Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants, Goldberg, Lee [book series for 10 year olds .TXT] 📗

broken his heart, even though I knew he didn’t love me either. Not like that. Not like he loved Trudy or I loved Mitch.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “You know that I want you in my life, Mr. Monk, and that I care deeply for you, but not the way Ludlow is making it seem.”

I felt terrible and hated Ludlow for having made me say something so cruel and hurtful to someone I was close to. It was a crime and I wished there was some way I could punish him for it.

But at the moment, it was all I could do to hold my own against the wave of accusations that were coming at me. And he wasn’t done yet.

“Your protestations would be a lot easier to believe if there wasn’t so much irrefutable evidence to the contrary,” Ludlow said. “I suppose I’m somewhat to blame for what happened. On Tuesday, you bought a signed copy of my novel Death Is the Last Word, which gave you the inspiration for your fiendish plot.”

“I didn’t read your book,” I said.

“Of course you did. I asked Lieutenant Dozier to do some checking for me,” Ludlow said. “He discovered that on Tuesday night, you visited a Web site called Cassidy’s Curios, where you used your credit card to buy a set of alligator’s jaws and have them sent overnight priority to your home in San Francisco.”

“That’s not true,” I said. I kept saying that and it sounded hollow, even to me. I needed to refute what he was saying with facts and reason, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the facts and I was too overwhelmed to reason.

“We found the packaging in your trash can,” Ludlow said, motioning to Captain Toplyn, who I’d forgotten was even there.

Toplyn reached into a box at his feet and pulled out an evidence bag containing a torn-up FedEx carton and stuffing. The label on the carton said CASSIDY’S CURIOS.

“Anybody could have ordered that using my credit card, had it sent here and swiped it off my porch that morning,” I said. “I didn’t get back from LA until Wednesday.”

“Which is when you set fire to a car in Washington Park and stole the Jaws of Life from the firehouse where your lover works,” Ludlow said. “That’s how you knew where to find it. I bet you even had a key to the building.”

“I was home with my daughter that night,” I said.

“You crept out when she was asleep,” Ludlow said. “You probably made sure she’d be out cold by slipping her a sleeping pill with her painkillers.”

“I didn’t drug my daughter, I don’t have a key to the firehouse and Joe Cochran is not my boyfriend!”

I was yelling. I couldn’t help myself. My heart was pounding with terror, pumping adrenaline into my veins and making me shake.

“If he’s not, perhaps you can explain why you have Joe’s T-shirt,” Ludlow said, motioning to Captain Toplyn again, who held up an evidence bag containing Joe’s SFPD T-SHIRT, “and why he spent the morning here with you on Thursday. Don’t bother lying. We have statements from your neighbors who saw him here.”

Stottlemeyer and Disher were looking at me with doubt and disappointment. Even Monk was looking at me sadly. The only person looking at me with any sympathy was Sharona, but she was in the same fix that I was in.

“It was the first time I’d seen Joe in months,” I said. “He came over because he wanted Mr. Monk to recover their stolen rescue equipment.”

“And did you tell Monk about it?” Ludlow asked, pointing his finger accusingly at me. “No, you didn’t. Why? Because you knew Monk would be getting the Webster case soon. You didn’t want him to have the stolen Jaws of Life already on his mind. Because you knew that if he did, he’d quickly put the facts together and follow the trail of coincidences straight to you instead of spinning around in circles of futility for months.”

Circles of futility. I’d become a character in a badly written book and I wanted out.

“That’s not why I didn’t tell him,” I said, turning to the others, hoping one of them would say something or do something to end this ordeal.

Couldn’t they see how Ludlow was twisting things?

Why was Monk just standing there? Why wasn’t he cutting Ludlow down, deftly refuting each one of his unbelievable accusations?

Was it because Monk believed them?

I looked Monk in the eye, or at least I tried to. He wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“I didn’t want you to be distracted from the Ellen Cole investigation,” I said. “The sooner you found out who really killed her, the sooner Trevor would be freed from jail, and the sooner I’d have my life back the way it was.”

I needed him to believe me. If he didn’t, then I was lost. Julie was lost. Everything was lost.

“Please, Mr. Monk, say something,” I said.

But Monk didn’t.

“That’s what this has all been about,” Ludlow said, “keeping your life intact and sending Sharona away again. For that, a man had to die. For that, you turned the Jaws of Life into the Jaws of Death.”

“The Jaws of Death,” Disher repeated, almost reverently. “It’s going to make a great title for the book.”

“There isn’t going to be a book,” I said, “because none of this is true.”

“It was Joe’s fateful call to you last night that was your undoing, and ultimately Sharona’s as well,” Ludlow said. “When I overheard that you were talking to a firefighter, everything fell into place for me. In one exhilarating moment, I realized how the alligator attack was faked. Once I discovered that the Jaws of Life were stolen from your lover’s firehouse, I knew that you were the killer. After that, the rest was easy.”

“What rest?” I said.