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

scary Italian clowns? What kind of mother . . . ?”
    “She wanted us to learn a language. Ambrose actually liked them. When he was twelve, he decided to become a mime. He didn’t speak for nearly a year. But I still get panic attacks when I hear Italian. It’s the language of clowns.”
    A second later, my phone rang. It was Devlin, in the bedroom, paperwork done, ready to roll.
    This was an emergency system that my daughter, Julie, had invented when she was acting as Monk’s temporary assistant during my absence in New Jersey.
    On one of their cases, Monk had refused to visit a crime scene on a high, uneven-numbered floor in an apartment building. This of course wasn’t his problem. It was everyone else’s. Julie’s solution was to have Lieutenant Devlin tour the apartment holding her phone’s camera out in front of her. On another smartphone, at ground level, Monk would take a virtual tour, with Devlin providing close-ups and a running commentary as she walked through.
    I wiped my phone thoroughly and handed it to Monk. He squinted at the image on the screen. “Should I start in the bedroom?” asked Devlin from the other end.
    “No need. I’ll just review it in my mind.”
    “In your mind? You were only in the bedroom for a minute,” she protested. “Then you got distracted by clown shoes.”
    “That doesn’t mean I didn’t see. Hold on.” Monk put the phone in his lap, closed his eyes, and held up his hands. I guess he was framing whatever was running through his mind.
    Stottlemeyer chuckled. “You just don’t want Devlin showing you the clown shoes again.”
    Monk ignored him. “There’s a wicker hamper under the window, which he never used. See it?”
    “How do you know he never used it?” Devlin asked.
    “Because ‘A,’ just look at the place. It’s a mess. And ‘B,’ he kept something on top of it. You can see a crease line in the wicker, eight and a half inches long. That’s a standard size for a picture frame. I assume it was a picture of a clown that you guys hid so I wouldn’t freak out.”
    “Um,” Devlin said. “That would be correct.”
    “Can you describe the picture?”
    “Hold on. I put it in a drawer.” A few seconds later, she was back on. Monk refused to look, so she described it in detail: a photo of the deceased, Dudley Smith, aka J. P. Tatters, dressed in full regalia at a children’s hospital.
    From her description, he was a cross between an Emmett Kelley hobo—dark, painted-on stubble, shabby suit, a hobo bindle over his shoulder—and a traditional Ronald McDonald—big red shoes, red fright wig. For Monk, it was the worst of both worlds. A hobo and a clown. I saw him turn white and thought he might even faint. But he didn’t. He didn’t even cover his ears.
    “Those poor children,” he moaned. “Was he responsible for putting them in the hospital?”
    “No, Monk,” Devlin said. “He was entertaining them. They’re laughing.”
    “Laughing with terror. Okay, on to the next.” He rolled his shoulders and refocused himself. “There’s a blue push pin on the rug as you walk in the room. Turn left. Five feet down. About three inches from the wall.”
    “I don’t see any . . . ,” said Devlin. “Oh, yeah, there it is.”
    “Good. On the wall above the push pin is a rectangular mirror. There are a ton of smudges on both sides, slightly below eye level. Thumbprints, I’m guessing, since they’re rounder than fingerprints. You can dust them but I’m sure they’re the victim’s.”
    Devlin’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “The vic’s prints. Gee, that’s great.”
    “That’s not my point. My point is he turned the mirror around a lot. Look on the other side.”
    We waited to hear her response. “It’s a corkboard.”
    Of course, when I tell it this way, his deduction seems obvious: push pin, mirror, thumbprints from turning it around. But no one else had noticed. “Let me see what’s on it,” he said.
    Monk picked up the phone