Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Captain Stottlemeyer sat across from us in the interview room at the jail as Monk told him his theory about the glass. He looked as jaundiced as Lucarelli did when he sat in that same chair.

Perhaps it was the yellow glow of those energy-efficient lightbulbs combined with the yellow jumpsuit that created that effect. Or perhaps it was a physical symptom of incarceration in a windowless cell and hours of contemplating your impending lifelong imprisonment.

“My ex-wife won’t let my kids come see me, so the only information they are getting about all this is what they read online or see on the news,” Stottlemeyer said. “But you know what the worst part of this is?”

“The three Velcro strips on your jumpsuit,” Monk said. “It’s a blatant violation of the Geneva convention.”

“Velcro strips didn’t exist when they convened the Geneva convention,” I said.

“Giving a man only three Velcro strips is cruel and inhuman punishment,” Monk said. “Where the hell is that fourth strip? It’s pure, unrelenting psychological torture. I don’t know how you can stand it, Captain.”

“What’s worse is that Salvatore Lucarelli is in the cell across from mine,” Stottlemeyer said. “I have to look at that smug smile on his face.”

“Do you think he’s behind this?” I asked.

“It could be anybody. You make a lot of enemies in my job. Lucarelli is just one of them.”

“I’m sorry,” Monk said.

“What are you sorry about?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“This,” he said. “It’s all my fault.”

You can always count on Monk to make any situation about himself. It’s not that Monk is selfish, it’s just that he needs to believe that the whole world revolves around him. It’s the only way he can reasonably exert complete control over it.

“How is it your fault?” Stottlemeyer said.

“If I’d been more vigilant, I might have seen this coming,” Monk said.

“How? Are you psychic?”

“No,” Monk said.

“Then how could you have seen it coming?”

“A frame is built,” Monk said. “The construction was happening all around us.”

“It doesn’t mean that it happened in front of our eyes,” Stottlemeyer said.

“It had to,” Monk said. “Someone saw the opportunity to frame you and took it. Whoever it was knew you had a motive to kill Braddock.”

“That was obvious to anyone who was at the conference, which is why they swiped the glass afterwards and held on to it,” Stottlemeyer said. “But I have a hard time imagining that another cop did this.”

“Who else could it be?” I asked.

“There’s a large service staff at the hotel,” Stottlemeyer said. “One of them could have been an ex-con or related to someone Braddock put away.”

“Braddock isn’t the one sitting in jail,” I said.

“I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t about me,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m just the fall guy. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Peschel and Braddock were murdered within forty-eight hours of each other. Braddock got tips from Peschel, too.”

“You think the killer was someone Braddock put away based on a tip from Peschel,” I said.

Stottlemeyer nodded. “And knowing Braddock, he probably gave the guy a good beating first.”

“Where do we even begin to look?” I asked.

“You’d have to go over Braddock’s arrests in the last year or two that he was with the San Francisco police,” Stottlemeyer said. “You won’t find Bill’s name anywhere, since he never testified, but there might be a reference in the files saying that Braddock acted on a tip from a confidential informant.”

“That could take weeks,” I said. “And that’s assuming we could even get access to those files.”

“Nick can. He’s got all kind of sources in the department who talk to him when they shouldn’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s also in a perfect position to scrutinize the background of every member of the Dorchester staff, if he’s willing to do it.”

“He will,” I said.

“But what can I do?” Monk asked.

“What you do best,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Which is what?”

“Be yourself,” Stottlemeyer said. “If the clues are out there, you’ll see them, if you haven’t already.”

“If I’ve seen the clues,” Monk said, “why don’t I have the solution?”

“I don’t understand the way you think, Monk. It gives me a headache to even try. But I know you see and hear more than you think you do,” Stottlemeyer said. “My guess is that all those details are swirling around in your head like a million pixels waiting to combine into a picture.”

Maybe a few of them were in my head, too, which was why I got that ticklish feeling about the ten years between Steve Wurzel’s disappearance and Peschel’s death.

“I hope you’re right,” Monk said.

“I’m not hoping,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m counting on it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Monk said. “I don’t work well under pressure.”

“Think of the pressure I’m under,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m wearing a jumpsuit with three Velcro strips.”

Monk rose from his chair. “You’re right. What was I thinking? No suffering of mine can compare to the living hell that you are enduring. Your misery is my misery until this ordeal is over.”

“That’s the spirit,” Stottlemeyer said.

I called Danielle on our way out of the jail and asked her to get some operatives to take a look at any old cases that might have involved Peschel.

She had some information to give us on the Wurzels but I told her to give us the briefing at Monk’s apartment. I wanted to give her hell but not over the phone and definitely not at Intertect.

As soon as we got back, Monk hurried to the bathroom to give his hands a quick rinse. Danielle showed up about twenty-five minutes later, so I figured we had at least five more minutes to ourselves before he was finished washing his hands.

That was more than enough time for me to cut off her head and hand it to her, figuratively speaking, of course.

“We need to talk,” I said, echoing both Slade and my father. I thought about adding “young lady,” but it would have made me feel even older in comparison to her. “I thought we had an understanding.”

“I haven’t sent any more files over,” she said, stiffening up defensively. She was bracing for an attack and she was going to get one.

“I’m talking about trust,” I said. “When we first met, you told me that you worked for Mr. Monk first, Nick second, and that we never had to worry about your loyalty.”

“That’s right,” she said. “I meant it, too.”

“It’s not enough to say it, Danielle. You have to actually follow through.”

“I have,” she said.

“We ran into Nick at the Dorchester Hotel. He knew that Mr. Monk and I met with Phil Atwater in Mill Valley,” I said. “I can think of only one way he could have known about that.”

She loosened up, seemingly relieved, which was not the reaction I was expecting. “That’s because you don’t know about the tracker.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Each car in the Intertect fleet is equipped with a GPS locator unit,” she said. “It’s just like the ones that trucking companies install on their big rigs so they can keep track of their freight at all times.”

It gave me the creeps. “Intertect keeps its operatives under surveillance?”

She shook her head. “Every operative knows that there is a locator on their cars. Nick says it’s for our own safety and security. We’re in a dangerous line of work. If we get into trouble, Intertect can always send backup to our last-known location or, if we disappear from the grid, they can even backtrack where we’ve been for the last few weeks and retrace our steps.”

“Are our phones tapped, too?”

“Of course not,” she said. “Watching you isn’t the point. It’s about keeping our people safe.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Does Intertect log your keystrokes on your computer?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it’s not what you think.”

“What I think is that I am never using a computer or a phone at Intertect.”

“The company takes these measures for your protection and to guarantee that if you are killed in the course of your work, your investigation doesn’t die with you.”

“That’s cold,” I said.

“That’s pragmatic,” she said.

“So Nick knows where we’ve been and any research work that you’ve done for us.”

“I don’t know if he does or not, but if he wanted to, the information is readily available to him from his computer. Is there any reason you wouldn’t want him to know what we’ve been doing?”

“I cherish my privacy and Mr. Monk’s.”

“Welcome to corporate America in the digital age,” she said. “Intertect isn’t any different from any other big company as far as keeping tabs on the activity of its employees.”

“Do you have a personal computer that wasn’t supplied by Intertect?”

“Yes,” she replied. “My laptop.”

“From now on, I want you to use only that for any work you do for Mr. Monk,” I said. “If we want Nick to know what we are doing, we’ll tell him.”

I wasn’t willing to give up my nice Lexus just because it spied on me. But now I knew how all those female Russian spies and SPECTRE agents felt when they slept with James Bond.

“Trust works both ways,” Danielle said. “I need to know you’re going to give me the benefit of the doubt instead of immediately assuming that I’ve betrayed you in some way.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry. You’ve done great work. Mr. Monk is very impressed with you.”

“What about you?”

“You make me feel old and inadequate.” I said it without even thinking and shocked myself with the truth of it.

“You’re joking,” she said.

“I wish I were,” I said.

“I meant what I told you at Intertect,” Danielle said. “You and Mr. Monk are a team. You don’t realize just how experienced an investigator you really are. You could hold your own with any of our operatives.”

That was when Monk walked into the room. “There’s nothing quite as refreshing as washing your hands, brushing your teeth, irrigating your nasal passages, cleaning inside your ears, and flushing your eyes. I’m ready to take on the world.”

It seemed to me that Monk took on the world every time he walked out his front door. The world usually won.

“I have the information that you asked for on Linda Wurzel,” Danielle said, handing me a photograph.

“What about Dalberg Enterprises?” I asked, glancing at the picture.

Wurzel was tall and thin and wearing a blue pantsuit Hil lary Clinton would have loved and a necklace of big pearls that reminded me of Wilma Flintstone’s bling. Her unnaturally alert eyes, sharp jawline, sculpted nose, fish lips, bronze tan, and drum-tight brow suggested to me she’d had more than a few intimate encounters in a tanning bed with Mr. Botox, Mr. Collagen, and Mr. Scalpel.

“Linda Wurzel is Dalberg Enterprises,” Danielle said. “Dalberg is her maiden name. She was in real estate before she met her husband and his wealth allowed her to considerably enlarge her property portfolio.”

“So she’s the one who bought Peschel’s building,” I said. “Not her husband.”

“Yes,” Danielle said. “Though I don’t know how involved her husband was after their marriage in her real estate speculation. He might have provided more than just money. Since her husband’s death, she sits on the board of InTouchSpace and devotes the rest of her attention, and a considerable chunk of her wealth, to various philanthropic and arts organizations.”

“Where can we find her?” I asked.

“Mr. Slade made us promise to stay out of the Peschel investigation,” Monk said.

“He asked us to,” I said. “We didn’t promise. And this isn’t about the Peschel case, this is about Braddock’s murder.”

“I don’t see the connection,” Monk said.

“They are both dead, Captain Stottlemeyer is in jail, and I had a tickle.” I turned to Danielle. “So, where is Linda Wurzel?”

“She has an office downtown and an estate in Sea Cliff,” Danielle said. “And three days a week she has a standing appointment at JoAnne’s. She has one today.”

“Is that her psychiatrist?” Monk asked.

“Her beautician,” Danielle said. “JoAnne has a very exclusive salon in Chinatown.”

“That’s the last neighborhood I’d expect someone in her social class to go for manicure and a facial.” Chinatown was a historic neighborhood and popular tourist attraction, filled with tacky gift shops and great restaurants, but it wasn’t exactly known for trend-setting style. At least I thought it wasn’t.

“JoAnne’s is the place to go for the latest beauty treatments,” Danielle said. “All the socialites, heiresses, and debu tantes go there, as well as every actress and model north of LA, south of Seattle, and west of Santa Fe.”

“It’s that good?” I asked.

“That’s what all the magazines say,” Danielle replied. “I wish I could afford it. Geisha facials start at two hundred and fifty dollars and garra rufa pedicures can cost as much as two hundred.”

Thank God for Slade’s credit card.

“I suddenly feel the need to beautify myself,” I said. “How about you, Mr. Monk?”

“I just washed my hands, brushed my teeth, irrigated my nasal passages, cleaned my ears, and flushed my eyes,” Monk said. “I don’t see how you could improve on that without being hosed down and decontaminated by a certified hazardous materials team.”

“You’re about to find out,” I said.