The Case of the Roasted Onion Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Put to sleep

  The chief of the Ithaca Police Department stepped forward and leaned into a microphone. He was familiar to anyone who had lived and worked in the area as long as I had—a good man, the scuttlebutt had it, and an honest one. His manner was direct, uncompromising, and succinct:

  “Veterinarian Benjamin Grazley of the Canandaigua Equine Clinic was forty-six years old. He had been traveling north on Route 96 and stopped at a gas station in the town of Covert. He was shot to death at approximately 7:15 A.M.

  “He left a widow and two children.”

  A cacophony of shouts erupted from the mass of reporters, but Rita herself shouted the word that the entire room had feared to hear ...

  Sniper.

  Hemlock Falls Mysteries by Claudia Bishop

  A TASTE FOR MURDER

  A DASH OF DEATH

  A PINCH OF POISON

  MURDER WELL-DONE

  DEATH DINES OUT

  A TOUCH OF THE GRAPE

  A STEAK IN MURDER

  MARINADE FOR MURDER

  JUST DESSERTS

  FRIED BY JURY

  A PUREE OF POISON

  BURIED BY BREAKFAST

  A DINNER TO DIE FOR

  The Casebooks of Dr. McKenzie Mysteries by Claudia Bishop

  THE CASE OF THE ROASTED ONION

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE CASE OF THE ROASTED ONION

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by Mary Stanton.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-436-28278-9

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging

  to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For my sisters

  Whit Hairston and Cynthia Whitaker, Esquire

  Cast of Characters

  At McKenzie Veterinary Practice, Inc.

  Austin McKenzie a retired veterinarian

  Madeline McKenzie his wife

  Joe Turnblad the McKenzies’ assistant, a second-year vet student

  Allegra Fulbright the McKenzies’ assistant, a college senior

  At the Summersville Sentinel

  Rita Santelli the publisher

  Nigel Fish a reporter

  Citizens of Summersville

  Victor Bergland a professor of veterinary science

  Thelma Bergland his wife

  Lila Gernsback a horsewoman

  Nora and Jennifer Longworth horsewomen

  Orville DeGroote a farmer

  Ingrid DeGroote his daughter

  Simon Provost chief of detectives, Summersville

  Colleen a waitress, the Monrovian Embassy

  Manfred Schmitt owner, cook, the Monrovian Embassy

  Brewster McClellan a venture capitalist

  Marina McClellan his wife

  Stephanie McClellan their daughter

  Diana North a veterinarian, large-animal practice

  Greg D’Andrea a veterinarian, small-animal practice

  Jerry Coughlin a veterinarian, a research scientist

  Ben Grazley a veterinarian, racetrack practice

  Phillip Sullivan a lawyer

  And Friends

  Lincoln a collie

  Miss Odie a cat

  Andrew a Quarterhorse

  Pony a Shetland pony

  Blackie a Labrador puppy

  Juno an Akita cross

  Prologue

  LARKY Schumacher upended the stainless steel bucket onto the gravel drive and let the iodine solution splash over his rubber boots. He slung the empty bucket and sopping sponges into the cargo hold of his Ford Expedition and pulled the hatch shut. “It’d be a good idea to leave those bandages on the foreleg alone until I see the horse again,” he said. He was a big man, with strong hands and the weathered complexion that characterizes most large-animal veterinarians. The sullen sixteen-year-old slouched in front of him shrugged and tucked her hands into her breeches pockets. “Whatever,” she said. The insolence in the tone made Larky’s palm itch. He stood still a moment, took a breath, and relaxed. His kids had been this age once. Although not this truculent. Never this truculent.

  Larky let his gaze drift over the lush green pastures and the artfully silvered three-bar fences of the McClellan estate. He fixed on a double-oxer jump planted smack in the middle of the riding arena and stood frowning at it. “Stephanie,” he said, deliberately not looking at her, “you’re pretty sure you can’t tell me how Beecher got those sores on his neck?”

  “How should I know!” she flared. “Lice, probably. Too many sparrows in the barn. And if you’ve got sparrows, you’ve got lice. Everybody knows that. All I know is Beecher’d scratch himself bald if I didn’t tie him down.”

  He glanced briefly at her, then looked away. “We’ve agreed that he’ll be turned out until the wounds on hi
s neck dry up. You aren’t going to tie him down anymore.”

  Stephanie narrowed her eyes. Two spots of color burned high on her cheekbones. Her thin back was rigid. “All that sun will bleach his coat. We’re going to be riding at Earlsdown in three weeks. That is, if you’re a good enough vet to get that lump on his cannon bone healed up. His coat’ll be a mess.”

  “Put a turnout sheet on him, then,” Larky said. “Just get him outside. I don’t,” he repeated, without emphasis, “want him tied down anymore.”

  “Fine.”

  “And you’ll turn him out as soon as I leave?”

  “I said I would, all right? Let me alone!”

  After nearly twenty years in the horse business, Larky knew when to give it up. He nodded. “Okay. Your father wanted me to give the Angus their spring shots. I’ll go do that now, unless you’d like a hand turning Beecher out.”

  She stared him down.

  Larky slid into the driver’s seat and drove the short distance to the small cowshed that held Brewster McClellan’s prize Angus bull and heifer. Stephanie watched him haul his black bag out of the backseat, her face impassive. Suddenly, she took off toward the huge Italianate house that burdened the rise behind the riding arena. So poor Beecher wasn’t going to get turned out after all. He shook his head. Going back to confront her was counterproductive. She’d blow up, run to her father, and he’d lose a wealthy client before he even started. He was already on thin ice with her mother, who’d been frantically insistent that he come and see the horse this morning. The hell with it. He’d take care of the cows and shove off.

  It took him longer than it needed to. Someone had opened the double doors leading to the turnout paddock and the cattle roamed at large in the big fenced area. Neither Samson nor Delilah was interested in getting a quick dose of antitoxin. But he wasn’t in a rush, and the morning was a gold-and-blue celebration of life, and Larky took a moment to scratch the big bull between the ears before he packed up to leave.

  Behind the wheel of the Expedition, Larky looked at his watch. Still early. He was due to meet the farrier at the Green-brier stables at nine, which meant there’d be enough time to go into Summersville for a latte at the new Starbucks. He turned north on Route 15 and took the next left onto SR 41. This was a quieter, pleasanter way into town. The woods ran right up to the road and filtered the sunlight into gold and shadow. He let Stephanie and her worrisome behavior drift away in the clear air. Driving always relaxed him, and he was looking forward to the coffee and the interesting task ahead at the stable. So he almost passed by the pitiful huddle on the shoulder. But a woeful yip made caught his attention. He pulled under the shade of a large oak. A puppy lay on the pavement, forelegs sprawled unnaturally wide. Larky got out of the van, crouched down at a prudent distance from the pup and made soothing noises. The puppy’s shape and size suggested a four- to five-month-old black Lab. But its coat—or rather, her coat, he noticed as the pup struggled to sit up—was a curious mixture of brown and cream. Some Akita in there, maybe.

  He straightened up to walk over and pick the pup up, confidant that she wouldn’t bite. The last he knew of life was that the puppy was glad to see him.

  One

  AS I record this case and mull over subsequent events, I confess that at the time this story begins, I had no presentiment of the gruesome murders to come, or of my role in apprehending the killer. If I had, would events turned out differently?

  I will never know.

  There were those who were surprised when I embarked upon a career as an investigating detective. After forty years as a veterinarian and a scholar, I was a bit bemused myself. My dear wife was not. I have never, Madeline said, refused a ditch or fence, no matter how wide or high, and who better, she asked, to rise to the challenge of a horse-based homicide than Austin Oliver McKenzie?

  Who, indeed?

  It began appropriately enough, with the announcement of a murder.

  That April morning began like many others at our farm in upstate New York. At seven o’clock, after my usual visit to the barns to feed the stock, I sat in our comfortable kitchen with Madeline at my side, my dog Lincoln at my feet, and the cat Odie asleep on the woodstove hearth. I was both peaceful and content. I consumed my oatmeal as I leafed through the previous day’s mail: advertisements, bills, offers for credit cards, bills, several more bills, and free copies of a publication called Cows Today.

  There was also one first-class letter.

  I glanced at the return address and tossed it on the discard pile. Madeline reached over and picked it up curiously.

  “Merely junk, my dear.” I peered over my spectacles at Madeline, for twenty years the delight of my heart.

  “Open it first, sweetie.” Madeline’s tones were calm and affectionate, as they always are, but her sapphire gaze was penetrating. She could not fail to note that the return address was styled:

  Organizing Committee Earlsdown Three-Day Event

  “The last time I let you throw out unopened mail, three checks went missing.” She dropped the letter on top of the New York State Electric & Gas bill and resumed her meal. She swallowed her slice of ham and reached for a second piece. I, too, reached for the ham, and then withdrew my hand at Madeline’s regretful shake of the head.

  I sliced my small piece of fat-free turkey into four neat quarters and contemplated the pattern the squares made on the Fiesta ware. I did not begrudge Madeline her second slice of Honey Baked Ham. Her enthusiasm for the delicacies of the table insures the voluptuousness of her magnificent figure. I did, however, mildly resent the fact that at five feet, nine inches, and a fighting weight of one hundred and fifty pounds, Honey Baked Ham was forbidden me. But we are all slaves to the double helix and the genes contained therein. My father Hiram suffered from high cholesterol, too.

  “So, are you going to open it?” Madeline eyed the creamy envelope I had moved back to the discard pile. “Part of that looks like an invitation.”

  “It does, indeed.”

  Madeline’s sapphire blue eyes fastened on mine reproachfully. She spooned scrambled eggs onto her biscuits and ladled gravy over the whole. I sighed, picked up the silver letter opener given to me by the grateful owner of a champion bull I had saved from an attack of brucellosis, and opened the damned thing.

  Madeline waited, her fork suspended.

  I read both the invitation and the accompanying letter. “The letter is signed by someone who styles himself Brewster McClellan.”

  “Austin, he either is Brewster McClellan or he isn’t.”

  “It is Brewster McClellan and I don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

  “What does he want?”

  “It’s a request for my services as Veterinarian Delegate at the Earlsdown Three-Day Event in late March. I shall decline.”

  Madeline evinced mild surprise. “The horse show where poor Jerry Coughlin got kicked out of the veterinary business last year?”

  “He wasn’t kicked out, Madeline. The local show committee issued a letter of censure. Coughlin hasn’t recovered yet. I hear he’s doing some poorly paid research for a small start-up company. It’s a shame.”

  “I remember now,” Madeline said soberly. “What a mess.” She twiddled a bit of hair, a habit of hers when puzzled. “So they want us to attend this year. Hm. I thought Larky Schumacher had that gig all sewed up.”

  The phone rang. I ignored it. There is a great deal I dislike about some technology: the combustion engine, television, and air-conditioning rank high among my pet peeves. (Xerox copiers, on the other hand, are useful pieces of equipment, as are computers.) But the chief object of my opprobrium is the telephone. It is nosy, intrusive, and when you answer the damn thing, it’s generally someone you don’t want to hear from in the first place. It rang again. Madeline smiled at me. I snatched the receiver from the cradle and shouted, “McKenzie.” (I have discovered that this method of response sometimes results in the other party hanging up.)

  “Austin, you crazy son
of a bitch. How are you?”

  I sat back in my chair and regarded the Agway calendar hanging on the wall over the kitchen sink. Today’s date was marked “harvest winter wheat.” Harvesting winter wheat would have been highly preferable to talking to Victor Bergland on the telephone. If I’d had any to harvest. “Hello, Victor. And how is the graduate school progressing?”

  “Without you, you mean? We’re thriving. Ho. Ho. Ho.” Victor Bergland is an acquaintance of many years. He succeeded me as department chair of Bovine Science at my retirement. He is a bushy-bearded fellow with an ego as big as his belly. If I owned a ram with his temperament, I would sell it to someone I didn’t like.

  I let a repelling silence elapse.

  “Wanted to know what you think about Schumacher.”

  I glanced at the invitation in Madeline’s hand. “What about Larky Schumacher?”

  “You’re kidding me. You haven’t heard? He’s dead.”

  I sat up. “Dead?”

  Madeline gasped.

  “As a doornail.” Victor has never been noted for his inspired locutions. “Shot to death on State Road Forty-one, just off of Fifteen. He was headed into town after a barn call at the McClellan’s place. Stopped the van for some reason, got out, and pow! Right in the back of the neck. Coroner says he died instantly.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Yesterday morning. It was all over the evening news, Austin. You don’t get out much, do you?”

  “My lord. This is terrible. What happened?”

  I could almost hear Victor’s shrug over the telephone. “Nobody seems to know for sure. Folks down at the Monrovian Embassy think it’s a sniper.”

  The Embassy, as our local diner is known to its habitués, is a hotbed of gossip and misinformation. I lunch there as often as possible. And even, if not under Madeline’s affectionate eye, take an occasional cholesterol-laden breakfast there.