“It’s a natural law,” Monk said. “Like gravity.”
“I’m afraid that’s outside my jurisdiction,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You are a law enforcement officer, are you not?” Monk asked.
“Yes,” Stottlemeyer said.
“Then you have a sworn duty to uphold the law,” Monk said. “You can’t just pick and choose the ones you want to enforce. That’s the first step towards anarchy.”
“I thought mixed nuts were the first step,” I said.
“There are many first steps,” Monk said.
Stottlemeyer sighed, defeated.
“You’re right. I’ll have an officer get right on it.” Stottlemeyer waved a uniformed cop over to us. “In the meantime, you’re needed on the fifth floor.”
“I’d prefer the fourth floor.” Monk rolled his shoulders. “Or the sixth.”
“The body is on the fifth floor,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You could move the body,” Monk said.
“No, I couldn’t,” Stottlemeyer said as the officer approached. “That would disturb the crime scene.”
“But the crime scene will disturb me,” Monk said.
“You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.” Stottlemeyer turned to the officer and gestured towards the cars on the street. “Officer, these vehicles are violating the natural laws of the universe. Act accordingly.”
The officer looked puzzled.
Stottlemeyer turned his back to the poor man and led Monk and me to the building.
The captain and I went through the revolving door, but when we got into the lobby, we both stopped. We realized at the same moment that Monk hadn’t followed us. We turned and saw him standing outside, staring at the revolving door, looking perplexed.
“It’s a revolving door, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “You just push it and it spins.”
“I can’t,” Monk said.
There was a standard glass door beside the revolving one. I pointed at it.
“You can go through the other door, Mr. Monk.”
“It’s locked,” Archie said from his seat at the reception desk. “You need to swipe a key card through the reader beside the handle to open it.”
“So do it,” I said.
“He can’t,” Stottlemeyer said. “That’s how the killer got in. We need to take both of the key card readers in to the lab for forensic examination. We can’t risk losing evidence by swiping another card through them.”
“Is there any other way in?” I asked.
“There’s a loading bay in the back,” Archie said. “If you don’t mind the trash in the alley.”
I wouldn’t, but Monk would. I looked at Monk.
“Just run through, Mr. Monk,” I said. “It will be over before you know it.”
“I’ll know it,” Monk said.
I studied the door. Stottlemeyer joined me.
“What’s his problem with this?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “You got me, Captain. I see a circle divided into quarters. Everything is even. He should be okay with it. It must be the coffee stain.”
“I don’t see a coffee stain,” he said.
“It’s at his apartment,” I said. “But you can’t see the stain there, either.”
A vein was beginning to throb on Stottlemeyer’s forehead. I call it the Monk vein, because it shows up on people’s foreheads when they are enduring his unique form of escalating mental duress.
Stottlemeyer shouted at Monk: “What’s your damn problem with the revolving door?”
“If I step in there,” Monk said, “it will be three-quarters empty.”
“I’ll go in with you,” I said.
“That won’t do any good,” Monk said. “Two quarters will be unoccupied. That’s just so wrong.”
“Captain Stottlemeyer and the police officer can step in as the door turns and then all four quarters will be filled.”
Monk shook his head. “But when I come out, you three will be in a revolving door with one unoccupied quarter. I couldn’t leave you like that.”
“That won’t bother us,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It will bother me,” Monk said.
“You could live with it,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t,” Monk said. “It would haunt me until my dying day.”
“This will be that day if you don’t come through that damn door,” Stottlemeyer said.
“You’re not helping, Captain,” I told him and then turned back to Monk. “What if the security guard steps in at the same moment you are stepping out?”
Monk mulled that over for a moment. “That could work. But the timing is going to be crucial.”
Stottlemeyer glanced at Archie. “Do you mind?”
The guard got up from his station and waddled over. “Is it always this hard to get him into a building?”
Stottlemeyer sighed. “Every day is a new challenge, Archie.”
Monk took out a stopwatch, waved the officer over, and then explained how the timing would work. I won’t bore you with the mathematics involved, mainly because I’ve forgotten them. But it involved synchronizing our watches and moving at a uniform rate of speed.
On Monk’s signal, I entered the revolving door at the same instant that he did. We turned the revolving door and, at the appropriate moment, Stottlemeyer entered one quarter and the officer entered another. Monk exited his quarter as Archie stepped into it, and for an instant it looked like they might both get stuck in there together. But Monk managed to squeeze out at the last possible second, leaving all four quarters occupied.
He spilled out into the lobby and leaned against the security desk for support, breathing hard, his back to the revolving door as Stottlemeyer, Archie, and I came in after him. The officer went back outside to enforce the laws of nature.
Monk caught his breath and turned to us.
“If there’s an entrance to hell,” he said, “I guarantee it has a revolving door.”
I’m pretty sure he’s right about that.
3
Mr. Monk and the Body
We took the stairs to the fifth floor and emerged into the corridor, which was crowded with crime scene photographers and forensic technicians who were going in and out of one of the offices.
“We’re on the fifth floor,” Monk said.
“Yes, Monk, I
