The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat

by Claudia Bishop

  Outside the barn, the moon sailed high and silver, spreading its pale light over the grounds. I went to the paddock gate and whistled. There was a rumble of hooves, and Tracker and Andrew came up to the gate. Horses are tactile creatures. Andrew leaned over the fence and nudged me affectionately. Tracker nudged him, then put her neck over his and nibbled his ear. They had no objection to sharing the carrot.

  Neville Brandstetter would have been better off with a horse.

  Five

  I am fond of Sundays in August. Both Madeline and Lincoln feel the heat, and the coolest place on the farm is under the willow by the duck pond. We take our meals there, and when Neville came over midmorning, I conducted file CC005’s first interview with the Muscovy ducks at my feet, squabbling over the remains of my breakfast croissant.

  “Madeline not going to join us?” Neville settled into the Adirondack chair with an air of taking refuge.

  “She and Joe are canning beans. Allegra is on call at the clinic.” I had a yellow pad and pen to hand. I dated the top of the first sheet, listed the case file number, and looked over my spectacles at Neville. “They will join us for lunch. It would be well, I think, to begin with some background on the dairy. I am particularly interested in Doucetta.”

  Neville stretched back in the chair and gazed up through the willow leaves at the sky, which was blue. The air was filled with sunshine. “Ah yes. Doucetta.” He sat up and said briskly, “Tre Sorelle milks five hundred does and produces a rolling average of about two hundred thousand gallons of milk a year. The average is just under a gallon of milk per animal. It’s an excellent average and a well-run operation. Half of the milk is sold to other processors. The rest goes into the Tre Sorelle cheeses, five hundred pounds a month.”

  I tried to recall the ratio of milk to cheese. My dairy classes had been nearly fifty years ago! I believe it is several pounds of milk to one pound of cheese; the ratio may differ with the type of cheese being made. I could have asked Neville, of course, but the man was in full spate.

  “The cheeses are marketed all over the United States. And money comes in from the retail operation, of course. Have you ever been in it? Tre Sorelle cheeses aren’t a tenth of what sells in there. She carries Swinford wines and boatloads of that touristy crap like cheese plates and picnic baskets, whatever. You go in there on a Sunday afternoon like this one, and you can’t get near the register. And then there are the tours. Doucetta picked up some old draft horse at an auction and Marietta tools tourists around the hundred acres in a farm cart at fifteen dollars a head. It all adds up to quite a pile of money. Doucetta’s of the old school. The company’s privately held and the only other people who know what the profits really are, are God and her accountant. And I’m not too sure about the accountant.”

  “This is a complex business to run. Does she have advisors?”

  Neville shook his head. “Just the firm that does the taxes. And I swear, Austin, she’s got a second set of books somewhere. The retail business brings in a lot of cash. She’s not real big on reporting the income, but she’s the kind of personality that needs to track every nickel. She came over from Italy when she was sixteen. Had an arranged marriage with the old man—Dominic, his name was, and he passed away when Luisa was just a kid. There were three daughters: Luisa’s the youngest by more than ten years; then there was Margarita, who died of a stroke a couple of years ago; and Caterina, the oldest. Caterina remembers the old man; he was quiet, she said. I got the impression that when Doucetta said “jump” the old man jumped and asked if it was high enough. Margarita had one daughter, Marietta. Her husband just up and disappeared a few years after Marietta was born. He died sometime after that—in Italy, I think.

  “Marietta herself went on to Vassar, got a good degree there, and went from that to an MBA at the Wharton School. She’s probably the best candidate as a successor to Doucetta, and the old lady dotes on her—as much as the old lady dotes on anybody.

  “Caterina married a guy named Frank Celestine. A real jerk, if you want to know the truth, and a lazy one at that. If you’re looking for suspects based on who deserves to be locked up on general principles, take a good hard look at Frank. Caterina herself isn’t as dumb as she makes out, and she’s certainly not as scatterbrained as she appears, but living with someone like Frank would suppress anybody’s natural personality, and hers wasn’t all that definite to begin with. The old lady dominates all of them. Which is why Caterina’s forced to put up with Frank. Doucetta doesn’t believe in divorce. As a mother—well, she’s terrorized all of them since they were kids, and I suppose Caterina doesn’t know anything else. You know how chickens will pick one poor bird out of the flock and peck it senseless? That’s how Doucetta and Frank treat Caterina.

  “Anyway, Frank and Caterina have two sons. Neither one of them was interested in the dairy. As a matter of fact, I think they both went to Italy to live ten or twelve years ago. There were some rumblings about drugs when they left. Maybe a felony or two. I don’t know the details.

  “And, as you know, Luisa and I didn’t have any children at all. It looks as if Marietta’s the only family member available to take over the dairy when Doucetta dies. Have you met her?”

  I shook my head.

  “Beautiful girl. Of course, all of Doucetta’s offspring are beautiful. She’s a stockbroker, or was. She came back from New York to help out a couple of years ago. She’s got the brains to take the dairy over, that’s for sure. Whether she has the desire is anybody’s guess. But other than Marietta—there’s nobody.”

  We were both silent, looking over the duck pond. I had married late in life, astounding my colleagues who had thought me a confirmed bachelor at fifty. The children Madeline and I both wished for had not come. But our lives had been enriched by the long procession of students who had eaten at our table and become part of our lives for the time they had been at school.

  “At any rate, Doucetta runs the place with an iron fist, or cane rather. Have you seen that goat-headed stick she carries? Of course you have, you were there when she thumped Abrahamson in the shins at the guild meeting. The kids are all petrified of her. And she keeps the purse strings open just enough so that it’d take real character to walk away from the place.”

  “At ninety-four,” I began.

  “Yes. At ninety-four, Doucetta’s not immortal. I don’t know who’ll take over the operation after she goes. Nobody does. Caterina’s husband probably has big ideas, but the guy’s a real loser. She never got past sixth grade, Doucetta didn’t. She combines this amazing genius for business with peasant superstitions.” He tugged his beard. “My guess, the whole thing will dwindle away once she’s gone. In the meantime, she keeps the milk right on coming.”

  “I’m surprised no one’s offered to buy her out. One of the big cheese companies, perhaps.”

  “It’d make sense,” Neville said. “But I don’t know a thing about it. Doucetta had me doing the necessary vet work at the dairy when Luisa and I were first married, but I haven’t set foot in the place for years—nor have I talked to Doucetta other than Christmas and birthdays.”

  “When did you stop treating the goats?”

  “Most of us drop clinical in favor of the teaching and research. You know that better than anybody does. But even if I had kept up private practice, I couldn’t have worked with her. We crossed swords early on. She’s got notions about handling animals I don’t approve of…and don’t want to know about, frankly.”

  I wasn’t sure whether I should pursue this lead at the moment, or not. If Doucetta were engaging in unseemly practices, I would see that for myself. I made a brief note and said, “Which brings us to the high somatic cell count.”

  “Yeah, I thought we’d get there.” Neville tugged at his beard with both hands. “I’ll tell you what I think, Austin. I think it’s sabotage.”

  I was somewhat nonplussed. “By whom? And why? Or perhaps my first question should be: Are you sure? Broadly speaking, the cytokines critical in the ea
rly recruitment of PMN to the mammary gland are created in response to mastitis pathogens. Are there cases of mastitis in the Tre Sorelle goats?”

  “It’s truer for cows than goats,” Neville said. “Estrus, season, and milk yield raise the cell count in goats. Even the breed and the geographic area can affect the count in goats. Everyone has had a guess at why. Nobody’s got much on how to fix it.”

  “Troublesome,” I said. “And quite interesting.” My primary contribution to animal research had been a series of landmark studies on bovine back fat. To be truthful, at the time of my retirement, the subspecialty had been pretty well mined out. This area of caprine study was new to me. And intriguing. “Is anyone engaged in field studies?”

  “Everybody who’s anybody in the field is having a whack at it,” Neville said. “But you know the problems with funding.”

  How well I knew the problems of funding!

  “The Europeans have a lot more going on than we do, at the moment. More goats over there.”

  “And you say some breeds seem more prone to the problem than others?”

  “Apparently. But we haven’t any definitive studies yet.”

  “I’m more familiar with the meat goat breeds,” I admitted. “Savannas, Boers, and of course, the ubiquitous Spanish. The dairy has Saanens, primarily?” Saanens are known for producing a gallon of milk a day with dependable regularity.

  “Saanens, Toggs, and Alpines.”

  “Toggenburgs,” I said. “An attractive goat, if memory serves. But not a great deal of butter fat, surely?”

  “There’s exceptions to every rule, Austin. Researchers know that better than anyone does. For a while there, Doucetta played around with outcrossing, trying to create a breed that’d combine the best characteristics of the standards and eliminate the worst, but she couldn’t see an immediate return, so she stopped. She’s a cash-on-the-nail-head kind of lady.”

  “You suspect sabotage, you said? There must be surer ways of putting her out of business.”

  “With so many variables affecting the MSCC in goats, who’s to say it isn’t just bad luck? It’d be hard to catch somebody who’s clever at it. You don’t even believe it.”

  “You do, apparently.”

  “That’s right. I do. And since you’ve got that look in your eye, all I can tell you is that it just doesn’t feel right. The pattern’s too persistent. There’s no fluctuation in the readings. They’re consistently a hundred thousand over a million. And there should be fluctuation. The only set of conditions I know of at the moment that reliably produces a higher count is mastitis, and there isn’t any. All the other factors would give you an up and down count from sample to sample.” Neville got up and moved restlessly around the lawn. “As for why—well, Doucetta’s made a lot of enemies in her lifetime. Aren’t there supposed to be three basic motives for crime? Greed, lust, and revenge? Thanks to Doucetta, the dairy’s awash in ’em.”

  I mused. There was a great deal to think about. The yellow pad in my lap was covered with notes, including double underlines, which indicated those possible motives.

  Greed. Lust. Revenge.

  “I see Madeline,” Neville said, with the cheerful note that almost always attends those who speak of my wife. “And she’s carrying lunch!”

  I set the yellow pad aside. I was as ready as I could be for my appearance at the scene of the crime tomorrow.

  And I hadn’t the least notion of where to begin.

  Six

  “AND what do you think you’re doing here, arsehole?” Doucetta stood at the dairy door, feet planted wide, with cane held crosswise to bar my team from entry.

  The morning was not beginning well.

  It was seven thirty, and the air was thick with the bleats of does waiting for their turn in the milking. A light rain was falling on the Tre Sorelle Dairy. Although I had passed by the place many times, I had never actually been on the premises.

  It was even more impressive close up than from the roadside.

  The dairy buildings and creamery formed a T that was at right angles to the long metal shed barns that housed the goats. The office and the milking parlor formed the bar of the T and faced the courtyard; the creamery where the cheese was made formed the shank. Both the house on the hillside overlooking the dairy and dairy buildings were constructed of pale pink stucco now dampened slightly with the misty rain. Building maintenance in a commercial farming operation is a continuous problem and frequently neglected. I was impressed to see that the worn spots in the stucco were neatly patched. One of the long wrought-iron scones was detached from the wall near the office door and the wall patching was in process, but at least the work was being done.

  Wisteria wound around the eaves and the window jambs. The drive—more of a courtyard if one considered the fountain chiming in the center of the brick paving—was swept and free of detritus. The heavy flower scent mingled pleasantly with the odor of goat.

  “Madam,” I said. “As I have explained—exhaustively—we have been sent by the university and the State of New York to assess the vulnerability of your dairy operation to pathogens inciting the rise in your somatic cell count.”

  I could not have been clearer if I’d written out our mission on a chalkboard. Yet the confounded woman refused us entry!

  Her fierce black eyes had the steady, unwavering glare of a lioness stalking warthogs. It was most unsettling. She turned them to Leslie Chou, who was cowering behind me. “This arsehole speaks English?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She poked her head over my shoulder. “We’re just here to look. Honestly.”

  Joseph, who had been watching this scene unfold with a very regrettable twinkle in his eye, said, “We’re just here to offer some help, ma’am.” Then, to my astonishment he said, “Il mio capo è testardo, ma una brava persona.”

  She slammed the point of the cane on the stoop and took a step forward. She squinted at Joe’s dark hair. “You Italian?” she said suspiciously. “Che cosa fa un bravo regazzo come te con undisgraziato simile?”

  My Italian was limited to a crash course I took when Madeline and I had gone to Rome on our honeymoon. But I believe Joe had told her I was as obstinate as a pig, and that she had asked him what a nice boy like him was doing witha…person…like me. I cleared my throat in a meaningful way.

  Joe shot me an apologetic glance. “I do speak Italian. My grandmother, donna, on my mother’s side.”

  “You are here to pee in my milk and make it bad for the test!”

  “No, donna, we’re here to help you.”

  She snorted. She sucked her lower lip with a very unpleasant sound. Then she said, “Okay. You come in.” She shook the cane at me. “But you speak English!”

  Her first request, with which I thoroughly concurred, was to wear clear plastic overshoes to minimize the conveyance of any outside contaminants. Farm animals have varying immunity to a wide variety of infectious complaints that can be carried from barn to barn. Sore mouth, foot rot, and caseous lymphadenitis—not to mention pneumonia and bacteria-borne abscesses—are among the most dangerous. An unhappy goat gives far less milk.

  Her second, third, and fourth requests were to shut up and speak English. Fortunately, Joe’s Italian was up to the task of translating both my questions and her answers. Despite the fact that I knew she understood me quite well, our discussion took considerably more time than necessary. I felt as if I were playing Ping-Pong.

  For some reason, perhaps due to an understandable case of nerves, young Leslie Chou was afflicted with a severe case of giggles throughout the tour.

  I find well-run dairy operations very happy places to be. Good sanitation dictates a heavy use of concrete in construction. All the equipment is heavy-gauge stainless steel, except for the hoses, which are thick PVC plastic. A well-run dairy is always cool and slightly damp, like a grotto behind a waterfall. Unlike cattle, goats rarely pass manure in the milking parlor, and the entire process is very clean.

  We began the tour at the milking p
arlor.

  Goats are talkative creatures, particularly in comparison with cows, and the does conducted quite a conversation among themselves as they ambled into the parlor from the holding pen. One by one, Doucetta’s employees, who appeared to be Mexican gentlemen, cleansed the does’ udders with a disinfectant, and then attached the inflations to their teats.

  The seasoned milkers were perfectly content to stand quietly while the vacuum lines did their work. Tre Sorelle’s practice was to feed the does some grain during milking and the goats munched pleasantly. The Mexican gentlemen who handled the milking paid close attention as the udders emptied of milk, to the necessity of “stripping out” the udder, that is, making sure that as much milk was removed from the mammary gland as possible. Overmilking and the subsequent damage to the teats is a frequent contributor to mastitis. It did not seem to be a problem here. Each gentleman disinfected each teat with an iodine dip.

  The care of raw milk—be it bovine, caprine, or ovine, has the same basic steps. The milk is collected and cooled to 38 degrees Fahrenheit with agitator paddles. If it is to be used raw, it is pumped into canisters and put straight into the cooler. It is heated to 185 degrees if it is to be pasteurized, and then stored in a refrigerated space. At large dairies, the entire process is automated from beginning to end. We observed each step of the process closely. In the milk room, I paid particular attention to the scene of the crime. A yellow police tape surrounded the middle tank. Doucetta jerked her thumb at it and snarled at me, “All that milk. Gone. Down the drain. That carabinari owes me some big check.”