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

was Dale the Whale who gave Monk the vital clue that allowed him to track down Trudy’s bomber to a New York hospital, where the cancer-stricken man was on his deathbed.

In a dying declaration, the bomber swore to Monk that he’d been hired to plant the explosive by someone else, a man whose name he didn’t know and whose face he never saw, but who had six fingers on his right hand.

Monk and Stottlemeyer had been on the lookout for a six-fingered man ever since but without success.

“You’ve had a rough week emotionally and psychologically, ” I said to him. “You’re jet-lagged. Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you.”

“My eyes don’t do that,” Monk said. “I saw a man with eleven fingers.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe you did.”

“I did,” Monk said firmly.

“But you don’t know it was the same man who hired someone to kill Trudy,” I said. “It could be another eleven-fingered guy.”

“I doubt it,” Monk said.

“Why?” I said. “Why would the killer be here, of all places?”

Monk stopped and looked at me. “Think about it. This is the perfect place for him to hide. A small town clear across the world. Not just any small town, but one steeped in death and disease, one that was so horrific that it spawned an enduring nightmare like Snow White.”

“This is a lovely town,” I said. “Snow White is a beloved fable.”

“Lohr is the last place on earth I would ever look for him or ever visit,” Monk said. “He knew that.”

“And yet here you are, by sheer coincidence, in the one place on earth he chose to hide.”

“It’s fate,” he said.

“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “Besides, you don’t believe in coincidences, especially when murder is involved.”

“I do now,” Monk said.

I didn’t know whether or not Monk had actually seen a man with six fingers. But I didn’t believe for one moment that the man who ordered Trudy Monk’s death was hiding out in Lohr, Germany. It was obvious to me what was really happening.

“I have a much more logical explanation for what you saw,” I said.

“What could possibly be more logical than what I just told you?”

“You are in a place where you’ve never been and you have to adapt to a totally different language, culture, and way of life than you are familiar with. It makes you uncomfortable— you said so yourself last night. On top of that, you are facing a day where you have nothing to do. You couldn’t deal with it, so in a panic your mind invented something that would completely occupy your thoughts and distract you from all the frightening differences around you.”

Monk stared at me for a long moment before saying, “That is the craziest thing I’ve heard.”

“You can’t tolerate change and you can’t tolerate the idea of having a day off,” I said. “So you created a purpose for yourself that couldn’t be denied: finding Trudy’s killer, even though we are in the least likely place for you to find him.”

“Which is exactly why he is here,” Monk said. “You have just proven my point.”

“You didn’t listen to a word I said.”

“Yes, I did,” Monk said. “But just the words that made sense, which was roughly one out of ten.”

“You mean you only listened to what you wanted to hear.”

“Of course. Why would I do otherwise? That would be like intentionally eating something that makes you sick.”

I couldn’t argue with that analogy. It was totally accurate and unintentionally revealing. He couldn’t listen to anything that conflicted with his extraordinarily rigid worldview.

“So what do you want to do? A door-to-door search?”

“Good idea,” Monk said. “Let’s gather those kids who dress up as the Three Kings and get them to do another collection. We can tag along and see who opens the doors.”

“That doesn’t seem very practical, Mr. Monk. January sixth is a long way off and I don’t think anybody will be fooled.”

“You’re right. We don’t have the time to take the subtle approach,” Monk said.

“That was subtle?”

“We have to go to the police.”

“What can they do?” I said. “There hasn’t been a crime.”

“My wife was murdered,” Monk said.

“I know, Mr. Monk, and I don’t mean to deny the pain and loss that you feel. But she wasn’t killed here and there’s no evidence that the eleven-fingered man you saw, if you even saw him, was the man who did it.”

“That’s why we need the police,” Monk said. “If we find the man, we’ll find the evidence.”

“I have a better idea,” I said. “Let’s hold off doing anything until your appointment with Dr. Kroger tomorrow. Maybe he can help you work through the issues at the heart of all of this.”

“Tomorrow could be too late,” Monk said. “The killer could be packing up and preparing for his escape right now.”

“Okay, let’s see Dr. Kroger today.”

Dr. Kroger wouldn’t be too pleased, but Monk’s mental health took precedence as far as I was concerned.

“I don’t need a psychiatrist,” Monk said. “I need a special unit of trained detectives scouring this godforsaken place for the man who killed my wife.”

And with that, Monk marched off in search of the police and I saw my vacation slipping away into madness.

The Lohr police station wasn’t much larger than the tourist office and it was occupied by just two people: the female dispatcher and a uniformed officer at the counter, who turned out to be the same guy who’d witnessed Monk’s meltdown in the town square and carried him back