Mr. Monk and the New Lieutenant Read Online Free PDF Page A

son, Jimmy.’”
    â€œWhoa,” said A.J. “Jimmy really dropped the ball on this one.”
    â€œNot just the ball,” said Monk. “He dropped the doorstop, too.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    Mr. Monk and the Minimum Wage
    T wo days later, I was doing the morning shift.
    Business had picked up slightly. Through a personal connection—namely, my daughter, Julie—our firm had been hired to do a few background checks for a software company in Berkeley that had been founded by a few of her ex-classmates. It wasn’t something Adrian and I liked doing, and frankly, there were a lot of security companies that did this sort of thing better. But it helped pay the rent.
    I was determined to finish up one of the checks before lunch, but I got sidetracked by a call I had to make to Lieutenant A.J. Yesterday I’d sent him an invoice for the Burns case and had just received an authorization for only a fraction of our usual fee. With anyone else, I might have thought it was a mistake. With A.J., I knew it was trouble.
    â€œI’m paying you for two hours,” A.J. said when I asked. “And I was generous enough to include travel time. You and the Monkster were there for an hour, max. Your boy wanders around the house, opening birthday presents and making mysterious pronouncements. Then he spits out a name and expects to get paid for a full day?”
    â€œBut it was the right name,” I argued. “You were looking for some fictitious burglar, if I might remind you.”
    â€œWe would have checked all the angles.”
    â€œThe captain would have checked the angles.”
    â€œI would have, too. It’s procedure. The sons had a motive, which was something I didn’t know to start with. And if Jimmy ever tried to sell the jewelry he stole from her bedroom . . .”
    â€œBlah, blah, blah. You would have spent days tracking down all the brothers, checking their alibis. The presents on the piano would have been returned unopened, and the one crucial lead in the case never would have seen the light of day. That cheap little bowl would be back on a shelf in Jimmy’s pantry. No questions asked.”
    Monk had been right, of course. Margery Burns had been murdered by her one son who’d simply grown tired of waiting. Another birthday, Jimmy Burns must have thought. Another obligation to buy something criminally expensive for a sour old woman who kept threatening to disinherit him. This eighty-two-year-old who refused to die.
    So Jimmy refused to buy one more thing. Instead, he sent a gift-wrapped decoy. Then he broke in on the morning of her birthday, sat in the living room, and waited for her to come downstairs. When she did, he grabbed the doorstop and gave his mother the one gift that keeps on giving.
    Jimmy’s wife, Louisa, hadn’t known anything. That’s what she said. And that’s what Jimmy said. When Captain Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Thurman brought him into aninterview room and turned on the heat and brought out the glass bowl . . . That was all it took.
    â€œAdrian got you the thing that got you the confession,” I pointed out, trying to keep my temper in check. “He saved you days of work and a dozen false leads.”
    â€œI’m not arguing about that. Look, an electrician saves me days of work. That’s his job. But if an electrician takes an hour to replace some wiring, I’m not going to pay him for a full day. No way.”
    â€œYes way,” I said with great eloquence. “We don’t do hourly fees. On a case like this, Lieutenant Devlin used to pay a two-day fee or more—until the DA came through with the indictment. That’s been our understanding for years.”
    â€œWell, the understanding just changed,” said A.J. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have police business to take care of.”
    In response, I probably said something sarcastic and clever, but I don’t