User:DReifGalaxyM31/Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage

"Mr. Monk and the Captain's Marriage" is the 12th episode of the fourth season of the television series Monk. It is the last episode featuring Glenne Headly as Karen Stottlemeyer.

Plot summary
Monk plays both Cupid and detective, investigating the murder of a small time drug dealer at a junkyard while also helping Stottlemeyer with his marital problems.

Plot synopsis
At a city junkyard, homeless transient Gerald Vengal feeds his pet rat, Devo, who is strangely not eating his food. Suddenly, Gerald hears two men arguing. He stands up and goes to take a closer look, and sees the two men in argument, with the second man telling the first that he's making everyone nervous. The argument takes a turn for the worst when the second man pulls out a taser and attacks the first man. A struggle ensues, and eventually, the first man is able to gain the upper hand, but the second is able to beat him to death.

Gerald panics, and accidentally knocks a garbage can over, revealing his position. He runs towards the gate, where he flags down a passing police car and then runs up the street.

About 20 minutes later, Adrian Monk and Natalie Teeger meet Captain Stottlemeyer at the crime scene. He has to apologize to them six times for telling them that the crime scene was an appliance store to get them down here, but admits that this is a fresh crime scene. Stottlemeyer notes that the victim was a small time drug dealer named Jimmy Botsdale, also known as Chicklet. He used to work for a man named Michael Karpov, who is going on trial in about a month for criminal conspiracy and money laundering. Chicklet was supposed to testify against Karpov at the trial. Monk is briefly distracted by the presence of a single car headlight that is intact on one of the junked vehicles, so he has Stottlemeyer shoot it.

When Stottlemeyer gets a call on his cell phone from his wife, he hands Monk and Natalie over to Lieutenant Disher to continue filling them in. Monk notices that the victim was pistol-whipped, and may have been attacked with a stun gun, judging from burn marks on the body and the fact that Chicklet's cell phone was erased completely. Monk is curious: if the attacker had a gun, why didn't they shoot him?

A few feet away, Stottlemeyer has an argument with Karen over the phone, and hangs up in exasperation. A police sergeant, Ryan Sharkey, Jr., tells Stottlemeyer that he should be treating his wife better, and in a way, mentions that he is seeing Karen. Monk and Randy try to keep Stottlemeyer from going overhead, but it fails, and Stottlemeyer punches Sharkey in the head, knocking out one of his teeth, and then leaves in a huff.

Leland goes home, and after turning the heat down, he tells Karen about the incident. Karen openly denies having an affair, though Leland notes that it would explain why some of her habits have changed, but Karen merely says that they have marital problems.

At the police station, Randy is leading the homicide task force assigned to investigate the Chicklet case. Karpov is their primary suspect in the death. Leland comes in and tries to take over, but to his dismay, finds that Randy has been placed in charge of the case on the deputy chief's orders.

Later, Monk, Natalie and Leland go out to a playground to talk to Michael Karpov, who is pushing his son on the swingset. He has the strongest motive for killing Chicklet, but he has an alibi - he was in bed at the time of the murder. Later, as they are walking away, Stottlemeyer asks Monk and Natalie to follow Karen that afternoon. He reluctantly explains that while he would like to follow Karen himself, he can't because the chief has ordered him to take an anger management class, which really pisses him off because all he did was knock out Sharkey's tooth. He explains that he has pulled Sharkey's file. What he's found is that Sharkey is a motorcycle cop who recently transferred in from Mendocino. He's made several big arrests and been cited for bravery twice, and he is also a lady's man. Reluctantly, Monk agrees when Leland reminds him about the pain he's felt about being unable to solve Trudy's death.

While Leland holed up in anger management class, Monk and Natalie follow Karen through Union Square. Monk tells Natalie that Karen and Leland have practically nothing in common. Case in point: Monk remembers a weekend where Leland went hunting while Karen stayed home and organized a rally for stronger gun control. They use several little techniques to avoid being noticed as they follow Karen through the mall, until of course they reach a fountain where Monk can't help but remove a few pennies to make the cash amount in it even. This, unfortunately, means that when they do see Karen sitting at a table with another man, Natalie is unable to get good photos, because two security guards come and drag them away. Monk is only able to get two shots in before the guards grab him as well.

That night, across town, Gerald Vengal is holed up in another building when the killer from the junkyard comes in. He attacks Gerald with a stun gun, and then throws him and Devo out the window.

Fortunately for Gerald, he lands on a triple-corrugated refrigerator box, and survives with only a broken right arm. The next morning, Monk, Natalie, and Randy go to the hospital to interview him. As they are arriving, Natalie gets a phone call from Leland, but Monk tells her not to answer it. While hiding Devo as the nurse comes by to check up on Gerald, Randy tells Gerald that they would like him to come to the police station for a lineup. Gerald is certain that the man that tried to kill him was the man he saw kill Chicklet at the junkyard. Monk observes a pair of burn marks on the side of Gerald's neck, and Gerald confirms that indeed, the attacker used a taser. Because Monk has had to hide Devo in his coat pocket, he incinerates the coat on the way out.

Monk and Natalie go to the police station to show Stottlemeyer the few photos they have. Monk tries to explain that it's probably not Ryan Sharkey, but Stottlemeyer insists that it has to be the young sergeant, and storms out, looking for him. Meanwhile, Randy comes in and prepares to organize the lineup. When no one volunteers, Randy volunteers several detectives in the room, as well as Michael Karpov and Sharkey, to participate in the line-up. Unfortunately, the lineup becomes busted when Stottlemeyer comes into the lineup just as Gerald is about to select the killer from the selected individuals. He shows Monk's photos to Sharkey, and it deteriorates from here, turning into a full-scale donnybrook, as Randy makes a futile attempt to control the volunteers.

Back up in the squadroom, Randy asks Leland what to do as damage control. Leland tells him to just do his job, and write up a report, Later, upstairs, Karen arrives and Leland starts asking her about Sharkey, whom she denies having ever seen. While they are trying to get over the bad line-up, Monk suddenly notices Sharkey eating an apple, and realizes something - Sharkey is chewing his apple on the left side of his mouth. He says that this is because Stottlemeyer hit him on the other side of his mouth at the junkyard, but Monk is quick to point out that Stottlemeyer, who is right-handed, would have hit Sharkey on the left side.

Plus, Monk remembers something interesting - Sharkey used to work in Mendocino, and he remembers that Michael Karpov's son was wearing a "Mendocino Day School" shirt when they were questioning Karpov in the park. Disher notes that that is where Karpov lives. Sharkey pretends ignorance, claiming that he doesn't know Karpov, but Monk reveals that in fact, he does - during the fight that happened, Sharkey was wearing the very clothes he is wearing right now, and Karpov called him a sergeant. The inescapable conclusion - Sharkey works for Karpov. Stottlemeyer suddenly realizes that Monk has confirmed their suspicion that there was a cop on Karpov's payroll.

Monk accuses Sharkey of having killed Chicklet. He mentions that that makes perfect sense - why else would the killer not shoot Chicklet? They didn't want the bullet to be traced back to their gun.

Here's What Happened
Sharkey had lured Chicklet to the junkyard. During the fight, Sharkey had the upper hand, but somehow, Chicklet managed to overpower Sharkey, and must have injured him to the point that he was bleeding. Sharkey didn't loose his tooth when Stottlemyer punched him. He lost it when Chicklet threw him into a headlock and slammed his head against the hood of a car. Now Sharkey was in trouble - his DNA was all over the crime scene, and when he saw Gerald Vengal flee towards the street, he panicked - with the cops on their way, he had no time to clean up. He fled the scene, changed into his uniform, and returned, but he knew that the forensics team would show up any minute and find the evidence against him. Sharkey knew he was in trouble, but fortunately, he then got the biggest stroke of luck he could imagine: he overheard Stottlemeyer arguing with Karen on the phone. He realized that if he provoked Stottlemeyer into punching him, he'd be home free. The police would then find his blood and his tooth and no one would ever question it.

Sharkey scoffs, and says that there is no proof, but Stottlemeyer points out that they will check his bank records and e-mails and finds connections to Karpov. Just then, Gerald Vengal comes back up, and positively selects Sharkey as the killer. Sharkey is arrested and led away.

Afterwards, Leland meets with Karen in his office. He then reluctantly admits to her about having Monk follow her and produces the photo Monk took of her in the mall. To his surprise, she admits that the man in question is a divorce lawyer. Karen then hands Leland the divorce papers.

Reception
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