The Case of the Roasted Onion Read online

  “Myself”—Victor’s voice broke into my thoughts—“I think he just stepped out of the van to take a leak. Wound was from a thirty-double-ought-six. So for my money, it was some out-of-season hunter from Syracuse or Rochester. Idiots come up here with those shotguns and think they can pot away at deer any time of year.”

  This did, indeed, seem a more likely source of Larky’s death than a sniper. Victor said he would let us know the date and time of the funeral and I hung up. We would attend, of course. Neither Madeline nor I had known him well, but he was one of our own.

  Madeline was as horrified as I when I explained the time and nature of Larky’s death.

  “I suppose that explains the invitation,” Madeline said soberly.

  “It doesn’t explain why the invitation is here now,” I responded. “Less than twenty-four hours have lapsed since Larky’s death.”

  “It’s awfully late for the committee to get in touch with anyone. This is Wednesday. The show starts in ten days. I suppose the show committee had to act fast.” Madeline’s tone was dubious.

  “Perhaps. But it seems very odd to me.” I reflected for a moment, to no purpose. The timing was suspect. There was no doubt about it. “In any event, I shall turn the invitation down.”

  Madeline examined the contents of the letter. She picked up the piece of cream pasteboard invitation first. Her auburn eyebrows raised a trifle. “This is for the Hunt Ball. Worth its weight in gold to the horsy crowd. Hmph and hmph again.” She set it aside without interest. Madeline holds no brief for the glamorous life of the upper reaches of the equestrian community, of which the annual horse show at Earlsdown is a prime example. She is far happier in rubber boots and barn jacket than an evening gown. She is beautiful in both.

  Then she read the letter. She made a face, folded it into a paper airplane and tossed it at me. It skidded off my head and landed on my lap. She drank half of her cranberry juice at a gulp and set the glass down with a thump.

  “Austin!”

  I know that tone of loving exasperation well. I turned around in my chair and gazed out the expanse of window to the lawn beyond. There had been a frost the night before. It had not been kind to the early tulips. They wanted deadheading. And the daffodils were blooming in berserk fashion around the fishpond at the bottom of the lawn. The bulbs needed to be separated, or we would be awash in stunted, ill-nourished blooms in no time.

  “Austin?” Madeline’s mellow contralto is hard to ignore. But I continued my perusal of the flowers, compiling a mental list of gardening tasks.

  Madeline is five feet, ten inches tall and generously proportioned. She rose to her full height, placed herself between the windows and my abstracted gaze, and shouted, “Hey!”

  That particular tone of voice meant business. Even the dog knew it. Lincoln rose from his place at my feet and stood at her side, his plumey tail wagging, his eye reproachfully on me. He is a sable-and-white collie. The sight of these two creatures standing side by side is very pleasing. The mahogany of Lincoln’s coat matches Madeline’s hair; both are silky, thick, and luxuriant.

  She waved her hand vigorously. The invitation flapped like a semaphore. “McClellan’s offering us fifteen grand! Just to show up at Earlsdown for a week!”

  “I refuse to do any consulting work for a man named after a saddle.”

  “Plus expenses and a week at a really fabulous show.” Did I mention that the cream of Madeline’s skin intensifies to peach with emotion? “We could use the break, don’t you think? I think we’ve been getting into a bit of a rut, myself.”

  I ignored the implied aspersion on my character. My habits of discipline and consistency in no way make me a fuddy-duddy. “Our current routine has nothing to do with it. McClellan’s notoriously ill-tempered. Not only that, I believe him to be duplicitous. And I can’t imagine who would name him to the Organizing Committee. Perhaps he stole the letterhead from Les Whyte’s secretary.”

  Madeline blinked at me. “Holy crow. You really don’t like this guy. Have you ever met him? I’m pretty sure I haven’t.”

  I frowned. “I haven’t actually met him, no. But I know of him, and none of it is good. He owned the animal that Jerry Coughlin was alleged to have killed last year. His daughter competed on it. More to the point, he was the one that brought the charges against Coughlin when the horse died. Admittedly, he backed off after the investigation was complete. Even so, the man’s trouble.”

  Madeline frowned. “I remember that. It was a pure mess and a tragedy to boot. But I thought they decided that it was negligence, not intentional. As for this guy McClellan, it’s not like you, Austin, to pass judgment without having actually met him.”

  It was clear that Madeline was not about to let up on the character of the odious McClellan. Whom, I admit, I knew as odious only by repute. One of Madeline’s sterling qualities is her sense of fair play, so I conceded, albeit reluctantly, “True. For all I know, the man is of excellent character and merely stupid about horses. There are any numbers of people like that in the show world. Nonetheless, Coughlin was forced out in the middle of show week, just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “And his reputation blackened without real proof. The horse was named Faraway, I believe.”

  Madeline had not been listening attentively. She plucked the note from my lap and smoothed it on the table. “Earlsdown’s held at the Lodi show grounds, and Lodi’s not far away. Less than forty-five miles from here.”

  “I was not referring to the horse show venue, but to the name of the horse.” I paused. “Coughlin was apparently treating it for exhaustion when it died.” Three-day events are notoriously hard on the animals. Riders whose only concern is a win can ride their mounts to an ugly death if not stopped by competent veterinary advice. The horse had colicked from exhaustion. Coughlin had administered a higher dosage of adrenaline than the animal could handle. It had died of a heart attack. “Not to mention the fact that I don’t want to spend a week dressed in a blazer and tie talking to halfwits like Victor Bergland.”

  Her fiery blue gaze softened. “Oh, sweetie. I know how much you think you hate horse shows . . .”

  I loathe, detest, and despise horse shows. Not all horse shows. Just the professional circuit in general and Earlsdown in particular. For some reason, this particular A-circuit event is rife with even more venom, spite, and malice than is the norm. And that’s just the officious volunteers who monitor the parking lot. The entrants and their attendants are worse.

  “. . . and Earlsdown especially, after you got that parking ticket last year. But once we get there, you end up loving it. Just like me.” She paused, twiddling her hair in earnest. “Sweetie? We should really think about accepting McClellan’s offer.”

  My protest was mild, but firm. “We can’t just pick up and leave for a week, my dear. I have patients and clients to consider. And what about Lincoln and Odie?”

  Lincoln barked in apparent protest. Madeline bent and patted him in an approving way. Upon hearing the bark, Odie roused herself from her warm perch on the stove, yawned, and directed a baleful look at the collie. Those who engage in anthropomorphism might have thought the dog agreed with Madeline and that the cat agreed with me. Not true. Odie generally places herself on the opposite side of any disagreement between the dog and myself, as a matter of principle. This renders all Odie’s protests moot. But it did seem as if I were being outvoted.

  “Lodi’s an easy drive from here, and we can all travel together in the unit. It’s why we got the unit, remember? So we could take the guys with us.” Madeline referred to our RV, an elderly forty-five-foot motor home that she has transformed into a model of comfort.

  “And what about our patients?” I said icily. “And who will feed and care for the stock in the barn?”

  She shrugged. “Call Victor. He can handle any real emergencies. He’s a vet himself . . .”

  I snorted.

  “. . . Well, he is, sweetie, and a good one, too, or he never would have taken over your old positio
n after you retired. Anyhow, he must have one or two hungry second-year students hanging around that would love to stay here and do barn chores. A good one can handle any routine stuff that might come up.”

  “And my newspaper column? Do you expect a second-year veterinary student to handle that?”

  I am, of course, that Dr. McKenzie. My advice column to importunate pet owners is a weekly feature in the Summersville Sentinel. My editor is Rita Santelli, a woman of charm but little editorial discernment. She is constantly revising my advice to my readers. She claims it is both rude and blunt.

  Madeline nudged my hand to gain my attention. “Take advantage of the miracle of wireless technology, Austin. Rita can e-mail your letters to you. You can write the column from your laptop. You won’t even have to leave the RV. Besides . . .” Two dimples appeared in Madeline’s cheeks. “Rita might even whoop it up a little if you did the column by e-mail instead of going down there in person every week. Not,” she added hastily, “that she doesn’t enjoy your little chats together.” She reached across the table and patted my hand again. “E-mail’s faster, too. Goodness knows we both have enough to do around here. And Rita would like it.”

  Madeline, as usual, had an excellent point.

  As I have mentioned, Rita’s position at the Summersville Sentinel is that of editor. Normally, I walk down to the Sentinel offices once a week to collect the written solicitations for my advice and to discuss the lamentable state of previous week’s edition with the Sentinel staff. Rita had suggested the e-mail option more than once, averring that it took far less time to scan the material into her computer than it did to soothe the staff back into productivity after my visits.

  Madeline picked up the letter. “’Course, we don’t want to forget that McClellan’s offering fifteen thousand dollars, either. For a week’s work. Good grief, Austin.”

  I adjusted my spectacles onto my nose with a firm hand. “We have never been for sale, my dear.”

  “Well. You decide what’s best.”

  There was so much more my beloved refused to say. We did indeed need the money.

  Madeline sighed a little wistfully, then came over, wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. I kissed her back. Lincoln shoved his muzzle under my hand and the damned cat, seeing what I believe to be known as a group hug in progress, jumped onto the table and butted her head against my forearm. The cat also took the opportunity to nibble at the ham. Without another word, Madeline smiled radiantly at us all and went to the sink to wash the dishes.

  I know my wife well. She’d rather eat a rat than point the finger of blame. I certainly do not deserve Madeline. A more forgiving and patient spouse would be hard to find. I deserved whatever opprobrium she refused to fling my way.

  I see I must digress. Many months ago, I had taken a large loan against my comfortable retirement income and invested in Enblad, the same Enblad whose CEO now languishes in a minimum-security prison, and whose CFO is living a gilded life on a tropical island that has no extradition agreement with the United States of America.

  Facing financial ruin, I immediately opened a large-animal practice, of course. One must pay one’s bills. But the practice was taking time to build. And I must admit adjusting to the daily lot of a practicing veterinarian’s existence was taking longer than I’d hoped. The academic life had softened me. It had been many years since I’d stood in an unheated barn at ten degrees below zero, with my right arm thrust three-quarters up the hind end of a heifer.

  “We’re going to manage just fine without that check. Don’t think another thing about it.” She filled the sink with hot, soapy water and began to wash the dishes. “Well, if you don’t want to go to Earlsdown, then that’s that.”

  “I do not,” I said firmly.

  She began to hum an old country and western tune titled, I believe, “You Done Stomped on My Heart (and Smashed That Sucker Flat).” After a moment, she broke off to ask, “Did you look at today’s call schedule?”

  We had a call schedule? I was pleased. My practice seemed to be picking up. “No, I have not. We have farm calls today?”

  “Quite a few. I put the list in the truck. Orville DeGroote called while you were in the shower. He said that big gelding of his daughter’s is starting a couple of abscesses.”

  “Oh,” I said. The gelding was a kicker. And a biter.

  “So I’ll go with you today on your rounds. That bugger’s a real handful”—she meant the abscessed gelding, although DeGroote himself was no walk in the park—“and I can twitch him for you.”

  This was true. The bugger in question—a seventeen-hand Quarterhorse with a vile temper—had taken a nice chunk out of my forearm the last time I had floated his teeth. And he was prone to foot abscess, which required boring a hole in the sole of the hoof with a lethally sharp curette, a procedure to which many equines object. One of Madeline’s many talents is a dab hand with a twitch; neither bovine nor equine objects to being led around by the nose when the alternative is a painful pinch to the snoot.

  “And since we’re going to be out on farm calls today, anyway, I’ll give Bill VanDerPlanck a call. He wanted his bull calves castrated and we might as well do it now. No time like the present.”

  Like most cost-conscious farmers VanDerPlanck refused to pay for anesthetic for routine farm operations such as castration and cleaning up abscesses. Well, if castration of a few lively bull calves loomed, so be it.

  I cleared my throat. “And how many calves did VanDerPlanck grow this year? I seem to have forgotten.”

  “Twenty-three,” Madeline said sunnily. “And you know it’s no use waiting until the last minute for castrations. I’ll bet those boys are running two hundred pounds each already.”

  I considered the effort required to castrate twenty-three two-hundred-pound bull calves, each with an understandable objection to having their balls cut off.

  Madeline turned to look at me. Her gaze was limpid. “Other than the bull calves and the abscess, we don’t have a whole lot on for the next ten days or so, except for some Coggins tests for the folks headed down to Earlsdown.”

  The Coggins test requires a blood draw and an annoying wait for the results from the Department of Agriculture’s testing facility in Utica. Horses in New York State can’t be trucked without a current Coggins. Horse owners headed for a show always wait until the last minute to see if the Coggins is current. It never is. They call you at one in the morning ten days before the show to get the serum sample drawn. Then they call you at two in the morning the day before the show wanting to know where the certificate is. I sighed. The week ahead of me was not challenging. Drawing Coggins test was dull. Castrating bull calves was dull and dangerous.

  I tapped Brewster McClellan’s note with an idle finger. He had appended his cell phone number.

  “Perhaps a week at Earlsdown would offer some entertainment for you, my dear.”

  “We’d have a terrific time,” she said promptly.

  “I suppose,” I said, “I could call Victor back. He himself might welcome a chance at a locum tenens.”

  “Get him off his chubby little keister for a week,” Madeline said encouragingly. “You’ll be doing him a favor.”

  I chuckled a little. It would indeed do my old rival good to wade knee-deep in cow manure for a week or two. And if I didn’t find time to castrate VanDerPlanck’s bull calves this week, they’d be over three hundred pounds by the time Victor put nippers in hand. Ha!

  On the other hand—even the considerable satisfaction of one-upping Victor Bergland wouldn’t compensate for the sheer bloody-mindedness of the people at Earlsdown.

  I continued to mull.

  Madeline stood at the sink, humming the refrain from “These Boots Were Made for Walking” as she rinsed the dishes.

  The consulting fee would relieve some of my current financial difficulties. No question about that. I glanced at the pile of bills, which remained unopened, and then at Madeline, elbow-deep in sudsy water. Perhaps there would
be sufficient funds left over for a dishwasher.

  “Hm,” I said. I resettled my spectacles with no small degree of irritation. A week away from home, exhausted horses, and frantic riders, to boot. But the alternative was worse. “You may indeed have come up with a workable solution, my dear.”

  “Nail down McClellan first, Austin. Then give Victor a shout.” She abandoned the dishes to come and give my hand a warm squeeze. She added, with military fervor, “Hoo-rah, sarge!”

  “Hoo-rah,” I responded, glumly. So I repaired to the office to arrange what was to become an unexpected foray into the investigation of a crime.

  Two

  LINCOLN accompanied me out the door and down to the barn from which the McKenzie Veterinary Practice, Inc., offers its services. After I had accepted the tenured position of full professor of veterinary science at the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences more than forty years ago, I purchased a small, thirty-acre farm called Sunny Skies, some ten miles from the university in a community called Summersville. The house had been in a state of disrepair. The lawn and gardens had been even more neglected. But the twelve-stall barn had been in mint condition and the pastures fenced in sturdy oak. It was a veritable Eden for the animal members of my family. After my marriage—which had been a big, fat surprise to my colleagues at Cornell, who had thought me a committed bachelor at fifty—the house, the lawn, and the gardens bloomed under Madeline’s efficient and loving care. The barn, the attached office, lavatory, and small operating room, were under my dominion; they were mint when I bought the place and they remain mint to this day.

  I trod briskly down the graveled path that led from the house to the barn. We had fed the animals just before dawn, of course, but the morning had not yet offered me the opportunity to perform my daily check on the progress of the spring plantings. The vegetable gardens to my right were raked over, mulched, and ready for seedlings as soon as the weather warmed. The flowerbeds to my left were already a riot of narcissi and jonquils, although the scented croci were already past their prime. I would have to find time to deadhead them later today.