The Case of the Roasted Onion

by Bishop, Claudia

  “Ah. That plus the liens may be a fairly clear indication of money problems. And?”

  “Phillip Sullivan’s sent a notification of intent to sue.”

  “To whom?”

  “The Tompkins County Hospital. Nigel knows a nurse there. She was at the reception desk when Sullivan waddled in with the letter. Failure to provide due care, or something like that.”

  This was perplexing.

  “And the third thing is the sniper murder. Nigel has it on the QT that the cops are up the creek without a paddle. Unless there’s another one, they don’t think the case is solvable.”

  “Oh, my. That’s not good.” Again, I was not surprised.

  “Well, what are they going to do? There’s no evidence. None. Just two bullets. And they’re bullets like ten million other bullets out there. Sherlock Holmes himself couldn’t solve a case like that.”

  “So they are at an impasse.”

  “Guess so.”

  I got up. I had a few more duties in the clinic, and then I needed to bathe and change for the funeral service at four o’clock. I also needed time to think how best to bring the murderer to justice. For the evidence was scant, indeed. “Thank you, Joe. Have you eaten lunch? The remainder of that meatloaf makes an excellent sandwich.”

  “No thanks, doc. I’ve got some studying to do. And I thought after evening rounds, I’d wander on over to the Monrovian Embassy. They’ve got a jazz group booked.” He left with a cheerful wave.

  I was in the clinic proper, in the process of checking the cast on the Lab puppy, when I heard the sound of a horn in the drive. A car door slammed. Footsteps crunched on the gravel.

  “Hey, doc.”

  “Lieutenant.” I didn’t look up, being engaged in trimming remnants of acrylic from the puppy’s leg. I was, however, mildly pleased to see him. Perhaps he had brought my badge.

  “Cute little guy.”

  I regarded the puppy for a moment. “Her name is Blackie.” I set Blackie on her feet. She immediately sat down and washed the area again with her tongue.

  “Good name. Ever noticed how some people give their animals really dumb-ass names?”

  “Sweetie, for example,” I said.

  “Or Poopsie.”

  I put Blackie on the floor. She bounced in a circle, apparently pleased that the cast was lightened. Then she scrambled to the lieutenant and gnawed at his shoes. I debated whether I should point out the similarities between the puppy’s fur and the evidence retrieved at the scene of Schumacher’s shooting now, or at the time when I revealed the murderer’s identity. “What can I do for you?”

  “Wondered if you had a chance to go through those files of Coughlin’s.”

  “I have.” I wiped the examination table clean and sprayed it with disinfectant. “Have you had a chance to discover that Coughlin wasn’t a diabetic?”

  “How’d you know that? Autopsy said he was in pretty good shape for a guy his age. Except he was on Prozac. I told you the guy was depressed.” Provost moved back a few steps. The puppy followed. It was definitely time to take her for an outing. Perhaps she could ride with us to the funeral.

  “Coughlin’s good health and the presence of the glucose monitor are not incompatible pieces of data.” I explained the research Coughlin had been doing.

  Provost heard me out. Then he gave me a sharp look. “Thought all you got from that filing cabinet was some patient files.”

  I was ready for that one. Madeline would be most unhappy to have the laptop fall into official hands at this particular moment. “I also had the serum samples, Lieutenant. Victor Bergland was kind enough to run the assay tests last night in his lab.”

  “And he got all that from a couple of tubes of blood?”

  “I have engaged in bit of inductive reasoning on my own.”

  “So you can’t prove all this science stuff?”

  “In the fullness of time, Provost. In the fullness of time. I’d be happy to turn the results of the assay over to you as soon as I myself received them. Or Victor can fax them to headquarters. At this stage of our investigation the documentation is moot, in any event.”

  “But you think we’re looking at big bucks, here? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Yes, ‘big bucks’ are certainly in the picture.”

  “But you said the dingus wasn’t ready to use.”

  “Not quite.”

  “So why would someone kill Coughlin for a dingus that isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit, yet?”

  “Someone else could complete the research, of course.” I picked the puppy up. There was one more piece of information I needed to satisfy my theory. “You found Coughlin’s personal papers in his desk?”

  “Yeah. You were there.”

  “Did he leave a will?”

  “Everything to his son, Gerald Junior. Had a heck of an insurance policy. The kid’s going to be sitting pretty.”

  I frowned at that. “Everything? Stocks, for example?”

  “Everything means everything. It was one of those forms you can pick up at the office supply store. Poor bastard didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Guess he couldn’t afford a lawyer.”

  “Did you happen to find a partnership agreement in the papers?”

  Provost sighed. “Does all this have anything to do with anything, doc? Or are you just talking to hear yourself talk? There was a folder with some business documents in it.”

  “Did you happen to notice the partnership agreement?”

  “I looked at it, yeah. I looked at all of it. I did call the Feds, you know, after you explained about the horse AIDS, and when those guys come onto a case, it’s good-bye to the small-town guys like me. So I read everything I had while I was waiting for them.”

  “Did you take notes?”

  “Sure. I always take notes.”

  “Turn to the portion of your notes regarding the partnership agreement.”

  Provost sighed. “What can that have to do with the price of bananas in Brazil?”

  “Humor me, Lieutenant.”

  He pulled the steno pad from his jacket pocket and thumb through it with a few totally unnecessary flourishes. “Okay. What’s your question?”

  “Share distribution. To whom do the shares go if one of the shareholders dies?”

  “The company was called FieldChek, Inc.” He smacked his forehead with his open palm. “Well, hell. That’s the company for the dingus, right?” He read through his notes. “The shares go back to the company, it looks like.”

  “Good,” I said, pleased. “Provost, you’re a thorough man. I like a thorough man. However, I’d like to see those documents myself, if I could.”

  “Tough bounce. Once the Feds came in, they grabbed everything and took it off somewhere.” He dug into his pocket, took out a piece of gum and popped it into his mouth. “’Course, they think it’s a suicide, too. They’d walk away from it, except for the guy from the Department of Agriculture. This morning, he got all hot under the collar about the dead horse and the horse AIDS.”

  “It is not ‘horse AIDS,’” I said somewhat intemperately. “It is equine infectious anemia.”

  “Whatever.” Provost chewed his gum a little faster, and gazed at a spot somewhere beyond my left shoulder. “There’s a reason I came out here, doc. Thing is, to everybody but you, this case is a no-brainer. Coughlin offed himself. There just isn’t much question about it. One thing I’ll say about the Feds, they get results a lot faster than the Tompkins County PD. And Coughlin’s fingerprints were all over the plastic hose he stuck in his mouth, the duct tape, the whole bit.”

  “It was murder,” I said flatly.

  “Sorry. We’re closing it out as a suicide.”

  I regarded him steadily. “You are making a mistake.”

  “Yeah, well. The other thing I dropped by is to tell you is we found Coughlin’s son.”

  Sunny and Tracks. Oh, my. “And he’ll want to retrieve his father’s property, I should imagine.”

 
“All of it,” Provost said, with a slight stress on the word “all.” “So if you have any other stuff of his you aren’t telling me about . . .”

  “Of course,” I said blandly. I glanced at my watch. “Goodness. Madeline and I have to get to Ben Grazley’s funeral. I have just a few moments. That mare of Coughlin’s foaled last night.”

  “No kidding!”

  “Would you like to see them?”

  “Sure would.”

  I led the way into the barn proper. Andrew and Pony were out at pasture, but Sunny stood quietly in her stall. The filly nursed. At our approach, Sunny shifted away from the youngster and came up to the mesh opening. She was searching for a treat. I prevented Provost from giving her a piece of gum. Nonhorse people are idiots.

  “Well, isn’t that the darndest thing,” Provost said. The filly squealed, kicked her heels and raced around the perimeter of the stall. “Amazing that they run around like that, doc. How old is she?”

  “About twelve hours.” I sighed. Madeline would miss Tracks. “You’ll let Gerald Junior know? The mare and the filly undoubtedly belong to him.”

  “We got hold of him last night. Lives in Chicago. He’ll be in this afternoon. Sure, I’ll let him know.”

  A cowbell hangs outside our back door. It rang twice. “That will be Madeline. I’m afraid we must be getting on to the funeral, Provost.” We walked together out of the barn and into the April sun. “Any progress on the sniper front?”

  He shook his head. “Dammit, no. Heck of a thing, doc, two murders in Tompkins County within a week. This sniper thing’s a bugger. We haven’t been able to find a bit of evidence. Nothing. Even if I knew who pulled the trigger, I couldn’t convict him. I just hope like hell we don’t get another one.”

  Did he? Which was better—two unsolved homicides, or three, with the murderer apprehended?

  Neither.

  And what was worse, there might be another one.

  So I finally told Provost what I suspected.

  GRAZLEY had been a noted contributor to the world of equine veterinary medicine, and his funeral was well attended. The nature of his death attracted a few members of the media. I was glad to see that his widow was attended by two burly men who kept the more intrusive members of that pack in abeyance. In the receiving line after the modest service, Mrs. Grazley introduced them as her brothers.

  “It was so good of you to come, Dr. McKenzie,” she said in a soft, weary voice. “Ben thought highly of your work.”

  Madeline clasped the widow’s hands warmly and said, “I’m so sorry. It’s so hard. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Oh, Ben was well insured,” she said bitterly. “I won’t want for a thing. Except the company of the best man that ever lived.”

  Tears came to Madeline’s eyes. “It’s so unfair.”

  Mrs. Grazley bent her head and bit her lip. She was a small, neat woman, with brown hair drawn back with a simple barrette. Her two half-grown children hovered by her, bewildered. She murmured something we didn’t catch. Madeline leaned forward. The widow raised her head, her teeth drawn back, her eyes glittering. “The only thing keeping me going,” she hissed, “is that they’ll catch him. They will catch him, won’t they?”

  Madeline looked at me.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  We had been invited to the gathering that is usual after a funeral service. It was to be held at Grazley’s Canandaigua clinic, due, I believe, to the fact that were so many who had come to pay their respects. It was a forty-five-minute drive from the church in Covert to the site. The afternoon was warm, and the air filled with the scent of spring.

  “It’s a shame we’re on such a sad errand,” Madeline said wistfully. She slowed the Prius to forty-five miles an hour. Blackie, who was in the backseat, was much appreciating the outing. “It’s such a beautiful afternoon. It seems a long while since we’ve had time to take a drive.”

  “We are on more than an errand of respect, my dear. We are on a errand of justice.”

  “Justice,” she repeated.

  “You realize that both Coughlin’s and Grazley’s murders are about to go unavenged?”

  “It doesn’t sound good,” she said. “Do you know who did it, sweetie?”

  “I’m reasonably sure.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Who is it?”

  “My first thought was Brewster McClellan, of course. I’ve thought so all along. He’s in financial trouble. He’s divorcing his wife. He’s the kind of scumbag that thinks one veterinarian can substitute for another, and that any fool can finish the research. Worst of all, he’s the kind of man who would happily see his own child hang instead of himself. ‘Kids can get away with anything nowadays,’ remember? Now, with the added incentive of share ownership, I’m certain of it. For days the issue hadn’t been who, but how do we prove it?”

  “Damn. I did want it to be Phillip Sullivan. Even though I knew it can’t be.” She almost drove off the road. She righted the car and waved apologetically to the sedan behind us that had been forced to brake rather suddenly. “So it’s not that rat Sullivan? Didn’t I tell you I wanted it to be that rat Sullivan?”

  “You knew it couldn’t be Sullivan. He had an alibi for Coughlin’s murder, and the same person murdered Coughlin who murdered Larky and Ben. As a matter of fact, I fear he might be next.”

  Then she asked, “Why?”

  “Ownership of FieldChek. The shares in the company revert to the company.”

  “So the heirs to the estates are compensated for the value of the stock, and the stock stays with the remaining shareholders.” She shook her head. “What a creep. Why couldn’t he just wait for it to be a big hit? He’ll be rolling in it when it hits the market. All of them would.”

  “He appears to be in financial trouble now. Joe found a number of liens against the property development this afternoon. I should imagine those liens are only representative of the total indebtedness.”

  “And the horses? What about the horses? What about Faraway’s death? And that goofy price for Hugo? And the drug issue with Beecher?”

  “Sullivan appears to be behind all that. It is unrelated to the murders.”

  “Nuts,” Madeline said. “Rats. How are we going to catch McClellan, Austin? I refuse to believe that either of those two is clever enough to outsmart the both of us.”

  “Perhaps they are. But . . .”

  “Hang on a second. I almost missed the turn.”

  The long white buildings of the Grazley clinic loomed in the near distance. We had overshot the drive. Madeline swung a U-turn, to the consternation of the vehicles behind us, and turned back into the drive. A large sign had been posted at the head of the drive. CLOSED 5:00 TO 7:00. The sign lost the dispute with our bumper. I nipped out of the car and forced it upright again. I hopped back in.

  “You suppose McClellan’s going to be there, blatting away, big as life and twice as natural? At the funeral of the man he killed? It’s disgusting.”

  “It is, indeed. But, Madeline . . .”

  Madeline interrupted me, her eyes fierce. “You have to catch the murderer, Austin. You just have to.”

  I wasn’t at all confident of my ability to do so. And in her current state, Madeline was not going to listen. So I sat back and contemplated the probability of the success of my plan. It was not high.

  There were a fair number of vehicles in the large parking lot. The flag of the State of New York hung at half-mast. A large canvas awning, of the type that one sees at horse shows all over the Northeast had been erected on the acreage adjacent to the clinic buildings. A young girl with a black band around the sleeve of her blouse directed us to a parking spot and Madeline came to a stop at the end of a long line of vehicles.

  We disembarked. I am farsighted. Our quarries stood just outside the entrance to the tent. There was no mistaking the red-haired fat man who stood in the group—Sullivan. Standing a little apart from the group, sippi
ng a glass of wine, was the unfortunate Marina. Her fate was dismal: to be married to a man like McClellan. If the gods were at all just, we would find a way to bring him to justice.

  Stephanie was nowhere in sight.

  McClellan turned. He saw us. He waved and stepped away from the group. A red dot appeared in the center of his forehead.

  He jerked suddenly. Blood blossomed on his face. He fell back and lay still.

  “My god,” I said. “The man is dead.”

  Eighteen

  ANOTHER death. I was well served for my arrogance. Even though this one was, perhaps, deserved.

  The moment McClellan flew backward, I thrust Madeline unceremoniously into the driver’s seat and leaned against the door so she couldn’t get out. She immediately complained I was blocking her view. A few people screamed. About half the crowd dropped flat on their bellies. The other half either ran for their cars or the clinic building. By and large there was little panic. Horse people are tough. Sullivan lumbered for the nearest car as fast as his dog-bashing little feet could carry him, shoved the man who was sitting there out of the driver’s seat, and locked himself in.

  Marina threw herself over her husband’s body and screamed for help.

  Madeline shoved herself to the passenger side of the car, let herself out, and came around to stand by me.

  “Please get back in the car,” I said.

  “Not on your life.”

  “It’s your life I’m worried about, my dear.”

  “I’ll get in if you’ll get in.”

  After twenty years of close companionship, I knew when to give up. She settled herself against my shoulder.

  “There’s nothing we can do to help?”

  I sighed. “I doubt it. You hear the sirens?”

  “I do.”

  “The bullet hit him squarely in the center of the forehead. I’ll go and see what’s to be done. You get back in the car.”

  “As if,” Madeline said.

  Then Greg D’Andrea appeared out of the confusion and knelt by the body. He lifted Marina to her feet and hurried her away to the clinic building.