Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

reason.”
    “Like what?” I said. With that question, I gave up trying to make sense of the case. That was Monk’s job, not mine.
    “I don’t know,” Monk said. “But I once solved a murder that was all about a penny. . . .”
     
    The house that had caught fire was still standing, but the first floor was charred and gutted, the windows broken and rimmed by black where flames had licked out. The property was cordoned off with yellow caution tape, and several firefighters picked through the rubble while others hosed things down.
    The smell of smoke was heavy in the air, the streets and gutters inundated with soot-blackened water, the storm drains clogged with burned debris. There was a fire truck, a black-and-white, an SFFD sedan, and an unmarked police car parked in front of the house.
    The people in the neighborhood were out on their porches and milling on the sidewalks, looking at the house and talking animatedly among themselves. There’s nothing like a fire to bring a community together.
    The burned house was one of a half dozen identically bland, blockish town houses built side by side in the 1950s. They must have been designed by somebody who was really into the “international modern style” popularized by Le Corbusier, Richard Neutra, and Mies Van Der Rohe, only done artlessly and on the cheap (as you can probably tell, I took a few architecture courses and have been waiting for an opportunity to show off what little I remember). The town houses were unadorned by moldings, eschewing style for function, and the doors and windows were flush with the flat walls around them, making the places stand out in sharp (and, if you ask me, offensive) contrast to the gables, cornices, and bay windows of the utterly charming Victorian homes across the street.
    I wondered how many of the neighbors were thinking the same thing I was: Architecturally speaking, it was a shame the fire didn’t burn down all six of the ugly town houses on that side of the street. The neighbors’ homes, by contrast, were wood-frame Eastlake Victorians standing shoulder-to-shoulder, narrow and tall. Each house had the requisite bay windows to increase the available light, decorative gables to add some individual flair, and tiny garages that were barely able to fit a single car.
    The uniformed officer guarding the fire scene recognized Monk, lifted up the yellow caution tape, and nodded us past.
    The interior of the living room was a gutted, scorched skeleton of what it once was, with the charred furniture and melted TV still eerily in place. An African-American woman in a bright blue SFFD windbreaker with the words ARSON INVESTIGATOR written in big yellow letters on the back examined the rubble in the far corner of what was left of the room. Her hair was braided with colorful white and pink beads. Julie had been nagging me to let her do that to her hair, which would have been okay with me if it didn’t cost $120.
    Monk stepped in gingerly, trying not to get a speck of soot on himself, which was impossible. We’d barely come through the door when we were greeted by a familiar face.
    Captain Leland Stottlemeyer stood off to one side, smoking a fat cigar, his wide tie loosened at his open collar. He was a perpetually weary man, with a mustache that seemed to grow bushier as his hairline receded. He didn’t look pleased to see us.
    “What are you doing here, Monk?” he said.
    “We came to talk to one of the firefighters,” Monk said. “The firehouse dog was killed last night.”
    “You’re investigating pet deaths now?” Stottlemeyer said.
    “It’s for a very special client,” Monk said.
    I couldn’t help smiling, and Stottlemeyer noticed. In that instant he knew the client was me, or someone close to me. Stottlemeyer is a detective too, after all.
    “We were told that this fire was an accident,” I said.
    “It probably was,” Stottlemeyer said. “But since a lady died, we have to treat this like a crime scene until the arson