CHAPTER 2: UNIVERSE A
1:43 that same afternoon
The afternoon's grim news brought the field trip to an unexpected end, and the kids had been ushered outside to wait for the bus. By this time, rumors surrounding Madeline Davison's death had not only begun to surface; they were spreading faster than a head lice epidemic among the teenagers. Julie had said goodbye to her mother about fifteen minutes ago, when Monk had been called in to investigate. She listened from a distance as a group of her peers stood around swapping gossip.
"Josh swears he heard them screaming when they found the body—while he was peeing in the men's bathroom."
"Yeah, I heard Mrs. Gillespie telling Regina's mom that it must've happened while we were in the museum."
"I heard the security guard say they found her body lying down in a sarcophagus."
"You know what I heard? I heard she was murdered."
Julie stepped in before things got too out of hand. "Well, whatever happened to her, Mr. Monk will get to the bottom of it," she assured them. The other teens exchanged glances.
"Monk? The guy who was alphabetizing all the pamphlets in the lobby?" a tall girl snorted. Her companions did little to stifle their amusement.
"He's a great detective," Julie said with confidence. "You'll see."
On the other side of the museum walls, one of the directors was discussing the unfortunate incident with the police.
"The collection's on a rotation schedule, since most of it's too light-sensitive to be left out for long periods of time," he explained. "And when the pieces aren't on display, we keep them in storage. Normally we wouldn't have even opened the door to that storage vault for another two weeks, but we were making room for some artifacts that're being returned to us from the University of Penn Museum tomorrow. Otherwise, she could have been locked in there until the end of the cycle and nobody would know where she'd gone." He paused as if searching, choosing his next words with care. "She was so talented. I feel responsible…she was our guest."
Captain Stottlemeyer nodded curtly. "Mr. Leung, did anything else out of the ordinary happen here recently?"
"No, I don't…wait. As a matter of fact, there was something—the janitor, Will Bailey. Early yesterday morning, one of the staff found him passed out in a bathroom stall. We sent him in for drug testing. He came up positive; we had to let him go, but it didn't seem like a matter of life or death." Realization suddenly dawned on the director's face. "Do you think—"
"—the killer drugged him to get the key to the storage room? I'd say that's a pretty sure bet," the Captain interrupted.
Leung shook his head sadly. "If there's anything else I can do…"
"We'll call you if anything comes up," Stottlemeyer replied. He still had a pile of security tapes, a dead body, and a museum full of possible suspects to attend to.
What had started out as a nightmare of a day for Monk had quickly escalated into a disaster. But unlike kneeling on the floor and sharing a saliva-soaked tea bowl, a dead body in a storage vault was the kind of disaster he was actually equipped to deal with.
You didn't have to be Adrian Monk to deduce that the poor girl had been strangled. The telltale marks on her neck would have been a dead giveaway to just about anybody. From the looks of it, someone had doubled up a necklace and choked her with it. Monk thought the impression made by the beads seemed familiar somehow, but the heavy dust in the air was throwing off his concentration. He pivoted on his heel, preparing to inspect the body from a different angle.
The rumors had been wrong, of course. Far less extravagant than having been found laid to rest in a sarcophagus, Madeline Davison had been wrapped messily in a black economy trash bag. The bag had then been placed inside of a bulky garbage can on a janitor's cart that someone had locked into the storage vault. All of these items had been taken from the janitor's supply using one of the stolen keys. The bag now lay ripped open on the floor, exposing the pallid corpse. She had been a robust woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in a classy pantsuit. Her guest ID badge was still draped around her neck, hanging loosely by a woven red cord.
Although the janitorial supplies themselves were of little help, there were a few more things of interest among the garbage bag's contents. An open bag of origami paper, missing two pieces, was present amidst the disarray. One crumpled paper crane, which had been perfectly folded at one point in time, was lying down by the victim's waist. And another was clutched in her hand.
A few minutes later, Monk found himself standing before a small audience in Classroom #2. It consisted of the Captain, Natalie, two police officers, and a handful of mystified museum employees who were pressing their ears up against the closed door.
"Okay," Monk began slowly, "Ms. Davison is in here alone, fixing that display case," he extended an arm in the direction of '1000 Paper Cranes: Myths and Messages of Peace.' "Killer comes in here with the cleaning cart…" he looped around toward the door. "…Probably posing as a janitor. Ms. Davison couldn't have recognized an imposter; she'd only been here for a few days. And no one else would have noticed, either; the janitor's closet is only two doors down. Anyway," he returned to subtly acting out the scene.
"She's over there, turned towards the wall, putting up paper cranes. The killer comes up from behind her and starts to strangle her—" he illustrated this principal with unnecessary gripping motions "—and there's a struggle. A few of the paper cranes got knocked down in the middle of it all, and two of them—the ones that we found in the garbage—were irreparably damaged. So then the killer dumped the body in the trash can and cleaned up the area to make it look as though nothing had happened. They put the cranes back in the display case, folded up some quick replacements for the crumpled ones, then wiped the glass down to get rid of any prints. Then he or she rolled the whole cart down the hall to the storage vault and locked her in there, knowing Davison probably wouldn't be discovered until the next rotation."
"So you're saying whoever did it had to have worked for the museum in order to know about the rotation dates, right?" one of the officers asked, folding her arms.
"Not necessarily," Monk replied. "This year's rotation schedule is covered in one of the pamphlets in the lobby—anybody who'd conducted a little bit of research could have known about it."
"So you have no idea who killed her, then?" the other officer asked, looking up from his notepad.
"Not yet," Monk gave an involuntary one-armed shrug.
"Well, if you're all finished here, I'd like you to come down to the station and have a look at the security tapes," the Captain said, beckoning towards the door. Monk and Natalie followed him out, sending the eavesdroppers scurrying when they opened the door.
"Captain," a third officer approached them on their exit, carrying an evidence bag. It contained the paper crane that had been found in Madeline's hand. "We found this in the victim's hand. Something's written on it. We think it might be the killer's name."
Closer inspection of the wing, which had previously been obscured by Madeline Davison's hand, revealed a small, sloppy symbol.
"It's chickenscratch," Stottlemeyer said with mock-thoughtfulness.
"Sir, Ms. Davison was fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Japanese," the officer said. "We might have a lead if we could find somebody to read this."
"Hey, you know what? I think he's right," Natalie piped up. "It kind of looks familiar…I think I saw it on a tattoo somewhere." While the others took a closer look, she flagged down the nearest museum employee.
"Hey, excuse me—you! With the red shirt! Yeah, could you come here for a second? Thanks," she motioned the volunteer forward. The man in the red approached the group cautiously.
"Do you have any idea what this might mean?" she asked him, indicating the paper crane underneath the clear plastic. Red Shirt removed his glasses briefly and stared at the scribble as if it were something with two heads.
"Strange," he remarked. "It's a Chinese and Japanese character—'Ai,' meaning 'love,' but it's written incorrectly. It's backwards," he said, sounding puzzled.
"Backwards?" Natalie turned to Red Shirt, who shrugged.
"Maybe it was her lover who killed her," suggested one of the officers.
"Ai. Ai…Aika," Monk mumbled. "Aika Itoh."
"Gesundheit," Stottlemeyer raised an eyebrow.
"No, no, Aika Itoh. She works here, in the museum—that's where I've seen it before!" Monk exclaimed excitedly.
"Seen what before?" Natalie asked, perplexed.
"The pattern on the victim's neck," he explained. "It matches the beads on Aika Itoh's necklace."
"Ms. Itoh, can we have a word?" Stottlemeyer approached the haggard-looking Japanese woman. She was no more than thirty, and no more than five feet tall. She gave the impression of a person who was very delicate; both in body and spirit.
"Of course," the woman replied, wringing her hands.
"I'm Captain Leland Stottlemeyer of the SFPD; this is Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger. We're investigating the murder of Madeline Davison," he said as if reciting from rote. "We need to ask you a few questions."
Itoh nodded, petrified.
"Did you see or speak to Ms. Davison at any time today before the murder?"
"Well…yes," Aika answered haltingly. "We signed in together. She and I both arrived here at the same time this morning. About eight-thirty or so. We met in the parking lot," she looked away awkwardly.
"So the two of you were friends?" Stottlemeyer fixed her with a hard stare.
"No. I-I turned the corner without stopping and ran into her rental car." The woman was barely holding herself together now. She began to talk rapidly and feverishly, as if all her bottled up guilt had finally caused her to explode.
"I didn't mean to run into her car like that, it was an accident! I filed a report and everything, and no one was hurt, but we got into this big argument, you know?" she hiccupped. "Everyone must have heard us; we were in the middle of the lobby—and that was the last time I saw her. I should have just let it go. I said some really nasty things I wish I could take back, but now I can't…" Itoh broke into sobs.
Natalie's first instinct was to comfort the distraught woman, but the look the Captain was shooting her now made her think twice about it.
"Just one more question, Ms. Itoh," the Captain told the young woman as she dabbed at her eyes. "Can you explain why you're wearing the same necklace that was used to strangle Madeline Davison four hours ago?"
Aika wordlessly opened and closed her mouth, her body consumed with shock. All the color had drained from her face. "Oh god," she finally managed to choke. "Oh my god."
As she cast off the necklace, disgusted, and weakly handed it off to Stottlemeyer, an officer approached the small cluster. "Captain," he said stonily, "We searched Miss Itoh's locker. The rest of the stolen cleaning supplies were inside it."
"No—no! I swear, my necklace was missing all morning; I just found it in the lost and found around lunchtime! Please, I hit her car, but I didn't murder anybody," Itoh pleaded shrilly.
"Turn around, Miss Itoh," the Captain said, sounding apologetic. The slight woman began bawling, but complied. "You're under arrest for the murder of Madeline Davison. You have the right to remain silent…"
As the police read a hysterically weeping Aika Itoh her rights and led her away, Natalie stood rooted in place, appalled. "She's not the guy," she said with conviction.
"She's not the guy," Monk echoed.
Once Natalie's strong sense of justice kicked into high gear, she was a force to be reckoned with.
"She was framed and you know it!" she practically jumped the Captain as soon as he'd left the interrogation room. "Tell him, Mr. Monk," she shoved her boss forward.
Monk just boggled at her apprehensively, but she urged him forward yet again. "Tell him what you just told me," she repeated impatiently.
"Well—it's true. She's a bad driver, but not a murderer," Monk began with a twitch of his shoulder. "First of all, Madeline Davison was easily twice Aika Itoh's size—"
"Stranger things have happened, Monk. You ought to know," Stottlemeyer interrupted. "Now, I'm not saying that she did it. All I'm saying is that it looks bad—she was wearing the murder weapon, for chrissakes!" he protested.
"Exactly," Monk grimaced, "It's too obvious. If the murderer was careful enough to rearrange the display case and wipe their prints off of it, why wouldn't they have gotten rid of the weapon? Davison was wearing a name badge, too; she could have just as easily been strangled with that. But she wasn't—the killer went out of their way to make Itoh look guilty."
"What about the missing cleaning supplies they found in her locker?" Leland tried, already knowing where this was probably going.
"Not surprising—the murderer was in possession of stolen keys and supplies, remember?"
"And the name on the paper crane?" the Captain asked wearily.
"Davison was fluent in both Chinese and Japanese; she wouldn't have written such a simple character backwards. There was no sign of the matching pen in the trash with the body or at the crime scene—the murderer probably wrote it on the paper crane after the fact."
"All right, I believe you," Stottlemeyer surrendered. "But she's the only lead we have so far. We're interviewing the staff, but there were well over a hundred visitors in that museum today! We'll be lucky if we track half of them down for questioning—and you'll have an awfully hard time finding someone who looks guiltier than Misty Waterfalls in there," he jerked his thumb back toward the interrogation room. "I'm sorry, Natalie, but it's just not that easy."
"You've seen how scared she is—she'll have confessed to anything they want by tomorrow morning!" Natalie said adamantly. "We have to do something," she turned to Monk, who was at somewhat of a loss. A thoughtful silence settled over the trio.
"…Okay. I still have all the museum's security tapes from this morning in my office," the Captain suggested. "If you two want to have a look at them, be my guest."
A melodramatic wail erupted from the interrogation room.
"And next time, find me a suspect who doesn't give me a headache," he groaned.
"Hey, sorry I'm late," Randy Disher said brightly as he poked his head into Captain Stottlemeyer's office with unnecessary enthusiasm. In his right hand he held a takeout bag that smelled strongly of peanuts. "I got called downtown to investigate a disturbance at the Bangkok Bay Restaurant. No big deal, really, but the owner's a pretty cool guy. I even scored us some free appetizers."
Instead of the exultant welcome he was expecting, Randy was met with silence.
"So…what'd I miss?" he asked Natalie and Monk, who seemed transfixed on the television.
"A woman being wrongly accused of a murder," Natalie answered him glumly, eyes never leaving the screen.
"Oh, sweet! You guys having a Law & Order marathon in here?" Disher excitedly pulled up a chair. Natalie turned and stared at him in disbelief.
"Hey, it's cool, I won't tell the Captain," he told her very sincerely. Natalie shook her head and went back to the TV. Disher reached into his bag and pulled out what appeared to be some crunchy noodles wrapped around a stick.
After a few minutes of crunching and watching, he remarked, "Man, these DVDs are terrible quality. They have to be bootlegs, right?" He squinted, trying to make out what was happening.
"They're security tapes, Randy," Natalie said, mustering up every ounce of patience she had left in her. "We're trying to figure out who murdered Madeline Davison this morning."
"Oh," Randy replied through a mouthful of meekrob. "Right. Gotcha. What kinda guy are we looking for?"
"We don't know yet," Natalie replied with a sigh. "…Can I have one of those? I'm starving."
"Sure," Randy shrugged, passing her a carton.
Monk, meanwhile, had edged closer to the TV. "Okay, right here. This is the lobby. And there are Davison and Itoh, arguing." He paused the tape.
"Yeah, we already know they had a fight this morning," said Natalie. "See anything else?"
Monk studied the monitor carefully, examining each of the passerby. Then he hit play again, watching the scene with interest. He paused again, played again, then paused again.
"This man here," Monk pointed out one of the figures, "He has an unusual bald patch on top of his head."
"So the guy's bald. So what?" Randy asked. "Lots of people are bald."
"True," Monk replied, "But he's also the only person to pass by the girls more than once. Everyone else is going by quickly, avoiding them, but he's taking his time. Look."
Monk rewound the tape, and followed the bald man with his pointer finger as he slowly passed the bickering women twice, thrice, four times. Natalie and Randy both gravitated closer to the screen to watch.
"Yeah, that is weird," Natalie remarked.
Without warning, Randy sputtered, spraying crumbs all over the screen. "Oh my god, I know that guy!" he exclaimed, standing up. "I know him!"
"Oh god, oh god!" Monk chimed in, though for an entirely different reason. "It's everywhere…wipe, wipe!"
"You know the bald guy?" Natalie inquired of Randy as she handed Monk several pre-moistened wipes out of her purse.
"Yeah, I just saw him today! He owns the Bangkok Bay Restaurant."
"You're positive?" Natalie asked incredulously as she began to aid Monk in his scramble to wipe down the mess on the TV screen.
"You missed a spot," Monk grabbed his assistant's arm and began to move it back and forth frantically over the mess, "For the love of God, hurry, hurry! I think it's dripping!"
"I'm one-hundred percent sure; I'd know that bald spot anywhere!" Randy answered Natalie, oblivious.
"What's his name?" Natalie asked anxiously. "Ow, ow—Mr. Monk, my arm does not turn that way! Let go!"
"It's Claus," Randy replied. "Claus Glockner."
"Claus Glockner?" Natalie repeated, dumbstruck, as she retracted her sore arm. "And he owns a Thai restaurant?"
"Yeah," Randy shrugged.
"Well, it's worth a shot. What do you think, Mr. Monk?" Natalie turned to her boss.
"I think we're going to need some industrial strength cleanser," the detective replied forlornly.
"We'll worry about that later," Natalie stood him up gently and guided him out the door.
"Where are we going?" Monk asked, panicked.
"To pay a visit to Mr. Glockner," his assistant chirped as they disappeared out of Disher's sight. "If anyone asks, we're taking a lunch break."
"You're welcome!" the Lieutenant called after them cheerily, waving. Once he was sure they had gone, he looked shadily left and right, pulled a bootleg DVD out of his takeout bag, and popped it into the DVD player. "Alone at last," he grinned to himself as the opening scene of his newly acquired Hong Kong horror film began to play.
CHAPTER 2: UNIVERSE B
1:43 in the Afternoon, shortly after the Investigation at Dennis Glockner's Home
The Glockner case was already ranking about a 5 on Sharona's weird-o-meter. The woman knew weird—she worked for Adrian Monk; she ate, slept, and breathed weirdness. That being said, she'd also seen much, much weirder things in recent years. But the fact that someone had wanted to drag an already-dead body out into the backyard and dump it in a foot-deep fish pond…well, it was still pretty damn weird.
So she'd been almost disappointed when nothing too unusual had turned up in the house. There were two table settings, so he'd been expecting company. Someone had vomited and spilled coffee on the living room carpet recently, much to her boss's chagrin. There was a leak in the kitchen ceiling. And Adrian had picked a small, purple bead out from between the couch cushions. But none of it really helped to explain the odd circumstances behind Dr. Glockner's death. An autopsy had been ordered to determine the cause of death, but until the results came back, there wasn't a whole lot to do. There had been one witness in the neighborhood who'd remembered seeing something unusual yesterday evening, and the Captain was on his way to see her. Monk had decided to come along, and Sharona was three steps behind him, wipes at the ready.
"Sorry I'm late," Randy Disher said brightly as he jogged up to them with unnecessary enthusiasm. In his right hand was a takeout bag that smelled strongly of garlic. "I got called downtown to investigate a disturbance at the Venice View Restaurant. No big deal, really, but the owner's a pretty cool guy. I even scored some free appetizers," he waggled his eyebrows at Sharona as he took a bite out of a pizza breadstick.
"Impressive," Sharona rolled her eyes.
"You want one?" Disher asked, spewing crumbs all over the pavement. Monk sidestepped in a panic.
"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk with your mouth full, Lieutenant?" Sharona teased as the four of them clambered up the front steps of the house across the street from Glockner's.
"Hah?" was Randy's scathing comeback. He was busy rooting though the bag for some bruschetta, mouth hanging open to expose his half-chewed food.
"Apparently not," Captain Stottlemeyer gibed as he rang the doorbell. A woman answered a few seconds later. She was holding a baby in one arm and a cell phone in the other.
"Sorry, Carol, I'll have to call you back. The police are here," she said into the phone, irritated. She clipped it shut and put it in her pocket.
"Mrs. Mendez," The Captain greeted her. "I'm Captain Stottlemeyer of the SFPD, and these are…" he stopped to stare at Randy, who was noisily chewing on some calamari . "Mrs. Mendez, do you like Italian food?" the Captain asked.
"I guess so," the woman shrugged.
"Good," Stottlemeyer said gruffly, grabbing the bag out of Disher's hands and shoving it into Mrs. Mendez's free arm. "Bon appétit."
"…Thanks, I think," the woman answered, thoroughly confused. Randy just gaped.
The Captain cleared his throat. "So, Mrs. Mendez. We understand that you saw someone leaving Dr. Glockner's house last night?"
"Oh, no, that wasn't me," the woman shook her head. "It was my daughter."
"Your…daughter?" Randy asked curiously, pointing to the baby.
"My other daughter," the woman clicked her tongue. "I'll get her for you." She turned around and yelled into the living room, where the TV was blasting. "Patricia…¡Oye, Patti! Los policías están aquí. ¡Date prisa!"
The TV clicked off down the hall. The witness, a girl who didn't look much older than eight, came jogging up to the door. Her unkempt ringlets poked out from under a homemade tinfoil helmet. She was wearing pink ballerina pajamas with horribly mismatched socks. But the most easily noticeable thing about her was the rash and series of tiny blisters covering every inch of her skin.
"My God," Monk whimpered, taking a step back. He quickly buried his nose and mouth under his sleeve, trying not to breathe in any of the air that came from inside the house. "Why isn't this place quarantined?"
Sharona elbowed him in the ribs. "Adrian, knock it off! She has chicken pox, not the bubonic plague," she hissed.
"People can die from chicken pox," Monk whispered back, inching further away.
"They can?" the little girl asked, wide-eyed.
"Oh, yes. Yes, they can," Monk replied solemnly, though he was facing away from the house now. "There have been plenty of well-documented cases, I'm afraid—"
"Don't listen to him," Sharona advised the little girl, "You'll be fine."
"Who is that man?" the mother asked Stottlemeyer, pulling back her daughter protectively.
"That's Adrian Monk. He's a consultant, ma'am. He's working with us on this case," Stottlemeyer answered unenthusiastically. "Patti," he knelt down, "You said you saw a man leaving Dr. Glockner's house last night, right? Did you get a good look at him?"
"Are you with the FBI?" Patti asked suspiciously.
"…No," the Captain answered, slightly taken aback.
"Oh," the little girl answered, now looking rather disappointed.
"Would you like to come inside?" Mrs. Mendez finally invited them in, seeing that this was going to take longer than she'd originally anticipated. "The house is a mess, but—"
"No," Monk answered quickly. "God, no."
Sharona, aghast at her boss's display of complete social ineptitude, elbowed him again. "Thank you, Mrs. Mendez. We would love to," she said pointedly.
"More tea, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, please," Disher smiled goofily, holding out his pink porcelain teacup to Patti. She quickly used her miniature teapot to fill it with lukewarm apple juice.
Randy, the Captain, Sharona, and Patti—who was absolutely enthralled at the prospect of hosting a tea party with guests who weren't imaginary for once—were now all sitting down around a child-sized table. Each little pink cup, plate, and utensil had been meticulously laid out, a sharp contrast to the heaps of dolls and toy dinosaurs strewn all over the floor. Randy certainly didn't seem to mind being so thoroughly emasculated, but Stottlemeyer looked mortified. Mrs. Mendez had stuck the baby in her playpen and was watching the ridiculous spectacle with interest from across the room. Monk had opted to play it safe, and was watching from the front window. Outside, he was making big, exaggerated gestures and shouting something.
'What?' Sharona mouthed as he made an embellished choking motion.
'You—have—to—get—out—of—there!' he was saying, making up sign language as he went.
'No, you,' she pointed animatedly at him, 'come in here,' she waved her hands behind her to indicate the room.
Monk shook his head fervently and tried to pantomime 'slow and horrible death' while Sharona turned around, squinting her eyes shut and pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Cookie?" Patti offered her a plate as Stottlemeyer grabbed the cord to the blinds and snapped them shut, obscuring Monk from view.
"No, thank you," Sharona declined graciously. She had a sneaking suspicion that they'd been fashioned out of Play-Doh.
"Patti, this is very important," Stottlemeyer said exasperatedly for about the fifth time. "We can't catch the bad guy unless you tell us exactly what you saw."
"Okay," Patti huffed, handing the plate off to Randy. He picked up a Play-Doh cookie and started idly rolling it into a ball in his hands.
"Um…" she began. Her guests leaned in eagerly.
After about fifteen seconds she looked the Captain squarely in the face and said, "I forget."
Stottlemeyer shifted awkwardly in the tiny chair. "You said you were looking through your telescope, right?"
"Uh-huh," Patti smiled. "I discovered an alien planet," she said excitedly, turning to Randy.
"Really?" Disher replied interestedly, tossing the Play-Doh ball up and down in his left hand. The other adults at the tea party shot him disapproving looks.
"I mean," Randy coughed, pressing his thumbs into the Play-Doh nervously, "Uh, then what? Did you get a look at Dr. Glockner's house?"
"Yeah," Patty said slowly, thinking hard. "I looked down because I heard a car door. I thought it was Mom and Dad coming home from the movies." She fidgeted with her utensils.
"But it wasn't?" Randy prodded further, making the Play-Doh into a snake between his palms.
Patti nodded. "There was somebody next door."
"And did you see what he looked like?" The Captain re-joined the discussion now that it was going somewhere.
Patti thought about it for a second as she scratched at a scab under her arm. "He had a bald head."
"Honey, stop scratching!" her mother exclaimed. Patti made a sour face.
"Is that all?" Stottlemeyer asked resignedly.
"Um…He was driving a van. Like the one they used to deliver the food at my cousin Rosario's birthday party."
"A catering van?" Sharona turned to the Captain, who shrugged.
"Mrs. Mendez, can you think of anyone in the neighborhood who matches that description?" the Captain turned to Patti's mother, not expecting much to come of it.
"A bald guy with a catering van?" Mrs. Mendez recapped the suspect's odd description. "No, not really."
"Huh. Well, I guess we're done here, then," the Captain nearly toppled the tiny table in his hurry to stand up and stretch his sore lower back.
"All right," Mrs. Mendez said restlessly, hands itching to wrap around her cell phone again. "Patricia, say goodbye to the nice officers."
"Do I have to?" the little girl scowled. Her mother inclined her head and placed her hands on her hips. "Fine," Patti rolled her eyes. "Sorry you have to go. You can come to my birthday party if you want."
The Captain chuckled. "Well, it's very nice of you to invite us, Patti, but I don't think your mother would—"
"Not you," the grade-schooler cut him off. "I was talking to Lieutenant Disher," she beamed at Randy. "We're having ice cream cake."
"Wait, wait, hold on," Patricia's mother interrupted, ice cream cake the furthest thing from her mind. Her years of being an insufferable busybody were about to pay off. "I do know someone like that. Dr. Glockner's son. He's bald—and he owns a restaurant. He has a van like that!" she said excitedly, as if she were giving the winning answer on a game show.
"The son?" Stottlemeyer asked.
"The one who never visits?" Sharona added.
"Yeah, he usually only comes by at Christmas. You know the Venice View Restaurant? He owns it." Mrs. Mendez answered smugly.
Randy's jaw dropped. "Oh my god, I know that guy! Claus, Claus Glockner; I met him this morning!"
"Claus Glockner?" Sharona raised an eyebrow. "And he owns an Italian restaurant?"
"Yeah," Randy shrugged.
"Thank you, Mrs. Mendez," the Captain said, shaking the woman's hand, "We'll look into it."
"Thanks for the tea," Randy waved goodbye to Patti.
As they departed, Sharona pulled Mrs. Mendez aside. "Try oatmeal baths and calamine lotion for the itching," she suggested, indicating Patti with a subtle inclination of her head. "Trust me, they're a godsend."
"Thanks," Mrs. Mendez smiled. Her grin faded when she saw Monk tapping frenetically at the screen door. "…Is he all right?"
"No," Sharona said bluntly, "No he isn't."
"Don't forget!" Patti called after the Lieutenant as the group shuffled out the door, "It's May 10th at one o'clock! Bring a present!"
"What happened?" Monk asked anxiously as his friends emerged from the Mendez household.
"Randy finally met a girl who's really interested in him," Sharona quipped. "He's even got a date."
"I think you're jealous," Disher replied in a sing-song voice.
"I think you're delusional," Sharona shot back.
"Congratulations," Monk said to Randy, dead serious. "Can we talk about the case now?"
"Well, we don't have much," the Captain admitted. "A seven-year-old girl claims she saw a bald man leave Dr. Glockner's last night in a catering van."
"It might have been the victim's son," Disher added. "He owns the restaurant I went to this morning. Small world, huh?"
"Y'know, I think we should check it out," Sharona told her boss. "If we're lucky, we might get some free appetizers," she added wryly.
AUTHOR'S NOTE MARK II: Whew. I feel like Universe A ended up being overly clunky, but I had to get all the clues in, you know? I liked doing the part with Randy, though. He was the most fun to write…as if you couldn't tell. Har har.
Does anybody else ever have problems with formatting italics on this site? It's a real pain.
Universe B's story was originally intended to be a little darker. But then I came up with a few funny developments that were too good to pass up. Like the chicken pox girl. She kind of surprised me, actually. She was originally going to be a sci-fi obsessed teen. I think there are still remnants of my original idea, though, what with the telescope and tinfoil hat and all…what can I say? Tinfoil hats are awesome.
I still wish I could make Sharona a little…cleverer? I dunno, banter's not my area of expertise. I also couldn't really do too much introspective stuff in this chapter, since it focused primarily on the mystery at hand.
Anywhoodle, thanks again to my little sis, who beta'd my chapter by reading it out loud. And gave the characters funny voices. She made Stottlemeyer sound like a hillbilly. It was a hoot, you shoulda been there. Oh yeah, and thanks to MONKrules, for your encouragement on the USA Monk forums. It's true, I am my own harshest critic:P
Speaking of critics. Review, gosh darnit. I can promise you neither punch nor pie, and yet you should still review out of the goodness of your heart. Reviews will help my soul to grow as an author, or some cosmic junk. Also, any interested betas? My little sister's great and all, but it'd be nice to have an outside opinion.
I still talk too much. See you in Chapter 3!
