Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants by Goldberg, Lee (books for students to read .TXT) 📕

I parked at the curb, earning a few honks from angry motorists as they sped past me and flipped me off. I hope they enjoyed it because in five years, when their hands were webbed, doing that wouldn’t be so easy.

“Pop the trunk,” Sharona said. “I’m getting my suitcase.”

“You’re not seriously going to stay here,” I said.

She answered me by getting out of the car. I got out and went around back with her. Monk stayed inside.

“My husband is in prison, Natalie,” she said. “I don’t have any choice. I’m going to find some other suspects.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll nose around, talk to Ellen’s coworkers, her neighbors, that kind of thing,” she said. “I’ve learned a few things about detective work from spending time with Adrian. I’ll come up with something.”

“What about your job?” I said. “Your son?”

“Benji will be fine with my sister,” Sharona said. “I’ll call in sick at work. If I get fired, well, I’ve always got a job with Adrian.”

She saw the look on my face and shrugged. “Sorry, Natalie. That’s just the way it is,” she said, pulling her suitcase out of the car. “Sometimes life sucks.”

Like I didn’t know already. “How long will you stay here?”

“Until my money runs out,” she said, “which means I’ll probably be back in a few days.”

“I’ll nag him to keep investigating in the meantime,” I said. “There must be something he can do from San Francisco.”

“I hope so,” she said. “For both of our sakes.”

I got the subtle nudge, not that I really needed any motivation.

“Good luck,” I said.

“You, too,” she said. “You’ve still got to endure six hours in a car with Adrian Monk. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

The drive home wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Monk moved to the front seat and kept his gas mask on until we were a hundred miles outside of Los Angeles. But he left the mask resting on the seat beside him just in case and insisted that I give him a thirty-minute warning before we neared Harris Ranch.

Monk began to browse through Ian Ludlow’s books. He opened Names Are for Tombstones, read a page or two and slammed the book shut.

“The beekeeper did it,” he said.

He picked up Death Works Weekends and flipped through the first few pages. “The matador did it,” he said.

He closed the book and picked up another, Ludlow’s latest, Death Is the Last Word. Once again, he gave it a couple pages before closing the book.

“The massage therapist did it,” Monk said.

“You only glanced at the first couple of pages,” I said.

“Ludlow is so heavy-handed, he might as well reveal the killer on the cover,” Monk said. “The murderer always has a personality quirk that is his or her undoing.”

“How would you know?” I said. “You haven’t read to the end of any of his books.”

Monk picked up a book, flipped to the end of it and nodded.

“The massage therapist is claustrophobic, so she opened the windows at the crime scene,” Monk said. “That’s how Detective Marshak knew it was her.”

“Thanks for ruining the books for me,” I said.

“They were lousy anyway,” Monk said. “You live more interesting mysteries than Ludlow can make up.”

“Those are work,” I said. “These would have been for enjoyment.”

“What’s enjoyable about reading some contrived mystery where the killer is always the least obvious person who is caught the same way every time?”

“Nothing anymore,” I said. “I can never read an Ian Ludlow book again.”

“You’ll thank me later,” Monk said.

“You’re always saying that and has anyone ever thanked you later?”

“I guess I surround myself with impolite people,” he said. “You could thank me.”

“For what?”

“For all the things I’ve done for you that you should have thanked me for.”

“Like the time you threw out all my dishes because one bowl was chipped?”

“That’s a perfect example,” Monk said.

“Yes, it is.”

We drove for a few minutes in silence before he spoke up again.

“I’m not seeing your point,” he said.

“Think about it some more,” I said. “You’ll thank me later.”

He didn’t.

I warned him a half hour before we got to Harris Ranch and we drove past without incident, though he kept his eyes closed the whole time and gripped the dashboard as if he were riding a roller coaster.

Not long after we passed Harris Ranch, I had to stop to use a restroom and was prepared for a layover of a couple hours while Monk cleaned a men’s room so he could use it. But Monk didn’t need to relieve himself.

In fact, to ensure that he wouldn’t need to use a restroom at all during the drive, I learned that he hadn’t had anything to drink since he awoke that morning. And he declared to me that he wasn’t going to eat or drink anything for the duration of the journey.

I wasn’t under any such restriction. So I had a burger, some fries and an extra-large Coke at a Wendy’s while Monk sat across from me, wheezing and licking his chapped lips.

I refilled my Coke and we got back on the road. For the rest of the trip, his stomach growled and he kept making these odd choking sounds. I turned up the radio to drown him out. After a couple hours, he either fell asleep or passed out from dehydration.

We got back to San Francisco around eight p.m. I nudged him awake and helped him lug his suitcases into his apartment. He was so glad to be home that he probably would have cried if there had been any moisture left in his body.

I went to Sharona’s sister’s place to pick up Julie, and we went home. It