Murder Goes to Market

by Daisy Bateman

  “I think your name is Teddy,” Claudia said, and it was.

  The vet arrived not long after the appointed time, dirty and smelling of goat. Martin Stephens was a short, round man with a receding hairline and glasses that were consistently either balanced on the end of his nose or pushed up on top of his head, and he drove a truck decorated with dueling magnetic signs advertising his veterinary and florist businesses. The florist part had been his daughter’s, until she had met a rodeo clown and decided she preferred a life among the bulls and barrels to buds and bouquets. Her father, who had cosigned the loan for the shop, had reportedly shrugged, said it couldn’t be so hard, and occasionally showed up to make wedding deliveries with upward of six cats riding shotgun.

  To Claudia’s relief, today Martin had no animal or floral encumbrances. He scanned the dog for a chip, checked its teeth, limbs, and eyes, and pronounced “it” to be a “she.”

  “I’d like to see a few more pounds on her, but that’s nothing a few good meals won’t fix. Aside from being underfed, I’d say she’s in decent health, though we’ll need to do some tests to make sure she’s not carrying anything. No chip, and she hasn’t been fixed, but I’d say she hasn’t had a litter yet. Seems to have a nice temperament for a stray, if that’s what she is.”

  He patted the dog on her head and stood up.

  “My guess is someone got a puppy, and once they realized she wasn’t a toy, they decided to ‘set her free.’ Damn shame people like that don’t get left on the side of the road with nothing more than they were born with, if you know what I mean. Still, she seems to have come out of it okay. If you like, I can take her over to the shelter with me. I’ve got to go there later anyway.”

  Claudia thought about that. She had visited the county shelter once, when she had gone with Betty to pick up some chickens that had been dropped off there after their role as Easter basket props had been completed. It wasn’t a bad place, as well-maintained as any rural service where the demands outstripped the funding, but it had been crowded and gray and the constant barking of the dogs had been deafening. She looked down at the soft brown eyes of her visitor and rationalized away.

  “That’s okay, she can stay with me for now. I’ll take some pictures and post them around in case anyone is looking. With everything that’s been going around here lately, I could use the company.”

  The vet laughed.

  “I’m not sure you’ve gotten yourself any sort of vicious guard dog, but I do think you’ve probably found a friend. I’ll keep an eye out for anyone looking for a missing shepherd, but I have a feeling we’re not going to get many takers.”

  He started for the door, but haltingly, trying to find a way to ask the questions that were clearly on his mind.

  “So, that lady who died here yesterday, well, not here, but over at the market, anyway, you knew her?”

  Claudia was probably within her rights to be offended, but the way she saw it, veterinary house calls were a nice perk, and if she was about to become a dog owner, this was probably not the last time she was going to require his services. So she answered without rancor.

  “I saw her a lot, but I didn’t know her well. Like someone you work with. But I did find her body.”

  That was clearly getting closer to what the vet was interested in. He moved closer, probably unaware of how eager he looked.

  “That’s terrible,” he said. “It must have been a huge shock.”

  “It was,” Claudia agreed. “I’ve never seen a dead body before. I mean, not like that.”

  “She was strangled, wasn’t she? That’s some nasty stuff. There was a guy a few years ago who got it in his head he was going to strangle one of the Mullers’ llamas—you know, the ones they got to keep the coyotes away from the goats? I guess he thought the long neck would make it easier, or something. Anyway, the damn fool got himself trampled nearly to death, and serves him right, I think. They called me in to check on the llama, but it was fine. Might have sprained a foot kicking him, but that was it.”

  “I guess it’s too bad Lori didn’t have hooves.” It occurred to Claudia that the vet might be a source of some useful general information. His patients might not be human, but he was still a doctor.

  “But she must have fought, right? How long does it take to strangle a person?” she asked.

  The vet gave this question some serious thought. “How long? I’d say probably at least thirty seconds, maybe a minute until she was unconscious, and longer than that to death. It depends on whether they’re obstructing the carotid artery or actually going all the way to crushing the windpipe. And I bet you’re right about the fighting. The first thing the police should be doing is checking her fingernails for DNA. That should get them straight to the killer.”

  It was the most comforting conversation about violent death Claudia had ever had. She hadn’t even thought of there being DNA evidence, but of course, that should clear her in no time. Or, at least, as close to no time as the police lab could achieve. She wondered if they ever did rush orders for important cases.

  Martin left her with a couple of sample-sized bags of kibble and an appointment to bring Teddy to his office for her first real checkup and shots, and another one for the operation to make sure Claudia didn’t rapidly progress from having no dogs, to one dog, to many dogs.

  As he left, the vet paused in the door and looked across the field.

  “Okay, well, best of luck. By the way, let me know if you want me to have a look at those geese.”

  As interesting as it was to suddenly find herself a dog owner, it wasn’t the main thing going on in Claudia’s life at the moment. She would have liked to take some time to do a deeper dive into Lori’s digital footprint, but after some consideration, she decided to leave that for later. She had the feeling that that was going to turn out to be an involved research project, and it was the sort of thing that didn’t require daylight. On the other hand, considering how little she had known of Lori’s personality and her life, one of the first things Claudia needed to do was find someone who could tell her more. And since the only people she knew who knew Lori were from the marketplace, that seemed like the best place to start.

  She had obligations to her tenants to keep them updated on the situation, even if she didn’t have anything to update them with. And, if in the course of personally delivering her lack of information, she happened to learn more about Lori and what might have led to her death, well, that was just a side benefit, wasn’t it?

  Her main issue was what to do with Teddy while she was out. There was nothing terribly precious or fragile in the cottage, but what she had, Claudia would rather not lose, so in the end she settled for making a bed out of old towels in the bathroom, leaving bowls of water and food, and hoping for the best.

  There was no question what her first stop was going to be. The Mullers and their cheeses had been the earliest tenants of the marketplace, and Elias would expect to be at the head of the line to get an update on its status. So Claudia pointed her aging subcompact inland, across the first line of hills that separated the windswept coast from the sunnier slopes on the other side.

  It was a quirk of the local geography that temperatures were determined by how many ridges separated you from the ocean. Almost every day in the summer the cool, wet air blew in from the Pacific, carrying a layer of fog that poured softly along the coastline, seeking openings in the hills where it could sneak inland. The Muller’s farm was situated at the base of one of these clefts, taking advantage of the moisture in a place that wouldn’t see rain again until October at the earliest. But thanks to the combined powers of fog and irrigation, the farm was a pocket of green, decorated with a tasteful scattering of cows and goats.

  Arriving at the farm, Claudia parked and made her way past the barns to the gleaming new cheesemaking facility. It was a white, rectangular building, set close enough to the milking shed that the pipes could feed the milk straight from the cows and goats into the tanks with as little disturbance as po
ssible. But it wasn’t only functional; there were concessions to marketing as well, with generous viewing windows on the front for tour groups to watch the magical process of turning milk into snack food.

  According to Betty, a reliable source for information on how much anyone in the area had spent on pretty much anything, the facility represented the biggest risk Elias had taken since opening the creamery. Gambling on the growth of the artisan cheese market, he had mortgaged the entire property in order to build a state-of-the-art home for his precious cheeses, against the advice of Julie, who was more cautious than her impulsive father. So far it seemed to be paying off, with wholesale orders growing steadily and the name of the farm showing up on more of the menus of the sort of places that put the names of farms on their menus.

  Compared to the glories of the creamery, the Muller family home sat more modestly to one side, awkward with the additions that had been tacked on for a growing family and looking every bit of its sixty years. A scattering of hens wandered around the front yard, pecking at the rose bushes and eyeing everything with chickeny suspicion.

  She found Elias in one of the aging rooms in the creamery, carefully washing and turning the soft cheeses. He saw her and waved through the window in the door, motioning to her to wait for a moment. Claudia watched as he finished the last row, then came out of the scrupulously sterile room, pulling the blue paper cap off his head to reveal a magnificent shock of white hair.

  “Claudia,” he said, enveloping one of her hands with his and patting it solicitously. “What a terrible thing to have happen. Julie told me everything. Are you all right?” Elias Muller was a mountain of a man with the face of a giant baby and hands like Easter hams. Even trying to speak softly, his voice boomed into the small space like he was shouting across mountaintops.

  Claudia tried not cringe under the onslaught.

  “Thank you, Elias. It was a shock, definitely, but I’m okay now. I just wanted to come by and check on how you’re doing.”

  “Oh, we’re fine, we’re fine. Haven’t found any dead bodies today, have we?” he said, with a laugh that echoed down the hallway.

  Claudia smiled dutifully. Elias’s sense of humor ranged from “very inappropriate” to “really, seriously inappropriate,” and by his standards this was mild stuff.

  “Come to my office,” Elias said. “We can talk there.”

  Despite the fact that a bright, spacious office had been built for him on the other side of the building, Elias’s preferred workplace was a tiny converted vestibule just outside the cheesemaking room, where he could keep an eye on the workers and should it be necessary, could come bursting out to deal with any failure to keep up with his standards.

  By all accounts, the creamery was a stressful place to work, but the pay was good.

  Even now, as he led Claudia inside and closed the door, Elias positioned his chair so he could see out of the window, and kept one eye on the other room the entire time they talked.

  “So, the marketplace is closed,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Do you know for how long?”

  Claudia had to admit she did not.

  “The police chief said he could keep it closed for as long as the investigation is active. I don’t think that’s true, but it’s going to take some time for me to fight him,” she said.

  Elias shook his head.

  “Don’t fight that man. He’s as stubborn as he is stupid. I’ll talk to some people, see what they can do.” He leaned back in his chair, causing it to creak perilously. “Don’t forget, when all the vacationers are gone, this is still a small town. I’m still a newcomer, I’ve only been here fifty years. But people will talk to me, so I’ll talk to them.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.” It occurred to Claudia to wonder if there was such a thing as a Swiss mafia. If so, she imagined they left very tidy crime scenes. She started to smile at the idea, but then remembered what she now knew about crime scenes, and it didn’t seem so funny.

  “Speaking of people, I wonder if there’s anyone who knows more about what happened to Lori. In a town like this, you think someone would have seen something.”

  “Maybe they did,” Elias said. “Maybe they saw things and didn’t know what they saw. If our policeman was something more than an old hen in a uniform, he might find them and ask.”

  Claudia tried to unpack that, then gave it up as a bad job and wondered what the police chief had done to get himself so thoroughly on Elias’s bad side. Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to argue.

  “I have to admit, I wish I had asked some more questions when I let Lori rent the space. I don’t suppose you had any idea about her sourcing her products from wholesalers?”

  Elias did not, and he was appalled that anyone in their community would stoop to such dishonesty.

  “But why?” he asked, once he was done decrying the degradation of the morals of modern youth. “Why waste so much time and effort for so little? Surely if a person is willing to be unscrupulous, they could do it elsewhere for more money.”

  “I don’t know,” Claudia said. “But for whatever reason she seemed desperate to keep it up for a little while longer.”

  “Maybe she had plans for something big that was going to make her a lot of money? You might be lucky that she died.”

  Claudia sighed and hung her head.

  “Please don’t say that. I can’t think of anything she could have done to the marketplace that was worse than her dying.”

  It was the truth, and it was also something Claudia wanted everyone to be aware of. She didn’t think Elias suspected her, but there was no harm in making the point.

  “Of course,” Elias said. “It certainly is very annoying. But I never did like her. Very rude to everyone, and thought she knew much more than she did. Did you know that she once said to me that what the cows ate didn’t matter? Didn’t matter! Thought I could buy milk from wherever and it would be the same! I’ll tell you, she did not get away with that for very long.”

  Claudia had no doubt that was true, but she hoped Elias wasn’t going to be telling that story to too many people. Not that anyone would honestly believe he could have killed Lori to protect the honor of his cows, but a person might look at his hands and wonder. She was thinking about how to phrase a warning to that effect when something caught his attention in the cheesemaking room.

  “No!” Elias bellowed. “Esteban, the baskets must be filled all the way up! All the way!”

  He rocketed out of his chair and toward the door, pausing only long enough to throw on his hair net, which ended up tilted at a jaunty angle. As the doors closed behind him, Claudia could hear the unfortunate employee get a vigorous lesson in the proper packing of curds. She wondered if her interview was over, but once his task was accomplished Elias came back, looking pleased with himself and ready to pick up their conversation where they had left off.

  “Very important to maintain the standards, you know? I look away for a minute and everything goes to hell. Anyway, yes, the poor woman. Nobody liked her, but not enough to kill, I would have thought.”

  “What makes you think people didn’t like her?” Claudia wondered how much there was going on in the market that she wasn’t aware of. Lori hadn’t seemed to have a lot of friends, but she wasn’t aware of any sort of widespread animosity. On the other hand, Elias did have a tendency to extrapolate.

  That seemed to be the case here.

  “Well, it was more of a sense I got,” he backtracked. “Once I saw her being rude to Mrs. Pak, and she was stupid about everybody’s work. Except young Robbie, of course, but he had no interest in her.”

  Robbie was older than Lori, who Elias had just been holding up as an example of the degenerate youth, but Claudia let all that pass without comment. On his broader point, he was probably right, though. Robbie would have been nice to Lori, because he was nice to everyone, but more than that seemed deeply unlikely, considering how devoted Robbie was to his very devotion-worthy wife.

  For his part, Elias
seemed to have lost all interest in the marketplace and the people in it and moved on to more important subjects, retrieving a wedge of cheese from the small refrigerator behind his desk.

  “Since you’re here, you should try this,” he said, slicing off a series of pieces from the pale yellow wedge, marked with delicate, smooth holes. “Our new Emmenthaler-style. I didn’t want to, but Julie insisted. She says, if we’re going to be Swiss and sell cheese, we need to make a Swiss cheese. So this is what we did. It’s good enough, I suppose. The sort of thing you give to children.”

  Elias was trying to sound dismissive and uninterested in this concession to the market, but there was clear pride in his voice, and he watched Claudia take her first taste with undisguised interest.

  “It’s excellent,” she declared, with perfect honesty. The cheese might not have been the most complex masterwork of the cheesemaker’s art, but as a thing to eat, it could hardly have been better. The texture was firm and smooth, and the flavor was like the distilled essence of milk; not creamy so much as fresh and light-tasting, and ever so slightly floral. Claudia supposed you could give it to children, if you liked them enough.

  “Really excellent,” she repeated. “It’s going to be a big hit.”

  Elias harrumphed something about unsophisticated palates, but Claudia didn’t even pretend to be offended.

  “Anyway, I can’t wait to see it in the marketplace. I hope I get a chance.”

  “Of course you will. Let me talk to some people, and I will find out what Mr. Lennox thinks he’s doing, and we will put a stop to this nonsense.”

  He sounded so confident, Claudia almost believed it could be that simple. She would have liked to ask who these people Elias planned to talk to were, and what he was going to say, but another crisis was brewing in the cheesemaking room and it was clear her audience was at an end. Claudia took a last piece of cheese for the road, thanked Elias for his time, and headed out, offering a silent prayer for mercy on the poor man who hadn’t known not to stick his bare arm up to the armpit in the mozzarella vat.