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

death connected, if at all, to the violent end of Axel Vigg? Or was it just one more bizarre coincidence in a day filled with a record-breaking number of them?

Those were just a few of the questions going through my mind and were probably among the ones that Stoffmacher and Geshir were thinking about, too.

“There’s more,” Monk said.

Stoffmacher sighed. “Of course there is.”

“Look at how his laces are tied. The starting knot and finishing bow are perfectly balanced. It’s a textbook example of the Norwegian Reef Knot. But, as I am sure you recall, the shoes he kicked off in his bedroom were tied with sloppy Granny Knots.”

I remembered the shoes, but not the knots. I don’t pay attention to the things that Monk does. I also couldn’t tell you how many parking meters there are on Market Street, how many sesame seeds there are on a hamburger bun, or if there are any hangers in my closet that aren’t facing the same direction.

“You’re suggesting that someone else put on his shoes,” Stoffmacher said.

“And dressed him in that jogging outfit,” Monk said. “It was probably the same person who dumped his body here. This whole scene has been staged.”

“To tell us what?” Geshir said.

“I don’t know yet,” Monk said. “But it was improvised in a hurry. If the killer had planned this in advance, he wouldn’t have been so sloppy.”

“You keep saying ‘the killer,’ ” Stoffmacher said. “But there is no indication yet that Leupolz was murdered.”

“He was,” Monk said.

I heard the sounds of people approaching. I turned and saw a dozen people in matching yellow plastic overalls marching up the trail. They carried metal cases, cameras, a body bag, and a stretcher. I assumed that they were the coroner and the first wave of crime scene technicians.

“You should dredge that pond,” Monk said, tipping his head towards the muddy brown watering hole a few yards from the trail.

“What for?” Geshir said. “We aren’t looking for anything.”

“There’s the missing laptop,” Monk said. “My guess is that’s where the killer tossed it, in a vacuum cleaner bag stuffed with feathers and a pillowcase, after removing the hard drive.”

The technicians began to take pictures and set up shop around the body. A man I took to be the coroner squatted beside Stoffmacher and began to examine the body.

“I think we can take it from here,” Stoffmacher said to Monk. “We appreciate all the advice you’ve given us.”

“What about my problem?” Monk said.

“We’ll contact you at your bed-and-breakfast if we have any developments in our investigations,” Stoffmacher said.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Monk said. “How am I supposed to get there?”

Stoffmacher looked confused, so I explained things to him.

“Mr. Monk is referring to his muddy shoes,” I said. “If he takes a step, he risks getting even muddier.”

Stoffmacher sighed and said something in German to the two men with the stretcher. They brought the stretcher over to Monk.

“They’ll take you back to the car,” Stoffmacher said.

The two men held up the stretcher and Monk carefully eased himself onto it.

“I knew this was how I would be leaving here,” Monk said miserably. “At least I’m not in the body bag.”

Monk had to change his shoes the moment we returned to the bed-and-breakfast. He came out of his room a few minutes later wearing an identical pair of Hush Puppies, his dirty pair in a sealed plastic bag that he held at arm’s length.

“You’re throwing out your shoes?” I said.

“What other choice do I have?”

“You could clean them.”

“There’s only one thing that will clean these shoes.” Monk handed the bag to Heiko Schmidt on our way out. “Incinerate this immediately.”

We headed out for an early dinner at the same place we’d visited the night before. This time I was a bit more daring. I ordered the Wienerschnitzel and was pleasantly surprised when they didn’t deliver a hot dog to the table.

When I was growing up in Monterey, there was a chain of fast-food places in California called Der Wienerschnitzel that served a wide array of lousy hot dogs that looked even worse than they tasted.

I assumed, like every other ignorant Californian, that Wienerschnitzel was the German term for hot dog. But no, it’s not. It’s actually a lightly battered and fried veal cutlet that’s similar to a country-fried steak, only a lot more light and tasty.

So why would somebody call a hot dog stand the Fried Veal? It would be like calling a hamburger place the Chow Mein.

It made no sense.

Trying to understand the logic behind Der Wienerschnitzel was the depth of intellectual thought I was capable of after the long day that I’d had.

As tasty as dinner was, it took all the willpower I had not to fall asleep at the table. Monk was fighting fatigue, too. We left the instant we finished eating.

I was back in my room and in bed by eight p.m. I was so exhausted, I was certain that I would sleep through until breakfast. But jet lag was still messing with my internal clock and I woke up, refreshed and fully alert, at three a.m.

I was lying in bed, trying to decide what to do with myself for the three or four hours until breakfast, when my cell phone rang. I answered it, grateful for something to do.

“That’s a surprisingly energetic and cheerful greeting for someone who was rudely awakened from a deep sleep,” Stottlemeyer said to me.

“That’s because I was wide-awake,” I said.

“It is three a.m. there, right?”

“Yep,” I