as powdered milk is made from lactose and drug dealers use it to cut heroin, Monk deduces Merrigan is trafficking drugs, and he probably also killed Teresa. Merrigan arrives, ties them to chairs, and loads them into the back of his truck. Inside the truck, Monk sees a broken Turkish figurine and remembers the vacuum bag was empty. He deduces that Teresa, while cleaning Merrigan's office, broke a figurine, which contained heroin. Not recognizing it, she simply vacuumed it up. When Merrigan saw the broken figurine he realized what happened. He killed Teresa, spread the patient files, and later threw a rock at Dr. Kroger's house to make it look like the killer was one of Dr. Kroger's patients. Harold follows Merrigan's truck and calls the police. At a warehouse, Harold grabs a gun from a shelf. Dr. Kroger gestures for Harold to free him and Monk while Merrigan and his accomplice are busy trying to separate the heroin from the rest of the vacuum bag's contents. However, Harold makes some noise. As Merrigan prepares to shoot Harold, the police arrive. Merrigan shoots at Dr. Kroger. Harold intercepts the bullet in his chest and Merrigan is taken away. Dr. Kroger cancels his retirement. Production "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink" was written by Hy Conrad and directed by Andrei Belgrader. The idea of hiding the crucial piece of evidence in a vacuum bag had been on the writing table for years at the time that this episode was written. The writers' problem was that they could not get a realistic idea on how to use it. One idea had actually been to have a killer hack up his victim, place the dismembered limbs into a self-cleaning oven, then vacuum out the remains and have the bag filled with the victim. The writers saw this possibility as too gruesome for the show. Other ideas had included hiding something valuable in the bag and having the killer stalk Monk while trying to recover it. After some time, they decided that the best method of featuring a vacuum bag was to have a cleaning lady vacuuming up the evidence. Whereas cleaning ladies had already been the murder victims of several previous episodes, here it seemed absolutely necessary if they wanted an episode to have a realistic plot. However, the writers believed that having a maid as the victim required a main character to