Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The mysterious fate of Silicon Valley entrepreneur and visionary Steve Wurzel was widely known in San Francisco and probably across the nation. But I couldn’t blame Monk for not knowing about it, since it happened around the time of Trudy’s murder and his own complete mental breakdown.

So on our way back over the Golden Gate Bridge, I told Monk the story.

Wurzel set off early one foggy morning on his motorcycle to travel the winding coastal highway from his home in San Francisco to his weekend getaway in Mendocino, a picturesque village on the cliffs above the pounding waves of the Pacific.

He never arrived.

Much of the coastal route is a dangerous, twisting, two-lane highway running along the edge of jagged cliffs with nothing but a few planks of rotted wood between you and a spiraling plunge to the rocky surf below.

And where the road deviates away from the cliff’s edge, it snakes into dense forests and across bridges over deep gorges.

It’s an exhilarating and very scary drive, a road that offers spectacular views and the potential for spectacular deaths.

The Highway Patrol, the Mendocino County Sheriff, and the U.S. Coast Guard mounted a massive search along the coast, on land and at sea, but no sign of Wurzel or his motorcycle was found. After a few days, the official search was suspended.

Wurzel’s wife, Linda, and their Silicon Valley friends weren’t ready to give up. They mounted an ambitious, expensive, and exhaustive search effort of their own, but also failed to find him.

All of this happened only a few weeks before InTouchSpace received a massive infusion of venture capital funds and exploded on the Internet, becoming a global social phenomenon and making all of the early investors, including many who helped finance the search for Wurzel, unbelievably rich.

After Wurzel was declared dead, several women came forward claiming a share of his billion-dollar estate on the grounds that they were his lovers and that he’d fathered children with them. But without DNA to confirm paternity, the cases were thrown out.

What, if anything, any of that had to do with the murder of a senile old bartender was beyond my powers of reasoning and deduction. And, apparently, it was beyond Monk’s as well. Because after I was finished telling him the story, he didn’t make any teasing statements hinting that he’d solved the murder. Instead, he asked me to take him home so he could get back to work on the remaining cases that Slade had given him.

“What about the Peschel case?” I asked.

“We’ll have to wait and see what the captain has turned up,” Monk said. “Perhaps someone was released from prison who had a grudge. But I wouldn’t rule out Carol or her husband yet.”

“Don’t you wonder why Wurzel bought Peschel’s tavern?”

“I suppose Wurzel was betting on the neighborhood becoming more desirable in the future and the property increasing significantly in value.”

“It just seems odd,” I said.

“The only connection between the two of them is that Wurzel bought Peschel’s business and Peschel invested in InTouchSpace at about the same time. What is odd about that?”

It was as if we’d switched roles.

Usually, he was the one saying that something was odd and I was the one questioning it. The frustrating thing was that I couldn’t even say exactly what was odd about this, except that thinking about it gave me a tickle in my chest.

“They’re both dead,” I said. “Wurzel disappeared under mysterious circumstances and Peschel was murdered.”

“Ten years apart,” Monk said. “There’s nothing odd about that.”

“Both of their last names end with the letters ‘e-l,’” I said.

Monk gave me a look.

“Okay, that was stupid. But if there’s nothing odd, why did you cock your head when I told you at the bookstore that Wurzel died ten years ago?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You cocked your head, like a chicken,” I said, demonstrating by cocking my own. “You do that whenever you hear something that doesn’t fit or that makes something fit that didn’t fit before.”

“You mentioned death, and whenever I hear about a death in the context of a murder investigation, my interest is piqued.”

“There you go,” I said. “You admit it: You’re piqued.”

“The pique passed,” Monk said. “My head is swimming with murders and deaths over the last few days. I am having trouble keeping them all straight.”

“I’m telling you, Mr. Monk, there’s something ticklish about this.”

“Ticklish?”

“I feel a tickle, right in the middle of my chest.”

“Maybe you are having a heart attack,” Monk said.

“I am not having a heart attack.”

“Do you feel any shooting pains in your left arm?”

“No, but I’m beginning to feel one in my head,” I said.

“We should stop by a hospital.”

“I’m fine.”

“You have heart palpitations and a throbbing headache,” Monk said. “That’s not fine. It’s fatal.”

“Something’s bugging me, that’s all,” I said.

“Heart palpitations and a throbbing headache. It could be the onset of a massive stroke.”

“I think it’s my subconscious,” I said. Perhaps after all the years of working for Monk, and all the murders that he’d solved with me tagging along, I was finally developing some detective instincts of my own.

But what good would they do me if I had no idea what my instincts were trying to tell me?

“We should stop and see Dr. Bell,” Monk said. “He can help you with that. Maybe he can help me, too, as long as we’re there.”

“I have a better idea,” I said.

“What could be better than seeing Dr. Bell? It’s on the way. You’ll thank me later.”

I flipped open my cell phone and, breaking the law requiring motorists to use hands-free units while driving, I called Danielle. I asked her to give us a rundown on Dalberg Enterprises and to find out where we could bump into Linda Wurzel.

“Why would we want to meet her?” Monk asked after I finished the call.

“I don’t,” I said. “You do.”

While Lansdale and the forensics unit searched Captain Stottlemeyer’s apartment, Lieutenant Randy Disher sat at his desk, racked with guilt.

He knew he was doing what he had to do, but he couldn’t help feeling that he was betraying his commanding officer, his mentor, and his friend.

Disher tried to distract himself from his despicable behavior by going through the statements taken from the hotel guests who were on Braddock’s floor the night of the murder.

A detective from Wichita stayed in the room next to Braddock’s. He said that someone knocked on Braddock’s door around ten p.m. and, shortly thereafter, he heard a thump and the sound of a glass breaking, but nothing that alarmed him or made him think there was trouble.

The detective’s statement would go a long way towards convincing a jury that Braddock was killed in his seventh-floor hotel room between ten and ten thirty p.m., which, unfortunately, was the same time that Captain Stottlemeyer said that he was sitting by himself in a conference room on the second floor.

Supposedly.

Disher scolded himself for thinking that way, for yet another betrayal of his friend, in thought if not in deed.

But Disher had no choice. He had to follow the evidence where it led him. And as the captain said, this case could make or break his career. He couldn’t afford any mistakes.

Disher had called the deputy chief, half hoping that his boss would countermand his decision to search the captain’s apartment. But, to Disher’s dismay, the deputy chief agreed with Disher’s actions and congratulated him on not letting his loyalty cloud his judgment.

It didn’t make Disher feel any better.

His last hope was that Lansdale ’s search would come up empty. But that hope was dashed the moment Lansdale walked in and Disher saw the evidence bag in his hand.

Stottlemeyer’s tie was in it.

Disher bolted from his seat and quickly led Lansdale back into the corridor.

“What are you thinking, waving the evidence bag around the squad room?” Disher said. “Do you want everyone to know what we’re doing?”

“They will pretty soon anyway,” Lansdale said. “We found the tie buried in the captain’s trash can outside. Forensics says the tie is a positive match with the fiber recovered from Braddock and that there’s blood on it.”

Disher snatched the bag from Lansdale and looked at the tie inside.

There was no denying it. It matched the description of the tie that Braddock was strangled with. And he knew in his gut that a DNA test would match the blood on the tie with Braddock, too.

If the suspect were anybody else but Stottlemeyer, Disher wouldn’t be hesitating over what to do next. It was a no brainer. The case was closed. They had their killer.

“I know you two are close,” Lansdale said. “If you can’t do what has to be done, I can.”

Disher glared at Lansdale, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his billfold. “Go to lunch at Sorrento ’s and take the rest of the squad with you. And the clerical staff, too. I want everybody out. It’s on me.”

He handed some cash to Lansdale. They shared a look. Lansdale gave Disher his money back.

“No, it’s on me,” Lansdale said. He walked past Disher into the squad room.

Disher hid the evidence bag behind his back and a few moments later Lansdale came out, leading a dozen other people towards the stairs.

One of the detectives called out to Disher, “Lansdale’s taking us all to Sorrento ’s to celebrate his first week in Homicide. Are you joining us?”

“I’ll catch up,” Disher said.

When they were gone, Disher took a deep breath and went back into the squad room. The only one left inside was Stottlemeyer, who was in his office. He waved Disher inside.

“What’s the special occasion?” Stottlemeyer asked as Disher entered, his hands behind his back.

“The end of Lansdale ’s first week in Homicide,” Disher said.

“There must be more to it than that for him to be taking everybody out to celebrate,” Stottlemeyer said. “Did you close the Braddock case already?”

Disher nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s great news, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said, rising from his seat. “So why are you looking so glum?”

“I still have to make the arrest,” Disher said.

“That’s the best part,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Not this time,” Disher said, and showed Stottlemeyer the evidence bag that was behind his back. “This is the murder weapon.”

“That looks like my tie,” Stottlemeyer said, walking around the desk to get a closer look at it.

“It is,” Disher said.

“I don’t think I like where this conversation is going.”

“I know that I don’t,” Disher said.

Stottlemeyer met his gaze, then looked past Disher to the empty squad room. He put it together and winced from the emotional sting.

“You think that I murdered Braddock?”

“You hated him, sir. The file you gave me documents that.”

“He was a dirty cop, Randy. I hate any cop who abuses people, manufactures evidence, or is on the take.”

“But this dirty cop humiliated you in front of hundreds of cops from across America,” Disher said. “You were outraged. Everybody knows it. You even attacked Braddock at a wake. You had to be restrained.”

Stottlemeyer took a deep breath and held up his hands in front of his chest in submission. “I admit I lost control, but there’s a big difference between slugging a guy in the mouth and murder.”

“He was strangled with a tie like this on the same night that you were in the hotel. We found it in your trash. There’s blood on it that we both know will turn out to be his.”

“It is,” Stottlemeyer said. “I got it on my tie at the wake, which is why I threw it out when I got home. I’m an experienced homicide detective. If I wanted to dispose of a murder weapon, do you think I’d just drop it in my trash can?”

“Maybe you weren’t thinking rationally,” Disher said. “Anger does that to a person.”

“I’m rational now, and looking at your case objectively as your commanding officer, I’m telling you that you don’t have the evidence to make this charge stick. All you have is my tie and I’ve explained how I got blood on it. And, to my embarrassment, I’ve got lots of witnesses who can confirm that story,” Stottlemeyer said. “Yes, I was in the hotel that night but I didn’t leave the second-floor conference room there and I’ll bet that the security camera footage backs me up on that.”

“The footage shows when you arrived and when you left the hotel. There are no cameras on the second floor, but there are in the elevator.”

“And did you see me on it? No. Did you see me in the stairwells? No.”

“At ten fifteen, someone in a beefeater outfit that obscured his face got into the elevator on the second floor and took it up to the seventh,” Disher said. “We believe the killer took off the uniform, stashed it in a utility closet, then went to Braddock’s room and killed him. He then put the costume back on and returned to the second floor.”

“It could have been any one of the hundreds of people in the hotel that night,” Stottlemeyer said. “You have no evidence that puts me in Braddock’s room.”

“There was a broken glass on the floor. Your fingerprints were on it,” Disher said.

“Oh,” Stottlemeyer said.

“The theory is you told him that you came to apologize, you had a drink with him, and when his back was turned, you slipped your tie around his throat and strangled him. The table was tipped over in the struggle and the glass broke. You forgot about it.”

Stottlemeyer rubbed his mustache. “It’s obvious what’s happening here. Someone is setting me up.”

“That’s not for me to decide,” Disher said. “My job is to follow the evidence.”

“Forget the evidence for a minute. You know me, Randy.”

“Not lately, Captain. Over the last couple of weeks, you’ve been a different person.”

“One stupid enough to murder a cop with his own tie and leave behind a glass with his fingerprints on it?”

“You also fired Monk.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“The deputy chief thinks it was so Monk wouldn’t be around to investigate Braddock’s murder.”

“If I intended to murder Braddock, don’t you think I would come up with a better plan than this?”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Disher said, his voice cracking, his hands shaking. “I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Paul Braddock.”

“You’re making a mistake, Randy.”

“I certainly hope so,” Disher said, and gave Stottlemeyer his handcuffs. “Could you put these on, please?”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because I’m going to throw up.” Disher hurried to the garbage can beside the desk and gagged into it. Between heaves, he tried to read the captain his rights.

“It’s okay,” Stottlemeyer said, cuffing his own hands behind his back. “I know them.”