Mr. Monk on Patrol Read online

  “Can books be better than television? You bet they can—when Lee Goldberg’s writing them.”

  —Lee Child

  Praise for the

  Monk Mysteries

  Mr. Monk on the Couch

  “The Monk books are always wonderful fun and this one is no exception.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  Mr. Monk on the Road

  “This is probably the best Monk novel that Lee Goldberg has written by far. Plain and simple, it’s flat-out awesome!”

  —Gelati’s Scoop

  “Mr. Monk on the Road is another laugh-out-loud mystery bound to please the millions of Monk fans.”

  —Movement Magazine

  Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out

  “What’s left to say about Lee Goldberg’s Monk books? You already know they’re some of the very best TV tie-in books being published today. More than that, they’re some of the very best mystery novels being published today, period.”

  —Rough Edges

  “For a lighthearted, enjoyable who-done-it with an old friend, read Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out—you’ll thank me later!”

  —San Francisco Book Review

  “The latest hilariously funny and devilishly clever novel about TV’s obsessive-compulsive sleuth Adrian Monk is an impossible-crime lover’s delight.”

  —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  Mr. Monk in Trouble

  “Once again, Goldberg expertly sails along the fine line of character quirks that make Monk so infuriating, and yet so endearing.”

  —Bookgasm

  “Lee Goldberg knows that the richest humor veers close to pathos, and that is one reason the novel succeeds so well. This is much more than entertainment.”

  —Richard S. Wheeler, author of Snowbound

  Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

  “Sharp character comedy combines with ingenious and fairly clued puzzle-spinning.”

  —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  “Once again Lee Goldberg has brilliantly captured the obsessive-compulsive master detective Adrian Monk.”

  —Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine

  Mr. Monk Is Miserable

  “Fans of the show are in for a treat. Goldberg does a stunning job capturing Natalie’s voice.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  “Full of snippets of slapstick humor and Monk’s special talents for observation.”

  —Library Journal

  Mr. Monk Goes to Germany

  “The story flows so smoothly it’s effortless to read.”

  —CrimeSpree Magazine

  “A great escape. Lee Goldberg has written another wonderful novel.”

  —Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine

  Mr. Monk in Outer Space

  “You say you don’t read tie-in novels? You should give the Monk books a try and find out what you’ve been missing.”

  —Bill Crider, author of Murder in the Air

  Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants

  “Even if you aren’t familiar with the TV series Monk, this book is too funny to not be read.”

  —The Weekly Journal (TX)

  Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

  “A must read if you enjoy Monk’s mysteries on the tube.”

  —Bookgasm

  “A very funny and inventively plotted book.”

  —Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii

  “An entertaining and ruefully funny diversion that stars one of television’s best-loved characters.”

  —Honolulu Star-Bulletin

  Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

  “It is laugh-out-loud funny from the get-go…totally enjoyable.”

  —Robin Burcell, author of The Bone Chamber

  “It’s funny, with some great Monkisms, and tightly plotted; the characters are expanded beyond their TV confines.…How TV tie-ins should be.”

  —The Works (UK)

  “Lee has found the perfect voice for Natalie’s first-person narration—sweet, exhausted, frustrated, exasperated, and sweet again. None of these feelings has to do with the mystery. They’re all reactions to Monk’s standard behavior as he wars with all the ways nature is trying to kill him. Lee Goldberg has managed to concoct a novel that’s as good as any of the Monk episodes I’ve seen on the tube.”

  —Ed Gorman, author of Stranglehold

  The Monk Series

  Mr. Monk on Patrol

  Mr. Monk on the Couch

  Mr. Monk on the Road

  Mr. Monk Is Cleaned Out

  Mr. Monk in Trouble

  Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

  Mr. Monk Is Miserable

  Mr. Monk Goes to Germany

  Mr. Monk in Outer Space

  Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants

  Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu

  Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii

  Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse

  MR. MONK

  ON PATROL

  A Novel by

  Lee Goldberg

  Based on the USA Network television series created by

  Andy Breckman

  AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in an Obsidian hardcover edition.

  First Obsidian Mass Market Printing, May 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © 2012 Monk © Universal Network Television LLC. Licensed by NBCUniversal Television Consumer Products Group 2012. All Rights Reserved.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-56585-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen pr
operty. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  To Valerie and Madison

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The TV series Monk was set in San Francisco, shot in Los Angeles, and written in Summit, New Jersey, where my friend Andy Breckman, the creator of the show, actually lives. I also spent some time there over the years, plotting the stories for my Monk episodes with Andy and his incredibly talented writing staff.

  A significant portion of Mr. Monk on Patrol is set in a place called Summit, New Jersey…but the town that I’ve depicted, while it bears some passing resemblance to the real place, is entirely fictional. I did this because I’m a lazy writer and wanted to take enormous creative liberties with Summit’s geography and political structure.

  And I did.

  Any parallels between what I’ve written and any real people, places, or institutions in Summit are entirely unintentional, accidental, and coincidental. I really like Summit and would like to be able to go back and visit Andy without being tarred and feathered.

  I’d like to thank Andy and his brother, David, as well as the usual suspects—Kerry Donovan, Gina Maccoby, and Dr. D. P. Lyle—for their support and enthusiasm during the writing of this book.

  I look forward to hearing from you online at www.leegoldberg.com.

  Table of Contents

  1: Mr. Monk and the Open House

  2: Mr. Monk and the Five Stars

  3: Mr. Monk and the Big Favor

  4: Mr. Monk Goes Through Security

  5: Mr. Monk in the Air

  6: Mr. Monk Arrives in New Jersey

  7: Mr. Monk Is Haunted

  8: Mr. Monk Goes to Work

  9: Mr. Monk and the Poop

  10: Mr. Monk Goes to Hell

  11: Mr. Monk and the Burglary

  12: Mr. Monk and the Pain

  13: Mr. Monk and the Second Room

  14: Mr. Monk in the Attic

  15: Mr. Monk Proves His Case

  16: Mr. Monk Takes a Nap

  17: Mr. Monk and the Badge

  18: Mr. Monk in Blue

  19: Mr. Monk Protects and Serves

  20: Mr. Monk Accepts an Invitation

  21: Mr. Monk Goes to Dinner

  22: Mr. Monk Changes His Mind

  23: Mr. Monk and the Knockoff

  24: Mr. Monk Reviews the Evidence

  25: Mr. Monk in the Big Apple

  26: Mr. Monk and the Puzzle

  27: Mr. Monk as It Happened

  28: Mr. Monk Is Trashed

  29: Mr. Monk and the Weak Link

  30: Mr. Monk to the Rescue

  31: Mr. Monk Makes a Big Decision

  Mr. Monk is a Mess

  1

  Mr. Monk and the Open House

  The Victorian house at the corner of Cole and Hayes streets was listed for sale at two million dollars, which was a fair price considering it was newly remodeled, immaculately maintained, and only a short walk from the University of San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, and Haight-Ashbury. However, it was going to sell for a lot less than the asking price, if it ever sold at all. I wasn’t a real estate expert, like the dead woman on the entry hall floor, but I knew that murder always brought down property values.

  The dead Realtor’s name was Rebecca Baylin. She was twenty-seven years old, shirtless, and her head was caved in. Ordinarily, Adrian Monk wouldn’t be able to look at a topless woman, but there he was, framing the scene between his hands and tipping his head from side to side to examine her from different angles.

  Monk would be repulsed by someone with a bit of lettuce stuck between his teeth, or a missing button on her shirt, or a single pierced ear, or a zit on someone’s chin, and yet he had no qualms about staring at all manner of horrific violence perpetrated on the human body.

  It made no sense to me, but then again, there was a lot I didn’t understand about my obsessive-compulsive boss, even after all my years as his underpaid and overworked assistant, agent, driver, shopper, researcher, publicist, and all-around emotional punching bag.

  I’ll make a guess, though. Maybe the reason he could look at Rebecca Baylin was that her nakedness was negated by her lifelessness. He didn’t see her as a woman anymore, or even as a person. She’d become something that was out of place, a disorder that had to be made orderly, a mess that had to be cleaned up, a question that had to be answered. He wouldn’t be able to rest—and by extension neither would I—until he’d figured out what had happened to her, caught her killer, and restored the balance that had been disrupted by her murder.

  And I knew that Monk would. He always did.

  This was a fact that Captain Leland Stottlemeyer had come to rely upon. It was why Stottlemeyer fought countless political battles to employ Monk as a consultant. It was why he found the patience to tolerate and forgive all of Monk’s aggravating eccentricities. And it was why he called us down to that open house on that foggy Saturday morning to meet with him and Lieutenant Amy Devlin.

  “This home was Baylin’s listing,” Devlin said. “She was supposed to host an open house here this morning. A couple came by at ten a.m. to see the place, found the door unlocked, and walked in on this.”

  Devlin gestured to the body on the floor.

  “We’ve got the couple sitting in the backseat of a black-and-white if you’d like to ask them a few questions,” the captain said, standing beside me and chewing on a toothpick, the tip tickling the hairs of his bushy mustache as he watched Monk work. Stottlemeyer wore a wrinkled off-the-rack suit and a tie that had gone out of style with disco.

  “That’s not necessary,” Monk said. “You can send them home. They didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?” Devlin stood across from us. She had short black hair that looked like she’d had her gardener trim it with a weed whacker, and she wore faded jeans and a gray hoodie under a leather jacket.

  “It’s obvious from the rigor mortis and other physical indications that she’s been dead for at least eight hours.”

  “That doesn’t mean they didn’t kill her last night and then came back this morning so they could discover the body and rule themselves out as suspects,” Devlin said.

  She watched Monk with obvious impatience, her hands on her hips, parting her jacket to reveal the badge and gun that were clipped on her belt, not that there was anyone around at the moment who’d be impressed by them. She’d transferred to homicide recently after a long string of undercover assignments, and I think on some level she enjoyed advertising that she was a cop instead of working so hard to hide it.

  Or maybe she just wanted easy access to her gun so she could shoot Monk if he continued to irritate her.

  “That sounds awfully convoluted to me,” Stottlemeyer said. “Almost Disher-esque.”

  “Disher-esque?” she said.

  The captain was referring affectionately to Randy Disher, the cop she’d been brought into homicide to replace after he took a job as the police chief of Summit, New Jersey.

  “Never mind,” Stottlemeyer said. “Were you serious with that theory about the couple who found the body?”

  “Of course not,” Devlin said. “But it’s exactly the kind of ridiculous conclusion that Monk usually comes to.”

  “Except that when he comes to a conclusion,” I said, “he’s always right.”

  Stottlemeyer gave me a cold look. He hated it when I brought up Monk’s perfect record in front of people. It only stoked Monk’s ego and Devlin’s animosity toward him. But defending Monk was a reflex for me.

  If Monk heard the compliment, he didn’t acknowledge it. He turned his back on us, walked around the body one more time, then drifted off into the adjacent living room.

  Devlin sighed with frustration. “I don’t see what the big mystery is here.”

  “How about who killed her?” Stottlemeyer said.

  “Beyond who the actual perpetrator is,” D
evlin said, “the circumstances of her death don’t strike me as a mind-boggling puzzle requiring outside assistance.”

  She had a point, not that I would give her the satisfaction of hearing me admit it.

  It used to be that Stottlemeyer called Monk in on only the most difficult, unusual, or high-profile murder cases. But ever since the captain remarried, he’d begun bringing Monk in on more and more of the routine homicides, particularly if they happened on weekends, just so he could get home sooner. That’s because Monk often solved cases on the spot that would take an average detective a day or two to sort out.

  Monk’s amazing eye for detail used to rile the captain. But nowadays, Stottlemeyer didn’t have as much ego invested in proving that he and his detectives were capable of doing the job without Monk’s help.

  The same couldn’t be said for Amy Devlin. She never denied Monk’s abilities, but she found him enormously irritating and wanted to do her job herself, even if it took a little while longer for her to close the case.

  Since Monk was busy wandering around the living room, Stottlemeyer focused his attention on Devlin. “So, what do you think happened, Lieutenant?”

  “Baylin stopped by last night to prep the house for today’s showing and either she left the door unlocked or someone came by pretending to be interested in the house. Whoever it was tried to sexually assault her. When she resisted, he brained her with a heavy object and fled.”

  Monk turned around, nodding to himself as he drifted back in our direction.

  “You agree with her, Monk?” Stottlemeyer asked.

  “No,” Monk said. “I need to meet the owners of this house right away.”

  Nobody had mentioned them at all, so it was a surprise to me that something about the crime had led Monk to them. “You think they might have something to do with this?”

  “Of course not,” Monk said. “They are people of class, distinction, and impeccable moral character. They would have nothing to do with a murder.”

  “You don’t know their names and you’ve never met them,” Devlin said. “So how can you possibly make any assumptions about their character?”