“You can come out now,” Phyllis said cheerily. “George says, ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish.’”
Joe and I emerged from the Bronco with some caution, all the same. George waved at us, and then disappeared into the depths of the double-wide, shotgun in hand. He emerged moments later, shotgun-free, and trotted down the gravel path to meet us. He dropped a handful of shotgun shells on the picnic table that sat in their small front yard, then came up and stood beside his wife.
“How nice to see you!” Phyllis beamed. “And how is Mrs. McKenzie?”
“Quite well, thank you,” I responded. “And how are the Spice Girls?” I referred to the herd of Boer does that are the foundation animals for the Bests’ well-bred herd.
“The summer kids are just coming on,” Phyllis said. “Basil had a ten-pound buck yesterday. We named him Baby Huey.” She gestured us toward the fenced pens attached to the shed. Basil, who I had treated on prior visits to the farm, greeted me with a bleat of recognition.
Although not in her first youth, Basil was an extremely good-looking doe, with the caramel brown face characteristic of the highly bred Boer and long brown ears that curled at the tip. The rest of her was white. She nursed the largest Boer buckling I’ve ever seen.
“Now that’s a goat,” Joe said in admiration.
Basil trotted to the fence, raised herself up, and whiffed hello. Baby Huey protested the sudden departure of his breakfast with a loud blat, leaped into the air, spun around several times, then raced as fast as he could around the fence perimeter, ears flying in the breeze created by his passage.
“Any problems?” I asked.
“A little bout of the runs with the weanlings,” Phyllis said. “But nothing major. We maybe weaned that new set of kids too early.”
“You added CORID to the water? And used the penicillin?”
“We did.” She turned to her husband. “What? Dear? Oh. George says to thank you for those penicillin samples you sent us.” She added, innocently, “It’s just amazing the stuff they give doctors for free. And so good of you to send us the extra.”
I avoided Joe’s raised eyebrows. The Bests lived on their Social Security checks and the income from the small amount of meat they sold Doucetta. With carcasses at a dollar twenty-five a pound, and an average weight of sixty pounds, they made little enough to keep body and soul together.
“George says you probably want to know why he was shooting at those people from New Jersey.”
“Er. Yes.”
Phyllis sat down at the picnic table and indicated that we should, too. “They’re after us and after us to buy this acreage. They didn’t seem to want to take no for an answer. They’ve been sending us letter after letter and the last one came special delivery at ten o’clock at night, and you can imagine what George had to say about being hauled out of bed at that hour!”
In the years I had been treating the Bests’ Boers, I had never heard an audible word from George Best. Neither had anyone else I knew. Either he spoke at a pitch known only to dogs and his wife, or Phyllis had exceptional extrasensory perception.
“George keeps telling these people we won’t sell.”
“And they keep coming back? That comes pretty close to harassment, Mrs. Best.” Joe scratched Basil’s forehead as he spoke. The doe looked as lovingly at him as Ashley Swinford. “Maybe you’d like us to drop a word in Lieutenant Provost’s ear?”
“The police?” Phyllis wore an apron that read “We’ve Got Your Goat!” She fiddled nervously with the pockets. “Well, the thing is, they have this paper.”
“Who has what paper?” I asked.
She sighed. “You know Louise.”
“Your daughter? Yes. She’s a special education teacher at the middle school, isn’t she?”
“She’s about to retire. She’ll be sixty-five…anyway, we had to take out a little mortgage on the farm a while ago, and Lou cosigned for us, because the bank needed a little more security than we had, you see.”
I sighed. I knew what was coming next.
“And she—what’s that word, George? Assigned. Yes, she assigned the mortgage to these people. Now, we’d been making payments right along, until a few months ago when Doucetta had all that trouble and couldn’t send us the meat check. So we fell behind some, and these people”—her face turned pink with indignation—“these people want all that money at once!”
“The real estate people?” Joe said, confused.
“These real estate people say they bought the land from the ones that Louise sold the mortgage to. What? Oh. George says they didn’t buy the land, they bought an option.”
Joe rubbed his forehead. I myself was somewhat perplexed. Except for the motive. The motive was as clear as the sky. Behind all of these shenanigans was cold, hard cash. Lakefront property was soaring in value, due in part to general inflation, but mostly due to the rise in tourism and the influx of urbanites growing grapes.
“Louise means well,” Phyllis said. “She’s been after us to retire for years and years. She says the farm is getting too much for us, and in a way she’s right.” Unconsciously, she rubbed her hands, which were bent with arthritis like the roots of a banyan tree. “But we love it.”
“Let’s get back to the money you’re owed from the dairy,” Joe said. “Mrs. Capretti is behind in her payments?”
“One hundred and thirty-five days.”
I eyed Phyllis who heard 90 percent of the gossip in Tompkins County. “Is Tre Sorelle in trouble?”
Phyllis pursed her lips. “George says there are quite a few who won’t do business with them. But George says it may be just that they’re Eye-talian.”
This was a sad fact of country life—but probably true.
“And are they behind in payments to anyone else you know?” I asked.
“It’s rough times in the farming business,” Phyllis said.
It is always rough times in the farming business. That’s a given.
“And she’s had a couple of complaints about the carcass weight.” Suddenly, she blushed bright red. “George! You know I don’t approve of that kind of language about anybody! This is a Christian household, if you please!”
“She’s been stiffing you on the payments?” Joe said. “How much…” I nudged him, and he fell silent. Talk of money embarrassed people like the Bests.
“If refusing to pay us is ‘stiffing,’ then she’s been stiffing us,” Phyllis said. “But we have faith that God will provide.”
“Not likely,” Joe muttered.
“George wants to know if you dropped by for any particular reason. We heard about the murders over to the dairy.” She shook her snowy head. “George thinks the world is going to hell in a handbasket. It’ll be the Apocalypse next, you mark my words. I mean, what kind of world is it when folks like us are suspects?” Her blue eyes, remarkably unfaded, twinkled at me. “That is why you dropped by, isn’t it, Dr. McKenzie? George heard all about this detective work you’re doing down to the veterans.” She leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “He’ll be so disappointed if you don’t ask us where we were on the nights of the murders.”
“August fourth and August sixth,” I said. “Where were you on the nights of the murders?”
“Shucks. We were at bingo. Both nights. I won eleven dollars and fifty cents on the Thursday. Didn’t I tell you God will provide?” Phyllis said. “That money went straight to the feed bill. Now, what if I gave you two handsome men some of my zucchini bread?”
The zucchini bread was delicious. Phyllis’s baking was widely known for its excellence. It was some time before we got back on the road.
“God will provide,” Joe repeated somewhat bitterly as we drove back down the winding dirt road to Route 96. “Seems like the real estate developers are the ones being provided for. And what did the Bests do to deserve a daughter like that?”
“‘O sharper than a serpent’s tooth is the something something of an ungrateful child’? No, I’m glad to say Louise is no Goneril.
”
Joe looked blank.
“Lear, my boy, King Lear. There is more to the story than would appear. We were out there last month, as you recall, and at the time Phyllis mentioned Louise was encouraging them to them sell up and enjoy a less arduous lifestyle. I dropped in on Louise to follow up. Madeline knows her as a dedicated teacher and a fond daughter. George has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. You saw how Phyllis suffers from arthritis. Louise has five acres and a four-bedroom house near Trumansburg. She wishes her parents to join her with as many of the Spice Girls as is practicable, the charming Basil and her chubby progeny included.”
“Oh,” Joe said.
“So there is no evil real estate developer with sinister designs on their property.”
“I didn’t think…”
“No. You probably didn’t. But then Madeline let drop that you are a Republican. I, on the other hand, have hopes of the evil real estate developer—at least as a motive for putting the dairy out of business. The Tre Sorelle land is worth a mint to a developer, even in these recessionary times.” I frowned. “It all depends on the reason for Doucetta’s withholding the meat check. If it’s truly due to cash problems, I may be on to something.” I looked at the list in my hand. “Next is Dr. Tallant. I’ll call her clinic to see where she may be found.”
“NOPE,” said Carrie Tallant. “She owes the clinic a pile of money.” Carrie’s clinic assistant said she was on a call at the ASPCA, where she worked as a general veterinary one day a week. The pound is a pleasant facility, with a lot of space for the bewildering variety of animals man either maltreats or abandons. We found her in the area dedicated to reptiles. “We’ve had to tell her we can’t come out unless she pays something on the account. So we’ll get a small check. And then we’ll do a bunch of work and the receivables mount up again. It’s a problem, Austin. Do we let animals suffer and maybe die because we’re owed a lot of money? How do we square professional ethics with that?” She shook her head in frustration. “Anyhow. It’s definitely an issue. And the high somatic cell count?” She shook her head. “I couldn’t find a thing wrong with the does. She told me that she was going to let the state pay for looking into it further than that. Bless the state, I say.”
I inquired as to her whereabouts on the relevant nights.
“I got married,” she said. She waggled her ring finger, on which she wore a plain gold band. “We went to Niagara Falls. Just got back.” She petted the snake she was treating for skin mold with one forefinger. “Know anyone that wants to adopt a boa constrictor?”
I said I would make inquiries, and we left her to her snake.
“So the dairy’s not doing as well as it could be,” Joe mused.
“I’d rather we had some facts, as opposed to anecdotal evidence. You notice that Carrie hasn’t yet refused to go out to treat the goats. I’ve known more than one farmer to manage cash flow by stringing out payments.”
“Creates a lot of bad feeling,” Joe observed.
“Doucetta seems impervious to bad feeling. And if she’s the store-your-money-under-the-mattress type, she may simply have an inclination to hang on to every penny before it’s absolutely necessary to spend it. We simply don’t have enough information to determine the dairy’s solvency at this point.”
“What about the hay and feed guys? We can check with them.”
“The dairy grows its own hay. And nobody with any sense shorts the grain salesmen—they just stop delivery. Farmers pay that bill before they buy shoes for their children, much less a Mercedes for a disaffected daughter. No, I’d much prefer to talk to the accountants.” I fell silent, devising ways to coax financial information from that notoriously close-mouthed group. I had an idea that would work if Madeline gave me a hand. And Thelma, although she wouldn’t realize it (and if she did, would probably refuse).
“So what’s next, Doc?”
“Locally the only supplier left with a possible animus is Jonathan Swinford. We’ll speak with him. This time of day, we will probably find him in the vineyard itself. And I’ve come up with a way to discover more about the dairy’s actual finances. But first we need to speak to Swinford.”
We stopped first at the lavish boutique and tasting room. A Wednesday in August is prime tourist time. The tasting bar was stacked four deep with appreciative sippers. The small café area was stuffed with people drinking lattes and gulping biscotti. At the front of the long, rectangular room, a tour group gathered at the enormous windows at the grapevines in the valley below.
All the staff members wore T-shirts with the Swinford Vineyard logo and a bunch of grapes printed across the back. I stopped one young lady with a case of Swinford’s famous red zinfandel under one arm and a corkscrew in the other.
“Mr. Swinford? He’s at the distillery. We just got a load of juice in.”
We found Jonathan Swinford at the base of a twenty-foot stainless-steel vat, writing busily on a clipboard. He was tall and thin and wore a white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, a well-cut pair of trousers, and expensive loafers with no socks. A sapphire-studded Rolex adorned one wrist. If he had been a prospective donor to the vet school, Victor would have put him down for he what called a huge pile of smackers. Swinford looked up as we came down the cool concrete floor, a faint look of puzzlement on his face. “I think I know you,” he said with a cordial smile. “But I can’t quite place…”
“Austin McKenzie,” I said. “My assistant, Joe Turnblad.”
“Of course. The horse vet. What can I do for you gentlemen? If it’s about the bill for that wretched animal, you can send it on to the house.”
“No, we are not here about the bill,” I said with some asperity, “and I am not here in my capacity as a ‘horse vet.’ We have been asked to take a look into the murders at the Tre Sorelle Dairy.”
He whistled. “Oh, yes. Poor Ashley found the first body. Somebody named Staples? The milk inspector? And then there was this other fellow.”
“Brian Folk,” I said.
He shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t know him. I think I ran across Staples once when I came to pick Ash up from work. Good-looking guy. Reminded me of Mel Gibson.” His eyes narrowed. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my daughter’s discovery of the body, does it? She’s handling it pretty well, but my wife says it was pretty traumatic for her.”
“No, this doesn’t involve Ashley, as such.”
“As such?” he asked sharply.
“We’re more interested in your relationship with Mrs. Capretti.”
“Who told you I had a relationship with Ms. Capretti?” He tapped his pencil against the clipboard impatiently.
“You sell five cases of wine to the Tre Sorelle retail operation each month.”
He ran his tongue around his lower lip. “We do? Let me think. I believe you’re right.” He smiled and placed his hand under my elbow. “Let’s go into my office and see what the file says.”
We followed him out of the distillery to a small office located just inside the front door of another large building. He looked over his shoulder as he unlocked the office door. “This is where we bottle. Our gallonage is about fifty thousand a year. You can see why I can’t recall a five-case sale right off the top of my head.” The door opened and he stepped aside. “Please come in. Would you like anything? Coffee? Or would you like to try our 2002 Chardonnay? That was our first gold medal winner, you know. I’d appreciate your opinion.”
I resisted the temptation to take him up on the offer of the Chardonnay. I had indeed tasted that particular vintage, and it was excellent. “Some coffee would be welcome.”
He seated himself at a rosewood desk and gestured toward two comfortable chairs placed around a small, round conference table. He pressed an intercom button, requested coffee, and then pulled the keyboard to his computer forward. “Tre Sorelle, you said?” He tapped away. “Yes, we send five cases a month to them from May until late September. We don’t sell much locally in the down season.”
“Oh, yes, where the export taxes don’t make it prohibitive.”
“Does Tre Sorelle pay you on time?”
He tapped at the keyboard again and read the screen. “They’re late payers, but they avoid the surcharge. Just. And Doucetta’s a born nickel-and-dimer, of course. It’s hard to survive in small business without keeping an eye on the bottom line all the time. She’s a genius at that.”
A thought occurred to me. “Your employee upstairs said you had just received a shipment of juice?”
Swinford frowned. There was a tap at the door, and the same young lady who had directed us to the distillery brought in a tray with a carafe of coffee and a plate of cheese and biscuits. She handed the cups around, poured, and then took her leave. The coffee was excellent. The cheese was well aged and had a creamy texture. If the Swinford Vineyard was expanding into cheese like this, Thelma would have a significant competitor on her hands.
“Well.” Jonathan leaned back in his chair. “How is the pony getting along? You’ve got quite a racket going there, McKenzie. I’ve got to hand it to you vets. Women and horses must be the bread and butter of your particular trade.”
“With luck and the right farrier, the pony will be good for some years yet,” I said.
“Damn,” Swinford said with what he probably hoped was a man-to-man smile. “I don’t begrudge my daughter the expense, mind you, but I might as well pour cash into a hole as spend it on those flippin’ animals.” His cell phone rang. Joe’s cell phone rang. Both men took out their phones and opened them with a snap. Swinford said, “Excuse me, Dr. McKenzie. Yes? What is it, Penny. No. No. I’m off to New York tonight. Sorry. What kind of tone are you talking about?” He cast a hurried glance at me and swiveled his chair so that his back was to us. “You’re getting upset over nothing. You know I have to…fine. Go screw yourself.” He shut the phone with a snap, swiveled his chair to face us again, and dragged up the man-to-man smile. “Women,” he said. “You know, if you intend to make it big in the wine business—and I intend to make it very big—you’re on the road much of the time. You have to be. My wife has a hard time with the bigger picture. But then, most women do.”
The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat Page 14
