The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat

by Claudia Bishop

  “Both of them, I suppose. Anna Luisa’s always been at loose ends. She never liked the dairy work. I think she trained as a teacher in a high school, but she gave that up when the schools started laying off teachers because of the budget cuts. And they never had any kids. But I was talking about Thelma. She just plain needs something to keep her busy old body occupied.”

  “Like what?” Ally asked.

  “I was thinking maybe…cheese making.”

  The three of us stared at her.

  “Cheese making?” I said.

  “I signed the two of us up for the cheese-making class at Tre Sorelle today.”

  Long familiarity with my wife’s thought processes led me to the proper conclusion. “My dear—that’s brilliant.”

  Madeline twinkled at me. “It’s a three-day course. It starts Tuesday. There were two spaces left in the class. I figure we can pick up any number of clues to help the investigation along.”

  “Are we pretty sure the murderer’s at the dairy, though?” Ally asked.

  “We can be sure that the murderer made at least one appearance at the dairy,” Joe said with a tinge of sarcasm.

  Allegra shot him a look. The two had been rivals ever since the competition for the job as clinic assistant. There was détente, with occasional flare-ups. Odie tolerated Lincoln in much the same way.

  “Excellent question, Ally. Staples seems to have had a talent for annoying a significant part of the village population. Therefore,” I continued, “we must look into Staples’s background as well as the Caprettis and their relations. For all we know, Staples may have been followed to the dairy by a total outsider. The murderer may have followed him into the milk room and simply took advantage of an opportunity to hit him over the head and push him in. There are a number of possible suspects. I have, therefore, made a plan.” I reached over to the bookshelf that divides our kitchen from the dining area and picked up the folder I’d started. It was labeled CC005.

  “Really?” Ally said. “I’ve made a plan, too.”

  Joe reached into the pocket of his T-shirt and waved a folded piece of paper in the air. “And me.”

  “Well, isn’t that nice,” Madeline said comfortably. “We can put them all together. My plan’s just to go to those cheese classes and collect all the scuttlebutt floating around.”

  “My plan’s to suck up to Ashley,” Ally said. “She’s taking some second-level dressage from Mrs. Gernsback. I’m going to take Tracker over there and show up for the Tuesday afternoon class. She’s been at the data entry job all summer, right? I’ll bet she knows stuff about the dairy she doesn’t even know she knows.”

  “And Joe and I will be on the QMPS team in the guise of consultants,” I said. “I plan to meet with young Leslie Chou on Monday morning and arrive at the dairy Monday afternoon.

  “There are certain facts we need to establish to obtain a clear picture of what occurred that morning. If you all would take notes, please, we will list the basics.”

  There was a brief flurry of activity as the others assembled a pen and pad (Madeline) and iPhones (Ally and Joe).

  “We will make an assumption that the relevant times are between nine thirty a.m. on Saturday, when the morning’s milking was finished, and eleven a.m., when the body was discovered. We need to know who was at the dairy and where they were during those hours. We will check with the milk board and Melvin’s wife to determine his activities prior to his appearance in the bulk tank.” I looked over the rim of my spectacles at them. “We must keep our minds open to any and all possibilities. At the moment, we don’t even have a viable list of suspects.”

  “Do we have any sort of forensics?” Joe asked.

  I frowned. Provost had exhibited his usual recalcitrance when I requested the scene-of-the-crime data and the autopsy report. His response, in fact, had been to stick with the goats. “Not yet,” I admitted.

  Lincoln, who had been dozing in his basket by the woodstove, suddenly leaped to his feet and padded to the back door. A frantic tattoo of rapping made him bark.

  “Somebody’s here,” Ally said.

  “Perhaps it’s Ashley come to visit Sunny,” Madeline said. “How’s the pony doin’?”

  “As well as can be expected,” I said. “If she has come to give the animal food, we will bar the door.”

  The rapping increased in intensity. Joe shoved his chair back. Before he got to his feet, the door burst open and Anna Luisa Brandstetter tumbled into the kitchen. Her black hair tumbled wildly around her face. The sclera around her pupils was visible. She panted heavily. I quelled an impulse to reach for a dose of acepromazine.

  “Dr. McKenzie! You’ve got to help me! They’ve arrested Neville for murder!”

  “I don’t know what rotten gossip went blabbing to the police about Mel,” Anna Luisa said furiously, after Madeline had calmed her down. “but I’d like to kill her myself.”

  I cleared my throat and offered a second stiff brandy to Neville’s distraught wife. She downed it on one gulp and ranted on. “And I don’t know why they dragged Neville off to jail or what evidence they think they have, but this is just terrible.”

  As soon as we had ascertained that Luisa had no physical trauma, Joe and Allegra had exchanged one significant glance and exited the house, leaving Luisa in Madeline’s capable hands. Luisa’s hysteria had rapidly transmuted into a temper tantrum. I hoped sufficient brandy would tamp the rage into a manageable blaze. I poured a third tot and offered it to her.

  “Oh. Why! Why! Why!” she shrieked. She threw herself facedown on our leather sectional sofa and beat her hands against the cushions.

  Madeline caught my concerned gaze and shrugged. “It’s leather, sweetie. It can take it.” And then, rather sharply, “That’s enough, Luisa, dear. If you can sit up and let us know exactly what happened, Austin and I may be able to help you. Here.” She removed the brandy from my grasp and handed it to Luisa. “Third time’s the charm.”

  Luisa took the glass, held it in both hands, much as a toddler would, and gulped it down. She looked up at us with that same, toddlerlike expression. “I’m so frightened,” she whispered. “What if they hang poor Neville?”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “They haven’t hanged felons in New York state for years. He’d die by lethal injection, if anything.”

  “Um, Austin?” Madeline said.

  “Eh? Oh. Of course it won’t come to that, Luisa. Unless he did it.” I paused. “Did he?”

  “I’m so afraid he did,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid he did!” She began to wind up like the fire horn at the village fire department.

  “Anna Luisa,” Madeline said briskly. “You’re fifty-two years old and you are made of sterner stuff than this. Now sit up and tell us exactly what happened.”

  Luisa scowled, perhaps at the mention of her age, and sat up as instructed.

  “Please begin at the beginning, go on, and then stop,” I said.

  “It was that wretched little witch. Mel’s wife. That police lieutenant went back to her house and asked her point-blank if Mel and I had been having an affair and she, do you know what? She had pictures!”

  “Good heavens,” I said. “Do you know how they were obtained?”

  “She claims she got them through the mail.” Luisa shrugged. “She’s lying. Of course. She got somebody to follow us. Or maybe she was the one who followed us.”

  “Did Neville get similar pictures?”

  “He didn’t know a thing about Mel! Not until that police lieutenant marched into my house and dragged him off to jail!”

  “But clearly Neville knew you were having an affair with someone,” I suggested gently.

  “Well, yes.” Luisa looked thoughtful. “Maybe—hm. You may as well know it all.”

  It was an old story, and a familiar one. The lovers had met at the dairy. Sparks flew. They decided to run away together. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whoever said Tolstoy was wrong about happy families being all alike—that it was unhappy families
who are all alike—got it in one. I cut short the banal recounting of the progress of the affair and asked Luisa about the day before the murder.

  “I called Neville at the office and told him I was leaving. That I’d found someone else. That the lawyers would be in touch.”

  “Just like that?” Madeline asked. “I mean, you didn’t try to soften it any?”

  “Soften it?” Luisa blinked at her. “Well, it was true, and Neville deserved the truth, didn’t he?”

  Madeline sighed a little. Then she said, “Please go on.”

  The eloping couple spent the night at an apartment Luisa had rented in Ithaca. Mel left for work the next day. He’d intended to come home for lunch. He didn’t arrive. Luisa heard the news of his death on the radio.

  “And then I called Neville. I mean, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I left a message for him. He was at the office. Or in the field. Or teaching. Anywhere,” she said bitterly, “except there for me. And I sat there in that apartment for a couple of hours. Then I went home. Everything,” she added even more bitterly, “was all patched up until that lieutenant showed up.”

  “Is there any actual evidence involving Neville in Staples’s murder?” I asked.

  Luisa shrugged.

  “Did Simon actually arrest him? Or just take him in for questioning?”

  “Simon?”

  “‘That lieutenant,’” Madeline said rather dryly.

  “Oh. I don’t know.” Her bosom began an ominous heaving. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I was just so upset I couldn’t stop screaming.”

  “Quick, Austin, the brandy!”

  We gave Luisa a fourth tot, which seemed to stave off the hysterics for the moment.

  “It’s possible that Neville hasn’t been arrested at all, but has just been taken down to the village station for questioning,” I said. “If you couldn’t stop screaming it’s unlikely that either man was able to hear himself think.”

  “Is it possible?” Luisa cried, clasping her hands in that childlike way. “Do you think they’ll let him go?”

  “I’ll call and find out,” Madeline said kindly. She withdrew to the kitchen, where she could call the station in relative quiet.

  “Tell me about the dairy,” I suggested. “Is there anyone there who might have a reason to, ah…”

  “Kill Mel?” Luisa shook her head. “Only Neville.” She paused reflectively. “He’s crazy about me, Neville is. I’m afraid it’s all too possible that he did discover who I’d fallen in love with. And then…yes, he had motive to do it. He was insanely jealous. Oh. Oh, this is all so sad! I just couldn’t help it, Austin. It’s just the way I am. I’ve got to be loved! I’ve got to!”

  “Neville’s on his way home right now,” Madeline said briskly, coming back into the living room.

  “Do you think…that is…has he forgiven me?”

  “I have no idea,” Madeline said. “Are you feelin’ fit enough to drive, sweetie? Would you like me to take you back? Austin can follow us in your car.”

  “No! No! I can’t stay the night with a murderer! Can’t I stay here? I feel safe here!”

  I could not suppress a shudder. What if my tender-hearted wife agreed to let this poor benighted harpy stay in the back room?”

  “Lieutenant Provost says that your husband’s in the clear.”

  “Is he sure?” Luisa said skeptically. “Neville’s quite clever, you know.”

  “He was teaching a summer school class from nine to eleven this morning.”

  “Parasitology,” Luisa said. “Yes. It’s a graduate course.” She looked thoughtful. “I forgot all about that.”

  “Those hours cover the possible time of death.” Madeline folded her lips, which made the dimples on either cheek stand out. “So you won’t be spending the night with a murderer.” She held a hand out to Luisa. “Come on, sweetie. I’ll take you home.”

  Luisa was efficiently bundled up and seated in Madeline’s Prius in record time. She had parked her own vehicle sideways in our driveway, within a cat’s whisker of our Bronco. She handed me the keys to her car through the passenger window with an apologetic moue. “I was just so upset.”

  “The Bronco has its share of bumps and scrapes,” Madeline said. “But it’d be a shame to put a ding in that little thing.”

  The “little thing” was a Mercedes 450 SL canvas top. Luisa glanced at it indifferently. “A bribe from Mamma.” A pale smile touched her lips. “Mamma always gets a return on her dollar. I’m chained to the tasting room for the summer. At least I’m not teaching those freakin’ cheese-making classes for the rest of the year. Caterina pulled that short stick out of the pile.”

  Madeline gunned the motor. I stepped back to allow them to leave, then followed them across the village to the house on Crescent in the Mercedes. Normally, I rue the invention of the combustion engine; like the cell phone, it is a piece of technology man would be better off without. But the little car was a revelation. I was almost sorry to leave it in the Brandstetters’ driveway. Madeline left the Prius at the curb, and the two of them got out and walked slowly up the weedy sidewalk to the porch. I joined them. The living room lights were on, despite the fact that we were still at the gloaming part of the day.

  Luisa looked at the lights, stopped short, and gasped. “He’s home! I can’t…I won’t. Oh! Madeline, please, please come in with me!”

  Madeline gave her a firm shove and said cheerfully, “We’re right behind you!”

  Neville heard us, of course, and was waiting in front of the fireplace as the three of us walked in the door. Rather, Madeline and I walked in. Luisa cracked the door, peered around the edge, cried “Neville?” in that little-girl voice, then ran forward and flung herself into his arms, kicking the little beagle aside in the process. “I thought they’d locked you up and thrown away the key!”

  Neville gazed at us over the top of his wife’s head. I couldn’t put a name to the expression on his face, but Madeline did later, after we had gotten home. She said it was depressed and loving resignation.

  “Thank you, Austin, Madeline,” he said.

  “No trouble at all,” I said.

  Neville addressed the dark head huddled in his chest. “Sweetheart, it’s been a rough day. I want you to go upstairs and lie down for a bit. Do you think you can sleep?”

  “She’s had four good slugs of brandy,” Madeline said. “She ought to be out like a light in thirty seconds flat. Come on, Luisa. Let’s get you upstairs.”

  I waited until the two women had disappeared around the bend in the staircase, then I sat down in the same chair I’d occupied not six hours before. It seemed like six weeks. The beagle sniffed around my knees, looking for Lincoln. “You went down to the station and spoke with Simon?”

  “Yes.” Neville put his hands in his pockets and took them out again. “Yes, I did.”

  “That course in parasitology you teach. Was it a lecture day this morning? Or a field day?”

  On a field day, the professor generally turns the class over to a TA and is free to pursue other activities. Neville’s expression gave me the answer I needed.

  “What did Provost have to say about that?”

  He pulled his lips back in an attempt at a smile. “Not to leave town.”

  “Did you retain a lawyer?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  I looked at him for a long, grim moment. “Did you do it?”

  “No. No, Austin, I didn’t.”

  “Your innocence not withstanding, you should probably think about a lawyer.”

  He nodded. Then he said, “What about this Provost? Is he up to finding out who did kill Staples?”

  “Undoubtedly,” I said. “He is an excellent detective.”

  “But these last two murders in Summersville. You gave him a hand in solving those, didn’t you?”

  I was silent. Neville was a friend of mine. A former colleague. The stakes were very high.

  “Can I hire you to look into this?”
/>   “Of course, Neville. I will do my best. Now isn’t the time, you’ve had quite a long day….”

  He barked with laughter. “A long day. If that’s not a classic McKenzie understatement!”

  “…But we should sit down and discuss this tomorrow. My investigators and I”—and I confess to a feeling of pride as I said this!—“will be at the dairy on Monday, and we will be there for as long as it takes. Tomorrow is Sunday. And we will take the time to develop a plan.”

  The beagle ran to the foot of the stairs and looked up, tail wagging eagerly, as Madeline descended. I joined the beagle.

  “Just as I thought,” Madeline said. “She fell right asleep. If she’s not used to brandy, Neville, she might have a head in the mornin’. You give her lots of tomato juice and aspirin.” She looked up into his face. “And you, you take care of yourself, you hear? You’re going to need one cool head in this household. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Austin and I will be getting on home.”

  Once in Madeline’s Prius, my wife turned to me and said, “Somebody, Austin, ought to give that woman a slap up the side of the head. You know she’s convinced that Neville killed that milk inspector because he’s crazy jealous. She thinks it’s her duty to let Simon know. Her own husband!” She put the car in gear with a jerk. “I swear to goodness. And he has a perfectly good alibi.” She looked quickly at me. “Doesn’t he?”

  I evaded a direct response. “He says he’s innocent. I believe him.”

  We drove home in silence, ruminative on my part, indignant on Madeline’s.

  We returned to a darkened house. Lincoln was waiting at his usual post by the back steps. Juno the Akita was prone to roaming the countryside; Ally had left her inside the house and she began a joyful barking when Madeline went inside. Lincoln and I remained out in the soft evening air. I had a habit of one last round of the barn and animals before I went to bed, and I set off now to check on our resident animals.

  Ally had bedded Sunny the Hackney down in a stall next to Pony. They both greeted me with an impatient snort. August is a month of both heat and flies, and we have a practice of turning the animals out in the pasture at night and keeping them in during the day. Ally’s half-bred Trakehner and our elderly Quarterhorse Andrew were grazing happily in the paddock off the barn, but Pony—a Shetland of bossy disposition and with a penchant for escape—had been conscripted to keep Sunny company. Pony shoved her nose against the stall mesh and blew out at me. This is the equine equivalent of “good evening,” so I leaned against the mesh and blew back. I checked the meds sheet hanging on Sunny’s stall. The last dose of bute for the day was listed in Ally’s neat handwriting. Sunny shuffled over. Her gait seemed at little easier, and the worried look around her eyes had disappeared. She nosed the mesh, expecting a treat. I apologized. But her diet would have to continue. The handful of carrots I’d picked up from the tack room supply was forbidden for a few more weeks.