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corner of the viewing room, looking thin and frail, staying about as far from the open coffin as a person could get. Captain Stottlemeyer had been hovering by her side, like a bodyguard in black. When a fresh batch of mourners walked through the door, he slipped away and joined me by the table of cheese and crackers.
    â€œWhere’s Monk?” he asked. I nodded toward the coffin, where my partner stood gazing down at the judge’s body. The sight bore an uncomfortable resemblance to a hundred-plus crime scenes where he’d been staring down at a corpse, except this time the body was unmutilated, embalmed, and dead from natural causes.
    â€œCaptain, we need to talk at some point. I know this isn’t the best time.”
    â€œThis is about A.J., right?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “And the fact that you know it’s about A.J. tells me you know he’s a problem.”
    The captain scowled. “You’re going to have to get used to him, Natalie. I handpicked him to be Devlin’s replacement. He’s a good man.”
    â€œHe doesn’t seem like a good man. He’s rude and disruptive. And he pretty much hates us. He’s trying to pay us by the hour. Did you know that? The Burns case. Adrian wrapped that up in record time, and now the lieutenant is trying to pay us one-quarter of our day rate.”
    I expected Stottlemeyer to be surprised by this tidbit. But he wasn’t. “You’ll have to tell Monk to slow down his crime solving. Stretch the next one out for a day or two.”
    â€œYou knew about this?” I asked, raising my voice. “You’re okay with this?”
    â€œI’m not okay.” The captain kept his voice low. “But the lieutenant’s in charge of the case-by-case allocation of resources. I can’t undermine him. Maybe in a few weeks I can have a talk with him.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, in a few weeks? That’s not like you.”
    â€œNatalie, this isn’t about A.J. It’s about his dad.”
    â€œHis dad? Captain Thurman?” I was instantly outraged. “Are you saying you took on A.J. Thurman because Arnold Thurman asked you to? That’s wrong.”
    Stottlemeyer looked like I had just slapped him in the face, which saved me the trouble. Not that I would have.“Arny would never ask me that, and I would never agree. But Arny is sick. Heart disease. No one knows how long he has.”
    â€œOh,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
    â€œArny and I were fraternity brothers. A whole group of us got very close during those four years. Struggling through classes, and girls and pranks and parties. Guys can bond a lot at that age. Arny and I wound up in the academy together. I’m A.J.’s godfather, for Pete’s sake. The boy was always a disappointment to his dad, from the start.”
    â€œI don’t like to say this about another human being.” I said it anyway. “Lieutenant Thurman is a bumbler and a bully. No one likes him.”
    The captain couldn’t argue with that. “I think it’s mainly insecurity,” he said. “A.J. never really had a chance, you know, following in his old man’s footsteps. I wanted to do it for Arny, take the kid under my wing and help him along while his dad is still with us.”
    Okay, I felt bad. You would have, too. “Isn’t there another way to help? Making him your number two can be dangerous if he’s not up to it. There are convictions at stake and evidence that can get screwed up. Not to mention the health and welfare of Monk and Teeger.”
    â€œI’ll have a talk with A.J.,” the captain promised. “And you have a talk with Monk. On the next case, make him take his time. He can hold up his hands and twirl for four hours instead of one.”
    â€œFour hours? How do you think A.J. would react to four hours of Monk twirling?”
    â€œI can only