MR. MONK AND THE UNPOPULAR BANKER
BY
BOB WRIGHT
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Several of the bits you'll read in this first chapter were first brought up in my previous story, Mr. Monk Goes to Disneyland. It may help to read that one first to get a little idea of why some things are the way they are in this story.
Adrian Monk and all related characters and indicia are registered trademarks of USA Network, Mandeville Films, and Touchstone Television. And now, as always, sit back and enjoy the story.
The chilly March twilight was settling down over San Francisco for yet another evening. People bustling around on the streets were bundled up as well as they could be against the cold and the brutal wind that had been blowing of the Bay all day.
Adrian Monk was not one of these people. He was at the very moment putting the finishing touches on his daily cleaning of the bathroom in his apartment—and just in time, too, for a quick glance at his watch told him that his favorite new show was about to go on again in five minutes.
He did a few more quick scrubs with the mop he was holding along the length of his tub—along the clearly delineated laser light lines he'd set up for the job—then disconnected the rag with a set of tweezers from his pocket and carried it to the garbage can and dropped it in. He then stepped over to the already immaculately clean sink and washed his hands off with 100 anti-bacterial soap. All he had to do now was toss the paper towel he'd dried his hands with into the trash as well and give the sink one more scrubbing just to be sure, and he'd be done.
Adrian gave the bathroom one final checking over, and rushed into the den like a child. Nothing could make him miss Crimestoppers U.S.A., the new ABC show that was sworn—especially by Executive Producer Tim Kight, whom Adrian had finalized several things he'd wanted to have on the show with during several calls to his new larger office at Disneyland—to bring in the worst offenders out there and ask for help on crimes that remained unsolved. Adrian had found that watching the show was a rare great boon in his life; of the thirty-eight cases that had been profiled on the show so far, the detective had been able to solve nine from the comfort of his living room. His assistant Natalie had repeatedly asked him to come watch the show with her and her daughter, but Adrian had flatly refused these offers; for reasons he knew Natalie could never understand, he felt more comfortable watching the show alone.
He flicked on the TV and turned it to Channel 7. The KGO logo popped up on the screen for a few seconds, followed by the thunderous opening strains of the Crimestoppers U.S.A. theme. Adrian flopped down in the sofa, laying his head in the exact location where Trudy had requested him to so many times before. He was eager to get this week's show over with, since Kight had called him in the middle of the week to tell him that it looked liked they would be profiling Trudy's murder on next week's show. Adrian was wondering when the producer's own tragic story might make the air, as Kight's son had been tragically killed in a hit and run several years ago, and the killer remained at large even now. The detective had requested and received a copy of Joshua Kight's case file from the Los Angeles police department, but hadn't yet been able to make any breakthroughs with it despite having read over it from front to back three times already. Still, he wasn't going to give up on it; his own experience with Trudy's case made him sympathize with what Kight and his wife were going through, and he felt he owed it to them to give them their own closure.
He shifted around slightly on the sofa as the opening credits continued rolling. Earlier in the week, Kight had called him with even better news: although the David Ruskin incident had panicked the Walt Disney Company enough to cancel the movie script on Adrian that Benjy had written, which the detective had pitched to them on a recent trip to Disneyland, Kight had stepped forward and set in place a compromise whereby Adrian's life story would be told once a week on cable. Already, the detective had heard on the phone from an almost too-cheerful Sharona that her son was writing out treatments for the first five episodes of the would-be series, most of which he'd witnessed firsthand as Adrian had slowly started coming out of his isolation following Trudy's murder. Moreover, the boy now had enough material filed away from the e-mails he'd been receiving from Julie every week on Adrian's further cases to more or less ensure that as long as the brass had confidence in it, the coming show could run for at least six seasons or more. And the best part of this was that, in agreement with the deal they'd forged with Adrian on the material, Disney would just step back and let Benjy and the rest of the show's burgeoning creative team go about their business writing it. With his "adventures" thus in trustworthy hands, Adrian could see no way his life story could be messed up at the moment. He just wished Trudy could have still been around to see all of this unfold.
It was with a rare contented sigh as he glanced up at the screen as the very familiar host walked into the courtroom set. "Hello America, I'm Dwight Ellison, and welcome to another edition of Crimestoppers U.S.A." the detective's father-in-law told the viewing public, "Tonight, we'll bring you several tales of sadness and despair that only you can clear up, starting with this heartbreaking case of a young bride whose life fell short of the altar."
Adrian jerked upright and laid his hand by the phone on the counter. It was time to go to work. A picture of an attractive young woman filled the screen. "Carol Squires was the quintessential college graduate," Ellison started narrating, "a hard working young woman who'd fallen deeply in love with…"
Adrian didn't need to hear any more. He reached for the phone and dialed the by now familiar Crimestoppers hotline. "Crimestoppers U.S.A., how can we help you?" asked the operator on the other end.
"Hi, it's me again," Adrian greeted her.
"You again?" the operator said with a mixture of surprise and resignation in her voice, "Tell me sir, what have you got for us this week?"
"It was her husband's ex-girlfriend," Adrian informed her, "She was jealous and wanted him back, so she lured her to the park and crushed her skull with the metal pipe they found at the scene. If you look…."
Suddenly there came the sound of the detective's doorbell ringing—over and over again. Adrian frowned. He wasn't expecting anyone; Natalie was taking Julie to the movies, and his boss was out with his new girlfriend this evening. "Just, just a minute," he told the Crimestoppers operator. He strolled over to the door and opened it…
...and jumped back in shock and horror as a heavily bleeding, well-dressed man stumbled into his apartment, clutching his chest in agony. "Monk!" he gasped weakly, clearly on the verge of death, "Help…. please!"
"You're dripping on the floor, you're dripping on the floor!" Adrian shrieked hysterically, pointing at his now blood-soiled carpet, "Couldn't you die in the hall?"
"Help...!" the man slumped forward on his knees, wheezing terribly. "Stay, stay right there, I'm on it!" Adrian reassured him. He ran into the kitchen, threw open the door under the sink, took hold of one of the sheets of industrial plastic he kept in case of an emergency, and slowly tore off a piece, taking care that the edges were torn off perfectly straight. Once he had a big enough piece, he ran back into the living room and laid the sheet on the floor. Here, here, lay down on this!" he told the dying man, gesturing him forward. The man stumbled forward and fell face first on the floor only partially on the plastic sheet. Adrian frantically rolled him all the way on with his foot, and then ran back into the kitchen to get his carpet cleaning paraphernalia. "All right, who are you, want do you want from me!?" he asked as he started tossing cleaner on the splotches of blood now littering the rug.
"Monk," the man waved him close, "The…the…the…!"
And with that he slumped to the floor, quite dead. Adrian wondered what the point of bothering to give him a deathbed confession was if his guest was going to be unable to say anything useful, but that was now beside the point. The detective grabbed his phone in a rush. "Go get Carol Squires's husband's ex-girlfriend; she did it," he reminded the Crimestoppers operator before beating the cradle to disconnect the call and dialing Natalie's cell phone number. He got no answer for about a minute before realizing that Natalie probably had the cell phone turned off in the theater. He hung up and dialed his boss's cell instead. "CAAAAAPPPPTTTAAAAAAAAAIIINN!" he shrieked loud enough to be heard all the way across San Francisco County...