Hello! This Wavesparkle7217 and DezrikTheBlue! We don't own Monk or the characters, but we do own the plot. Please don't take it. Enjoy! Oh, yeah, since we are co-writing this piece, Wavesparkle will write the odd-numbered chapters, and DezrikTheBlue will write the even-numbered ones.
Adrian Monk was cutting the crust off of the fourth sandwich he made in the past hour. It was smooth peanut butter and seedless grape jelly on white bread cut with a ruler to exactly six by six inches. He would have preferred ten by ten, but bread didn't come in that size. The geometry compass he was using to cut the bread to ninety degree angles had been calibrated by Monk's brother, checked by Monk himself, and never left its locked case except to make a sandwich.
The phone rang. Natalie Teager, Mr. Monk's assistant and friend, sat up sharply from her relaxed position in her chair, and answered it.
"Hello, Mr. Monk's phone, Natalie speaking," she told the caller. "Oh, hi, Captain."
She meant San Fransisco Police Department Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, of the Robbery and Homicide Division.
"It's a case," she mouthed at Mr. Monk, who had paused in his precision food preparation to listen to her conversation.
"Really?" Natalie asked, clearly surprised. "He died of of rabies? That doesn't sound like a murder." She paused to listen to the other side of the conversation. "Oh my God! It was a human bite? That's disgusting! We'll be right there."
Natalie hung up the phone, automatically wiped it down with disinfectant, and gestured Monk to the car. They drove to the police station as fast as law allowed, carefully following every tiny, virtually unknown traffic law at Monk's direction.
Monk and Natalie entered the bustling police station and cast a practiced eye over the abundance of people for the captain. Monk spotted him first. The captain was a medium man of unremarkable looks, with a bristly, graying, brown mustache.
"Ah, good. You're here. Come in my office," Stottlemeyer directed.
The details of the bizarre case were in there, as well as blessed relief for his aching head. Natalie and Stottlemeyer waited as Monk straitened the chairs and desk to his precise specifications.
Natalie crossed her arms as she heard the captain out. Both she and the detective ignored Monk's fidgeting as a habitual trait. The case was bizarre and there were absolutely no clues. The victim had been a street urchin of about twelve years of age. He had suffered a human bite and died of rabies in the hospital, after being found by a dog walker at three in the morning. The fact that it was a human bite and that the street kid had just stolen a diamond that was not on him led the police to believe it was a murder.
"That's disgusting," Natalie concluded as Stottlemeyer finished.
"That it is," Stottlemeyer agreed in a long-suffering tone.
"What's the theory?" Monk asked, nudging one of the pens in the coffee cup into line with the others.
"There isn't one, Monk," Stottlemeyer grouched.
"Yes there is," a voice said. It was Lieutenant Randy Disher, Stottlemeyer's second in command. He was standing in the doorway with two coffee cups in his hands. Disher quailed at the scathing look his superior was giving him.
"Randy," Stottlemeyer began through gritted teeth, "Thinks a crazy man broke out of the hospital and bit the kid, then went back to the hospital."
"Well," Randy corrected. "Not exactly. I think that a crazy man who loved cats tunneled out of the insane asylum at the hospital, using only spoons, bit the kid, then injected him with the rabies virus from the stores at the university, stole the diamond, then tunneled back in." He blanched a little at the disbelief in all three faces directed at him. "Well, it could have happened."
"No," the Captain said. "It couldn't have. It's crazy." Then Stottlemeyer beckoned Randy forward and took his coffee. "Thanks, though, for the coffee."
Randy smiled at Natalie, offering the second cup of coffee.
"No thanks," she told the eager-to-please lieutenant, pushing it back at him with a small smile. She actually thought it was kind of cute the way Disher was always hitting on her. He smiled back.
"Well, I guess I'll just leave the smart people to work on this case," Disher said, making to close the door and leave.
"Randy," Stottlemeyer stopped his friend, hands spread on the desk in front of him for support, "You're not dumb. Come back."
"Yeah," Monk chimed in, "You made it to lieutenant, you can't be stupid." Disher looked a little sheepish, but pleased, at this unexpected source of praise.
"Yeah, Randy," Natalie put in, "You've helped solve a lot of hard cases."
"You're a good cop, Randy," Stottlemeyer told the younger man, sitting down in his padded, swiveling chair.
Randy looked a little skeptical. "You know, my birthday isn't until next month." His friends shook their heads and grinned at him.
"It doesn't have to be your birthday to tell the truth," Monk told Randy. "You are a good cop. You just need a new theory."
Randy smiled broadly at all the praise, and took an embarrassed drink of his coffee. It was then that one of the uniforms requested Disher's attention, and they left the office.
"At least," the captain began, "This theory complies with the laws of physics." Monk and Natalie smiled.
Then the three began to compare ideas on where to find leads. They concluded that Monk should look at the body and the "crime scene."
