Free The Case of the Ill-Gotten Goat by Claudia Bishop

across his chest.
    â€œYou bet I did.”
    â€œShe admits it!” Brian Folk said with a vicious smirk. “In front of witnesses, too.”
    Simon leaned down and banged his forehead gently against the table.
    â€œI wish,” Madeline added sunnily, “that it had been a larger pie. It was more of a tart, really.”
    Simon rolled his eyes upward, and then sat back. “He wants to press charges. He wants me to arrest you for battery.”
    â€œMaddy!”
    All three of us turned to the front door. That shriek was familiar. It belonged to Rita Santelli, my editor and the publisher of the Summersville Sentinel . Rita is a thin, peppery widow in her midforties. She has a great many freckles, shrewd gray eyes, and short brown hair streaked prematurely gray. She sat down next to Maddy in a flurry, tape recorder at the ready, a camera jouncing against her meager bosom. “I just heard. Did you whack that damn fool tax inspector with a lemon pie?” She rolled her head, looked at Folk, and gave an artificial start of surprise. “Oh! Why there you are, Inspector. Sorry. I didn’t see you standing there.”
    â€œThat’s libel, that is,” Brian Folk said. “Calling me a damn fool.”
    â€œIt would be slander if anything,” I said. “And it isn’t.”
    Rita’s eyes flickered toward Simon and back again. “I was hoping I could get a picture of you with one of Charley’s pies, Maddy? Sort of held over your head? And if bozo here wants to be in the picture, so much the better.”
    â€œIt was more of a tart, really,” Madeline said. “But you bet I will.”
    Rita huddled forward and lowered her voice. Brian Folk leaned over my shoulder the better to hear. His breath smelled of cheese. “The thing is, I’m in the middle of an article about the tax assessor’s egregious abuse of power inc small towns like Summersville and I figure the photo will be a great illustration.”
    â€œIllustrating what?” Simon said. “Rule by pie?”
    â€œVery funny. No, it’ll illustrate the first step in a taxpayer’s revolution!” Rita leaned back. “I figure this kind of news is just what the public wants to hear, especially in an election year.” She dug into her skirt pocket, pulled out her cell phone, and waved it over her head. “I’m about to call Gordy Rassmussen. You all know Gordy, right? Been town supervisor for years. And the guy that hired you , right?” She glared at Folk. “And seeing how it is an election year, and how Gordy just loves all the media exposure he can get…”
    Gordy, a Swede, was notoriously camera shy.
    â€œâ€¦He’s going to love justifying the rise in taxes in this town. And then”—she gave Folk a sinister smile—“I’m going to go into a lot of depth about a tax assessor’s qualifications. Did you know that you don’t have to have any kind of special training to be a tax assessor? That it’s—hmmm, what’s the word I want—patronage, that’s it. That it’s a patronage sort of job. I think you could even call it sort of a payoff, under certain circumstances.”
    â€œThis is blackmail,” Brian Folk said hoarsely.
    â€œThis is nothing of the kind,” Rita snapped. “This is American journalism at its finest. Why, I bet I could even get some of the city news teams out to cover this. We could open the news show with video interviews of some of the poor souls whose taxes have priced them right out of their homes, kind of like those fellows over there.” She raised her hand and hollered, “Whooee, Deirdre! Whyn’t you bring Spike and Killer over for a little talk about their taxes?”
    Deidre shepherded the two gentlemen at the bar toward our booth. Both were substantially built. One of them nodded graciously at Madeline. The other made a fist of his right hand and