Stottlemeyer motioned to me to get Monk out of there. I tugged Monk’s sleeve.
“I saw some crooked pictures in the hall,” I said. “Maybe you could straighten them.”
“I’d like to straighten him,” Monk said, as I hooked my arm in his and led him away. “He’s crazy.”
Peschel called after me, “Don’t forget my commission, sweetheart.”
Once we were in the entry hall, out of earshot, I said, “Mr. Peschel’s got Alzheimer’s or something like that. He thinks he’s still a bartender and that this is the tavern he used to own. You have to play along.”
“I don’t know how,” Monk said.
“Well, for one thing, you don’t contradict him.”
“Then how is he ever going to learn the truth?”
“He’s not, Mr. Monk. This is his truth.”
“How sad.” Monk glanced at him, then back to me. “At least he still knows who he is.”
That was when I realized why Stottlemeyer had dragged me here. It wasn’t to help him. It was for me, to put my troubles in perspective.
Peschel knew who he was-he had a vocation that defined him-but in every other way, he was lost. He didn’t know where he was in time or space or even who he was with. All he knew was that he was a bartender. But I’m sure he would have traded that certainty for all the other connections that made his life rich and that he didn’t have now. I had everything Peschel didn’t. So what did I have to complain about?
I guess Stottlemeyer was trying to tell me to be thankful for what I had. Maybe he was trying to tell me I was a self-indulgent whiner. Or was there an entirely different message for me in all of this?
CHAPTER SIX
While I was thinking about why Stottlemeyer had brought me to meet Peschel, Monk had worked his way down the hall, methodically straightening the pictures that I couldn’t tell were actually crooked.
I caught up with him passing the open door to a boy’s bedroom. I peeked inside. The boy had a bed that looked like a racing car, there were plastic racing tracks all over his floor, and every flat surface was covered with toy cars of different sizes. I pegged his age at about five or six, based on his toys and the pajamas that were on the floor.
The next room across was his sister’s. The walls were covered with pictures of cartoon characters and there were stuffed animals on the floor around her crib.
Carol stood at the changing table, closing the adhesive on the fresh disposable diaper that she’d put on her squirming baby.
“Your daughter is adorable,” I said. “It’s such a wonderful age.”
“Yes and no,” she said. “I am looking forward to the day when I can sleep again and wear blouses that don’t have puke on the shoulders.”
“At least she isn’t asking you if she can get a tattoo,” I said. “And you can cuddle her all you want without her trying to escape.”
“Would you like to hold her?”
I reached out my arms. “Desperately.”
“You should put on gloves first,” Monk said. “And a face mask. We all should.”
“Why?” Carol asked.
“The baby,” Monk said.
“The baby will be fine,” Carol said.
“It’s not the baby that I’m worried about,” Monk said. “It’s the rest of us.”
“I’ll risk it,” I said.
Carol lifted the baby into my arms. The child had that wonderful infant scent of talcum powder, baby formula, and pure lovableness that makes me instinctively feel warm all over. I looked into her bright eyes and playfully rubbed noses with her and was rewarded with a big, toothless smile.
Monk cringed and looked away, his gaze locking on something on the floor beside the changing table. He cocked his head from side to side, trying to figure out what he was looking at.
It was a white plastic container that resembled a large thermos. I recognized it immediately, of course, as any parent would.
“What is that?” Monk asked.
“It’s a Diaper Genie,” Carol said. “You put a disposable diaper inside, twist the dial that’s around the opening, and it seals the diaper in a plastic bag.”
I had one of those when Julie was a baby. It meant I didn’t have to wash cloth diapers like my mother did or deal with a garbage can full of disposables. Even emptying the Genie wasn’t too unpleasant. All you had to do was open the bottom of the Genie over a trash bag or your outdoor garbage can, and the sealed diapers came out in one large string resembling plastic-wrapped sausage links.
Now, thanks to the Diaper Genie, my daughter can claim a small measure of immortality-her dirty diapers will endure for centuries in a landfill somewhere for future anthropologists and archaeologists to examine for clues about how she lived.
“How sturdy are the bags?” Monk asked.
“The bags are triple-layered to hold in the smell and the germs,” Carol said, handing him one of the cartridges of refill bags. “It’s a godsend for mothers.”
“For us all,” Monk said.
He studied the cartridge with wide-eyed wonder. “So let me get this straight. Are you saying that whatever you put inside this Genie is individually wrapped and sealed?”
She nodded. “I only use it for diapers and dirty wipes.”
“But you could use it for other things,” Monk said.
“Like what?”
“Everything you throw out,” Monk said.
“Why would I want to do that?”
“It would save you the time of manually separating and bagging all the items in your trash.”
“Who does that?” Carol asked.
“Who doesn’t?” Monk replied, then held his hand out to me. “Wipe.” My hands were full with the baby, so Carol handed him a wipe from the box on the changing table.
He cleaned his hands, dropped the tissue into an open bag in the Diaper Genie, and twisted the outer ring, which cinched the bag shut and opened a new one.
His eyes sparkled with joy.
“Wow,” he said, then motioned to me for another wipe.
Carol handed him the box and then gestured for me to follow her into the hallway.
“Now I see why the captain brought you,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
She glanced at Monk, who wiped his hands again and dropped the tissue into the Diaper Genie. “You’re dealing with the same problem that I am.”
I shook my head and bounced the baby. “Mr. Monk isn’t suffering from dementia. He’s just eccentric.”
“That’s what we used to say about my dad. He thinks he’s still running his bar. Most of the cops he used to know hang up on him when he calls in the wee hours of the night with his tips. The few who visit rarely come back a second time. It’s too depressing.”
“What about his old customers?”
“They are either dead, in jail, or people I would never allow to set foot in my house.”
I thought about how he mistook the baby for an old drunk and me for a hooker. If that was any reflection on his clientele, Carol’s unwillingness to invite them into her home made a lot of sense.
“It must be hard on you, taking care of him and your kids,” I said. The baby grabbed my nose and gave it a
