“Lieutenant Kealoha will want to talk with you both,” Monk said. “So I wouldn’t start looking for a new city and another rich old woman just yet.”
“Nobody wants Helen’s murderer brought to justice more than I do,” Lance said. “We’re here to help for as long as it takes.”
By then, I had had more of those two than I could stand.
“I’ll notify the Nobel committee.” I opened the front door and walked out, lingering a moment on the path to wait for Monk.
He stepped off the mat onto the carpet, then lifted his foot.
“See?” Monk said. “No stain.”
He turned and walked the remaining two steps to the door on the carpet before closing the door behind him.
“Can you believe those people?” I said to him as he joined me and we started walking back toward the hotel.
“I don’t believe anything about them. Except the part about seducing old women and taking their money.”
“They must have hired someone to kill Helen.”
“I don’t think so,” Monk said.
“Then how did they do it? There’s no doubt they were on the boat at the time of the killing.”
Monk stopped and looked back toward the condo. “Maybe we should ask the other detectives.”
“What other detectives?”
“The ones staying next door to Lance and Roxanne,” Monk said. “They don’t mind investigating on their vacation. They might be able to give us a new perspective on things.”
“I’m sure they could. But they aren’t detectives. They’re swingers.”
“I’m a pretty good dancer myself.”
“They have sex with other couples, Mr. Monk. That’s what they meant by investigating people. They enjoy an entirely different kind of detecting.”
He grimaced as if he’d just eaten something very sour and marched on toward the hotel. “What does this island do to people?”
“It must be the balmy air.”
Thinking about the swinging couple again reminded me of something significant that happened during that conversation outside Roxanne’s door. It had slipped passed me in the midst of all my frustration with Monk and his dirty shoes.
I suppressed a smile. “What did you think of Roxanne’s breasts?”
“I don’t notice that kind of thing.”
“You saw her heart-with-wings tattoo, so you must have had a good look at her hooters.”
“I saw the tattoos but I blocked out everything else,” Monk said. “I’m still blocking it out.”
“I see. So what do you think—are her breasts real?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“They have an unnatural shape, and she has tiny surgical scars near her armpits.”
“So if you saw all that, what exactly are you blocking out?”
“As much as I can.”
“What’s left?
“I don’t know,” Monk said. “I’m blocking it out.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “You avert your gaze from any woman in a bikini, but you obviously gave Roxanne a thorough once-over.”
“I was looking for clues,” Monk said. “It’s an entirely different kind of looking than other looking.”
God help me, but I understood what he was saying. He saw the details, the pixels instead of the picture, while searching for anything that might not fit together the way it should.
It was what made him Monk. It was what made him such a brilliant detective.
His life was all about organization, symmetry, and order. And mystery is, by nature, disorder. He approached an unsolved murder the way he approached life: putting every piece of evidence, every fact, in its proper place, restoring order, and, with it, uncovering the solution to the crime.
“But that’s how you always look at everything,” I said. “So why avert your gaze at all?”
Monk shrugged. “It’s who I am.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “You’re a complicated man, and no one understands you but your woman.”
Monk nodded. “I’m the cat who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about.”
“Monk,” I said. “Adrian Monk.”
“Right on,” he said.
18
Mr. Monk Goes Sightseeing
I went to sleep early that night, sinking deep into the plush comfort of my $5,000-a-night bed. I don’t know if the bed was really any plusher than the one in the hotel room. I couldn’t tell you if the mattress springs were made of gold or if the pillows were stuffed with the down of some rare Peruvian goose, but I figured they weren’t just charging for the view and the square footage.
My dreams were all about Mitch, and they played out like a fast-forward scan through home videos of our life together. It’s a dream I’ve had before, and I usually wake up from it in tears. But that morning I awoke at peace, perhaps because in some way I felt Mitch was also at peace.
I credit that to Dylan Swift. I didn’t know whether or not he was really in contact with Mitch. But Swift helped me overcome the guilt and anger I’d been carrying around since the day a navy officer showed up at my door to give me the news that Mitch was dead. I wondered if Swift could do the same for Monk, thereby accomplishing what years of therapy couldn’t achieve.
I knew Monk would never stop trying to solve Trudy’s murder, and nobody, least of all me, would expect him to. But maybe hearing from Trudy through Swift would relieve some of Monk’s guilt and help him accept that it was okay to move on with his life, even to find love again with another woman.
Of course, that would mean Monk would have to set aside his doubts about Swift. Because the thing is, it didn’t matter if Swift was a medium or not. Just the exercise of pretending that he was might help Monk finally deal with his complicated feelings of loss.
But I knew there was no way Monk could ever ignore his misgivings about Swift, not for a moment of wishful thinking or even, dare I say it, a genuine contact with the spirit world.
When I finally got out of bed, it was gray and rainy outside, but it was still pleasantly warm and the air smelled pure and fresh. I was energized, completely relaxed, and
