The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat (6 page)

“Who said anything about Neville Brandstetter?”

“You did,” Rita said. “When I told you about Staples and the pissed-off husbands. Brandstetter. With two
t
's?”

“I doubt that Neville has anything to do with this,” I said. “And as for the activities of Cases Closed, we will apprise you when appropriate.”

Rita sighed, turned the tape recorder off, and stuffed it into her tote. “I'd better get to the paper. Nigel'll be calling in his story pretty soon.” She reached over and gave Madeline a hug. “It's a shame when the wrong people get clocked, isn't it, Maddy? Now if someone were to smack that Brian Folk, we'd run a nice big headline along the lines of ‘Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead.' Or ‘Warlock' as the case may be.” She scowled. “Do you know what my tax bill on my building's going to be this year?”

“He's upped the appraisal on the newspaper building, too?” Madeline said. “Lordy. That man is cruisin' for a bruisin'.”

“Make me up a couple of pies and send them on over. We can bombard him together. Gotta go! Bye!” Rita gathered up her various accoutrements and headed out.

“It wasn't really a pie,” Madeline said after her retreating figure. “More of a tart.”

“
I
didn't have anywhere near the interesting day you guys did,” Allegra complained. “I didn't get the chance to hit anybody with a pie. All I did was practice half passes with Tracker.”

“It was most satisfyin',” Madeline admitted. “But it wasn't all that big a pie.”

We were gathered for an early dinner. Allegra had a date with some friends to attend a concert in Ithaca. Joe had a Saturday night stint behind the bar at the Embassy. This left us little time for a preliminary meeting on the case I had designated the Ill-Gotten Goat, primarily because I feared Staples was dead because he had gotten the goat of a jealous husband.

Madeline set a bowl of fruit salad on the table. Joe poured iced tea. We all settled at our places. I passed the plate of baked chicken to Joe and helped myself to mashed potatoes.

“And as for poor Dr. Brandstetter”—Allegra turned her big green eyes on me—“did you really ask him who tried to run off with Mrs. Brandstetter?”

“I did.”

Joe plucked two rolls out of the bread basket and covered them with butter. Madeline handed me a roll—they were still warm from the oven—but removed the butter to a prudent distance. “So did you find out who the guilty guy was?” he asked.

“I did not.” I did not voice my suspicions.

“It's a terrible thing, messin' around,” Madeline said with a sigh. “I mean, look at poor old Victor. If he hadn't had that little friskiness with that youngster from his small ruminants class, he'd be a happier man right now. What that woman needs,” she added, “is something to take her mind off of all that money.”

“You mean Mrs. Bergland? Or Mrs. Brandstetter?” Ally asked. “Mrs. Brandstetter has a lot of money. You know she wears a chinchilla coat in the wintertime? Fur! Can you believe it?”

“Both of them, I suppose. Anna Luisa's always been at loose ends. She never liked the dairy work. I think she trained as a teacher in a high school, but she gave that up when the schools started laying off teachers because of the budget cuts. And they never had any kids. But I was talking about Thelma. She just plain needs something to keep her busy old body occupied.”

“Like what?” Ally asked.

“
I
was thinking maybe…cheese making.”

The three of us stared at her.

“Cheese making?” I said.

“I signed the two of us up for the cheese-making class at Tre Sorelle today.”

Long familiarity with my wife's thought processes led me to the proper conclusion. “My dear—that's brilliant.”

Madeline twinkled at me. “It's a three-day course. It starts Tuesday. There were two spaces left in the class. I figure we can pick up any number of clues to help the investigation along.”

“Are we pretty sure the murderer's at the dairy, though?” Ally asked.

“We can be sure that the murderer made at least one appearance at the dairy,” Joe said with a tinge of sarcasm.

Allegra shot him a look. The two had been rivals ever since the competition for the job as clinic assistant. There was détente, with occasional flare-ups. Odie tolerated Lincoln in much the same way.

“Excellent question, Ally. Staples seems to have had a talent for annoying a significant part of the village population. Therefore,” I continued, “we must look into Staples's background as well as the Caprettis and their relations. For all we know, Staples may have been followed to the dairy by a total outsider. The murderer may have followed him into the milk room and simply took advantage of an opportunity to hit him over the head and push him in. There are a number of possible suspects. I have, therefore, made a plan.” I reached over to the bookshelf that divides our kitchen from the dining area and picked up the folder I'd started. It was labeled CC005.

“Really?” Ally said. “I've made a plan, too.”

Joe reached into the pocket of his T-shirt and waved a folded piece of paper in the air. “And me.”

“Well, isn't that nice,” Madeline said comfortably. “We can put them all together. My plan's just to go to those cheese classes and collect all the scuttlebutt floating around.”

“My plan's to suck up to Ashley,” Ally said. “She's taking some second-level dressage from Mrs. Gernsback. I'm going to take Tracker over there and show up for the Tuesday afternoon class. She's been at the data entry job all summer, right? I'll bet she knows stuff about the dairy she doesn't even know she knows.”

“And Joe and I will be on the QMPS team in the guise of consultants,” I said. “I plan to meet with young Leslie Chou on Monday morning and arrive at the dairy Monday afternoon.

“There are certain facts we need to establish to obtain a clear picture of what occurred that morning. If you all would take notes, please, we will list the basics.”

There was a brief flurry of activity as the others assembled a pen and pad (Madeline) and iPhones (Ally and Joe).

“We will make an assumption that the relevant times are between nine thirty a.m. on Saturday, when the morning's milking was finished, and eleven a.m., when the body was discovered. We need to know who was at the dairy and where they were during those hours. We will check with the milk board and Melvin's wife to determine his activities prior to his appearance in the bulk tank.” I looked over the rim of my spectacles at them. “We must keep our minds open to any and all possibilities. At the moment, we don't even have a viable list of suspects.”

“Do we have any sort of forensics?” Joe asked.

I frowned. Provost had exhibited his usual recalcitrance when I requested the scene-of-the-crime data and the autopsy report. His response, in fact, had been to stick with the goats. “Not yet,” I admitted.

Lincoln, who had been dozing in his basket by the woodstove, suddenly leaped to his feet and padded to the back door. A frantic tattoo of rapping made him bark.

“Somebody's here,” Ally said.

“Perhaps it's Ashley come to visit Sunny,” Madeline said. “How's the pony doin'?”

“As well as can be expected,” I said. “If she has come to give the animal food, we will bar the door.”

The rapping increased in intensity. Joe shoved his chair back. Before he got to his feet, the door burst open and Anna Luisa Brandstetter tumbled into the kitchen. Her black hair tumbled wildly around her face. The sclera around her pupils was visible. She panted heavily. I quelled an impulse to reach for a dose of acepromazine.

“Dr. McKenzie! You've got to help me! They've arrested Neville for murder!”

 

“
I
don't know what rotten gossip went blabbing to the police about Mel,” Anna Luisa said furiously, after Madeline had calmed her down. “but I'd like to kill her myself.”

I cleared my throat and offered a second stiff brandy to Neville's distraught wife. She downed it on one gulp and ranted on. “And I don't know why they dragged Neville off to jail or what evidence they think they have, but this is just terrible.”

As soon as we had ascertained that Luisa had no physical trauma, Joe and Allegra had exchanged one significant glance and exited the house, leaving Luisa in Madeline's capable hands. Luisa's hysteria had rapidly transmuted into a temper tantrum. I hoped sufficient brandy would tamp the rage into a manageable blaze. I poured a third tot and offered it to her.

“Oh. Why!
Why! Why!
” she shrieked. She threw herself facedown on our leather sectional sofa and beat her hands against the cushions.

Madeline caught my concerned gaze and shrugged. “It's leather, sweetie. It can take it.” And then, rather sharply, “That's enough, Luisa, dear. If you can sit up and let us know exactly what happened, Austin and I may be able to help you. Here.” She removed the brandy from my grasp and handed it to Luisa. “Third time's the charm.”

Luisa took the glass, held it in both hands, much as a toddler would, and gulped it down. She looked up at us with that same, toddlerlike expression. “I'm so frightened,” she whispered. “What if they hang poor Neville?”

“Nonsense,” I said. “They haven't hanged felons in New York state for years. He'd die by lethal injection, if anything.”

“Um, Austin?” Madeline said.

“Eh? Oh. Of course it won't come to that, Luisa. Unless he did it.” I paused. “Did he?”

“I'm so afraid he did,” she whispered. “I'm so afraid he did!” She began to wind up like the fire horn at the village fire department.

“Anna Luisa,” Madeline said briskly. “You're fifty-two years old and you are made of sterner stuff than this. Now sit up and tell us exactly what happened.”

Luisa scowled, perhaps at the mention of her age, and sat up as instructed.

“Please begin at the beginning, go on, and then stop,” I said.

“It was that wretched little witch. Mel's wife. That police lieutenant went back to her house and asked her point-blank if Mel and I had been having an affair and she, do you know what? She had pictures!”

“Good heavens,” I said. “Do you know how they were obtained?”

“She claims she got them through the mail.” Luisa shrugged. “She's lying. Of course. She got somebody to follow us. Or maybe she was the one who followed us.”

“Did Neville get similar pictures?”

“He didn't know a thing about Mel! Not until that police lieutenant marched into my house and dragged him off to jail!”

“But clearly Neville knew you were having an affair with someone,” I suggested gently.

“Well, yes.” Luisa looked thoughtful. “Maybe—hm. You may as well know it all.”

It was an old story, and a familiar one. The lovers had met at the dairy. Sparks flew. They decided to run away together. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whoever said Tolstoy was wrong about happy families being all alike—that it was unhappy families who are all alike—got it in one. I cut short the banal recounting of the progress of the affair and asked Luisa about the day before the murder.

“I called Neville at the office and told him I was leaving. That I'd found someone else. That the lawyers would be in touch.”

“Just like that?” Madeline asked. “I mean, you didn't try to soften it any?”

“Soften it?” Luisa blinked at her. “Well, it was true, and Neville deserved the truth, didn't he?”

Madeline sighed a little. Then she said, “Please go on.”

The eloping couple spent the night at an apartment Luisa had rented in Ithaca. Mel left for work the next day. He'd intended to come home for lunch. He didn't arrive. Luisa heard the news of his death on the radio.

“And then I called Neville. I mean, I couldn't think of anything else to do. I left a message for him. He was at the office. Or in the field. Or teaching. Anywhere,” she said bitterly, “except there for me. And I sat there in that apartment for a couple of hours. Then I went home. Everything,” she added even more bitterly, “was all patched up until that lieutenant showed up.”

“Is there any actual evidence involving Neville in Staples's murder?” I asked.

Luisa shrugged.

“Did Simon actually arrest him? Or just take him in for questioning?”

“Simon?”

“‘That lieutenant,'” Madeline said rather dryly.

“Oh. I don't know.” Her bosom began an ominous heaving. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I was just so upset I couldn't stop screaming.”

“Quick, Austin, the brandy!”

We gave Luisa a fourth tot, which seemed to stave off the hysterics for the moment.

“It's possible that Neville hasn't been arrested at all, but has just been taken down to the village station for questioning,” I said. “If you couldn't stop screaming it's unlikely that either man was able to hear himself think.”

“Is it possible?” Luisa cried, clasping her hands in that childlike way. “Do you think they'll let him go?”

“I'll call and find out,” Madeline said kindly. She withdrew to the kitchen, where she could call the station in relative quiet.

“Tell me about the dairy,” I suggested. “Is there anyone there who might have a reason to, ah…”

“Kill Mel?” Luisa shook her head. “Only Neville.” She paused reflectively. “He's crazy about me, Neville is. I'm afraid it's all too possible that he did discover who I'd fallen in love with. And then…yes, he had motive to do it. He was insanely jealous. Oh. Oh, this is all so sad! I just couldn't help it, Austin. It's just the way I am. I've got to be loved! I've got to!”

“Neville's on his way home right now,” Madeline said briskly, coming back into the living room.

“Do you think…that is…has he forgiven me?”

“I have no idea,” Madeline said. “Are you feelin' fit enough to drive, sweetie? Would you like me to take you back? Austin can follow us in your car.”