Lee Goldberg - Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop

Salvatore Lucarelli was already waiting for us when we entered the interview room. He was a droopy-faced, balding man with a double chin. He fit my image of someone’s kindly grandfather but not the most feared mob figure west of the Mississippi. There was no perceptible menace emanating from him.

He was dressed in a yellow jumpsuit, his arms and legs shackled to a chain that was locked to a metal loop imbedded in the concrete floor of the interview room. The light cast by the coiled energy-efficient bulbs gave his skin a sickly, jaundiced tinge.

Monk and I stood across from him, a table between us in case he broke his chains, lunged at us, and tried to tear out our throats with his dentures.

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Monk,” Lucarelli said.

“I didn’t want to,” Monk said. “But I was afraid of what might happen to me if I didn’t.”

“I would never hurt you,” he said. “You have my respect.”

“But you’ve hurt others,” Monk said.

Lucarelli gave a noncommittal shrug and glanced at me. “I see you’ve got a pretty new assistant.”

“Is that a threat?” Monk said.

“You think I’d hurt her to get at you? What good would that do me? You’d be too angry and distracted to get anything done. It’s as ridiculous as the idea that I had anything to do with those judges getting killed.”

“Is it?” I said. “They were both going to preside over your trial. Now no judge wants to do it. Your attorney is already arguing that the jury pool and judicial pool are hopelessly tainted and that a fair trial would be impossible. It could be months before you get a trial, if ever.”

“And while all that goes on, I’m going to be in a cell not getting any younger,” he said. “If I wanted to rig the trial, I wouldn’t kill the judge; I’d get rid of the witnesses, or the prosecutor, or the people who are close to them. That way the trial would be over quick and I would be out.”

“Maybe that’s coming next,” I said.

“I was just giving you a hypothetical from my years of watching The Sopranos ,” Lucarelli said. “I’m a restaurateur. All I kill are lobsters.”

Monk tilted his head and regarded Lucarelli. “If you’re guilty of these murders, I will prove it. And I will go to the police with what I find out no matter how much you pay Intertect.”

“I know. So ask yourself this, Mr. Monk,” Lucarelli said. “If I did kill those judges, why would I do something as stupid as putting you on the case?”

Judge Alan Carnegie lived in the Sunset District, which, like North Beach, has a name that belies the truth. There is no beach at North Beach anymore, and while there is a beach at Sunset, there’s very little sunlight.

The neighborhood, bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west, Golden Gate Park to the north, and the Twin Peaks to the east, was almost always shrouded in fog and it was no different that day.

The westernmost end of Sunset, where the judge lived, was a flat, sea-sprayed beach community composed of cafés, surf shops, bars, health food stores, bodegas, and low-slung, bleached homes of cinder block and perennially peeling wood.

The tourists all visit Haight Ashbury for a peek at the 1960s, but if you ask me, they’re going to the wrong spot. The sixties really live in the Sunset District, where just about everybody seems to be wearing sandals or flip-flops and faded T-shirts or sweatshirts. But like the name of the place, looks are deceiving. Many of the beach bums lead double lives as high-paid professionals in order to afford the luxury of a laid-back lifestyle.

I parked next to the police line on one of the residential streets. We got out of the car and shouldered our way through the crowd of reporters and lookie-loos. Let me re-phrase that-I shouldered my way and Monk cowered behind me in my wake, his arms tucked in close to his body so he wouldn’t brush against anyone.

I lifted up the yellow police tape, expecting to hear an officer yell at us, but no one did. Either they didn’t notice us crossing the line or, like the officers at Golden Gate Park, they hadn’t gotten the word about Monk.

Judge Carnegie was splayed on the sidewalk in an unnatural position, body and limbs bent at odd angles, reminding me of a broken string puppet. I guess that’s what happens when you’re shot six times and collapse with no concern about how you land. Of course, he was way past being concerned about anything.

He was suntanned and his hair was colored a hue of brown not found in nature. He wore a sweatshirt, denim cutoffs, and sandals. I wondered if that was what he wore under his judge’s robes at the bench.

The judge had one end of a leash looped around his right wrist and it appeared, from his outstretched arm and the swath of blood on the sidewalk behind him, that his dog had dragged him for a few feet. The dog was gone.

Stottlemeyer and Disher were talking to some officers and forensic techs, so they didn’t immediately notice Monk until he was already crouching beside the body.

But once the captain saw us, he marched right over, his face flushed with anger, Disher in tow.

I moved to intercept him. “It’s not what you think.”

“You mean you haven’t violated a crime scene and that isn’t Monk over there examining the corpse?”

Now I felt my hackles go up. I didn’t even know I had hackles until then.

“We haven’t violated anything, Captain. We’re showing the same care and professionalism that we always have at crime scenes.”

“You were official consultants then; you aren’t now. You are civilians who aren’t permitted to cross a police line,” he said. “I’ve already warned you both about that. We don’t need Monk’s help right now, no matter how much he wants to give it.”

I glanced back and saw Monk studying the trail of blood. I wanted to buy him as much time as I could.

“He’s not giving away anything, not one tiny bit of information or insight,” I said. “He’s been hired by someone who appreciates his talents and treats him with the respect he deserves. In consideration of his years of loyal service, we’re hoping you might grant him a few minutes of access to the scene as a professional courtesy.”

“Don’t you think you’re laying it on a little thick?” Stottlemeyer said.

I shrugged. “It seems to me that you need reminding.”

“Who is he working for?” he asked.

“Me,” a voice said.

We turned to see Nick Slade approaching us. He wore a perfectly tailored Brioni jacket and slacks, his shirt open at the collar. He looked like money. And even if he didn’t, his ride certainly did. His Bentley convertible was parked at the police line and there were two dumbstruck officers ogling it as if it were a Hawaiian Tropic bikini model.

“Why do we even bother cordoning off our crime scenes?” Stottlemeyer said, shaking his head. “You’re looking good, Nick. Then again, you always do.”

“You could, too, if you accepted my job offers,” Slade said. “Nice tie.”

Stottlemeyer lifted his yellow-white-and-blue-striped tie. “The Continental. Genuine polyester. You can buy two for ten dollars at Wal-Mart. You could probably afford four of ’em.”

“I don’t know why you stay on the police force.”

“I like wearing a badge,” he said.

“If that’s all you want,” Slade said, “I’ll give you one.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Yeah, it’s the number of figures on the paycheck,” Slade said. “It’s the freedom to do your job without the politics and bureaucracy getting in the way. It’s finally having all the resources you need to do it right.”

“Where’s the challenge in that?” Stottlemeyer said with a grin.