Monk and What He Saw
by Cathy German
cathgerm@aol.com
Chapter Three
Randy Disher had the mother of all wine headaches.
He'd finally relaxed the evening before when they'd arrived at their destination: The Tended Vine Inn, which was an adjunct to The Tended Vine Cellars. The seminar was being held in a series of meeting rooms in the Inn, a treed, grassy oasis that was a counterpoint to the dusty fields and sere, golden, oak-covered hills surrounding them.
Well, he hadn't relaxed right away. They'd had to check in at the desk and stop by the table to register for the seminar, get their packets, and slap on their "Hi, I'm ______" name tags, but as soon as they'd dropped their bags in the room, he and Stottlemeyer had headed for the Cellars where there was a wine- and cheese-tasting soiree for seminar attendees.
It hadn't taken Disher too long to find a wine that pleased him, and once he'd found that, he began to systematically numb his extremities.
Always with an eye on Stottlemeyer.
He hadn't meant to have too much to drink. It had somehow just happened: the drive, his nerves, the day that began with Mr. Adrian Monk and his premonition ... he had needed to relax badly.
And so he had.
Badly.
He was sure that he'd had that much wine before with no adverse effects, but no matter: he'd been on his lips. No two ways about it. After a mere hour at The Cellars, his head was echoing painfully with the laughter of the attendees, and he felt unsteady on his feet.
He'd nailed himself to his captain's side for the evening, but Stottlemeyer was so busy pressing the flesh and networking with old co-workers and friends that he hadn't seemed to notice. Disher knew that he had to get to their room before he passed out, but he was loathe to shirk his guard dog duty. The only thing he could think to do was to get Stottlemeyer to go with him.
He'd tugged on the elbow of the captain's suit coat until he got his attention. Disher had pulled him aside behind the wine barrels and confessed his tipsy state in the flicker of the candlelight there, and the amused look on Stottlemeyer's face hadn't helped one bit.
And so they'd staggered down the hallway to their room.
Well, Stottlemeyer had walked, actually, with his arm around Disher. The captain had only staggered when his lieutenant fell into him. Randy had been as clumsy as a stringless marionette.
He'd promptly fallen to the bed and begged the captain to stay, begged him, thick-tongued and teary, to stay with him in the room and not go back to the Cellars. Stottlemeyer, his cheeks rosy from vino, had laughed, pulled off Disher's shoes, and covered him with a blanket.
"Took that 'howling at the moon' thing a little too seriously, Randy," he'd said with a smile, and he patted Disher's leg.
"Sleep tight. Tomorrow's another day."
And now that day was here, and Disher was dreading it. He'd never been this sick after drinking, not even in college, and he wondered about his ability to attend the morning sessions. Hell, he wondered at his ability to attend any of them, given how he was feeling.
He hadn't unwrapped his head yet. His first reaction upon awakening was to throw his arms over his eyes. The morning sun was slanting through the wooden blinds of the window at the foot of the bed, and the first unprotected glimpse of it had shot straight through his eyeballs into the tenderest parts of his brain.
He moaned, and then caught himself, wondering if Stottlemeyer was still asleep. Tentatively, he uncovered one eye. Looked like the captain was up and gone already. The bed was made.
Time for him to do the same.
Randy was pretty sure that he would get physically ill the minute he stood. His whole body was telling him that. He was glad that the captain was gone. That way, he could have the bathroom to himself, and it wouldn't be necessary to visit his misery on an innocent roommate.
The bed was made.
Randy tried to remember which was the first meeting of the day and whether he could pass on it and keep his badge. Was it the profiling one? He was interested in that one. Or was that one tomorrow?
He wasn't crazy about the fact that he'd have to face his boss today after his woozy, helpless display last night. He was sure that there would be plenty of good-natured ribbing about it on the captain's part.
Think about it: the bed was made.
Randy sat up so fast that he tumbled to the floor.
Why make a bed at an inn when the maid service would be there as soon as they left the room?
This wasn't just a case of too much wine. This was something more, and there was purpose to it. On his hands and knees, Disher tried to shake the cobwebs from his brain and paid for it with a stab of pain that made him cry out. He squinted as he surveyed the room through watery eyes.
Stottlemeyer's suitcase was sitting on the dresser by the door, a mere nine feet away, but Disher wasn't sure he could make it there standing. So he crawled, and when he got there, pulled himself up like a toddler just learning to walk.
The bag wasn't even unzipped.
Now terrified, he stumbled through the room looking for signs of Stottlemeyer and what might have happened to him. The signs that he did find were clear and nightmare-inducing: the piece of mint chocolate still in its tidy little box on the pillow. In the bathroom, no toothbrush, no grooming products laid out. The place was neat as a pin and ready for guests.
And then that particular guest fell to his knees on the cold tile floor did what he knew he'd do when he'd awakened: he got desperately, violently ill.
By Stottlemeyer's calculation, it was probably around 10 a.m.
He'd come to full cognition pre-dawn, and had watched a beautiful sunrise through the slats of wherever he was, and then had slept again – if that was what you'd call it – until now.
He'd been awake – if that was what you'd call that – several times during the night as well, but it was only now, mid-morning, that he was feeling the fog that had enveloped his brain dissipate. But not completely. A concussion was a real possibility. He'd been concussed when he was a rookie, and it was no picnic. He didn't particularly care to go through that again, but there wasn't a hell of a lot that he could do about it, or do about anything else for that matter.
As he became more aware, he wished briefly for the return of the fog.
There wasn't a place where he didn't hurt. He wasn't a young man anymore, and just the mere act of spending a night on a sawdust-covered concrete floor was enough to lay him low, let alone everything else: a whack on the head with something that would be known in official circles as a "blunt instrument," his hands and arms tied behind him, tight to the point of numbness, and from there tied to a barn slat on the wall behind him. He couldn't stand because it was tied too low. He couldn't lay down or he would dislocate his arms.
All in all, the bed in his room would have been a major improvement.
Randy Disher. He frowned with worry thinking about him. Stottlemeyer had considered it peculiar that his favorite lieutenant would drink himself to a point of idiocy. It just wasn't like him. Disher was too eager to please, too aware of himself and where he fit in the department to make an ass out of himself at a seminar surrounded by a bunch of cops. And it was especially odd given that he was sure that Randy had been charged by Monk to stay at his side.
He'd done a fine job of that. For most of the evening, you couldn't have fit a piece of paper between them.
Randy had been taken out of the equation to make it easier to get him.
And – gosh – it couldn't possibly have been any easier.
When he'd turned away from the door after depositing Randy, there was a Tended Vine employee standing behind him. Or at least he'd worn the outfit of a Tended Vine employee. Stottlemeyer recognized him as one of the waiters at The Cellar.
"Sir? Could I have a moment of your time?" the unremarkable middle-aged man asked.
"Sure. What can I do for you?"
The waiter grimaced.
"I'm afraid this is a little ... um ... well, I'd like to be discreet about this. It has to do with your roommate."
Stottlemeyer jabbed a thumb at the door.
"Randy?"
"Exactly." He frowned again, appearing unsettled by the situation. "I've been sent to talk to you by The Tended Vine management. I'm afraid that your friend Randy was seen taking something that was not his while he was in The Cellar."
Stottlemeyer couldn't help it. He laughed, long and hard, and waved the worried waiter away.
"Sorry, you've got the wrong guy."
"Oh, please. Please." The waiter grabbed his arm as he headed down the hall. "If you could just take a second. It was reported that he took a silver candlestick. These have been in the owner's family for decades." He gave Stottlemeyer a tentative smile. "I'd prefer that we keep this between the two of us. I'd prefer that we not alert anyone else." He steered him to a room service cart that was a few feet from the door. "If you can at least take a look at the rest of the set to see if you recognize anything."
It was clear that the guy was not going to take no for an answer, so Stottlemeyer, eager to escape, leaned over the cart in question as the waiter drew away the cloth covering it with a flourish.
There was a single candlestick there, and nothing else. The waiter picked it up, and as he did so, Stottlemeyer noted that it was a big cart for such a little candlestick. A very big cart. And there was space underneath that very big cart, enough space to hide a good-sized person. Maybe a man. Maybe a stupid man who should have known better.
His last thoughts:
What a rookie mistake.
And:
Monk was right.