"I'll be damned," Stottlemeyer said, shocked, as he took in the footage Travers had shot--since converted to VHS-- inside his office the next morning. "I'll be damned," he repeated again once it was over, "She played all of us. I can't believe it."
"Just like the Commies to corrupt America's youth into doing their bidding for them," Travers commented, rewinding the tape, "I see in the reports they were over in Romania a couple of months ago; they probably stormed her hotel room and brainwashed her for a couple of hours to..."
"Never mind, Ernie, just call your buds at the Federal Bunch of Idiots and tell them their services won't be needed," the captain interrupted him.
"Well, maybe we ought to call the hotel in Romania and check..." Disher started to propose.
"No, Lieutenant, she was not brainwashed, even though he may have been at some point," Stottlemeyer jerked a finger at Travers on the phone in the squad room. "Just go set up Mark Walker's release."
"Right," Disher saunted out, walking past Natalie as she came in for the morning. "So what's going on it here that you found?" she inquired.
"We solved the case, Natalie," Adrian told her.
"Well that's great."
"No, not really," the detective shook his head, "Better see for yourself, Natalie, but you're probably not going to believe it."
He rewound the tape to the beginning and hit play. If Natalie's jaw could have literally hit the floor at the sight of Wendy bragging that she'd used Adrian's services to get at Shannon, it would have. "I don't believe it," she murmured softly once it was finished, "But Wendy...how can it...?"
"I guess fame just went to her head," Stottlemeyer rose and put on his tuxedo, "Anyway, we know what we've got to do now."
"But there's got to be some kind of mistake!" Julie was less willing to accept the circumstances as they all entered Maples Pavilion again, "It's just not possible! That's not Wendy!"
"I don't want to believe it either, but I'm afraid that's what it looks like," her mother shook her head sadly, "You saw the tape yourself before we came here."
"But that couldn't have been...Mr. Monk must have found the wrong...!"
"I'm sorry, Julie," Adrian shook his head. It was still a hard pill for him to swallow too. "Mr. Coach," he waved down Coach Shute, approaching from up the hall. "So Monk, you said you figured out what's going on?" he asked the detective when he got closer.
"I'll need a TV; you and the whole team need to see this," Adrian gestured to Disher, holding the tape.
"I think there's one in the back room," Coach Shute gestured for Disher to follow him. The others continued to the gymnasium, where loud shouting could be heard. The detective had an idea what it was all about, and sure enough a glance inside confirmed it; Wendy and the girl named Katie were by the horse, in a terse shouting match. "...told you, I'm still working out here!" Katie was bellowing.
"And why do you need it, Katie!? The cameras are all going to be on me anyway!!" Wendy snarled back venomously, "I'm the best player on this team; no one cares for what you do out there!"
"I've had it with keeping quiet about everything you do to us, Wendy!!" Katie snarled, "Coach is going to hear about it this time!!"
Every other girl on the team, Shannon notably included, walked behind Katie in a gesture of solidarity. Wendy, however, was not humbled. "You think he's going to believe you over me about anything?" she told them cockily, "He'd believe anything I'd tell them! Monk'll back me up too; he'd believe anything I'd tell him!"
Adrian felt a dark scowl ripple briefly across his lips, accompanied behind him by the soft gasp of Julie finally seeing her friend for what she'd become. The detective couldn't bear to look down at her expression. Instead, he knew it was time to intervene and pushed the door open. "Hello, everyone," he waved softly as he walked in, "We, we all met the other day, so no, no need for introductions. I, I want you ladies to know that after much intense detective work, I have solved the case about what's been plaguing Wendy here."
"My father didn't do anything!" Shannon screamed right at him. "Let him out of jail this instant!" she demanded to Stottlemeyer.
"It's perfectly all right, Miss Walker," Stottlemeyer raised his hands, "We did in fact release your father a half hour ago, and he is back at the hotel in Oakland."
"Wait a minute, but you said yesterday the evidence against him was overwhelming?" Wendy frowned, concerned but apparently not onto the fact the captain and his team knew her game yet.
"Well, as it turned out, this morning some new evidence came to our attention," Stottlemeyer told her, "In a moment we're going to show..."
A loud thumping sound cut him off. Disher had found the TV player, but was trying to push it in sideways through the door, which wasn't big enough to accommodate this procedure. The captain sighed and walked over. "THIS way may be a bit more helpful," he told his adjutant, turning it sideways so it could fit.
"Yeah, it is," Disher beamed, pushing it in, "Good thinking there, sir."
"Just doing my job, Randy," the captain said wearily. Coach Shute, following Disher in, asided to him, "We had the exact same problem getting it out of the room in the first place."
"Hang on, what kind of new evidence?" Wendy demanded as Disher wheeled the TV player to a stop right in front of the gymnasts.
"The kind that seals a case for good," Adrian gave her a sharp look. There came a rushing of high-heeled footsteps coming into the gym. "Sorry I'm late," Mrs. Whitehurst huffed, "What was so important?"
"The answer to all your questions about what's been going on, Mrs. Whitehurst. Randy?" Adrian gestured to Disher, who inserted the tape into the player--backwards, which he didn't seem to realize, prompting him to try and jam it hard into the slot. Rolling his eyes, Stottlemeyer took it off him and stuck it in properly. When he hit play, however, only a black screen played. "So what's this?" Coach Shute asked, eyebrows raised.
"Oh," Disher snapped his fingers, "Forgot to rewind." He did just that, ignoring Stottlemeyer's aggravated groan, and hit Play at the beginning of the tape. Wendy's confession played out for all to hear. When it was finished, the room became deathly silent as numerous pairs of eyes turned in Wendy's direction. Wendy turned deathly pale at being unmasked. "This...this...this...this isn't what it looks like, honest!!" she pleaded.
"I should have guessed!" Shannon rounded on her murderously, "So this is your way of trying to cover up your drinking and driving spree to the press, by discrediting the one person who's voice would have sunk you--my father's!"
"No, no, no, of course not, I, I, I, I don't even know what you're talking about!!"
"Well we do," Stottlemeyer stepped forward, several papers in hand, "We contacted county officials back in Texas, Miss Whitehurst; they got you for reckless endangerment with a blood alcohol level of .21. And by the way, your neighbors also filed a formal missing pet report for their dog, and wouldn't you just know it, it matches the one we found in your dorm perfectly. What an incredible coincidence, I'd say."
"Wendy Angela, how could you!?" her mother shouted after a long, stark silence, "After everything I've raised you be over the years...!"
"Mom, but...but...but...but...!!" Wendy seemed too shocked for coherent sentences. "Shannon was going to go public with the fact she was in the car with you when you were drunk, weren't you?" Adrian glanced at Shannon, who nodded vigorously, "You couldn't afford any sort of scandal to lose your valuable sponsorship deals, so you decided to neutralize her by putting something over her head--a major scandal of her own that would make it look like she was out to get you."
"No, no, no, Monk, it's not true! It's not true!!" Wendy desperately cried.
"It's absolutely true," came Greg's voice. He came storming into the gym, "She put me up to it to attack her. She had me follow Mr. Walker, see what he was wearing that day, to go buy a set for myself, then attack her so he'd get the blame." He came to a stop by Stottlemeyer. "If I tell you everything she told me to do, Officer, do I go free, no questions asked?" he inquired.
"I'm sure we can work out an arrangement like that," Stottlemeyer nodded.
"I'll take it," Greg told him. He stormed up to Wendy. "And by the way, it's over," he told her curtly, "I'm tired of you appreciating me only for what I can do for you. That's not the type of relationship I want."
Wendy sputtered weakly. "Well, I think our work here is done then," the captain said as their new witness returned to his side, "I guess the only question is whether Miss Walker's going to press any charges. Are you?"
"I'll see what my father says when I see him," Shannon said. "Thank you, Monk," she commended the detective.
"I try and do what's right," Adrian couldn't help shooting a cold glance at Wendy, "Even if it's not what I'm hired to do."
"Monk, I...you've got to...!!" Wendy stammered desperately.
"In the meantime, young lady," Coach Shute rounded on his star athlete, anger seething in his every word, "Even if Shannon doesn't press charges, you're still paying my penalty. I want you on the first plane home to Texas you can book, because you are out of here!"
"NOOOOOO!!" her scream echoed through the pavilion, "Please Coach, anything but that! Please, I beg you...!!"
"I don't train my teams to pull stunts like this!" he snarled at her, "And I've had it with your attitudes toward everyone else on this team too--don't think I haven't been noticing what's been going on!" he glanced at the other gymnasts, who nodded, quite pleased that their grievances with were being addressed. "Come on ladies, let's get back to practice; we've got real work to do."
"Come on you guys, you know I've been there for you!" Wendy pleaded at the other gymnasts, all walking away from her with their backs turned, "Come on, somebody say something for me; you know I'm not the bad guy here! Shannon started the whole thing, you know that; she threw the first punch in all this!"
None of them said a word. With a sour parting look at her, Adrian and the police turned and left the gym, followed by her mother, looking quite grim. Looking frantic, Wendy turned to the one possible net she had left. "Julie, I...I...I...I...!!"
"You're not the Wendy I knew," she told her coldly, and turned and stormed away after Adrian and her mother. "Well, don't just stand there!" Coach Shute barked at Wendy, "Get back to the dorm and get packing! You've got no further business hanging around my team"
"You can't throw me off, you can't!!" Adrian heard Wendy screaming at him as he left the gym, but he did not turn back even as the desperate cries continued, "I sacrificed everything to get this far, Coach; you can't just take it away from me!! You can't just destroy my life!! YOU CAN'T!!"
"Yes, I don't think I'll be judging any more events, Mr. Chairman," Adrian said into a pay phone against the outside wall of Stanford's cafeteria, "Yes, everything's been taken care of, I'm sorry to say. Enjoy the rest of the games, and please, whatever you do, get the athletes to clean up everything they leave behind. Well, I think it only fair if you want San Francisco to be able to make another bid a hundred years from now. Just at least consider it, please."
He scrubbed down the receiver with a wipe before hanging up. "Well, our work with the Olympics is over with now," he told the Teegers, "Really, being a judge didn't really have that much bearing on the case in the end, so it wasn't the best of ideas after all," he raised his eyebrows at Natalie.
"But you did enjoy it, didn't you?" Natalie asked him.
"Not in the least," he shook his head firmly.
"You did," she smiling knowingly. Adrian knew it would be pointless to press the point any further, as he could never win that kind of battle. "Maybe, before she leaves town, you could go to Wendy's room and have a lecture with her about why she was wrong and all, since she's not willing to accept it yet," he told her as they started walking towards the "Teegermobile."
"Why me?" she frowned.
"Well, since you have experience of letting fame get to your head and all, you'd be perfect to..."
"Now hold on a minute, Mr. Monk," Natalie came to a stop and put her hands on her hips, "You were the one who let the whole deal with the lottery get to your head; you were the one hassling me about the whole deal."
"But the crew at the station told me very clearly how badly you treated them during the height of the whole debacle," Adrian countered; this battle he knew he could win, "And you chewed me out publicly in front of dozens of people, refused to answer my phone calls when I tried to apologize about what I'd said that time, skipped out on me so you..."
"Well if you hadn't called me...what you did, maybe I wouldn't have chewed you out!" Natalie's voice was starting to rise, "And if you think..."
"Stop it, all right, both of you just stop it!" Julie unexpectedly shouted, prompting both of them to indeed stop in surprise, "I thought we agreed we'd just put the whole thing about the lottery behind us!" the girl snapped, "Frankly, I didn't like what either of you turned into then, and if you won't, won't...you won't..."
She broke down in tears. "What's the matter?" Natalie put a sympathetic hand around her, "If we got you scared that..."
"It's not that; I'm sorry I blew up," Julie admitted, "I just...why'd she have to turn into that? Why'd she have to lie to me, when I stuck with her all that time!? Didn't she think I was worth...!?"
She couldn't finish. "I understand," Natalie hugged her daughter close, "But don't you feel bad about it, because you're right, and she was wrong, and all it means is that you're too good for someone like her. And I was very proud you had the courage to tell her you felt that way back there; that means you've good a good moral backbone that..."
"Hold on," Adrian held up his hand. Sirens could be heard blaring across campus; even now he saw swarms of campus security guards rushing for their vehicles. A deep pit formed in Adrian's stomach; something told him something terrible had just happened that he wasn't going to like. "Wait here," he told the Teegers before break into a run after the nearest cruiser; something told him they wouldn't like whatever had happened.
His first impression only confirmed his fears, for the squad cars were parked around Maples Pavilion. Worse yet, the first sight to greet him as he skidded to a stop by the door was medical units wheeling out a corpse. Even covered by a sheet, Adrian knew it was Coach Shute; the height fit perfectly. "What happened!?" he breathlessly asked the medical examiner at the rear of the gurney.
His question was largely answered when two large security officials strode through the door, leading along Wendy, handcuffed and looking deathly pale. "She murdered her coach here," the medical examiner confirmed it for him, "She strangled him in the weight room."
Adrian nodded grimly. He looked at Wendy, not putting up any resistance as she was loaded into one of the cruisers, and took note of how absolutely petrified she appeared. A terrible wave of guilt swept over him. For he felt responsible to a degree for this situation coming to be.