| “ | What does a girl have to do to get your attention, kill someone? | „ |
| ~ Linda Fusco |
Linda Fusco is a realtor and the former girlfriend of Captain Leland Stottlemeyer in Seasons 5 and 6 of Monk. Linda later became a villainess in Season Six's "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend".
She was portrayed by Sharon Lawrence.
Biography[]
Linda Fusco first appeared in Season Five's "Mr. Monk, Private Eye", and hired Monk and Natalie in a case of a minor accident involving her car, which later evolved into a case of an unrelated murder. It was in this episode she met Leland Stottlemeyer, who had just recently been divorced, and the two formed a romantic relationship by the end of the episode.
Linda resurfaced in the Season Six opener, "Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan," bidding $2000 on Stottlemeyer in a bachelor auction. During their date, Linda asked Stottlemeyer if she had to kill someone to get his attention; a possible precursor to Linda's heel turn. Linda turned villainous in "Mr. Monk and the Bad Girlfriend," beginning with renting a moving van and set up a fake room inside it to resemble her bedroom and spoke to Stottlemeyer via webcam.
After the conversation ended, Linda donned a black body suit and mask and shot her real estate partner, Sean Corcoran, killing him. She killed him because Sean was planning on going solo, starting his own company, and if he had done so, he would have taken most of Linda's best clients with him, which would have cost her a fortune if not flat- out bankrupted her. After an investigation, Monk and Natalie conclude that Linda did it, but when they tell Stottlemeyer, he refuses to believe them on the grounds that he thinks the widowed and often- depressed Monk is just jealous of his happiness. Natalie later poses as a buyer and keeps Linda busy while Monk searches Linda's house and finds the rifle that was used in the murder. However, the evil Linda figured that Monk was at her house, so she arrived back home and found Monk still searching.
Later on, Linda attempted to seduce Monk, but he turns her down because of his devotion to Stottlemeyer and his deceased wife, Trudy. To further get Monk off her trail, Linda tells Stottlemeyer that Monk tried to seduce her, but Stottlemeyer, knowing Monk's nature, has trouble believing that. Monk later shows up with the moving van that Linda rented (The morning after she committed the murder, Stottlemeyer found the van parked illegally by Linda's house and had it towed before Linda could have the chance to dismantle the fake room, so it remained in the impound lot until Monk got it) and gives a summation of how she killed her partner. The one thing that did Linda in was the fact that in her fake bedroom, a pen rolled and fell off the dresser, which meant Linda most likely parked on a hill. After Linda was arrested for Sean's murder, Stottlemeyer was left with a tormenting inner question: Considering that Linda had to have been planning Sean's murder for quite a while, was her whole relationship with him just part of her plan to get away with murder (Since a policeman's girlfriend would not arouse much suspicion), or did she genuinely care for him?
It is all made even sadder by the fact that Linda and Stottlemeyer were about to leave on a vacation to Hawaii, and Stottlemeyer was secretly planning on proposing to her there. Instead, he gave her ticket to his partner Randy Disher, and while there, tossed the ring he was planning on proposing to her with into the ocean.
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