02E14 - Mr. Monk and the Captain's Wife

On her way to film a documentary (apparently about a union dispute), Captain Stottlemeyer's wife, Karen, is badly injured when her car is struck by a tow truck whose nonunion driver has been killed by a sniper. Distraught and furious, the captain blames a sleazy union official and his thug, a theory that seems to be confirmed when a second tow truck driver is murdered. But Lieutenant Disher, in charge of the crime scene investigation, discovers an odd detail that doesn't fit well with this scenario--both the assailant and the murdered truck driver were barefoot. Empathizing with the captain's anguish, Monk offers to do whatever he can to help and of course ends up investigating the case. A small dog that follows Sharona from the crime scene leads her to the home of a handsome man who seems attracted to her, but Monk is more interested in the next-door neighbor's off-kilter sundial. Meanwhile, the captain, fearing that his wife will die, becomes increasingly violent, taking out his anger on everything from candy machines to suspects, and Disher worries that he'll lose his badge. Fortunately for the captain's career and sanity, Karen begins to recover, and Monk finds himself taking Stottlemeyer's sons to lunch at her request. A jostled table at the restaurant reminds him of the misadjusted sundial and he solves the case just in time to prevent a full-scale assault on the union leader by the captain and his men.