I had an ulterior motive for wanting to start at the fire station. For one thing, I didn’t want to pay for parking at the Excelsior. For another, I wanted an excuse to drop by and see if Joe was okay.
But when we got to the station, it was empty. They were out responding to a call.
“I’m sure he’s okay,” Monk said. We were standing outside the firehouse.
“Who?”
“Firefighter Joe. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“No, we’re here to retrace Breen’s steps and look for places where he might have ditched the overcoat.”
“That would be the hard way,” Monk said. “I called Disher before we left the house and asked him to see if the mugger remembers whether Breen was carrying an overcoat or not.”
“Then we didn’t have to come all the way down here,” I said. “We could have waited at home to hear from Disher.”
Monk nodded. “But you wanted to check on Firefighter Joe ever since you read about the warehouse fire in the paper this morning.”
“How did you know?”
“You never read past that article,” Monk said. “And the whole time we were talking, you kept looking furtively at the phone, debating with yourself whether it was still too early to call.”
Sometimes I forget that Monk is a detective. I also forget that when he’s not being the single most irritating person on the planet, he can be a very sweet man.
“Thank you,” I said.
My cell phone rang. It was Disher.
“We had to make a deal with Marlon Tolliver to get Monk the information he wanted,” he said.
“Who is Marlon Tolliver?”
“Your mugger. He got himself a pretty good public defender. We had to agree to drop the assault-with-a- deadly-weapon charge against him in return for his testimony about his dealings with Lucas Breen.”
“So he gets away with putting a knife to my throat?”
“To get him to talk, we had to give him something, and that was all we had,” Disher said. “It was the best we could do without you here crushing his
“I’ll be glad to come down and do it,” I said.
“The deal is done, and here’s what he told us,” Disher said. “Breen was holding his overcoat when Tolliver mugged him.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Could you do me a favor?”
“Of course; that’s why I’m here, to do all of Monk’s legwork for him.”
“This is a favor for me,” I said.
“You want me to knee Tolliver in the
“There was a warehouse fire last night and some firefighters were hurt. Is there some way you could find out if one of them was Joe Cochran?”
“No problem,” Disher said. “I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”
I thanked Disher and told Monk the news. “Breen still had the coat when he was in the alley outside the hotel.”
“Then that’s where he ditched it,” Monk said. “Somewhere in the alley.”
We walked to the hotel. It was faster than finding another parking spot and cheaper, too. We passed a few homeless people who, after seeing us the other day, knew better than to ask Monk for a handout. I was glad we didn’t run into the guy who had flipped me off.
The streets were crowded with people, but I still approached the alley cautiously, just in case there was another mugger hiding in the darkness. Monk was also being cautious, only for different reasons. He was trying very hard not to step in anything dirty, which isn’t easy in a filthy, smelly alley.
We walked slowly, looking for places where Breen might have disposed of the overcoat. It soon became obvious to both of us that there was really only one place he could have stashed it out of sight—in one of the trash bins near the hotel service exit.
Without saying anything to Monk first, I climbed up on one of the Dumpsters. Monk freaked out.
“Step away from the Dumpster,” Monk said. “Very slowly.”
I stayed where I was. “It’s a Dumpster, Mr. Monk. Not a bomb.”
“Don’t be a hero, Natalie. Leave it for the professionals.”
“I’m not an expert in police procedure, but I don’t think Captain Stottlemeyer is going to be able to get a forensics team down here to search this Dumpster based only on your hunch.”
“I’m not talking about the crime-scene investigators; they aren’t equipped to handle a situation like this,” Monk said. “This requires professionals who deal with garbage every day.”
“You want me to call a garbage man?”
“That’s a pejorative and sexist term. They really prefer ‘sanitation technician.’ ”
“How do you know?”
“I talk to them,” Monk said.
“You do? Why?”
“They’re people, too, you know.”
“Who hang around with garbage,” I said. “I’d think you’d want to be as far away from them as possible when they show up.”
“I take precautions,” Monk said. “Gloves, surgical mask, goggles. But I have to be there to supervise.”
“You supervise your trash collection? Why?”
“I have special needs.”
“Believe me, I know, but what does that have to do with your trash?”
“I have to make sure my trash isn’t being mixed with the other trash,” Monk said.
“Why? What terrible thing could possibly happen?”
“It could get dirty.”
“It’s trash, Mr. Monk. It’s all dirty, even yours.”
“No, mine is clean dirty,” Monk said.
“Clean dirty,” I said. “What is that?”
“For one thing, each of my discarded items is placed in an individual airtight bag before being put in the mother bag.”
“So it won’t get the other trash in the ‘mother bag’ dirty.”
“Not everyone is as conscientious as I am,” Monk said. “It’s the sad truth.”
“But your bags get tossed in the back of the truck with everybody else’s trash anyway.”
Monk shook his head. “My bags ride up front with the drivers.”
“It doesn’t make a lot of difference in the end,” I said. “It still goes to the dump.”
“My garbage goes in zone nine.”
“Your trash has its own zone?”
“All the really clean trash goes there.”
I groaned, handed him my purse, and climbed up the rest of the way onto the trash bin.
“Wait, wait,” Monk protested. “You’re exposing yourself.”
I stopped. “Are my pants riding down on my butt?”
“Hell, no,” Monk said.
“Then what am I exposing?”
“You’re exposing your body to deadly toxins,” Monk said. “You haven’t had your shots. You aren’t wearing gloves. You aren’t using a respirator. It’s suicidal.”
“Mr. Monk, I’m only going to lift the lid,” I said.
“And God only knows what you’ll release into the atmosphere,” Monk said. “If you’re not going to think about yourself, think of humanity, think of your daughter, but most of all, think of me.”
I lifted the lid. Monk screamed and leaped away as if he expected the Dumpster to explode, spraying its shrapnel of decaying food, broken glass, old shoes, and soiled diapers all over him. It didn’t.
