Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu by Lee Goldberg Read Free Book Online Page B

moments,” he said as he walked out. “And the nanoseconds in between.”
    I followed Monk into the squad room, where he strode right up to Porter and Sparrow with a smile on his face.
    “Hello, Frank,” Monk said. “It’s been a long time.”
    “You two know each other?” I asked.
    “Frank is one of the best investigators I’ve ever met,” Monk said. “He can follow a paper trail to the tree it was milled from.”
    I’d never heard Monk lavish such praise on anyone’s detective skills. Except his own, of course. I’d also never heard him use such a colorful metaphor. Or any metaphor, for that matter.
    “Really?” I asked. “To the actual tree?”
    “Of course,” Monk said. “Why else would I have said it?”
    “I thought it might be a figure of speech.”
    Monk looked at me as if I were insane.
    “I haven’t had a bowel movement in three days,” Porter announced. “I need an enema.”
    “Now?” Monk’s voice trembled.
    “I can’t think when I’m stuffed up.”
    “No one is asking you to think.” Monk looked at me. “Did you ask him to think?”
    Porter narrowed his eyes at Monk. “I remember you. You’re the nut job who kept reorganizing my desk.”
    Monk smiled. “Those were good times.”
    “He’s afraid of milk,” Porter said to Sparrow.
    “You are?” she said, momentarily showing interest in something besides looking uninterested. “Why?”
    “It’s a bodily fluid in a glass that some twisted person intends to drink.” Monk cringed just thinking about it. “It’s unnatural.”
    “It’s the most natural thing on earth,” Sparrow said. “Babies suckle their mother’s breasts for milk. That’s what breasts are for.”
    “I breast-fed Julie,” I said.
    Monk flushed with embarrassment and looked away from me.
    “Maybe you were breast-fed, Mr. Monk,” I said.
    “That’s impossible. I wouldn’t drink my own bodily fluids—why would I drink someone else’s?”
    “Breasts aren’t just a fashion accessory,” Sparrow said. I was beginning to like this kid. Until she lifted her shirt and flashed Monk.
    I thought Monk might scream. I noticed that her ears weren’t the only thing she’d pierced.
    Porter slapped the desktop. “What’s my assignment?”
    Monk filled Porter in on the Golden Gate Strangler case and asked him to double-check the victims’ credit card purchases. He also asked Porter to put together a board with all the crime scene photos and a map indicating where each murder took place.
    “Gladly,” Porter said. “And you are?”
    “Adrian Monk.”
    “I remember you,” Porter said, and glanced at Sparrow. “He’s afraid of milk.”
    Sparrow sighed—the sound was infused with all the frustration, boredom, and weariness she could possibly muster. She almost broke out in a sweat from the effort.
    Officer Curtis walked up and handed Monk a slip of paper. “There’s been a homicide in Haight-Ashbury. There’s a detective waiting for you at the scene.”
    “Who’s the victim?” Monk asked.
    “Allegra Doucet, an astrologer,” Officer Curtis said. “You’d think she would have seen it coming.”

5
    Mr. Monk and the Astrologer
    Ever since the mid-1960s, Haight-Ashbury has been mythologized as ground zero of the counterculture movement, home of psychedelic drugs, free-spirited sex, flower children, and the Grateful Dead. A lot of effort went into maintaining the illusion that it hasn’t changed, even though Jerry Garcia is dead, the Vietnam War is over, and Mick Jagger is getting the senior-citizen discount at Denny’s.
    The Haight today is the sixties packaged and sanitized for retail sale. The street is lined with stores selling vintage clothing, “underground” comics, used records, and incense and crystals; and there are even a few head shops where you can buy tie-dyed shirts and Deadhead souvenirs for the folks back home in Wichita. What little edge there is comes from the tattoo parlors, bondage emporiums, and stores with fetish