Mr. Monk Is Open for Business Read Free

an idea for a fund-raiser. Six local celebrities would compete for two weekends in a cooking contest called Summit Chef. The Channel Eight weatherman had volunteered to show off his cooking skills, as had the Chamber of Commerce president, Kathy Enbrel, and the recently elected mayor, Charlie Cates, to name half of them.
    The competition started out friendly enough, but by the time weekend two approached, an angry rivalry was brewing between Mayor Cates and Kathy Enbrel, whom everyonethought had big political ambitions and wanted to go on the record as being better than Charlie at everything.
    “Don’t tell me Kathy was killed and Monk arrested the mayor.” I know I shouldn’t have been jumping ahead, but I couldn’t help it. Monk has this habit of pointing at the most important person and saying, “You did it,” whether it’s a TV star or a business magnate or a ship’s captain—which has happened twice if you include submarine captains.
    “Half-right,” Luther said. “Kathy was killed. But Mr. Monk didn’t arrest the mayor. Randy Disher had already done that.”
    “Yikes. Poor Randy. Hold on.” I stopped his story long enough to go into the kitchen and uncork a second bottle of the California cab. We would be needing it.
    The murder had taken place Saturday afternoon in the kitchen of the Grand Summit, an old grand dame of a hotel that I knew well. This was the prep area for the final cook-off, which was taking place that evening in the ballroom.
    The rules of the competition were strict. Each contestant had to cook from a mystery box of ingredients chosen by the judges and kept hidden in the walk-in cooler. No one could see the ingredients ahead of time or do any advance prep work.
    Police Chief Disher was acting as head judge. And when he walked into the kitchen an hour before showtime, Kathy was already there, lying in the doorway to the cooler. She was a short woman, maybe five foot even, almost enveloped in a large white apron. At least the apron used to be white. It was now covered in sprays of blood. Or blood spatter, as Monk kept calling it.
    It didn’t take Randy long to piece together the sequence of events. One of the amateur chefs had sneaked into the kitchen to peek at the mystery boxes and get some sort of advantage. Another chef was also in there. Or maybe the second one followed the first one in. It didn’t really matter, according to Randy. The two competing chefs began arguing about rules and about cheating. Tempers flared. And a carving knife wound up in Kathy Enbrel’s stomach, ending the fight forever.
    By the time Monk and Luther had checked into the Grand Summit, it was all anyone was talking about. Chief Disher, who had filled in as the mayor of Summit for a short spell, arrested Mayor Cates on very little evidence except motive, a bruise on Cates’ arm—which Cates said came from a fall on the stairs at home—and the fact that the mayor didn’t have a verifiable alibi.
    “The whole town was ready to string Randy from their cute little bell tower,” Luther said. He held up his empty glass, but I was rationing his intake. I wasn’t sure if alcohol was good or bad for someone suffering from post-traumatic stress. “The town finally had a good mayor,” Luther went on, waving his glass at me. “Everyone liked him. And then this friend of yours arrests him for murder.”
    When Randy and Sharona found out about Monk’s visit, they were over the moon. “You can prove me right,” Randy had said with all of his customary self-confidence. “The mayor’s prints were in the walk-in cooler—along with everyone else’s, sure. But he had a key to the kitchen—along with all the other cooks, sure. And he had no alibi, although no one else has a good alibi, either. But, hey, he did have that bruise,am I right? Prove it, Monk. I’m counting on you.” Luther’s impersonation of Chief Disher wasn’t perfect, but I could almost hear Randy saying those words.
    “But Randy was