"Are you Ed Ertley?" Stottlemeyer asked a graying-haired man standing near the entrance to the Howard Nuclear Power Plant.
"That's me," the man said, shaking his hand, "I'm the general manager here."
"Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, homicide, this is Lieu—"
A heavy breathing noise interrupted him. Both of them turned to see a huge figure in a radiation suit stumbling very slowly toward them, all the while breathing so heavily that he could pass as Darth Vader's brother. "Allow me to introduce Detective Adrian Monk," Stottlemeyer said, rolling his eyes.
"How many radiation suits is he wearing?" Ertley asked incredulously.
"Four," Stottlemeyer told him, "He wanted to be sure he wouldn't get radiated by your toxic waste."
"Well, that explains why it took you an hour and a half to get here when it should have taken only thirty minutes," Ertley reasoned, "So, what is the purpose of your visit?"
"Mr. Ertley, a little girl was poisoned last night," Disher informed him, "Lab tests showed that a byproduct of nuclear waste was in the concoction that killed her. Since your plant is the only one within a hundred miles of the city, we suspect it came from here."
"Well this is news to me," Ertley said, "This plant is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the San Francisco/San Jose metro area. I don't see how any of my waste could been taking out without us knowing."
"We'd like permission to examine your stock of waste," Stottlemeyer told him, "Just to verify how secure this building really is."
"Okay, I can make arrangements; Don," Ertley called over to the guard at a nearby checkpoint, "Get clearances and radiation suits for these people."
"Right away Mr. Ertley," the guard pulled out his radio and said something that couldn't be made out. Ertley continued to stare at Adrian. "Are you wearing TWO gas masks there?" he asked.
"I like to keep one for, you know, as a backup," Adrian said, his voice heavily muffled by both masks.
"How do you breathe?"
I brought my own air," Adrian gestured toward his back, where the protruding humps of four oxygen tanks could be seen.
Ertley shook his head and led them into the plant. Adrian waddled along very slowly, encumbered by all his protective layering. Apparently two gas masks didn't help his vision, as he walked right into a support column and tumbled to the ground. Both Natalie and Sharona lifted him to his feet. "Think you put enough on, Adrian?" the latter asked him sarcastically.
"Not really," the detective said, "I should really have put on another three suits."
"Hey, don't fall behind," Disher ran back to them. "Think you'll need another long shower, Monk?" he half-joked, "It must be really hot in there."
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Adrian told him. He hailed down a passing technician and straightened the man's nametag. Then his attention was diverted to a control panel to his left that had every switch except one set in the up position. He trudged over and flicked the sole switch pointing down up. "Don't!" shouted a woman nearby, rushing for the panel and flicking the switch back, "If you touch that the works'll blow here!"
"But it's—sticking out!" Adrian protested.
"Are you causing trouble again, Angela?" Ertley came skipping back looking upset.
"He was messing with the switches!" the woman said.
"Everything's always complaints, complaints, complaints!" Ertley sounded fed up, "I'm telling you, you rile up more trouble and I won't hesitate to…!"
"Is there a problem here?" Stottlemeyer inquired.
"Yes, we're underpaid for one!" the woman griped, "Take a look," she pointed to the O Henry bar in Ertley's hands, "He eats at least five of those every day, with money that could be spent improving deplorable working conditions and….!"
"Shall we press on?" Ertley led everyone else away. "My apologies," he told them, "She's the shop steward here, and she's been railing on me to improve her so-called bad conditions. The fact is everyone's here's paid more than twice the average of your average worker in the nuclear industry."
He took a bite out of the O Henry bar. "I like those too," Disher told him.
"They're the best bars on the market," Ertley smiled, "It may be an addiction, but chocolate addiction's one I like."
"Same here," Disher rubbed his stomach.
"Yeah, you can see it in your swell physique," Sharona told him.
"And it's good to have you back too," Disher responded, "I guess the time away was just too much."
"I didn't come back for you," the nurse snorted. Then she grew a bit more sympathetic. "Although, I did appreciate you checking the wound after Trevor shot me in Chicago."
"Well, that's what I'm here for," Disher flexed his muscles.
"Keep dreaming," she told him, walking away. "Guess she told you," Natalie couldn't help adding to a now puzzled Disher.
They'd reach the room with the radiation suits. Adrian waited outside while his associates changed into their own suits. People who walked by stared at him while he breathed heavily into his oxygen tanks. Finally everyone was ready. "Jerry," Ertley called to a balding man in a lab coat, "Get your meter. We need to check the barrels."
"Right away Mr. Ertley," Jerry slipped into the room and came out with his own suit and a Geiger counter. They all walked down several halls and through an airlock into an area labeled AUHTORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. "We keep all the waste in here," Jerry the scientist said, pressing a code to open a door into a lead room filled with yellow barrels, "Only the people who are supposed to are…that's strange."
"What?" Ertley glanced over his shoulder at the Geiger counter.
"There doesn't seem to be as high a reading as I'd expect," Jerry pointed it at the nearest barrel, "We're surrounded by waste, it should be spiking."
He walked closer to the barrel and put the counter right against it. It didn't make a sound. He broke the barrel's seal and looked inside. Then he tipped it over. Ordinary water spilled out onto the floor. "This isn't good at all," he gulped.
"Go alert everyone," Ertley ordered him, "I want this whole stock checked!"
An hour later, a check of the entire room revealed that thirteen whole barrels had been emptied of their toxic waste—almost ten percent of the whole stock. Ertley shook his head in dismay as the barrels were removed one by one for further analysis. "I don't see how this could have happened," he confided in Stottlemeyer, "This is top security."
"Who has access to this room?" Adrian asked, helping a technician stack several of the barrels onto a crane.
"Pretty much anybody who works with the waste division here, and that's about half the employees here," the general manager told him, "We have card keys to get into this section exclusively for this plant."
"I don't know how they could have gotten it out," Don the guard shook his head, "We tag each and every barrel with this monitoring device," he held up one in question, "Once it goes on it can't come off. We would have known if anyone took it out."
"What about room security?" Disher inquired.
"We cross it with so many alarm beams that a mouse couldn't get through without setting it off," Don told him, "Plus, the floor's heat-sensitive. If anyone steps on it when it's armed, the temperature drops to twenty-five below in three seconds."
"Sounds pretty well-done to me," Stottlemeyer reasoned, "What do you think Monk?" he asked the detective, only to find him caught up in the thrill of stacking the barrels absolutely straight on top of each other. "Oh never mind," he grumbled.
"Say what's this?" Natalie had noticed something inside one of the empty barrels being carried out by a technician, "That looks like a scratch of some kind."
Adrian snapped out of his funk and trotted over to observe. "You're right," he mused between deep breaths, "It looks like something lead scratched against the metal here. They didn't take the barrels out and replace them; they took the waste out vial by vial."
"So you're saying it's been stolen slowly?" Ertley looked worried at thought of a continuous theft of his nuclear byproducts.
"Probably," Adrian stared intently at the scratch, "Who was the last person you know came in here?"
"Hey Mr. Ertley, what's going on here?" came a new, familiar voice from the doorway. Adrian spun around. "Manny?" he exclaimed at the sight of the Santa Claus nut in a radiation suit of his own.
"Adrian?" the man recognized him as well.
"I didn't know you worked here?" the detective said. He'd expected to never see him again.
"Manny was here for about three years before we put him on administrative leave so he could work out his problems," Ertley explained, "I swear, the people they give me some of the time…"
He shook his head and walked out. "Say, are you ready for the big 2-4?" Manny asked his former asylum-mate, his eyes wide with excitement at the thought of the man in red coming to town.
"As ready as I'll ever be, Manny," Adrian said as patiently as he could.
"I asked Santa for a yo-yo this year," Manny put his arm around him, "A nice striped one. I'm going to wait on the roof of the plant and shoot up flares when he drops by. What did you ask for?"
"Uh, nothing much really. He never really got me much when I was younger," Adrian admitted, "When were you last in here?"
Last night," Manny told him.
"Did everything seem to be in order?"
"As far as I could see. Is something wrong?"
"Oh, nothing much, except some of your nuclear waste here was used to poison a twelve-year-old girl, but that's hardly worth mentioning," Adrian said, "You're absolutely sure you didn't notice any barrels missing?"
"No, but whoever did take them, I hope Santa gives them a whole coal mine when he comes," Manny said, "You know, nuclear power's more efficient than coal. I guess that why Santa chooses to give it to bad kids. I know a…"
"OK, thank you for your assistance sir, we'll call you if we need you," Stottlemeyer cut him off, "Everybody, I think our work here is done for the moment; let's go down to decontamination and get these suits off; I for one am roasting."
"You knew that guy?" Natalie raised an eyebrow at Adrian after they'd left decontamination and were waiting outside by their car.
"For a few days," her boss said, "Nice guy, for a delusional type." It had taken him twenty minutes to take off all the suits he'd been wearing, but he'd retained his spare gas mask and oxygen tanks just in case—of what he didn't know yet.
"Lieutenant, call the state health department and tell them what we've found here," Stottlemeyer ordered his associate as Natalie's cell phone rang and she walked off to answer it, "This is a serious situation."
"And the worst part of it is, Captain, they didn't use all of it to kill Clarissa last night," Adrian told him, "I'm guessing there's still about ten gallons of toxic waste out there, being used for lord knows what."
"Yeah," a pale look crossed Stottlemeyer's face, "That's what worries me, Monk."
"And the problem is, there's no way of knowing who took it," Sharona interceded, "Like the guy said, it could have been anyone in there. My question is, if they were taking it out in vials, how'd they do it without getting noticed?"
"What we're dealing with here is someone very crafty," Adrian said, "Someone who knew all the ins and outs of the security of that room. Someone who…"
"Mr. Monk," Natalie ran back over looking upset, "Mr. Monk, that was the sheriff over in Tewkesbury. Your brother's house just exploded."
"What?" Adrian's jaw dropped, "How…is he…?"
"He's all right, by some miracle," Natalie told him, "They want us to come over."
"Uh, you don't mind?" Adrian asked his former boss.
"Not at all, Monk," Stottlemeyer made a waving gesture. He'd never really warmed up to Ambrose.
"You sure you don't want to…?"
"No, I've taken enough trips into the heart of Monkland for one lifetime," the captain said, folding his hands across his chest."
"Let me come," Sharona climbed into the front passenger seat of Natalie's car, "He might need medical assistance. What, do they think it was an accident?"
"Not really," Natalie shook her head grimly, "They suspect foul play."
"Very interesting," Adrian commented. He was as puzzled as the women as to who would want to blow up the house. After all, Ambrose certainly never bothered anyone—Adrian himself excluded. Unless there'd been something Ambrose had never told him…