Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii Goldberg, Lee (best summer books .TXT) 📖

as we drove along Hoonani Road, which hugged the shoreline. On the other side of the street were condo complexes and private homes facing the water.

“It’s so beautiful here, isn’t it? Even when all you can see are the silhouettes of the palm trees cast against the moon.”

“Not to mention the Jeep the woman from the catamaran is driving.”

“Huh?” I said. That was really the best I could do under the circumstances.

“We’re following one of the tourists who was on the Snorkel Rob cruise this morning.”

“We are?” I tried to sound surprised and not guilty. Now I knew how the bad guys felt when he revealed their crimes.

“She was at the counter of the restaurant when we left.”

“Really? Your powers of observation are absolutely amazing. I never would have recognized her.”

“So it’s a coincidence that we’re following her.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “We’re just taking a drive along the water.”

“Then why did you slow down to let two cars get between us and her?”

“Because I’m a very courteous driver.”

“I watch The Rockford Files, too. We watch it together.”

She pulled into a condominium complex and parked behind one of the waterfront units. The condominiums were called the Whaler’s Hideaway, the name written in rusted metal-strip scrawl on the low lava-rock wall that ringed the complex. Another one of Dylan Swift’s images came back to me.

Captain Ahab hiding in the shadows.

A whaler hiding? It was a stretch, but here she was at Whaler’s Hideaway. The image fit, just like “love taking flight” matched her tattoo. I felt a shiver go through me, and the opening notes of The Twilight Zone theme song played in my head.

I drove around to the front of the building, where it faced the Pacific, and parked on the street so we could see the unit she entered as well as all the others in the complex. Everybody had their drapes wide-open to take in the view. We could see into every unit, including hers.

And we could see Lance Vaughan greet her at the door, giving her a kiss on the lips. She squeezed his butt and took their food to the table on their lanai.

Monk turned to me. “How did you know?”

“Would you believe I deduced it?”

“No.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Because if there was something to deduce, I would have deduced it. Deducing is what I do.”

I sighed with defeat. I really didn’t want to tell him, but I had to now.

“I had some help.”

“From who?”

“Helen Gruber.”

Monk gave me a look. “She’s dead.”

“I know, but she left you a message this afternoon.”

“How could she if she’s dead?”

“She talked to Dylan Swift,” I said. “From the great beyond.”

12

Mr. Monk Shows How It’s Done

On the way back to the hotel and up to our adjoining rooms, I told Monk all about my encounter with Dylan Swift at the poolside bar. I recounted everything Swift said about the murder and the images and sensations Helen shared with him from the great beyond—the smell of lilac, a lumberjack holding a porcelain doll, the taste of liliko’i pie, Captain Ahab hiding in shadow, barbed wire against flesh, love taking flight, and a pine tree.

I sat on the edge of my bed and he sat in one of the two rattan easy chairs. I expected him to explode with anger or something, but he didn’t. He just sat there calmly looking at me.

“I haven’t checked but I bet there are two Toblerones in my minibar.”

“Mr. Monk, did you hear a word I said?”

He nodded.

“And?”

“I wonder how many Toblerones are in your minibar.” Monk got up and went to my minibar.

“I know I should have brought Swift straight to you but I was skeptical about this whole talking-tothe-dead thing.”

“Because it’s impossible. He’s a fraud. Nobody can talk to the dead,” Monk said, tugging at the minibar door. “You did the right thing keeping him away from me.”

“I did?”

“He would have distracted me from the investigation, which needs my full attention,” Monk said. “Where is the minibar key?”

“I gave it back to the front desk,” I said. “I didn’t want to be tempted by the stuff in there.”

“I need a wipe and a hairpin,” he said.

I opened my purse, found a Wet Ones and a hairpin, and gave them both to Monk. He used the wipe to clean the hairpin of all my deadly germs.

“You say Swift is a fraud, but two of the images that Swift saw connect Lance Vaughan to the woman on that boat,” I said. “We wouldn’t have known there was a relationship between Lance and her if it wasn’t for Swift.”

“So now you believe him?” Monk worked the hairpin into the minibar lock. “You think he talks to ghosts?”

“I don’t know. But if those two images gave us a lead in the case, maybe the other stuff he told me will, too.”

“You want to believe him,” Monk said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. That’s why you’d rather believe he can communicate with spirits than consider the most obvious explanation for his accuracy.”

“Which is?”

“Swift must have seen Lance and that woman together before. When he learned that Helen was murdered, Swift figured there was a way to use that information to make it seem as if he were communicating with the dead and bolster his reputation as a medium.”

The minibar lock clicked. Monk smiled, pleased with himself, and opened the little refrigerator. “Look at that, two Toblerone bars but one of everything else.”

“Maybe Toblerone bars are simply more popular than everything else.”

“You’re so gullible,” Monk said, closing the minibar. “But even so, to get you to believe in something as outrageous as talking to ghosts, Swift still would have had to win your sympathy first.”

“He didn’t win anything from me,” I said.

“He softened you up somehow. He had to make you want to believe him,” Monk said. “And I can only think of one way he could do that. He gave you a message from Mitch.”

“I’m not that easy.” I felt my eyes tearing up, my emotions betraying me. “You are