“Sure, why not?” Stottlemeyer said. “Stranger things have happened.”
“Give me some examples,” Monk said.
“I don’t have any off the top of my head,” Stottlemeyer said, and looked over at Disher. “Hey, Randy, tell me something strange that you’ve heard about.”
“I read this morning about a goat born with two noses,” Disher said.
“There you go,” Stottlemeyer said to Monk. “That’s strange.”
“It’s not a coincidence,” Monk said. “It’s a birth defect.”
“Okay, how about this?” Disher said, closing his notebook and joining us. “I read about a woman here in San Francisco who has been searching for the birth mother who gave her up for adoption in Boston twenty years ago. It turns out that they’ve been working together as waitresses in the same restaurant for the last three years.”
“That’s one coincidence,” Monk said. “This case has at least three. There’s no comparison.”
“Wait a minute, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said. “You asked me to give you some examples of strange things and I did and now you’re changing the rules. Why don’t you just admit that you were wrong?”
“I’m not,” Monk said. “We have the gum and the candy wrapper.”
“I’ve got a video that shows the same guy who killed Conrad Stipe shooting another
Beyond Earth
producer in exactly the same spot. I think my evidence trumps yours.”
“I don’t see how,” Monk said.
“Maybe because you don’t want to see it,” Stottlemeyer said. “You’re blind to anything that goes against the way you think things should be.”
“The way I think things should be happens to be the way things should be,” Monk said. “So it’s okay.”
“I’ve got news for you, Monk. A gob of dried gum and a wrinkled candy wrapper aren’t enough to build a homicide case on, much less
two
of them, not even for you.”
“The fact is that somebody hired a hit man to murder Brandon Lorber,” Monk said. “But then Lorber died of natural causes before he could be killed.”
“There you go,” Disher said. “That’s a strange thing.”
Monk ignored him and continued. “So the hit man shot Lorber three times, in a manner consistent with a professional killer, in order to collect his full fee.”
“The deadly triangle,” Disher said.
“The hit man took a taxi to the airport, the same one that picked up Conrad Stipe,” Monk continued. “But the assassin left something incriminating behind, so he killed Stipe and made it look like a fan did it, and then he killed the cabbie and made it look like a robbery.”
Stottlemeyer sighed. “Yes, so you’ve told me already. And now that I’ve heard it all again, I’m asking myself how I could have bought it the first time. Do you really think it’s plausible that a guy would kill two people on the possibility that somebody might come after him for shooting a corpse?”
“He did it so he wouldn’t forfeit the money he was earning for the assassination,” Monk said. “It was motivated by greed.”
“That explanation doesn’t make the theory sound any more plausible to me,” Stottlemeyer said.
“It’s not a theory and I can prove it,” Monk said. “Could you turn the body halfway over for me?”
“Sure,” Stottlemeyer said and looked at Disher. “Go ahead.”
“Why me?” Disher said.
“Because I’m the captain and these are new shoes,” Stottlemeyer said. “I don’t want to get blood on them.”
Disher put on a pair of rubber gloves, leaned down, and gingerly lifted Mills enough so Monk could see the front of the body.
Monk crouched beside Disher. “As you can see, Kingston Mills has been shot in the shoulder, the back, and the leg.”
“So?” Stottlemeyer said.
Monk stood up.
“Here’s what happened. When Mills got out of the limousine, the shooter emerged from behind the Dumpster and shot him in the shoulder. The bullet spun Mills around and he started to flee towards the hotel. The killer shot him in the leg and then once more in the back before escaping into the crowd in the convention center.”
“Yes, I know,” Stottlemeyer said. “I heard it from a dozen witnesses and I saw it with my own eyes on the security video.”
“But Stipe was shot only once, right in the heart,” Monk said. “Mills was shot three times and only the last bullet was fatal.”
“So what?”
“The man who killed Stipe was a crack shot. The man who killed Mills was not.”
“Or the killer got lucky the first time,” Disher said, rising to his feet again.
“Either the hit man is trying to make it look like this is a copycat killing or that’s exactly what it is,” Monk said. “Either way, this doesn’t change anything.”
“It does for Kingston Mills,” I said.
“I’ve got to go with the evidence, Monk,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I’m glad you’re seeing reason,” Monk said. “So we’re going back to looking for the hit man and whoever hired him.”
“We’re going back to our original notion that Conrad Stipe was killed by someone in the
Beyond Earth
community, ” Stottlemeyer said. “I’m betting that whoever did that also took out Kingston Mills. It’s the simplest explanation.”
“Simple isn’t always right,” Monk said.
“Nine times out of ten it is,” Stottlemeyer said. “It’s that tenth case that keeps you in business, Monk.”
“Does this mean that the Special Desecration Unit is taking the lead again in the Lorber investigation?” Disher asked Stottlemeyer.
“It’s all yours, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said. “You can start by getting Judson Beck out of that limo.”
“What does that have to do with the Lorber case?”
“Nothing,” Stottlemeyer said.
“No problem. I can do that,” Disher said. “All it takes is a little finesse.”
“That’s why I asked you,” Stottlemeyer said. “Because you’re so smooth.”
Disher took a deep breath and marched over to the limo.
“Could I get a copy of the security video?” Monk asked. “I’d like to see it.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I was afraid you might quit on me in a huff.” Stottlemeyer reached into his jacket and handed me a DVD.
“I don’t huff,” Monk said. “Or puff. I’ve never puffed. I am firmly against all puffing.”
“That’s good to know,” Stottlemeyer said. “I still need you on this one, Monk. We’re back to trying to find a needle in a box of needles and you’re the best man for the job.”
We heard a scream from the limo. We turned to see Disher yanking Beck out of the backseat by the collar of his shirt and dragging him towards a police car.
“Finesse.” Stottlemeyer smiled. “It works every time.”
Monk headed back towards my car. I hurried to catch up with him.
“Where are we going?”
“Home,” he said.
“Don’t tell me you’re giving up,” I said. “The captain just told you how much he needs you.”
“He certainly does,” Monk said. “He’s going in the wrong direction.”
“Then why are you going home?”
“I need to consult an expert,” Monk said.
26
Mr. Monk and the Expert
We sat down with Ambrose on the couch and watched the security camera footage of Kingston Mills getting killed. Watching it reminded me in an odd way of what was happening with
Beyond Earth
. The shooting of Kingston Mills was the shooting of Conrad Stipe, only reimagined and more authentic.
Like the previous video, the image was divided into four sections, each one giving us a different angle of the loading dock area of the convention center.
The limousine pulled up to the rear of the convention center. The back door of the car opened and Mills bounded out. Almost immediately, Mr. Snork emerged from behind the Dumpster, coughed, and shot him once in the shoulder.
Ambrose grimaced and made a notation on his yellow legal pad. I don’t think he really had anything to write. The images were just too hard to take.
I didn’t blame him for turning away. It’s not easy watching real violence, pain, and bloodshed. The look on Kingston Mills’ face when the bullet hit him in the shoulder was something I will never forget. It was raw, naked terror. Mills was a man who knew with absolute certainty that he was about to die a horrible death. And when you see something like that, you can’t help but imagine yourself in the same situation and imagine all too clearly what it would feel like.
It gave me a shiver.
Things played out on the screen exactly the way Monk had described them to us at the crime scene. Mills tried to run, but Mr. Snork marched after him, continuing to fire, the coughing ruining his aim.
The second bullet hit Mills in the leg, knocking him off his feet. He tried to crawl away, but Mr. Snork walked up and put him down with a bullet in the back.
It was an execution.
I had to force myself to keep watching. It was one thing to show up at the scene of a murder; it was another to watch a human being die.
Mr. Snork coughed again and ran back into the convention center. That was where the DVD footage ended.
Monk rolled his shoulders, cocked his head from side to side, and turned to us. I knew the look. He was going to tell us whodunit.
“What do you think?” Monk asked.
I thought he knew who did it. But before I could answer, Ambrose spoke up.
“It’s horrible,” Ambrose said. “At least it was over instantly for Conrad Stipe. This was like torture.”
“Maybe if he wasn’t coughing so much his aim would have been better,” I said.
“The number of times the victim was shot isn’t the only difference,” Monk said. “In the first shooting, Mr. Snork was perfectly centered in all four security camera views. But this time, there were instances where the shooter was partially or completely obscured by other objects.”
“It didn’t seem to me like he was avoiding the cameras, ” I said.
“He wasn’t,” Monk said, “but he wasn’t paying close attention to how he was being photographed by them. This shooting wasn’t tightly organized and choreographed. He also blinked.”
“Blinked?” I said.
“He was startled by the sound of the gunshots,” Monk said. “The other shooter wasn’t.”