by John McEvoy
But he could see Bolger’s chest heaving. He was alive. Then Doyle’s gaze fell on Bolger’s legs. Both knee caps were grotesquely inverted. A shard of bone projected through the torn khaki pants over the left knee. Doyle involuntarily retched.
The physical violence Doyle had known in his life was confined to the boxing ring, both during his fighting days and in the time since, when he still followed the only sport that had ever really appealed to him. He had seen men drubbed, noses smashed, eyes swollen shut. Doyle was familiar with such evidence of pain inflicted and suffered. But he’d never witnessed the results of such explosive brutality as he was looking at here, in the Willowdale stallion barn, as he looked down at Aldous Bolger.
After flashing the light through the barn, Doyle sensed no danger. He knew he was alone with the horses, that whoever had done this was gone.
Doyle shook his head as if to clear it. He rubbed a hand over his eyes that were now filled with tears of rage and sorrow at the horrible sight in front of him. He heard the shuffling feet of the nearby horses, huge, confined beasts terrified by what had unfolded before them.
Then he turned and ran to summon help, dreading the impending moment when he would have to knock on Caroline’s door.
Chapter 24
The hours immediately following the attack on Aldous Bolger were a blur to Doyle as he gave his account of discovering his battered friend to the sheriff’s deputies, then repeated it to Karen Engel and Damon Tirabassi, first over the phone, then face-to-face following their arrival in Lexington from Chicago. There was also the tortuous time spent attempting to deal with the shattering effects of this crime on Caroline Cummings and her children. Doyle knew he would never be able to forget the look of shock and then soul-tearing sorrow on Catherine’s lovely face when he told her what he’d found in the Willowdale stallion barn.
It was his “hard Kiwi head” that saved him, Aldous whispered to Jack in Lexington’s Central Baptist Hospital a few hours after regaining consciousness. Bolger’s speech was painfully slow, his eyes reflecting his desire to communicate faster and better than his concussed brain made possible.
All he remembered, he said, was the small man dressed in black “about to do something to one of our horses.” The physicians said Bolger’s head injury was “miraculously” less severe than the blow he’d received could normally be expected to cause. “A powerful blow that caused the equivalent of a temporary, minor stroke,” was how Dr. Howard Sill had described it to Caroline and Jack. “There’s trauma, but his speech patterns can be expected to return to normal in time,” Dr. Sill had assured them.
The doctor’s prognosis concerning Aldous’ other injuries was far less sanguine. Dr. Sill had called in a team of orthopedic specialists to examine Aldous’ shattered knees. The tissue trauma was so severe that CT scans were needed to disclose the extent of the damage.
Their opinion was that Aldous would require knee replacements if he were to walk again. “They are very effective procedures,” Dr. Sill told them. But the operations could not be done for several months, during which Aldous would need to recuperate from the damage he’d suffered.
Doyle was amazed at how stoically Aldous had accepted this news. When Jack was first allowed into the critical care unit, he was both appalled at the paper-white hue of his friend’s face and amazed at the look of defiant cheerfulness in his eyes. “Down, but not out, laddie,” were the first words Aldous had whispered to Jack. Couldn’t kill him with a hand axe, Jack thought again.
Rexroth had dispatched Byron Stoner to express his concern to Caroline and Jack. “Mr. Rexroth was, of course, appalled and saddened by what happened,” Stoner said in his prim way. “He would have told you that himself, but he was called away on urgent business early this morning.” Rexroth insisted that Willowdale pay all expenses involved in Bolger’s treatment.
“Mr. Rexroth wished me to also tell you,” Stoner said to Jack, “that he would appreciate it if you would remain on here at Willowdale temporarily, serving as acting farm manager until a successor to Mr. Bolger can be hired. You are, naturally, invited to apply for the position yourself,” Stoner added, “although I must tell you that it calls for a person with more extensive experience than your own.”
The brutal beating of Aldous Bolger caused a sensation. The story was extensively covered by the local and state newspapers, which had a major interest in anything that occurred in Kentucky horse country, especially an event of this nature.
Naturally, the crime was given continued attention by the national racing press, Rexroth’s Horse Racing Journal leading the way. The fact that it had been committed on Willowdale property resulted in Rexroth expressing his outrage in a number of media settings. Rexroth himself authored a ringing front-page editorial for Horse Racing Journal, decrying this “despicable act against this outstanding horseman of international reputation,” and offering a reward of $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of “the criminal or criminals involved, whose motives remain as mysterious as their methods were heinous.”
Doyle was infuriated by what he considered to be Rexroth’s sanctimonious posturings. While he didn’t suspect Rexroth of attacking Bolger, or ordering the attack, Doyle felt in his gut that Rexroth was tied to it somehow, probably through his employee, Mortvedt.
Doyle said nothing about his theories to Caroline, for early on in Doyle’s working relationship with Aldous Bolger the two men had agreed to keep from Caroline any knowledge of Jack’s connection to the FBI, and the FBI’s interest in an ex-jockey ex-convict named Mortvedt.
“If she knows that,” Aldous had said, “she’s going to worry about me. I know that. This girl has had to go through more than enough already. I don’t want to add to her burden. And,” Aldous had noted, “there’s no real reason for her to know anyway. Let Caroline enjoy herself as best she can while she’s here.”
Bolger had also cautioned Doyle against “trying to pass yourself off as a lifetime horseman” to Caroline. “She’d sniff that out as a lie in a minute. You can tell her, and truthfully, that you’ve had some experience working on the racetrack. But don’t go past that, it’ll never fly.
“Caroline’s taken a bit of a fancy to you, Jack,” Bolger added, grinning at Doyle. “That’s good on ya, mate, as far as I’m concerned. But I’ll give you this piece of advice if the feeling is at all mutual. Don’t try to bullshit this girl. She’d suss that in a second.”
“My story is supposed to be that I decided on a midlife career change,” Doyle said. Thanks to the FBI, he added to himself.
“Jack,” Aldous had said, “I don’t give a boiled banger why you’re doing this. Those agents just told me I was going to be given some help. You don’t have to tell me any more than that, man.”
Approximately thirty-six hours after Doyle found the New Zealander, Karen, Damon, and Doyle were seated at a table in a conference room in the Dalton House Hotel on the outskirts of Lexington.
“Never,” Doyle said slowly, “never would I have gone ahead with your plan if I thought Aldous Bolger would be at risk. What was done to him…I can’t believe it.” Doyle rose so abruptly from his chair that it fell over behind him. He walked over to the curtained window and stared out, palms on the sill.
After a glance at Damon, Karen said, “Jack, ease up a little bit, won’t you? I know you’re furious. I know your Irish is up. But we have to get past those emotions and approach this situation in a professional manner. We had no idea Aldous would wind up like this. How could we have envisioned that? But there’s nothing to be gained from looking back on that now. What we’ve got to do is concentrate on finding who did this.”
Earlier, Karen and Damon had spent considerable time commiserating with Doyle. Embittered as he was, Doyle’s skeptical streak made it hard for him to accept the truth-which was that their sorrow was sincere. Both Karen and Damon had admired the New Zealand horseman for his courage in calling them into the case of the horses being killed, for his bravery in agree
ing to work with Doyle in a combined effort aimed at nailing the culprits.
Damon had said, “Jack, these are not courtesy condolences we’re feeding you here. Bolger was a stand-up guy. What happened to him was terrible. But we’ve got to move on here together, and that includes you.”
Doyle finally turned away from the window and faced the agents. “All right,” he said. “I’m sorry I lost it there. Sorry I blew up at you. Deep down, I know damn well this wasn’t in your plans.
“But I’m having a hard time with this. I can’t get over what was done to that good man. I can’t get out of my head the look on Caroline’s face when I told her about her brother.”
Doyle began pacing back and forth on the brown carpet of the conference room. He said, “Aldous must have discovered the horse killers at work there in the stallion barn. Or preparing to work, anyway. There’s no other way to explain what happened to him.
“The man didn’t have an enemy on either side of the world. You know that from all you’ve learned about him. No, those bastards must have jumped him after he stumbled on them. Why in hell Aldous didn’t come and get me before he went down to that barn…we were working on this together…that was the whole idea. He should never have gone there himself.
“And why they had to batter him like that….” Doyle shook his head. “I just don’t understand something like that. What kind of animals would beat a man that way?”
No one spoke for several moments. Doyle, tired as he was from nearly two days without sleep, was energized by his agitation. He continued pacing. Finally, Karen said, “Jack, I’m sure that Aldous acted on the spur of the moment. Maybe he couldn’t sleep and decided to patrol the grounds. He was known to do that.
“Then, he must have spotted something out of the ordinary. Aldous was a big, strong man, and a pretty independent fellow. You know that about him, certainly. I’m sure he was confident that he was capable of handling anything that he ran into on that farm.
“As to the beating he took…well,” Karen said with a grimace, “if you saw some of the things we’ve seen….” She looked over at Damon, who said, “Jack, my friend, you’ve got no idea what’s out there. I could give you war stories from here to Christmas morning.”
Tirabassi shifted in his chair. After sipping from his coffee cup, he turned to look out the window at the motel courtyard, a pensive look on his long face. He said, “It’s absolutely no comfort to anybody involved but, believe me, what happened to Aldous Bolger is not some unique phenomenon. Not in this world.”
Doyle recognized the validity of Damon’s statement. He also realized that the two FBI agents did not deserve the anger he had leveled at them. In addition to Bolger’s murderer, there were other elements feeding his fury.
Immediately after news of the attack spread, the Kentucky horse industry rumor mill, a machine rarely dormant, had cranked up big time. Bolger, it was said, had been beaten for not paying gambling debts….He’d been assaulted by thugs hired by the irate husband of a local woman he’d secretly been seeing….The attack was an attempt to silence him before he began cooperating with officials who were attempting to crack a horse country cocaine ring.
Doyle had heard various versions of these and other rumors. He knew there wasn’t a scrap of truth attached to any of them, and they bothered the hell out of him.
Suddenly, Doyle banged his fist down on the table with a force that startled both agents. “Where in the hell is Mortvedt?” he said loudly. He looked first at Karen, then at Damon. “I can’t believe that the vast resources of the FBI can’t locate this little crook. You know in your heart Mortvedt killed those horses, and probably attacked Aldous, and I know it. Why can’t you track him down?”
Karen’s face reddened. She said, “Contrary to what you think, we don’t know anything for sure about what Mortvedt’s done. It’s all speculation, speculation based on pretty solid background, yes. Certainly we suspect Mortvedt of killing those horses. And he may well have done Bolger, too. But we don’t have a speck of proof regarding either matter. We can’t put Mortvedt on a most-wanted list if we’ve got nothing to back up our suspicions. That’s not the way it works, Jack.”
“If we had anything solid to go on,” Damon said emphatically, “we’d have issued a bulletin on Mortvedt from minute one. I guarantee you that.”
Doyle took a deep breath. He felt as tired and frustrated as he’d ever had in his life. “How do you see all this?” he asked. “You’ve got to believe-I mean, it has to be obvious-that Aldous nearly paid with his life for finding somebody in that barn that shouldn’t have been there. Who do you think it was, if it wasn’t Mortvedt?”
Karen glanced at Damon before replying. “It could well have been Mortvedt. It probably was. And if it was, he might have had a motive for attacking Aldous besides just the fact that Aldous accidentally discovered him in the Willowdale barn.
“Mortvedt may well have suspected Aldous of knowing something he wasn’t supposed to know. Something having to do with another horse there, not one of the devalued stallions.”
Doyle said sharply, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Let me tell you about a man named Lucas Collier,” Karen said.
Chapter 25
Lucas Collier was a fifty-seven-year-old white male native of nearby Woodford County who had bounced around the Blue Grass horse industry scene for most of his working life.
“High school dropout…married and divorced twice, total of four children…series of menial jobs on Kentucky horse farms, including cutting grass, repairing sheds, painting fences, et cetera,” Karen said. “No hands-on experience with horses-evidently nobody trusted Lucas’ brain power to do that kind of work. I doubt Lucas has got many more IQ points than he has teeth. And he’s in short supply in the tooth department,” she said.
Collier’s previous record was a series of small-time crimes, Karen continued, “mainly bar fights, one breaking and entering that was dismissed, a couple of DUIs, one that stuck.” He most recently had come to the attention of local law enforcement when a field behind the falling-down farmhouse he’d inherited from his father proved to be the site of a thriving marijuana crop.
Collier was “very, very anxious to avoid a prison sentence,” Karen said, “so he tried to deal. He volunteered information regarding a theft he’d engaged in four years ago. It involved a horse, and what he believes was a valuable one. According to records, the theft Collier described coincides time-wise with the theft of a famous mare named Donna Diane. Collier played a minor role in this, but he was there when the horse was taken and he described the other men involved.”
Doyle said, “I don’t get what you’re getting at here. What’s the connection?”
Damon reached over to a stack of papers on the table and extracted a folder that he handed to Doyle. “This is Lucas Collier’s confession. It’s long and rambling, so you can skip over a lot of it. I’ve tagged with a blue marker the parts that are of interest to us.”
According to Collier, he’d been approached one night in a rural beer bar by a man who identified himself only as Jud. Collier had been asked if he was familiar with the physical layout at Sheridan Brothers’ Farm. “Hell yes,” Lucas had answered, “I worked there about three years. What do you need to know?”
What the man named Jud wanted to know was the location of the broodmare fields, the rotation schedule for the horses that was used by the Sheridan Brothers’ farm manager, and the location of the roads that ran through the property. Jud spent several hours over the next two nights interviewing Collier and making notes. After giving him some instructions, Jud said he would contact Collier in a week or so. He paid Collier $1,000 “in cash money” for the information and said that a similar payment was possible for future services.
As Doyle read further, he learned how the men-there were three of them-had stolen this horse. First they ascertained which field held the valuable mare Donna Diane. For three straight nights, the smallest of the three spent an hour
or so at the pasture fence, feeding Donna Diane and her companion gelding sweet alfalfa from a plastic bag. Sheridan Brothers’ Farm, like most breeding farms, employed only a few night watchmen who made occasional rounds of the property. The watchmen were easy to spot as they checked on the sixteen- to twenty-member groups of mares in each pasture.
Collier told the interrogators he had parked his pickup at the intersection of two farm roads about a half-mile from where Jud and the little man had left their car. Collier was instructed to flash his lights and drive off immediately if he spotted any vehicle or anyone approaching, but he never was required to do that.
Doyle looked up from his reading. He shook his head. “Can you imagine having millions of dollars’ worth of horses being guarded by five-dollar-an-hour night shift guys? Man, these farm owners down here are a trusting lot. Or stupid. Or cheap.”
“Not anymore,” Damon replied. “After the Donna Diane disappearance all the farms beefed up their security systems.”
“Was there a reward for her?”
“Only a million dollars,” Karen said. “But they never found out what happened to her.”
On the third night, Lucas Collier’s confession continued, when Donna Diane had again enthusiastically come to the fence, eager for company and food, Jud quickly and quietly sawed off three boards where they joined the fence post. He swung them outward, creating a gap. The little man, who had slipped a lead rope on Donna Diane, silently led her through the opening.
“I was too far away to see exactly how they done it,” Collier said, “but that was what Jud told me they was going to do. Jud, he took those board ends and tied them back onto the fence post with rope. They wouldn’t hold against any pressure, but there wasn’t any of that. And from where I stood, the fence looked okay, like there was nothing wrong with it.”
The mare nickered anxiously as the little man led Donna Diane carefully down the embankment to the one-horse trailer attached to Collier’s pickup truck. Since he was known in the area, the idea was, Lucas said, that “anybody seeing me hauling a trailer wouldn’t be much suspicious. I guess that was why they needed me. Course, I was a pretty good lookout, too,” he added.
