Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant Page 13

  “Yes, but that doesn’t make them bad. They’re discovering who they are, what works for them. Dad didn’t get it. ‘As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.’ He used to say that a lot. His mission, I think, was to straighten the twigs, which wasn’t always easy on the twigs. Maybe that’s why I got into teaching, to try a gentler way of bending the twigs. Who knows?”

  “If you heard that your dad sentenced a couple of teenage boys to seven years each for stealing antique silver, would that surprise you?” I was interested to see her reaction.

  “Stealing silver and threatening two officers with semiautomatics,” Randy reminded me.

  “He really gave them seven years? Those poor boys.”

  “They used to be poor boys,” said Chief Disher. “Now they’re grown men, ex-cons who probably have chips on their shoulders.”

  “Well …” She sighed, the weight of the world on her thin shoulders. “To answer your question, I can see Dad doing that. He’d say it was grand larceny. He’d look at their priors and how they dressed and comported themselves. These boys who stole the silver, you think they killed Dad?”

  Randy shrugged. “They could be our best lead.”

  “Do you think whatever Dad did back when he was grieving, right or wrong, is putting your captain in danger?”

  “You can’t think of it that way,” I told her. “Nothing can excuse murder. If those men did it, they’re responsible. No one else.”

  “They’re not trying to kill me, if that makes you feel any better,” said Randy.

  Bethany looked puzzled. “Why would that make me feel better?”

  Sometime in the middle of our visit with Bethany Oberlin, Harlan Brown phoned me from the Pleasant Valley facility near Fresno. I let it go into voice mail and returned his call as soon as the three of us got outside.

  “Warden Brown, thanks for getting back to me,” I said, even though I was the one getting back to him.

  “No problem, Miss Teeger.” The man had a warm Southern accent. Is it a cliché, or do most of the nation’s wardens come from the South? Maybe they just like the accent. “The Frisco police commissioner says I should answer whatever questions you and your partner might have.”

  “That was very nice of him.” I sometimes forget the power Adrian Monk’s name carries in the world of law enforcement.

  “Your message said something about the Willmott cousins. I gotta tell you, ma’am, I had mixed feelings about their release. On the one hand, I’m glad those boys are gone. On the other, I feel sorry for the general public.”

  I let out an inappropriate chuckle. “I guess that answers my question about why they didn’t get paroles.”

  “It’s a shame, really. They come in as a couple of entitled yuppie kids and wind up covered in neo-Nazi prison tats, spouting all kinds of hateful stuff and getting into knife fights. We tried everything on them.”

  “Neo-Nazis? Oh, dear.”

  “You heard me, Ms. Teeger. In a maximum-or even medium-security prison this behavior wouldn’t be a big deal. But Pleasant Valley is minimum security. Half our population is white-collar offenders in on bank fraud and insider trading. Some of them are Jewish. Then, out of the blue, these clean-cut kids start watching that TV show Lockup on MSNBC. You know the prison show about life behind bars?”

  “I’ve seen bits and pieces.” Lockup was one of those reality shows that makes you question everything you thought you knew about humanity and want to hide under the covers.

  “Well, these two kids started their own branch of the Aryan Brotherhood. From scratch.”

  “I didn’t realize the Aryan Brotherhood had branches.”

  “I think they got all their information from Lockup. That basic cable. I tell you, it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “Why didn’t you have them transferred to another facility?”

  “Ma’am, we tried. But the parents pulled some strings with the state. Funny how they couldn’t use their juice to keep the boys out of prison, but when it came time to mess with my facility …”

  “They probably thought it would just make them worse, putting them in a tougher prison.”

  “I’m sure that’s what they thought.”

  “I know I’m going to regret asking you this.” I stepped away from the car and out of earshot. “Do your records show a current address for the Willmott boys? Are they in the Bay Area by any chance?”

  “They’re living together, if I’m not mistaken.” I could hear the warden tapping away on his keyboard. “Yep. Right in San Francisco. You thinking of visiting them? You’re not African-American, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. How about Jewish? If you’re Jewish, I can’t give you the address. For your own protection.”

  “I’m not Jewish.”

  “Good.” And he gave me the address.

  When I got back to my perfectly parked car, Monk and Randy were looking quizzical. “Well,” said Monk. “Who was that? And why is there a drop of perspiration above your right eyebrow? It can’t be over sixty degrees.”

  “Adrian, how do you feel about neo-Nazis?” I didn’t think Monk had any Nazi-related phobias, although I couldn’t blame him if he did.

  “Neo-Nazis?” He rolled a single shoulder. “They’re not as bad as the old-fashioned original Nazis, from what people say—although the original Nazis were a lot neater and they dressed better. Is there a reason why you’re asking me this question?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mr. Monk and the Urban Château

  The address I’d written down wasn’t far away, about twenty blocks north toward the bay and another twenty blocks west. It wasn’t until I was getting close and the neighborhood kept getting nicer that I realized. Our two young neo-Nazis, fresh out of prison, had set up house in Pacific Heights, otherwise known as the land of you-can’t-afford-to-live-here. And then it hit me. Of course.

  “They’re residing in their parents’ basement, aren’t they?” said Monk. Great minds think alike. “I hate basements.”

  “It doesn’t have to be the basement,” I said. “But you’re probably right.”

  “What if they’re not home?” said Randy from the backseat. “We should have called ahead.”

  “I didn’t want to give them advance warning.” I turned on Broadway Street and started looking for a parking space.

  Monk agreed. “It’s an historical fact. You don’t give Nazis advance warning.”

  Colin Willmott’s parents certainly had enough room to accommodate their son and nephew in the spare bedrooms on the second or third floor of their faux-French urban château, situated on a spacious corner lot. But I guessed it was some sort of mutual agreement that kept all the Oriental rugs and hunting paintings above ground level and all the swastikas and survival gear and military-style cots in the basement, with its own bathroom and separate entrance from the street.

  It was late afternoon on a Thursday, but Ben and Olivia Willmott were both working from home. We identified ourselves and held up our IDs to a camera above the doorbell. An alarm system beeped on and off, followed by the sound of more than one dead bolt being unbolted.

  The weary, middle-aged couple were at first reluctant to sit down with two private detectives and a police chief from New Jersey. But this, we told them, involved their Colin, and as painful and intrusive as it might be, they knew they had to make one more effort, and probably a dozen more after this.

  Ben Willmott did something or other in banking. Olivia Bowersox-Willmott, as she introduced herself, did something in the advertising world. Both were perpetually confused and exhausted with their only son, who, despite having love and every other advantage showered on him, had turned into a Hitler-loving ex-con.

  They walked us back to the kitchen—through the front room, a second living room, and the dining room. Along the way I noted a framed photo on the fireplace mantel, the younger-looking Willmotts, all scrubbed and happy-looking. An earnest but smiling Colin, blond and perhaps ten years o
ld, stood between them, the Eiffel Tower in the background.

  We sat on leather-topped stools around a marble island big enough to have its own zip code. Olivia offered us something to drink and Adrian was impressed to find that their imported water of choice was from Fiji. Good start.

  Ben took a sip from his own bottle. “I used to look at people in our situation, on the news, and think they must have been bad somehow or overindulgent. But we didn’t do it any differently from the way dozens of our friends raised their kids. There was just something about the way Colin and his cousin interacted. They were the same age, only a month or so apart. From the time they were toddlers, the boys brought out the worst in each other.”

  “When was their first arrest?” asked Monk.

  The Willmotts exchanged wary glances. “Those records are sealed,” said Ben. Then he sighed. “They were fourteen or fifteen.”

  “Fourteen,” his wife clarified. “It was small stuff at first. Taking a car for a joyride, shoplifting. There was at least one convenience store. And of course, there were the drugs.”

  “Two convenience stores and a gas station,” Ben added. They almost sounded like a pair of proud parents reciting their child’s long string of accomplishments—but exactly the opposite.

  “The nice thing about prison was that it got them off drugs. They say. We hope.”

  The Willmotts, Olivia and Ben and his brother’s family, had done everything they could—counseling, drug rehab, trying to keep the boys apart, a lot of patience—probably what I would have done if Julie had gone down that path and I’d had the Willmotts’ money and clout.

  When the cousins finally turned eighteen and Captain Stottlemeyer arrested them for stealing their uncle’s silver collection, pieces that had been in the family since the Revolutionary War, the Willmotts decided on a little tough love. Suddenly gone were the slick lawyers and the legal favors that had worked during the previous four years. The boys were on their own with a court-appointed attorney just out of law school. Having pulled semiautomatics on the arresting officers didn’t help their chances.

  “The judge completely went out of bounds,” said Olivia. “It wasn’t fair.”

  “You mentioned them doing a joyride,” said Monk. “At fourteen? Did they take the keys or hot-wire it?”

  “It was a car off the street. Colin is very mechanically minded,” said Colin’s father. Another one of the child’s accomplishments.

  “We’ll assume he still knows how to hot-wire cars,” said Monk.

  Ben Willmott’s sad smile faded. “Are you saying they’re in trouble again? Please don’t say that.”

  “It could be very big trouble,” said Randy. “Mr. Willmott, do you own a handgun?”

  “Handgun?” Olivia looked to her husband. “We don’t have to answer that.”

  Monk cricked his neck and rolled his left shoulder. Here it comes, I thought. I felt sorry for the poor couple.

  “The answer’s yes,” Monk announced. “No one says, ‘We don’t have to answer that’ if the answer’s no. Under normal circumstances, you would keep it in the bedroom, the usual spot for a law-abiding household needing a gun for protection. But Mr. Willmott’s eyes just flitted out toward the front of the house.”

  Monk got off his stool and crossed to the doorway. “The second living room. When we walked through, I noticed two antique end tables with locks on the drawers. The one on the left side of the sofa had scratch marks around the lock mechanism. Fresh ones, not yet polished over by the maid. My guess—and it’s not really a guess—is you tried to hide the weapon from your son in the past, before prison. The end table was your new hiding spot and the boys found it.”

  Ben sputtered. Should he be outraged or impressed? “What the hell are you doing? This is an invasion of privacy.”

  “Just observing the obvious,” said Monk.

  “Colin and Marshal aren’t allowed in the main house,” said Olivia. “We had the inside stairs removed. They don’t have keys and we always lock up and set the alarm. It’s impossible for them to break in.”

  “Hardly impossible,” said the master of the impossible. “What’s your alarm code? Your birthdays, your anniversary, your son’s birthday? Something easy for Colin to figure out?”

  Ben’s embarrassed expression said it all. “We’ve done everything to protect ourselves. We’re not responsible anymore. He’s a grown man.”

  “A grown man living in your basement,” Randy pointed out. “What kind of handgun is it? I’m going to guess, like Mr. Monk. A nine-millimeter?”

  “We don’t have a gun,” said Ben defiantly. “If you check state registration records, yes, you may find a nine-millimeter Beretta under my name. But that gun went missing. Years ago. I never reported it. That’s not a crime.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s a crime,” said Randy. “For a convicted felon to possess a firearm. That’s at least eighteen months plus a ten-thousand-dollar fine. If you know they took your gun and didn’t report it, that makes you an accessory.”

  “And if we report it?” Ben asked.

  “Then we can get a search warrant for your basement.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen,” said Ben.

  “What did the boys do?” Olivia asked softly. It seemed she couldn’t help herself.

  “That’s no longer our responsibility.”

  “Benjamin! That’s what you said when they turned eighteen.” She raised her voice, as close to shouting as she would get. “You said it was time the boys learned the hard way. Tough love. Well, this is what your tough love did. Are you happy?”

  Ben turned to me, as if sensing I was the one other parent in the group and that I’d understand. “Before the trial got under way, we knew it was a mistake. We tried to fire the public defender and get a top-notch lawyer, but the boys … They were so enraged at the whole family.”

  “Can you blame them for being mad?” said Olivia.

  “They were adults and we could no longer make their choices. They reacted out of spite.”

  I found this hard to fathom. “They rolled the dice with an inexperienced public defender rather than let you tell them what to do? Weren’t they scared? They were just boys.”

  Ben nodded. “That’s what we’re dealing with. They’re filled with so much hate. Getting even is what they live for.”

  “We lost our son and our nephew forever,” said Olivia, her voice cracking with emotion. “Their other cousin, from my side of the family, is getting married this weekend.”

  “A very nice Italian girl,” added Ben, with a what-can-you-do shrug. “We were a little surprised, to be honest. One generation off the boat. But very nice people. Very lively.”

  Off the boat? I thought. Lively? And they wonder where their son got his prejudices from. I just nodded and kept smiling.

  “A wedding is supposed to be a joyous occasion,” said Olivia. “Instead, the boys aren’t even invited. Their own cousin they grew up with. Everyone has cut them off. Everyone’s too afraid.”

  “And yet they’re living in your home,” Randy said.

  Olivia bristled. “What do you want us to do, make them live on the street or worse, with a gang?”

  “Have you and your husband lived here a long time? In this house?” asked Monk. The question seemed to come out of the blue, but I knew better. “The name Willmott is etched on the mailbox and the mailbox looks at least thirty years old.”

  “Who said you could examine our mailbox?” said Ben. “I’m feeling violated here.”

  All four of us did some form of eye rolling, including Ben’s wife. “Yes,” said Olivia. “Almost thirty years. The house was a wedding present from my parents.” Wedding present? Really? I think my parents gave Mitch and me a Cuisinart. “Why do you ask, Mr. Monk?”

  “I was thinking about your mice problem,” said Monk. “Well, not your mice in particular. In general. In a lot of garden sheds and basements, there’s leftover rat poison, just sitting on the shelves. Not used for years.
A lot of those old rat poisons used thallium as an ingredient.”

  “Thallium?” said Randy, his interest in the Willmotts growing.

  Monk went on. “It’s been outlawed in the U.S. for quite a while. Highly lethal, even to touch or breathe. But if you’ve had the house for thirty years, it’s more than likely …”

  “Rat poison?” said Ben Willmott. “You ask us about guns and stealing cars? Now rat poison?”

  “Yes,” said Monk. “It’s a regular smorgasbord of crime. And it probably isn’t over.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Ben.

  “We don’t have a garden shed,” said Olivia. “All the garden supplies … they’re in the basement.”

  “In the basement with the boys,” I pointed out.

  We left the Willmotts in a state of stunned wonder. I thanked them for their time, Monk thanked them for the Fiji Water, and Randy advised them to change their alarm code immediately. Also the passwords on their computers and bank accounts and whatever else they wanted to keep safe.

  After the front door closed behind us, I listened for the dead bolts being locked into place and the pings of the alarm system being reset. “You have to feel sorry for them,” I said softly.

  “Because they raised a boy who’s trying to kill the captain?” asked Randy.

  “We don’t know that,” I said, then turned to Monk for his expert opinion.

  “Earplugs,” said Monk.

  “Earplugs?”

  Monk held a finger in the air, as if testing the direction of the wind. “Rock-and-roll music. It’s even worse than the hippies.”

  “What hippies?” Randy asked.

  “Don’t ask,” I said.

  “Earplugs,” repeated my partner. As I scrounged through my tote, Monk led the way around the left side of the urban château, down a slate gravel path toward a door near the rear of the house. “Augh. The noise!”

  “I don’t hear a thing,” said Randy, shaking his head in wonder. “Monk, you must have ears like a blind person. You know? How they say when you lose one sense, then all the other senses become better.”

  “Really, Randy? And what sense has Adrian lost?”