The Case of the Roasted Onion

by Bishop, Claudia

  Not nuclear, but pretty damn bad.

  I looked up the number of the Marriott in the Yellow Pages. I punched in the numbers and told them it was an emergency. The phone rang a couple of times, and he picked up. I pinched my nose shut and I said, “Mr. Sullivan? Mr. Phillip Sullivan.”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “The Tompkins County ER. This is Crystal Homburger, the ER RN.”

  “What?”

  “We understand that you ingested a pork dinner at the home of Lila Gernsback this evening?”

  “Yeah, what of it?”

  “We’re sorry to tell you that Mrs. Gernsback didn’t make it.” I rattled the call button on the phone and hollered “Sorry! We’re breaking up! You need to get down here right . . .” Then I hung up.

  If I wasn’t going to get any sleep, neither was that ton of lard. And that was just Bomb One. I had a lot more in mind for that turkey.

  Then I began to clean up.

  I was amazed that it didn’t take all that much time to tidy up. By the time Ally dragged herself in, you couldn’t tell we’d been invaded, which was what I was after. I didn’t want anybody to know about this. Not yet.

  Ally smiled at me. “Lincoln’s going to be fine, we think. Joe and Dr. McKenzie both decided to stay out there, in case something weird happens. But if you ask me, they’re staying out there because they’re too tired to move.”

  “Austin’s a wonder, isn’t he? What’d the X-ray show?”

  “A hairline fracture of the . . .” A yawn interrupted her and she twirled her finger around the side of her head.

  “Skull?”

  “The skull.” She yawned till her jaw cracked. “Sorry. But it’s not—ah—subducted? Is that right?”

  “It means it hasn’t slipped anywhere it shouldn’t.”

  “And Sunny cleansed. I stuck it in a bucket so Austin could check it out for tears, but it looked okay to me.”

  “You take her temperature?”

  “Yep. One hundred three degrees. Normal-normal-normal.” She swayed to a chair and sat down. “I’ll set my alarm for six and check it again before I feed everybody.”

  That’s the thing about animals. They’re 24/7. No sleeping in.

  I looked at my watch. Three-thirty in the morning. The baby’d been out and up for more than two hours. Chances were the placenta’d slipped out whole, with nothing left behind to sicken Sunny. I roused poor old Ally from her semi-stupor and sent her up to bed. I took the puppy out to pee. Then I took a pot of hot tea and the oatmeal cookies down to the clinic.

  Joe was asleep on his cot in the back room. Austin was dead to the world on the couch. And Linc was in his crate, awake, but definitely dopey. There was a shaved patch the size of a saucer just under his skull. A neat bandage been taped over it. Austin’d stuck a drain in the wound, which meant there were at least a couple of stitches there. Poor boy. Poor old boy. That Sullivan was going to rue the day. I sneaked Linc a cookie crumb, adjusted the horse rug Austin’d thrown over himself, and took myself off to bed.

  I’d think about Bomb Two and Three in the morning. And of course, I couldn’t forget the computer.

  “MY dear,” Austin said at breakfast, “the contents of my desk appear to have been rearranged.”

  Between not very much sleep and a mad-on at Phillip Sullivan, I was as sluggish as a catfish in August. I just looked at him, a spoonful of peaches and oatmeal halfway to my mouth.

  “That’s weird,” Ally said. “The stuff in my duffle bag was messed up, too.”

  So the rat fink’d gotten up to Ally’s room?

  Austin looked around the table at the three of us. “Were there any other anomalies?”

  “There was a laptop in the refrigerator when I came in early for coffee this morning,” Joe said.

  “Which is why he didn’t find it,” Austin said, a little smugly. The man’s mind moves like lightning, I swear.

  But it wasn’t there now because I’d taken it away myself. Darn. I should have hidden it somewhere else before I’d gone up to bed. Kids Joe’s age can survive on a couple of hours’ sleep for days. I should have known he’d be up with the chickens and into the refrigerator.

  “Why who didn’t find what?” Ally asked.

  Austin glanced at Lincoln. The dog was stretched out on the kitchen floor, asleep. There was a fresh bandage on his head. “It’s a matter of simple deduction, Allegra. Last night, Joe acquired Coughlin’s computer, presumably from the man who stole it from Coughlin. Subsequently, my dog was attacked. My desk has been rearranged. Your duffel bag has been searched. Hence, the house was searched.” He pulled his mustache. “Since the computer is still here, I can assume that Mr. Sullivan will remain interested in acquiring it. I see I must develop a plan.”

  “Now, Austin,” I said. “That’s exactly what I don’t want us to do.”

  Austin looked at me over his spectacles. He got up, opened the refrigerator, checked for the laptop, which I’d moved too late, and came back with the pecan pie.

  “Where is it, my dear?”

  I must have glanced at the puppy. Austin walked over to the basket, moved her gently out of the way, and took out the computer. “I wouldn’t have thought of that,” he said approvingly. “Although the puppy isn’t housebroken yet.”

  “I wrapped it up pretty tight.”

  He smoothed the Saran Wrap. “So you did.” He sat back down. “You clearly have a plan, my dear. What is it?”

  “Well.” I looked at Lincoln. “Any man that would attack a dog wouldn’t think twice about bashing people. As a matter of fact, most people would sooner bash another person before they attacked a dog.”

  “True.”

  “I don’t,” I said firmly, “want any more bashing. I know that the research Jerry Coughlin was in the middle of is important. So I copied his hard drive onto this.” I pulled out a flash drive from my caftan pocket and set it on the table. We all stared it for a minute. “And I was going to give the laptop back to that stinker Sullivan today. Most likely he’ll be at Ben Grazley’s funeral. I’d decided to give it to him then.”

  “Just give it back?” Joe said, startled. “Just walk up to him and give it back?”

  “Why not? He wanted it badly enough to half kill Linc.”

  “But he couldn’t have killed Jerry Coughlin,” Austin said. “He seems to have a verifiable alibi for all of yesterday morning. And I can tell you with certainty that Coughlin had been dead for more than three hours when I found him just after two o’clock.”

  “The fact that he didn’t kill Coughlin doesn’t mean the man isn’t dangerous. I know you, Austin Oliver McKenzie. You wouldn’t sit still half a minute if Sullivan showed up here threatening us. I just didn’t want a shoot-out.” I didn’t mention my plans for Bombs Two and Three. Time enough for that after it was all over.

  “It’s plain enough why he wants it,” Joe said. “The stuff that’s on the hard drive is worth billions.”

  Austin kept on looking at me. “So you just planned on handing the computer over to him? Just like that?”

  “Don’t pull your mustache, dear.”

  “You,” Austin said, “are planning something else. I know you, my dear. You are fierce in the defense of your own.”

  I took the pecan pie away from him, just as he was about to stick his fork into it. There was about half left. I cut myself a little piece and stuck the rest in front of Joe. Then I said, “Nothing really illegal, Austin.”

  Joe coughed into his oatmeal. Ally bent down and retied her sneakers. Austin took all this in for a bit and said, “Will it affect the course of the investigation? Do you plan, for example, to put Sullivan out of commission?”

  “Not so’s you’d notice.”

  “Interesting.”

  So that was all right.

  Seventeen

  REVENGE is a dish best served cold. I was astonished that Madeline, usually the warmest of women, was capable of contemplating it. Whatever it was, it was bound to be specta
cular, and perhaps actionable. Regarding the female of the species, Kipling had it in one. I would leave her to it. But I was prepared to post bail, if necessary.

  I finished my oatmeal in a state of mild envy vis-à-vis Joe and the pecan pie. It was Saturday, the fourth day in the Case of the Roasted Onion. I was fatigued, but not unduly so. A great deal remained to be done.

  I cleared my throat. “I intend to bring this case to a successful conclusion. And soon.”

  That certainly got their attention.

  “I called Victor Bergland this morning. As I’d anticipated, the ESLA test revealed the presence of antibodies formed in reaction to the virus. Coughlin’s test subject was infected with equine infectious anemia.”

  “What about . . .” Allegra stopped in mid-sentence and looked down at her plate.

  “What about Sunny?” Joe asked. “I was wondering about that myself, doc. And Tracks, too.”

  “Sweetie,” Allegra said. “Her name’s Sweetie. You should have seen her hopping around the stall this morning.”

  “She is just the sweetest thing,” Madeline said. “But Austin wouldn’t have brought Sunny back here if he thought there was any chance she was infected. Would you, darling?”

  “The chances of infection were remote,” I said.

  “But,” Joe began.

  “I agree. The isolation stall was attached directly to the barn. Just like the human HIV virus, EIA is transmitted through the exchange of fluids. Unlike the HIV virus, the mosquito can act as a reservoir in equidae. So yes, transmission would have been possible.” I rose to my feet and walked about the room. “Coughlin had already been testing the validity of—shall we call it the Portable Coggins? Allegra’s title, and an apt one. He used Sunny as a test subject. She tested negative. As a matter of fact, I believe there were three other horses he tested the device on: Faraway, Hugo, and Beecher. All four had the notation CC on the Coggins form. And Coughlin referred to his immunoassay test as the CC-ESLA. So we need have few worries on that front.

  “Exactly. Now. We know that Sullivan is representing McClellan in his divorce. We know that Sullivan stole the laptop from Coughlin. And of course, Coughlin was working on a revolutionary testing device for FieldChek. And FieldChek, as we know from McClellan’s own rather drunken revelations two evenings ago, was in part owned by Schumacher and Grazley.”

  “So McClellan’s killing these guys off so he’ll own the whole shebang!” Allegra said excitedly.

  “It doesn’t prove it, my dear. It infers it.” I sat down again. It had been a short night for sleep. “Inference is not proof. It is a symptom. You may recall that my investigatory model is based on . . .”

  “We do recall that, sweetie,” Madeline said.

  “And what about the horses?” Allegra said. “You think Beecher’s being drugged, and Faraway’s being dead, poor thing, have anything to do with that business? Why attack them, too?”

  “It’s not McClellan,” Madeline said darkly. “It’s that slob Sullivan. Anybody that’d hit a dog would kill any number of people. Or horses.”

  Joe rapped his knuckles on the table. “We’re getting pretty far from the point here.”

  “Money,” Allegra said. “It’s always about money.”

  “This case seems to be about money,” I agreed. “I believe the insurance scam to be a small venture of Sullivan’s own. He was part owner of Faraway, and Beecher, too. And I’m sorry to say that I believe Jerry Coughlin aided him in this scheme. Among the files on Coughlin’s computer is Turbo Tax. He was preparing his tax return, naturally, since that time is almost upon us. He received a substantial check from a week prior to Faraway’s death last year, and a similar sum the week after. The items are listed as ‘consulting fees.’”

  “I’d sure like to nail the bugger for that,” Joe muttered.

  “As would I. We are considerably handicapped by a complete lack of evidence, however. With a little luck, Sullivan’s time will come. If nothing else, we can make sure that responsible horse owners will not sell to him, by making what we know to be true known: that horses owned by him come to bad ends.”

  “Not much satisfaction in that,” Allegra said.

  “Oh, don’t you worry about Sullivan.” Madeline smiled with a confidence that made me quake. There was nothing to be done about that, however, except to let events unroll as they may.

  I recalled them to the task at hand. “There is one curious point. The device wasn’t ready for marketing. A great deal of work remained to be done. Why eliminate the researcher before profit could be made? If McClellan’s intentions are to kill all the stockholders so the company remains in his control, why not wait until the research is finished?”

  “Could he hire someone else to complete the work?” Joe asked.

  “Certainly. But any new scientist is going to take months, if not longer, to come up to speed on this project. It’s quite complicated.”

  “We’re looking to you for some answers, my dear.” Madeline said.

  “I don’t have them. Not yet. First, I will ask you, Allegra, to go to the county courthouse this morning to review the documents for incorporation of any of McClellan’s businesses. The shareholder agreement is of particular interest to us.”

  “She has to ride today,” Madeline said. “There’s almost no time for her and Hugo to get ready for Earlsdown.”

  “Very true.”

  “I’ll do it,” Joe offered.

  “The second part of the task is to seek out Nigel Fish. I thought Allegra might have a better chance of coaxing information out of him.”

  “That wiener from the paper? I can handle him.”

  “Handle him with tact, if you would. See how the investigation into Grazley’s and Schumacher’s death is progressing. There is a remote possibility that we are on the wrong track altogether, and that a sniper is indeed among us.” I turned to my beloved. “And you and I, my dear, will pay our respects to Ben Grazley at his funeral this afternoon. I expect that the McClellans will be there.”

  Madeline smiled, wolfishly. “And so will Sullivan.”

  The remainder of the morning and early afternoon passed uneventfully. I kept Lincoln on a mild sedative, to give the fracture time to begin to heal. I attended to Tracks, pleased to see that the little filly was full of spirit.

  And I called the Liversedge farm to see to the disposition of Coughlin’s Longhorn heifer. The family was in Houston; the farm manager was disposed to keep the heifer at my clinic rather than move it. He was not as disposed to pay the charges this would incur. The prospect of payment was moot: the youngster needed attention. I needed Lincoln’s help to get her into to the stocks, but the poor fellow was still recuperating in the house. The option was a tie-down, that is, looping rope around three legs and then easing the animal to the ground. It was a tactic that young stock see as a challenge to a wrestling match. Madeline was washing her hair in preparation for our trek to the funeral; the task was mine alone. I may have mentioned that the heifer was a Longhorn; although her horns were nowhere near the nearly five-foot spread they would achieve when she was full grown, they were a significant obstacle to her immobilization. Liversedge’s cattle manager had good reason to want the calf under someone else’s care.

  The heifer and I were contemplating one another when Joe returned from the village. He walked into the barn with a cheerful whistle.

  “Can I give you a hand with that, doc?”

  “You are just in time, my boy!”

  Joe was a dab hand at anticipating both the tenor and direction of the heifer’s objections to being tied down. His only complaint was a mild “oof!” when she kicked him in the shins and a rather panicked shout when she aimed her left horn at the zipper on his jeans. (She missed.) But we had her comfortably restrained in a few minutes, and I sluiced the infected teats with Betadine. “She had her antibiotic this morning?”

  “About six o’clock.”

  “Good. Take her temperature again this evening.”

 
“You’re not going to the funeral after all?”

  “We are.”

  He ran his hands through his hair.

  “Allegra will prove more than competent as an assistant.”

  He growled.

  I released the rope with a jerk, and the heifer skedaddled to her manger and grabbed a mouthful of hay. Animals are wonderful. She’d been rudely, yet painlessly handled, but she didn’t sulk. Not like human beings at all.

  And suddenly, it all fell into place.

  The anomalies were resolved.

  I knew the identity of the Summersville Sniper.

  We watched the heifer for a moment, and then I said, “Was your mission to Summersville successful?”

  “It was interesting.” He dug into the pocket of his jeans. “McClellan has incorporated one business here. Greenplace, Inc. It’s the company that’s behind the development Fish talked about. The corporate officers are McClellan, Sullivan, McClellan’s wife, and Ben Grazley.”

  “The development company has little or nothing to do with the case at hand.”

  “Yeah, but Greenplace is the parent company for FieldChek.”

  Now that got my attention. “You mean Sullivan is a partner in FieldChek, too?”

  “Yep.”>

  “That,” I said, “changes things quite a bit.” And indeed it did.

  “I found out something else. More than a hundred thousand dollars worth of liens have been filed against Greenplace.”

  “Now that,” I said, although I was unsurprised, “Is very interesting indeed. What’s the nature of the debt?”

  “Bills from an excavating company, preconstruction stuff, mostly.”

  I sat down on a bale of hay, the better to organize this information in my mind. To be fair, there could be any number of reasons why a bill remained unpaid. A dispute over the performance, disagreement over price. On the other hand, I remembered McClellan’s fight with his wife over the credit card bills.

  “And Nigel? Did you run into him?”

  “At the Monrovian Embassy. Had to buy him a beer. I had to listen to a lot of crap about Allegra, but the guy sucks up all the gossip in the village. He’s like a shop vac. Anyhow, I picked up three pieces of information about the suspects. McClellan’s project has hit a snag with the EPA.”