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

"Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife" is the 14th episode of the second season of Monk, and the 27th episode overall. It marks the second appearance of Glenne Headly as Karen Stottlemeyer.

Plot
Captain Leland Stottlemeyer helps his wife Karen load her bags into their van, as they have yet another argument. Karen tells Leland to make sure to stop at the farmer's market, though Leland wonders why she couldn't just shop at the supermarket like everybody else. He also notes that the bags are very heavy, and Karen explains that they contain lighting equipment. Leland insists that they can't afford lighting equipment on his police salary, nor can they afford a digital camera, and he tries to explain that he would prefer not to have another fight. After sternly telling Leland to not even pretend to forget about the farmer's market, Karen pulls out.

Elsewhere, we watch as a sniper loads bullets into the barrel of a Winchester Model 70 rifle, and watch as he aims at a tow truck carrying a repossessed car. He fires off a shot at the truck, killing the luckless driver. The truck is sent swerving into the opposite side of the road, right into the path of Karen's van. She is unable to stop in time to prevent a collision.

Adrian Monk is waiting outside his house to supervise the collection of his garbage. Leland, unaware of what has happened to Karen, drops by with Monk’s latest consulting fee. He notices that Monk is still wearing the watch that Trudy gave him, even though it no longer keeps good time. He suggests that maybe it's time Monk try to let go of his attachment to Trudy. Monk is distracted by the arrival of the garbage men, substituting for the normal ones on that route (they claim that the normal ones are on vacation), who quickly go crazy with Monk’s special instructions. As the garbagemen leave, Lieutenant Disher pulls up and informs Leland about the accident. They rush to the hospital and speak to Dr. Maulding, the doctor on duty when Karen was admitted. He says that Karen is currently comatose, but her vital signs are strong. Stottlemeyer turns to Disher, who gives him a preliminary on their investigation and assures him that detectives are volunteering to assist. Monk asks what he can do, and Stottlemeyer tells him to do what he always does.

Monk, Sharona and Disher travel to the crime scene. Almost immediately, Monk notices an interesting clue - from the footprints, he realizes that the shooter was barefoot. He is momentarily distracted when a lost dog wanders into the scene, and Sharona picks it up. Meanwhile, Monk realizes that the shooter must have hidden behind a mound of dirt a few feet away to fire on the driver. He and Disher also find a piece of a torn shirtsleeve at a hole in the chain link fence, and figure that the shooter must have escaped through the hole. Just then, they are told of something else that is strange - they can't find the dead driver's shoes.

Randy meets Leland back at the hospital, and he is visibly fearing that he'll lose Karen. He tells his Captain that a task force created to handle the case has developed a possible theory. He says he's not supposed to tell this theory to anyone, but at Leland's insistence, Randy mentions that the local transport union has gone on strike. The dead driver worked at a union shop and was hence a "scab" (i.e. he refused to strike and kept working). It seems that Harry Bolston, the union boss, has been making some ugly threats.

Stottlemeyer is pretty sure that this is a good lead. He prepares to head down to one of the union's pickets, despite Disher warning him that Bolston has sued the SFPD twice in the past. Monk is not so sure that the union is involved at all - the negotiations are going their way and every newspaper editorial is supporting them. Also, he can't believe that any one of them would go barefoot. Stottlemeyer talks to Bolston, who tells him what he's told some other cops - he had nothing to do with the shooting and he's been at the picket for the entire morning, plus their strike is legal. Stottlemeyer also recognizes Bolston's right-hand man, Frank Wicks, who he arrested for assault during the previous strike.

Meanwhile, Sharona returns the dog to its owner, a handsome man named Evan Coker. As they flirt, she asks him whether he heard anything on the morning of the shooting, which happened nearby. He says he wouldn't know a thing, and she mentions that the police think it’s a union dispute, but Monk is skeptical. While they are talking, Monk notices that the sundial in the yard of Coker's neighbor is a few hours off, and starts to adjust it, when she throws him off her property for trespassing.

What Monk and Sharona don't know is that Coker is the killer. That night, we see Coker travel to the picket, where he uses his rifle to kill a luckless scab leaving the depot and passing through the picketers.

Stottlemeyer becomes increasingly unhinged, even though Karen’s condition improves. He is starting to focus solely on the two truck driver shootings, despite Disher and other detectives informing him that other cases are starting to back up. He also assumes that because both shootings used the same gun, both are related to the union. In addition, he tries to have "small talk" with Harry Bolston, in the middle of contacting the SFPD's ATF contact, to which he also beats up Wicks, where Bolston summarily covers up for Stottlemeyer by claiming the man tripped, while also telling him before leaving that he wasn't involved in either shooting.

Monk and Sharona go back to the hospital with flowers for Karen. She tells them that the boys were here all morning, and points out that Leland has been sleeping there all night. Monk wakes Leland up by repositioning his arms on his chest. With Sharona and Leland both being busy, Monk offers to take the Stottlemeyer boys out for lunch the next day.

In session with Dr. Kroger, Monk confides that part of himself is worried about Karen, another part is worried about Leland, and the last part is relieved to find that someone now understands what it's like to live in Monk's shadow. He also complains a bit about the fact that Dr. Kroger has a new white noise machine that makes a different noise than the other machine.

Monk takes Jared and Max out to a 1950s diner, and doesn't order lunch (claiming that he just ate about nine hours earlier). He is completely out of his depth, especially when the pizza parlor’s staff start dancing to one particular track on the jukebox, but then one of the staff inadvertently bumps into the table causing it to be slightly moved ajar, and Monk solves the case. He explains the case on the woman's lawn with Sharona, only for the neighbor to tell him to leave her property. He also tells Sharona that, although he does wish that woman was the culprit, she's not.

At the police station, Stottlemeyer is about to lead a full scale SWAT raid on the union headquarters and capture Harry Bolston. Disher takes a call, and when he hangs up, he mentions that Monk says he's just solved the case and has determined that the murders are not related to the union at all. Stottlemeyer tells the SWATs to stand down.

Here's What Happened
Stottlemeyer and Disher race over to an impound yard, where Monk and Sharona have found the car that was being towed when the first driver was shot. It turns out that the car being repossessed was Evan Coker's car, and Sharona reminds them about how Coker's dog showed up at the crime scene. Stottlemeyer and Disher are skeptical - Disher notes that Coker didn't seem afraid of losing the car, but Monk contradicts him: Coker was after a handgun he kept in the glovebox. He has Stottlemeyer smell the owner's manual, and Stottlemeyer confirms the smell of gun oil.

The morning of the incident, Coker was abruptly awakened when he heard the tow truck leaving. He looked out and saw that the truck was towing his old car. He panicked - he was afraid that the police would find the handgun if the car made it to the impound lot, and they would have been able to tie it to an earlier crime. With no time to come up with a plan, he improvised. He grabbed his hunting rifle and ran out of the house, banging the front gate open (and letting his dog escape). He had no time to put on his shoes or get dressed, explaining the bare footprints found at the scene. With the truck having to go all the way back through town to get to the highway, Coker took a shortcut between his neighbor's houses, bumping the sundial off a bit. He made his way through the backyards, across a park, down through the hole in the chain-link fence (tearing off part of his shirt in the process), and hid behind the mound, waiting for the tow truck to approach. When he saw the truck, he shot the driver, killing him, causing the collision with Karen's van. As soon as the truck had stopped, Coker emerged from hiding, ran over, reached in, and retrieved the gun from his car. For some reason, he decided that he didn't want to walk home barefoot as he took everything with him, so he stole the driver's shoes before he fled unnoticed. When he learned that Monk was skeptical about the union involvement (that the driver Coker shot was a scab was just a coincidence), Coker killed a second driver to disguise the motive of the first shooting.

Stottlemeyer is convinced, and prepares to arrest Coker himself, but Monk convinces him that they need to do it the proper way - by getting a search warrant. Stottlemeyer gets a search warrant and the task force storms into Coker’s home, with Stottlemeyer stating that his wife was saved by the doctors, and he'd better thank them because the doctors saved Coker's life as well. Stottlemeyer and Monk share a moment, Stottlemeyer finally having an idea of what it feels like to lose, or be afraid of losing, someone they love so much.

Unfortunately, they find neither the gun nor the shoes, nor the rifle. Monk hears the sound of garbagemen loading their truck up, and realizes that it’s garbage day, and the truck has just been to the house. He runs after the truck. The garbage men see him coming and refuse to stop, instead telling the driver to step on it. Unwilling to give up, Monk leaps into the back of the truck, choking back the smell, and starts pulling out trash bags before the automatic compactor crushes them.

The police check each garbage bag. They uncover a pair of discarded shoes that they are certain are from the tow truck driver, and a Beretta 92FS handgun - the same gun that was used in a bank robbery mentioned earlier on where a clerk was killed during the getaway (Stottlemeyer had turned it down due to his obsession with the truck driver killings). Stottlemeyer grabs Coker and throws him onto the hood of a police car, wanting nothing more than to hurt him, badly. Sharona and Disher tell him to back off, it isn’t worth losing his badge over. Stottlemeyer gains control of himself, and Coker is arrested.

Leland brings Karen home from the hospital, and the boys run to greet her. Leland presents Karen with her new digital camera, and they embrace lovingly (as the boys film them).

Goofs

 * Even if they didn't uncover the evidence, fingerprints Coker left on his car and on the tow truck could have been enough to convict him for at least that shooting.