homicide closure rate before Monk began consulting with you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have those figures in front of me,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I do,” Braddock said. “It was forty-three-point-five percent. How do you explain that, Captain?”
I think Stottlemeyer would have liked to explain it by punching Braddock in the face. Instead, he took a more diplomatic approach.
“There were lots of factors, Paul. Violent crime and homicide rates in the city were way up and at the same time we were understaffed and underfunded. The department cut four million dollars from the overtime budget, resulting in a hundred and ninety-five thousand fewer overtime hours, and forty-eight officers either quit or took early retirement. You can’t solve crimes without time and manpower. The city eventually restored our overtime budget and the homicide rate fell, but history is repeating itself now. Murders are up twenty percent from last year and our budget is being slashed.”
Monk took the pitcher and carefully poured enough water into Stottlemeyer’s glass to bring the water level even with his own glass.
“You can’t recall the stats but you’ve got all the excuses down cold,” Braddock said.
“I easily forget statistics but I never forget when my detectives are treated badly.”
“Do you know what the SFPD’s homicide closure rate was when Mr. Monk was still on the force?” Braddock asked.
“No, but I bet you do,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It was seventy-seven percent,” Braddock said. “And Mr. Monk himself had a hundred and twenty percent closure rate.”
“A hundred and twenty percent?” a female detective said from the audience. “How is that even possible?”
“I solved my own cases and ones that weren’t assigned to me,” Monk said.
“Like you do now,” Braddock said.
“I like to keep busy,” Monk said.
“How interesting,” Braddock said. “What is your personal case-closure rate, Captain?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s less than his and I am not ashamed to admit that,” Stottlemeyer said. “Monk is the best detective I have ever known, perhaps the best ever. He could outperform anybody in this room. We’re lucky to have him.”
“That’s an understatement,” Braddock said. “Right now, your closure rate is the envy of every department in the country. But without Adrian Monk, what would it be?”
Monk leaned close to the captain. “Would this be a bad time to ask for a raise?”
He didn’t mean it as a joke, because he doesn’t have a sense of humor, but that was how the audience took it anyway. They broke into uproarious laughter that drowned out the exchange between Monk and Stottlemeyer that followed. But I heard it.
“I don’t get it,” Monk said. “What’s the joke?”
“Me,” Stottlemeyer said. He picked up Monk’s glass and drank all of his water.
CHAPTER FOUR
There was no way Monk could drink out of his glass again and Stottlemeyer knew it. The only recourse Monk had was to keep both glasses filled at the same level no matter which glass the captain drank from.
That plan might have worked if Stottlemeyer hadn’t taken the pitcher of water and emptied it into one of the potted plants behind them.
Now all Monk could do was pray that the captain wouldn’t dare knock the entire universe out of balance by taking a sip of water from either glass.
But the fear that Stottlemeyer might do it anyway virtually paralyzed Monk, who couldn’t take his eyes off the glasses, as if he were willing the water to harden into solid ice.
Luckily, someone in the audience stood up and asked Monk and Stottlemeyer to talk about some of their most unusual and puzzling cases, so the interview ended on a more or less positive note before Braddock could get another dig in.
“All in all, I think that went well,” Monk said as we left the hotel and stepped onto Powell Street.
Stottlemeyer nodded. “Compared to being burned at the stake, tarred and feathered, or stoned to death, I suppose it did.”
“You seemed a bit edgy,” Monk said.
“Did I?”
“Things got a little dicey with the water but I had your back,” Monk said. “You could have been humiliated in front of all your colleagues.”
“I’m glad that didn’t happen,” Stottlemeyer said. “Thanks for sparing me any embarrassment.”
Monk was oblivious to the captain’s sarcasm, so it was probably unavoidable that whatever he said next would only make things worse.
“Think nothing of it,” Monk said. “That’s what friends are for.”
Stottlemeyer turned to me. “I appreciate you asking that question about our most interesting cases.”
“It was either that or throw something at your moderator,” I said. “What was Braddock’s problem?”
“He was only asking what most of the cops in the room were already thinking.”
“It was personal, Captain,” I said.
“I didn’t take it that way,” Stottlemeyer said.
He was lying, of course. But there was nothing to be gained by challenging him on it and I didn’t have the time. We were running later than I’d anticipated and I’d already have to break a few traffic laws if Monk was going to make it on time to his appointment with his shrink. So we went our separate ways.
Ever since Dr. Kroger passed away, Monk had been seeing Dr. Neven Bell. They weren’t quite as close as Monk and Dr. Kroger had been but I saw that as a good thing. It seemed to me that the less dependent Monk was on his shrink, the closer he was to being a rational, independent person.
While Monk unloaded his troubles on Dr. Bell, I took a walk up the street, which was so steep that steps were cut into the sidewalk. I liked the walk; it got my blood pumping and I was rewarded with a nice view of the city when I got to the top.
Monk hated the street, and all the others like it in San Francisco, because the Victorian houses were staggered against the incline. But at least he no longer insisted on being blindfolded to avoid the sight. I guess that was progress.
I thought about the flaying that Stottlemeyer endured at the conference and felt bad that we hadn’t done a better job of defending him (though I knew Monk would have argued that he’d done his share by maintaining the water level of the glasses).
Braddock didn’t say anything that was untrue but he could have made the same points without turning it into an attack on Stottlemeyer’s character and competence.
Monk wouldn’t have been working for the SFPD at all if not for Stottlemeyer. The captain didn’t bring Monk in to boost his case-closure rate, or to make himself look good. He did it because he was the one person in San Francisco who cared about Monk, regardless of his psychological problems.
Stottlemeyer hired him as a consultant to save Monk from a life of isolation and misery. It was a wonderful act of friendship and kindness, and probably cost the captain whatever political capital he’d saved up during his career. So it infuriated me to see what he did for Monk used as a weapon against him.
I couldn’t undo the damage that was done to Stottlemeyer at the conference but at least I could offer him some friendly consolation. So on the way back to Dr. Bell’s office, I called the captain and invited him for coffee after we both got off work.
Neither one of us had a significant other waiting at home, so I knew he didn’t have any real excuses to decline my invitation. Call me immodest, but I was pretty sure that spending time with me had to be better than going home to an empty apartment and leftovers in the fridge.
