Naturally, Monk took the coat off the hanger, turned the hanger around, and hung the coat up again, careful to make sure the shoulders lined up with the ones behind and the ones in front.
Mantooth shook his head in amazement. “He’s more of a stickler for order than I am.”
“Than anybody,” I said.
“I wish all my guys were like him.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” I said.
Monk came back and wagged his hands in front of me for some wipes. I reached into my purse and gave him two.
“Are you absolutely sure nothing has been stolen from the firehouse?” Monk said while cleaning his hands.
“All of the equipment is accounted for, and none of the guys have reported anything missing from their lockers,” Mantooth said.
“How about something that you wouldn’t think of as important?” Monk said. “Something so insignificant, obscure, and unremarkable that nobody would necessarily miss it?”
“Then how would we know if it was gone?”
“I once solved a murder where it turned out all the killer was after was a piece of paper jammed in a copying machine.”
“We don’t have a copying machine.”
“I once solved a murder where it turned out all the killer was after was a rock in a goldfish aquarium.”
“We don’t have any goldfish.”
Monk glanced at me. “This is going to be a tough one.”
“Come to think of it,” Mantooth said, “we’re missing two towels.”
“What kind of towels?” Monk asked.
“The ones we use to clean and polish the fire truck,” Mantooth replied. “We had thirty-four the day before the fire and thirty-two afterward. I know this sounds silly, but I’m kind of compulsive about keeping track of the towels.”
“It sounds perfectly natural to me,” Monk said. He’d found a kindred spirit.
“Do you really think someone would come in here to steal two towels?” the captain said.
Monk shrugged. “Where do you keep them?”
“In the basement, by the washer and dryer.”
This was getting ridiculous. There was no way someone killed a dog over a couple of towels. So to stop the insanity, I piped up with a question of my own.
“Captain Mantooth,” I said, “can you think of any reason someone would want to harm Sparky?”
“You’d have to ask Joe,” Mantooth said. “He was closer to that dog than he was to any of us. When he went off duty, he’d take Sparky home with him.”
“Where can we find Joe now?”
“He’s still on duty, but he didn’t want to be here, not today, not without Sparky,” Mantooth said. “So I sent him back to the scene of the house fire to oversee the cleanup and assist the arson investigators. He should still be there.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Monk said. “This has been wonderful.”
“You’re welcome back anytime, Mr. Monk.”
Monk started to go when Mantooth called out to him: “Wait, you don’t want to leave without this.”
The captain pinned a badge on Monk’s lapel. The badge was a red helmet atop an emblem of a fire truck encircled by a golden fire hose and the words JUNIOR FIREFIGHTER in block letters. Across the bottom it read: SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT.
Monk looked down at it and smiled. “Wow.”
4
Mr. Monk and the Ruined Weekend
Since the scene of the previous night’s fire was only four blocks away, and it was such a beautiful day, I thought it would be nice if we walked, even though it meant a steep climb uphill back to the car. I didn’t even mind that Monk counted and tapped each parking meter we passed along the way. I was too preoccupied trying to make sense of what we’d just learned at the firehouse.
If the guy’s plan was to kill Sparky, why didn’t he bring a weapon with him? If he came to steal something, and killed Sparky in self-defense, how come nothing was missing?
I asked Monk the same questions. Between his parking meter count, which I will spare you, he answered them. Sort of.
“He could have been staking out the station house for days, waiting for them to leave to fight a fire so he could murder the dog,” Monk said.
“Why would he want to do that?”
“Maybe the dog urinated on his roses.”
I could see how that could strike Monk as a compelling motive for murder.
“So assuming this insane gardener was that intent on killing Sparky,” I said, “why did he wait for the dog to go after him? Why didn’t he just walk up to the dog and clobber him with a baseball bat or something?”
“He would have had to bring the baseball bat with him,” Monk said. “And then he’d have to dispose of it later. Then there’s the risk that it might be found and could somehow be traced back to him.”
“And if he keeps it, it might link him to the crime later,” I said.
Monk nodded.
It made sense. The case wasn’t so confusing after all.
“On the other hand,” Monk said, “maybe he didn’t expect Sparky to be there.”
“But Sparky was always there,” I said.
“Only when Joe was on duty,” Monk said. “Otherwise Joe took the dog home with him.”
It had been only a few minutes since Captain Mantooth had told us that, and already I’d forgotten it. I obviously wasn’t cut out for detective work.
“So you think Sparky’s murder was an accident,” I said. “You think the killer was after something else and got caught by the dog.”
“Not necessarily,” Monk said. “He could still have been going there to murder Sparky.”
I was getting confused all over again.
“How can you kill a dog that isn’t there?”
“You could poison his food.”
I thought about it. The killer staked out the station on a day he knew that Joe wouldn’t be working, waited for everyone to leave to fight a fire, then sneaked inside to poison the food. But instead the killer was attacked by the dog he’d come to kill, a dog that wasn’t supposed to be there, and had to protect himself with the pickax.
It could have happened that way.
Or the other way.
Either way, it wasn’t too complicated. I could deal with it.
“Or the dog was killed by accident,” Monk said, confusing things for me all over again. “And the guy was in the firehouse for an entirely different reason.”
“Like what?” I said. With that question, I gave up trying to make sense of the case. That was Monk’s job, not mine.
“I don’t know,” Monk said. “But I once solved a murder that was all about a penny. . . .”
The house that had caught fire was still standing, but the first floor was charred and gutted, the windows
