“And my panties,” I added. Mantooth’s smiled faded. I looked around. Everybody was staring at me. “C’mon, guys, everybody loses underwear.”
The men shared glances, shook their heads, and looked at me with bewilderment, especially Monk and Joe.
“I know this for a fact,” I said.
“I want you to think about something, Captain,” Monk said, saving me from further embarrassment, though I’m sure that wasn’t the reason he spoke up. “In general, were you more likely to notice a towel or two missing after you returned from responding to a fire?”
Mantooth mulled that over for a moment. “Now that you mention it, yeah, maybe you’re right. But to be sure I’d have to check my records.”
“You keep a record of missing towels?” I asked, incredulous.
“I keep track to justify the expense of buying new ones,” Mantooth said. “I have to account for every penny that I spend.”
I had a feeling he would whether he had to or not. No wonder Monk wanted to be a fireman. Mantooth was almost as anal as he was, which gave me reason to wonder what Joe’s dark side might be like. Joe had been amazingly punctual when he came to pick me up for our date. Was punctuality a thing with him? What would happen the first time I was late to meet him somewhere?
Monk turned to Joe. “Did Sparky run around the neighborhood only when the company was on call to a fire?”
“Yeah,” Joe said.
“How come you didn’t tie him up?”
“Sparky always came back,” Joe said. “I didn’t want to restrict his freedom.”
“When he came back,” Monk asked, “what did he smell like?”
Joe seemed bewildered by the question. I certainly was. “Like crap. I don’t know what he got himself into.”
“How bad was the smell?”
“I usually had to give him a bath as soon as he got back or Cap would give me hell.”
“I like a clean station,” Mantooth said. “Cleanliness is the outward expression of order.”
“Amen, brother,” Monk said, and then he smiled at me. I’ve seen that smile before, usually just before somebody gets arrested and sent to prison for a very long time. “Let’s go have a talk with Mr. Dumas.”
I followed Monk across the street to Gregorio Dumas’s house and knocked on the door. Monk stood directly behind me, using me as a shield, his hands poised to protect his groin from canine attack. How gallant.
Gregorio opened the door wearing a red smoking jacket, pajama pants, and so much bling that he made Mr. T, Sammy Davis Jr., and Liberace look under-accessorized by comparison. I know those celebrity references are dated, but somewhere between the time I graduated college and the day I became a mother, my cultural needle got stuck. I don’t want to think about how out of touch I am with American popular culture. It makes me feel like I’ve become my mother, and that’s scary.
Anyway, back to Gregorio. Monk asked if the dog was out back and, if she was, if we could come in and talk to him for a moment.
Gregorio reluctantly invited us in. We took a seat on the couch and he sat in a chair across from us. He didn’t look too happy about our being there.
“Can we make this quick? Jeopardy is on,” Gregorio said.
“That’s the game where they give you the answers and you have to come up with the questions,” Monk said.
“Yes, it is.”
“Oh, great,” Monk said, “let’s play.”
“What do you mean?” Gregorio said. “You want to watch TV with me?”
“Let’s have our own game. I’ll give you the answers and you can give me the questions. Ready? Here’s the answer: Roderick Turlock’s gold.”
Gregorio flinched as if he’d been slapped.
“C’mon, Mr. Dumas,” Monk said, “take a guess.”
Gregorio didn’t say anything, but he began to sweat under his pompadour. Monk mimed the sound of a buzzer.
“Time’s up. The question is: Why have you been tunneling from your house to the sewer and from the sewer to the fire station? That was fun, wasn’t it? Here’s another answer: To wipe your footprints off the firehouse floor. Can you tell me the question?”
Gregorio licked his lips and wiped his brow.
“You aren’t even trying, Mr. Dumas,” Monk said.
“I am,” he said. “I just don’t know the question. The answer makes no sense.”
“I know, I know,” I said, raising my hand and waving it enthusiastically.
Monk smiled and pointed to me. “Yes, Natalie, what’s your guess?”
“Why did Mr. Dumas steal the towels?” I said.
“Correct!” Monk said. “He tunneled under the firehouse searching for the gold whenever the firemen left the station. But he didn’t want Sparky barking and attracting attention to his digging, so he’d lure him out of the station with a rubber hot-dog squeak toy. It’s Sparky’s favorite. There’s one on Mr. Dumas’s porch that’s identical to the toy in Sparky’s basket.”
All the disparate facts, all the things we’d seen and heard, suddenly fell into place for me. It was an exhilarating feeling, and for a moment I understood why detectives want to be detectives.
“Sparky got to this house by way of the tunnel and the sewer,” I said. “That’s how Sparky got past the razor-wire fence and impregnated Letitia. And that’s why Sparky always came back to the station smelling like he was covered with crap. It was crap.”
Gregorio broke into a deep sweat.
“Natalie is winning this round, Mr. Dumas,” Monk said. “You’re going to have to guess the right question to this answer to stay in the game. Here it is: Fifteen years in prison.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Gregorio screeched.
Monk shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, the correct question is: What’s the combined jail term for filing a fraudulent lawsuit and committing an extreme act of animal cruelty?”
“I treat Letitia like royalty!” Gregorio said.
“But you murdered Sparky,” I said.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Gregorio said. “Yeah, I’ve been digging for Turlock’s gold, and I was in the firehouse Friday night, but I didn’t kill Sparky.”
“Convince us,” I said.
“The truth is, Letitia is over-the-hill, past her prime. The only reason she won her last show two years ago was because I spent twenty-two thousand dollars on an extreme makeover.”
“She had plastic surgery?” Monk said.
“It bought us another year on the dog show circuit, but that was it,” Gregorio said. “The judges have sharp eyes, and no amount of cosmetic surgery can prevent the inevitable decline of beauty. We’ve been living on the gold coins I’ve been able to dig up under the firehouse. My plan was that once the coins ran out, we’d live off a settlement from the fire department on our lawsuit.”
“Your fraudulent lawsuit,” I said. “You were using Letitia to keep Sparky occupied while you hunted for gold.”
“Tell us what really happened on Friday night, Mr. Dumas,” Monk asked.
Gregoria sighed heavily. “It started out like usual. As soon as the fire trucks left, I took the tunnel to the firehouse basement. I could hear Sparky barking. But when I came out in the basement I didn’t hear anything. So I took two towels, wiped off my feet, and went upstairs to look around. That’s when I saw Sparky lying there and the fireman leaving.”
I snorted in disgust. “You’re sticking to your story that a fireman did it? It’s laughable. Why don’t you just go all the way and admit what you did?”
“Because I’m telling the truth,” Gregorio said, his eyes welling with tears. “I couldn’t have killed Sparky.”
“Why not?” I asked with as much sarcasm and disgust as I could put behind the two words.