Tollbooth operators Frank Pulaski and Tommy Zimm are conversing
routinely as they send cars through their tollbooths. A car pulls up to
Pulaski's tollbooth, and the driver pays with a $10 bill, then asks the
operator if his name if Frank Pulaski. When Pulaski says yes, the driver
demands his change. As Pulaski hands the change over, the driver
handcuffs his wrist to 70 feet of rope, and then floors on the gas
pedal. Tommy attempts to cut the rope, with no success. When the rope
extends to full length, the luckless Pulaski gets yanked off his feet
and is dragged to his death.
Across town, at a dry-cleaning
shop, Monk is haggling with Mrs. Ling, his drycleaner, while an excited
Sharona admires photos of her in the paper with mayoral candidate Kenny
Shale. The hassle between Monk and Mrs. Ling ends when Monk and Sharona
get called to the tollbooth.
When Monk and Sharona arrive at
the toll plaza, Stottlemeyer tells them that after Pulaski was yanked
off his feet, he was dragged about 7/10ths of a mile. The medical
examiner has commented that he's never seen anything like this.
Stottlemeyer is unusually ragged on this particular day, and he mentions
that there is no end in sight: this is just the ninth in a string of
bizarre murders to strike the Bay Area in the past two weeks. Monk
inquires if there is a possible link between some of the victims, and
learns that there is almost nothing in common between the victims. The
demographics of the dead include four men and five women, and they are
all completely different: all different ages, races, professions,
backgrounds, etc. The MOs are also completely different - a couple of
shootings (all different weapons), a hit-and-run, a drowning, an
electrocution, in other words a full moon every night. There is one
thing in common about all nine cases and that is that there are no clues
that could give even the slightest hint of what is going on.
Disher mentions to Sharona that he saw the picture of her with Kenny
Shale in the paper, and soon other cops at the scene are gathering
around the possible future first lady. While that is going on, Monk and
Stottlemeyer question Tommy Zimm. He is pretty shaken up by the murder,
so he can't remember the make or model of the car, nor can he supply a
license plate number. Monk looks inside Pulaski's tollbooth and finds an
evidence bag containing the $10 bill used by the killer to pay his
toll. The bill hasn't been taken down to the lab yet. Stottlemeyer
quickly breaks up the cops who have gathered around Sharona and quickly
reminds Sharona that seeing Kenny Shale is going to represent a big
change in her life - everybody she knows will want a piece of her. She
won't know who to trust, and Monk won't be able to help her.
Meanwhile, Monk notices that Pulaski's cash box only has a small amount
of money in it, and deduces that Pulaski had just started his shift when
he was killed. Tommy suddenly remembers something else: the killer's
car was parked by a callbox before the toll plaza for some time. Monk
figures that the killer waited for Pulaski to come on duty, and must
have preselected his victim.
Monk is a bit jealous that the
other cops are sucking up to Sharona as a future first lady. However, he
confides to Dr. Kroger that he hopes to catch some of Kenny Shale's
patronage, noting that if Sharona is still seeing Kenny and he gets
elected, it might help offer some leverage in getting him reinstated.
At a movie theater in a different part of town from the tollbooth, a
young woman named Arlene Carney sits down at a horror movie. Shortly
after she sits down, a shadowy man sits down behind her and asks her if
her name is Arlene Carney. When she says yes, he takes a ligature and
strangles the luckless woman to death.
Monk and Stottlemeyer
talk to an usher and the theater manager, and Monk notes that the crime
is similar in to Frank Pulaski - none of the witnesses can identify the
killer, who was holding a handkerchief to his face. While they are
briefly interrupted when Sharona gets a call from Kenny Shale, Monk
looks at the $10 bill used by the killer to pay for his movie ticket,
and he tells Stottlemeyer that they've got a serial killer on the loose.
He points out that he got a good look on the bill used by Frank
Pulaski's killer to pay for his toll, and memorized the serial number,
which ended in "6092B." The serial number on the bill at the theater
ends in "6093B."
At the police station, the cops of the SFPD
are being mobilized into a task force to catch the killer. Disher hands
Stottlemeyer a preliminary psychological profile, but Stottlemeyer
dismisses it as scrap paper. Monk examines the photos of the victims and
makes a link between some of the victims - they have the same wall
calendars. Stottlemeyer insists to Monk that there are several more
promising leads, but nonetheless, Monk goes to house of Henry Smalls,
who produces the calendars. Despite the fact that Smalls has been out of
town for the past two weeks and is due back tonight, he stakes out
Smalls' house that night, with Sharona and Kenny in tow since Sharona
didn't want to break her date. While waiting for Smalls to come back,
Monk notes that the odometer on Sharona's car is at 99,999, and he
starts to roll the car back and forth in an attempt to get the odometer
to even out. A taxi comes along and drops Henry Smalls off, and as soon
as the cab leaves, a masked man comes out from the side of the house.
Monk yells out a warning to Smalls, but is unable to prevent Smalls'
murder. Monk runs over and tries to stop the killer, but the killer
manages to escape after Monk tears off part of the killer's shirt
sleeve.
Back at the police station, as a photo of Henry Smalls
is added to the wall of the victims, Monk admits that he thought Smalls
would be a suspect, not the 11th victim. The only thing he knows about
the killer is that he was chewing his fingernails, and he was wearing a
ski mask. Monk re-examines the photos of the victims and quickly notes
that the victims are all of different ages and professions. They also
have different origins, and they are from different social classes. Monk
then notices something interesting on the map showing where the victims
lived and where they died: the victims were killed all throughout the
Bay Area, but they all lived in Marin County. He also notes that the
victims were all registered votes, and determines the link between the
victims: they were all on a jury. Disher confirms it on the computer
system.
Monk, Sharona, Stottlemeyer, and Kenny Shale convene in
the Captain's office. Stottlemeyer confirms that the 11 victims all
served six years ago on the same jury in Marin County. The matter they
were overseeing was a personal injury lawsuit: a handyman named Ian
Agnew fell off a roof and landed on a metal pipe sticking up out of the
ground. He sued the homeowners, a Stewart and Lisa Babcock, for
negligence. The jury deliberated and awarded Agnew a considerable
$750,000, which the homeowner's insurance paid for completely. It was
essentially a routine trial - except for the fact that six years later,
the jury has been killed off one at a time. Monk inquires and
Stottlemeyer mentions that nothing unusual happened during the trial.
The jury deliberated for a day and half, went and visited the scene of
the accident, then was sequestered in a motel for a night before they
delivered their verdict.
Currently, the police are trying to
track down the one remaining juror, Wallace J. Cassidy. Disher comes in,
and tells them that they've picked up Cassidy, and he seems like a
likely suspect: for one thing, Cassidy is a gambling addict and is
frequently in debt, and they've found a human finger in his freezer.
Monk, however, is not convinced, because none of the victims were
missing a finger and Cassidy doesn't seem to have any conceivable motive
for killing the rest of his jury.
Despite the police and Kenny
being certain that they've found their man, Monk and Sharona do some
asking around to find out more about the trial. They first go to Ian
Agnew, who was thankful to the jury for the money that they awarded to
him, but who never met the jurors at all. He never completely recovered
from the fall, as part of the pipe has been lodged permanently in his
head, and he seems to have been psychologically altered by the incident.
He's taking phone calls from imaginary people, saying "I don't get many
visitors" over and over, and yelling "bad dog!" at a spot on the floor.
Agnew does, however, mention that he was hired by Stewart Babcock's
first wife, but she vanished shortly after he started the job, so he
mostly dealt with Stewart.
Monk and Sharona next go to the
Babcocks' house. Lisa Babcock mentions to them that the lawsuit was
before her time, as she didn't meet Stewart until after the trial. When
they first see Stewart, he is in his pool, and reading a magazine. He
mentions that he never went to the trial, as that was his insurance
company's headache. Monk fishes a leaf out of the pool, and heads to the
kitchen to dispose of it, and he catches the Babcocks in a few lies. He
notices a photo of them smoking in a restaurant. Despite Lisa saying
that she didn't meet her husband until after the trial, Monk recognizes
the restaurant in the photo as a place that hasn't allowed smoking since
1995. He also notes that just now, Stewart was chewing his fingernails -
and the person who killed Henry Smalls (victim #11) had chewed
fingernails.
Back at the police station, Kenny Shale holds a
press conference announcing that Wallace Cassidy has been arrested as
the killer, despite Monk's and Stottlemeyer's reservations and the fact
that they're skeptical about Cassidy's guilt. Sharona tries to plead to
Kenny on their behalf, but he dismisses her pleas. Monk looks at the
shirtsleeve he tore off of Henry Smalls' attacker, and notices
something, even though Disher points out that the piece of fabric is
untraceable.
Monk, Sharona, and Stottlemeyer pull up outside
the Babcocks' house just as Stewart and Lisa Babcock are about to leave.
While Sharona stews in the car about her relationship, Monk and
Stottlemeyer go inside. Stewart claims that they are heading to a house
at the beach, but Monk notes the passports in their bag, and mentions
that they're leaving the country because they've heard that the police
have picked up Wallace Cassidy. When Stewart asks why he would care
about the members of the killed-off jury, Monk tells the Babcocks that
they were aware that he was going to confess - not to murder, but for
blackmail. Cassidy, Juror #12, was blackmailing them, because he knew
that six years ago, Stewart had murdered his first wife.
Here's
what happened: After Ian Agnew fell off the Babcocks' roof and sued the
couple for negligence, the jury went to the house and visited the scene
of the accident. As the jurors looked around, Cassidy wandered off. As
he had a gambling problem, he was most likely trying to find out if
there was anything worth stealing. But Cassidy never found anything
worth stealing from the house - but in a container, he found the body of
the first Mrs. Babcock. He was so amazed at his find that he didn't
leave without taking a picture and one of her fingers. Cassidy started
blackmailing Stewart for money. Stewart paid, only knowing that the
blackmailer was one of the jurors. Cassidy kept demanding more and more
money, and after six years, Stewart decided to kill the blackmailer.
Because he didn't know which juror was sending him the notes, he had to
kill off every single member of the jury, one at a time.
Stewart says there is no proof, but Monk pulls out the shirtsleeve he
pulled off when Stewart attacked Henry Smalls, Juror #11. Monk admits
that he can't prove it's Stewart's shirt, but he knows someone who might
identify it. As he says that, Disher arrives with Mrs. Ling, Monk's
drycleaner. Monk reveals that when he saw the piece of shirtsleeve, he
realized that he and the killer had one thing in common - they share the
same drycleaner. Mrs. Ling recognizes the stitching pattern on the
shirtsleeve, and identifies the sleeve as coming from Stewart Babcock's
shirt.
Sometime later, Mrs. Ling has refused to let Monk into
her place ever again. She's even put up a sign specifically banning him
from her dry-cleaning place. Sharona tells Monk to forget about it, and
then she turns around and sees an officer ticketing her car. During the
time in which she was seeing Kenny Shale, it seems he took care of
Sharona's parking tickets. Having accused the wrong man to the media,
Kenny Shale has dropped out of the race, and now his name means nothing
to the parking officer.
Written by Gadfly on Jan 31, 2018