“You can’t do that,” she said. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You helped a triple murderer escape. I’m sure the jury will be very sympathetic to you.”
“Oh, yeah,” Monk said from my cell phone. “They’ll see right away what a warm, honest person you are.”
She blinked once. “Yes, he has a private elevator.”
“Where does it go?” Stottlemeyer said.
“To the parking garage,” she said.
Stottlemeyer pointed to the security monitors. “Let me see it.”
She hit a button, and a view of Breen’s Bentley gleaming in its parking space in the underground garage showed up on one of the screens. On another monitor we could see Monk pacing in the lobby, holding the cell phone to his ear.
Stottlemeyer yelled into my cell phone.
“Monk, Breen is making a run for it. He’s going to the parking garage. I can’t get down there in time. You’ve got to stop him.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Monk said.
“I don’t know,” Stottlemeyer said, “but you’d better think of something fast.”
Monk rushed out of frame on the monitor. Stottlemeyer handed me back my cell phone, took out his own, and called the police station for backup.
I turned to the receptionist and pointed to the screen that showed the lobby view. I wanted to see what Monk was doing.
“Can you move this camera?” I asked.
“It’s fixed in place,” she said.
Of course it was. The entire security system had been specifically programmed not to do anything Stottlemeyer or I wanted it to do.
“Can you show me the garage exit and the street outside of it?”
She hit a button and two images appeared on either side of a split-screen display. One camera looked down into the garage from the street. The other camera was outside, showing the exit and the sidewalk in front of the garage.
I glanced at the other screen, the one that showed the Bentley in its parking space. Breen ran out of the elevator and got into his car.
I looked back at the split screen. Where was Monk? What was he doing?
There was an easy way to find out. I put the cell phone to my ear, but all I got was a dial tone. Monk had hung up.
Stottlemeyer flipped his phone shut and joined me. “Where’s Monk?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
We watched the garage monitor as Breen backed up and sped out of his parking space, burning rubber.
“I’ve called for backup and put out an APB on Breen’s car,” Stottlemeyer said. “A Bentley shouldn’t be too hard to spot on the streets or on one of the bridges.”
“If he doesn’t ditch it as soon as he’s out of here,” I said.
“We’ll alert the airports, train stations, and the borders.”
That didn’t give me much reassurance. Fugitives with fewer resources than Breen succeeded in eluding the authorities for years. Breen probably had an emergency stash of money hidden somewhere. I knew with horrifying certainty that if Breen got out of the building he’d simply evaporate.
He’d never be found.
We watched what unfolded next on the security camera feeds at the receptionist’s desk. We saw the Bentley speeding up the ramps toward the exit. And then we saw Monk.
He stood on the sidewalk directly in front of the garage exit, a round loaf of sourdough bread in each hand.
Stottlemeyer squinted at the screen. “Is that
“Looks like it to me,” I said, shifting my gaze between the monitors. One screen showed Monk blocking the exit and another showed Breen’s Bentley racing toward him.
“What the hell is Monk doing?” Stottlemeyer said.
“Getting himself killed,” I said. “Breen is going to plow right over him.”
Breen was rocketing toward the exit, making no effort at all to slow down as he closed in on Monk. If anything, he was speeding up.
But Monk didn’t move. He stood there like Clint Eastwood, stoically facing the car down, holding the loaves of bread. Even Clint would have looked ridiculous and insane.
At the last possible second, Monk threw his loaves at Breen’s windshield and dove out of the way. The loaves burst on impact, splattering chunks of bread and thick clam chowder all over the glass, completely obscuring Breen’s view.
The Bentley flew out of the exit into the street. Steering blind, Breen fishtailed into a turn and slammed into a row of parked cars. The Bentley crumpled like a crushed soda can, setting off a shrill wail of car alarms up and down the street.
Stottlemeyer looked at me in stunned disbelief. “Did I just see Monk stop a speeding car by throwing two bowls of clam chowder at it?”
“Sourdough bowls,” I said, pretty shocked myself.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, and ran to the elevators. “I can’t wait to write that in my report.”
I glanced at the monitor and saw Monk stagger to his feet. He took out his phone and dialed. My cell rang just as Stottlemeyer stepped into the elevator.
“You’d better call a paramedic,” Monk said.
“Is Breen hurt?” I asked.
“I am,” Monk said. “I scraped my palm.”
“I think you’ll live,” I said.
“Do you have any idea how many people walk on that sidewalk each day? Who knows what they have under their shoes. A deadly infection could be raging through my veins as we speak.”
While Monk talked, I saw something on the monitor that scared me a lot more than the germs on the sidewalk. Lucas Breen was emerging from his mangled car. He was disheveled, bloody, and covered in broken glass.
And he was holding a gun.
“Mr. Monk, Breen has a gun!” I said. “Run!”
Monk turned around to see Breen staggering toward him, aiming his gun with a shaking hand. People on the street screamed in panic and took cover. Even the receptionist gasped at the sight, and she was thirty floors above the street, safe behind her desk, watching it all on the screen.
But I knew how she felt. It was like watching a horror movie, only these weren’t actors.
The only people left standing on the street were Monk and Breen, his face twisted with rage.
“You don’t want to do this,” Monk said, still holding the phone to his ear.
“I’ve never wanted anything more in my life,” Breen said. “I hate you with every molecule of my being.”
I could hear him clearly over the phone, and I could see the whole, terrifying scene playing out from various angles on the security-camera monitors.
“Stall him,” I said. “Stottlemeyer is on his way down.”
“It would be a big mistake,” Monk said.
“Oh, really? Give me one reason I shouldn’t blow your head off,” Breen said.
“It would be bad for tourism.”
Breen grinned, several of his teeth missing. “See you in hell, Monk.”
There was a gunshot, only it was Breen who spun around, the gun flying out of his hand.
Monk turned and saw Lieutenant Disher rising from his cover behind a car, his gun pointed at Breen, who was clutching his injured hand.
“Police,” Disher said. “Raise your hands and lie facedown on the ground. Now.”
The developer sank to his knees, then lay forward, his arms outstretched in front of him.
