Monk and What He Saw
by Cathy German
cathgerm@aol.com
Chapter Two
Disher was driving.
Disher always drove, and that was just fine with him. Stottlemeyer had a tendency to distraction when driving. It set Randy's teeth on edge, and he wanted to kiss the ground whenever he got out of a car with the captain at the helm.
He looked over at him now. He'd been ominously silent since Disher had picked him up. He'd spent most of the trip with his face averted, apparently absorbed in the view passing outside the window. The good mood he'd been in had long vanished.
And that was fine, because his own good mood had vanished as well. He could still feel Monk's insistent hands on his shoulders, could read the fear in his eyes. Monk's nervous and dark concern had somehow traveled out his fingers and poured into Randy's bloodstream, where it was pounding now.
He cleared his throat.
"Brought my tennis racket, Sir," he said, trying to color the words with a nonchalance he didn't feel.
Stottlemeyer turned and looked at him as if Randy had just announced that he was going to wear his clothes backwards for the first day of the seminar.
"What?"
"Uh, my tennis racket," he said, nodding at the back seat. "Just in case."
Stottlemeyer, clearly a million miles away, turned and looked behind them.
"What for?"
"You know: 'All work and no play.' 'Howling at the moon.'" He grinned. It hurt his facial muscles to pull it off.
"Oh. Yeah." The captain nodded absently. "We could have some extra time. But I ... I guess I forgot mine."
Small wonder, Disher thought.
And then he crossed the line. He had to.
"Captain," he said, squeezing the steering wheel and staring straight ahead at the road, "I think you should have listened to Monk."
"I did."
"No, Sir," Randy said, amazed at his own audacity. "You know what I mean. I mean you should have listened to him, and I think we should have stayed and talked to Monk and worked this out. They repeat this seminar every quarter. We could have caught it later."
Disher could feel Stottlemeyer's eyes rake the side of his face, and then he was silent for a long time, at least five miles by Disher's calculation.
"Randy," he finally said in a voice that made it sound like it physically hurt to talk, "think about what you're saying. I'm a captain in an organization where people put their lives on the line every day. How do you think I would feel, and how do you think it would look if I stopped working because somebody had a ... a vision. A premonition." He rubbed his hands on his thighs and sighed. "Police officers' wives and husbands wake up at 3 a.m. in the morning with visions like that all the time."
Disher felt a wave of despair wash through him. He was going to lose this battle, no question about it. He swallowed.
"But Monk is never wrong."
Stottlemeyer found it in himself to chuckle.
"Oh, he's been wrong before."
Incredulous, Randy looked to his right. Stottlemeyer rewarded him with a smile.
"When I found Sharona for him, he said it wouldn't work."
"Waiter, this glass is dirty."
Sharona dropped her head into her hands. Five. Five glasses of water, none of them right. What she'd thought would be a good idea had turned into a disaster.
"Monk ..."
"Well it is. It's dirty." Quite serious, he wrapped his knife in the napkin and used it as a pointer. "Here." He squinted and frowned. "And here," he said, tapping, proud to have found another imperfection.
Never, never again, Sharona thought. What was I thinking?
It seemed like a fine idea at the time: take Benjy to a friend's house and take Monk out to a nice place for dinner to keep his mind off of ... well, the same thing she couldn't keep her mind off of: Stottlemeyer and Disher. She glanced at her watch. They were probably in Napa Valley by now.
The take-charge Monk she'd seen that morning had been replaced by the one that she knew far better, and he was awash in his phobias, as bad as she'd ever seen him.
"Waiter!" Adrian called again, his insistent and indignant gaze running through the busy restaurant. Nearby diners were looking their way.
She reached out and pulled down on his arm.
"Adrian. Stop. Adrian."
"But Sharona," his said, turning to her and looking older than she'd ever seen him, "this isn't right."
She nodded, convinced. "I know that. It's not right."
His eyebrows rose.
"It isn't? You agree?"
"I mean this isn't right," she said, putting her palms on the white tablecloth, "and this," she said, spreading her arms wide. "We shouldn't be here. I brought you here because I thought I could take your mind off of ..."
He looked down at his plate. His third.
Sharona removed the napkin from her lap and put it on the table.
"Adrian, help me here. What should we do?"
"I don't know," he said quietly into the table as a waiter removed the offensive glass of water and replaced it with another. "I'm not sure."
"Well we can't just sit here."
He looked up, hopeful.
"I haven't been to Napa Valley in years," he said. "Trudy and I ..." He looked back down. "It's been a long time."
Sharona stood, feeling better than she had in hours.
"Adrian, let's take a trip."
Monk stood as well and spoke:
"Waiter, this glass has a spot on it, too."