Mr. Monk Helps Himself by Hy Conrad Read Free Book Online Page A

street.
    Stottlemeyer gave a thoughtful nod, then sent out the last CSI and closed the door.
    “It’s still your job to fix it,” he said, looking me straight in the eyes. “Monk is making you his partner out of respect. Do you honestly think the force would hire you as a consultant? On your own?”
    I wanted to say yes. I’d been involved in hundreds of cases by now. Many of them probably wouldn’t have been solved without my participation. “Think carefully before you answer,” said the captain, eyeing the clown in the T-shirt and jeans.
    I knew what he meant. Was I ready to take over a crime scene, frame my hands in front of my face, and come up with some genius insight to kick things into high gear? “No,” I had to admit. “No one can take Mr. Monk’s place.”
    “Then I suggest you get him back in here.”
    “It won’t be easy. He knows by now you betrayed him. I mean, having a row of officers blocking the painting? That was a circus scene, right?”
    “Right. And Devlin was by the front door to body-block the guy’s business sign. ‘J. P. Tatters. Clown to the Stars. Dudley Smith, proprietor.’ I’m surprised Monk didn’t see either one of those and put it together.”
    “That’s because he trusted you.”
    “Okay,” growled the captain. “Tell him I’m sorry.” He sounded like he meant it. “I didn’t think his clown thing was so bad. Isn’t it like number one hundred on his list?”
    “It used to be. Now it’s ninety-nine. Aardvarks is the new one hundred.”
    “Aardvarks? Shouldn’t that be at the top of the list?”
    “That’s what I keep saying.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Mr. Monk’s Virtual Tour
    “M onk, I owe you an apology,” Stottlemeyer said.
    “Sooo . . .” Monk paused.
    “What are you doing?
    “Waiting for the apology.”
    “I just said it.”
    “No, you didn’t. You said you owed me an apology. That’s like saying you owe me ten bucks. Just saying that you owe it to—”
    “You’re right. I apologize. I apologize.”
    “For what? For messing up your apology or for—”
    “For everything!” The captain was sounding less and less sorry.
    “Apology accepted,” I ordered them both. “Let’s move on.”
    The three of us sat in my Subaru, at the curb outside the clown’s apartment. Captain Stottlemeyer was in the back. Monk was riding shotgun with his seat belt on, even though we weren’t planning on moving.
    The car was our temporary headquarters, since it had just started raining and Monk absolutely refused to go any closer to the scene of the crime—and by crime, he meant the residence of a clown.
    In the half hour or so between Stottlemeyer’s offense and his apology, the body had been removed, along with the poisoned money. Devlin was inside, finishing up some paperwork and preparing for Monk’s upcoming inspection of the premises.
    “No one likes clowns,” said the captain. “They’re like fruitcakes. Everyone hates them, yet they exist. But to be actually scared of them? And they’re way down your list, number ninety-nine, so you can’t be that scared.”
    “That’s because they’re relatively rare. If there were as many clowns as there are germs, they’d be right at the top. Higher than the top.”
    “Did a clown scare you as a kid, huh?” He snorted. “Look who I’m talking to. Everything scared you as a kid.”
    “If you must know”—Monk turned to face the captain—“my mother used to sit Ambrose and me in front of the TV and make us watch Fellini movies.”
    Ambrose was Monk’s older brother. They’d been raised in a strange, sterile household, with a mother who withheld all affection and a father who went out for Chinese food one night and never came back. It was little wonder that Ambrose became an agoraphobe who never left his house and Monk became . . . well, Monk.
    “You watched Fellini?” asked the captain. “I don’t get it.”
    It took even me a few seconds to get it. “You mean the foreign films with those