Richard Patterson - Conviction

"Mind if we come in," Minnehan said. Though it was phrased like a question, the woman knew that it was not one: she lived in public housing, and any problem with the law could get her thrown out. In her world Larry Minnehan had more power than the President.

Her name was Betty Sims, and she turned out to be no housekeeper. She backed away from them into a cramped three-room apartment with sheets strewn across the couch and floor, CDs scattered all over a small kitchen table, and what looked like a couple of days' of dirty dishes in the sink. The chicken cooking on the stove seemed to Monk a sad gesture toward domesticity, as did the incongruous Chinese painting above the couch. The woman's one unblemished eye as she watched them was frightened and sad and deeply resigned, and Monk could feel her shame and helplessness at being exposed to the judgment of strangers.

Minnehan left to search her bedroom. With a nod to Betty Sims, Monk followed.

Her bureau was covered with cosmetics and empty beer bottles. Minnehan yanked open the top drawer, revealing a treasure trove of frilly bras and panties with the sales tags still on them.

"Girl's an underwear klepto," he observed.

Ainsworth was studying a framed picture on the bureau: next to the carousel in Golden Gate Park a slight woman stood beside a fleshy, smiling man. "Demetrius George," Ainsworth said. "Last time I looked, he was a suspect in a gang murder."

"Still is," Minnehan said. "Let's ask Betty."

Betty Sims sat on the couch now, shoulders slumped, knees pressed together beneath her half-open robe. Minnehan held the picture out to her; his other hand, Monk saw, held a wad of tinfoil plucked off the top of the bureau.

Betty's gaze flickered from the photo to the wad of foil. "Who's the lucky girl with Demetrius?" Minnehan asked.

Betty glanced back at the picture. "My cousin, Cordelia. Cordelia White."

"What's her address?"

Betty told him. "Know where we can find Demetrius?" Minnehan asked her politely.

She shook her head. "Maybe Cordelia does."

Without asking anything more, Minnehan took out his cell phone and directed someone at the station to visit Cordelia White. Then he opened up the tinfoil and showed Betty Sims two rocks of crack cocaine—maybe forty bucks' worth, Monk thought. Enough to get her tossed out in the street.

"Who this belong to, Betty?"

She looked away, silent. Minnehan appraised her swollen eye. In a gentle tone, he asked, "Eddie do that to you?"

She hesitated, then shook her head, no longer looking at Minnehan. Still speaking quietly, Minnehan said, "If you can, Betty, stay away from him. Guys like Eddie don't get better."

The words were followed by silence. In an affectless tone, she asked. "Am I going to be in trouble?"

Minnehan studied her with a look akin to resignation. "The crack?" he answered. "No. That's Eddie's now."

They left her sitting on the couch. Closing the door behind him, Minnehan murmured, "Demetrius and Cordelia. Almost sounds like Shakespeare."

* * *

Monk and Ainsworth put Eddie Fleet in the same room they had used to question Payton Price.

He sat staring at the wall, eyes as blank as poker chips. The bulky gray sweatshirt he wore, far too thick for such a day, was meant, Monk supposed, to create the illusion of a body mass to go with the attitude.

"Minnehan took your last two rocks," Ainsworth said. "I don't think he likes you beating up on Betty. I don't think he likes you, period."

The tacit threat induced only silence. Monk placed the photo of Thuy Sen between them. "Ever seen this girl, Eddie?"

Seconds passed before Fleet looked down. Then he gave an almost indiscernible shake of the head.

"Was that a no?" Ainsworth asked skeptically.

This time Fleet shrugged. "I never seen her."

" 'Cause my friend Inspector Monk has. He saw her floating in the bay."

Fleet neither moved nor spoke. "The thing about a body," Monk told him conversationally, "is it just lies there. Most uncooperative kind of person you'll ever know.

"Now it's one thing, Eddie, to murder somebody in his house—you just leave him there. But killing someone at your own house is a whole different deal. As long as the body stays there, it's incriminating.

"So you got to move it. That's how this poor child wound up in water way too cold to swim in."

How long, Monk wondered, could Fleet go without seeming to breathe? "The whole problem," Monk continued, "comes down to transportation. How do you get little Thuy Sen where she won't take herself? You drive her." Monk softened his voice. "Unless you don't own a car.

"Don't own a car, Eddie, then you've got to borrow one."

With this, Monk fell silent. Moments passed before Fleet slowly raised his eyes. With a touch of melancholy, Monk said, "You got anything to tell me, son?"

Fleet stared back at him. This time the frozen look of his eyes struck Monk as more than attitude.

In the silence, Monk reached into his wallet and pulled out a card, laying it beneath Thuy Sen's picture. "Time may come you need to talk. If it does, I can do more for you than any lawyer can. But it's way better to seek me out before somebody else does."

For another long moment, Fleet gazed down at the card. Then he reached out and slipped it into the front pocket of his sweatshirt, the reluctant, surreptitious movement of a man whose head doesn't know what his hand is doing.

Abruptly, Monk informed him, "That's it, Eddie. Inspector Ainsworth will call a car to take you home."

The last thing Fleet wanted, Monk knew, was to be dropped off in the Bayview by a squad car. But he seemed to have lost the gift of speech.

Ainsworth left. Glancing at his watch, Monk gave himself five minutes with a man who would no longer look at him at all. Then he stood and said comfortably, "Let's see if your ride's here."

Ainsworth was waiting outside. Together, they walked Fleet out the door and down the dim, tiled hallway to the elevator.

As they approached, one of the elevator doors rumbled open. Breslin and Minnehan stepped out. Between them were the Price brothers.

For an instant, Payton looked startled, then managed a subdued "Hey, man."

Fleet nodded as they passed, his brief glance meeting Payton's. But when Payton looked away, Rennell still stared at Eddie Fleet, eyes wide with surprise in his sullen face.

EIGHT

"LIKE PULLING THE WINGS OFF FLIES," TERRI OBSERVED IN A clinical tone. But beneath this she felt a chill: at this point in Monk's narrative, Rennell Price's fate had already begun to feel inexorable. "You were pretty sure the brothers killed her, then."

Though Monk eyed the Italian delicatessen across the street with seeming idleness, his voice turned cool. "You mean, did I commit myself to their being guilty, then look for the evidence to match?"

"Something like that."

" 'Fraid not. All I was convinced of then was that they were scared of Eddie Fleet."

"Both of them?" Terri asked quietly. "Or just Rennell?"

Monk pondered this. "I didn't see the difference," he answered with a shrug. "Turns out they both had reason."

* * *

Monk and Ainsworth put the brothers in separate rooms, then worked on each in turn.

The questioning was taut now. Payton had nothing more to say; clearly fearful, Rennell kept repeating, "I didn't do that little girl." But each pause between denials seemed longer.

None of this mattered. All that mattered at the moment was happening before the nearest convenient judge. So when Monk offered the brothers a ride home, it was with an incongruous amiability.

* * *

They sat in the backseat, silent. "By the way," Monk said over his shoulder, "we just got a warrant to search your grandma's house. Hope she doesn't mind—it's the best way of checking out your story."