Leland again ventured to the jail. It was quite early the morning following all the detecting and snooping their friends and family had done; he was thinking of hiring them all. Some were actually better than his trained cops. Why was that, he wondered as he drove on autopilot. He was through at the prison and on his way back to his office in under two hours. Most of the time was spent on security checks. Marci identified Polly's voice after just two sentences, but he made her listen to additional parts of the recording to be sure. Feeling slightly triumphant, he walked into his office whistling until he saw Randy sitting at his desk and Monk cleaning and straightening. How many damned times had he told both of them… his blood pressure rose. He felt his pockets for his yo-yo and realized it was sitting on the top of a pile of folders on his desk. He reached for it.
Randy noticed Leland first and jumped to his feet. "Captain!"
"Gentlemen. Marci confirmed Polly's voice as the one she recognized. Randy, can you please send someone to pick up Polly Escarra and someone else to pick up Harrison Powell?
"Yes, sir! I'd be happy to!" Randy ran out the office door.
"Well, we have two now. Do you think Douglas was involved?" Stottlemeyer asked Monk.
"I don't see what he would gain."
"Me either, but we could question him."
"Let's se what happens with Powell and Ms. Escarra," Monk answered. "Maybe it won't be necessary."
Leland nodded. He then went down the hall to choreograph it so that the two suspects would "run into each other" when they were brought in to the interrogation rooms. He wanted to scare them into talking.
Again, Adrian found himself waiting. He'd never been a patient man. Not before Trudy, not with Trudy, certainly not after Trudy, and not now. Despite everything Natalie and Drs. Kroger and Bell had taught him and supported him through, patience was never going to be his strong suit. Although he did like a good stake-out. "Full of contradictions of personality," Natalie said once, a long while ago. Not in a mean way, but in a way that said she was still trying to figure him out. Adrian thought that might have been after Tommy Grazer, or possibly after Shelby the dog. Maybe both. Two times he'd let down his defenses and really shown Natalie who he was under his hard turtle-like shell. He now knew it was that quirk that was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him. It made him shake his head. It still did, but he loved her for all her personality traits…none of them as weird or as quirky as his.
Suddenly a lot of noise and commotion was stirring in the bullpen. Adrian heard that awful sound he loathed. The voice that belonged to Harrison Powell. Although Adrian had finally bested him in their first encounter, there had been a few other equally unpleasant encounters, but Adrian had withstood them with Leland, Natalie, and Dr. Bell's help, and one time with Randy's unintentional but welcome interference. He shook his head and went to confront his nemesis once again.
Adrian got to the hall just as Powell shut his mouth because Harrison Powell saw Polly Escarra. She was crying pitifully into one hand. Her other arm was being held by a female uniformed officer. She looked up long enough to see Powell staring at her. They were each pushed into a separate interrogation room. Powell took a second to recover himself and sneer at Monk.
"Well, hello, Former Detective Monk."
"It's just Lieutenant Monk. I was reinstated and retired, lest you forget. I can still use the title if I wish. Or it's Detective Monk, or just Mr. Monk," Adrian said all that with a low rumbly voice. One that Natalie would call his scary "I know he did it" voice. Leland called it his, "don't give me any crap voice." Randy often fled the room when Monk used that voice. Sharona always knew he'd found "the guy," when he used it. Monk smirked as the officer behind Powell pushed him with enough force to make him trip into the interrogation room. The officer shot Monk a wink. Monk raised an eyebrow, but managed to smile at the young man.
Monk was not entering the interrogation room, he was leaving that to Leland for the moment, he was going to observe both interviews. From behind the mirrored walls. Where he could listen without worrying about being a distraction or becoming distracted.
Leland and the slimy lawyer looked at each other suspiciously as the uniform stood at the door. Powell had lost some of his bluster when he'd seen Polly–and Monk. He hadn't yet asked for his own attorney, and Leland would make hay while he could. He could almost feel his best friend pacing behind the 2-way mirror.
"So, my friend," Leland began with a sardonic, lopsided smile, "we have a bonafide witness that says you hired her to stalk, photograph, and report on Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger's activities."
"Is that so?" Powell bit out from between clenched teeth.
"It is. And she's willing to trade you for her freedom. We also have that pretty lady just next door who is afraid of losing her young son and her freedom, so I'm sure she'll be happy to spill as well."
Looking like a cornered rabbit in front of a fox with a graying mustache, Harrison Powell looked up at the mirrored wall and then at Leland. "All I can tell you is no one was supposed to get hurt. That wasn't the point."
"Then, Mr. Powell, what was the point? Adrian and Natalie are very nice people. They work hard for justice and for law and order. Why would you try to kidnap Adrian and then let him escape so easily?" Leland and Adrian had determined that they would pretend Leland still knew nothing and allow the information to come from Powell so that he broke the terms of the original bequest. "Come on, we don't have all day."
"Well, Adrian and Natalie inherited something recently. It was a rather large inheritance. Were you aware?"
Leland put on his most confused look, "No, I was not. Go on."
"In the inheritance was something that was actually stolen from my family years ago by the person who left it to them."
"Who was that?"
Powell sighed mightily, "Dale Biederback."
Leland now put on his shocked face. Adrian thought he was doing an admirable job of faking it. "So instead of simply being human and going to them and asking for it, you thought … 'Hey, let's kidnap Adrian, scare him…' But to what end?"
"I was trying to get him to break the terms of the will so that I could get what I wanted without groveling."
"How's that working out for ya?"
"Not great." Powell scrubbed his hands over his face. "It was stupid, alright? I let my pride get in the way of my good sense. I was trying to separate Adrian from Natalie for the night. That breaks the terms of the bequest. Them separating for even one night."
Adrian stopped his pacing. At least their assumption had been correct. Now, Leland had "learned" the truth. He and Natalie hadn't broken that rule or any other.
"How did Polly Escarra get involved?"
"I met her at my meeting for the will reading. Yep, I'm in there too. On the last page. If I got them to break the terms of the will, I'd get the item I want so badly."
"You realize this is ridiculous. You could have saved all of us this exquisite waste of time and energy if you'd only asked for what you wanted. What was it anyway?"
"It's called a Welsh Buckler. It's a family heirloom from Wrexham, Wales. I don't actually care about the monetary value, just the value to my family."
"What's it look like?" Leland asked, still playing dumb.
"It's a shield. You know, like Captain America or Braveheart?"
Leland had to suppress a laugh, remembering Randy in his pjs, but he nodded.
"Okay. So now I know. We're still gonna charge you with false imprisonment, but if you know a good lawyer, maybe you can get a light sentence and keep your law license."
As Leland left the room, Powell put his head in his hands, his eyes field with regret and a hint of tears.
Leland met Monk in the observation room.
"Good job, Leland."
"I can manage to do some things alone, Monk."
"I realize that."
"Good, let's see what Miss Escarra has to say."
They moved to interrogation room B. Leland entered the room with an energetic pep in his step. Monk followed this time. Unperturbed by Ms. Escarra and unafraid of any consequences, he strode confidently into the interrogation room now that Leland had "learned" the truth of the bequest from Powell.
It went much as Adrian expected. There were a lot of tears. A lot of begging for mercy, they found Powell had put her up to it, threatening her son. They did learn one interesting thing, however. There was a codicil to the will.
"A codicil?" Adrian echoed her.
She nodded as she sniffed away more tears, seeming to sense she'd helped them somehow.
Adrian grew more frustrated; first, they were missing that last page, now a codicil. This codicil named Attorney Martin Douglas as a beneficiary of Biederbeck's will if Adrian and Natalie defaulted. An instrument such as a codicil to a will involves serious ethical problems for a lawyer when he or she benefits through default. If the testator is not related to the drafting attorney, a severe conflict of interest problem is practically unavoidable. The rules of professional conduct for attorneys in the state of California prohibit attorneys from being the beneficiaries of wills that they draft or execute. The language is unqualified. The attorney "shall not" prepare such an instrument.
"Well, this changes things," Leland remarked angrily.
Polly shrank back from his ire.
"Sorry, this isn't your fault. Although, had you come to the police, a lot of this could have been avoided." Leland left the room to order someone to bring in Martin Douglas.
Adrian sat silently across the table from Polly.
"Mr. Monk, I apologize," she said in her lilting accent.
"I'm sure you are."
"I couldn't lose my son or my work visa," on the verge of tears again.
Monk nodded. A part of him was angry, a part of him felt sorry for her, but he couldn't bring himself to give her the gift of forgiveness, not quite yet. The game she was playing could have harmed Natalie or someone they cared about. He barely thought about his kidnapping or the way they'd used poor, delusional Marci Maven.
Leland came in with a uniformed officer as Monk wrestled with his thoughts and emotions. The officer took Polly to holding while they awaited Douglas in Leland's office.
"I guess there's no rule about me telling Randy, Sharona, TK, Julie, or anyone else about Biederback's will," Leland commented as leaned back in his chair.
"I suppose not."
"So I will do that as a courtesy, so you're off the hook. They can all say they heard it from me today."
"After we arrest Douglas, the will might be invalid anyway," Monk sighed in a distressed manner. He was getting used to being wealthy.
"I doubt it. Probably just the codicil was faked. I've got the document forgery guy coming in from Sacramento."
"You really think so?"
"Yeah. I think you and Natalie are going to be okay." He smiled. "Besides, it's just like Biederback to leave you all of this money but force you into a situation he believed would make you miserable and uncomfortable. Live in your old house. Live with a woman. He couldn't see what you and Natalie actually meant to each other. Well, neither did you guys, but you get my meaning. The bequest was a mean thing, not a kind thing, so I think it was real."
Adrian took that in, mulled it over, and said, "I guess you're right. About all of it. Thankfully, it's turned out better than we ever could have guessed." Adrian smiled then, thinking of Natalie. That made him miss her.
"I'm going to call Natalie and update her, okay?"
"Yep. I will make those, uh, 'informational' calls." Leland rolled his eyes and headed to his office.
Adrian practically ran to the front of the station. The sun was still shining as he pressed his number one speed dial. He felt his heartbeat speed up as the phone rang.
"Hello?"
Adrian pictured her lips forming the word. "Hi, sweetheart."
"Adrian!"
"It's me, Adrian. Monk."
"Honey, I know it's you. What's happening?"
Monk explained what had happened in the interrogations of Powell and Polly Escarra. "But I really called to say I miss you." He blushed like a schoolboy, although he was essentially alone.
"You are sweet. I miss you too, but the laundry, the books for the business, and errands still need doing, and I'm the doer."
"I know. I hate leaving it all to you. It doesn't seem fair."
"I've been doing most of it for years; you just appreciate it more now."
"I guess. Now I'm sorry about that, too."
"Don't be. I know a few ways you can make it up to me.…" She cleared her throat and continued, "What else is happening there?"
"Oh! Leland got Powell to explain the terms of Biederbeck's will to him, so we're off the hook," he looked around as he lowered his voice, "and he's calling everyone else so that they 'hear the news' from him."
Natalie could visualize the air quotes. "That's an amazing idea!"
"The police are rounding up Martin Douglas too. He added what Leland thinks is a fake codicil to the will. In it, he is named as beneficiary if we default."
"That sounds completely unethical."
Monk heard the anger in Natalie's voice."It is. It's also illegal."
"Wow!" Natalie was having a hard time imagining the lawyer who seemed so strait-laced doing something so dishonest. Still, she'd seen enough of the worst of people in her years with Adrian to know there was no limit to people's greed and sinister machinations. "So what now?"
"Now, Leland and I interrogate Martin Douglas and see where we wind up after that."
"Do you need me?"
"I always need you."
Natalie felt a shiver go up and down her spine at how he said those words. "Thank you, love, but I mean, do you need me to be there now? I'm just finishing up the errands we needed to accomplish so I can be there pretty soon."
"Great, take your time. It's probably going to take some time to bring in Martin Douglas. So I will still be here."
"Okay, I'll see you in a little while."
It was Adrian's turn for a spine tremble. Knowing he'd see Natalie soon made him flush with anticipation. "Okay, Bye." He ended the call and was one hundred percent grateful that he'd changed his attitude about cell phones, and now he had a phone that kept him tethered to Natalie at the push of a button.
Leland walked outside to find him at that juncture and found his friend grinning like an idiot.
"Good news?" Leland asked.
"Natalie will be here soon."
"Very good news then."
Adrian nodded vigorously, not realizing Leland was teasing him a little.
Randy pulled into the lot and hurried over to his friends. "We got Douglas. I put him in a black and white. I figured putting him in a squad car would be humiliating and make him angry, right?"
"Good job, Randy, that was perfect," Leland slapped him on the back. Monk just smiled at his friend and nodded.
"Let's get inside," Adrian said, ushering them towards the doors. "We want to be ready for him."
? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ? ﾳ
When Natalie arrived about 90 minutes later, she was surprised to see Martin Douglas being led to a booking in handcuffs. His perfect haircut was ruffled, his tie askew, and the expression on his face not as smug as it usually was when they met. She would have called it panicky, in fact. Adrian, Leland, the DA, and Randy followed the uniformed police officers out of the interrogation room. God, that must have been an uncomfortable, crowded interrogation, Natalie thought. She expected an Adrian who was quite uptight. However, Adrian, Randy, and Leland looked satisfied, and DA Alvarez looked gleeful. She shook each of the detective's hands, waved at Natalie, and hurried away.
Adrian rushed over to Natalie and kissed her soundly. Right in the middle of the squad room.
"We got him, Natalie. Lawyer or not, as soon as he was confronted with conspiracy to kidnap, forgery, and several other crimes that DA Alvarez threw in, he folded. It was so satisfying. And… one of his partners was representing him, but after he heard what he'd allegedly done, rescinded his offer of representation. The partner, uh, Steinberg, pulled me aside and told me we're clear on the will thing. We didn't disclose the terms; Powell did, so we're okay. We can report to him for the rest of the year. He will call us next week."
"Amazing!"
"I know!" Adrian was smiling so hard his face hurt from the unfamiliar expression. He reached up a hand to rub one of his cheeks.
"What is it?"
"My face. It hurts a little."
"It's all the smiling you've been doing lately."
He sighed. "I know. I can't help it."
"Good. Don't stop."