Monk Season 3 Episode 6

An older woman is preparing to use the elevator in her building when she sees an "Out of Order" sign forcing her to use the stairs. In the stairwell, a man asks her if she is Katherine Rutherford the nurse. She says yes so he pushes her down the stairs. Then he breaks a chain of pearls on the top step.

Randy and Captain Stottlemeyer come to the scene. They're not fooled by the pearls because they didn't cascade down the steps so she definitely didn't slip, she was pushed. They find a pin under her body with a big "25" emblazoned on it.

We find Monk wearing the same pin as he escorts Natalie around his old campus for his 25-year reunion. Monk runs into old friend Diane Brooks. They get to chatting as she props her registration form on his back so she can fill it out. He's actually letting her touch him. He seems more discomforted by her pointy pen than the fact that she is touching him. Anyway, Diane goes on and on about her new husband Kyle, who has been dying to meet Monk.

At lunch, Diane and Kyle talk about their new dog, Tangerine. Monk recalls Diane had a dog of the same name in college. She gushes over his photographic memory before explaining that Kyle brought it home from the pound just because it was already named Tangerine. Kyle asks Monk what he does for a living even though he's been dying to meet him, hmm.

Later, Monk tells Natalie the story of how he met Trudy in the library when some other guy used Monk's back to copy down Trudy's number. That is how he got her number himself, he was able to decipher the numbers he felt on his back, and called her weeks later.

Monk and Natalie meet up with Diane and they are soon joined by Kyle who has invited another former student he just met named Gertrude, but he insists on calling her Trudy. Kyle insists they have lunch at Rocco's because he's heard Diane talk it up. The rest of the group is hesitant but Kyle pressures them so they go.

Randy and Stottlemeyer discover Katherine was a nurse at Berkeley and try to find anyone who may have disliked her but everyone seems to have loved her. Diane recounts a low point in her senior year when she wrote a suicide note and swallowed pills. Katherine saved her life. Kyle shows up with some guys and wants to play touch football. Natalie and Monk opt out until Kyle pulls them aside and tells them he really wants to cheer Diane up this weekend. They agree to play. Diane has the ball when Kyle calls that he's open. Diane throws to him but he misses and the ball crashes through the glass of a bulletin board. He totally missed on purpose.

Later at the final dinner, Kyle slips something in Diane's drink. She gets sleepy and he calls it a night, telling everyone she has been depressed lately. After they leave, Natalie realizes she has Diane's earrings. Stottlemeyer instantly recognizes them as the matching set to the pearls at the crime scene. Monk deduces Kyle found Diane's old suicide note which included reference to her dog Tangerine, breaking glass in the quad and having lunch at Rocco's with Monk and Trudy, and decided to reenact them in order to pass the note off as new and fake her suicide.

The gang scurries to find where Diane and Kyle are staying. Monk remembers Diane filled out her registration form on his back. He recalls the writing of the Hotel's name on his back and they burst into Kyle and Diane's room as Kyle is trying to throw her off the balcony.

Kyle had killed Katherine because she was the only other person who had read the suicide note and could have proven it was old.