Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop by Lee Goldberg Page B

it,” I said. “You’re only hurting yourself by doing this.”
    “But I’m helping to catch a murderer,” he said.
    “How does that help you?”
    “Because I can’t just let it go,” Monk said. “It’s who I am; it’s what I do. I would do it for free.”
    “That’s exactly what you’re doing,” I said.
    “But they don’t know that,” he said. “That gives us the edge in negotiations.”
    “There won’t be any if you keep this up.”
    “I don’t want the captain’s case-closure statistics to fall.”
    “If they don’t, Mr. Monk, they have no incentive to rehire you.”
    “He’s a very good detective and people need to know that,” Monk said.
    “You’re right, and it’s great that you want to help him, but if you continue investigating crimes for the police for no salary, what are you going to do for a living? How are you going to pay me?”
    “It’s who you are; it’s what you do,” he said. “You would do it for free.”
    “No, I wouldn’t,” I said.
    “Yes, you would.”
    “Assisting you is my job, and I enjoy it, but it is not who I am; it is not a burning need that I am compelled to satisfy.”
    “You’re just saying that,” Monk said. “You’re burning.”
    “I mean it, Mr. Monk,” I said. “If you can’t pay me, then I will have to get another job. And what about Dr. Bell? How will you pay him?”
    “He’ll take me on pro bono.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    “Because I’m fascinating,” he said. “You should take me on pro bono, too.”
    “I won’t and neither will Dr. Bell. So if I were you, I would stop detecting for free and find someone else who will pay you for it.”
    “Like who?”
    “Like other police departments,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll go back to that conference and do some schmoozing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Chatting people up, getting to know them,” I said. “But more important, it’s getting them to know you .”
    Now he looked worried. “Do they have to?”
    “To know you is to love you,” I said.
    “Bring plenty of wipes,” he said.

CHAPTER NINE
     
    Mr. Monk Gets an Offer
     
    T he murder of Judge Stanton was front-page news in the San Francisco Chronicle the next morning. The article described some of the more notorious criminal cases he judged and that he’d been about to preside over the trial of reputed mobster Salvatore Lucarelli, the West Coast Godfather.
    There were other newsworthy crimes in the city, including a hit-and-run death in the marina the previous night and a robbery in Union Square that left a storekeeper dead.
    Stottlemeyer would certainly have his hands full. But if he’d kept Monk on, most of those cases would probably have been solved before lunch.
    If I sound a little bitter, that’s because I was. Not only did I think he’d treated Monk unfairly, but he’d betrayed me as well. He’d sat across from me at Starbucks and claimed he didn’t resent Monk at all. He was either lying to himself, or to me, or both.
    I had no doubt that Stottlemeyer would come crawling back to Monk eventually; it was just a question of what would break first, the captain or my checking account.
    But there was another option. Monk could get a better-paying job with another police department, perhaps as close by as Oakland, Berkeley, or San Mateo.
    I knew I’d have to do most of the networking at the conference, so I dressed up a little more than usual and, I’m a bit ashamed to admit this, I chose clothes that accented my curves (such as they were) and showed a bit more skin.
    I would be dealing primarily with men, after all, and I needed whatever edge I could get. I couldn’t really count on much support from Monk. Luckily for us both, Braddock had done most of the work for me already by touting Monk’s amazing case-closure stats during their panel discussion.
    I headed over to Monk’s place and heard him talking on the phone in the kitchen as I walked in.
    “I am a completely anonymous person who knows