After calling my parents to have them pick up Julie and watch her for awhile, because it might be a while, I head over to Monk's house in my vehicle. As soon as I honk on the horn, he comes running out of the apartment building, apparently having locked his door before I arrive.
"You're… late," he says, getting into the car.
"Mr. Monk, I had to have someone watch over Julie. It's easy to be early when you're living alone…."
I don't realize that this comment actually bothers him, for he's now looking sentimental, and then I remember that he wasn't always alone. "I'm sorry," I say.
"You know, even when Trudy was with me, she'd never make us late…. She… didn't even have to put on much makeup… she was a natural beauty…." He sighs and clicks his seatbelt in.
I have to make the subject lighter somehow. "Mitch was always the first to be ready; he never put on makeup at all," I cracked.
Monk smiles at me, but his eyes are sad. Not tearing up or watering, but I can read that look. It's a look of understanding, yet he knows he's not at the point to be able to make light of the situation like I can.
After some terrible directions from Monk as to where the hospital is, since I've never been there, I pull into the parking lot and the detective sitting next to me unbuckles his seat belt before I even stop the car. He must really be in a rush, to ignore his intense fear of dying.
"It's okay, Mr. Monk, I'm sure the body will still be here…" I attempt to calm him, as I park in a space near to the main entrance.
"You—you don't know that for sure, Natalie. What if the killer has burned the evidence?"
I laugh. "What is he going to do, make a bonfire in the parking lot? You can't just burn a body like that."
He's still dead serious. "The body's already almost gone. It wouldn't take that much."
After ensuring that the doors are all locked and the windows rolled up, we head into the hospital. Monk pushes me to approach the front desk.
"Uh… autopsy room, please?" I ask quietly.
The receptionist gapes up at me, tilting her reading glasses to avoid looking through their fuzziness.
"Do you have verification to enter that room, Miss?" she inquires. I don't really know what to say, because I have no right to see that room. Monk speaks up for me, and I sigh with relief at not having to explain the situation.
"Mrs.—" he looks at her nametag, which is crooked, "Waldon, I am—we are working with the police force to solve a murd—"
She cuts him off. "All that is downstairs is a suicide victim, and some guy who drowned in the recent flooding." Monk approaches the desk, leaning forward very slowly to eventually fix her nametag.
"What are you doing, Mister?" she asks him, with a violated look on her face, as she rolls away in her chair.
"Just… your nametag…. It's crooked…." Monk says, as if it's completely normal to want to straighten a stranger's things. I elbow him in the ribs, and he jumps, making a grunting sound in the process.
He looks over at me, obviously hurt. "What did you do that for?" he asks, apparently clueless of his strange behavior.
"Leave her nametag alone," I say. "Don't you want to see the body?"
"Yes. Yes," he states quickly. "Mrs. Waldon, there are members of the force who do not believe that that man committed suicide, and I am here to verify what happened."
He really does have a way with words, when he's not nervous or preoccupied or caught-off-guard. Okay, it's a very rare thing for him to speak eloquently. He's always disturbed in some way.
"Alright, Sir and Miss, I have to make you nametags. What is your name, Sir?" She pulls out sticky nametags, which are wrapped around a roll, and a red magic marker.
"My name is… Adrian Monk…" the detective states quietly.
The woman scribbles his name on to the sticker as he watches in disgust. "How about you, Ma'am?"
"Natalie Teeger," I say, happy that Monk had mentioned me to let me come along.
She scribbles down my name as well, misspelling my last name. Monk is astounded. "You… spelled her surname wrong…." he says, pointing at the paper. I almost giggle out loud, hearing him say 'surname.'
"It's okay," the receptionist says warmly. "It won't be questioned by anyone." She hands Monk and me our stickers, smiling all the way. Monk won't touch his sticker, so I have to grab his as well as mine.
As we begin walking, I can hear the woman saying something to us. "You have to wear that sticker, sir, or else you can't get in to the room."
"Okay," he mumbles, half-turning around and waving as if he understands. I hand him the sticker, and he cringes at having to touch the sticky surface. He walks along, gaping down at his violated finger.
"Hold on," I say, and grab his arm. He stops and allows me to take the sticker off his finger. "Lemme put this on for you then," I explain, as I stick it to his jacket, ensuring that it is straight.
He attempts to look down at it, but it is too high up on his chest to see it very well from his angle. "Is it straight?" he cries desperately. "It's too high!"
"It looks fine, Mr. Monk." I face to the front again, signaling with my hand. "The body?" I say, attempting to divert his attention once more to the task.
"Yes, yes," he mumbles. "The body…."
We walk down a flight of stairs and reach a thick door with handles. Although Monk is in front of me, he steps politely out of the way to make me open the door.
As I pull the door open, he scoots through, avoiding touching the door surface, and waits for me to come through. Once through the door, I find myself at the end of a long sterile white hallway, and he smiles at me, in his perfect world.
"What's so great about this? The body could be anywhere." I scoff, unsure of how to proceed.
"Uhmmm..." His characteristic throat-clearing, and I can tell he's about to make me feel stupid again. I let him. "It's at the end of the hallway; see where it says 'autopsy room?'"
I nod my head exaggeratingly and we continue. I open the door of the autopsy room for him, and we both shrink back at the vapors that await us, hitting us in the face. It's a body, alright, but it's a rotten one, not a burnt one. Just as I am about to turn around, Monk notices a table covered with a tarp.
"It's… under the tarp," he states, walking over to it. He grabs a paper towel from a dispenser nearby and lifts the tarp, which is seemingly flat against the gurney. Underneath is the skeleton. He's right, as usual.
He pulls back the tarp a bit and stares intently at the bones of the skeleton. I sigh, left out of his depth of thought once more. "The bones…." he says. "They're so… white…" I have no idea what this could possibly mean, but I keep my mouth shut.
He turns his attention to the teeth. "These teeth are all fake." He lowers the jaw using the paper towel. "All of them…."
"How do you know that?" I ask.
"Simple. Look at the way they are connected into the jawbone." He beckons me over to point it out. "See? The metal stakes under them?"
"Ouch," I say. "That looks painful. It looks like they were screwed into his gums."
"You'd think, with a man having all false teeth, that he'd just get dentures. Every single tooth is drilled into—"
Suddenly the medical examiner walks in, and is startled by our presence in the room. "Who gave you clearance to come in here? This room is off-limits." He puts his hands on his hips. "Or else something else would go missing, like we need more of that crap…." he states, obviously disgusted by a recent occurrence. Monk backs away from the body.
"What?" he says. The medical examiner is angry and doesn't respond. He has to explain why we are here. "I'm –we're working with the San Francisco Police Department…." He looks over at me. "I'm Adrian Monk, and this is Nat—"
"This man committed suicide, sir," the examiner says. "I never knew suicides had to be investigated…."
"Well—they don't," Monk stammers. "I –members of the police department, some of them… think this was a homicide."
"The dental records match the victim's. And your captain said that the handwriting of the suicide note matches the victim's."
"But the man has false teeth. And the suicide note only had a first na—" Monk tries to blurt out, but the examiner stops him.
"I think your work is done here." The examiner is obviously annoyed, and crosses his arms.
Monk is not done though. "Could you… keep the body here for an extra two days? The lieutenant may have to do some follow-up on the case."
The medical examiner nods slowly and opens the door for us, and we leave.
"The white bones," Monk says, while shaking his head as we're leaving the room. "I don't know what it means, but it means something. And why would he say someone stole something? Did someone?"
"Mr. Monk," I say as sweetly as I can. "Why don't we look up information on his wife, to see if she had to do with his suicide?"
He nods and pulls off his sticker hastily to hand to me, and we exit the hospital.
What do you think? Review, pretty please!
