by John McEvoy
He drained the rest of his Bacardi and Coke. “Well, they ain’t the only ones.” Jud’s rum-glazed eyes brightened. “We got us a pretty goddam good little money maker going down next week out there at Willowdale.” He elbowed LeeAnne in the side, just beneath one of her silicone-enhanced breasts, winking broadly. She winced. Jud waved forward the cocktail waitress.
Betty Lou leaned toward Jud. If LeeAnne wasn’t interested in this drunken disclosure, as least she could pretend to be. After all, Jud was paying for her drinks again tonight.
“You and Ronnie got something going?”
“Bet on it,” replied Jud. “We got a gooood thing going. You know what those horses are worth out there at Willowdale? Well, most people don’t know it, but some of them are worth a hell of a lot more dead than alive,” he snickered.
Jud picked up his new drink, raising it in a toast. “Here’s to good things,” he smiled drunkenly. “And I’m lookin’ at a couple of ’em right now,” he added with a giggle as he buried his face in LeeAnne’s bosom.
LeeAnne shrugged at Betty Lou, as if to say “Well, I have to let the boy play when he pays,” but Betty Lou wasn’t paying her any mind. Betty Lou’s mind was clicking out ideas the way it always had, in the fashion of an overworked copying machine that had lost smoothness but retained the ability to keep slowly churning.
Twenty hours later, Betty Lou made her call to Willowdale. She asked for the “manager in charge.” The gate house guard transferred her to Doyle, whose car he had waved through only minutes earlier.
“That’s what the woman said,” Doyle repeated. He was seated in Damon Tirabassi’s room at the Dalton House Hotel, having called the agent from Willowdale before rapidly driving the fifteen miles to town. Doyle had just finished describing in as much detail as he could the phone call of warning he’d received from the mystery woman.
Karen Engel, in jeans and a UW-Madison sweatshirt, perched on the sofa in the mini-suite. It was the first time Doyle had seen her not wearing her FBI business suit, and she looked about ten years younger. Tirabassi on the other hand, although casually dressed for him-slacks, shirt, tie but no jacket-appeared as official as ever.
Karen said, “Let’s talk about this new information. Damon, what do you make of it?”
Tirabassi said, “I’m not surprised. This is why we put these people in prison; they’re stupid, and they make mistakes. If this woman is talking about Mortvedt, we’ve finally got a shot at him. Even if she isn’t, we’ve got to set up surveillance out at Willowdale for whoever might show up. But I’ll bet it’s going to be Mortvedt.”
Doyle had emphasized to the agents, “We can’t have some SWAT team crashing around out there at Willowdale. If Rexroth gets wind of any FBI presence, he’ll call off Mortvedt for sure. You better figure out a way to do this real quietly.”
What finally unfolded was a schedule that saw either Karen or Damon be picked up by Doyle at the hotel each evening, then transported to his apartment on the Willowdale property while crouched down on the backseat of Doyle’s car. Whichever one it was that accompanied him stayed the night in his place, where Doyle tried to sleep so that he would be ready for his regular duties in the morning. The agent not with Doyle communicated by radio with the other team leader, who was positioned in a car located a mile down the road from Willowdale.
Meanwhile, two other FBI agents slipped onto the property each night and made their way to the stallion barn without being observed. Doyle had sent the barn’s security guard on a surprise one-week vacation with pay, telling him he would “check on these horses every night, don’t you worry.” The guard, Alan Henry, gratefully agreed to this plan. Doyle felt better once Henry had been removed from any potentially dangerous situation.
Ralph Ebner and Ed Kamin were the FBI agents stationed in the stallion barn. One was positioned in an empty stall midway of the north wall, the other in the hayloft that ran the length of the building.
On the fourth night of this surveillance schedule, Doyle had again finished hammering Damon Tirabassi at gin rummy. As much as he liked winning, their card games were beginning to bore him. Shaking his head in mock sympathy, Doyle said, “I’m beating you like a drum, man, like a drum. I’m going to have mercy on you and call it a night.”
Although he would again have to rise at five the next day to fulfill his acting farm manager duties, Doyle did not feel like going to bed. At the beginning of this week, Doyle had felt energized, full of that good impatient feeling he used to get before his fights. He’d loved those adrenalin-packed minutes as he entered the ring and warmed up, casting sidelong glances at his opponent, every cell in his body seeming to cry let’s get it on! It was one of the best feelings in the world as far as Doyle was concerned.
Now, four days into the vigil, he was growing increasingly impatient and losing faith in the plan as well. He’d slept fitfully the past two nights and was more restless than ever this night. Putting down the deck of cards, Doyle announced, “I’m taking a walk.”
“Stay away from that barn,” Tirabassi warned. “I don’t want Kamin or Ebner coming down on you.”
“Remember, Damon, this is Willowdale. There are five hundred ninety-nine other acres here I can use,” Doyle said as he went out the cottage door.
It was twenty-one minutes after midnight when Doyle began strolling under the starless autumn sky. He stopped in front of the silent house that had been shared by Aldous and Caroline and her children. For a moment or so, he visualized them all on the front porch, at their ease of a summer evening, so innocent in their ignorance of what was to come. Doyle shuddered at the memory. Then he moved away on the gravel path, intending to circle the pond. He wished he had brought a flashlight.
Suddenly, Doyle heard movement in the darkness off to his right. There was an empty paddock there, so he knew it was not a horse he was hearing. Quickly he crouched down at the edge of the viburnum bushes that lined the path. There was another rustling sound, closer now. As Doyle knelt on the damp grass, he could feel drops of sweat beginning to trickle from his armpits, just as during the nights when he’d stood in the ring corner, looking across at his opponent, both of them riding adrenaline highs as they waited for the opening bell.
Doyle took off his boots and crawled closer to the bushes. He heard a harsh whisper, “Jud, creep up into that barn and make sure our horse is where he’s supposed to be at. Fifth stall on the right was what the man told me. If he’s there, flick on that flashlight for a second to let me know. I’m not gonna move our stuff up there till I know we can use it.”
Doyle strained to hear more. He thought he heard a muttered “You got it,” then departing footfalls. Doyle crawled closer to the break in the hedge. The damp grass felt cold on his hands and feet; his socks were becoming soaked with the dew.
Doyle rose silently to his feet when he’d advanced to the point where a path split the hedge. At precisely that moment, Ronald Mortvedt arrived at the hedge opening from the other side. For a split second, they looked at each other, equally startled. Doyle let out a grunt. Mortvedt was silent. He was dressed completely in black, from ski mask to gloves, and Doyle didn’t see the beginning of his movement. Mortvedt dropped the canvas bag he carried in his left hand. As he did so, he dipped his right shoulder and reached down toward the knife in his boot.
Doyle slipped slightly as he tried to set his feet on the wet grass. The left uppercut he unleashed missed its target, Mortvedt’s jaw, landing on Mortvedt’s right temple.
But it served to raise Mortvedt’s head. Right behind that punch Doyle delivered an overhand right that arrived with a satisfying thwack. The little man dropped face-forward to the ground and lay still.
“Damn,” Doyle said, “what a living I could have made fighting bantamweights!” He was so pumped it was several moments before he realized he’d probably broken a knuckle on his left hand. He flexed the hand, winced, then bent to examine the man in black, who remained still.
There was no wallet in the man’s po
ckets. But when Doyle unzipped the canvas bag, he knew the figure at his feet was the one they were after. Amid the extra pair of gloves and the bags of peppermint candy used to entice the horses was an electrical extension cord and a pair of alligator clips.
Doyle remembered the veterinarian, Dr. James O’Dea, who had speculated to agents Engel and Tirabassi that the killer was “electrocuting horses, making it appear as if they’ve died of heart attacks. I’m sure that’s what he’s doing. It’s a method that leaves no marks.”
He heard Mortvedt stir as he continued to rummage through the black canvas bag. Quickly, Doyle took out a section of rope and tied the little man’s hands behind him, then lashed together his ankles. He twisted the rope as deep into Mortvedt’s skin as he could, relishing the groan it elicited. Then he tore up the little man’s ski mask.
From somewhere in the distance-it must have been at the stallion barn-Doyle heard shouts, the sounds of feet scrambling through gravel, and somebody hitting the ground hard.
“On the ground! On the ground! Hands behind your head,” Doyle heard one of the agents shout. They must have done their job, Doyle thought.
Doyle hooked his left arm around Mortvedt’s feet and began dragging the little man, face down, through the wet grass. As they proceeded toward the patio behind his building, Mortvedt began to mumble. What Doyle heard as he stopped and let Mortvedt’s feet thump to the concrete floor of the patio was “You cocksuckah.” Mortvedt shifted his body, straining against the rope. His eyes were wild, darting about, then concentrating on Doyle like malevolent lasers as he regained full consciousness.
Doyle went to one knee, his left, and jackhammered two punches with his right hand into Mortvedt’s left kidney. Mortvedt screamed after the first punch landed, a quick gulping sound that he tried to call back, but couldn’t. He only gasped when Doyle’s second blow struck him.
“If you were going to live any longer you’d be pissing blood, you piece of shit,” Doyle said, getting to his feet. Then he pivoted and dropped down and again buried his fist into Mortvedt’s side, same place as before.
“I don’t know which way to do you,” Doyle said. He was breathing hard now, not so much from the exertion as from the hate-fueled energy that raced through him.
Looking down at Mortvedt, he said, “Should I fry you? Fry you like you fried those poor horses you killed for the money?
“Should I do that?…I could do that.”
Doyle was breathing like he’d just spent ten minutes pummeling the heavy bag in the gym.
Mortvedt had recovered his breath. Trussed up tightly, on his back, he looked up defiantly. “Don’t know what horses you talkin’ about, Cuz,” he sneered.
Doyle began to unbolt an arm of one of the redwood chairs that bordered the metal patio table. He had trouble at first, but then the club-like apparatus came off in his hands. It was damp with the night dew. Doyle’s hands were dry. He took a good, strong grip on the piece of wood.
“Or,” Doyle said to Mortvedt, his voice hurried, “I could just beat your fucking face in. Beat you like you beat Bolger.” Doyle was on his feet now, chest heaving as he stood over Mortvedt.
Doyle raised the piece of wood to his shoulder. It weighed at least as much as a baseball bat, or a rake handle, he knew that. It would do.
Mortvedt’s mask of hate briefly disappeared as he looked up at Doyle. For an instant all of Mortvedt’s defiance was wiped away, replaced by a surprised expression of acknowledgment that he knew exactly what Doyle was talking about.
Mortvedt recovered quickly. But both men realized what had just been confirmed in that moment.
“His name was Aldous Bolger,” Doyle said slowly. “He was a friend of mine. If Bolger were here, he’d never do to you what you did to him. He wasn’t that kind.” The words were coming out more rapidly now. “But I am. Oh yeah, I am.”
Doyle bent down, leaning closer to Mortvedt. “Bolger was one of those men that guys like you laugh at. He was this straight shooter, he’d go to the wall for his friends. You know what I’m saying?
“No, you don’t know, you miserable little shit.”
Doyle turned away from Mortvedt. Quickly, still breathing rapidly, he started to uncoil the electrical extension cord.
“Aldous Bolger respected horses,” Doyle said. “It cut him to the heart, the way you killed those animals. Way you made them suffer!”
Doyle pivoted, then hurled the piece of armchair redwood into the darkness.
He reached into the canvas bag and took out the extension cord. Moving more slowly, so Mortvedt could see what he was doing, Doyle placed the extension cord’s plug on the floor right below the electrical outlet near the patio grill. Then Doyle picked up one of the sets of alligator clips. He attached it to the cord. In the light from the patio fixture Doyle could see Mortvedt watching him, silent again, his face contorted by hate.
With a quick movement Doyle clamped the alligator clip onto Mortvedt’s scrotum. The little man twisted frantically on the patio concrete, trying to free himself.
Doyle brought the prongs of the plug up to the electrical outlet.
Chapter 33
Doyle grimaced as he looked at his face in the bathroom mirror of his Willowdale apartment. Under the streak of dirt that charred his forehead, part of his nose glistened where the skin had scraped off when he had hit the patio concrete face first. He was busy attending to the latter matter, dousing the raw surface with Bactine.
Damon Tirabassi, along with fellow agent Ed Kamin, sat in the living room. Mortvedt, still trussed up, was laid out on the floor between them. The other agent, Ralph Ebner, who’d been stationed in the stallion barn with Kamin and had joined in the capture of the fleeing Repke, had handcuffed Jud to the refrigerator door in the kitchen. Ebner sat on a kitchen chair near Repke, arms crossed, face expressionless as he regarded his silent and docile captive.
“Thanks a lot, Damon,” Doyle said from the bathroom doorway as he pasted a Band-Aid over the bridge of his nose. “This thing has only been broken about five times before you took your crack at it.”
Twenty minutes earlier Tirabassi had come hurtling out of the darkness, throwing himself forward as Doyle held the extension cord whose clips were attached to Ronald Mortvedt’s balls. Tirabassi’s charge hit Doyle in the back, driving him face forward to the floor. Tirabassi had then pinned down the stunned Doyle.
Right behind Tirabassi onto the patio had come Kamin, who landed directly on the prostrate Mortvedt.
Tirabassi was breathing heavily as he heard Doyle say from beneath him, “Damon, get the hell off me. I already nailed the little bastard. It’s Mortvedt. That’s him lying there under your man. Why in the hell are you kneeling on my shoulder blades?”
When he’d arrived at the patio edge and seen Doyle moving the extension cord outlet toward the socket, Tirabassi explained, he’d accelerated his advance.
“I thought you were about to kill the little bastard, Jack. I didn’t want to lose our star witness.”
As Doyle walked out of the bathroom, one hand still applying pressure to the Band-Aid, Tirabassi gave him an appraising look. He said, “Jack, would you have”-he nodded toward Mortvedt-“if I hadn’t jumped you?”
“Would I have what?”
“Hit him with the juice.”
Doyle shifted his gaze from the waiting Tirabassi to Mortvedt, who also seemed interested in his answer.
“I was tempted, I’ll tell you that. But with the FBI right on top of me? Are you kidding? Fry Mortvedt, and risk spending time for it? Not a chance, Damon. There’ll be somebody dumber than me will come along and rid the world of this little bottom feeder, then wind up paying for it instead of getting the medal they deserve.”
Doyle feinted as if he were going to plant a kick on Mortvedt’s side. Damon jumped to his feet, but Mortvedt didn’t flinch. Doyle smiled at the two of them as he sat down on the couch.
Damon took a call on his portable phone. When he snapped the phone shut, he said, “That
was Karen. She’s informed the sheriff of the capture of these two, but told them to stay away from Willowdale, that we’ll bring Mortvedt and Repke in to them.”
Earlier Tirabassi had walked up to the mansion himself to inform Harvey Rexroth of the capture of the two horse killers, eager to observe the reaction on the publisher’s face. But, Tirabassi had been informed by Byron Stoner, “Mr. Rexroth is out of the state on business. I’ll certainly let him know as soon as possible. He’ll be immensely relieved these criminals have finally been apprehended.”
“I’d hate to play liar’s poker with Byron Stoner,” Tirabassi said after returning to Doyle’s apartment.
Jud Repke saw the light early the next afternoon. Facing charges of horse theft, thanks to the confession of Lucas Collier, and insurance fraud for killing Rexroth’s horses, he heeded the advice of his attorney and agreed to testify against Mortvedt. Repke was promised, in the most general and potentially deniable terms, a fine, a suspended sentence, and lengthy probation in case he didn’t come through.
“I always hated killing those horses,” Jud said. He added, “Afraid as I am of Ronnie, there ain’t no way I’m going back inside if I can help it.”
Mortvedt was another story. He refused to answer any questions and, as a result, was bound over for trial in federal court. He was represented by a Louisville lawyer named Ed Boniface. At the urging of the government attorneys, Mortvedt-considered not only a threat to society, but a prime prospect for fleeing the country-was denied bail, despite Boniface’s stentorian objections.
Doyle was far from heartened by these developments. As he complained to Damon and Karen over lunch one afternoon, “Repke did plenty of this dirty work, and he gets away with a slap on the wrist. What if his testimony doesn’t convict Mortvedt? Then what have we got?
“I’ll tell you what we’ve got-nothing. They both could walk, even though they probably attacked Aldous. And without Mortvedt linked to him, how are we going to nail Rexroth for having his horses killed?”
