The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat (12 page)

“You noticed the milk spilled on the floor? If the body had been in the tank while the milking was going on, the automatic shutoff valve would have kicked in before the normal amount of milk was piped into the tank. A body that size will displace at least a hundred gallons. Someone would have come in to check why the valve kicked in. Milking ended about half an hour ago. Therefore, the body was placed in the tank between nine thirty and ten.”

I sat on the steps with Madeline and Leslie as soon as I realized how close I was to actually discovering the murderer. With one exception, no one had exited the dairy since I found the body. When I found Leslie, I took her outside and called Madeline on my cell phone. It was a matter of five minutes—less—when the courtyard wasn't under observation.

“Somebody could have slipped out in that five minutes,” Simon objected. “Or before Leslie came into the milk room. And what's this exception?”

“No question about that at all. The perpetrator must have left on foot or by vehicle. However, the parking lot has the same number of cars in it since I arrived. I would have heard a tractor or a truck from the cheese-making room. And how could a person on foot hide, Simon?” I gestured around me. The dairy was set high on a hill to take advantage of the view of Cayuga Lake. One could see a mile in all directions. “I suggest you could check and see if anyone's hiding in the goat pens or on the farm grounds. Whoever did this has to be close by. And there is one other thing. The cheese-making class began at nine o'clock. Two young men joined us. They never left the site, but when I emerged from the dairy office, they had gone. The milking was still going on when Madeline and I arrived here at about eight forty-five. They were in front of me from that time until just after the body was discovered. They were roughly five-ten, about 160 pounds, dressed in white linen suits and dark T-shirts. Black hair, sunglasses, and swarthy complexions.”

“They both looked alike?”

“They could have been brothers.” As, in fact, I surmised they were. But I decided to keep that conjecture to myself for the moment.

Simon nodded. He spoke into his cell phone. A few moments later, the patrol people started a search of the barns. And in the far distance, the village fire alarm sounded. A search by the volunteer firemen of Summersville would be thorough.

“There is one other place the murderer could be, of course.” I pointed up the hill to the house. “It's odd, isn't it? There isn't one member of the Capretti family out here to see what's going on.”

Simon stared at me a moment. Then he said, “Let's go.”

We walked up the steps to the ornate front door. Simon's face was a study in frustration. “I'm undermanned here, Doc.” He turned and looked down the path to the scene below. “I think you're right. I think whoever did this is hiding out nearby and it's driving me absolutely crazy.”

“We can only make the best with what we have.” I raised my hand to the door. “Shall I knock?”

But before I could do so, the door swung open. Marietta Capretti smiled at us. She was dressed in jeans, sandals, and a skimpy T-shirt that showed her smooth skin when she gestured us in. I heard Simon sigh heavily.

“We're all in the dining room,” she said. “My auntie Caterina's response to World War Three will be a sour cream coffee cake.” We accompanied her into a spacious dining room. The view out the French doors to the lake was spectacular. The walls were sepia shading to cream. A wrought-iron chandelier hung over a long, black oak refractory table. And around the table sat Caterina, a discontented-looking man in a Celestine Builders T-shirt with the name Frank embroidered on the pocket, Doucetta herself, and the two young men in white linen.

“Those the guys?” Simon said. His hand went to where his shoulder holster would be if he wore a gun, which he didn't. He dropped his hand and advanced on the two men.

I spoke up. “These, I believe are the Celestine brothers.”

“My grandsons,” Doucetta said proudly. “They arrived last night. The curse has been lifted!”

Simon looked at me, bewildered.

“Grandmamma thinks the place has been cursed since Tony and Pietro left for Siena,” Marietta said. She sat down at the table. “Now they're back.”

“And the milk will pass your crummy tests,” Doucetta said. She had a large cup of espresso in front of her. She slurped it noisily. “The milk will pass your crummy tests because
they
”—she pointed a long, skinny finger at Pietro and Tony—“found out what was poisoning my milk!”

“You did?” I said.

One of the brothers was slightly shorter than the other. He took off his dark glasses and looked at me blandly. “You're this doc
Donna
Doucetta's been talking about?”

“I am.”

“Well, you should have looked at the pipes, my friend. There was a fresh patch of stucco along the path of the pipe from the milking parlor to the tank. Tony and me, we chipped away at it, and guess what?”

“I don't guess,” I said.

He pulled a wine spigot from his pocket. It was the type that plugs onto an open bottle of wine and allows you to pour. “Stuck right into the pipe. Some creep's been pumping crap into the milk.”

I took the spigot and examined it. “Quite an ingenious saboteur,” I remarked.

Tony looked pleased. I handed the gizmo back to Pietro.

Doucetta struck the table with the palm of her hand. “So! You see! My boys here found out what you smarty pants could not! My milk will pass any test you arseholes throw at it.”

“As long as there are no more bodies in your bulk tanks,” I said rather pointedly.

An absolute silence fell over the table. Caterina broke it. “Can I get you both some coffee?” she asked nervously. “Maybe a piece of coffee cake?”

“For cripes' sake, Caterina,” Frank said. “Shut it, will you?”

Marietta gave her uncle a glance of dislike. “I imagine that the lieutenant and Dr. McKenzie would welcome a cup of coffee, Auntie. Do you need a hand?”

“No, no, dear. You sit there. I'll be back in a minute.” She rustled away to the kitchen. Simon sat at the head of the table, without invitation. I sat down next to him. “Fine,” he said. “I've got a couple of questions for you all.”

He looked at the Celestine brothers. “You two got your passports on you?”

Pietro half rose from the chair and pulled his wallet from his rear pants pocket. He tossed two green passport books at the lieutenant. Simon opened them and read them carefully. “You're Italian citizens?”

Pietro nodded.

“And you left Italy the sixth of August of this year.” He looked up. “Yesterday, in fact.”

“I picked them up at the airport last night,” Caterina said. She came with a tray, a carafe, and two cups of coffee. She placed the filled cups before us and refilled everyone else's. It was quite strong and as good as the coffee from our local supplier, Gimmie!

Simon looked at me, and I could almost read his mind. Arresting outsiders for the murders would have been an easy, politic solution for him. Summersville was a small town. Violent crime was almost unknown to us. It would be a comfort, locally, if no one we knew was involved. But the arrival dates cleared them of the Staples murder, and my own observation of the brothers seemed to put them in the clear for the death of Brian Folk. “Well, welcome back to America,” he said easily. He spun the passports down the table. Pietro nodded gravely and stowed them carefully in his breast pocket.

Provost addressed everyone else. “About ten fifteen this morning, Leslie Chou discovered the body of the Summersville tax assessor at the dairy.”

Doucetta said, “Bullshit.” Since the news of the murder appeared to surprise nobody, I assumed this was a comment on the general tenor of the day.

“Four days ago, Ashley Swinford found another guy in the same place. Also dead. Also an inspector. Seems like you folks have got some kind of pattern going.” Provost had a steely gaze that he used to good effect. He swept the table, looking keenly at each person in turn, and said, “I want to know which one of you discovered the body before Miss Chou.”

Nobody spoke. But the brothers glanced at Frank and looked away. There are no flies of any kind on Simon. He homed in on Celestine like a red-tailed hawk after a pigeon. “You, sir,” he said. “I'd like an account of your movements this morning.”

“Tell him, Frank,” Marietta said. “Or one of us will.”

Celestine moved uneasily.

“Were you near the milk room between nine thirty and ten o'clock?” Provost demanded.

Celestine picked at his lower lip. He looked at his mother-in-law. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“You need a slap up the side of the head.”

Provost leaned forward. “Did you kill Brian Folk?” His voice was a growl.

“See!” Frank burst out. “I told you they'd think that. Goddammit, anyhow.
No!
No, I did not kill that sack of sh—”

“Shut up, you!” Doucetta said. Then, rather primly, she added, “I do not put up with this kind of language where we eat.”

This made no sense, but I let it pass. But I couldn't let Frank Celestine's behavior pass. “You put the body in the bulk tank,” I said.

Frank turned on his wife, “You stupid cow! This coffee's cold!”

Pietro got up from his chair, sauntered around to the end of the table, and bent down and whispered in his father's ear. Celestine paled. He muttered “sorry” at his wife. Pietro sat down again.

“Did you?” Provost asked. “Did you put Brian Folk's body in the tank?”

Celestine attempted a laugh. The sound was between a snarl and a choke. Most unattractive. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought it'd be a pretty good joke, finding it where that jerkola Staples bought the farm.” He began to talk faster and faster. “I was out for a walk after breakfast. It was too early to go down to this…meet this guy I'm supposed to see about a big job over in Syracuse. So I went out. For a walk. And I went down the lane behind the kidding barn and there he was. Flat on his face in the compost pile. I checked him out, and he was dead, all right. Flies crawling around his eyeballs and already beginning to smell a little bit. There's a wheelbarrow that we keep right there so I wrestled him into it. Had to whack his legs with a hammer to make him fit.” He flexed his right arm in an absentminded way. The man was disgusting, but he was in excellent shape. “And I thought it'd be funny if he ended up where the other one ended up.”

“And then,” Marietta said tiredly, “he came and told me what he'd done. By that time, that poor little Chinese girl was sitting on the front steps crying all over Mrs. McKenzie. So I got on the cell phone and got Auntie Caterina and my cousins up here.” She shrugged. “We waited for you. I knew you'd figure out Frank had moved the body sooner or later. I mean”—she waved her hand in the air—“forensics, right?”

This was a positive effect of all those highly dramatized crime shows on television. It is unlikely that our forensics team would have discovered any evidence positively linking Frank to the mere removal of the body. However, it was very likely that the team would discover any evidence linking Frank to the murder. I looked at Marietta with renewed respect. She was covering all the bases. She was both beautiful and clever.

“Fine,” Provost said. He got to his feet. Simon wears a sports coat for any number of reasons, the chief being that it is a useful way to hide what he carries on his belt. He unsnapped a pair of handcuffs and advanced on Celestine. “You're coming with me, sir.”

“But I didn't kill him!” Frank shouted. “All I did was move him a few hundred feet farther from where I found him. It was supposed to be a joke!”

“You unlawfully moved a body.” Simon snapped the cuffs on. “And that's enough for me. We'll continue the rest of this conversation down at the station.” He looked over at me, “So how'd you know he did it, Doc?”

“There's compost in the cuffs of his chinos. There was compost floating in the bulk tank. It seemed like a logical conclusion.”

“So we dump more milk!” Doucetta shouted. “Arsehole!”

“
G
OAT
pate,” Thelma said. “Goat sausage. That's the way to increase the market share.” She turned to Deirdre, who had just placed Monrovian Specials in front of all four of us. “Maybe even goat hamburger. What do you think?”

“You'll have to talk to Rudy about that,” Deirdre said diplomatically. “You guys all set? Dr. Bergland? Maddy?”

She did not address me. I was not all set. My Monrovian Special was sadly free of beer-battered onion rings and the garlic-butter-saturated toasted bun. If we were to eat at the Embassy twice within a week, Madeline decreed, I would have to forgo the major sources of cholesterol. Any protest I would have made was rendered nugatory by the fact that Madeline and Deirdre were in cahoots; Deirdre saw to it that I didn't get onion rings more than once a week whether Madeline was standing guard or not. I shook catsup liberally over the burger and made do with fresh onion, tomato, and lettuce.

“The cheese-making class was fascinating,” Thelma said. In some way I couldn't fathom, she was beginning to look more like the old Thelma. “I'm so glad I decided to get a look in, as they say. Thank goodness Caterina had finished by the time that body was discovered. And wasn't it lucky that the police put us all in the retail shop while we waited to be interviewed? All in all, it was a very interesting day.”

I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Madeline, who smiled mysteriously. Provost had insisted we leave the investigation to him. So it seemed wise to go to the Embassy for lunch.

Thelma rapped her knuckles on the tabletop. “Victor? I am seriously thinking of going into business.” In an absentminded way, she removed three of her clanking gold bracelets and dropped them into her purse. I realized she had forgone the glittery blue stuff on her eyelids.

“What kind of business?” Victor asked.

“A cheese shop,” she said. “But not just any cheese shop. A gourmet cheese shop.”

“Thelma went through the Tre Sorelle tasting rooms while we were waiting for the police to let us all go,” Madeline said. “She was charmed. I was, too. It's gorgeous. There's all kinds of cute stuff in there.”

“Doucetta is missing a number of retail opportunities,” Thelma said in a grand way. “All that tat. She could be making a much bigger profit margin on higher-end goods.”

“Tat?” Victor said.

“Tea cozies with a cheese motif. Mechanical mice. Rubber cheese bathtub toys.”

“Those were for the kids, I suppose,” Madeline said.

“My shop will be for discriminating adults. Fine wines. Fine foods. Fine cheeses. There are a lot of ways I can make this shop stand out from the crowd, and I don't need rubber bath toys to do it. Goat meat pate, for example. Caterina said they were experimenting with a few recipes, but I'll bet you I can go her one better. You remember, Victor, that I have a degree in home economics.” She removed another bangle. “Madeline, I'm thinking of scouting locations this afternoon. Would you care to come with me?”

“Scouting locations?” Victor said. “Goat meat pate?” He looked somewhat bewildered. I can't say that I blamed him. News of Brian Folk's murder had hit the local radio show within an hour of the event. Filled with husbandly concern, Victor had called, and agreed to meet us for lunch. He had left a house crammed with brochures on yachts Thelma wanted to buy and expensive vacations she wanted to take. Now she was talking about
making
money. “Locations for a gourmet cheese shop? In Summersville?”

“A far better use of my inheritance than golf club memberships and yachts,” Thelma said reprovingly. “Really, Victor. You can be awfully frivolous at times.”

Victor opened his mouth to protest and said, “Ouch!” instead. I presume Madeline had kicked him under the table. Then he said humbly, “Will you want me to work in this cheese shop?”

“Victor! You have a position at the university to maintain.”

“But you said…Ouch! Madeline, cut that out! Okay. Fine, great. You pick a good spot for this store, Thelma. It's a terrific idea. Absolutely terrific.” With every appearance of a man confused and buffeted by a kindly fate, he beamed and bit into his hamburger.

Thelma took a pen from her purse and began scribbling on a napkin. “Furnishings. Store facility. Permits. There's just a ton of stuff to do here. Madeline, if you like, you may give any help I might need.”

“I'd love to, sweetie,” Madeline said promptly. “I think the best thing I can do for you is talk to the people at Tre Sorelle. I'll bet Mrs. Capretti herself would be more than willin' to tell me how much stuff costs, and what kind of investment you're looking at here.”

“Business plan,” Thelma muttered, scribbling away.

Madeline shot a mischievous glance at me. “I'm hopin' she'll give us the name of her accountants. I'll bet they can give us a real good idea, too.”

“Ask her about this plan for the pate,” Thelma ordered. “Find out who her supplier is.”

“They probably use the culls from the dairy,” Victor said through a mouthful of onion rings.

“I doubt that,” I said. “There is a world of difference between the dairy and meat breeds. You should be looking at a Boer goat supplier, Thelma. Such as George Best.”

“Two days at a goat dairy and you're an expert on caprines?” Victor said.

“It took me far less time than that to come up to speed,” I said. “But I've always been quick to absorb new information.”

“Right,” Victor said. “Like the time it took you to get through the genetics on double-muscled steers.”

“The science took me no time at all. It was the ultimate utility of the Belgian Blue that presented a challenge. And was I right? How many Blues do you find at auction these days, Victor?”

“So you were right.” He paused. “Once.”

I bit into my own hamburger. It was good to have the rude and obstreperous Victor back. The four of us ate in companionable silence for a bit.

Madeline sat across from me, so that she was facing the front door. She looked over my shoulder and her eyebrows went up. “Well, now,” she said. “I've heard that if you wait long enough, practically everyone in town comes into the Embassy, and look who just did.”

I turned. Gordy Rassmussen had just walked in. He stopped for a moment to let his eyes adjust from the bright August day outside, then headed straight for the bar and grabbed a stool.

“
Who
just came in?” Thelma demanded.

“You can see for yourself,” Victor said.

“Just tell me, Victor. Is that too much to ask?” She sat next to me, and would have had to turn around to find out. Apparently, it was much easier to ask Victor. Married life was indeed back to normal for them. I felt quite happy about it.

“The town supervisor, Gordy Rassmussen,” Victor said. “He's the guy that hired Brian Folk, isn't he?” He laughed unsympathetically. “If he's hiding out, he's picked the wrong place to do it.”

“He's probably just here to eat his lunch,” Madeline said. She craned her neck. “Although that's his second beer in as many seconds.”

“Excuse me,” I said. “I need to spend just a few minutes with Gordon.”

“Hello, Doc,” he said glumly as I approached the bar. “Sit down and have a cold one.”

“It's a bit early in the day, thank you.” I settled onto a stool. “Although I will have a cup of coffee, Deirdre.”

“Heard you were out to the dairy this morning,” Gordy said. He was a big, rubicund fellow with the remnants of blond hair in a fringe around his scalp. His usually jovial manner was absent.

“I was, indeed.”

He consumed half of his Rolling Rock in one swig. “Rita's gonna be on me like flies on a dead raccoon.”

“Ah, yes.” It was an election year. In less than three month's time, Gordy's tenure as town supervisor would be either renewed or not.

“He came recommended, you know.”

“Brian Folk,” I said.

“I've been catching a lot of heat. Nicky Ferguson kind of fell down on the job, if you catch my drift.” He tapped the beer bottle. “Couple of these, and Nicky'd kind of look the other way. Say you put one of those aboveground pools in for the grandkids. After a beer or two, Nicky didn't think that'd add much to the total tax package so he'd overlook it. This Brian Folk had a whole different attitude. You put a couple of gnomes in the front garden and, blam, you're looking at a six percent increase.”

“And Folk was recommended by whom?”

“By who, Doc,” he said with a kindly air, “recommended by who.”

“The preposition is the object of the sentence,” I said rather testily, “and the proper case is the dative.”

Gordy blinked at me, as if I'd been speaking a language other than our own. “Is that a fact?”

“It is not a fact, as such; it is a rule of language. And where did you find Brian Folk?”

“He did a good job over to Covert. They were in the same kind of spot we are. The assessments were way behind the increase in house prices. Brian—he didn't care who you were or how many beers you gave him—he'd up the price on the house of Jesus Christ himself. And the town needs the tax revenue, Doc. No question about it. If we want to keep our streets clear of snow, the garbage picked up, the old folks home running the right way, we got to have the budget to do it. I know people don't like it, but where will we be at if we don't wake up to the facts?”

“I voted for you in the last election, and I'll vote for you again, Rassmussen. I think you're a responsible politician, all things considered. I also think you're ducking my question. Who urged Folk on you?”

“It was that one up at the dairy.”

“Tre Sorelle? The goat dairy?”

“Yeah. Frank Celestine.”

I excused myself from the rest of lunch and hastened down to Provost's office. He was in. And he was very interested in what I had to tell him.

The police station in Summersville has one cell. It is carpeted and it has a television. Its floor-to-ceiling bars face Provost's office. Simon and I walked across the hall to the cell and looked in. Celestine stared sullenly back.

“For heaven's sake, why?” I said. “Why did you urge Rassmussen to hire a tax assessor who would up the appraisal on your own mother-in-law? And why did Gordy follow your recommendation?” (What remained unspoken was why
anyone
would follow up on a recommendation made by Frank Celestine. The man was a notorious slacker.)

“I imagine there was a little quid pro quo, as far as Gordy was concerned.” Simon scratched the back of his head. “You offer to pave Gordy's driveway, Celestine? Or maybe give the village a good price on fixing up the high school auditorium?”

“It was just a freakin' bit of business,” Celestine said. “And yeah, I lowballed the estimate on the high school.” He snickered. “Or at least Gordy thought I did. Made him look good to the board.” He had a high, unpleasant giggle and an annoying propensity to use it. “You should have seen Doucetta's face when the assessment came in the mail. I was keeping an eye out for it, you know. Delivered it to her myself.”

“And it was just to annoy your mother-in-law?”

“Why not? She's spent the last forty years annoying the heck out of me. No skin off my nose if the assessment goes up. Only person I know had the guts to face up to the old bat was Brian.” Frank sucked his teeth reflectively. “Had a lot of guts, Brian did.”

Simon shook his head in disgust. The two of us went back into his office and sat in our usual spots: Simon behind his desk, and I in the one comfortable chair.

“Good heavens,” I said. “Do you suppose we've discovered the murderer that easily?”

“Wouldn't that be nice and tidy. But no, Celestine's alibi for the Folk murder is airtight.”

“Surely not.”

“Surely is. Last night, he was at the golf club bar until one, when it closed. He was soused to the gills, so the bartender dropped him off at Doucetta's house about one thirty. The old lady came to the door herself. She got Celestine onto the couch in the living room and he passed right out. If Jim Airy's right about how much booze the guy had, there's no way he could have snuck out of the house and clocked Folk over the head. Just as a precaution, I got Liz Snyder over at the clinic to draw a blood sample to check Celestine's resting alcohol rate. It's been less than twenty-four hours since he started boozing. He's probably still drunk, which explains maybe why he found dumping the body in the bulk tank to be such a laugh riot.”

Alcohol remains in the system for up to thirty days. While not definitive, the resting rate would probably prove high enough to substantiate Celestine's defense even without the witnesses at the golf club.

“I suppose you're going to let him go?”

“Of course I have to let him go. I'll charge him with moving the dead body—he admitted it, after all. But if he's going to spend any time in jail, it'll have to be the judge's decision.”