“I don’t see any trophies. All I see are body parts splattered everywhere,” Monk said, raising his voice again in his exasperation. “The walls are dripping blood.”
“Did he say something about dripping blood?” Veronica asked. “What blood?”
“You must have misheard him. He said ‘ripping good.’ It’s a British expression, a compliment. We need another moment,” I said and pulled Monk out of her earshot.
I couldn’t believe that he was so rattled by some animal heads. He was a homicide detective. He’d seen a lot worse. And since I’d become his assistant, I had, too.
“What’s the big deal?” I whispered. “You see dead bodies every day.”
“I’ve never been in a room where hundreds of mutilated corpses were nailed to the walls, spread out on the floors, and draped over the furniture. It’s revolting, not to mention extremely unsanitary.”
“What about the morgue? You love it there. And there are bodies, and body parts, everywhere.”
“But they are clean bodies and body parts that are meticulously organized in a sterile environment,” he said. “Clean, organized, and sterile. The way everything in life should be.”
I groaned and leaned back into the study.
“Would you mind if we moved this discussion to a different room?” I asked Veronica. “It seems that Mr. Monk is allergic to elk.”
“I’m staying right here,” Veronica said. “I haven’t left this room since I got the awful news that Brandon was killed. I may never leave.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“When I sit here,” she said, “I feel close to him.”
“Is his head on the wall, too?” Monk asked.
Veronica gasped and so did I.
“Mr. Monk!” I said, then turned back to Veronica, who had the same startled look as the deer on the wall. “Please forgive him. He’s not himself today.”
“That’s because I’m choking on the overwhelming stench of death,” he said.
Veronica’s face turned bright red. Her cheeks puffed with fury. She looked like a terrified blowfish with collagen injections.
“This was my husband’s favorite room in the house. The only reason I don’t have Maxwell throw you out right now is because I know you are a brilliant detective and that you will find my husband’s killer,” she said. “So tell me, Mr. Monk, what’s your problem? Are you one of those animal rights wackos who picket outside our restaurants because we serve beef?”
“No,” Monk said.
“Then I don’t understand how you can be so cold and insensitive,” she said. “I’ve just lost my husband in a brutal murder. Do you have any idea how I feel right now?”
“I do,” he said. “That’s why I can’t understand why you’d want to surround yourself with death. You’re even sitting on an animal skin.”
“It’s leather,” she said.
“You shouldn’t sit on it,” Monk said. “You should bury it.”
We were off to a very bad start, and we hadn’t learned anything that would be useful to our investigation. At least I didn’t think we had. Maybe there was an animal hair or something that would prove decisive. Even so, I thought it best to try to save this disastrous meeting from getting any worse.
“Since you two can obviously carry on a conversation without being in the same room together, I suggest that Mr. Monk stay out here in the hall, you stay in the study, and we discuss the homicide. Finding your husband’s killer is, after all, our common goal.”
“It’s easy,” she said. “Arrest Andrew Cahill.”
“What makes you think he killed your husband?” Monk asked.
“Brandon discovered that Andrew was running some sort of devious financial scheme and was going to expose him this week.”
“The evidence suggests that it was the other way around,” Monk said.
“Of course it does,” she said. “Andrew was the CFO. He was in the best position to manipulate the numbers to tell any story he wanted. I told Brandon not to say a word to Andrew and just go straight to the authorities. But once my husband has a target in his sights, he always pulls the trigger.”
“But Cahill wouldn’t really gain anything by killing your husband,” Monk said. “He’s already been granted immunity in exchange for his testimony. The only one who would gain is you.”
“I’ve lost my husband,” she said.
“But you’ve kept his fortune,” Monk said. “And you will probably get to keep whatever remains of Burgerville after all the lawsuits and prosecutions are settled.”
“Money means nothing to me compared to what I have lost,” she said. “My husband’s love was priceless.”
“So why were you sleeping with Andrew Cahill?” Monk asked.
“How can you say such a thing!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet.
“Because of the evidence,” Monk said. “You collect butterflies; your husband didn’t. The butterfly in the paperweight on Cahill’s desk is a rare Panamint swallowtail, like the one in the collection on that table beside you. The Panamint swallowtail is so rare that even the National Museum of Natural History doesn’t have one. But you gave one to Cahill. It’s not something you would give to a man you loathed. Quite the opposite. I’ll bet Cahill didn’t dare put it on his desk until after your husband’s body was wheeled out of the building in a body bag. And if it meant that much to him, his feelings for you must be pretty strong, too.”
“You are an awful little man,” she hissed.
“I’m not the one sitting on dead flesh in a room full of animal heads,” Monk said. “I hope you’re at least going to wash your hands.”
“If you and Cahill didn’t hire a hit man to kill your husband,” I asked her, “then who did?”
“There are those awful little animal rights wackos,” she said. “And there was that awful little man who spilled coffee in his lap and blamed my husband for it. And there are those awful little environmentalists who accuse us of polluting the environment with
