Dysfunctional.

Being a head sometimes necessarily means you have to wait for the people you are heading. *Sigh*

This is why I did not get a chance to watch Monk tonight on RPN 9. It's supposed to be on at 8 pm but then...

Anyway, had just been to their site and the first season is now available on DVD. *Sob* If only I have a credit card then I could buy the set AND the DVD player. Sometimes, semi-poverty sucks.

Okay, let's play, Solve-It.

The Case of the Mobile Murder

It was 8 a.m. and Special Agent Grooms had just sat down at his desk. The phone rang, as if on cue. "Agent Grooms? I made up my mind - just this minute as I'm heading to work. I want to testify. Not that I know that much. Sal didn't introduce me to many people. But it should be enough to put a few of them behind bars."

Grooms nearly dropped the receiver. For the past four months, he'd been trying to talk Lana Salvatore into telling the F.B.I. what she knew about her ex-husband and the Boitano crime family. And now, out of the blue... "I want you to come down to my office," he said.

"I'm on my way right now."

"What? You're calling from a cell phone?" Agent Grooms started to sweat. "Those things aren't safe. I want you to drive straight here. Don't stop anywhere. Don't call anyone else. I'll meet you out front."

Lana laughed. "Don't worry. I've taken my own precautions. Be there in 20 minutes."

An hour later, Grooms got the report: Lana Salvatore's car had been found off the side of a country road. It had broken through a wooden guardrail and crashed into a tree. 10 minutes after Lana's call, Hap Orleans, a computer consultant whose house faced the country road, heard the crash. He ran outside and found Lana behind the wheel, not wearing a seat belt. The air bags had gone off, but they hadn't been enough to save her. By the time the ambulance arrived, the would-be witness was dead from massive internal injuries.

"I was just getting out of the shower," Hap explained to the highway patrol. "I heard this crash. No squeal of tires, just a crash. It took me no more than three minutes to get dressed and outside. Right away I saw the broken guardrail and the car up against the tree. There were no other cars or people in sight."

Grooms rejected the highway patrol's theory of accidental death and went in search of Adrian Monk, the police consultant. He had had his run-ins with Monk in the past. But if the San Francisco police could use his talents, so could the FBI.

"It's a job," Sharona told her boss for the tenth time. "You interview a few people, look at the crime scene - and maybe you'll be able to pay my salary on time." They were standing in the lobby of the Staytight Cement Company.

"I pay your salary on time," Monk said, looking a little hurt.

"Yes, you do... if this was 1999. But it's not."

Their bickering was interrupted by the arrival of their prime suspect - Sal Salvatore, Lana's ex. The cement company executive was tall and blond with an open mid-western face -hardly the standard mob type. Monk asked him for his alibi and he smiled. "At 8 this morning? Sure. I just got off a plane. Business trip. I was driving in from the airport on the other side of town. You can check with my boss, Mr. Boitano. At a few minutes past eight I was on my car phone calling into the office. Here's my plane ticket. I'm sure the phone company has a record of the call."

Big Tony Boitano, the mob boss, also had an alibi. "I was in the office, like Sal said. We was having an early board meeting. Sal called in and I put him on the speaker. A dozen of my guys can swear Sal was on the other end. How many times I gotta tell you jerks. I run a legitimate cement company here."

The last interview on their list was Pauly Adidas, Lana's boyfriend. Monk and Sharona found the young man lying on a couch in his living room, covered with a blanket, looking pale and in great emotional pain. "Lana and me just got engaged," he whispered. "Just yesterday. She drove off this morning while I was still in bed. I tell you, if I'd known what she was up to, I would've stopped her. You don't mess with these killers."

It seemed like a typically impossible problem. Even if the mob had somehow overheard Lana's cellular call, how could they have intercepted her car so quickly?

A further complication came that night. Monk was at home, relaxing, when Agent Grooms telephoned. Monk switched off his vacuum cleaner and answered. Someone, it seems, had broken into Lana and Paulie's house. The dead woman's fiancée had fended off the intruders but had been severely beaten.

Pauly was admitted to the hospital with two broken ribs, multiple bruises to the chest and stomach as well as a fracture of the left clavicle. When asked if the wounds could possibly be self-inflicted, the doctor shook his head. "From their position and severity, I'd say impossible. One of the wounds is infected. Mr. Adidas could have died if he hadn't come in when he did."

Pauly gave a statement from intensive care. "My car's in the shop, so they must've thought the house was empty. I was upstairs when I heard glass breaking down in the living room. There were two of them wearing masks. I grabbed a baseball bat, but they're better fighters than me. A neighbor heard the noise and called the police." Unfortunately, the neighbor never actually saw the intruders and Pauly couldn't give a good description.

Sharona looked on the bright side. "If they broke into her house, it means there was something they needed to find. Maybe a diary naming names. This case isn't over yet."

Crime Scene Report

The point of impact was on the passenger side, although the force had been enough to crush the grill and hood and shatter the windshield. Blood was splattered on the dashboard and smeared across the airbags. It was the same blood type as the deceased's, O negative. In addition, one make-up mirror was in the down position. Both of the deceased's high heeled shoes were recovered from the front floor.

There was no damage to the car other than that noted. There was no sign of sideswiping by another vehicle, and the brakes were in working order.

Autopsy Report

Death was caused by massive internal injuries, trauma, and loss of blood.

Note: The deceased was wearing makeup, but only part of it had been applied. The lower lip, for example, was free of lipstick.

Search Area Near Site

One-half mile from the crash site, the police inspected a public phone booth and discovered traces of human blood on the receiver, coin slot, and dial. It matched the victim's blood type, O negative. Three cigarette butts, one also bearing a blood smear, were found on the ground. No liftable prints were recovered from the phone or the butts.

Phone company records show a call having been made from the phone booth to the Boitano Cement Co. at 8:21 a.m., approximately 15 minutes after the crash.

Solution

(1) What's the story behind Pauly's attack and injuries?
His injuries came from the car accident, not a mob attack.
(2) Who killed Lana?
Pauly Adidas.
(3) How was the murder committed?
The driver, Pauly, used the seat belt to save his own life.

Explanation

Lana's fatal mistake was not realizing that her boyfriend might also be a Family member. After the Salvatore divorce, Tony Boitano enlisted his handsomest young soldier to woo the divorcee and keep her under control. All the while Agent Grooms was trying to get Lana to testify, Pauly was doing his best to talk her out of it.

Pauly was in the process of driving Lana to work when she made her call to Grooms. Several facts point to Lana having been a passenger: the lowered makeup mirror, her half applied make-up, and the high heels left on the floor.

Pauly heard Lana's call and went to work. He had to silence Lana before they arrived at F.B.I. headquarters and without exposing himself. An obvious murder would throw too much heat on the family. It had to look like an accident.

Pauly fastened his seatbelt, leaving Lana's unbuckled. Then, with a flip of the wheel, he sent the car off the road, smashing the passenger side into the tree. His own fractured clavicle was a result of the seat belt's impact on his left shoulder.

Lana died almost instantly. Pauly dragged her body over to the driver's side, thereby accounting for the blood smear on the airbag. He then hobbled off.

Pauly walked to the nearest pay phone and put in a call to Boitano. The three cigarette butts showed that someone had been waiting there for a while, perhaps waiting for a ride.

The seatbelt had saved Pauly's life, but he desperately needed medical attention. Going to a doctor, even a discrete Family doctor, would have resulted in bed time, bandages, and police suspicion. So Pauly faked the attack on himself to account for his injuries.

The cigarette butts got Monk focused in the right direction, but it was a twenty-five cent piece that sealed the case. When he had the FBI open the pay phone's cash box, they discovered a bloodstained quarter.

Perfectly preserved on one side of it was Pauly's right thumbprint - framed in Lana Salvatore's blood.

--
Whew. Ü