The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat by Claudia Bishop Read Free Book Online Page A

Not a lot—but a small sufficiency. Keeping the stalls this clean dries out the hoof. Better yet…” I threw my arm in a wide circle. “Put the animals outside where they belong! Otherwise your horses will be…”
    â€œDeader than a doornail,” Ashley said in a thrilling voice. “Honest to God. Right there in the bulk tank.”
    The mention of a corpse got my attention.
    â€œWhat did you say, my dear?”
    â€œYou haven’t heard?” Penelope said. “Oh, my goodness. That poor milk inspector, Melvin somebody…”
    â€œStaples,” Ashley said. “And oh. My. God. What a hunk. It’s a shame, that’s what it is. I was, like, totally freaked out.”
    â€œAshley found him stark-staring dead. My poor baby!” Penelope shuddered and drew her daughter close. Ashley shrugged her mother’s arm away with an absentminded pat of affection. Clearly, the discovery of Melvin Staples’s body, hunk or no, hadn’t discomposed her much.
    I smoothed my mustache. “How unfortunate for you, my dear. Please tell me what happened.”
    â€œIt’s my summer job. I do, like, data entry for Mrs. Capretti. Anyhow, so I’m sitting at the computer keying in all this crap about pounds of milk per goat and I hear a whack-bang!”
    She paused. All eyes were on her.
    â€œIt came from the milk room. So I get up and I go over to the door and pull it open a little bit. It’s a big, heavy door, you know, so I tug it open a little bit more and I see the door at the other end of the room closing, like.”
    â€œClosing like what?” I asked.
    Ashley blinked at me. If I hadn’t known for a fact she was an honors student in economics at Ithaca College, I would have thought her handicapped. Madeline tells me I have little empathy for the young. “With a bang?” I said impatiently. “Or softly, as if someone were sneaking out?”
    â€œThat’s a big, heavy door with a counterweight. You can’t bang it shut. It closes in its own sweet time.”
    â€œI see. And then?”
    â€œAnd then I go into the room and look around.” She mimed tiptoeing about, looking from side to side. “And it was like I was guided. I mean, I just went to the tank and pulled open the lid and there he was. Splooshing around in the milk. We had to dump the whole batch,” she added briskly. “Mrs. C. pitched a screaming fit.”
    â€œAnd then what happened?” Joe asked. He was gazing at the girl in fascination.
    â€œThen I went, ‘Wow.’ And then I went and got Mrs. Capretti and Mrs. Celestine and they called the cops and they sent me home.”
    â€œAny indication of the cause of death?” I asked.
    Ashley shrugged. “There was a big dent in his head. The milk was pink from the blood. But I suppose they’ll have to wait for the autopsy to know for sure.”
    Law & Order has much to answer for. The young seem to know a great deal about the processes of criminal investigations. “A big dent in his head,” I repeated. “Well. It’s unlikely that Mr. Staples opened the tank hatch, smacked his head against the rim, and fell into the tank, isn’t it?”
    â€œGolly,” Penelope said. “Who knew dairies were so dangerous?”
    Her daughter looked at her with affectionate contempt. “Gee, Mom. Maybe it was, like, murder. D’ya think?”
    Â 
    â€œ D EATH of a milk inspector,” Joe said. “It sure sounds like murder to me.”
    We were back at the clinic. The pony Sunny rambled painfully around our indoor arena, which has a soft floor of sand, shavings, and recycled rubber. She would have one thin flake of very dry hay twice a day for the next two weeks and all the water she could drink. I wanted to knock at least one hundred pounds from that pudgy frame. As I had thought, the X-ray of the left fore revealed a slight rotation of the coffin bone,