raise, you’re doing it to the wrong person. Technically, you work for the guy I just yelled at.”

She smiled. “I think I have as much to learn from you as I do from Mr. Monk.”

“Speaking of learning,” I said, eager to change the subject, “what information do you have on the Peschels that I can take back with me for Mr. Monk?”

“I’m still working on the background reports. However, the Mill Valley police managed to find some traces of blood and skin on the edge of the kitchen counter that they’ve matched to Bill Peschel,” she said. “The coroner took a second look at Peschel’s head wound and now believes he sustained it in the kitchen and not the pool.”

“Brilliant deduction on her part,” I said.

“But necessary,” she said. “Now it’s confirmed that Peschel’s death wasn’t an accident.”

“It was the moment Mr. Monk said it was murder,” I said. “That’s another thing you’ll learn. When it comes to murder, he’s never wrong.”

What you’re about to read now, and in a few places later on in this story, happened to Lieutenant Randy Disher when I wasn’t around. I’m not a mind reader, so I can’t tell you firsthand what was going on. But I’ve heard enough about it from him and from the other people involved that I think I can give you a good picture of what occurred.

When Disher dreamed of being a cop, filling out mountains of paperwork wasn’t part of the fantasy. But that was how he spent most of his time when he should have been on the streets, hunting down leads, taking on the syndicate, and speeding through San Francisco in a green ’68 Mustang like Steve McQueen in Bullitt.

That was what he was born to do, not paperwork. That was why he became a cop. And that was why his nickname was Bullitt. He gave it to himself on his first day at the police academy but, for reasons he could never figure out, it didn’t stick.

Neither did Dirty Randy.

But he persevered. Over the years, he’d drop the nickname into conversation when it felt right and whenever a new detective transferred into Homicide, he’d introduce himself like this:

“Welcome to Homicide, hombre. I’m Lieutenant Randy Disher, but everybody calls me Bullitt.”

He did it again a few days ago when Detective Jack Lansdale transferred in. But this time he tried to manipulate the situation some more to improve his chances.

“What do they call you?” Disher asked.

“Jack,” he said.

“I mean, what’s your nickname?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Tell you what, you think of one and that’s what I’ll call you,” Disher said. “Pretty soon everybody will pick up on it. How about the Jackal?”

Moonface would have been more appropriate, Disher thought. Judging by Lansdale ’s face, he’d picked at every zit he’d ever had as a kid. He must have had a lot of zits.

“Jack is fine,” Lansdale said.

“But it could be short for Jackal,” Disher said. “I hear you’re like a wild dog when you get on a case.”

Disher gave him a big wink. He hadn’t heard anything about Lansdale, though he was pretty sure that his own exploits were legend by now.

“No, I’m not,” Jack said. “I pride myself on being slow and methodical.”

“Then it’s an ironic nickname, which is even better, though they call me Bullitt because they mean it.”

“Mean what?”

“That I’m cool, I’m tough, and the ladies dig me, like McQueen in the movie,” Disher said. He couldn’t afford a Mustang, but he drove a Ford Focus, which at least was from the same company. “I’ll call you Jackal and you call me Bullitt, not just when we are talking to each other, but whenever we talk about each other to other people.”

Disher had thought it could really work this time, but then Monk showed up with that Diaper Genie for him. Lansdale hadn’t looked at him the same way since.

Captain Stottlemeyer called out for him from inside his office.

Disher hated it when the captain did that, summoning him like a slave.

Why couldn’t Stottlemeyer get up, walk to his door, and ask him to come in? Or pick up the phone and call his extension? That would be the respectful thing to do.

But no, the captain had to bark from his desk like an irritated pit bull.

Stottlemeyer had been in a sour mood from the instant the new operating budget landed on his desk last week. And his mood had gotten progressively worse since his appearance onstage with Monk at the national homicide detectives’ conference, which, much to Disher’s dismay, he hadn’t been invited to. (Disher didn’t care about attending their panel; he just wanted to hang out with other homicide cops, talk shop, and get his Bullitt persona out there to the rest of the country.)

Just when Disher thought that Stottlemeyer couldn’t get any gloomier or more short-tempered, Nicholas Slade grabbed all the glory for Rhonda Carnegie’s arrest on the judge murders and humiliated the department.

Now Stottlemeyer was practically foaming at the mouth day and night.

Disher heard that Stottlemeyer was so unhinged that he’d slugged a cop at a funeral yesterday.

Not wanting to be the victim of the captain’s next violent outburst, Disher grabbed his notebook and hurried into Stottlemeyer’s office, but not before shooting a glance at Lansdale, who sat at the next desk.

“High-level strategic conference,” he said. “Need-to-know only.”

Disher closed the door behind him and approached the captain’s desk. “What’s up, sir?”

Stottlemeyer rubbed his eyes and sighed. “A homicide has just come in. Investigating this one is going to be like dancing in a minefield.”

“Fine by me,” Disher said in his best Eastwoodian snarl. “Let’s dance.”

Stottlemeyer looked up at him with a weary gaze. “I’m serious, Randy, this case could be a career killer if you’re not careful.”

Disher felt a tingle of nervous excitement in his stomach. Did he hear what he thought he’d just heard? Did the captain recuse himself from the case?

“Where are you going to be?” Disher asked.

“Right here, riding this desk. You’re going to be on your own on this one, reporting directly to the deputy chief.”

“You’re telling me to go over your head?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

This didn’t make any sense to Disher. It was one thing for the captain to let him take the lead on a case, but quite another to tell him not to report to him at all.

Then he realized what the captain meant when he said the case could be a career killer if he mishandled it.

This wasn’t just another homicide investigation.

This was a field test of Disher’s ability to lead.

Running this investigation would be a real-world demonstration of his abilities, a chance to prove himself directly to the powers-that-be.

Well, it was about time.

“Why are you taking yourself out of the loop?” Disher asked.

“I have a conflict of interest,” Stottlemeyer said.

Disher nodded. “I understand. You can’t be objective when it comes to me. You’re already biased in my favor. The brass wants to see me in action and come to their own conclusions about my command and leadership skills.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This field test,” Disher said. “I’m ready for it. The tougher the better. That’s why they call me Bullitt.”

“Who does?”

“Them,” Disher said, waving his hand in the air as if clearing smoke. “Those in the they. Not all of the they, but some of them. Those theys do.”

Stottlemeyer sighed. “It’s not an official test, though I suppose that it could end up being one.”

“Then why are you cutting yourself out?”

“Because I know the victim,” he replied.

“How do you know him?”

“I broke his nose yesterday.” Stottlemeyer reached into a drawer and tossed a file across the desk to Disher. “The victim is Detective Paul Braddock, Banning Police Department. His body was found in his hotel room by a maid at the Dorchester this morning.”

Disher picked up the file. “What’s this?”

“A file that I kept on Braddock,” Stottlemeyer said. “He used to be a detective here until I forced him out.”

“I didn’t know you did time in Internal Affairs.”

“I didn’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “This was a personal project. Ten years ago, I told him he could quit or I could give that file to IA. He quit.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because he was a dirty cop who liked to beat people,” Stottlemeyer said. “And I wanted to spare the department the embarrassment.”

“This is ancient history,” Disher said, holding up the file.

“What does it have to do with his murder?”

“Maybe nothing,” Stottlemeyer said. “But if you’re not careful, the past has a way of coming back to haunt you. Or kill you.”

“I’m on it,” Disher said, and left the captain’s office, the file tucked under his arm. He pointed at Lansdale and headed out of the squad room. “You’re with me, Jackal.”

“It’s Jack,” Lansdale said, getting up and taking his coat from the back of his chair.

“It’s whatever I say it is, Detective. We’ve got a murder to solve,” Disher said. “Watch and learn. The clock is ticking and the hands are dripping blood.”