Fenway Park was every bit as miserable of an experience as Monk had anticipated. The crowd was loud and sweaty, enclosed within the stadium on a hot July evening. To the front of him and to the back of him were people who had imbibed far too much beer and were belligerently yelling at the umpires, the players, or anyone else that didn't strike their fancy. And to top it all off, there were three lights that were out in the scoreboard that created a blank spot distorting every word and image that used that section of the board.
"Come on! Rodriguez! You can do better than that!" one of the fans around him yelled.
"What-are-ya blind or somethin' Just hit the dang ball!" yelled another.
A portrait of the batter appeared on the screen overlapping the offending section of screen - The image of his smile being affected by the broken lights.
"Awe this is just awful! Terrible!" said Adrian.
Leland looked up at Adrian. "Gee, Monk. I didn't realize you had gotten so much into baseball."
Adrian looked at Leland. "Huh? What? Oh. No. It's not that. Look at the screen. It makes him look like he's missing teeth."
Suddenly, the crowd gasped and stood up. The Monks and Stottlemeyers did as well. The pitcher had thrown a wild pitch hitting Rodriguez in the face. The batting coach, head coach and several players all stood around him. Within a minute, he was helped up to his feet, blood dripping from his mouth.
"Looks like it was prophetic." Said Leland. As the player waved to a cheering crowd and exited the field.
"Leland, honey, I'm getting thirsty. Would you mind going and getting me a soda?" TK asked.
"Me too." Said Natalie.
Leland looked over at Monk. "Want to go with me, and get out of these seats?"
"I thought you would never ask." Said Adrian.
As the two men stood at the concession stand, Adrian watched a news report featuring President John Stoddard who was discussing the attack at the office building earlier that day.
"Hey Leland. It's happened again." Adrian said softly.
Leland walked over and listened to the President.
And so, I have assigned FBI Director Grier the task at investigating what we believe is an isolated incident at this time, and will, with this executive order, give her full authority to bring in anyone who might be considered suspect with this crime. I will not be taking any questions, but will keep you informed as the situation develops.
Leland looked at Monk. "That doesn't sound right. Sounds like they are covering up something."
"You see what I mean now?" asked Adrian.
[Anchorwoman] That, ladies and gentleman was President John Stoddard from the Press Room fifteen minutes ago, who contrary to earlier reports is blaming this event on a possible disgruntled employee of the Congressional office building.
Right now, let's talk with our local law enforcement expert, former police chief Adam Nader. Mr. Nader, welcome to the program. Now, Mr. Nader, one would have thought that congressional office buildings of all things would have had the highest level of security possible. Is that not true?
[Nader] Well Shelby, generally speaking that is true. But no system is absolutely fool proof, and if the individual worked within the confines of the building itself, they may have known its vulnerabilities – places that something like an IED could be created. It would be unusual, but certainly not impossible.
[Shelby] Mr. Nader, would this person have had to have had a great amount of technical know-how in order to create one of these…Wait. Just a moment. I'm sorry sir, but we are getting word that there has been another explosion, this one along a Presidential Motorcade near Highway 395 in Arlington. It is not known at this time where President Stoddard was heading, but … what is this? We are hearing unconfirmed reports that the President may have been seriously injured. We're trying to nail down the facts in this very serious development and will keep you up to date when more information is known.
"Oh dear, Heavens!" Adrian said. "John."
'Holy crap." Said Stottlemeyer. "What do you want to do?"
"Truthfully, Leland. I don't want to stay here." Adrian said. "My gut wants to go back into work, but I promised Natalie I would stay."
"Not much you can do right now. Not much is known." Said Leland.
"True. " Adrian said.
"Why don't we go collect the women and head back to home. Maybe we can come up with a game plan from there." Leland asked.
"We?" asked Adrian.
Leland rolled his eyes. "Yes, we, Monk. Where we go one, we go all."
"What?" asked Adrian.
"I heard that in a movie or somewhere. I'm just as interested in all of this as you are. TK and Natalie may be less than enthralled, but I don't think either one of us is going to rest until we get some resolution on this case. I can use my connections in San Francisco to dig through the networks they have access to, and you can look through your own networks. Divide and conquer."
"Sounds like a plan." Said Adrian, as both men headed back to the seats empty handed and let the ladies know what happened, and that they wanted to call it an early evening since neither of their minds was on the ballgame any longer. Due to an eerie feeling that swept over them when they heard of what had happened to the President's motorcade, both women put up no argument but gathered their things as they left the stadium, picked up the babies from Julie's, and went home.
Like a pack of jackals, the Press would soon descend upon every agency and each agency head looking for information, looking for the scoop. Adrian and Leland realized this eventuality more and more as they watched the news broadcast that evening and told the women that they were going to head into town to check on Monk's network to see what they might find out. It was a good thing they did.
From Adrian's email, they were able to pick up on a little information, namely, that an IED had been planted along the President's route and that they had begun to narrow down the search to a particular anarchist group with branches all along the East Coast. They were trying to see who among the group might also have connections within the agencies to have gotten the necessary access to know things like the President's route. The email was silent on the condition of the President, but only told those to whom it was addressed to 'soldier on.'
"Soldier on." Said Adrian with a smile. "That's something my mother-in-law says all the time."
"Things working out with Peggy and Bobby?" Asked Leland.
"They are okay. She's able to help Natalie with the babies, so that's good. I still feel like I don't really measure up in their eyes though." Adrian said.
"You may be misreading that." Said Leland. "I know for a fact that Peggy Davenport was actually bragging to some of her friends who are related to Briggs, that her son in law is the famous detective, Adrian Monk. She might be just a little uncomfortable with you because you tend to only let certain people in."
"With good reason." Said Adrian.
"True. But, give it time with the Mom-in-Law and Pop-in-Law. I think things will work out fine." Said Leland.
"You're probably right. Hey, I'm going to print a few things off and take them home with me to study tonight." Said Adrian.
"You supposed to be doing that?" asked Leland.
"I..I don't know. Nobody ever said I couldn't." said Monk.
"Okay. I hope you know what you're doing." Said Leland.
"You should know by now." Adrian said, as he hit print. "I always know what I'm doing. Even when I don't."
"So true." Leland said as he waited for the print job to finish and Adrian shut things down to head home for the evening.
As they turned off the lights in the office, he did not realize that the entire print job had not completed due to a paper jam. This would have to be discovered by DOJ personnel early the next morning.
