Bill Peschel lived with his daughter, Carol Atwater, her husband, Phil, and their two children in a three-bedroom, ranch-style house on a street with landscaping so manicured and sidewalks so clean that they brought a smile to Monk’s face.
Stottlemeyer was leaning against the hood of his police-issued Crown Vic at the curb and chewing on a toothpick when we arrived. I parked alongside the gleaming Mercedes SUV in the driveway and got out. On the back window of the SUV was an inscription in stickered white letters that read, IN LOVING MEMORY OF CLARA PESCHEL.
I don’t understand the point of those automotive memorials. How does buying yourself a nice car celebrate the memory of a loved one? I almost always see those memorials on sports cars or supercarrier-sized SUVs. Does making your Porsche or Hummer a rolling grave marker for your dead family member somehow justify the gas-guzzling indulgence? Or are those memorials actually for people the driver has killed with his car?
To me, those memorials are even stupider than the yellow BABY ON BOARD warning signs, which imply you might have considered smashing into the car if you weren’t alerted that an innocent child was a passenger.
The SUV had one of those signs, too. And two child seats in the back.
“Clara was Bill’s wife,” Stottlemeyer said, following my gaze.
“So why dedicate a car to her?” I asked.
“Maybe her daughter bought it with her inheritance and wanted to acknowledge the gift,” Stottlemeyer said.
“I think it’s weird,” I said. “So who is this guy we’ve come to see?”
“Bill was one of my most reliable snitches,” Stottlemeyer said. “He used to own a dive bar in the Tenderloin. He sold out ten years ago, retired to Sarasota, and then, after his wife died, he moved back here to live with his daughter.”
Monk squatted beside the lawn and admired the neatly trimmed, bright green grass. “I’d like to get the name of their gardener.”
“But you don’t have a yard,” I said.
“I’d just like to compliment him on his fine work,” Monk said.
I turned to the captain. “Do you visit Bill often?”
“I try to make it out here once a month or so.”
“Are you this close to all your snitches?”
“His tips helped me solve a lot of big cases,” Stottlemeyer said. “I might not be a captain today if it weren’t for him.”
I looked at Monk. “Did you know him?”
“I didn’t use confidential informants,” Monk said.
“You didn’t need to,” Stottlemeyer said.
I pointed at him. “There, that’s exactly what I was talking about last night.”
“You saw each other last night?” Monk asked.
I ignored him and pressed my point. “You make self-deprecating remarks like that about your investigative abilities all the time. It reveals your feelings of insecurity and inferiority.”
“I prefer to think of it as stating the facts in a dispassionate and totally candid manner,” Stottlemeyer said, then turned to Monk. “Yes, we had coffee last night.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I like coffee and getting together with my friends,” the captain said. “It’s something human beings do, Monk. It’s called socializing. You ought to try it sometime.”
“With other people?” he said.
“That’s the idea,” I said.
He shook his head. “That’s how communicable diseases are communicated. Socializing should be done only under the strict supervision of a doctor in a sterile environment.”
“Sounds like fun,” Stottlemeyer said, and headed for the door.
It sounded like the creepy pictures I’d seen of Thanks-giving at the Monk household when he was a child. The dining room table, the floor, and the seat cushions were covered with protective plastic. His mother served them turkey cold cuts with a pair of tongs that she held with rubber-gloved hands like either the meat or the children were radioactive.
“More important, it’s sanitary,” Monk said, and we trailed after the captain.
Stottlemeyer rang the bell and the door was opened by a woman who had the harried look that defines early motherhood. Any mother can recognize it, because she’s looked the same way. It’s a mix of weariness, confusion, and exasperation that comes from trying to do fifteen things at once while taking care of your inexhaustible, demanding, and uncontrollable kids.
Carol Atwater was in her early thirties, thin but bordering on chubby, still carrying a few of those stubborn pregnancy pounds. She was dressed in designer-label casual clothes that were too expensive to really be casual in.
“Hello, Captain,” she said.
“Please, Carol, call me Leland,” he said, then tipped his head towards us. “These are my friends Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger.”
“I have to warn you, things are a little crazy here this morning,” she said. “Actually, it’s been that way ever since Dad moved in.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Stottlemeyer asked.
“You’re doing it just by being here and getting him off my back for a few minutes,” she said, stepping aside to let us in. “It’s great when you or some of the other cops come by. I can only sit around drinking with him for so long.”
“I hear you,” Stottlemeyer said.
I wasn’t sure that I did. I’d known her for only five seconds, but she already didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d hang out with her dad having cocktails all day.
“Dad is where he always is,” she said, gesturing ahead of us.
The entry hall led into a family room that was cluttered with children’s toys. There was a fireplace, a big-screen TV mounted on the wall, and an overflowing toy box in one corner. A pair of French doors opened to the backyard, where I could see a swimming pool ringed by a wrought-iron fence and the sprinklers watering the impossibly green lawn around it.
A baby girl in a T-shirt and diaper sat on a blanket in the center of the room and teethed happily on a plastic doughnut. She was smiling and drooling all over herself. I wanted to steal her and take her home with me.
Monk kept his distance, as if the child were a ferocious dog.
The family room was separated from the open kitchen by a long counter with four bar stools in front of it.
Bill Peschel stood behind the kitchen counter, drying some glasses with a towel. He looked to me to be in his late sixties or early seventies. He wore an apron over his sunken chest and broad belly. Tufts of hair sprang from his nearly bald head like patches of dry, overgrown weeds. His nicotine-stained teeth were almost the same color as his weathered skin.
Behind him, on the opposite counter, was a row of unlabeled bottles filled with water. He motioned us over with a sweep of his bony arm.
“Howdy, folks, come on in,” he said. “There’s plenty of room up here at the bar or you can help yourself to a table.”
He motioned in the general direction of the baby.
Carol lifted up the baby, sniffed the diaper, and made a face.
Monk gasped in horror. “Are you insane?”
“Did that old drunk wet herself again?” Peschel said. “Show her the door, will you please, Bev? She’s scaring away the customers.”
The way he said it, he might have been joking. But I had a feeling he wasn’t. For one thing, he called his daughter Bev and her name was Carol.
“I’m going to go change the baby and see if I can put her down for a nap,” Carol said.
“Take your time,” Stottlemeyer said to her, then sat down on one of the stools and smiled at Peschel. “I’d like a gin and tonic, please. My partner here will have a beer.”
“You can’t do that, Captain. You’re on duty and I don’t drink,” Monk said. “The only alcohol that passes my lips is in mouthwash and I spit it right out again.”
Stottlemeyer shushed Monk with a wave of his hand.
“Stuck with another rookie?” Peschel asked Stottlemeyer.
“Afraid so,” Stottlemeyer said.