This wasn’t good. Monk had made a lot of enemies over the years, and I was afraid that one of them had finally come after him.
I double-parked behind the cop car, jumped over the yellow tape like a track star, and ran into the building. I was terrified of what I would find when I got inside.
The door to his apartment was open and two uniformed officers stood in the entry hall, their backs to me, blocking my way.
“Let me through,” I said, pushing past them to see Monk facing us. He was perfectly relaxed, his starched white shirt buttoned at the collar and his sleeves buttoned at the wrist. Believe me—for him, that’s hanging loose.
I gave him a big hug and felt his entire body stiffen. He was repulsed by my touch, but at least his reaction proved he was alive and well.
“Are you okay?” I stepped back and took a good look at him and his surroundings. Everything was neat, tidy, balanced, and symmetrical.
“I’m a little shaken,” Monk said. “But I’m coping.”
“What happened?” I asked, glancing back at the two cops.
They were both grimacing. Either they’d eaten something that disagreed with them or they’d been talking to Monk. Their name tags identified them as Sergeant Denton and Officer Brooks.
“I was burglarized,” Monk said.
“What did they take?” I asked.
“A sock,” Monk said.
“A sock?” I said.
“A left sock,” Monk said.
“There’s no such thing,” Officer Brooks said. “Socks are interchangeable.”
Monk addressed Sergeant Denton. “Are you sure your partner graduated from the police academy?”
“Maybe you just misplaced the sock,” Sergeant Denton said.
“I don’t misplace things,” he said.
That was true. His life was devoted to making sure that everything was in its proper place.
“When did you notice it was gone?” I asked.
“I washed my clothes in the basement laundry room this morning and brought them back up to my apartment to fold,” Monk said. “Then I heard the sanitation truck arriving, so I put on my gloves and boots and went outside to supervise my trash collection.”
Officer Brooks stared at him in disbelief. “You supervise your trash collection?”
“Don’t ask,” I said to the officer, then turned back to Monk. “So then what did you do?”
“I came back inside to resume folding my laundry,” Monk said. “And that’s when I discovered that I’d been brutally violated.”
“You lost a sock,” Sergeant Denton said.
“And my innocence,” Monk said.
“Did you look for it?” I asked him.
“Of course I did,” Monk said. “I searched the laundry room and then I ransacked my apartment.”
“It doesn’t look ransacked to me,” Officer Brooks said.
“It was a ransacking followed by a ran-put-everything-backing. ”
“Socks disappear all the time, Mr. Monk,” Sergeant Denton said.
“They do?” Monk said.
“Nobody knows where they go,” the sergeant said. “It’s one of the great mysteries of life.”
“How long has this been going on?” Monk asked.
“As long as I can remember,” Sergeant Denton said.
“And what’s being done about it?”
“Nothing,” the sergeant said.
“But it’s your job,” Monk said.
“To find lost socks?” Officer Brooks asked.
“To solve crimes,” Monk replied. “There’s some devious sock thief running rampant in this city and you aren’t doing anything about it. Are you police officers or aren’t you?”
“No one is stealing socks,” Sergeant Denton said.
“But you just said there’s a rash of sock disappearances, ” Monk said.
“It happens,” I said. “I’ve lost tons of them.”
“You’ve been victimized, too?” Monk said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because they weren’t stolen,” I said.
“Then what happened?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then how can you say they weren’t stolen?” Monk said. “Socks don’t just disappear.”
I was surprised and a little disappointed that Monk was becoming so unhinged over this. He’d been doing so well the last few weeks.
“Why would anyone want to steal your socks?” Officer Brooks asked.
“They are very nice socks,” Monk said. “One hundred percent cotton.”
Sergeant Denton sighed. “We’re leaving now.”
“You haven’t even taken my report yet,” Monk said.
“We do that and then we have to detain you until someone from psych services arrives and does an evaluation, which could take hours,” Sergeant Denton said. “I don’t think any of us wants that—do we, Mr. Monk?”
“Somebody broke into my home and stole my sock,” Monk said. “I’ve secured the crime scene. What I want is a thorough investigation.”
“Can you handle him?” Officer Brooks asked me. I nodded.
“I’m a consultant to the police,” Monk said to them. “I work directly with Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in Homicide.”
“So why didn’t you call him?” Officer Brooks said.
“That would be overreacting,” Monk said. “It’s only a sock, for God’s sake. It’s not like someone was killed.”
“It’s nice to know you have some sense of perspective after all,” Sergeant Denton said. “There’s hope.”
“There’s never hope,” Monk said.
The officers turned their backs to us and walked out.
Monk looked at me. “They are shirking their duty.”
I didn’t feel like arguing with him. “It’s not a very valuable item, Mr. Monk. I suggest you just forget it and buy another pair of socks.”
“And what do I do with the remaining sock?”
I shrugged. “Use it as a rag to clean around the house. That’s what I do.”
“You clean your house with your socks?” Monk said, his eyes wide with shock. “That’s barbaric! I don’t even want to think about what you do with your underwear. Not that I ever think about your underwear. Or anybody’s underwear. Oh God, now I am seeing underwear. I have underwear in my head. What do I do?”
“You could throw the sock out.”
“I can’t,” Monk said. “It will haunt me.”
“It will?”
“I’ll always know that a pair has been broken and that somewhere out there, there is a sock waiting to be reunited with its other half.”
“The sock isn’t waiting,” I said. “It’s a sock. It has no feelings.”
“I will pursue my sock to the ends of the earth,” Monk said. “I won’t rest until the balance of nature has been restored.”
“One sock is all that it takes to knock nature off balance?”
“Can’t you feel it?”
The
