Mr. Monk Gets on Board Read Online Free PDF

looking serious and overworked, with Devlin standing firmly by the room’s only exit. There were the consulting detectives: Monk and yours truly. There were the three suspects: Jeremiah Melrose, Portia Braun, and Smithson. And finally the interested observer: Malcolm Leeds, looking just as nervous as the suspects.
    All night long, I’d had a bad feeling. I couldn’t imagine Malcolm, my tall, craggy academic, being involved. But the truth was, I’d known him only a day. And it wasn’t as if I’d never been interested in a man who later turned out to be a cold-blooded killer. It’s happened more than once. In fact, it’s probably Monk’s most reliable way of keeping me single and lonely.
    My only consolation was that Malcolm’s involvement seemed impossible. He had never been in the Melrose mansion prior to the murder. And he’d never been left alone in the library. But of course, with Monk, the impossible is always possible.
    “This won’t take long,” said Monk to everyone. He was pacing in front of the library’s only window, his fingers laced together as if in prayer. Public speaking has never been his strength, except when it comes to murder. Then he can raise his voice and be a powerful presence. It’s all about his comfort zone.
    “When I was in here yesterday I noticed the petal from a little white flower on the floor under the window.” From his side jacket pocket Monk pulled out a sanitary wipe, which was folded into a perfect square. He unfolded it twice. In the middle of the white was another speck of white, a delicate, flowery petal.
    “It belongs on that tree,” said Monk, and nodded out toward a good-sized tree with gray-brown bark, a few yards to the side of the window. “That’s a calabash tree. We used to have one in our yard growing up.” He handed the petal and the wipe to Captain Stottlemeyer.
    “Thanks, Monk,” said the captain, staring at the petal. “I’ll have someone reattach it as soon as possible.”
    “You don’t have to reattach it,” Monk said. “Well, you could. That would be nice. But you don’t have to.”
    “I appreciate your flexibility,” said Stottlemeyer, still with a straight face.
    “You can attach it later. I just wanted to establish that it’s a night-blooming calabash. They bloom at night,” Monk repeated, “and fold up during the day. Like now. No petals.” I glanced past him to the tree and could confirm this fact.
    We all started to understand around the same moment. That’s what he was getting at. It had been chilly for the past few nights, as it often is in San Francisco. And the petal that had drifted inside was not completely shriveled, not more than a day or so.
    “You’re saying someone opened this window that night,” said Smithson. “For a purpose. To let someone in, perhaps?”
    “No, to throw something out.” Monk pointed to the lily pond, or what used to be a lily pond. It was now a muddy hole, almost centered in front of the window, round and about the size of a baseball diamond. The police draining equipment was still on the bank, all the pumps and hoses.
    “I saw that the lilies on the surface had been disturbed,” Monk said. “That’s why I had it drained. Someone opened this window and threw something into the pond.”
    Immediately I tried to imagine what it might be. The murder weapon? No, that had been the bloody Homer. Something priceless from the library? No, nothing seemed to be missing. Something incriminating? Maybe. But what?
    Lieutenant Devlin, true to her no-nonsense self, reached into a bag, pulled out a huge plastic baggie, and plopped it onto a circular library table. “We pulled this out last night.” The rest of us gathered around. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it.
    “It’s the first folio,” Jerry Melrose said, instantly recognizing the book. “But no, it can’t be.”
    It certainly looked like a waterlogged twin of the Shakespeare rarity, with its buckled leather