"I, I changed my mind, I'd rather not go in there," the detective said nervously as they pulled up in front of the hospital in Redding.
"After all the bravado you made about wanting to know for sure what she knew!?" Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes in disgust.
"I wasn't thinking straight there, Captain; I forgot what tends to be in hospitals," Adrian told him.
"Well, since we're here, might as well go in," the sheriff climbed out of the cruiser, "Are you coming or not, Monk?"
Adrian figured he didn't have much of a choice; he did, after all, want to hear whatever Linda had to say firsthand. He followed everyone inside, hoping the hospital was as sterilized as it could be. His first impression, though, was a positive one; the floor had recently been washed, and the walls seemed clean. "Sheriff Wallace from Breckman Lake," the sheriff told the receptionist at the front desk, "I'm here with Adrian Monk; we want a word with Linda Fusco."
The receptionist typed into her computer. "Room 315," she told them, "But she's under police protection; they're sending her back to prison once she's healed enough, so she's under a no-visitors policy."
"I think we count as an exception," Adrian spoke up, pulling letters off the felt directory board next to the front desk and sticking them back on perfectly lined up with each other, "We know Ms. Fusco personally."
"OK, I'll send up the word you're coming," the receptionist reached for the phone. The group walked towards the elevators. Adrian, though, had no intention of riding in one and instead jogged up the stairs to the third floor, thus beating everyone to the top by a split second. It was easy to tell which room Linda was in anyway; a pair of Redding policemen stood guard outside the door. "We're here to see Linda Fusco," Stottlemeyer told the guards, who opened the door. The captain's expression quickly dropped into a frown as he walked inside to view the woman he once loved, lying broken in bed with her arms in casts and her head bandaged. "Leland," she whispered upon seeing him, "You came."
"Yeah, and it better be worth the trip," he growled, "I think you know pretty much everybody else here; let me introduce Sheriff Gavin Wallace, we're working on him with what's going on at the festival; I don't think you've met Sharona Fleming yet..."
"Pleasure," the nurse told Linda dryly, not shaking her hand, "Or not. You're lucky I wasn't around when you stabbed the captain in the back, or I'd probably have given you a piece of my mind, and then some."
"And I'm Jack Monk, Sr.; don't get up," the former trucker told the realtor, who certainly couldn't with her arm suspended over her head in a sling, "So, what is it we need to know about who's trying to kill my boy here?"
Linda glanced nervously out the door. "Were you alone when you came here?" she asked.
"Far as we know," Disher looked puzzled, "Is it that big?"
"It's bigger than you think," she said, her eyes flashing wildly, "This was planned out well in advance, designed to kill you with..."
"Will you please just get to the point and tell us what's going on here!?" Stottlemeyer snapped impatiently.
"And you're sure you're alone?"
"Damn it woman, tell us something or we're leaving!!" Stottlemeyer bellowed at her, starting to walk towards the door.
"All right, all right!" Linda cried at him, "Last week at dinner in prison, I overheard Dale Beiderbeck talking on the phone with someone, saying he wanted to see you dead, Monk."
Everyone froze up at the mention of the fat man's name. "I heard him very clearly," she told him, her eyes darting nervously in every direction, as if she expected Beiderbeck to come charging in at any second, "He was on the phone to someone called 'Agent X', and he said, and I quote, 'Just make sure I have Adrian Monk's head mounted on my wall before they come for me, and you'll be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams.'"
"Who was he talking to?" Adrian pressed her.
"I don't know; I swear I don't know!" she cried noticing Stottlemeyer's disbelieving glare, "He never mentioned the person's name, he only said, 'Monk certainly won't suspect you work for me. Just make sure you don't make him suspicious at that cabin all next week, because this is my last chance to even the score with him for good, and I want it to count."
Adrian noticed the surprisingly uniform reaction of his five companions to this news; their eyes all went wide, and they started shuffling around nervously. Was it simple shock, he wondered to himself, or was one of them in fact the killer Dale had been talking with? Would Dale actually sink so low to try and get one of them on his side? Moreover, what could the fat man possibly have used to leverage them if so? Nonetheless, this confirmed for good his suspicions that it was an inside job that had been at work throughout the week. "And you're certain it was Dale Beiderbeck who was planning this, Linda?" he asked her for complete confirmation that the second most hated person in his life (after whoever had killed Trudy) was in fact the mastermind of the murders.
"It's kind of hard to mistake someone who's a six hundred pound gorilla, Monk," Linda told him, making the detective crack up at Dale being ridiculed, "And when I heard it, I felt I owed it to make it up to all of you after I'd tricked you all, so I started thinking of how to get out of jail. But in the end, I lucked out; there was a hidden trapdoor in the corner of my cell I hadn't noticed before, so I crept out the tunnel under it into the parking lot and ran like hell for the woods. I hitchhiked rides up here to Breckman Lake, hoping I was in time to save all of you, and I guess I made it in the end."
"A trapdoor in the cell floor?" Adrian mused. "You were in Jack Jr.'s cell, I'll bet," he exchanged a knowing glance with Natalie, "He said he'd been given a bigger, more spacious cell as a reward for helping us out."
"Yes, I was moved in there two months ago," Linda told him, frowning, "Who's Jack Jr.?"
"You're better off not knowing," Jack Sr. shook his head, "Did you hear anything else that might help us figure out who this Whale freak's using against us?"
"In fact, I heard Beiderbeck mention two other names during the phone call," Linda nodded, "The first was someone named Avery McNall; he was supposed to be the main conduit of Beiderbeck's inside man."
"Avery McNall?" Stottlemeyer's brow furled, "I never heard of anyone with that name."
"I can run a check through my computer and see if anything comes up once we get back to Breckman Lake," Wallace offered him. "And the second name?" he questioned their informant.
"A Leo Kashner," the former realtor said, "He was basically just hired muscle, to add more manpower to the operation."
"So John was right," Natalie said out loud, "Leo Kashner did help kill the Kights. Anything else?" she asked Linda.
"That's all I heard," she shook her head, "And I am sorry," she turned a somber gaze at all of them, "I had time to think in jail, and I realized my whole life was a mistake. I spent it pursuing power and wealth, so much that I didn't realize what more important things I had," she looked mournfully at the captain, "I deserved prison in the end, really, and it's been for the better, since it's opened my mind to what's really important. So I hope telling you what I know here can in some way help you to forgive me."
"Sorry, but you're far too late," Stottlemeyer growled, "Probably Jared was out of line to do this to you," he gestured at her bandages, "but you had it coming either way."
He walked out of the room, a harsh look fixed on his face. "If what you're saying is true, the rest of us do forgive you," Natalie assured the former realtor.
"Thank you," she looked relieved, although disappointed the captain didn't, "If you could do something for me...I don't want to go back to prison," fear exploded on her face, "Dale Beiderbeck knows I heard him; he'll be waiting for me if I'm there; in fact, he could send his agents here now to finish me off..."
"Well, since you are telling us about the plot, we could probably arrange for special protection, couldn't we?" Disher looked at Wallace.
"I think we could set something up with the state given the circumstances," the sheriff nodded. "Well, we thank you for your information," he told a relieved Linda, "Take care and recover quickly, Ms. Fusco."
"Yep, get well soon," Jack patted her on the head, perhaps on purpose, perhaps not, making Linda grimace in pain. Adrian tried to absorb everything he'd heard as he trudged back down the stairs to the first floor. Could the killer have just been tipped off to the plot's exposure? If so, would they now move quickly to eliminate him? He doubted he was going to get much sleep for the rest of the week either.
If any of his innermost confidants were in fact the killer, they were adept at covering their fear of exposure with general shock, as all of them had this expression when they stepped off the elevator. "Can't believe it," Stottlemeyer was in particular shock, "Someone we trust sold us out."
"Funny enough that she ended up in Jack Jr.'s cell," Jack Sr. was frowning, "I don't know exactly what it means, if anything, but it looks just a little convenient they'd be connected like that. Oh well, I'd say our path is pretty easy from here; just have the prison staff interrogate this Whale freak and force him to confess everything,"
"You don't know Dale Beiderbeck--among other things," Sharona frowned him down more than a little suspiciously; Adrian knew she still had her feelings his father might be the killer (and given that he had in fact been absent when Shalhoub had been shot, it wasn't without cause). "You can't just interrogate Dale the Whale," the nurse continued explaining to the former trucker as they walked out of the hospital, "He'd never willingly give up anything that would come back around to hurt him. We had to get his physician's testimony to convict him the first time I met him; we're probably going to have to catch one of his agents to get lucky here too."
"At least we do know more now, like why the hit was ordered," Disher seemed more upbeat--perhaps a little too much so, Adrian wondered, "I heard they're finally going to execute him within a week or so; revenge would be right up his alley."
"We can still have him interrogated even if he won't crack," Wallace reached inside his cruiser for the radio, "What's the number for the prison he's in, anyone know?"
"555-0666," Stottlemeyer told him. The captain sighed and leaned against the cruiser. "Of course, we can't be sure she wasn't actually in on it in the first place," he mumbled, "She might be talking now only to save her own skin."
"I think she's on the level, Captain," Adrian bent down with his clippers to even out the grass blades around the cruiser, "I could just tell it in her eyes she was telling the truth."
"I agree," Natalie nodded. "You know," she told Stottlemeyer with raised eyebrows, "Maybe you should forgive her in the end."
"Natalie, you yourself cracked that case with Monk, so you know full well she played me like a banjo from start to finish," Stottlemeyer growled, "And you saw how she's divided my family. I can't forgive that any more than you could if it turned out Mitch had been sleeping with someone else--just hypothetically," he added quickly as an uncomfortable look came on her face--too uncomfortable, perhaps, Adrian wondered, or was he so much on edge from knowing what they now knew that he saw villainy everywhere? "Anyway," the captain climbed into the cruiser, "I just want to get back to Breckman Lake and leave all these bad memories behind. And remember, you all promised not a word to Jared or Max that I met her."
"So tell me what the hell is the matter with you!?" Beiderbeck was barking into a cell phone inside his cell, "I can't believe you couldn't have finished Monk off right there in the convention center!"
"Hey, how could I tell which one was him and which one was Tony Shalhoub from up there!?" the person on the other end of the phone protested.
"You should have shot both of them just to make sure, you numbskull!!" the fat man upbraided his agent.
"He started running for the door right after Shalhoub went down; there were women and children everywhere around him; I didn't want to...!"
"And you really think I care if women and children get killed along the way to accomplishing your prime directive!?" Beiderbeck hissed, "May I remind you that I did place the five hundred thousand dollar bounties on both Julie Teeger and Benjamin Fleming's heads as well, that you'll get paid well if you've got the guts to send them into their well-deserved graves!?"
"Could you please cork it, Beiderbeck, I'm trying to concentrate on my game here," Kloster snapped coolly at him from the cell next door.
"Why don't you cork it, Patrick; I'm in the middle of a very important phone call here!" the fat man snapped back, "Not like you need any quiet when you're only playing with yourself, you dolt!"
He took deep, aggravated breaths. "All right, I don't think I need to remind you that time is ticking here," he told his agent in exasperation, "If what you said about Linda Fusco being in Breckman Lake is true, and there's no reason to doubt it after I saw her listening in to my last call with you, Monk will take more precautions to make sure he leaves that festival alive. And if you fail me, not only will you not get the inheritance, but I'll leave evidence behind when they take me to the execution chamber that will easily incriminate you as well."
"Damn you, Beiderbeck, why did I just know you'd try and stab me in the back!" "Agent X" shouted at him, "And why aren't you going to pay up for the Kights; you said anyone in that cabin...!"
"I gave you a very clear list of the people that qualified for the bounties," Beiderbeck said smugly, "The Kights aren't close enough to Monk to qualify, so if you want the money from me, you'd better start taking out people who are on...hold on one minute."
He shoved the cell phone under his rear end and backed his wheelchair away from the cell bars. The warden and prison doctor were wheeling a metal cart down the hall towards the execution chamber. Beiderbeck knew full well what was in the cart; the sodium thiopental, pancuronium, and potassium chloride for the lethal injections were always delivered to the chamber in this manner. The initial procedures for the fat man's execution were underway. He didn't have much time left to see his scheme brought to fruition.
"Hey Warden, I want to talk to the judge right now!" Hudson started shouting from the cell on his left, "I know Adrian Monk trained that dog to frame me and...!"
"Give it a rest, Hudson; you've been playing that tune for two weeks now," the warden told him off, "And frankly we're all getting a little tired of it, so save it for your lawyer when he stops in over the weekend. Just put this stuff in the control room, Doc."
There came a loud shriek from up the hall. "No, no, Camilla, I didn't...please no...NO!!!" Buchanan was in another one of his fits again, apparently now believing his stepmother had returned again to seek vengeance on him for killing her, "No Camilla, it wasn't me, I didn't do it, it was Natalie! Yes, Natalie Teeger did it; she killed you and set me up! I'd never hurt you or Dad, you know that better...no, please, put that away, I can't...Carl, no, not you too! Go away Carl, leave me alone! Put that away, I...HELP, SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!"
He could be heard making strange, unintelligible sounds as he rattled the bars of his cell like a madman. "Dear God, not again!" the warden rolled his eyes. "Call the rest of the staff back in with the tranquilizers again," he told the prison doctor, "The sooner we get Mr. Buchanan into an asylum where he belongs, the better."
He and the doctor trudged wearily up to Buchanan's cell, where the former socialite could now be heard scratching at the walls and screeching in a manner much like a monkey might make. Beiderbeck checked to make sure both men were preoccupied before pulling the cell phone back out from under himself. "As I was saying," he whispered, turning his wheelchair towards the wall, "I'm almost out of time here, and I would really like Adrian Monk pay for his crimes before I die, so I expect you to deliver, or else."
"And what do you want me to do about that, Beiderbeck!? Like I said, Monk's starting to catch on that something's up."
"Do the same thing anyone else with nothing left to lose does in the same situation you are," Beiderbeck leaned close to the phone, "Escalate."