Scores of people were already converging on the scene of the crime by the time Adrian arrived at the still under-construction Treasure Planet: the Ride building—stepping right into a tray of cement lying on the ground in his haste. Groaning in disgust, he splashed his foot into a nearby fountain to wash the cement off and walked quickly toward the entrance to the ride building. A large hulking guard stepped into his path. "No one enters," he informed him.
"I'm Adrian Monk, I'm a private detective," Adrian told him, flashing his ID. As Natalie pulled up alongside him, he whispered to her, "Get another set of pants, these are shot."
"Mr. Monk, I'm not going to get you another set of pants," she said as calmly as she could, "Nobody's going to notice that. Are we going in?"
"Like I told the guy, no one goes in without permission," the guard said firmly, folding his arms across his chest.
"Say wait a minute," a short bespectacled man looked over the guard's shoulders, "Aren't you Adrian Monk?"
"Yes."
"Walter, let him in," the man instructed the guard, "We could really use his help with this."
"If you say, Mr. Kight," the guard waved Adrian in. "Well, glad to see someone's willing to give us a break, Mr…?" Natalie inquired.
"Tim Kight," the man shook their hands, "Head of the company's amusement park division. Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Monk. What brings you here?"
"Oh, we had a break, so we decided to come down here," Adrian said as he wiped his hands down, "That's what normal people seem to do. You wouldn't have happened to have met my wife when she was younger? Trudy Ellison?"
"Uh, no," Kight told him, "I was only put in this post three years ago."
"She last came here when she was fifteen; left a note here wishing for me to find her?"
"He doesn't know her, Mr. Monk," Natalie told him.
"Blond hair, about five-seven, bright…?" Adrian continued pressing the matter.
"Hey buddy, what are you doing in here?" came a loud call Adrian recognized as Bob Iger's. The head of the Walt Disney Company was in a group of executives standing around the body of the dead man where it lay on top of a board in the middle of a large gap in the building that stretched downward several stories.
"It's all right, Mr. Iger, this is Adrian Monk, he's here to help solve the case," Kight pushed Adrian forward.
"So you're Adrian Monk?" Iger sized the detective up, "Funny, I always imagined you to be a bit taller."
"Sorry," Adrian shifted apologetically, "Anyone know the victim?"
"He's Andy Faulk, he was our chief financial officer," another executive shook his head sadly, "I don't know what happened just now. He was always perfectly sane until now."
"His wife's going to take it hard," a mustached executive lamented, "He told me he was going to get her a new necklace for their anniversary next week."
"So what do you think, Detective?" Iger grilled Adrian, "And try and be quick with it, because we need to finish construction by eight tonight for the live broadcast."
Adrian looked around the site. He walked about, making abstract hand gestures. Finally, after about three minutes of silence, he spoke: "Could you all take a couple of steps backwards; I really feel uncomfortable here."
Half the executives groaned. "Look, Detective, we don't have…!" Iger sputtered.
"You heard the man," Roy E. Disney stepped forward out of the crowd, looking quiet uncomfortable with Iger, "He needs more space."
He took three large steps backwards. The rest of the executives did the same, some clearly with reluctance. Breathing easier, Adrian continued his pacing around the crime scene. "He landed on his back?" he inquired out loud after another long silence.
"Yes," a construction worker stepped forward, "Came falling through the open roof there and hit the ground hard enough to shatter concrete. Didn't see it directly, though; we were all working over there setting the ride tracks in place over there, and the metal bars there obscured it."
"But you're sure he was in a back-down position when he landed?" the detective pressed.
"Yes, he was."
"He's got this wound on his forehead right here," Adrian pointed to a large red mark just above Faulk's eyebrows, "He was hit with something hard there, probably metallic. He was dead before he even landed. This was premeditated murder."
The executives stared at the corpse in wonder. "He's right," Kight whistled, "But why?"
"Say, what's that in his pocket?" Natalie pointed to a plastic bag sticking out of Faulk's right pocket.
"Looks like cocaine," the mustached executive commented. He stepped forward and extracted the bag, which had a fine white powder inside. "Careful, Roger, that may have fingerprints on it!" Kight scolded him.
"Hey Walter," Iger called toward the guard where he was standing at the door, "We've got some evidence here. Take it to central evidence and register it." He turned back to Adrian. "Well, thanks for your work, detective," he told him, "We'll remember when…"
"Hey wait a minute," an elderly executive spoke up, "I don't think he's done yet. How did Andy seem to fly? Even on drugs, there's no way he couldn't have jumped from the top of the castle to here."
"He's right about that," Adrian nodded in agreement. "It's really a blind spot right here. He was thrown down here on purpose. The killer didn't want people to actually see him hit." He stared down the deep pit. "He was aiming to dump the body down this hole, but the board was in the way."
"We needed a pathway between the truck unloading zone and the construction area," another construction worker informed him, pointing out the strict confines of the area, which prevented anyone from walking around the opening, "We only put it up this morning."
"OK, so he made a bad drug deal up in the castle, the dealer killed him and tossed him out the window," Iger said dismissively, "And his body got caught in air currents on the way down. Like I said, good work, Detective Monk. Walter, call the main gate, tell them to lock down the park until further notice," he instructed the guard as he collected the cocaine, "We can't let the guy get away. The rest of you, time to go back to work," he ordered the construction crew, "We open in ten hours!"
"Wrong," Roy Disney interrupted, "This is a crime scene, Iger. We should lock it down and call the cops."
"Forget it Roy," Iger shrugged him off, "We've had enough work stoppage with this ride. It opens tonight or not at all."
"My uncle wouldn't have done this," Disney muttered out loud, "He would have showed concern with…"
"Well your uncle's not here, is he Roy?" Iger told him off with a very visible amount of contempt, "Let's be clear that as president, my decision is final, and I say we open tonight at eight for the show, understood?"
"Um, Mr. Iger, if I may," Adrian stepped forward, "Could you not just lock the gates? There's about a million and half people in here today."
"And?" Iger was looking increasingly impatient.
"And, well, I, I don't do well with large crowds," the detective said tentatively, discomfort on his face already at the thought of being surrounded by so many people. "You couldn't consider importing in several more bathrooms, could you?"
"You actually asked him to add more bathrooms to the park?" Sandy Kopecki asked the detective about a half hour later as they all stood in line for the Jungle Cruise.
"It's going to be a nightmare," Adrian wasn't really paying attention. He was picking up more trash with his claw and dumping them into the nearest trashcan. There's one million, four hundred eighty-six thousand, five hundred thirty-seven people in here, and they're going to make the restrooms unusable in short time."
"So the guy was on drugs?" Paul asked him.
"As a matter of fact he wasn't," Adrian told him, causing Natalie to look at him surprise, "His right arm was exposed, but there were no marks on it at all. That cocaine was planted, and I think the man who took it out, Roger Chalmers, was responsible."
"Chalmers?" his assistant asked him.
"It was right on his nametag," Adrian pointed out, grabbing hold of several gum wrappers lying up against the ride building with the claw and disposing of them, "Anyway, there was no way he could see that bag from where he was standing, yet he identified it as cocaine before he even pulled it out. He knows more than he's letting on."
"So how did the guy fly then?" Julie asked him.
"I'm still working on it, and…oh no!" Adrian abruptly grimaced, noticing the boat waiting at the dock for them. "OK, we've got to turn back, there's no way we're getting on that."
He turned around, only to find himself blocked by a wall of other patrons. They sputtered in rage as he tried to push back through them. Natalie grabbed his shoulder. "Would you mind telling me what wrong with that boat?" she inquired.
"Look at it!" Adrian gestured at it, "There's no safety railing, it's wet all over, the…!"
"Sir, is there a problem?" the dock manager asked him with a hard look.
"Not really," Natalie took her boss hand and led him gently but firmly toward the boat. Adrian stopped a few inches from the docks and unlocked suitcase number 6 from his rack. He extracted a roll of paper towels and started wiping down the boat's seats. "You'll thank me later," he told a group of befuddles guests that were staring at him in surprise. He sealed the used paper towels in a plastic bag and handed them to the dock manager. "Could, could you dispose of this and watch my things until we get back, if we ever get back?" he asked the man, who stared at the rack as if it were a case of exposed nuclear waste. Without waiting for an answer, the detective climbed, with a certain degree of reluctance, into the boat. "Don't be so uptight," Molly told him, plopping down next to him, "This is a nice slow ride."
"That, that always is a plus, yes," Adrian nodded. The loudspeaker was activated. "Good morning everyone and welcome to the Jungle Cruise," the young man at the wheel announced, "My name's Ryan, and I'll be your guide for…"
"Uh, excuse me, Ryan?" Adrian abruptly raised his hand, "Are there any floatation devices on board, in case we hit a rough spot or two?"
"Um, yes, floatation devices are located right under the seat in case of emergency," Ryan pointed out, "Now we'll be shoving soon and…"
"Uh, me again," Adrian's hand jerked upwards, "Shouldn't we test them first to make sure they all work?"
"Uh, sir, trust me, they work," Ryan told him.
"And how can you be so sure?" the detective continued, "I mean, there's no way of knowing for sure if they're just lying there under the seats."
"Sir, we do rigorous inspections every morning, they work," the guide was getting impatient himself.
"Well I think all of us would like to know for sure," Adrian continued his crusade, "Just, just by a show of hands, who else here would feel safer if we tested all the floatation devices before we started sailing?"
Not a single person on the boat raised their hands. "And it looks like we've got an all-clear signal, so here we go," Ryan no longer cared for the matter anyway, as he pushed off from the dock and gunned the motor loud enough to make Adrian cringe. He grabbed a wipe and rubbed down part of the railing nearest him before clinging onto it for dear life. "We're only going ten miles an hour," Josh told him with raised eyebrows.
"Well, I'd like ten would be…AAAAACCCCCCKKKKKK!" Adrian shrieked and pointed across the jungle foliage, "Snakes, big snakes! Somebody shoot them, kill, kill them, kill….!"
"Yes, like the man in the back says, to you're left we see a crocodile attacking a pair of cobras," the guide pointed, a look of long resignation on his face already.
"They're robots, Detective Monk," Sandy told the detective, who's face was contorted with fear, "They wouldn't put any real snakes into a ride like this. You do realize that, don't you?"
There was a low thump before Adrian could answer. "We're drifting, we're drifting, we're going to beach!" he started hyperventilating, staring over the side now that they were past the cobras, "Hey buddy, watch where you're going!" He gripped the railing harder when the guide failed to answer and prayed the ride would soon be over. If this was a foretaste of things to come in the park, he reasoned, he was going to have a long and trying day.