MR. MONK AND THE END OF THE ROAD
BY
BOB WRIGHT
AUTHOR'S NOTE: And so here it is, the last story in the series that you've been following over the last five years. The timing of the series' ending works out perfectly with it in general. I'll probably do a one-shotter after the final episode airs to give a complete wrap-up, but this will be the last full-length story; if some time down the line I feel there's another one I can tell, that will be told as a "lost" story taking place earlier than this one, which will close out the continuity of this series. So if you wish to review, this may well be your last opportunity to do so for one of my Monk stories.
A note on relativity to the actual canonical series: thus far the stories have taken place in relation to the exact point in time in the series at the time they were written, during or after seasons. I'll lay out that this story takes place before anything that will happen in the 8th and final season, so that anything that happens during that will interfere as little as possible with the events in the tale you are about to read. If something is messed up down the line, there's little I can do about it, but then again, don't hold what I write here as canon-only what makes it on the air should be considered canon.
If there are complaints I sometimes get, it is that sometimes I overload stories with characters. It's certainly a valid point to make, and one I should consider when trying to write for profit; if you feel this way, though, then you may not like this story as much.
As this is the end, thanks of course are in order, first off to Andy Breckman and the rest of the show's creative team for eight great years, including Tom Scharpling, David Hoberman, David Breckman, Daniel Dratch, Hy Conrad, Joe Toplyn, Fern Field, Anthoyn Santa Croce, Lee Goldberg, and the countless other members of the crew and staff. And of course many deep thanks to the cast for giving us characters we care so much for, to Tony Shalhoub, Traylor Howard, Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford, Stanley Kamel, Hector Elizondo, Bitty Schram, Emmy Clarke, Kane Richotte, Max Morrow, Tim Bagley, John Turturro, Jarrod Paul, Glenne Headley, Amy Sedaris, Dan Hedaya, and everyone else who helped make the show memorable. And last but not least, the sincerest thanks to you the readers for following this series so devotedly; I couldn't have possibly gotten as much satisfaction out of doing it without your support and patronage.
Adrian Monk and all related characters and indicia are registered trademarks of USA Network, Mandeville Films, and Touchstone Television. And now, sit back and enjoy one last trip into the world of Adrian Monk...
"Rise and shine," came the call up the cellblock, "Nine o'clock, time to get up, everyone. Beiderbeck, your attorney's here."
"Great," the fat man in cell #102 growled. He pushed his wheelchair back away from the bars. He was hoping one of the few remaining members of his once vast legal team had good news for him, because the clock was ticking for him. From his cell, he could very clearly make out the execution chamber at the end of the hall, and knew that in about a week, give or take a few days, he'd be making the one-way trip into it.
The breadth of his fall from the top still rankled him deeply. There had been a time when people cowered at the mere mention of his name. Now he was reduced to this: spending his last days in a narrow, cramped cell with no amenities at all and being treated like a peasant to boot. And it was all Adrian Monk's fault, as usual.
MONK. The very thought of the man's name made his blood boil. And to think that just over a year ago, he'd been this close to switching positions in life with Monk. Instead, everything had backfired in his face, as not only had his plan to kill the governor been thwarted, but both former Sheriff Rollins and the disgraced lieutenant governor had turned state's evidence against him to save themselves from the death penalty (and it had worked; Rollins had managed to get life with the chance for parole in seventy years, while the lieutenant governor ended up with a cushy twelve year sentence). Beiderbeck, meanwhile, had been stripped of all his privileges-his God-given privileges, he thought with a growl-and at the trial been found guilty of attempted first degree murder and sent straight to death row. The only bright spot was that at least he'd be spending his time with other people whose lives Adrian Monk had ruined-the closest thing to a family Beiderbeck had ever had.
But the bad news hadn't stopped there for him. The FBI had launched an all-encompassing investigation of his many businesses, and in the process had uncovered massive amounts of fraud and extortion, the scope of which rivaled anything Enron's executives had ever done. Thirty of Beiderbeck's top aides had been arrested and charged with a plethora of white collar crimes. Eleven had immediately chickened out and testified against their superior in exchange for reduced sentences. The rest had ended up with sentences between forty and five years, and Beiderbeck was saddled with another forty year sentence on top of his death sentence. He'd tried to appeal to the state justice department for a more lenient sentence, but in a sobering example of how much things had changed, the attorney general had not only refused his bribe but had immediately gone public about the attempt, as a result of which Beiderbeck was stripped of the right of all outside contact.
Not long thereafter, the governor had signed an executive order authorizing the speeding up of executions to ease death row overcrowding. And so, one at a time, Beiderbeck's "family" had taken the walk down the green mile to their doom. Each one had handled it a little differently. Infamous serial killer Leonard Stokes, already with three death sentences against him before he'd run into Monk, had gone first, laughing maniacally all the way down the hall just like the deranged sociopath he was. Stuart Babcock, with a whopping twelve death sentences, one for each of his victims, had gone next; he gulped a little when the guards took him from his cell, but had managed to keep it together to the end. Pat Van Rankin, who'd almost done the world a favor by trying to kill Monk's brother, had shown no remorse when his time had come and had gone out straight-backed and proud with a defiant expression. Former lottery salesgirl Vicky Salinas had been the same, showing no remorse at all as she was led away. Disgraced science teacher Derek Phillbey-Beiderbeck's former partner in crime during his attempt to have Monk killed off during his appearance on Jeopardy-was an entirely different story. Overcome with guilt for his crimes, Phillbey had tried to make a break for it when the door to his cell had been opened, and had made it down to the end of the hall and the door out of death row before the guards had caught up to him. Writhing wildly and begging desperately for his life, Phillbey had sobbed like a baby all the way down the hall-although he'd taken the chance to give Beiderbeck a few choice words about what he thought about him as he'd been carried past the fat man's cell-and continued crying like a wimp until he was pronounced dead fifteen minutes later.
The bad news had continued for Beiderbeck in the meantime: the FCC had determined he'd held several monopolies and ordered his empire shut down and his assets frozen. He'd yelled they had no constitutional right to do so, but they'd gone ahead in the end. His holdings were auctioned off to the highest bidders, as were his personal properties-including, most gallingly, Monk's former planned dream house that had held Beiderbeck's extensive pornography collection, now set to be destroyed. With no way for him to now pay them (and it severely rankled him that his money was even now being distributed to the needy as part of the judge's orders), his high-priced legal team was deserting him; several had made it clear they were going to sue him for back payments now. And as one final insult, he'd learned last week that his beloved dog Bentley, put up for adoption after his arrest, had been put down by Animal Control after having gone on an unprovoked rampage at a day care center-shot thirty-nine times after having gone after the officers on the scene, he'd heard ruefully. Somehow, he'd sworn, they'd pay for that someday.
Meanwhile, the executions continued: Paul Harley, the infamous "Torso Killer," who'd been slated to go right after Stokes, but had held out longer due to an above average legal team, had instead been the next after Phillbey. He'd held it together at first, but had broken down crying as he was led into the death chamber. Former Mint employee Phil Bedard, convicted for shooting up a barber shop, had been shaking from head to toe when his time had come and almost collapsed in fear several times before he'd gone into the death chamber. Murderous fashion mogul Julian Hodge had taken a brighter approach to his death, proclaiming to all on death row when they'd come for him that he was glad to be dying, as he'd always wondering what the latest fashions in Hell were. He'd also taken the chance to spite the authorities; he'd mooned the guards in contempt when they opened the cell, and once inside the execution chamber had broken into a loud, bizarre operetta that had ended only when he'd been injected with the sodium thiopental. Former porn kingpin Dexter Gold, arguably Beiderbeck's best "friend" on death row, had gone next. Dex had also put up a fight and had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of his cell. Unfortunately, whoever had been left in charge of the execution this time had botched the chemical injection somehow, and as a result Dex had screamed in agony for close to forty-five minutes, necessitating a second injection of chemicals in the end to finish him off.
Max Barton, who'd actually managed to talk his way out of jail briefly before Monk had thrown him right back in, had been the most recent to go; his face wracked with crushing guilt, he'd begged the warden before the door to the death chamber had closed to tell his wife how sorry he was for everything. And now it was Beiderbeck's turn-made soberingly clear by how the prison staff was forcing him onto a one liquid meal a day regiment to get him down to the right weight for execution. But he would be far from the last to go; there was a good reason the guards joked that the cellblock should be renamed, "Monk's Row," for no sooner had the detective's older victims been put out of their misery than new ones landed on death row to replace them. Directly across from Beiderbeck, disgraced financial mogul Nicholas Hallett stood next in line for execution after the fat man. Once a titan in the investment banking business, Hallett, arrested by Monk for killing his partner to cover up his affair with the man's wife, was now a thoroughly broken man who'd stopped eating and had tried to hang himself twice. To Beiderbeck's left, his new "best friend," former shock jock Max Hudson, screamed at the guards as often as he could that Monk had framed him and that he demanded a retrial. To the fat man's right, fallen chess champion Patrick Kloster spent most of his time playing chess with himself, perhaps secretly plotting an escape. Across the hall to Hallett's left, environmental radical Winston Brenner-also originally to have died earlier if not for deft legal maneuvering by his lawyers-spent most of his time pacing around his cell. To his left, George Teeger (mercifully for his own sake no relation to the odious Ms. Teeger, or Beiderbeck would have choked the life out of him if given a chance), was still in shock that he'd been caught in the first place and spent most of his time staring listlessly at the wall. So did disgraced oil company executive Fred Faracy, jailed for killing several monks, although he was still in a fighting spirit and spent much time going over with his lawyers how best to get his convictions overturned.
And then there was the strange case of Paul Buchanan. Originally only given life for the murder of his stepmother, Buchanan had landed on death row a few weeks back for murdering his cellmate, disgraced magician Carl Torini. Or so the official report was. But Beiderbeck had heard the rumors of Torini's last days: that objects in the cell had magically transported themselves to other places, that a strange mist often formed inside for no logical reason, that Buchanan claimed that his father and stepmother's angry spirits had returned to haunt him, and that at least one guard had sworn he'd seen Torini levitating Buchanan at one point. And then there was the fact that Torini's body had inexplicably disappeared from the prison morgue before it could be released for burial. But Beiderbeck was sure there wasn't really anything magic about what was going on; after all, the entire prison medical staff had confirmed Torini dead once his body was found, and the disposal staff had shown their overt incompetence many times before since the fat man's incarceration. Regardless of what had actually happened, though, the experience had snapped Buchanan's sanity, and even now Beiderbeck could hear him once again rattling the bars of his new cell and crying out that Torini's ghost had visited him the night before. It was now so bad, in fact, that he'd heard Buchanan's lawyers were petitioning to have his death sentence vacated on the grounds that he was no longer competent for execution.
It was a low growl at how much Monk had ruined these people's lives that he wheeled about to face Howard Klein, pretty much the only one of his lawyers still willing to work for him out of blind loyalty and nothing else. "Did you get what I asked for?" he grumbled.
"Right here, Mr. Beiderbeck," Klein extended a newspaper through the bars. Beiderbeck looked around to make sure the guards weren't watching and unwrapped it to reveal two dozen donuts inside. He greedily wolfed them all down at once; the hell with the warden's stupid weight guidelines, he'd decided. "Any luck with the appeal?" he inquired between bites.
"I'm afraid it doesn't look good, Mr. Beiderbeck," Klein shook his head, "The state Supreme Court turned down the last appeal. That was pretty much our last hope."
"And you made no attempts to finesse him, Klein? The chief justice is a personal friend of mine; he took twenty-five thousand from me not four years ago!"
"Well unfortunately, that was then; now, he said in private he can't afford to have any conflict of interest with you, sir. I'm sorry Mr. Beiderbeck; it has been a pleasure to serve as your personal counsel, but I'm afraid you're probably a dead man."
"Wonderful," Beiderbeck snarled, "I should have taken care of Adrian Monk right after his wife died when he wouldn't have cared if he lived or died. We certainly wouldn't have that accursed TV show about him that I've sued for years for slander. And we certainly wouldn't have THIS!" he thrust the paper in Klein's face. FESTIVAL FOR FAMOUS DETECTIVE BEGINS TOMORROW blared the headline over a rare smiling picture of Monk. "Just read all this!" the fat man continued complaining, "The whole country thinks Monk is great hero! They actually worship this...this...this...walking, talking freak!"
He tore the newspaper to pieces in a rage. "Oh but it doesn't matter in the end," he said, lowering his voice drastically. He leaned close to his lawyer. "Just between you and I, Klein, I may die this week, but I'm taking Adrian Monk with me," he whispered, a dark smile crossing his lips, "I've taken measures to ensure he doesn't leave his precious little celebration alive."
Klein gulped nervously at what he was being told. "Are you sure you want to discuss this here, sir?" he had to ask.
"Well Klein, you're a spineless little nobody who owes everything to me, so you're certainly not going to squeal, right?" his employer glared at him.
"Of course not, Mr. Beiderbeck. But how're you going to get to Monk to kill him? If there's fans everywhere..."
Beiderbeck laughed loudly and waved Klein right against the bars. "That's the beauty of the whole scheme," he hissed, "You see, I've managed to penetrate Monk's inner circle. Someone he trusts with his life now works for me."
"Really?" Klein was intrigued, "Who is it, sir?"
"Well if I told you, Klein, my secret agent wouldn't be much of a secret, would they?" Beiderbeck retorted, "All you need to know is that Agent X-for lack of a better cover name-has a deal with me: successfully kill Monk by any means whatsoever, and they become my sole beneficiary in the will. There's still several million left in the offshore accounts that I can bequeath to them. Plus, I may add, an additional five hundred thousand dollars bounty for everyone else in Monk's inner circle they can eliminate by the end of the week too. And further..."
Suddenly an alarm sounded. Half the guards on the cellblock ran pell-mell for the door back to the main prison. "Attention all personnel, escape in progress on Cellblock D," the warden's voice could be heard over the intercom. "Damn," Beiderbeck growled, slapping the bars in frustration.
"Is there a problem, sir?" his lawyer asked.
"Only that someone rather critical overheard me talking on the phone with Agent X at lunch the other day," the fat man muttered, "But no matter; even if the spy ends up getting to Monk, he won't believe a word he hears, not from..."
He abruptly stopped and flashed an innocent glance as one of the remaining guards walked by his cell. "Well, speaking of Monk, sir, won't he get suspicious if he sees someone he trusts trying to kill him?" Klein had to ask.
"Not at all," Beiderbeck laughed again, "For you see, you dimwitted dunce, Agent X isn't working alone. There's still people out there who owe me favors, and since this will probably will be the last chance, might as well use them now."
He sighed contently. Oh yes, Klein, revenge will be sweet," he smiled again, breaking into a sharp laugh, "What I'd give to see Monk driving up to that festival now, knowing that instead he's heading straight to his doom..."