The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat

by Claudia Bishop

  “My wife does not,” I said. “And I had asked about your purchase of grape juice?”

  “Oh, yes, that. The thing is…” He leaned forward confidingly. “We can’t grow enough up here to meet the demand. So yes, I buy grapes. Locally, of course. Consumers want to know that the Swinford wine is a Finger Lakes wine, but it doesn’t necessarily come from acreage we actually own. A lot of the vintners do that when they run to the higher volumes.” He hesitated. “But we don’t publicize the fact, necessarily.”

  “You can count on my discretion,” I said dryly.

  “So. Is there anything else I can help you with?” He rose, went to the office door, and opened it.

  “The night of August fourth and August sixth during the day. We’re establishing the whereabouts of anyone concerned with the dairy.”

  He laughed, clearly at ease with this question. “I was on a buying trip in San Francisco. Got back yesterday afternoon. Well, gentlemen, if there’s nothing else?”

  Joe bent forward and murmured, “That was Abel Crawford on the phone. His regular vet is on vacation. He doesn’t want to deal with the locum. Sounds like a prolapsed uterus.”

  “A barn call, is it?” Swinford said with a smile. “Good to stick with what you know, isn’t it? Detective?”

  Was that a sneer in the man’s voice? I could think of no more questions. The prolapsed uterus at Crawford Dairy loomed. So we left and walked back up the hill to the Bronco.

  “The fellow is slippery,” I said, as I fastened my seat belt. “And he bears watching.”

  “Do you think so?” Joe said in some surprise. “He behaved like a rich jerk, sure. But that’s because he is a rich jerk. What makes you think he’s slippery?”

  “Because we are faced with an anomaly. If we believe him, that Doucetta pays her bills on time, it makes no sense. Why pay for wine when you can’t pay the vet? On the other hand, why should he lie? This goes into the ‘for further consideration’ column.”

  Joe put the key into the ignition. “Good catch. In the meantime, what’s the quickest way to Crawford Dairy? It’s out near the goat dairy, isn’t it?”

  “You can cut over to 96 by using 332,” I said. “And then head south. As for Swinford, I confess to bias. The ambition, the slighting reference to his wife were somewhat distasteful, don’t you think?”

  Joe smiled wryly. “Doesn’t make him a saboteur. Or a murderer, for that matter. He could be jerking your chain just because he can.”

  “True enough. The one attractive thing about the man was his affection for his daughter. That seemed real enough.” I settled back in the passenger seat and set aside detection for the moment.

  The Crawford Dairy was a large enterprize and was a Dairy of Distinction three years running. It was a mark of the increasing success of McKenzie Veterinary Practice, Inc. (practice limited to large animals) that we had been invited to treat one of the animals, even if it was because Abel Crawford had taken a dislike to the locum tenens.

  “Snotty little kid,” he said of the substitute vet when we were in the large cow barn. “Didn’t listen to a word I have to say about this first calf. So I kicked his snotty little butt right out the door. Orville DeGroote had a decent word for you, Doc, so I thought I’d give you a try.”

  I had treated Orville DeGroote’s ill-tempered Quarterhorse for hoof abscesses more than once and kept his cattle on an annual vaccination schedule. I was pleased that DeGroote had passed his approval on to to Crawford.

  “So what it is about this heifer other than the obvious?” I asked. The cow in question was a young Holstein. She had recently calved. As is the custom in dairies like this one, the calf was taken off the mother at birth, and put into a bottle calf hut with a bucket of replacement milk and a number of other calves for company. Her uterus hung behind her hindquarters in a way that must be most uncomfortable, having emerged soon after the calf itself. There are cows prone to this problem. Joe set to work immediately, cleansing the organ with a solution of Betadine and water, sluicing it over and over again.

  And what it was about the heifer was that she kicked.

  “Oof!” said Joe.

  “A hitch will solve that problem,” I pointed out. After he straightened up and caught his breath—the heifer caught him in the midsection—I helped him fasten a rope around the cow’s neck. We drew it down her flank, looped it around her right fetlock, and drew the foot up to her belly. She bellowed in a frustrated way, and then settled down.

  Having been kicked a lot lower down than Joe had been in his initial efforts to put the uterus back where it belonged, the young locum had insisted on an emergency surcharge. “Not to mention he wouldn’t touch the cow again without drugging her and for that he wanted another forty-five bucks,” Crawford said. He shook his head. “Must think I’m made of money.”

  “I’ve yet to meet a farmer made of money.”

  Crawford was a big man, in the way that working farmers are big, with a solid chest, thick arms, and calloused hands. He smiled. “If you ask me, the fella was afraid of the cow.”

  Joe and Crawford brought a large stainless-steel tray in from the collection parlor and we hoisted the uterus onto that. They held it in place just below the heifer’s hindquarters, while I engaged in the lengthy process of putting the organ back where it belonged, inch by slippery inch. I placed a few stitches in the peritoneum, and the three of us stepped back. Joe released the hitch. The cow put her foot down, switched her tail, and began to eat the hay in the manger in front of her. We breathed a sigh of relief. The pesky things can slip out again with inadvertent assistance from the cow.

  “Good,” Crawford said briefly, when it appeared as though the uterus would stay where it belonged. “What do I owe you, Doc?”

  As Joe totaled the bill, Crawford crossed his arms and put his back against the Bronco. “I hear there was some trouble up at Tre Sorelle.”

  “There was,” I said. “Staples must have had your dairy on his inspection list. Did you run into him often?”

  Crawford made a face. “Often enough. Once a month, the regs say, and he tended to poke his nose in more than that.”

  “Nosy, was he?” This was delicate ground. A farmer’s reputation is a precious thing. If Staples had been to the dairy because of a contaminant problem, Abel would not want that bruited about.

  Crawford shrugged. “Nah.” His eyes narrowed. “At first I thought he might be sniffing around my Donna.” Given Staples’s reputation, I presumed this was either a wife or daughter, and not a cow. “But it turns out he was scouting for a cheese consortium.”

  “A cheese consortium?” I said.

  “Yep. There’s a lot of trouble west of here.” He waved his arm in the general direction of Schenectady. “They’re running plain out of water. Not just because of these new drought conditions from global warming, but there’s just too many people using too few resources.”

  “By west of here, you mean California, Arizona, and Nevada,” I said, just to clarify things.

  “That I do. Well, we have ninety-two percent of the freshwater in the world right up here in this corner of the country, and about the best growing season for hay that you can ask for, and what better place to grow milk, nowadays? So I guess there’s some big companies out there, scouting for facilities.” He shrugged again. By the studied blankness of his expression, I could tell that the cheese consortium was serious business. Only the prospect of an actual profit-making activity can make a farmer poker up.

  “Cow milk, only?” I said.

  “Oh, no. They’re after cow, sheep, goat. I’ll tell you, Doc. I’m thinking seriously about converting the barns and milking goats.”

  This switch in topic meant the end of any further inquiry about the cheese consortium. I made a mental note to follow up with Victor. He would know whom to call. Abel pulled his cap low over his brow. “Right now, the goat cheese people are running short of milk and you wouldn’t believe the demand. You think I could convert my milking enterprize?�
�

  We had a brief discussion on the advisability of retrofitting his equipment. Yes, it could be done, but it would be a tricky matter to readjust the head guards and the vacuum press pulsator rate. There would be a third problem as the goats jumped into the pit.

  Joe finished the bill and presented it to me. I turned it over to Crawford who grunted, promised to send a check, and tucked it into the top pocket of his coveralls.

  Joe began packing our equipment up and I risked a final question, “Did you actually meet anyone from the cheese consortium? Do you have an idea of what they were after?”

  “What they want? They want to buy the farm, of course. They’re looking for a couple of thousand acres and as many standing barns as they can find. They want to handle the whole operation, from soup to nuts, if you get my drift.”

  “Did you get a name before Staples was killed?”

  “It wasn’t Staples that was going to introduce me to the cheese people. It was Brian Folk. And I’d sure like to get my hands on the yahoo that sent him to glory. I was looking at making a decent price off this place for the first time in my life.”

  “Indeed? You would sell out a business that’s been in your family for, how long is it?”

  “A hundred and fifty years, give or take a decade.” He pushed his John Deere hat back and rubbed his forehead. “The days of the family farm are over, Doc. I can’t push enough volume through here to make more than enough to pay my taxes and keep the family in groceries. I’m tired. I’m whipped. And I’m getting too damn old to work as hard as I have to get that dollar. You ask anyone farming in New York state, and they’ll tell you the same thing. The only way out is to have some big agri-company waltz in and add you to their stable. That cheese company makes me the right kind of offer, I’m out of here in a flash.

  “Tell you another thing, Doc. That Folk was real interested in getting those people in to see Doucetta Capretti.”

  Eleven

  “SO it is the evil real estate people after all!” Ally said with some excitement. “Hold still, Maddy. I can’t get this clip fastened in your hair.”

  “Cheese,” I said, “not real estate. And it is merely a lead.” I sat in my chair on the porch and sipped some of Victor’s Scotch. Madeline and I were almost ready for our dinner at the Summersville Country Club with the Berglands. Madeline was splendid in a flowery caftan. Her auburn hair was swept off the back of her neck and onto her head in an attractive topknot. It is thick and heavy, and the clip that Allegra succeeded in snapping closed kept slipping free.

  “There,” Ally said. “You look beautiful.”

  “I just want to feel cool,” Madeline said, fanning herself with a copy of Cows Today. “It’s so hot and still it must be coming on to storm.” We all looked over the porch railing to the horizon. Black clouds massed in the west. Madeline sat down, still fanning herself. “I made some pretty good progress myself on the case, guys. First off, Thelma found a good spot for her store.”

  “On Main?” I asked.

  “Oh, not here in Summersville. We drove into Hemlock Falls. You know what a tourist destination that’s getting to be. She found a nice spot right next to the hardware store. A beautiful old cobblestone building. We’re lookin’ at it tomorrow. But that’s not especially helpful to the case. You’re going to like this, sweetie. The guy that’s showin’ it to us is the head of the accounting firm that handles the dairy business. And,” she added triumphantly, “you and I and Victor and Thelma have an appointment to see the store tomorrow afternoon!”

  “Excellent work,” I said. “You must have been reading my mind, my dear. I had that very thought this afternoon, or something like it.”

  “Now, I’ll tell you what’s even more interesting. Thelma went out and bought a bunch of office equipment. She’s already kicked Victor out of his den and set up shop. I have to say, sweetie, I haven’t seen her this good-tempered in all the time we’ve known her. Anyhow, she said we were goin’ to ‘take the initial meeting with Mr. Raintree’ over the phone. So we had a conference call, which just was me on one line and Thelma on the other but she wanted to be taken seriously, and I don’t blame her. Anyhow, when Thelma told John Raintree that she was interested in maybe makin’ her own cheese for the store he chuckled some.”

  “Chuckled some?”

  “He didn’t come right out and say it, but he figured we’d be better off buying shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. He did ask if she was a person who liked to take risks.”

  “Indeed.” This fit in with Crawford’s impassioned diatribe about how hard it was to make a living in farming. As for Swinford, we had an old expression that covered his behavior during the interview: he was trying one on. In any event, I was beginning to wonder if Doucetta had another source of income to support the lifestyle of her family members. “What about the retail store?”

  “I made Thelma describe the store she wanted to exactly fit the retail operation at Tre Sorelle. He wasn’t quite so gloomy about that. He quieted up some when I made a comment about all the cash that lies around places like that and how maybe the government wouldn’t care if some of it fell off the table and into our pockets. With a little nudging he let us see that it could be a pretty good sum. Maybe enough to buy half of a Mercedes. But he’s an honest man, that’s for sure.”

  “Very useful information, my dear. Very useful. And the appointment with him tomorrow is a stroke of genius.”

  Ally tucked a curl behind Madeline’s ear. She smiled at both of us and said, “Thank you, Ally. How did you get on with Ashley today?”

  An odd look passed over Allegra’s pretty face. Madeline stopped fanning abruptly. “What is it, sweetie?”

  “I got the job done. I’ll make out a schedule of who was where in the dairy the day of each murder. Ashley’s got a retentive memory, which helps a lot. Do you want me to go over it now?”

  “Why don’t we wait for Joe?” Madeline suggested. “We’ll have a staff meeting after we get back from the country club. It shouldn’t be much past nine o’clock. Is there something else bothering you?”

  “It’s just a feeling, really. Nothing Ashley actually said. But her father keeps pretty close tabs on her, or rather,” Ally corrected herself, “Ashley thinks he does. He got on her case about the milk inspector.” She frowned. “Ashley swears she didn’t do more than go out and have a beer with him….”

  “With Melvin Staples?” I said. “The man’s a swine.”

  “Ashley’s only eighteen,” Madeline said rather worriedly.

  “I know, I know.” Ally’s dimples showed in a quick smile. “The drinking age in New York is twenty-one. But in other states, it’s eighteen. Anyhow. Her dad pitched a fit. Insisted on dropping her off and picking her up from work when he was in town to make sure Mel wasn’t hanging around. And he made her mother do it when he was off on a trip. Ashley was pretty fried about it all.”

  I made a note in my case file. “Very interesting. Certainly a more comprehensible motive for Staples’s murder than the nefarious cheese consortium. I am not a fan of conspiracy theories and find it hard to believe an entire business organization is dedicated to murder.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ally said. “What about Murder, Incorporated? What about the Mafia? What about…”

  I held up my hand. “We will pursue it further when we return tonight. The Hackney Sunny gets just twenty cc’s of bute tonight, by the way. I left a note on the treatment sheet on the stall door. And let’s schedule the farrier for a trim.”

  Allegra headed off to the clinic rounds and Madeline and I headed out to dinner. And the storm she’d predicted rolled right in.

  The wind came up. The rain began slowly, in pudgy drops that splattered against the windshield like overfed bugs. Thunder rolled, and lightning cracked the sky with violence. By the time we reached the club grounds, it was raining hard and the air had cooled considerably.

  The Summersville Country Club has an attractive facility on a hundred acres just east of the vil
lage. The clubhouse sits over a man-made lake—created from swamp grounds when the building was erected—and is surrounded on three sides by golf greens. Golfers in electric carts were fleeing the rain as we came up the circular drive. I dropped Madeline off at the entrance and parked some way from the building. By the time I returned to escort her inside, my umbrella was drenched through.

  Madeline smoothed the collar of my seersucker sports coat, and we went inside to find Victor and Thelma. They sat at a table in front of the long picture window that faced the lake. I had asked Victor to make sure the Celestines joined us for dinner, and so they had. The look Victor gave me as I seated Madeline was fulminating.

  “You’re late,” he snarled.

  “We are not,” I responded.

  “Hello, Dr. McKenzie!” Caterina said. She smiled hesitantly at Madeline. “I’m so glad you can join us. It’s not often we have guests here at the club.”

  Looking pleased with himself, Frank let out a long burp. “Bet you’re surprised to see me here, Doc.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I assume that Simon released you on your own recognizance?”

  “He released me ’cause I’ve got a good Jew lawyer.”

  “That’s it,” Victor said. “We’re leaving.” He pushed himself away from the table.

  I held up my hand. “A moment, Victor. If you’d accompany me to the bar so that I may get Madeline a drink, I’d appreciate it.”

  Victor’s lips were tight, but he said, “I’d be delighted. Madeline? What may I get for you?”