Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant Read online

  The Monk Series

  Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant

  Mr. Monk Is Open for Business

  Mr. Monk Gets on Board

  Mr. Monk Helps Himself

  Mr. Monk Gets Even

  Mr. Monk Is a Mess

  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

  OBSIDIAN

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © 2015 Monk © Universal Network Television LLC. Licensed by Universal Studios Licensing LLC 2015.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Conrad, Hy.

  Mr. monk and the new lieutenant / Hy Conrad; based on the USA Network television series created by Andy Breckman.

  pages cm.—(Mr. Monk; 19)

  ISBN 978-0-698-16267-9

  1. Monk, Adrian (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. 3. Obsessive-compulsive disorder—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Breckman, Andy. II. Monk (Television program). III.Title.

  PS3553.O5166M67 2015

  813’.54—dc23 2014027548

  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.

  Version_1

  Contents

  The Monk Series

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: Mr. Monk and the Hippies

  CHAPTER TWO: Mr. Monk Celebrates a Birthday

  CHAPTER THREE: Mr. Monk and the Family Values

  CHAPTER FOUR: Mr. Monk and the Minimum Wage

  CHAPTER FIVE: Mr. Monk and the Fingernails

  CHAPTER SIX: Mr. Monk Takes His Time

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Mr. Monk and the Vanishing Act

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Mr. Monk vs. the Rainy Night

  CHAPTER NINE: Mr. Monk and the Visiting Hours

  CHAPTER TEN: Mr. Monk Loses a Client

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Mr. Monk and the Clean Sweep

  CHAPTER TWELVE: Mr. Monk and the Old Lieutenant

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Mr. Monk and the Planted Evidence

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Mr. Monk Makes a House Call

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Mr. Monk and Chicken Potpie Night

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Mr. Monk and the Mini-Mall

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Mr. Monk Refocuses

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Mr. Monk and the Urban Château

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: Mr. Monk and the Basement Nazis

  CHAPTER TWENTY: Mr. Monk Takes a Nap

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Mr. Monk Waits for the Weekend

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Mr. Monk and the Stakeout

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Mr. Monk and the Ballrooms

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Mr. Monk and the Money Tree

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Mr. Monk Can’t Listen

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Mr. Monk Finally Listens

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Mr. Monk Takes Control

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Mr. Monk and the Very Last Man

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Mr. Monk and the Bottle

  CHAPTER THIRTY: Mr. Monk Aligns the Planets

  To the real Sue Puskedra O’Brien,

  whose only request was to be described as a stunning blonde

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There has always been a weird phenomenon in my writing career: that strangers call me up out of the blue and offer me wonderful new opportunities. This isn’t to say that I’m such a prize or that I’m constantly in demand. In fact, most of

  my efforts at self-promotion fall flat. But if I stay by the phone—or, in the modern world, my e-mail—someone I’d never heard of will track me down and offer me a great job.

  This was true of the TV series Monk. And it was true of these books, my four efforts of translating those quirky characters from the screen to the printed page. The people at Penguin got in touch and asked if I would be up for the challenge of taking over the wildly successful series of books, started years ago by my friend Lee Goldberg.

  The opportunity caught me at just the right moment. I had finished up my work on White Collar, completed a humor book with my partner, and bought a house in Key West, far away from the hiring fields of Los Angeles and New York. One of my life goals had always been to write an ongoing detective series, and there seemed to be no better way than to inherit the enthusiastic—one might say rabid—fans of Adrian Monk.

  Unfortunately, all things come to an end. Since I started writing these books, other strangers have called me up out of the blue, and I no longer have the time to create two new adventures a year for Monk and Natalie and the old gang. I will miss them.

  Without giving away too much about the plot of New Lieutenant, I’d like to think I’ve left the characters in a good spot to continue with their lives. And I hope, if a new writer takes over, he or she will take inspiration from my stopping point to create a new starting point. Long live Monk!

  In my previous three attempts to continue the Monk legacy, I have thanked Tony Shalhoub and Andy Breckman, the two people most responsible for creating the legacy. They stay thanked and remain good friends.

  I’d also like to add some appreciation for my agent, Allison Cohen, who is helping guide me into new, exciting frontiers, and my editor, Laura Fazio, who has been a pleasure to work with and whom I will miss.

  I’m not very good at saying good-bye. But this is not really good-bye, since I’ll be writing other things and you, I assume, will still be able and willing to read. But I do want to thank you all for accepting me into your Monk worlds, if only for a couple of years. Every Monk world is a little different, and I know each reader did some accommodating in order to allow me in.

  I appreciate it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mr. Monk and the Hippies

  I have made a slow, sad discovery over the past few months. Brace yourself. You might not want to hear this: Office work is boring.

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t a shock. But when you fantasize about being a private eye, when you work and plan and visualize yourself opening a real business with real clients walking through the door with exciting, life-and-death problems to solve … Well, let’s just say there are a lot of hours in the workday.
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  The red-and-black signage on the front window of our establishment reads MONK & TEEGER, CONSULTING DETECTIVES. I would be the Teeger. Natalie Teeger, single mom, ex-bartender, ex–blackjack dealer, ex-assistant to a brilliant and dysfunctional crime consultant. The Monk would be Adrian Monk, ex-cop and my ex-boss. We’re in this thing together now, trying to share our modest office space in a mini-mall without annoying each other to death.

  Even though my name is listed second, I’m the official boss. I’m the one who took the time and effort to get my investigator’s license. But Monk is the one with the genius for solving any possible or impossible case—except his own case of OCD. You probably know all of this. Right? As I said, I’ve been bored and I’m starting to repeat myself.

  Lately we’ve taken to splitting our hours, just to give each other a break. At first I was nervous about it. But Monk surprised me with his ability to open up the shop by himself and deal with the demands of a storefront and not scare away too many clients. He does have this habit of making mortal enemies with the other fine businesses facing onto our communal parking lot. But we’re working on that. Baby steps.

  It was exactly one o’clock on a cloudy afternoon when I pulled my Subaru into an empty spot just as Monk and Luther Washington were coming out the door.

  As long as I’m saying things you probably already know, I’ll mention Luther. He’s Monk’s driver. Not really a driver. But a year or so ago, Monk met Luther and bought his car service company. Luther stayed on to manage the business and give Monk a free ride whenever he needs one. I’m sure Monk could have avoided the expense of buying a company and simply paid for his rides. But that would have provided Luther with an exit strategy he doesn’t have now. Luther is financially forced to be Monk’s friend. And, except for a few hiccups along the way, I think it’s working.

  It seemed to be working on that afternoon when I pulled up. The two of them were acting like a couple of schoolboys, scurrying around the side of the black Town Car. Luther held open the passenger door for Monk, then put on his cap and got behind the wheel. They were almost giggling.

  “How was your morning?” I asked through the open window, trying to keep things professional. “Any exciting business I should be aware of?”

  “Exciting,” Monk echoed, then seemed to change his mind. “Uh, no. Nothing exciting. We got an inquiry about a child custody case, which I turned down. The landlord came by with a plumber to check out that smell in the bathroom. They said it’s my imagination, but my imagination doesn’t smell like that. I’ll call them again in an hour. Oh, and the hippies next door are still making a racket. You don’t even have to press your ear to the wall to hear their antiestablishment music. It’s practically blaring.”

  “Yeah,” said Luther with half a grin. “They’re really causing pain.”

  Monk answered that with half a chortle. “Causing pain. Good one.”

  Hmm. I wasn’t aware that Luther had even met the hippies. “Okay,” I said, stretching out the word. “What’s up with you two?”

  “Nothing, boss,” said Monk, and he rolled up the window. “Go, go,” I could hear from behind the tinted glass as Luther scooted back out of the space.

  I watched them drive off, make a right onto Divisadero, and blend in with the downtown traffic. Okay, I thought, heaving a deep sigh. Time to visit the hippies and apologize. For whatever.

  The hippies, as Monk called them, owned Paisley Printing, the shop just to the right of ours as you face the parking lot. Peter and Wendy Gerber were probably still in their twenties, thin and scruffy. Back in the seventies, they might have been labeled hippies. Since then, other labels have come and gone to describe their look: granola, new age, sixties retro—or, to quote my father, old-school San Franciscans.

  Peter and Wendy were sweet and good-natured, struggling to make ends meet in a business dominated by the likes of Kinko’s and Office Depot, not to mention the surge in desktop publishing. They certainly didn’t deserve to have Adrian Monk holding his nose every time he smelled a whiff of incense, or his pounding on the thin walls every time he heard the music of the old guitar that Peter plucked on during the spells between their printing jobs.

  “Natalie,” Wendy called out warmly through the open door. At least she still considered us on speaking terms.

  “Wendy. How is everything? I hope Adrian hasn’t been bothering you.”

  “Adrian? What a sweet old soul he has. No, I haven’t seen him.” Wendy was a long-haired brunette, but with the kind of frizzy, flyaway hair you might expect on someone my age. She swept back a long strand. “I expected to see him pacing out front, you know, spooking away customers, only we don’t have any customers.”

  “Natalie.” Peter was toward the back of the shop, looking up from a laptop. He sported a scruffy three-day growth that always looked the same. “I love it when Adrian pounds the wall. He can’t help but keep time, so it’s like I’ve got my own drum section. Freakin’ cool.”

  “My bad. We did have a customer,” Wendy recalled. “Clyde. I forget his last name. African-American dude with a very centered aura.” She held up her hands as if holding the aura for me to examine. “Teeny tiny order but super weird. We wasted all morning getting it right.”

  “Time is never a waste,” Peter corrected her. “It’s an artificial construct reflecting the circular flow of the universe. We’re all part of it, you know.”

  “Don’t mind him.” Wendy laughed. “You can decide for yourself if it was a waste.” And with that, she led me behind the counter to the monitor on top of the main, white-laminate work space. “I guess it’s for a clinic or a medical supply business?” She phrased it as a question.

  Wendy used her mouse to bring up the image of a poster. The letters were big, almost magenta on a multicolored background, in a kind of retro-forties font. There was no illustration to speak of, just four oddly spaced words filling the lower part of the sign, plus an arrow.

  HIP

  CAUSING YOU PAIN?

  “I guess it’s a window ad,” I suggested. “For a hip replacement facility? You’re right. It is super weird. How big was the final product?”

  “Clyde was very specific,” said Peter as he joined us at the worktable. “It had to be exactly two feet two inches by three feet seven and a half inches. He kept looking at a photo, but real James Bond secret-like. He kept fiddling with the color and spacing. It must have taken us an hour plus.”

  “And after all that, he only wanted one copy,” said Wendy, shaking her frizz. “We kept telling him a dozen would be almost as cheap, but he said he only needed one. Matte finish on a self-adhesive plastic-peel backing. All-natural inks, too.”

  “Did he pay cash?” I asked. I had a sinking feeling about this story. “Did he wait and take it with him?”

  “Whoa,” said Peter. “Both of those. It’s like you’re tapping into his spirit.”

  “Unfortunately, I think I am.” From the start there had been something familiar about the font and the colors—and, now that I thought about it, about the African-American man … and the phrase “causing pain,” which I’d run into more than once in the past few minutes. Just call me Sherlock.

  “Natalie, where are you going?”

  Peter and Wendy followed me out of the shop and to the right. I couldn’t stop them, not that I wanted to. If I was right, they deserved to see it.

  And there it was, plastered on the stucco wall that separated Paisley Printing from the third shop in the row, the Farmers’ Natural Market, a pricey, overly quaint food store. Gracing the wall space—as recently as an hour ago—had been two side-by-side paintings, both done in an old-fashioned style, brightly colored and reminiscent of fruit crate labels. The first announced the presence of “Fresh Baked PIES” while the second celebrated the shop’s “Fair Trade COFFEES.”

  “Freakish mystery solved,” I said.

  At the moment, the coffee painting was completely obscured by Peter and Wendy’s newly printed hip ad. I had to hand it
to Luther; it was a perfect fit. It covered the coffee ad perfectly. And the letters, with a nearly identical font, lined up with those of the pie painting next to it. “Not cool,” said Peter, staring at it and tugging at his stubble. “Who would do this?”

  The “this” in question was the following:

  FRESH

  BAKED

  HIP PIES

  CAUSING YOU PAIN?

  The bold red arrow pointed directly to the Paisley Printing storefront. “Fresh baked hippies.” I moaned as I read.

  “It was Adrian, wasn’t it?” said Wendy. “Why would he … I know he has his issues going on. But I thought he at least respected us.”

  “It wasn’t Adrian,” I stammered. “I mean, it was. Obviously. But he doesn’t do practical jokes. Clyde, your African-American dude? His name is Luther and he’s Adrian’s friend. Luther must have been the force behind it.”

  “It is kind of funny,” Peter admitted, getting over his initial shock. “We worked so hard making it just right. And the whole point was to prank us with our own work. Good job.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ll go talk to the market people. I’m sure they can peel it off without harming the wall.”

  “It’s totally harmless and peelable and biodegradable,” said Peter. “The dude paid extra to make sure.” He stretched to his full height, grabbed the top two corners and slowly pulled down the fake hip ad. It came off in one piece, and he just stood there, holding it, staring at it, his eyes drooping at the edges. “We like to take pride in our work, you know? Make the client happy.”

  “I’m sure they were happy,” I said lamely.

  A few minutes and several more apologies later, I was back in my office, at my desk, on the phone, doing my best to yell at Luther Washington. Or should I say Clyde?

  “It was Mr. Monk’s idea,” he said smoothly, refusing to raise his voice in response. “I acted as the facilitator, you might say.”

  “That is so not true. I know Adrian a lot better than you do. He would never even think of pulling a prank like that. He can be unthinking and self-centered and a dozen other things. But the man is not cruel.”

  “Well, maybe I did go proactive,” Luther admitted. “But I had to do something to stop his whining about the hippies. I figured he needed to feel some control over the situation.”