Mr. Monk Is Open for Business (7 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mr. Monk Rearranges the Facts

M
r. Takumi Ito was a tall man by anyone’s standards, well over six feet, dressed in a dark European-cut suit that just seemed to accentuate his height. He sat straight and composed in the captain’s office but looked tired and a little befuddled. I think I’d be befuddled, too, coming to a foreign country and dealing with this senseless violence.

“The man has escaped,” he said, addressing the captain. “That’s what they say on the TV. You have no idea where he is?”

“We have our best people working on it.” Stottlemeyer’s eyes wandered out his office window to the command center at the far end of the bull pen near the elevator. Lieutenant Devlin and a sergeant borrowed from another major crimes unit were organizing cards on a corkboard. “It would be a lot easier. . . . Why aren’t there any cameras in your building? A warehouse like that with valuables? You’d think there’d be cameras.”

“We’re a small company, Captain. At one point we discussed having them installed, but they never seemed to get around to it.”

“It must be difficult, running a company from thousands of miles away.”

“That’s why you hire good people and trust them.” A second later he was struck by the irony. “At least you try. The poor families. I must go visit them. And Sarabeth. I’m so grateful she survived.”

“I am, too,” said Monk, “even though I just met her. Do you know what kind of flowers she likes? I was thinking of flowers.”

“I don’t know,” said Ito. His English was flawless, with maybe just the hint of an Australian accent. “But thank you for reminding me about flowers. I’ll have my driver pick up some. It will be a long and sad day, I’m afraid.”

“Did you know them well?” asked the captain. “The victims, I mean.”

“I knew them all,” said Ito. “Mel Lubarsky worked for the company in Tokyo, before we expanded. His wife was very happy when we decided to open operations in the States. I believe her people live in San Francisco. Katrina Avery and her husband both worked for East Decorative. He is employed in the loading dock. Ex-husband, I should say. They’re divorced now. Caleb Smith was single. I believe he lived with another man. But I met him only once, on a visit eighteen months ago.”

“What about Wyatt Noone?” asked the captain. That was the question all of San Francisco wanted answered. What about Wyatt Noone?

“I’ve spoken with him on the phone but we never met.”

“What was he like on the phone?” asked Monk. “Pleasant? A good vocabulary? Any particular kind of accent?”

Ito mulled this over. “As I recall, he didn’t indulge in much talk. Perhaps a South American accent?”

“South American?” I asked. “Like Hispanic?”

“No, I’m sorry. From the American South. A Southern accent. But I’m not certain about accents.”

“So he never gave you a chance to know him,” said Stottlemeyer.

“Not at all. I had in fact planned a trip here next week to meet Mr. Noone in person. Unfortunately, this situation forced me to come early.”

“Why?” Monk asked. “I mean, why were you planning to come at all?” He pursed his lips, paused, and said the next sentence casually, as if asking about the weather. “How much do you suspect he stole?”

“Excuse me?” said Ito.

“The reason why you decided to visit for the first time in over a year. The reason why you wanted to meet the accountant. We’ve been considering all kinds of motives, from madness to spying to terrorism. But you say it was embezzlement. How much?”

It wasn’t the biggest leap of logic, given Wyatt Noone’s false identity, the office massacre, and what Sarabeth had suggested. But to Takumi Ito it must have seemed like mind reading. “That’s not something I feel comfortable talking about,” he replied.

“I understand,” said the captain who was also just coming up to speed. “But we would really appreciate your cooperation. Whatever information you can give us we’ll do our best to keep confidential.”

“Or we can just subpoena your company records and draw our own conclusions,” I said. I wasn’t sure if this was even possible, but it didn’t stop me from saying it.

Ito straightened his cuffs, one by one. “We’re not sure exactly how much. A little under two hundred million.”

Our mouths all fell open. “Dollars?” I asked.

“Yen,” he clarified. “Sorry to alarm you. About two million U.S. We are selling more antiquities this year, many from Malaysia and Indonesia. All legally exported. Mr. Noone’s accounting was not very sophisticated. But since our American profits were growing nicely, no one thought to look into it. It was just by luck that someone in the Tokyo office noticed a discrepancy.”

“And you’re sure it was Wyatt?” I asked. “Not one of the others?”

“His signature was on all the paperwork. That’s why I needed to talk to him.”

“He must have known you would find out,” said Stottlemeyer. “Sooner or later.”

Ito agreed. “In a company our size, two million does not go unnoticed. I wanted to handle this quietly. I pretended my upcoming visit would be routine, just checking in, as you say. Do you think the murders had something to do with it?”

“It’s a strong possibility,” said the captain.

A combination grunt and moan formed in the back of the throat of the elegantly dressed man. “Then I was perhaps the catalyst for this. If no one had found out . . . If I hadn’t told them I was coming, they might be alive.”

“You had no way of knowing,” said the captain. His voice was kind and reassuring, a tone that he’d used on me many times in the past. “We have reason to believe that Noone always intended to run. He planned his disappearance carefully. It was just a question of when.”

“Although . . .” Monk had his hand raised, like the annoyingly smart kid in school. “It doesn’t quite make sense, does it? If this was his plan, to steal as much as he could, then disappear, why would he need to kill anyone at all? Why not just disappear?”

It was a good question. Embezzlement certainly seemed like the right direction. But none of our scenarios, not even this one, seemed to cover all the bases. Now even the annoying smart kid was starting to look annoyed.

Mr. Ito stayed for another fifteen minutes, answering every question as best he could. But he knew even less than we did. For example, he still thought Wyatt S. Noone was the killer’s name and that the police had a decent chance of finding him.

All three of us escorted Mr. Takumi Ito to the elevator. He opened up a sharkskin holder and handed each of us a business card, performing the action double-handed and formally, with a little bow, like part of a tea ceremony. I responded by reaching into my PBS tote and scrounging around for a Monk and Teeger card. I made sure to straighten out the bent corner before handing it to him, also with a little bow. It felt kind of comical, and I was glad I could make his mouth turn up slightly at the edges.

Devlin was nearby. She could barely wait for the elevator door to shut before pouncing. “Monk.” She mimed grabbing him by the jacket sleeve and pulling. She didn’t touch him, but it was still enough of a threat to make him sidestep with her to the corkboard. She pointed to it. “What do you think?”

The corkboard was the largest one in the building, but it was already plastered with details: photos of the victims; a list
of all the known facts of Noone’s existence, a map of the city with pins that marked possible sightings called into the police hotline number. The airport, train, bus, and BART systems were also represented, but with next to no information under those headings.

“Noone didn’t have a car, at least not under that name. Sarabeth Willow says he always walked or took public transportation. We circulated a photo of him to ticket stations and to the security lines at the airport. It’s not a very good one.” Devlin pointed to the two photos at the top center of the corkboard.

The one on the left had been taken at a company Christmas party and showed a medium-sized man with a lumpy bald head, standing between two of his victims, Sarabeth and Katrina. He was wearing a reindeer sweater and a closed-lipped smile, perhaps a little drunk. The one on the right was a blow-up of the same photo. This was a little fuzzier and featured only Noone. It didn’t look like it would be much help to anyone, no matter how diligent the TSA agents were. “We sent this out to all the media, not that it will do much good. He was very camera shy. The only reason this one probably happened was because he was tipsy and off his guard.”

“What you’re doing is a mess,” said Monk. “A total mess.”

“Monk, please. We’re doing our best.” Devlin looked exhausted and as close to tears as I’d ever seen her.

“I’ll fix it. Don’t worry.” Monk rubbed his hands together. “First thing. We need to straighten all the photos and center them. Then we’ll divide the whole board into sixteen grids, the same amount of information in each grid.”

“You are not changing the board,” ordered Stottlemeyer, grabbing him by the sleeve. “This is the lieutenant’s operation.”

“But how can she think straight?” Monk demanded. “Messy board, messy mind.”

“No. He can change the board,” said Devlin. It was a sign of just how exhausted and desperate she was.

“About time you got with the program,” Monk said. He performed a satisfied, half smile and reached out to start his rearrangement. “Photos at the top, that was good, if sloppy. But the map should go right underneath and on the right side. . . .” Then his eyes fell on the photo of Sarabeth Willow, the last in the line of victims, and he stopped. “What does this mean?” He pointed.

Sarabeth’s sweet, smiling face was framed by a question mark on each of the side margins, the only photo in the group with any notation.

“She’s the sole survivor,” said Devlin. “It’s standard procedure. We only have her story for exactly what happened inside.”

“Only her story?” I was confused. “The sharpshooters saw Noone with his shotgun. You have the 911 calls from Sarabeth and Katrina. What else could have happened?”

“We don’t know,” said Devlin.

“A question mark?” Monk tilted his head. “Are you saying Sarabeth’s a suspect?”

“Not an active suspect, no,” said Devlin. “But any time you have only one survivor, you need to keep open the possibility. . . .”

“Possibility of what?” asked Monk. “That she and Noone
were in cahoots? That they planned this massacre together? Killed three people? Sarabeth’s friends? And then she stood there and let him shoot her twice in order to divert suspicion?”

Devlin shrugged and nodded. “When there’s a lot of motive involved—money and/or desperation—people have been known to take bullets. You’ve seen it yourself. Maybe he didn’t mean to shoot her so close to an artery. But she survived. That’s the critical thing. And it makes her a suspect.”

“C’mon, Monk,” said Stottlemeyer. “That’s the way we think on every case. You keep your scenarios open.”

“Not this time. We’re closing that scenario down. It’s a waste of manpower and mental energy. Not to mention an insult to a wonderful, heroic woman who risked her own life . . . in order to hide out and escape a killer.”

“Monk?” asked the captain. Everyone was looking at my partner, the three of us, and the sergeant borrowed from major crimes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Monk thinks it’s a bad theory.”

“A horrendous theory,” Monk agreed.

“Hey.” Stottlemeyer stared Monk in the eyes. “Are you getting a little sweet on Miss Willow?” He would have smiled if it hadn’t been so serious. “This isn’t like you, buddy.”

“What happened to Ellen in New Jersey?” asked Devlin. “Weren’t you just out there to see her?”

“Ellen rejected me because her brother is a murderer, which is not my fault. I’m on the rebound with Sarabeth. I’m not even sure she likes me. But it’s a good thing.”

“It’s a crush,” I tried to reassure everyone.

“Well, it’s not a good thing,” said the captain. “For a whole host of reasons. Mainly because she’s involved in this case. I’m not saying she’s an accomplice. I truly didn’t think of her until this minute. But this case is important. You need to keep a clear head.”

“Sarabeth was a victim,” said Monk. “You may as well say Mel Lubarsky was involved. He was in the office, too.”

“Yes, Monk. But he’s dead.”

“He could still be involved. He even looks like Wyatt Noone. See?” And with that, Monk tore off Wyatt’s photo with one hand and Mel’s with the other. The pushpins clattered to the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was that upset.

Monk held them up side by side, the blurry shot of Wyatt at last year’s Christmas party and a smiling shot of Mel cropped from a vacation shot in front of the Eiffel Tower with his wife. Monk had a point. The two men did look a bit alike. The same general build and height. Wyatt might have been slightly younger but it was hard to tell with his shaved head and Mel’s head of brown, wavy hair, just receding a bit with age.

“You’re actually right,” said Stottlemeyer. “There is some resemblance.”

“I should have noticed that,” Devlin scolded herself. She reached for a file on the nearby desk. “Mel doesn’t have any brothers. But we can check his other male relations. Cousins. Nephews.”

“You should,” said Monk. “I’m not saying there’s anything to it. But Mel’s the guy who hired Wyatt in the first place—
without references or a verifiable work history. If you’re going to start blaming one of the victims, I’d suggest starting with him, not a woman like Sarabeth.”