Monk and What He Saw
by Cathy German
cathgerm@aol.com
Chapter Four
For about the hundredth time, Sharona wondered what was going through Adrian Monk's head.
He'd been silent for most of the drive.
Okay, he had jabbered incoherently and tried to crawl out of the car all the way across the Golden Gate Bridge, which was standard, but he'd settled down around Sausalito and had been in a state of unMonk-like quiet ever since.
Once every ten minutes or so, he'd yell "Watch out!" and Sharona would dutifully slow down so that they wouldn't plow into the car turning onto the freeway about a mile-and-a-half ahead of them. But other than that ... nothing.
But about a half-hour before their destination – The Tended Vine Inn – short sentences started to pop out of him, and she knew what was on his mind.
"Napa Valley is a very romantic place, don't you think?"
Trudy. He was thinking of Trudy.
And: "Leland was there for me when no else was."
Stottlemeyer. He was thinking of Stottlemeyer, and no surprise there.
And: "The people attending the seminar ... I ... I'm not sure I want to see them."
Many of them his former co-workers. He was thinking about facing these badged people while he was displaced and badgeless.
And: "When was the last time you cleaned this car? Look at the dust on the dashboard."
How sweet. He was thinking of her.
As for Sharona, she'd babbled all the way like a top-40 disk jockey, wanting to keep the atmosphere light in spite of her concern for Monk and her concern about what he'd seen. She could hear herself and was appalled, but once she started, it was hard to stop.
It was in her genes.
"Did you see that, Adrian? That view from back there?"
"Adrian, do you want to stop for coffee?"
"Are you hungry, Adrian? There's a little place up here where we can grab a bite. I went there years ago on a long, long date, and blah-de-blah blah blah."
She'd even asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom, as if he were two years old and incapable of telling her what he needed.
She'd only relaxed and shut up towards the end of their trip when the disparate, sad thoughts began coming out of him.
It was times like this when she wanted to mend him, to pull him to her breast and make everything all right. But it wasn't that easy and she knew it. He'd been damaged by what had happened to him. Of course, she'd been damaged in a less tragic way: single mother, quasi-abusive ex, difficulty keeping a job.
Hell. Everybody was damaged. But Monk ... She pulled her eyes to the right and felt a lump swell in her throat. She was finding that that happened a lot to her lately: moments of intense, deep sympathy for him.
"What is this sticky stuff on the seat? Do you ever clean this car?"
And then there were those other moments ...
Lieutenant Disher mopped his face with the cool towel again and looked over into the lined, concerned face of Mr. Fredrico Narducci, the general manager for The Tended Vine Inn.
Mr. Narducci was not a very happy man. Things like this did not happen at The Tended Vine. People did not mysteriously disappear after they'd checked in. Especially when the Inn was filled with policemen. He was tapping his fingers on the large desk in front of him.
Disher was pouring out his story in Mr. Narducci's office, and he'd had to stop when he got ill and used the attached private bathroom. Fredrico had been arguing for calling the local authorities, but was reminded by Disher that a sizable group of them were in meeting rooms in his Inn at that very minute. And Narducci admitted that he was loathe to open himself up to the bad publicity.
Randy was beside himself with worry, unsure as to how to proceed. After showering and dressing in slacks and a polo shirt, he'd headed to seminar headquarters: the table in the lobby that was manned for the three days that they would be there. He was pleased to see someone that he knew: Grace Martin with the Oakland Police Force, and he told her the story, including Monk's grievous warnings. He asked her to pull some cops from the meeting rooms, just a few of them, ones who were discreet and who they knew that they could trust, and those policemen were now quietly studying the shaded grounds, checking out unoccupied rooms and questioning the staff. He didn't want a thousand cop cars squealing into the inn with sirens wailing and lights spinning. He didn't want to tip off anyone who might be holding the captain.
And he wasn't altogether sure that some officer of the law attending one of the meetings right now might not have held a grudge against his boss and decided to act on it.
"Are you sure that Mr. Stottlemeyer didn't leave on a forgotten errand? Or maybe he decided that he had better things to do with his day," Mr. Narducci suggested, raising his bushy eyebrows. "Maybe he's taking a wine-tasting tour."
Disher shook his head.
"He wouldn't have done that."
"How can you be so sure?."
"He knew that I'd worry. Monk scared us with what he saw. The captain would have had that in mind. He wouldn't have done that to us."
Narducci nodded and leaned back in the chair behind his desk. It creaked as it rocked back and forth, back and forth. It was like a sharp stick poking Disher's brain.
Randy held up a hand and pointed at the chair. "Could you?"
"Hm?"
"The chair. My head ... it's-" he dropped it forward, as if to illustrate it, and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Oh. Sorry." Narducci's voice softened. "So this Adrian Monk," he said, clearly curious. "Is he ... crazy?"
Disher's head snapped up in an angry reaction, and he paid for it. He barely made it to the bathroom, and while he was there, he made sure that he missed the bowl several times.
"Hey."
Ignore it. You're dreaming again.
"Hey." This was accompanied by a kick to an ankle, and Stottlemeyer came completely awake. He blinked his eyes to clear the haze in them. His heart pounded in his chest. Finally ... finally! ... he was going to find out what this was all about. He looked up and squinted at the man standing in front of him. It was the waiter, but now he had a bellhop uniform on.
"Bet your arms hurt," he said, but he didn't sound concerned about it.
Stottlemeyer tried to get his throat working to answer. He'd called out for help until his voice was raw, and he was also dying of thirst.
"We can cut those off of you now," the man said, pulling out a pocket knife and moving behind the captain. Stottlemeyer stiffened and tried to prepare for whatever might happen. In spite of his lack of care the night before, he was no fool, and getting untied was not necessarily the best of news. It could mean movement, but it could also mean movement in a bad direction. Or he might not use the knife for cutting the ropes at all.
He assessed the possibilities. The man was crouching next to him. If he fell over on him right after he was cut loose, if he could grab the pocketknife, if he could sit on the guy's chest and get his bearings, but none of that happened. His bindings loosened and the pain in his arms was overwhelming. He wasn't sure that he could pull them in front of himself, let along bring somebody down with them.
His brain told him to wait, wait for the right moment to make a move, and this wasn't it.
He grimaced as he brought his arms forward, and the unassuming man walked back to a spot in front of him and pulled a Tended Vine Inn towel from his waistband, placed it carefully on the floor, and sat down on it cross-legged.
"You don't recognize me, do you?" he asked in a polite but menacing voice.
Stottlemeyer looked up from rubbing at his arms. He'd never seen the guy before. On the other hand, he could have passed him on a sidewalk any day of the week and not paid attention. Medium-sized, middle-aged, round-faced. Stottlemeyer ran through a saved mental database of criminals who might want to see him suffer, and this guy didn't come up.
He shook his head.
"I'm sorry," he said in a cracked whisper, still having a problem with his throat. "I don't."
The man nodded.
"I didn't think so. But then you weren't looking at me. You were on the stand, looking at my brother. Testifying against my brother."
Shit. Stottlemeyer saw a revenge scenario forming in front of his eyes. He could almost hear the words before they came out of the man's mouth.
"You know, if my brother was here, I doubt you'd even recognize him. Just another day in court for the big, important policeman."
Yes. Definitely Shit.
"But he's not here. And do you know why?"
Stottlemeyer shook his head.
"He was terrified of jail. He'd never been away from home before." He smiled, and the hairs on the back of the captain's head rose. "Isn't that something? Twenty-two, and he'd never slept away from home. He was so scared. So scared." His voice faded away and the man took the knife back out of his pocket and looked down as he idly rolled it in his fingers. "He broke away when they were transporting him, and they shot him. Shot him dead. Seventeen bullets. Five policemen. All for a little drug deal." He looked up. "A little corner drug deal for a little extra change."
Stottlemeyer had begun to have feeling in his arms, and, more alert, he could also feel a moment coming up where he might have a chance; by words, or by action.
"I ... I remember that case." And he did, but little of the courtroom part. He remembered only the tragic end of it. "I'm sorry about your brother." And he was. "I remember ... say," he said, his training coming to the fore, "what's your first name?"
The man smiled again.
"Forget it. I watch TV. I know what you're trying. You're trying to stall, to wear me down. Get to know me personally." He looked back at his knife. "You don't need to know my name."
The captain surreptitiously flexed his leg and hip muscles. If he had an opportunity, he needed to be ready.
"Look," he said, keeping his voice reasonable and firm, "I'm just a cop. I'm not a judge and jury. I don't hand out sentences. I don't get to vote. I just do my job ... did my job to the best of my ability. What happened to your brother was tragic, and I'm sorry for that."
"I couldn't believe my luck." It came out of the man as if he hadn't heard a word, and his face was rapturous as he continued. "Leland Stottlemeyer right here under my nose. It was going to be a tough weekend, surrounded by cops, but when you came in ... my God, it made my day."
Stottlemeyer sighed and eyed the knife. How much harm could a pocketknife do? If he tried to take the guy, the worst that might happen would be some scratches, a stab wound, but not too deep. He would try to protect his neck, his wrists ... and then the air was knocked out of him, because the angry brother reached around his back and pulled out a gun.
His gun. His own goddamned gun.
He put his still-tingling hands in front of him, palms toward the man.
"Look. Let's slow down. Let's talk about this."
"Get up," the man said, motioning with the gun.
Stottlemeyer nodded. He knew that getting up was not going to be easy. He'd scarcely moved for almost fifteen hours, and his head was still throbbing from the hit with the candlestick.
"Give me a minute to get my feet," he said, one hand held out towards the man, one on the floor next to a hip. He brought his knees under himself and almost toppled face-first into the floor. This was going to be harder than he thought. One foot to the floor, then the other, always with an eye on the legs of the man in front of him. He found he had to use his hands to walk up the barn wall behind him to stand, and when he reached his full height, the surroundings swam in front of his eyes. He leaned over and put his hands to his knees, his breath ragged.
The man was unmoved, and he gestured again with the gun and backed up.
"Come on."
Stottlemeyer took a first step in that direction and almost fell again, but steadied himself and took another. As he moved, he looked to where they were headed. It was the line of antique wine presses that he'd noticed when he was tied up. There were four of them, oak and iron, five feet tall and about five feet in diameter. Wooden platforms ran around them at mid-height, and large, round metal discs were suspended in the metal augers below the handles used for screwing them down.
Great. He was going to be pressed.
He stumbled again and decided to allow himself to fall to the floor. It was genuine, but it was also a stall. As the man went behind him and kicked his foot, Leland's left hand hit something buried in the sawdust, and he ran his hand along it.
A six-inch spike.
He might be able to use it, and he curled his fingers around it and pushed himself up. The man, now behind him, used the gun to nudge him up the stairs to the platform of the closest press. Leland took the steps slowly, thinking, calculating. At the top of the step, he turned. The man was right behind him. The gun was in his face.
"Drop it. I saw you pick it up. Drop it now, or I'll pull the trigger."
Stottlemeyer nodded and obeyed, the spike bouncing on the floor and out of sight.
"Get in."
"Look-"
"Get in."
The captain threw an aching leg over the side of the vat, and then the other. He stood, waiting for instructions.
"Lie down."
Resistance now would be suicidal, and the captain knew it. He'd just have to hope that someone would come by the barn, or that the police would make a systematic search of The Tended Vine and find him. He went to his knees, then his side. Things could be worse. At least his arms were free, at least he wasn't tied. And he didn't mind the smell of the press: warm wood and wine, with a pinch of metal.
"I'm going to come back for you," the man said, leaning over the side of the press. "I need to take you to the family. They need to see you. They've never been right since it happened."
Stottlemeyer said nothing. There was nothing to be said.
The man above him continued. "But I consider you a flight risk, just like my brother was." And the captain was unhappily surprised to see his gun come over the side of the vat, down, down to the point where it was touching him. He was going to be shot, and furthermore the man had thought to muffle the sound of the shot with Stottlemeyer's flesh; and as he realized this, he twisted, trying to avoid a gut shot, and succeeded.
He thought.
For the moment, it hardly mattered. His thigh was on fire. Through slitted eyes he could see the lid cranking down and he breathed deeply, fighting to stay conscious.
Leland Stottlemeyer never considered himself a particularly clever man, but he had come to believe in certain things because of his old and very different friend, Adrian Monk. If Adrian had seen this, maybe he could hear him psychically at this moment.
So he gathered all the waning strength that he had and put it in his brain, and with blackness licking at the edges of his reality, he sent out the strongest, loudest thought that he could:
Monk.
Help me.
"Adrian?"
They'd arrived at the circular asphalt drive at The Tended Vine Inn and had just gotten out of the car and closed the doors. When Sharona looked across the roof, Adrian was standing as still as she'd ever seen him, and his eyes were unfocused. He turned his head to the right, then to the left.
"Adrian?"
He turned and looked straight through her, looked beyond her and then back in the opposite direction, behind him.
Sharona put her hand to her chest.
"Adrian? What is it?"
He looked at her finally, all of him, and he shrugged in his blazer.
"Mm ... nothing."