“What were they thinking?” Monk said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Whoever designed this course. Didn’t they realize what would happen if they put sand so close to the putting green?”
“Yeah. They created a hazard.”
“I think they did it intentionally. They should be ashamed.” Monk squatted at the edge of the green, faced the bunker, and started blowing sand off the carpet of grass.
“What are you doing?”
“Can’t you see there’s sand all over the grass?”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s not okay,” Monk said. “Grass and sand do not coexist.”
I looked back at Kealoha, who was staring at Monk in disbelief. “What are we gonna do?”
“I’m going to play on,” I said, taking an iron out of my bag. I managed to finish the hole at three over par, and was quite happy with myself.
I turned to gloat, but nobody was paying attention to me. Kealoha was watching Monk, who’d blown and wiped as much sand off the green as he could and was now attempting to rake the bunker.
“It’s your turn, Mr. Monk,” I said.
“I’m busy.”
We watched as he tried to rake the sand without actually stepping in it, but he couldn’t, not without creating vertical lines, and that was a problem, since the trap had been raked horizontally before.
After several minutes, Monk set the rake aside, walked into the trap, and began wiping out all the rake marks by dragging the side of his shoe across the sand.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Erasing and starting over.”
I could see a foursome waiting to tee off, and judging by their body language—the way they were standing there, hands on their hips, pacing back and forth—they weren’t happy.
“You’re holding up the next set of players,” I said.
“Go on without me,” Monk said. “I’ll catch up.”
“What about the foursome?” Kealoha asked.
“They can play around me,” Monk said. “Besides, they’ll appreciate the care I’ve taken to restore the bunker.”
“You don’t have to rake it,” I said. “You just smoothed it out with your shoes.”
“It’s not the same,” Monk said. “It doesn’t match the other bunkers.”
He picked up the rake and began to work, careful to make his lines straight and even.
Kealoha just shook his head.
The foursome behind us started to play, hitting their balls down the first leg of the fairway. Soon there would be golf balls whizzing over our heads like bullets.
Monk finished and regarded his work. “That’s better.”
He took out a putter and squatted beside his ball, eyeing the lay of the green.
But then something caught his attention, something beyond the hole. I followed his gaze. He was looking at the houses along the fairway. A mailman was delivering a box to one of the homes. Monk checked his watch, rose to his feet, and put the ball in the hole with one putt. Four strokes. Par for the hole.
He turned to us with a smile. “That was fun, though what this hole really needs is a castle. Or a moat.”
Kealoha looked back at the fairway, where the other golfers were staring at us. “We’d better move on to the next tee.”
“I have a better idea,” Monk said. “Let’s catch a burglar instead.”
14
Mr. Monk and the Towels
Kealoha drove the electric cart along a narrow asphalt road that crossed the golf course and branched off into a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood of fairway homes. At Monk’s direction, Kealoha parked behind the U.S. Mail truck idling at the curb and we all got out.
The houses didn’t seem any more extravagant than your average tract home on the mainland, but these were probably worth well into seven figures by virtue of where they were. There were no fences between the homes, only plants—and in some cases, low, decorative lava-rock walls that also served to mark boundaries. The landscaping of the homes was as manicured and lush as the golf course they faced.
The mailman was dropping off some boxes from Amazon on the front porch of a home and returning to his truck when we approached him. He was a muscular Polynesian man wearing an untucked, short-sleeved, blue U.S. Postal Service uniform shirt, dark blue shorts, and a safari hat. His eyes were hidden behind reflective, wraparound sunglasses.
“Can I help you?” the mailman asked.
Kealoha turned to Monk. “I don’t know, can he?”
“Are you the regular mailman on this route?” Monk asked.
“Yeah,” the mailman said.
“How long have you been doing it?”
“A couple of years.”
Monk turned to Kealoha. “He’s the guy. Well, one of them, anyway.”
“What guy?”
“He’s responsible for at least half a dozen of your unsolved burglaries, maybe more.”
The mailman started for his truck again. “I don’t know who you people are, but I’ve got mail to deliver and a schedule to keep.”
“And that was your undoing,” Monk said.
The mailman edged past Monk, but Kealoha stepped in front of him and lifted his shirt, revealing his round belly, his badge, and his gun.
“Hold up, brah. Police.” Kealoha turned to Monk. “You think he’s the burglar?”
“I haven’t done nothing,” the mailman said.
“Whoever committed the burglaries knew when the homes were occupied or empty, could get into security buildings and gated communities with ease, and was able to steal large items like computers and stereos in broad daylight without being seen.”
“How does that point to him?” Kealoha asked.
“People file vacation holds or forwarding addresses for their mail when they go out of town, and that lets him know when the houses are going to be empty. He has the code or the keys for security buildings and gates so he can deliver mail and his presence isn’t suspicious. And he carts out his stolen goods in Priority Mail boxes, so it looks like he’s simply picking up or delivering parcels.”
“Dat’s a good theory,” Kealoha said. “I’m gonna need a lot more than that to arrest this guy.”
“Arrest me? For what? I haven’t stolen anything,” the mailman said. “See? My hands are empty.”
“All the burglaries that you could pin down to a specific day or time took place on weekdays in broad daylight,”
