Besides, after what he’d endured today, he probably needed someone to talk to, whether he admitted it or not.
Stottlemeyer met me at a Starbucks near my house in Noe Valley, a quirky neighborhood that had upscaled around me since I bought my fixer-upper that I never got around to fixing up. I kept waiting for the Neighborhood Watch Committee to march on my house with torches to drive me away because I don’t have breast implants, a German car, or an iPhone. What saved me was that I was a thin, natural blonde with a perky smile, but I knew that wouldn’t hold them off for much longer.
The captain and I forked over an inordinate sum of money to the barista for two cups of coffee and settled into two lumpy, mismatched, wing-backed chairs.
He’d taken off his tie and opened the top two buttons of his shirt, exposing the collar of his V-neck undershirt. He looked terrible.
“So what’s the occasion?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“I thought you might want to talk after what happened today,” I said.
“There isn’t really anything to talk about.”
“We could talk about the lie you told me,” I said.
“Which one?” he said with a smile. “I lose track.”
“When you said that you didn’t take Braddock’s questions personally,” I said. “He was out to get you. What happened between you two?”
“We have a different approach to policing. I follow the law and he’ll do whatever he has to do to make a case, even if it means trampling over people’s rights. Or over the people themselves,” Stottlemeyer said. “I gave him a choice: He could quit the SFPD or I would go to Internal Affairs with what I knew about him and he could take his chances with them. So he left for a job in Banning. That was eight years ago.”
“So this was his opportunity to finally get even with you,” I said.
“Then he blew his shot. All he said was that Monk is a better detective than I am. That’s not exactly a revelation.”
“But it must hurt anyway,” I said.
“I’m proud of Monk’s success,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Even if it overshadows your own?”
“I’m the captain of the division, Natalie. It’s my job to bring out the best in the people who work for me and that includes Monk. I get the blame when they screw up and the chief gets the credit when they succeed. That’s the nature of the job. The important thing is that the bad guys are getting caught.”
“You
“Sure I do,” Stottlemeyer said. “Every time Monk outsmarts some clever killer with an airtight alibi I congratulate myself for not listening to the bureaucrats and shrinks who wanted to write him off.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen your face when Mr. Monk solves a case on the spot,” I said. “I’ve also heard you beat yourself up for not seeing the clues yourself. You did it again yesterday over the Professor Cowan case.”
“I wish I were as sharp-eyed as he is. I’m not. So I’m glad Monk is there to catch the crooks who might’ve walked because I’m not the detective that he is,” Stottlemeyer said. “But the truth is, I wouldn’t want to be. The price is too high.”
“You mean his obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
“I mean all the things that Monk is missing out on,” Stottlemeyer said. “Simple pleasures like licking an ice- cream cone, swimming in a lake, going to a ball game, laughing at a good joke, petting a dog, smoking a cigar, playing with your kids, camping in the woods, driving a car, or having coffee with a friend. I have a life. What does Monk have?”
“You and me and his brother, Ambrose,” I said.
“It’s sad,” Stottlemeyer said.
“But his inability to enjoy the things you mentioned, and to establish relationships, that’s all a symptom of his disorder.”
“And it’s the disorder that makes him a great detective,” Stottlemeyer said. “It’s all he’s got in his life besides his constant cleaning and organizing. I have a family. I know I am good at what I do but my self-esteem isn’t wrapped up in how many cases I solve. I measure myself by the kind of men my sons are growing up to be, by the strength of my friendships, and by the respect of my peers.”
“They weren’t showing you much respect today,” I said.
Stottlemeyer shrugged. “They may have been onto something. Maybe I’ve become overdependent on Monk. Maybe I’ve gotten lazy knowing he’s there to back me if I screw up. Maybe so have my men. I don’t know.”
We sipped our coffees for a moment in silence. Stottlemeyer regarded me with a curious look on his face. I met his gaze.
“What?” I asked.
“Is everything okay with you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because of this sudden concern over whether my self-esteem is taking a beating.”
“I only asked because of the grilling you took today,” I said.
“We’ve known each other a long time, Natalie. I didn’t tell you anything about myself tonight that you didn’t already know. So I’ve got to wonder if this has less to do with me and more to do with something you’re trying to work out about yourself.”
“Are you a detective or a shrink?”
“In my job, you have to be a little bit of both,” Stottlemeyer said. “And I spent a lot of time in marriage counseling.”
I set down my coffee cup and looked him in the eye.
“Who am I, Captain?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“When you look at me, who do you see?”
“A confident, independent woman who knows how to take care of herself and others.”
“Gee, if I could sing, I’d be Mary Poppins.”
“So who do you want to be?” he asked.
I sighed, suddenly feeling very tired, despite the high-priced caffeine surging through my veins. “Someone who knows the answer to that question.”
Stottlemeyer nodded.
“I’ve got an old friend I haven’t seen in a while. His name is Bill Peschel. I’m going to visit him tomorrow,” he said. “If you really want to help me out, you’ll come along.”
I couldn’t see what visiting his friend had to do with my concern over how Stottlemeyer felt about being negatively compared to Monk in front of his peers. But I couldn’t turn him down.
“I’d have to bring Mr. Monk,” I said.
“The more the merrier,” he said.
When I got home, Julie was sitting cross-legged at the kitchen table, going over a social sciences textbook with a yellow highlighter and eating Wheat Thins out of the box.
I bought the Wheat Thins for Monk so he’d have something to nosh on when he visited. He likes them because the crackers are perfectly square.
“Those are for Mr. Monk,” I said. “And he’ll never eat them if he knows your hand was inside the box.”
“Don’t tell him,” she said.
“He’ll know,” I said.
“How?”
“He’s a brilliant detective. And he’s probably counted the crackers that were left in the box. And he’s probably measured the opening he cut into the bag. And he can probably correlate that opening with the width of your hand and deduce that you were the one who breached it.”
