Triple Crown

by Felix Francis

  ‘And on the north,’ chipped in another agent.

  ‘All clear,’ called Norman. ‘But stay vigilant, everybody. Conduct a full search.’

  In front of me, Steffi Dean had recovered her composure somewhat and again had her Glock 22C up at the ready. She moved into the wooden building and started to move forward, looking into each horse-stall in turn.

  Hayden Ryder’s barn was identical to most of the other barns at Churchill Downs. About seventy yards in length, it contained twenty-four wooden-built horse-stalls, arranged in two rows of twelve, situated back to back, with wide, open walkways running along in front, bounded on the outside by a half-height wall. At either end were more substantial, two-storey, block-built structures containing the trainer’s office, equipment and feed stores, together with the stable dispensary.

  The whole thing was covered by a green shingle-covered roof that stretched from the structures at either end over the total length and width of the barn, supported above the half-walls by white-painted vertical wooden beams.

  From the direction of the shots, it seemed that all the action had taken place at the far end of the barn.

  I walked up alongside and went in.

  Three of the special agents, Larry Spiegal, Cliff Connell and Mason Rees, stood looking down at a man who lay in a crumpled heap on the ground.

  No one made any attempt to help him, because he was beyond help.

  The back of his head appeared to have been entirely blown away.

  Norman appeared from the far side of the barn. He took in the scene, together with the fact that I was standing there. He pursed his lips.

  ‘Anyone know who it is?’ he asked.

  None of the agents replied.

  ‘I think it’s Hayden Ryder,’ I said. ‘The trainer.’ They all looked at me. ‘I did some research on the Internet. I think that’s his face, or what’s left of it.’

  We all looked down again at the mangled bloody mess at our feet.

  ‘Cover him up,’ Norman said to no one in particular.

  Larry Spiegal took a horse rug that was hung over the half-wall and draped it over the body.

  ‘Where’s Bob?’ Norman asked.

  ‘Down there,’ Mason Rees said, pointing.

  I glanced to my left. Bob Wade was sitting on the floor with his back up against one of the stall walls and his legs stretched straight out on the dirt. Trudi Harding was crouching down next to him.

  ‘What happened?’ Norman asked.

  ‘This guy came at Bob with that fork,’ Mason said, indicating the long-handled, two-pronged pitchfork lying close to the body. ‘I saw it happen. He came out of that door, ran straight at Bob, and stabbed him in the chest.’ He made a two-handed stabbing motion. ‘Trudi took him down.’

  Norman walked over towards Bob.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  Bob Wade looked up at him and nodded. ‘A bit shaken up but I’ll be fine. One of the prongs hit my badge.’ He fingered the groove that the fork had made in the metal.

  ‘You were lucky,’ Norman said. ‘How come he got close enough to stab you?’

  ‘He came from behind me. I heard him and turned but he was too close. He was on me before I had a chance to react.’

  Norman was far from happy.

  It was clear that Trudi was still shocked by what had happened.

  ‘He would have killed Bob,’ she said, speaking with a nervous timbre in her voice. ‘I’m sure of it. He was lining up for a second attempt with the fork so I shot him.’

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Norman said.

  Two uniformed paramedics ran into the barn weighed down with medical kits. They took a brief look at the body under the rug, and then went over to Bob Wade. They could only help the living.

  Norman walked a little bit away and signalled for me to follow.

  ‘I told you to remain on the bus.’

  ‘I heard you say “all clear” over the radio so I came forward.’

  He didn’t like it but there was little else he could do.

  ‘Go back to the bus now,’ he said firmly. ‘I will try to sort out this damn mess. It might take some time as I have to call in the Louisville Police to investigate the shooting.’

  ‘Can I help in any way?’ I asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. ‘Get back on the bus and wait for me there, or else I will have you arrested.’

  That seemed to be a fairly definite no, then.

  I went back to the bus.

  9

  I sat on the bus for the next two hours, by which time the whole area round Ryder’s barn had been cordoned off with bright yellow ‘POLICE – DO NOT CROSS’ tape by the Louisville Police.

  From my vantage point, I watched as a black van with ‘County Coroner’s Office’ painted in white lettering on its side arrived and drove up to the barn.

  A little while later, the van departed, carrying, I presumed, the mortal remains of Hayden Ryder.

  Soon after that the three veterinary technicians were called forward to collect blood samples from the horses.

  That left me alone on the bus. Even the driver had deserted me and I hadn’t seen Tony since before the raid had gone in.

  Meanwhile, life on the Churchill Downs backside went on as usual with horses being prepared from the other barns for their daily workout on the track.

  True, there were more members of the media on site than might be normally expected three days before a big race, and the crews were from the TV news networks rather than from the sports channels, but the welfare and training of the horses still had to go on. It seemed it would take more than the shooting of a trainer to derail the Kentucky Derby juggernaut.

  With over 170,000 spectators expected for the main event, some having paid in excess of $6,000 for a single ticket, it was the big annual occasion for Louisville. Every hotel room was full for a hundred miles around, and you had more chance of walking on water than getting a dinner reservation in a city-centre restaurant.

  But only for the first Saturday in May.

  For the rest of the year, Louisville returned to its regular, sleepy existence where the tourist highlights included an educational visit to the Louisville Slugger baseball-bat factory, or nostalgic trips to the birthplace and grave of Muhammad Ali.

  Eventually Norman returned. He came up the steps into the bus and sat down on the seat opposite me.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.

  ‘You know who I am,’ I replied. ‘Jeff Hinkley, from the BHA in London.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m on the international exchange scheme.’

  ‘Don’t give me that bullshit. I reckon you’re here to spy on us. I just don’t know yet who sent you.’

  He’d clearly been a pretty good detective.

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ I said, trying my best to control my voice and be all innocent.

  ‘You know things you shouldn’t, and you also do things you shouldn’t.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘Like how did you get here from DC?’ he said. ‘Every single seat was taken on the direct flights. I know because I was trying to use my position at FACSA to get more without any success. The airlines told me they were already oversold, yet you made it here easily.’

  ‘I must have been lucky.’

  ‘I don’t believe in luck.’ He said it without a trace of humour in his voice. ‘But, most of all, how did you know it was Hayden Ryder who was shot?’

  ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘I recognised him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’d researched him on the Internet.’

  ‘Why?’ he said slowly. ‘You shouldn’t have known anything about this raid. You certainly shouldn’t have known we were after Hayden Ryder.’

  That had been careless of me.

  I stared at him.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I think you had better speak to the Deputy Director.’

  ‘I’m spe
aking to you.’ He said it with some real menace in his voice. ‘Who told you?’ he asked again.

  I didn’t answer.

  He removed his Glock 22C from its holster, cocked the mechanism, and pointed it right at me, somewhere between my eyes, from a distance of only a few inches.

  ‘I’ll not ask you again,’ he said calmly.

  Was this really happening?

  My head told me that he wouldn’t possibly pull the trigger, but my head hadn’t informed my heart, which was pounding away so fast that it felt in danger of bursting out of my chest altogether.

  I’d had loaded guns pointed at me before but I’d never seen the business end of one quite so close up. I almost had to cross my eyes to focus on the .40-calibre black hole at the end of the barrel.

  My mind started playing silly tricks, like wondering if I would have time to actually see the expanding bullet appearing before it took off the back of my head.

  I decided it was time to come clean.

  ‘I was asked to find a mole in your organisation, someone who has been leaking confidential information to those you were meant to be investigating.’

  The Glock 22C didn’t move a fraction of a millimetre.

  For a moment I was worried that it was Norman who was the mole, and I had just signed my own death warrant.

  ‘So who told you about the raid?’

  ‘Tony Andretti,’ I said. ‘He gave me the details after your meeting in the offices on Monday.’

  He dropped the gun down onto his lap and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

  ‘I wondered why he let you come on the bus when he knew it wasn’t a rehearsal.’

  ‘It was my idea to bring the operation forward to this morning. To reduce the chance that the information would leak or, at least, to reduce the time any leak could be acted upon.’

  ‘Why wasn’t I told?’ Norman said, but he was smart enough to work out the answer. I just looked at him.

  After a few seconds, he nodded. It didn’t seem to make him any happier.

  ‘So who is the mole?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Will you go on looking?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. If I’m asked to.’

  But I was now a little worried. It had been my carelessness that had allowed Norman to work out that I’d been highly economical with the truth.

  I wondered who else might have come to the same conclusion.

  By the time Norman finally allowed me off the bus, Tony had been summoned to Louisville City Hall to explain to the mayor why one of FACSA’s special agents had shot dead a prominent Kentucky racehorse trainer on his patch. And in the week of the Derby, too, when the entire world’s horseracing media was focused on Churchill Downs. It was the wrong kind of publicity, and most unwelcome.

  My release from the bus, however, did not provide me with access to the barn at the centre of the action. That was still cordoned off by the yellow tape and the local police were proving far too vigilant at keeping me out.

  Hence I was still standing close to the bus when a huge eighteen-wheel truck and trailer pulled up alongside.

  ‘Which one is Hayden Ryder’s barn?’ the driver called, leaning out of the window towards me.

  ‘The one behind the police tape,’ I said. ‘You can’t get there at the moment.’

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Someone got shot,’ I said.

  The driver didn’t seem unduly surprised or worried. Shootings were commonplace.

  ‘I’ve come to pick up Ryder’s horses.’

  That was quick, I thought. Hayden Ryder hadn’t yet been dead for four hours and someone was already here to take away his horses.

  ‘Where are you taking them?’ I asked.

  ‘Chattanooga.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Tennessee,’ said the driver. ‘Three hundred miles south.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Is this going to last long? I’ll have to get going by midday at the latest, or I’m stuck here overnight. I’d be out of hours.’

  I looked at the side of his truck. ‘CHATTANOOGA HORSE TRANSPORT’ was painted in large black letters on the white side of the trailer.

  ‘Have you come from Chattanooga this morning?’ I asked him.

  ‘Sure have,’ he said. ‘I’ve been on the road since five.’

  ‘Five this morning?’ I asked.

  He nodded. ‘Made really good time up I-65 from Nashville.’

  ‘How many horses are you collecting?’

  ‘A full load,’ he said. ‘Fifteen for me. There’s another truck behind me for another nine.’

  All twenty-four horses.

  Hayden Ryder’s whole barn of Thoroughbreds would have been shipped out of Churchill Downs 300 miles south to Chattanooga only three days before the planned FACSA raid.

  Could that be a coincidence?

  I didn’t like coincidences.

  ‘When were you booked for this trip?’ I asked the driver.

  ‘Yesterday,’ he said. ‘Rush job. I’ve had to postpone a trip down to Tampa to fit it in.’

  ‘Which racetrack are you taking the horses to?’

  ‘It’s not a racetrack – there’s no horseracing at all in Tennessee. They’re going to Jasper, west of Chattanooga. To a horse farm.’

  No horseracing in Tennessee.

  How convenient, I thought.

  There would be no state racing commission to authorise any testing. And Jasper might be far enough away not to bother to send someone from Louisville.

  ‘Do you have a name?’ I asked the driver.

  ‘Elvis,’ he said.

  I laughed.

  ‘It’s true. Elvis O’Mally. My dad came over to Tennessee from Ireland as a boy. He was a huge fan of the King.’

  ‘Well, Elvis,’ I said, ‘you wait here. I’ll try and find out when you can get the horses.’

  I wandered a little away from his listening ears and called Tony on the non-smart phone.

  ‘I can’t talk,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m in a meeting with the mayor.’

  ‘Don’t hang up,’ I replied quickly. ‘Listen. Two horse trailers have arrived here to collect all Hayden Ryder’s horses and take them to Tennessee. The trailers left Chattanooga at five o’clock this morning. They were booked yesterday.’

  I allowed time for the significance of the information to sink in.

  ‘And another thing,’ I said. ‘Norman knows.’

  ‘Knows what?’ Tony said.

  ‘He knows the real reason why I’m here. I had to tell him or I’d have been arrested.’

  Or shot.

  ‘I’ll get back there as soon as I can,’ Tony said.

  He hung up.

  I walked back to Elvis the driver, who had climbed down from his cab.

  ‘You’ll have to wait,’ I said.

  ‘For how long?’

  Good question.

  Tony returned shortly after midday, by which time Elvis and his fellow Chattanooga Horse Transport driver had given up waiting.

  ‘It’s a damn shame,’ Elvis had said. ‘I should have been sunning myself on the beach in Tampa, not hanging around up here.’ He climbed up into his cab. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning for this lot.’

  I doubted it.

  I wasn’t certain what would happen now to the twenty-four horses still standing in the barn, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be going to Jasper, Tennessee.

  It would be up to their owners to find them new trainers, either here at Churchill Downs or at another track.

  Elvis was backing up his truck. I went over and banged on the driver’s door. He lowered the window.

  ‘What time yesterday did your trip to Tampa get postponed?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, uninterested. ‘Must have been in the morning. My boss told me when I got back to the depot around one.’

  He turned his eighteen-wheeler around in a space I’d have had trouble turning a dinghy trailer. Then he drove off, followed
by his mate.

  I was still standing by the blue bus when Tony came over to me, with Norman Gibson in tow.

  ‘On the bus,’ Tony ordered.

  The three of us climbed aboard.

  Norman started to complain to Tony that he hadn’t been told the true purpose of my visit but Tony cut him off.

  ‘Tell Norman what you told me.’

  ‘Hayden Ryder’s horses were due to be removed from here today and taken to Tennessee.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Norman said.

  I told him about Elvis and his Chattanooga Horse Transport van.

  ‘Is he still here?’ Norman looked out of the bus windows.

  ‘No. He’s gone. He’d run out of time to drive all the way home today. He told me he’d be back in the morning.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this while he was here?’ Norman was not best pleased.

  ‘I couldn’t get through the police line to find you,’ I replied in my defence. ‘But I do have the company’s phone number.’

  I handed over a piece of paper. I’d copied it off the side of the truck.

  Tony was more interested in the significance of Elvis being there in the first place.

  ‘It means that Hayden Ryder must have been aware of the raid by one o’clock yesterday at the latest.’

  Norman nodded. ‘The stable dispensary has also been packed up in boxes ready to be shipped out.’

  ‘So who told Ryder?’ Tony said.

  It was the all-important question.

  Sadly, we could no longer ask the man himself for the answer.

  10

  There was a debriefing for the FACSA raid team at four o’clock that afternoon, back at the mess hall of the National Guard facility.

  Most of them had spent some of the preceding eight hours being individually interviewed by detectives from the Louisville Police Department’s fatal-shooting investigation team.

  ‘It is perfectly routine,’ Tony told me on the phone when I called him well away from the others. ‘There’s a standard procedure for all officer-involved shootings. Such events bring intense media scrutiny and we have to guard against any damage to the agency’s reputation. Hence the local police conduct a detailed enquiry and interview everyone involved.’

  ‘I wasn’t interviewed,’ I said.

  ‘The fatal-shooting investigation team is only concerned with events up to the moment the shots were fired. You were not a witness to the actual shooting so I didn’t give them your name. I thought it was best to keep you out of it.’