Blind switch (jack doyle mysteries)

by John McEvoy

  Doyle cringed as he recalled how he’d become indignant on behalf of the teaser-much to Pedro’s astonishment, Pedro having been long aware of such a traditional breeding practice. When Doyle realized he had revealed a huge gap in his knowledge of animal husbandry, he’d attempted to pass it off as a joke, slapping Pedro on the back and laughing. “Pulled your leg pretty good there didn’t I, amigo?” Doyle said. Pedro had responded by looking at Doyle with the impassive expression many Latino busboys reserve for the gringo customers in upscale American restaurants.

  Engel and Tirabassi had asked Doyle to report to them at least twice a week. “And if anything looks like it’s going to break, call us right away, any time,” Damon had emphasized. “This number is good twenty-four hours a day. And always use a public phone.”

  As he cupped the receiver in his hand, Doyle looked across the store’s crowded parking lot. It was filled primarily with pickup trucks, some owned by workers Doyle recognized from Willowdale. They emerged from the store carrying packages of groceries, or six-packs of beer, or both. They then drove off in the direction of the farm, where they lived either in the two-story dormitory on the north side of the property or, if they had families, in one of the small wooden cottages near the east border.

  This was Doyle’s fourth telephoned report to the agents in Chicago, and it was as uninspiring as those preceding it.

  The calls had begun at the end of Doyle’s second full day at Willowdale, a day he had spent in the good-natured and informative company of Aldous Bolger. Putting his best efforts into first creating, then teaching, a crash course in farm management, Bolger had given Doyle a tour of nearly every yard of Willowdale’s six hundred acres and most of the structures thereon.

  There had been capsulized descriptions of the roles of the employees, from top to bottom. Bolger showed him grooms at work, described the various aspects of breeding season “in case anybody brings it up,” Bolger had emphasized. “We’re past the real breeding season now. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have the time to trot you around the place like I’m doing.”

  Other topics touched were the horse sales held at various times each year, and the preparation of horses to be sold; the function of the on-site laboratory and its adjacent X-ray facility. Doyle was shown the feed barns, stallion barns, broodmare barns; the tool and machinery sheds; even the lake stocked with fish and home to a pair of swans. Doyle shook hands with dozens of people whose names he attempted to memorize.

  Toward the end of the tour, Bolger led Doyle over to the railing of Willowdale’s one-mile training track, a meticulously manicured strip of loam that lay just outside an equally neat turf course.

  “Not many places in the country have training tracks the quality of these on their property,” Bolger said.

  Doyle watched as a lone horse headed into the homestretch of the dirt course. He was going very fast, very smoothly. The rider was hunched down on the bay horse’s withers, hands still. When horse and rider sped past the spot where he and Bolger stood, Doyle was very surprised to see that the rider of the brown colt was Willie Arroyo-City Sarah’s jockey. Doyle ducked behind Bolger. “Let’s get out of here,” he said urgently. “I don’t want that jock to see me here. He could recognize me.” Bolger and Doyle then walked rapidly back toward Bolger’s office.

  “You know Willie Arroyo?” Bolger asked as they hurried up the road.

  “Kind of,” Doyle said. “I won’t bore you with the details. But it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to see me here. He might think something was going on, and he might talk about it. I don’t want to take the chance.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” Bolger replied as they entered the air-conditioned haven of his office, “there’s something ‘off’ about that colt we just saw. Rexroth is very interested in that colt’s workouts. Everybody around here calls the horse Boomer. I know that can’t be his real name, but I’ve not been able to find any record of him in the farm’s files.

  “He’s a big, strong youngster, and from what I’ve seen of him, he can run like hell. But I don’t see that much of him, and that’s another strange thing.”

  Doyle said, “What do you mean, you don’t see much of him?”

  “You know that piece of the property I told you about called the Annex?” Bolger said. “It’s a couple of hundred acres about five miles west of here. That’s where Rexroth keeps his oldest mares and, for some reason, this horse you just saw working out. He’s got him hidden out there back of beyond.

  “I don’t know bugger all about this Boomer-why he isn’t up with the racing stable, why he’s being kept here,” Bolger said. “I asked Rexroth about this. Twice, I did. Both times, he said that it was a matter of no concern to me. The second time he made it quite clear that he didn’t want to be asked again.

  “So,” Bolger said, “I don’t know what the hell’s going on with him. The jock flies all the way down here from Chicago to work him at least once a week. But Arroyo won’t talk about Boomer, either. One day I tacked up the horse myself and had him ready for Arroyo when he drove in. Willie just nodded pleasant like at me and, when I asked something about how the horse felt to him, he motioned for me to give him a leg up to the saddle and trotted off, as if he hadn’t heard my question. S’truth, Jack, there’s something wonky going on with this horse.”

  Doyle sat back in the leather chair, holding a half-finished can of beer. He let thoughts of the brown colt drift away as he attempted to review everything he’d seen that busy day. Then he said to Bolger, “If I remember a tenth of what I’ve heard and seen today, we’ll both be lucky.”

  Bolger smiled at Doyle. “I know, it’s far too much to take in completely. And that’s for anybody, not just a city creature like yourself.

  “The major piece of advice I can offer you, Jack,” Bolger continued, “is keep your mouth shut as much as possible. That will both enhance your learning and conceal your ignorance. No offense meant, by the way.”

  “I know what you’re talking about,” Doyle responded glumly. “If I can pull off this caper, masquerade successfully as a knowledgeable horseman, well, I’ll deserve an Academy Award.”

  “You deserve another cold lager just for listening to me all day,” said Bolger. “C’mon, lad, let’s go up to my place and put our feet up on the porch railing.”

  Now, standing in the convenience store parking lot, Doyle wondered if the exasperation he felt was evident in his voice as he said, “There’s been no sign of anything out of the ordinary.”

  He heard the click of another extension, then Damon’s voice. “Jack, you can’t rush this sort of thing. Just take it easy. Do the work that Bolger gives you to do. As I understand it, a lot of it will be clerical work and phone calls, done in his office-stuff you can easily handle. I know Bolger’s told his workers that you’ve been brought in to ease his burden of paperwork.

  “Just go about your business quietly, with a strong hold on that Irish temper of yours,” Damon advised.

  Doyle held the phone receiver away from his face. He looked at the setting sun, which had ribboned the invading dark with bold streaks of deep gold. He took a deep breath.

  “If I need a lecture on rage-control, and I don’t think so, I wouldn’t ask for one from a representative of one of God’s most hotheaded tribes. Talkin’ to you, Tirabasssi,” Doyle said.

  Karen said, “Jack, take it easy, we’re just.…”

  “I’m doing the talking right now, lady,” Doyle said, still seething. “You’re up there in civilization, hundreds of miles from the inaction. Don’t lay this ‘take it easy’ crap on me.” He paused to exhale, then took another deep breath. There was silence on the other end.

  “All right. Okay,” Doyle said. “Maybe that was a little harsh. But what you’ve got to keep in mind is, this is getting real old in a big hurry. Remember, I’m a city boy. Down here, the only bright lights are over the barn entrances. You hear what I’m saying, Damon?

  “I’ve been out to eat five times, man, and let me tell
you, there’s only so much chicken-fried steak, or steak-fried chicken, or mush puppies or whatever, that I can handle.

  “You ever hear of something called a ‘Kentucky hot brown’?” he asked. “I didn’t think so. I’ll spare you the description.”

  More silence on the other end. Doyle exhaled, feeling his blood pressure and anger levels descending steadily. He scuffed one of his western boots in the gravel of the parking lot. “Okay, folks,” he said in a normal voice, “I’m done. Rant’s over. Lost my cool, there, but it’s come back. Go ahead, either one of you.”

  Karen said, “How about Bolger? How’s he doing with this? And with you?”

  “Fine,” Doyle replied. “Actually, he’s a real good guy-and plenty sharp. He’s got it set up so that I never do any work that would reveal my astounding ignorance of the breeding farm business.

  “To tell you the truth, though, I think he’s getting a little tired of babysitting me. And we don’t ever go out at nights, get off the farm, except Fridays. The rest of the time he pretty much stays home in his house there, with his sister and her kids.

  “I’ve had dinner over there several times. Must say that I’ve enjoyed those family evenings, as alien to me as they might seem, if you know what I mean,” Doyle said. Damon coughed on the other end of the line, but said nothing.

  Doyle paused as a red pickup, its truck bed replete with teenage boys, came to a sliding halt near where he was standing. He tried to wave away the cloud of dust thrown up by the truck’s wheels. The driver hit the horn twice to emphasize his arrival.

  “What’s that?” Damon said sharply.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing. Just some of your local youths, stopping to pick up some suds.” What the hell else do they have to do out here in the country, Doyle thought to himself, ride around and count hay bales? He fleetingly recalled stories he’d read about a popular rural pastime involving tipping over cows as they stood, sleeping on their feet, in their pastures.

  Damon said, “Jack, any sign of the ex-jockey we told you to keep an eye out for? Ronald Mortvedt?”

  “Nothing,” Doyle said. “There’s plenty of those little guys around here, but they’re involved in breaking and training the horses. Aldous knows them all. I told him what you told me about Mortvedt, so he’s got an idea of what to look for.”

  It was after Karen and Damon had returned from Louisiana and their trip to Cajun country, and prior to Doyle’s departure for Kentucky, that they had met with Doyle and briefed him on the background, habits, and criminal dossier of Ronald Mortvedt. The agents had not had any luck in locating Mortvedt, but everything they heard about Mortvedt had served to make him a possible suspect. He “profiled out big time” was how Damon phrased it.

  “One of the New Orleans racetrack snitches told our man down there he heard Mortvedt was doing business with some rich Yankee horse owner. From what we’ve learned, Mortvedt could very well be the guy doing the horse killing for Rexroth,” Damon had said, adding: “And be careful if you ever spot this guy. He may be about half the size of Randy Kauffman, but from what we’ve heard of him, this little sucker may be twice as bad as that oaf.”

  Over the Wildcat-Jiffy-Shopper phone, Doyle heard Karen ask, “How often do you see Rexroth?”

  “Every two, three days.”

  “Does he ever say anything to you? Pay any attention to you?”

  Doyle said, “Not really. I’m not saying he’s not polite. He knows who I am. He always says hello. But he’s usually in and out of the barn area in a few minutes. Sometimes he’ll grab a cup of coffee in Bolger’s office, or have that Neanderthal, Kauffman, get it for him, but he never stays around to drink it.

  “It’s almost as if Rexroth needs to take a quick inventory every day or so-you know, to make sure all his toys are in place.”

  Karen said something, but Doyle couldn’t hear her over the noise made by the departing red pickup truck. It looked to Doyle as if the truck-bed attendance count had almost doubled. Maybe they’re on a recruiting drive, he thought, need some extra hands to help topple a big Black Angus.

  Doyle said, “I’ve got one piece of intelligence for you regarding Rexroth.” Doyle was grinning now. He could almost feel the high level of expectation emanating from the two FBI agents.

  He waited until Damon said, impatiently, “Well, what is it, Jack?”

  “You know the poolside rollerblading setup I told you about before? With the naked girls? Rexroth’s secretary, Stoner, told me something interesting the other day concerning that.

  “Aldous had asked me to go up to the big house to deliver some notes he’d made about broodmares, mares of Rexroth’s that Aldous thought should be sold at the fall sales.

  “The butler lets me in. He directs me to the indoor pool, and that’s where Stoner meets me. He says Rexroth is too busy to see me, that I should just give him Aldous’ report on the mares. Fine, I say.

  “While we’re talking, I can’t hardly help but notice some kind of ruckus on the other side of the glass doors involving a couple of members of the Rexroth Roller Derby. I can hear Rexroth bellowing at one of them, Darla, the redhead. And I can hear her giving it back to him pretty good before she clomps off the track and out the door. Meanwhile, I can see little Deirdre, the one built like a sprinter, kind of simpering and smiling on the sidelines until Rexroth gives her a signal and she starts zooming around the track without a stitch on. So I say to Stoner, ‘What was all that about?’”

  Doyle stopped talking as another pickup pulled up near the phone, its front bumper halting about a yard away from him. “Nice driving, Ace,” he said to the driver, who ambled into the store without taking any notice of Doyle.

  “Anyway,” Doyle said back into the phone, “Stoner fills me in on this situation. He says, ‘Mr. Rexroth is an extremely superstitious man. Each week that the financial report for RexCom is up over the corresponding week of the preceding year, Mr. Rexroth keeps the same skater working for that full day and rewards her with a handsome bonus.’

  “‘But if a week comes that profits are down, Mr. Rexroth immediately changes bladers. If the news is not good and Darla, let’s say, is the designated skater that day, well, whoosh, she’s dismissed and replaced and put on the sidelines for at least two days without pay.’

  “‘Most of the girls have come to recognize this as equitable and just part of their job assignments. Some, of course, occasionally react rather bitterly,’ Stoner says.

  “Is this the damndest thing you’ve ever heard?” Doyle said. “I wonder if Rexroth learned this at Harvard Business. It could be the basis of a real popular course, providing visuals are included.”

  There was a momentary silence on the line after Doyle finished. Doyle then heard Damon say, as if to himself, “This Rexroth truly is nuttier than I’d thought.”

  Doyle looked out at the store’s parking lot. Much of it was now completely in shadow, and most of the vehicles were gone. He was about to begin another quiet night alone at Willowdale. Then, motivated as much by the desire to keep talking to the agents as to inform them, Doyle said, “You know that Chicago jockey, Willie Arroyo? Well, he’s been making these kind of quick visits here once a week to work some mystery horse for Rexroth. Aldous doesn’t know what the story is on this horse, can’t even find out its real name. And Rexroth won’t tell him anything about it, either. Kind of interesting.

  “Arroyo knows me from when I groomed City Sarah,” Doyle added. “I’ve made sure he hasn’t spotted me, because he sure as hell would think something was up if he saw me working here. But as to this mystery horse, I don’t know what the deal is with him.”

  Karen said, “If you learn anything else you can tell us when you call Friday. Unless something comes up. If it does, call right away. And be careful, Jack.”

  “Will do,” Doyle said, regretting that this communication with what he had come to regard as the real world-even if it was populated by FBI agents dedicated to manipulating his life-was about to end.

 
Chapter 17

  Following his faux pas with Pedro regarding Chisox the teaser, Doyle took to heart Bolger’s advice about doing more listening, less talking. Rather quickly he picked up the daily routine of life on Willowdale Farm, although he never found himself adjusting completely to the fact that his shift, along with those of the vast majority of the farm’s employees, began before six each morning. As he pointed out to Bolger, “My life used to find me coming home at the time you’ve forced me to get up.” Bolger would smile good-naturedly, commenting, “The horseman’s life is not for the lazy man.”

  “I was never lazy regarding my nightlife,” responded Doyle.

  After the first few weeks, life at Willowdale proved to be a pleasant surprise to Doyle. The steady rhythms of outdoor work, plus the warmth of the Bolger family, were starting to smooth out some of his hard edges. This change did not go unnoticed.

  Aldous said to Jack one morning when the last horse had been fed and watered, “After observing you these weeks, laddie, I’ve decided something.”

  “What’s that?” Jack said. He bent down to retrieve a rubrag one of the grooms had dropped.

  “You remind me of an orphaned colt I was given when I was a boy. I was young, and so was he, and he’d been mistreated in some way or other at the farm my father bought him from.

  “When I got him he was the meanest little critter you’d ever see. He didn’t trust anybody and he lashed out at everybody every chance he had. It took me months to convince him the world wasn’t the hell hole he thought it was. Once I got through to him, he’d still pretend to keep his mean ways, but he really didn’t have his heart in it anymore. He’d changed, and we both knew it.”

  Jack turned away to hide his grin. “You’re a cheeky lot, you Kiwis,” he said over his shoulder as he walked away.