The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat (17 page)

I drew my notepad from my pocket. “Do you remember his name?”

“Um. Let's see. It's that nice doctor from the clinic at Hemlock Falls. Andy Bishop, that's his name. He was the one that took a look at Mamma when she started that scary coughing and said she should go to the ER. Anyway, he left, and Marietta started making phone calls. The whole milking system's been just trashed, and we've got all these does to dry off. She thought maybe she could get some help with the injections. We have over five hundred milking does, you know.”

“You mean the volunteers in the sheds aren't milking the does?” I said. “They're drying them off?” Two injections of lincomycin spectinomycin two days apart accomplish this quite successfully.

Caterina jumped. My tone must have been stern. “Well, yes, the poor things. They can't walk around all bagged up. Their udders could burst.”

“I'm well aware of that, Caterina.” I took a breath to calm down. “But you do realize what a disaster this is for the dairy. The only way to get the does up and milking again is to rebreed them. Gestation is five months. Tre Sorelle won't be producing for five months until the kids are weaned.”

Caterina's mouth formed a soft
O
.

I pushed open the door to the dairy office. Caterina followed me. Marietta sat huddled behind the desk. Her face was haggard. “My dear girl,” I said. “I am so sorry. But was this really necessary?”

She nodded mutely. Then she said, “What else could we do?”

“Borrow the milking machines, of course.”

“From where?” Caterina interrupted bitterly. “We had ten. You tell me who'll lend us ten goat-milking machines soon enough to save five hundred does.”

Pietro and Tony stood at the window, looking out at the activity in the sheds. I still wasn't sure which one was which. The taller one turned and came up to me, hand extended. “Thank you for coming, Dr. McKenzie.”

“You're quite welcome,” I said, shaking his hand. “I just wish there were more that I could do. Are you
quite
sure you want to dry the goats off?”

“Pete and I couldn't see any other way out of this particular mess.”

So the taller one was Tony. He had a more aquiline nose than his brother did. Neither resembled their father in the least. A fortunate circumstance, in my opinion.

“Please sit down, Dr. McKenzie.” Pietro drew a chair from the corner and set it close to the desk. “My mother, as usual, is quick with the food.” He gestured at the coffee urn and a pile of cookies on a plate next to it. “May I get you a cup of coffee?”

“Thank you. Black, if you would.”

He poured it into a foam cup and handed it to me. “She was out in the shed setting up coffee and cake for the volunteers before the sun was up,” he said rather ruefully.

“Your mother,” I said.

“Yes. And Mrs. McKenzie, too? She's the curvy lady with the reddish hair?”

“Er, yes.”

He flung his hands wide in a very European gesture. “She'd have a hard time getting down the street whistle-free back home,” he said. “My uncles like a lady of substance.”

“No offense,” Tony added. “And with all due respect.”

“Shall we leave it at that?” I asked dryly. “And ‘back home' is Italy, and not here?”

They exchanged glances. “We decided to emigrate just after college,” Pietro said. “We grew up speaking Italian here, of course,
Donna
Doucetta insisted. And when we ran into a little trouble here…”

“Kid stuff.” His brother shrugged.

“
Donna
Doucetta made it pretty clear we needed kind of a cooling-off period. So she sent us to live with her brothers in Siena.”

Tony smiled. “Italy treated us pretty good. And we never looked back.”

“Until now,” Pietro said. He looked out the window at the courtyard. His father had returned from the goat sheds. He stood in front of Caterina. His mouth was going, and we couldn't hear what he said, but Caterina shook her head and backed away.

“I warned him,” Pietro said in a tight voice.

“Go,” Tony said.

Pietro made the office door in two strides and flung himself into the yard. His father retreated as soon as Pietro came down the steps and shambled off toward the house.

Tony looked at me and shrugged. “He just needs a little reminding now and then. It's all about respect.”

“We heard the sirens last night,” I said, rather abruptly. “About ten thirty.”

“Yeah. We were watching a DVD up at the house, just kind of enjoying the storm, you know?”

“You and Pete.”

“Right. And then Aunt Luisa came running in screaming that the goats started raising a ruckus. You know how they get.”

Goats were an excellent early-warning system. But I wasn't concerned with the goats at the moment. “Your Aunt Luisa? You mean Anna Luisa Brandstetter?”

He made a wry face. “The screamer. Yeah. She showed up here yesterday about dinnertime with a pile of suitcases and not enough tissue.”

My face must have shown my bewilderment.

“Crying, sobbing, shrieking, you name it. She had a fight with Neville. Told
Donna
Doucetta she was moving back home. Pete and I hauled her suitcases into a bedroom and she shut herself up for a while. We could still hear her though. And then Neville shows up.”

“Neville Brandstetter?”

“You think there's more than one guy named Neville in Summersville?” he said impatiently. “Yeah. Neville shows up. They go back into her bedroom. They scream. They shout.
Donna
Doucetta marches in and starts yelling at the both of them. He leaves. That's it.”

I was silent. This was a very distressing development.

“So,” Tony said, getting back to his story. “Aunt Luisa comes out saying the goats are yelling. I walked out onto the balcony and saw this flickering, like, right where the milking parlor was. I yelled at Pete to call nine-one-one and ran down the hill like the devil himself was after me. By the time I got here, the whole center part of the dairy was whoosh!” He flicked his fingers in the air. “You ever been close to a fire, Dr. McKenzie? The heat it gives off is amazing. The herdsman and the barn help take the van into the village on Wednesday nights after the seven thirty milking 'cause that's when the movie changes at the theater. There wasn't a heck of a lot just the two of us could do and of course, Aunt Luisa's just useless. We had a couple of meningeal does in the back with their kids and we tried to pull them out but it was nothing doing.” He paused. “You've got one heck of a fire department here, I'll give you that. Those guys were here in about fifteen minutes. It was amazing. I didn't think a small town like this one could get a turnout like that. I'll bet there were twenty guys here. A couple of women, too.”

The phone rang, startling all three of us. Marietta had been sitting silent throughout Tony's summary. She picked the phone up, listened for a moment, and then said, “Thank you,” in such a heartfelt tone, that I knew she had been strung very tightly. She hung up and looked at her cousin. “That was Jonathan. He said they've finished with the does. Isn't that amazing? So fast. It's all happened so fast.” She fell silent.

“That's my man,” Tony said.

“Jonathan?” I said. “Jonathan Swinford?”

“Yes. He showed up this morning with the volunteers to help with the goats.” She smiled at me. “Along with Madeline, of course. You should have seen your wife, Dr. McKenzie. She had everyone organized into teams and had the goats moving through the chutes in nothing flat. And she ordered me out of the barn. Said I'd be of more help later on. With Grandmamma.” She looked around, as if a bell had rung. “I'd better go up and check on her. She's supposed to stay in bed, but it's like trying to keep a helium balloon from rising to the ceiling.”

“May I go with you?”

“You know, I think she'll be glad to see you.”

I turned to Tony as I went out the door. “What time did Dr. Brandstetter leave the house?”

He thought a minute. “Maybe a half hour before Aunt Luisa told us about the goats. He was some pissed off, I can tell you.”

I followed Marietta up the hill in a somber mood.

 

“
S
O
it's you, arsehole,” Doucetta said. She sat up in a king-sized bed, frail and unbearably sad. Anna Luisa, looking like an unmown lawn after a heavy rain, sat in a chair near the bed. It was a spectacular room, filled with heavily ornate furniture and with a view of the valley. Doucetta waved her aluminum cane. “They are trying to kill my dairy.”

Luisa got up and rustled toward her mother. She wore a diaphanous sort of negligee and her hair was uncombed. “Now, Mamma, just settle down. The fire's out. We only lost three goats and five kids. The rest of the does are just fine.”

Doucetta glared at me. “This daughter is as stupid as the other one.” She waved her hand at Luisa dismissively. It was as gnarled as the roots of a banyan tree. “The goats that burned up were meningeal goats. They were dead anyway.”

“Mamma! I can't believe you're this coldhearted!” Luisa flounced to her chair.

Marietta smiled to herself and began to straighten the clutter on the nightstand. I smoothed my mustache. Meningeal goats are infected with deer worm, which is usually a fatal condition. Even in crisis, Doucetta could not be accused of sentimentality.

“Coldhearted? I have to be coldhearted. They are trying to kill my dairy.” Two tears rolled down her cheeks. Her bright black eyes were cloudy. She closed them, and lay so still that for a moment, I feared she had fainted.

“Do you have any idea who could have set the fire, Mrs. Capretti?”

Her eyes snapped open. “That tax inspector.”

“He's dead, Grandmamma,” Marietta said.

“I know he's dead, you idiot. He kept nosing around here like a stray cat after garbage. He wanted me to sell out to the cheese people. I said hell, no. You want to know who set fire to my dairy? The cheese people did.” She glared at me. She sat straight up among the pillows. “You!” she said. “You're a detective.
Es vero?
”

“If you are asking me if that's true,” I said cautiously, “yes, Mrs. Capretti, I am.”

“Go after the cheese people and smack them around! I want you to find out who is trying to kill my dairy!” Her bony fingers worked the fringe on the bedspread. “Who is trying to kill me!”

I looked at Marietta, alarmed. “Someone has threatened her life?”

“No, no. She means that the dairy
is
her life.” Marietta looked down at her grandmother with an expression equal parts affection and exasperation. Doucetta raised her aluminum cane, looked at it in disgust, and flung it across the room. “I want my cane back, too!” she shouted. “There is a curse on this house until my cane is returned!”

“I thought the curse was lifted when the boys came by,” Marietta said. “So there's another curse?”

Doucetta pointed at her. “You! You can go too far!”

“That's absolutely true,” Luisa said waspishly. “You let Marietta get away with far too much, Mamma.”

“Why don't you just pack up your bags and wriggle back to that poor husband of yours?” Marietta suggested.

“Shut up, all of you!” Doucetta demanded. “A sick old lady like me, and you're fighting like a couple of alley cats. Shame on you. You especially, Luisa. What are you doing here? You should by home with that bad-tempered husband of yours. You're here, instead, tormenting me! And look at you! In your nightgown at eleven o'clock in the morning. I want you dressed and out of my house! Go! Go!”

Luisa fled the room with a sob. Doucetta muttered angrily to herself. Then she said, “So, Mr. Fancy-Pants Detective. Will you find out why I am cursed?”

“I'll do what I can, Mrs. Capretti.”

“Swear to me that you will find this killer!”

I cleared my throat. Then I said, “Yes, indeed.”

“Murderers all around me,” she grumbled. “The milk inspector? Someone did us all a favor there. The tax man? Pft.” She spat. “No loss to the troops. But my buildings! My creamery! All my cheese!” The tears rolled down her cheeks. It was really quite horrible. “Aaaahhh!” she wailed.

“You really need to sit back and calm down, Grandmamma.” Marietta sorted through the assorted detritus on the nightstand and held up a carafe. She glanced at me. “You don't think it's too early to give her a little red wine?”

It is a curious fact that some people see little difference between vets and physicians. “I see no harm in it all. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind some myself.”

“Good idea.” Marietta unearthed three glasses and poured a healthy slug of wine in each. I sat on the bed to drink it. Marietta sat next to me. She raised her glass. “To the goats,” she said. “To the goats,” Doucetta and I responded. The wine went down quite easily, being a cabernet franc of no small distinction, so we had another. It was quite cozy.