broken and rimmed by black where flames had licked out. The property was cordoned off with yellow caution tape, and several firefighters picked through the rubble while others hosed things down.
The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, the streets and gutters inundated with soot-blackened water, the storm drains clogged with burned debris. There was a fire truck, a black-and-white, an SFFD sedan, and an unmarked police car parked in front of the house.
The people in the neighborhood were out on their porches and milling on the sidewalks, looking at the house and talking animatedly among themselves. There’s nothing like a fire to bring a community together.
The burned house was one of a half dozen identically bland, blockish town houses built side by side in the 1950s. They must have been designed by somebody who was really into the “international modern style” popularized by Le Corbusier, Richard Neutra, and Mies Van Der Rohe, only done artlessly and on the cheap (as you can probably tell, I took a few architecture courses and have been waiting for an opportunity to show off what little I remember). The town houses were unadorned by moldings, eschewing style for function, and the doors and windows were flush with the flat walls around them, making the places stand out in sharp (and, if you ask me, offensive) contrast to the gables, cornices, and bay windows of the utterly charming Victorian homes across the street.
I wondered how many of the neighbors were thinking the same thing I was: Architecturally speaking, it was a shame the fire didn’t burn down all six of the ugly town houses on that side of the street. The neighbors’ homes, by contrast, were wood-frame Eastlake Victorians standing shoulder-to-shoulder, narrow and tall. Each house had the requisite bay windows to increase the available light, decorative gables to add some individual flair, and tiny garages that were barely able to fit a single car.
The uniformed officer guarding the fire scene recognized Monk, lifted up the yellow caution tape, and nodded us past.
The interior of the living room was a gutted, scorched skeleton of what it once was, with the charred furniture and melted TV still eerily in place. An African-American woman in a bright blue SFFD windbreaker with the words ARSON INVESTIGATOR written in big yellow letters on the back examined the rubble in the far corner of what was left of the room. Her hair was braided with colorful white and pink beads. Julie had been nagging me to let her do that to her hair, which would have been okay with me if it didn’t cost $120.
Monk stepped in gingerly, trying not to get a speck of soot on himself, which was impossible. We’d barely come through the door when we were greeted by a familiar face.
Captain Leland Stottlemeyer stood off to one side, smoking a fat cigar, his wide tie loosened at his open collar. He was a perpetually weary man, with a mustache that seemed to grow bushier as his hairline receded. He didn’t look pleased to see us.
“What are you doing here, Monk?” he said.
“We came to talk to one of the firefighters,” Monk said. “The firehouse dog was killed last night.”
“You’re investigating pet deaths now?” Stottlemeyer said.
“It’s for a very special client,” Monk said.
I couldn’t help smiling, and Stottlemeyer noticed. In that instant he knew the client was me, or someone close to me. Stottlemeyer is a detective too, after all.
“We were told that this fire was an accident,” I said.
“It probably was,” Stottlemeyer said. “But since a lady died, we have to treat this like a crime scene until the arson investigator makes her determination. So we send someone down to stand around until then. It’s routine.”
“So why didn’t you send Lieutenant Disher?”
Stottlemeyer shrugged. “It’s been raining all week and it’s a sunny day. I wanted to get out. Gives me a chance to smoke my cigar.”
Monk sneezed. And then sneezed again.
“Whoever lived here had cats,” Monk said.
“How do you know?” Stottlemeyer said.
“I’m allergic to cats.”
“You’re allergic to plastic fruit, dandelions, and brown rice, and that’s just for starters,” Stottlemeyer said. “How can you tell it’s cat dander that’s making you sneeze?”
Monk sneezed. “That was definitely a cat sneeze.”
“You can tell the difference between your sneezes?” I asked.
“Sure,” Monk said. “Can’t everybody?” Stottlemeyer took a deep drag on his cigar, then flicked his ashes on the floor.
Monk stared at him.
“What?” Stottlemeyer said.
“Aren’t you going to pick those up?”
“They’re ashes, Monk. Take a look around. The entire place is in ashes.”
“Those are cigar ashes,” Monk said.
“Oh.” Stottlemeyer nodded his head knowingly. “They don’t belong with the other ashes.”
Monk smiled. “I knew you’d see reason.”
“Not really.” Stottlemeyer flicked his cigar again. Monk lunged forward, catching the ashes in his cupped hands before they could hit the ground.
Monk looked up, relieved. And then he sneezed, but managed not to blow the ashes out of his hands. “Anyone have a Baggie?”
Stottlemeyer glared at him, mashed out his cigar against the blackened wall, and dropped the stub in Monk’s open hands.
“You can take the pleasure out of anything, Monk. You know that? Talk to Gayle, the arson investigator.” Stottlemeyer tipped his head toward the African-American woman in the SFFD windbreaker. “I’m sure she can help you.”
Monk made his way to the woman, walking like a man carrying a vial of nitroglycerine through a minefield. He moved cautiously and deliberately, careful not to get soot on his clothes or spill a single fleck of cigar ash from his hands.
Stottlemeyer and I observed his slow progress. It was strangely fascinating.
“How are you holding up with Monk as a houseguest?” Stottlemeyer asked me.
“It’s only been a few hours.”
“A few hours with Monk can seem like decades,” he said. He took a pen from his pocket, scrawled something on the back of a business card, and handed it to me. “This is my home number. If you need a break, give me a call. I can take him out to the car wash.”
“Thank you, Captain,” I said. “That’s very nice of you.”
“You and I are the only ones who take care of him. We have to back each other up.”
“We’re sort of like partners.”
“Sort of,” Stottlemeyer said.
“He likes the car wash?”
“Loves it,” Stottlemeyer said.
Monk finally reached the arson investigator, who was bent over with her back to him, examining something on the floor. I heard him clear his throat to get her attention. Gayle straightened up and turned around.
“Hello, Gayle. I’m Adrian Monk. I’m a consultant to the police.” Monk shrugged a shoulder to draw her attention to the Junior Firefighter badge on his lapel. “And I’m one of your brothers.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“Could I have a Baggie?”
She took a clear plastic evidence bag out of the pocket of her windbreaker.
“Could you hold it open for me?”
She did. He emptied his ashes and the cigar stub into the bag and clapped his hands together, brushing off whatever microscopic traces might have been left. And then he brushed them a couple dozen more times for good measure.
“Thank you,” Monk said, and left her holding the bag, his attention drawn to the coffee table. Its thick glass top and metal legs had survived the fire virtually unscathed. The table was in front of a pile of springs and ashes
