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kind of woman.”
    “Then why did you say no?” Sharona asked.
    “Because I can’t live in the same house with someone who collects excrement art and uses excrement products.”
    “It hasn’t stopped you from spending every free minute you have with her at her house,” I said.
    “That’s because she put her personal excrement collection in hiding and refrained from using products derived from excrement while I was around,” Monk said. “But it’s still there. She still engages in excremental conduct. It’s the elephant excrement in the room we don’t talk about.”
    “So what did you tell her?” I asked.
    “That I’d be living with you,” Monk said.
    “But you won’t be,” I said.
    He raised his eyebrows. “Of course I will.”
    “Let me make this perfectly clear,” I said. “I will never share a home with you. Here or anywhere else.”
    “Why not?” he asked.
    “Because I have a life of my own,” I said.
    “That revolves entirely around me,” Monk said. “Think how much easier it will be once we’re living in the same house.”
    Sharona looked at me triumphantly. “I rest my case.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Mr. Monk Goes Home
    D isher drove us to Newark Airport in the morning for our flight back home. Before we got out of the Suburban, he handed us leather wallets containing our badges.
    “You may be going back to San Francisco,” he said, “but you’re still Summit police officers.”
    It was a very shrewd move on his part, a way to make sure we didn’t get too comfortable back home and begin to second-guess our decisions to make our temporary jobs permanent.
    It also played on his understanding of our histories and vulnerabilities. Monk had fought for years to get reinstated to the SFPD after being thrown off for psychological reasons following his wife’s murder. Now Disher was showing his confidence in Monk by handing him a badge without making him struggle to earn it.
    I’d bounced around for years, doing all kinds of jobs, before I stumbled into the role of Monk’s assistant. Even so, I wasn’t sure if I had any real, marketable skills or if I’d made any meaningful contributions to his investigations. Only recently had I begun to think that police work was something that I might not only have an affinity for, but might actually enjoy doing. By handing me a badge, Disher was officially recognizing my abilities. It was like the Wizard of Oz proving the Scarecrow had a brain by giving him a diploma.
    We didn’t have any luggage, since our belongings had burned in a hotel fire (which is another story), so we checked in at one of the computer terminals and made our way to the gate.
    Monk brought plastic booties to wear on his feet when he went through security without his shoes, and he didn’t object to walking through the X-ray machine this time.
    Perhaps it was because he felt a kinship with the TSA agents. When they saw our badges, they asked us if we had any weapons to declare, and I said just my hands. I think they thought I was serious. They seemed to treat us with a deference reserved for law enforcement officers and Monk wasn’t going to jeopardize that by making any kind of scene.
    One of Monk’s big phobias is flying. Usually, the only way to get him on a plane for a long flight is to give him an experimental drug that diminishes his OCD but turns him into a jerk. The other is to slip him a mickey, which is what we did to get him out to New Jersey. Much to my surprise, and despite his fury about being drugged before, he actually requested a strong sedative before getting on the flight. Once again, I credit the badge.
    So while Monk slept through most of the five-hour flight, I sat in quiet contemplation, thinking about the tumultuous changes I was about to make in my life. After weeks of sleeping on Disher’s couch, I was looking forward to my own bed and the comforts of my own home, one I was about to abandon for a new career on the other side of the country.
    As a