Mr. Monk in Outer Space by Goldberg, Lee (best sci fi novels of all time .txt) 📕

under the dim glow of the street-light with the office buildings empty and the street deserted. It was a nice area but I still wouldn’t stop my car here under those conditions.

“The cabbie must have been desperate for a fare to stop here,” I said.

“Or new at the business,” Stottlemeyer said. “Or fatally stupid.”

Monk rolled his shoulders. “You’re assuming the cabbie was driving along Sansome Street when the robber caught his attention.”

“Yeah,” Stottlemeyer said.

“Are you sure the cabbie wasn’t responding to a call?” Monk asked.

Disher nodded. “We checked with his dispatcher. There was no call. And the cabbie didn’t call in that he was picking someone up. The dispatcher says that’s not unusual. The cabbie wouldn’t have called in until he knew his destination.”

Monk stepped back over the police tape, went to the sidewalk, and looked to his right at Sansome Street, Levi Plaza, and the bay beyond.

“If someone tried to flag the cab down from here, the cabbie wouldn’t have been able to see him,” Monk said. “The robber would have had to be standing on the corner.”

“Okay,” Stottlemeyer said, “so he was at the corner.”

“But look at how the cab is parked,” Monk said. “The driver pulled in and turned around so he’d be facing the street again. Why would he do that if he was picking someone up at the corner?”

The three of us stepped over the police tape and joined Monk on the sidewalk.

“Simple. The cab was going the opposite direction when the robber flagged him down,” Stottlemeyer said. “While the cab was making the U-turn to pick him up, the robber walked back here.”

“Wouldn’t that have made the cabbie suspicious?” Monk asked.

“It should have,” Stottlemeyer said. “Apparently it didn’t and he paid for his mistake.”

Monk frowned. Stottlemeyer frowned. So did Disher.

I was pretty sure that they were each frowning for very different reasons.

Monk was frowning because something didn’t seem right to him about the murder.

Stottlemeyer was frowning because he thought he had it all figured out and he didn’t want Monk complicating things.

And Disher was frowning because if Monk made things more complicated it would mean more work for him and more time away from investigating the Lorber case.

Monk held out his hand to me. “Baggie, please.”

I reached into my purse and gave Monk one. I carry around a lot of Baggies in my purse for disposing of his used wipes and for collecting any evidence that he finds at crime scenes.

He walked back to the lot and disappeared behind the building. I turned to Stottlemeyer and Disher.

“Have you come up with any new leads in the Stipe investigation?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t call them leads, but we have some interesting information.” Disher referred to his notebook. “A writer named Willis Goldkin filed a lawsuit a couple of days ago against Stipe, claiming half the profits from the show.”

“On what grounds?”

“That he co-created it and that Stipe ripped him off,” Disher said. “Now that Stipe is dead, Goldkin might stand a better chance of winning.”

“Why did he wait so long to sue?”

“There wasn’t any money in it before,” Stottlemeyer said. “Now there is.”

“That’s not all,” Disher said. “Stipe was granted a restraining order a month ago against Ernest Pinchuk, the leader of the Galactic Uprising, for stalking him and sending him threatening e-mails.”

“Were they in English or Dratch?”

“What’s Dratch?” Stottlemeyer asked.

That was when we heard a loud pop that sounded like a gunshot. The sound came from the vacant lot. Two uniformed officers instinctively reached for their guns. We hurried over to find Monk standing beside the body, holding the Baggie, which was now torn.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stottlemeyer asked.

“Proving a point,” Monk said.

“You could have gotten yourself shot,” Stottlemeyer said.

“There’s a big echo in this pocket created by the building and the side of the hill. If blowing up a plastic bag and popping it made that much noise with all the traffic on Sansome, imagine what a gunshot would have sounded like last night. But none of the residents up there along the Filbert Steps reported hearing anything, did they?”

“No, they didn’t,” Stottlemeyer said with a groan.

“So the robber used a silencer,” Disher said.

Stottlemeyer shook his head. Monk walked over to the taxi. Stottlemeyer sighed with resignation.

“We’ve got to face it, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said. “This wasn’t a robbery. It was staged to look like one.”

“Why do you say that?” Disher asked.

“Because robberies like this are done by desperate people, and they don’t usually carry around silencers, ” Stottlemeyer said. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken decaf this morning. I’m sleep-walking through this investigation.”

Stottlemeyer was often too hard on himself for missing the things that Monk saw. I’m sure the captain would have come to the same conclusion as Monk. It just would have taken him a lot longer.

“My coffee is caffeinated,” Disher said. “What’s my excuse?”

“I don’t know, Randy,” Stottlemeyer said. “Maybe you were distracted by the demands of the Special Desecration Unit.”

“Yeah,” Disher said. “That must be it. I don’t need to tell you how overwhelming a command position can be.”

Stottlemeyer turned to Monk, who was walking around the cab, a scowl of disgust on his face.

“Thanks, Monk. We’ll take it from here.”

“This car is filthy,” Monk said. “When was the last time the cabbie washed it?”

“I don’t know, but I promise you that we’ll wash it when the lab guys are done.”

Monk took out a handkerchief and used it to open the rear door of the car.

“There’s no need to do that, Monk. I appreciate your help, and for setting us on the right track, but we’ll handle this one ourselves. I need you to concentrate on finding Conrad Stipe’s killer.”

But Monk ignored him and leaned into