The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat (5 page)

“I know very little about trailer parks,” I admitted. “I could hazard a guess, however, that the application of the lemon pie did little for our chances at a reduction in fees.”

“The archangel Gabriel himself couldn't get that little bum to roll his assessment back,” Madeline said matter-of-factly. “The man's a pinhead and a bozo. If I were back in Memphis, I'd make a few calls about tar and feathers.”

I looked at her in some alarm. She patted my hand reassuringly, sighed, and took a large bite of the Monrovian Special. (Madeline does not have a problem with cholesterol.) “I did find something else out, though,” she said through the hamburger. “He has it in for Tre Sorelle, too.”

“Oh?”

“‘Look, fatty!' he said to me, in this snippy way. ‘That old bat Capretti didn't get anywhere with me and neither will you.'”

“I beg your pardon? He called you
what
?”

Madeline patted my hand again. “Don't fuss, darlin'. That's when I grabbed the pie and clocked him with it.”

“It was your magnificent figure, my dear, that first attracted me to you,” I said with some emotion. “I have told you, often, that you remind me of those great beauties of the past. Lillie Langtry, for example.”

“Thank you, Austin.” She finished the hamburger with a sigh and toyed idly with an onion ring. “Anyway, short of getting the crumb a job somewhere else—like Siberia—we seem to be stuck with him for the moment. But it's interesting, don't you think? That he had this go-round with Doucetta the very day the milk inspector ends up in the bulk tank? I hear she took a swing at him with that cane of hers. Brian Folk, not Melvin Staples. Maybe she missed and got Staples by mistake.”

I ignored this little joke. “At the moment, we have bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated information. The Brandstetters' fractured marriage. The confrontation between Doucetta and the tax inspector. The mysteriously high somatic cell counts. As you know, it is a tenet of Cases Closed that random facts in a case do come together to form a pattern. A murder investigation is much like diagnosing an underlying pathology in a cow or a horse. One observes and assesses the overt symptoms….”

“Oh, glory,” Madeline said. “There's Simon. And look who's with him.”

We were in our usual booth, which is halfway down the length of the restaurant, and I was on the side that faced the Gents. I turned around, the better to see the front door. Simon had entered and was in quiet colloquy with Deirdre at the bar. She gestured toward us. Simon raised his hand in greeting, nodded to Deirdre, and headed our way. She then turned to the phone behind the bar and picked up the receiver.

I was usually glad to see Simon. My pleasure was considerably tempered by the fact that he was accompanied by a short, ferret-faced fellow who looked weaselly enough to be a tax assessor. My guess was buttressed by the fact that a dollop of lemon pie adhered to his shirt collar. I raised my eyebrows and looked at Madeline.

“Yep,” she said cheekily.

“Perhaps Simon has obtained the autopsy results and is bringing them over to us and he fell in with Folk on the way,” I said. “I don't know how you feel about it, my dear, but I find the forensics to be absolutely essential to the intelligent progress of a case.”

“It's way too soon to have any forensic results. And what would Brian Folk be doin' with him if he did? Nope.” She smiled. “Simon's come to arrest me.”

Simon looked rather grim. Brian Folk looked smug. Simon sat down next to me and addressed my wife. “Mrs. McKenzie. Maddy. Did you assault Brian Folk with a pie?” Brian Folk leaned against a nearby booth, his arms folded across his chest.

“You bet I did.”

“She admits it!” Brian Folk said with a vicious smirk. “In front of witnesses, too.”

Simon leaned down and banged his forehead gently against the table.

“I wish,” Madeline added sunnily, “that it had been a larger pie. It was more of a tart, really.”

Simon rolled his eyes upward, and then sat back. “He wants to press charges. He wants me to arrest you for battery.”

“Maddy!”

All three of us turned to the front door. That shriek was familiar. It belonged to Rita Santelli, my editor and the publisher of the
Summersville Sentinel
. Rita is a thin, peppery widow in her midforties. She has a great many freckles, shrewd gray eyes, and short brown hair streaked prematurely gray. She sat down next to Maddy in a flurry, tape recorder at the ready, a camera jouncing against her meager bosom. “I just heard. Did you whack that damn fool tax inspector with a lemon pie?” She rolled her head, looked at Folk, and gave an artificial start of surprise. “Oh! Why there you are, Inspector. Sorry. I didn't see you standing there.”

“That's libel, that is,” Brian Folk said. “Calling me a damn fool.”

“It would be slander if anything,” I said. “And it isn't.”

Rita's eyes flickered toward Simon and back again. “I was hoping I could get a picture of you with one of Charley's pies, Maddy? Sort of held over your head? And if bozo here wants to be in the picture, so much the better.”

“It was more of a tart, really,” Madeline said. “But you bet I will.”

Rita huddled forward and lowered her voice. Brian Folk leaned over my shoulder the better to hear. His breath smelled of cheese. “The thing is, I'm in the middle of an article about the tax assessor's egregious abuse of power inc small towns like Summersville and I figure the photo will be a great illustration.”

“Illustrating what?” Simon said. “Rule by pie?”

“Very funny. No, it'll illustrate the first step in a taxpayer's revolution!” Rita leaned back. “I figure this kind of news is just what the public wants to hear, especially in an election year.” She dug into her skirt pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and waved it over her head. “I'm about to call Gordy Rassmussen. You all know Gordy, right? Been town supervisor for years. And the guy that hired
you
, right?” She glared at Folk. “And seeing how it
is
an election year, and how Gordy just loves all the media exposure he can get…”

Gordy, a Swede, was notoriously camera shy.

“…He's going to love justifying the rise in taxes in this town. And then”—she gave Folk a sinister smile—“I'm going to go into a lot of depth about a tax assessor's qualifications. Did you know that you don't have to have any kind of special training to be a tax assessor? That it's—hmmm, what's the word I want—patronage, that's it. That it's a patronage sort of job. I think you could even call it sort of a payoff, under certain circumstances.”

“This is blackmail,” Brian Folk said hoarsely.

“This is nothing of the kind,” Rita snapped. “This is American journalism at its finest. Why, I bet I could even get some of the city news teams out to cover this. We could open the news show with video interviews of some of the poor souls whose taxes have priced them right out of their homes, kind of like those fellows over there.” She raised her hand and hollered, “Whooee, Deirdre! Whyn't you bring Spike and Killer over for a little talk about their taxes?”

Deidre shepherded the two gentlemen at the bar toward our booth. Both were substantially built. One of them nodded graciously at Madeline. The other made a fist of his right hand and smacked it into the palm of his left. Brian Folk stiffened, made a noise between a gargle and a snort, and headed toward the door. He opened it, turned, and sent a chilling glance our way.

The door closed behind him, to a momentary silence.

“Ha,” Deidre said, “That'll teach the little piker to stiff
me
on a tip. Lester? Darryl? I got a beer at the bar for you boys. And Maddy? Any time you want to smack that guy in the snoot, there's another couple of pies in the back.”

She marched back to the bar, a victorious swing to her hips.

“Pretty good move, there, Rita,” Simon said. “Unless you're really planning on running a couple of stories about this?”

Rita set the recorder down on the table. “Deirdre called and said Maddy'd end up in the joint if I didn't get down here quick. Not,” she admitted, “that I wouldn't have had a pretty good story if he hadn't backed off. Anyhow, I didn't do all that much.” She grinned at us. “Me, I think it was Lester and Darryl that convinced our Mr. Folk to sulk in silence. Spike and Killer, hah! That was a pretty good one.”

“Do you think it was the threat of violence that drove him off?” I asked thoughtfully. “I observed him rather closely during this entire altercation. I don't believe it was the prospect of one in the snoot that dissuaded him from persecuting my wife. It was something you said, Rita.”

“About the power of the press, you mean?” Rita said with a pleased air.

“No. About his qualifications. He jumped, as if startled. The pupils of his eyes widened. His autonomic nervous system betrayed him.”

“His what?” Simon asked irritably.

“He exhibited the classic signs of guilt.”

The silence at the table was, I believe, quite respectful.

“McKenzie,” Provost said. “That's the biggest bunch of hooey I've ever heard. With all due respect.”

“No, no,” Rita said excitedly. “The CIA uses that kind of technique all the time. I've read about it. Even the smoothest of liars can't control unconscious reactions. You really think if I dig around we can get something on this guy?” Her eyes were sparkling with excitement.

“I can only go as far as I have. But if you were to ask me to bet on it, I would. The man has something to hide.”

Rita rubbed her hands together in glee. “Oh, that'd be one heck of a story. Now.” She fixed her gaze on the lieutenant and poised her finger over the tape recorder. “About the current top story of the week. What's going on with this murder?”

Provost shook his head. “Darn shame, isn't it? Losing the milk inspector like that.”

“That's the official quote from the police department?”

“We're pursuing our inquiries.”

“Been reading English mystery novels in your spare time, have you?” Rita said. “C'mon, Lieutenant. Nigel's out at the dairy interviewing Mrs. Capretti. You're going to want a chance to tell your side of the story.”

Nigel Fish is Rita's chief (and, truth be told, only) investigative reporter. Aside from a slipshod approach to the finer points of the English language, he is probably a pretty good one. His chief flaw is a romantic crush on Allegra, which she handles with aplomb, when not frankly annoyed.

“Now, Rita. I wouldn't say the police department had one side of the story and Mrs. Capretti, bless her soul, the other.” Rather absentmindedly, he took a sip of my coffee. I have mentioned that Provost's mild manner and bland demeanor are misleading. Behind that slightly dopey expression, I could see that his mind was working furiously.

“Well?” With a poke of her forefinger, Rita turned the recorder on.

“Melvin Staples was a valued member of the Summersville community. His loss will be felt in many quarters.”

Rita poked the tape recorder off. “Phooey. What's with the smarmy political blabber? Did somebody die and leave you mayor? Mel Staples was a good-looking hunk who diddled half the eligible ladies in ‘the Summersville community.' I want to know how he died and whether you have any suspects. That wife of his, for example. She was a discus thrower in high school. She could have clocked him over the head and stuffed him into the bulk tank dead easy. Or any number of pissed-off husbands.”

Angry husbands? “Good heavens,” I said. “Neville Brandstetter.”

Rita turned the recorder back on.

I turned to Provost. “I thought you said she was all cut up about his death,” I said. “Mrs. Staples, that is.”

Provost looked reprovingly at me. “The investigation's only a few hours old.”

“So
that's
how you want me to quote you in the paper?? The investigation's only a few hours old?”

“The body of Melvin Staples, milk inspector for the State of New York agricultural department, was discovered at approximately nine thirty this morning in the bulk tank located at the Tre Sorelle Dairy off Route 96. The cause of death has not been determined. The Summersville Police Department's working on the case and expects to have further information shortly.” Provost drained the rest of my coffee and stood up. “As soon as I have any more information, Rita, I'll let you know. In the meantime, if you'll excuse me, I have suspects to interview.” He hitched his trousers up and marched toward the door.

Rita watched him leave with a ruminative expression. She then turned to me. “So, Austin. What's the real deal, here? Are you and that business of yours, what's it called, Cases Closed, that's right. Are you in on this case?”

“No comment,” I said, rather proudly.

Rita's eyes lit up. “So you
are
on the case? Who's this Neville Bran-whatsis? Have you been out to the dairy? Do you have any suspects yet?”