Mr. Monk Goes to Germany by Lee Goldberg (general ebook reader .TXT) 📕

climbed out of the blind and walked back down to the Franziskushohe.

I came into the lobby just as Dr. Kroger and Monk were finishing up their session outside. Dr. Kroger escorted Monk into the lobby as if it was his waiting room in San Francisco. If I’d been sitting on the couch reading Cosmopolitan or Highlights for Children, the re-creation would have been complete.

Monk was transformed. He appeared settled, almost serene. He was back to his old self again. Except for the lederhosen, that is.

“I think we made some real progress today, Adrian,” Dr. Kroger said. His words sounded forced to me.

“The excitement doesn’t have to stop now,” Monk said. “We can keep right on going.”

“Your session is over for today.”

“But you don’t have any other patients to see. We can spend all of our time together,” Monk said. “You’re here, Natalie is here. This can be a dream vacation.”

His dream, our nightmare.

Dr. Kroger gave me an “I told you so” look. But I was prepared for this. I’d worked out my strategy during the walk back to the hotel.

“We can’t stay here, Mr. Monk.”

“Of course we can. This is a hotel,” Monk said. “The three of us could get adjoining rooms. Wouldn’t that be grand?”

“I don’t think so, Adrian,” Dr. Kroger said.

“Why not?” Monk said.

“Because for seventy years this building was a sanitarium for people with tuberculosis,” I said. “And bronchitis, asthma, emphysema, and pneumonia.”

“To name a few,” Dr. Kroger said, meeting my eye and giving me a slight, appreciative nod.

“A few?” Monk said.

“Think of all the thousands of sick people who’ve been here,” Dr. Kroger said, “and all the coughing and sneezing and wheezing that has occurred within these walls.”

“The whole place is probably caked with layers of dried phlegm,” I said.

Monk shuddered. “That’s not possible.”

“See for yourself,” I said.

I led them outside and across the parking lot to one of the trailhead signs, which had a reproduction of a vintage photograph showing patients strolling with their nurses outside the hotel.

Monk stared at the picture in disbelief. “And they made this into a hotel? Were they insane?”

“After the sanitarium closed it became a convent,” I said. “Maybe they thought it was cleansed by prayer.”

“Prayer isn’t an antibiotic,” he said and held his hand out to me. “Wipe.”

I gave him one. He looked at Dr. Kroger as he scrubbed his hands and arms with the moist disinfectant towelette.

“You should leave with us,” Monk said. “While you can still breathe.”

“I’m staying,” Dr. Kroger said. “The conference is here and I have a strong immune system.”

“God help you,” Monk said, handing me the used wipe and motioning urgently to me for a new one. He started cleaning his legs with the towelette as Dr. Kroger began to walk back to the hotel.

“Good-bye, Adrian,” Dr. Kroger said.

“See you the day after tomorrow,” Monk said.

Dr. Kroger froze in his tracks and turned slowly to look at us. “You’re coming back?”

“For my next appointment.” Monk snapped his fingers at me for another wipe. I gave it to him.

“Do you think that’s wise with all the disease and nature around here?” I asked.

“I would walk across hot coals to see Dr. Kroger,” Monk said. “That’s how much he means to me.”

“You can’t imagine how that makes me feel,” Dr. Kroger said and trudged back to the hotel, his shoulders slumped with misery. He was a beaten man. I knew how he felt.

Monk started wiping his face and neck. “There goes a great man, facing certain death so that he can enhance his knowledge of psychiatry for his patients.”

“Do you feel better now?”

“Wonderful.” Monk held the wipe over his nose and mouth. “Completely relaxed.”

“I can see that,” I said.

We went back to the car. He didn’t stop breathing through the wipe until we drove back over the little bridge at the bottom of the hill and were heading into town.

“We need to call Captain Stottlemeyer right away,” he said.

“What for?”

“I’ve solved a murder,” he said.

“You have?” I said. “Whose?”

“Clarke Trotter’s,” Monk said.

I’d forgotten all about the cheating husband who was clobbered with a frying pan and I thought that Monk had, too. Monk hadn’t seemed to be paying attention to anything at the crime scene except his own misery.

But apparently I was wrong. On some level, he was unconsciously picking up details the whole time, despite his emotional and psychological meltdown. It was like he had a split personality, one that was freakishly unstable and another that concentrated unwaveringly on details and was impervious to distraction.

“What makes you think that Captain Stottlemeyer hasn’t already closed the case?” I asked.

“He would have called.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Professional courtesy,” Monk said. “He wouldn’t want me concentrating on the mystery for nothing.”

“He didn’t think that you were concentrating on it at all,” I said.

“Of course he did,” Monk said. “He was relying on me.”

“He couldn’t rely on you,” I said. “That’s why you were fired from the case.”

“I don’t recall things that way,” he said.

“That’s because you have a selective memory,” I said. “You remember every single detail except the ones that don’t fit your worldview.”

“Everything fits in my worldview,” Monk said.

We parked in the town square again. I scrounged around in my purse for my cell phone and called the captain.

“What’s the emergency?” he asked groggily. I’d obviously awakened him.

“Shouldn’t