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

Dr. Rahner walked away. Dr. Kroger looked at me for answers. I had none to give him, so I walked away, too.

I found Monk waiting in the car for me.

As I got in, Monk said, “He’s the guy.”

I nodded. “How did you figure it out?”

“His shoes,” Monk said. “He ties his laces using the Norwegian Reef Knot.”

“I’m sure a lot of Norwegians do, too,” I said. “What makes you certain it was Rahner who tied Leupolz’s running shoes?”

“The bows were identical,” Monk said.

“What else have you got?” I asked.

“That’s all,” Monk said.

“Oh boy,” I said and started the car.

Stoffmacher and Geshir were standing over a table covered with files and evidence bags as we came into the police station.

“Mr. Monk,” Stoffmacher said, waving us to join him behind the counter. “I was just about to call you. There have been some interesting new developments in our investigation.”

The Baggies on the table contained the gun, some pillow feathers, Leupolz’s running shoes, the scorched notebook rings, and a misshapen bullet that I assumed had been extracted from Axel Vigg’s head.

“It’s solved,” Monk said.

“I wish that it was,” Stoffmacher said. “If anything, the mystery has become even more perplexing.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Monk said. “It’s all over. I know who did it.”

“Did what?” Stoffmacher asked.

“I know who murdered Bruno Leupolz and Axel Vigg,” Monk said.

“Leupolz wasn’t murdered,” Stoffmacher said. “The coroner says the journalist died of a heart attack. There were no signs of foul play and his toxicology test came back clean.”

Monk’s eyes widened. “Leupolz was a reporter?”

“He was a freelance writer for Im Fadenkreuz, a newsmagazine in Berlin,” Geshir said.

“What story was he working on in Lohr?” Monk asked.

“What does it matter?” Geshir said. “He died of natural causes.”

“My wife was a reporter,” Monk said.

“I don’t see what any of this has to do with the murder of your wife,” Stoffmacher said.

“It’s the second reporter he’s killed,” Monk said.

“Who?” Stoffmacher said.

“Dr. Martin Rahner,” Monk said. “The man you have been protecting. The man you are covering up for now.”

“You always knew that Dr. Rahner was the eleven-fingered man Mr. Monk was looking for,” I said to the detectives. “But you kept quiet.”

“Of course we did,” Stoffmacher said. “Dr. Rahner is a respected member of our community. He has been for years. I didn’t want him to be harassed simply because he was born with an extra finger.”

“He’s a murderer,” Monk said, his gaze drifting over the evidence bags on the table.

Geshir snorted. “According to a tourist with extreme psychological problems who followed his psychiatrist to Germany.”

“Mr. Monk may have a few personal issues,” I said, “but he has solved more homicides than all the detectives in Germany combined.”

I didn’t know if that statistic was even remotely true, but it sounded impressive and I was pissed off. I don’t like it when people snort at me or Monk. Snorting is extremely rude.

“However, he’s also a man who was dismissed by the San Francisco Police Department because he was psychologically unfit, who has been under the care of a psychiatrist for years,” Stoffmacher said, “and who has just accused Dr. Rahner of murdering a man who died of natural causes.”

“You’re right,” Monk said.

“He is?” I said. I expected the police to challenge my arguments but I didn’t expect the man I was defending to contradict me.

“Everything he says about me is true and Bruno Leupolz died of natural causes.”

“At least he is beginning to see reason,” Stoffmacher said pointedly to me, “even if you are not.”

“But it was still murder,” Monk said. “And Dr. Rahner did it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Geshir said.

“Here’s what happened,” Monk said. “Leupolz was going to write an unflattering article about Dr. Rahner. I don’t know what Leupolz discovered, but whatever it was, it was damaging enough to force Dr. Rahner to take extreme measures.”

Monk explained that Dr. Rahner slipped into Leupolz’s apartment two nights ago to go through the reporter’s notes and discover what he’d uncovered. When Leupolz returned, Dr. Rahner tried to scare the reporter off the story. Dr. Rahner fired a gun into the wall to prove he was serious. It worked. He scared Leupolz to death.

“The reporter had a heart attack and, if that wasn’t bad enough, the bullet that Dr. Rahner fired into the wall killed the unfortunate man who lived next door,” Monk said. “Things had gone very, very wrong for Dr. Rahner and now he had to quickly improvise a way out of it. It wasn’t easy. He had to remove any hint of a crime and any connection between the two deaths so that, at most, it looked like a tragic coincidence.”

The first thing Dr. Rahner had to do, Monk explained, was clean up the crime scene and remove anything that tied Leupolz to him. So he vacuumed up the pillow stuffing, burned all the reporter’s notes, and stole his laptop.

Dr. Rahner’s next task was to make Vigg’s death look like a suicide.

He covered the bullet hole in the wall between the two apartments. He put the gun in Vigg’s hand and shot the couch to make sure the victim had gunpowder residue on him. And he locked the door on his way out to delay discovery of the body as long as possible.

All that remained now was to dispose of Leupolz’s body and create a believable scenario for his death. Dr. Rahner dressed Leupolz in sweats and running