“Murder,” Monk said.
“It’s not our problem,” Slade said.
“Wasn’t he your friend, too?” I asked.
“Not like Leland, not even close,” Slade said. “Unless the Atwaters hire us, or the Mill Valley police do, or anybody else who’d like to pay our regular fees, we are not getting involved in that investigation.”
“I wasn’t doing much on it,” Monk said. “Nothing at all, really.”
“You went out to question Phil Atwater,” Slade said. “That’s investigation.”
Slade may have discovered we were working on the Peschel case because of the surveillance Danielle had ordered and maybe because she checked the Atwaters’ credit card activity. But the only way Slade could have known we met with Phil was if Danielle had told him. She’d betrayed us.
“By working on the case for free,” Slade continued, “you are actually working against Intertect. You are removing the incentive for anyone to hire us to do the work. It’s self-destructive. It’s like phoning in anonymous tips to the police after they fired you.”
“You knew about that?” Monk said.
“I’m a great detective.” Slade glanced at me. “Correction, a good detective.”
“I don’t know why they bother telling people it’s an anonymous tip line when it’s not anonymous at all,” Monk said. “I’m going to write a very stern letter to the chief of police about this.”
“They aren’t going to be too happy with you when they get it,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Monk said. “I’ll send it anonymously.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Captain Stottlemeyer sat across from us in the interview room at the jail as Monk told him his theory about the glass. He looked as jaundiced as Lucarelli did when he sat in that same chair.
Perhaps it was the yellow glow of those energy-efficient lightbulbs combined with the yellow jumpsuit that created that effect. Or perhaps it was a physical symptom of incarceration in a windowless cell and hours of contemplating your impending lifelong imprisonment.
“My ex-wife won’t let my kids come see me, so the only information they are getting about all this is what they read online or see on the news,” Stottlemeyer said. “But you know what the worst part of this is?”
“The three Velcro strips on your jumpsuit,” Monk said. “It’s a blatant violation of the Geneva convention.”
“Velcro strips didn’t exist when they convened the Geneva convention,” I said.
“Giving a man only three Velcro strips is cruel and inhuman punishment,” Monk said. “Where the hell is that fourth strip? It’s pure, unrelenting psychological torture. I don’t know how you can stand it, Captain.”
“What’s worse is that Salvatore Lucarelli is in the cell across from mine,” Stottlemeyer said. “I have to look at that smug smile on his face.”
“Do you think he’s behind this?” I asked.
“It could be anybody. You make a lot of enemies in my job. Lucarelli is just one of them.”
“I’m sorry,” Monk said.
“What are you sorry about?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“This,” he said. “It’s all my fault.”
You can always count on Monk to make any situation about himself. It’s not that Monk is selfish, it’s just that he needs to believe that the whole world revolves around him. It’s the only way he can reasonably exert complete control over it.
“How is it your fault?” Stottlemeyer said.
“If I’d been more vigilant, I might have seen this coming,” Monk said.
“How? Are you psychic?”
“No,” Monk said.
“Then how could you have seen it coming?”
“A frame is built,” Monk said. “The construction was happening all around us.”
“It doesn’t mean that it happened in front of our eyes,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It had to,” Monk said. “Someone saw the opportunity to frame you and took it. Whoever it was knew you had a motive to kill Braddock.”
“That was obvious to anyone who was at the conference, which is why they swiped the glass afterwards and held on to it,” Stottlemeyer said. “But I have a hard time imagining that another cop did this.”
“Who else could it be?” I asked.
“There’s a large service staff at the hotel,” Stottlemeyer said. “One of them could have been an ex-con or related to someone Braddock put away.”
“Braddock isn’t the one sitting in jail,” I said.
“I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t about me,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m just the fall guy. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Peschel and Braddock were murdered within forty-eight hours of each other. Braddock got tips from Peschel, too.”
“You think the killer was someone Braddock put away based on a tip from Peschel,” I said.
Stottlemeyer nodded. “And knowing Braddock, he probably gave the guy a good beating first.”
“Where do we even begin to look?” I asked.
“You’d have to go over Braddock’s arrests in the last year or two that he was with the San Francisco police,” Stottlemeyer said. “You won’t find Bill’s name anywhere, since he never testified, but there might be a reference in the files saying that Braddock acted on a tip from a confidential informant.”
“That could take weeks,” I said. “And that’s assuming we could even get access to those files.”
“Nick can. He’s got all kind of sources in the department who talk to him when they shouldn’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “He’s also in a perfect position to scrutinize the background of every member of the Dorchester staff, if he’s willing to do it.”
“He will,” I said.
“But what can I do?” Monk asked.
“What you do best,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Which is what?”
“Be yourself,” Stottlemeyer said. “If the clues are out there, you’ll see them, if you haven’t already.”
“If I’ve seen the clues,” Monk said, “why don’t I have the solution?”
“I don’t understand the way you think, Monk. It gives me a headache to even try. But I know you see and hear more than you think you do,” Stottlemeyer said. “My guess is that all those details are swirling around in your head like a million pixels waiting to combine into a picture.”
Maybe a few of them were in my head, too, which was why I got that ticklish feeling about the ten years between Steve Wurzel’s disappearance and Peschel’s death.
“I hope you’re right,” Monk said.
“I’m not hoping,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m counting on it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” Monk said. “I don’t work well under pressure.”
“Think of the pressure I’m under,” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m wearing a jumpsuit with three Velcro strips.”
Monk rose from his chair. “You’re right. What was I thinking? No suffering of mine can compare to the living hell that you are enduring. Your misery is my misery until this ordeal is over.”
“That’s the spirit,” Stottlemeyer said.
I called Danielle on our way out of the jail and asked her to get some operatives to take a look at any old cases that might have involved Peschel.
She had some information to give us on the Wurzels but I told her to give us the briefing at Monk’s apartment. I wanted to give her hell but not over the phone and definitely not at Intertect.
As soon as we got back, Monk hurried to the bathroom to give his hands a quick rinse. Danielle showed up
