SIX
"What do you think you're doing?" Vecchio demanded to Adrian as they pulled up alongside the Canadian Consulate, "My glove compartment is not a playground!"
"The manuals, they're all clumped," Adrian told him, "I'm compartmentalizing them for you; one section for the motor, one for…"
"Put them back!" the Chicago cop ordered him, "This is a mint condition Riviera; it's not to be messed with at all!"
"But there's no order to them!" Adrian protested.
"You heard what I said," Vecchio gave him a piercing glare that made Adrian relent and, with a pained look on his face, return the manuals to their original positions. "Good, now remember, the glove compartment is hands-off from now on," Vecchio informed him as they hopped onto the curb and strolled over toward Fraser, who'd agreed earlier in the day to fill in for a fellow Mountie who'd come down sick. "Well Benny, we've got more info since you went back to work," Vecchio told his colleague, who was staring straight ahead with no expression on his face, "It seems that over the last year, there've been three complaints of medical malpractice against Dr. Stephen DiNardo, including one from a woman who's old mother spent weeks in intensive care only to turn up dead unexpectedly. DiNardo claimed it was a heart attack, but all the evidence says he experimented on her. He has a private operating room; it's quite possible Mrs. Fleming walked in on him when he was up to no good and he resolved to get rid of her."
"I have my doubts, though," Adrian said, flicking dirt off Fraser's red serge, "Why would he wait until they came out here to Chicago before kidnapping them? And on top of that, why take Benjy if it's just between him and Sharona? Trevor made it clear they went after Benjy first. Plus, I examined the letter closer," he held up the note they'd found earlier, which he'd triple bagged just to make absolutely sure, "The ink's not completely dry. It wasn't typed at the time the date said. Somebody planted it in there."
Fraser hadn't made any indication he'd been paying attention during the whole explanation. Adrian waved his hand in front of the Mountie's face. There was no response. "Well, if you're busy, maybe I'll come back later," the detective shrugged. As he started to walk away, the clock struck three. Immediately Fraser came out of his trance. "Those are very convincing doubts, Detective Monk," he said, walking toward him, "Perhaps we should investigate further."
"We can't," Adrian shook his head, "Your friends from the FBI didn't believe me when I told them. They're bringing in Dr. DiNardo right now. And remember, if we get too close," his face scrunched up at the unpleasant thought, "They'll hurt Julie. I couldn't live with myself if that happened."
"Well, apart from Detective Monk's theories, it looks pretty much like the good doctor's guilty," Vecchio told his buddy, "If Ford and Deeter don't kill him in interrogation, we should have a confession by tonight."
"Still on the chance Detective Monk's correct, I think we should still examine all possibilities, Ray," Fraser told him, "If you'll excuse me for a minute, I'll check with an associate of mine on how to proceed with human life at stake."
"Constable, I think we'd better just do what they say," Adrian expressed as he followed the Mountie into the building, "Natalie'll kill me if we go forward—if she ever comes around to talking to me again."
"Your feelings are understandable, Adrian, but to give in completely to their demands would be an unnecessary concession to the forces of darkness, if you will," Fraser checked to make sure there was no one watching him before knocking on the door of a nondescript broom closet. "Dad, do you have a minute?" he called in.
"Dad?" Adrian looked puzzled, "You told me your father got shot dead."
"Come on in son, I always have a minute for you nowadays," came the voice from inside. Fraser opened the door into the otherworldly recreation of his father's office. "Wow," Adrian commented, staring around, "It really doesn't look this roomy from the outside."
"You can see all this?" Fraser's eyes raised, "So far only I can…"
"I can sense he needed me too, son," said the ghostly Mountie seated behind the desk. "Pleasure to meet you," he said as he rose and shook Adrian's hand, "Sergeant Robert Fraser, formerly of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."
"Detective Adrian Monk, formerly with a lot of wipes; you have any?" Adrian looked all over the cabin.
"I'm dead, Detective; I don't have any germs to give you," Fraser Senior informed him.
"That, that is one of the benefits of being dead, true," Adrian admitted, "Won't change it from being my fourth worst fear though. No, fifth. No, fourth. No, fifth. Yes, fourth, it's fourth."
"Dad, we're in the middle of an abduction investigation," Fraser informed his father, "Detective Monk's former assistant and her son were taken against their will. The kidnappers apparently know we're on to them, because they've taken his current assistant's daughter as leverage against us, and as such we're all in a quagmire, so to speak, on how to proceed. Did you have any experience in a matter such as this?"
"Well, son, I'd have to say the closest…." Fraser Senior was cut off as the window to his cabin squeaked open. "May I ask what you're doing, Detective Monk?" the dead Mountie asked him.
"The icicles," Adrian pointed to the frozen forms attached to the roof of the cabin, "They're uneven. I'm going to straighten them out for you."
"You do realize they're imaginary, as is everything else in this office?" Fraser Senior pointed out.
"But they'll be even," Adrian countered, pulling out a nail file and scraping away at one of the fake icicles, "Maybe if other ghosts popped in on you like this, they'd like the icicles to be nice and even, I think."
Fraser Senior gave him a strange looking over. "As I was saying," he turned back to his son, "There was this one time where a claim jumper had taken a mine supervisor prisoner and informed the company that if he wasn't given a high-profile position with the company, he'd kill him. My colleagues and I stood in blinding snow at the foot of the mountain he was holding him on for close to a week trying to come up with possibilities of offense. Sergeant Frobisher finally came up with the final idea; that we'd pretend we were leaving and then strike him from behind. Long story short, it worked."
"Well that's all good, Dad, but I can't quite see what that has to do with the current situation," Fraser said.
"The point is, son, my advice is that perhaps you could try to mislead them into thinking you're on the wrong trail, and then when you figure out what their game is, strike," Fraser Senior informed his son, "Can you think of any good false routes to send them down?"
"Well as a matter of fact, we've gotten a lead which Detective Monk feels is a fraudulent one meant to throw us off," Fraser told him, "I suppose that if indeed it is false, we can throw them off by pretending to go along with it. Your strategy may prove a little hard to enact, though, since Detective Monk's assistant's daughter was on the West Coast, namely San Francisco, when she was taken into captivity, and…"
There was a series of thumps as a complete set of Fraser Senior's (imaginary) books tumbled off the shelf on the cabin's far side. "Sorry," a sheepish Adrian forced a grin, "They weren't alphabetical. I was just putting them in order."
Fraser Senior nodded. "Your associate, he's quite a character," he confided in his son.
"Yes, Dad, but I can't help feeling for the man," Fraser said, "He lost his wife much the same as I lost you, and…"
Just then there was a knocking on the cabin (closet) door. "Hey Fraser, what're you doing in the closet?" came Vecchio's voice from outside.
"Um, uh, well, I'm not at liberty to say, Ray," Fraser said quickly.
"Well come on out; it just came over the horn, Fleming received a ransom note," the Chicago cop told him, "You've got to hear what they're asking for to believe it."
"Be right out then," Fraser called to him. "Thank you for your advice, Dad," he told his late father, "I'll try and keep you up to speed on future events in this case."
"Well, I might pop up to catch the action, "Fraser Senior told him, "This sounds like it might be exciting."
"Okay, well, in that case, Dad, try to pick an opportune time, because often when you arrive to give advice, you do so at a moment that leaves people seriously considering my sanity," his son said, "Take care till then."
"And try not to get frostbite, I guess," Adrian added.
The two of them walked back out into the Consulate. "So what's so exciting about a broom closet that you two had to be in there?" Vecchio had to ask them once he saw them.
"Take a look in there, you're not going to believe that," Adrian pointed in. Vecchio looked inside. "So?" he asked, glancing at all corners of what was now once again simply a broom closet, "It's just a closet. Aren't you afraid of things like closets?"
"Constable Fraser, was, um, giving me the grand tour of the Consulate," Adrian said quickly, realizing Vecchio wasn't going to see what he had.
"Well let's get going, we've got work to do," the Chicago cop waved them outside.
"Your father, nice guy," Adrian told Fraser as they walked outside, "Wish my father was there after death for me."
"Well, he's felt guilty about not being there for me in person during most of my life, so this is his way of redeeming himself," Fraser said.
"Tell me," Adrian had to know, "Is there any insanity in your family, and is it contagious?"
"Well none unless you count my Uncle Tiberius, who was found dead wrapped in cabbage leaves, but we've all assumed that was a freak accident," Fraser explained.
"I see," Adrian nodded slowly. As he hopped into the Riviera's back seat, he couldn't help saying to himself, "Boy, is my family really that normal?"
"Where have you been?" Stottlemeyer asked his former fellow cop as he came back into the squad room about ten minutes later, "I've been trying to get you all afternoon."
"I was getting advice from the dead," Adrian admitted. Stottlemeyer and Disher exchanged bizarre looks. "Is Natalie any better?" the detective asked, finally able to use a wipe to cleanse his hands.
"She's back at the apartment, being counseled by the wolf," Stottlemeyer explained, a sardonic tone to his voice, "As if a wolf could really make someone feel better."
"Well actually, Captain, lupine behavior is often, contrary to popular belief, sympathetic; indeed, many packs have been known to take in outsiders and accept them as one of their own," Fraser told him, "So, where's the note?"
"Here," Disher leaned over the nearest desk and picked it up, "It came in an hour ago. Here's the kicker: they want five hundred million for Sharona but only a thousand for Benjy."
"That's very strange," Adrian picked up the note with his tweezers and held it at arm's length. "You think you can read it from there?" Vecchio half-joked.
"Someone may have coughed on it; I'm not taking any chances," Adrian said, "Why so much for her and so little for him? It's almost as if they want to let him go."
"Maybe they took him by accident?" Stottlemeyer proposed.
"I don't think so," Adrian shook his head, "They wanted him. I don't know why, but they did. What's the deadline for the payment, Randy?"
"They went the money in one suitcase in unmarked bills Friday night at O'Hare's international section, on the tarmac," Disher went on, "No police. And a flight to Montevideo, no tricks. If anything goes wrong, we'll get their heads shipped to us through the mail."
"Ouch, they mean business," Vecchio, despite all his years on the force, couldn't help flinching.
"They always meant business," Adrian said, "They proved that when they took Julie."
"Detective Monk has serious doubts that Dr. DiNardo is the kidnapper," Fraser told them, "Am I correct, Detective?"
"Yes," Adrian said, "Why would he ask for a ransom if he'd found Sharona stumbling onto his illicit dealings? It doesn't make any sense." He then explained to them all the rest of his theory. "We've got to tell the FBI about this," he said as a finisher.
"Forget it Monk, they're lost in their own grandeur," Stottlemeyer shook his head, "I watched the interrogation of Dr. DiNardo; even though he demolished all their theories, they refused to budge. I think they might be Michael Eisner's illegitimate kids."
"At one point," Disher added, "They almost made him play Russian Roulette. Only Lieutenant Welsh's untimely entrance saved him."
"Besides, if Detective Monk's theory that there's a spy on the force somewhere feeding the kidnappers information is true, as I suspect, we really can trust no one with information, not until we find out who it is," Fraser added.
"Now how do we figure that out, I wonder?" Vecchio had to know.
"I've developed a list of questions," Fraser pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and proceeded to read the first thing he'd written on the list: "Pardon me sir or madam, whatever the case may be, would you per chance be collaborating with the Fleming kidnappers?"
"Nice way of determining it," Stottlemeyer muttered.
"So if it's not DiNardo, who is it?" Vecchio pressed Adrian,
"I'm working on it, still," Adrian said, flicking Vecchio's desk lamp for some bizarre region, "First, though, I've got to find new mattresses; the old one's too hard.
"Monk, we're in the middle of an investigation, we don't have time to stop for mattresses," Stottlemeyer groaned.
"I'll take him," Fraser said, "You can keep looking for information.
"OK, Fraser, but I've got no idea where to start," Vecchio said, "We haven't got any other leads or suspects."
"All puzzles will present their answers in due time, Ray," Fraser said as he and Adrian left. Vecchio sighed deeply. "I hate it when he talks like some Eskimo old guy," he told Stottlemeyer and Disher, "Oh well, let's see what we can get out of this while they're out shopping."