by John McEvoy
“Doyle,” Damon said angrily, “did you suspect this woman was the killer? I’d like to know right now!”
“Oh, Damon, c’mon, man, loosen that knot in your government shorts. I’ll say, yeah, the thought of her being involved crossed my mind a couple of times. Tell you the truth, I was more worried about discovering Ingrid McGuire as the perp. A couple of times, when I looked back on it, I thought Ingrid seemed to know maybe a little too much about the killings before we talked about them. I mean, in advance of me saying anything. But I was just plain wrong about Ingrid being involved. For which, may I add, I am grateful.”
Doyle walked off a couple of yards toward the mean-looking Kinder goat who produced a loud warning bleat. “Calm down, old fella,” Doyle said, patting the animal’s broad black nose.
Harry Schwartz suddenly reappeared in the doorway. “I forgot to take my sandwich,” the old guard said. “Can I get it from the office?” Damon said, “Go ahead. Don’t say anything to the person in there.” Schwartz quickly emerged from the office, carrying a grease-stained brown bag. He said, “Don’t forget to leave the lights on low like I usually do. “Fine, sir. Thanks for your assistance,” Damon said.
Chapter Sixty
They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, Damon writing in his notebook, Karen texting their Bureau office, Jack taking deep breaths. Esther had her head down, hands covering her ears. Doyle thought she appeared to have lost weight since he’d seen her at her farm weeks before. Perhaps her ill-advised campaign had taken that kind of toll on her.
Damon finally said, “You’re in a serious jam here, Ms. Ness. Karen, go ahead.” Karen read the Miranda rights. Esther listened, then looked up. She said softly, “I have feared this day for months. Even after I became determined to go forward after the first horse death. Obsessed with thinking about all the other horses held captive in these vet schools that needed me.”
“Esther,” Jack said, “you’ve got me buffaloed here. Didn’t you donate a couple of your own horses to these schools? Isn’t that right?”
“I made a foolish mistake when I did that. I thought it would be a good, a useful thing. But when I went to visit the horses I’d donated, and saw how they were subjected to these research projects, these indignities, I was repelled. I attempted to retrieve them from those schools. I found that could not be done without a long legal battle because I had signed over ownership to the schools involved.”
She paused to look at her three captors, one by one, before saying, “I realized I could not quickly retrieve them, so I decided to put my horses out of their miserable existences. And later,” she said forcefully, “others like them. I have no regrets that I did so.”
Karen said, “Ms. Ness, surely you must have been aware you were breaking laws.”
“Yes, laws that cried out to be broken. But as I went along, it got harder and harder for me. I knew I was being hunted. Jack Doyle inadvertently kept me informed about the investigation’s progress when he questioned me at my farm. Or lack of progress at that point. But I was aware of the great efforts that were being put into it. And,” she said, looking directly at Doyle, “guilt was eating away at me. I knew how determined you were to find me.”
Doyle thought about saying to the agents, “That’s what I do for you, throw fear into the hearts of wrongdoers,” but decided not to.
“And the pressure kept building,” Esther said. “I started having nightmares about being caught and sent to prison. So, I made an attempt to throw anyone off my trail. That’s why I offered the reward. That was an attempt to divert any possible attention from me. Still, I could feel the pressure building.
“That is why I finally decided that after this one, Saint Lester, I would stop. Permanently. I just couldn’t live any longer with that growing pressure.” She hesitated before adding, “You probably don’t believe me. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. But I swear to God that’s how I felt. I was never going to do it again.”
Damon said, “Ms. Ness, we’re going to have to take you downtown now. You can call a lawyer now, or in the car, or when we get to our office. Up to you.”
Doyle held open the north barn door for this somber group. The rain had finally stopped, and this part of rural Illinois smelled refreshingly clean beneath the star-strewn sky. Karen reached up to flick away a few mosquitoes that were advancing, and Esther Ness nodded a thank you. “You can sit in the front seat with me, Ms. Ness. No handcuffs, just the seatbelt if you would. Let’s go.”
Jack said, “So, Damon, what’ll happen with Ness?”
“How would I know, Jack? She hasn’t been even booked yet. Arraignment is the next step, then a bail hearing.”
Jack said, “Okay, how about an educated guess. Would this woman be facing prison time?”
“Jack, I don’t know what’s coming for Ness. I got enough to deal with tonight, wrapping up this arrest.”
Chapter Sixty-one
Less than five days later, Esther Ness’ fate had been decided. Jack had just returned to his condo from his morning run when he heard his cell phone.
“Karen. What’s up?”
“Damon and I want to buy you breakfast. Can you meet us at Petros’ in a half-hour?”
“I will not refuse such government largesse,” Doyle said. “I’ll just wonder about it. You must have an update on Heiress Esther. See you there.”
Walking into the restaurant, Doyle saw the agents in the back booth. Darla the waitress said hello, adding that “Petros says to tell you and your friends back there that breakfast is on him today. It’s, I don’t know, some kind of Greek holiday.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Darla, tell Smelly I’ll highlight this date on my calendar for his only known generous gesture as long as I’ve been coming in here.” He said good morning to the agents and sat down in the booth across from them. “You have something to report?” The looks on their faces caused him to groan. “Okay,” he said “Let’s have it.”
Damon said, “Jack, this is the way these things go, like it or not. Ms. Millionaire Ness’ team of expensive lawyers had several long sessions with a team of federal prosecutors. The result? She agreed to plead guilty to two counts of ‘victimless’ crime.”
“Victimless?” Jack said. “Two counts? How about those horses besides hers she killed? I can’t fucking believe this!”
Karen said, “Jack, that is just the way it worked out. What can I tell you? With Ness’ plea bargain, the government avoids the expense of a trial and, in the case of this wealthy woman, probably an appeal if she were to lose the first round. So, Esther goes to federal prison for six months, pays a fifty-thousand-dollar fine, agrees to do five hundred hours of community service upon being freed.”
“Well, hell,” Doyle said. “That must be some all-star team of lawyers she’s got.” He leaned back in his seat and turned to look out the window. “The fucking power of money,” he said bitterly. “There are black teenagers from Chicago’s west side in Joliet Prison for five years for selling crack to the wrong carload of eagerly buying white kids from Winnetka and Wilmette. And here’s Esther, who caused anguish and expense at all these vet schools, and she sashays into a federal country club?”
Damon said, “I don’t like it either, Jack. But that’s the way it goes.” He got up. Karen followed. Jack sat still for a couple of minutes.
“They say ‘money talks and bullshit walks’? Naw,” Doyle said, sliding out of his side of the booth, “bullshit and money go hand-in-fucking hand.”
It was a sunny morning, one hardly reflective of Doyle’s mood as he said good-bye to the agents on the sidewalk outside Petros’. He shook Damon’s hand, kissed Karen’s cheek. “I know you two did your best. Nothing you could do to change this outcome. What the hell…”
They parted, but Jack stopped walking and turned back. “Hey, Karen! Damon! One question,” Jack shouted. “What federal country club is Esther N
ess headed for?”
Damon said, “What we heard, Jack, is that Ness is scheduled for that new women’s prison in West Virginia.”
“Well, too bad,” Doyle said. “Too bad they don’t have coed prisons. They could have sent Esther up there to Lexford in Wisconsin so she could join forces with Rexroth, that bastard. Both arrogant. Wealthy. Made for each other.”
Karen walked up and gave Jack a hug, startling both Jack and the nosey Petros who was peering out his restaurant’s front window.
“The system grinds on, and we try to do better, but most often we can’t, Jack.” She backed off, smiling at him now. “We do our best. Take care now.”
He watched as Damon and Karen drove south down Clark Street toward the Loop. It was starting to heat up on this typical Chicago late summer day. He nodded at the inquisitive Petros, went to his car, and drove to Fit City.
In the health club’s locker room, Doyle quickly changed into his workout clothes. He put on his gloves and warmed up on the light bag for five minutes, rapping it back and forth in a rhythm he always tried to approximate with that of the jazz drummers in the bebop classics he loved.
Then he slid over to attack the heavy bag. Head down, raining left hooks followed by thumping right crosses, moving his feet left-right, then right-left around the swaying canvas target. He pounded away for nine minutes before stepping back, arms at his sides, breathing heavily, sweat drenched, feeling not a whole lot better. But some.
Epilogue
At Moe’s invitation, Jack joined him in front row third-base Wrigley Field box seats on a beautiful September afternoon. “I buy these seats every year to use for clients,” Moe had said on the phone. “Most of them don’t want to accept them anymore for this lousy Cubs team. Meet me on the Addison side around one. We’ll catch up.”
The old ballpark was barely a third-full in this final month of one of the Cubs’ all-time worst seasons. The team was right on pace to lose one hundred games. The announced crowd of some eleven thousand in a facility that often held more than thirty-five thousand was, as usual, comprised primarily of white women and men who were spending more time drinking high-priced beer, flirting, or talking on cell phones than observing the ineptitude of the home team. Most of the few African-Americans or Latinos present were in baseball or vendor uniforms.
Moe said, “My secretary told me this morning that Cub tickets for today’s game were selling on e-Bay for a buck. These seats we’re in cost $142 a pop per game. The average price this year here at Wrigley was $44 for a ticket. Talk about fleecing sheep!”
The Cubs were now owned by members of a wealthy family whose ardently tax-foe patriarch had designated millions of dollars trying to defeat Barack Obama in the presidential election. All this, while attempting to wring tax breaks from the city of Chicago for the renovation of the aged, iconic ball yard. That attempt had failed. Consequently, the new owners raised prices ten percent for the privilege of watching their sparse talent perform depressingly.
Today’s Cubs lineup included two players with batting averages falling below the so-called Mendoza Line, infamously named for a major league player whose batting average never topped .200 thus creating the sorry statistical plateau that memorializes him.
Doyle bought beers. He said, “I notice they haven’t lowered the concession prices to mirror the quality of the product on the field. My Uncle Owen told me this is the worst Cubs team he’s ever seen during all his years as a fan. He fell into that trap as a kid in 1943. Got encouraged when they made the World Series in 1945. He’s been waiting for a repeat ever since.”
The second inning ended with the Cubs down 3-0. “All we can do here this afternoon, Moesy, is catch a little sun, drink a few beers, and relax.”
“Good idea. You’ve had an interesting summer, Jack. Being the target of an attempt on your life financed by your old enemy Rexroth. Back and forth to Ireland helping to protect Niall Hanratty. Working to stop that rich jerk Pilling from threatening those Burkhardts, the horse owners. And helping nab Esther Ness.Wasn’t there a reward offered for the horse killer? Fifty thousand? What happened with that?”
“There was a lot of back and forth about that. Then Esther Ness, who actually put up the money, maybe having tried to distance herself from any suspicion in the investigation, declared it should go to the young man who gave us the tip that led to her apprehension! The guy who helped catch her! Nice young man named Randy Meier, who is back playing football out there for Rockland College, where Esther’s criminal campaign came to an end. I don’t know if Esther was acting out of guilt, or a sense of responsibility. Who cares? She’s got the money to spare.”
They got to their feet for the seventh inning stretch. In keeping with recent Wrigley Field tradition, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was being rousingly led from the broadcast booth by another in the succession of second- or third-rate celebrities eager to undertake this duty, most of whose voices were almost as far off-key as the Cubs were from first-place.
Two innings later Wrigley Field was alive with cheers. The Cubs had come from behind to win 6-5 with a ninth inning rally. At game’s end, the players dashed from the field and dugout to join in a joyous piling-on near home plate. The now diminished crowd roared approvingly when the Cubs finally left the field, arms raised triumphantly.
Doyle said, “Can you believe this, Moe? These guys are actually celebrating as they approach the end of one of the worst seasons in Chicago baseball history! They should be scurrying off to the locker room, hanging their heads, covering their faces!”
“Jack, Jack, look around you. These people here are ecstatic. Those five drunks sitting over to the left of us are still hollering ‘Cubs win! Cubs win!’ It’s an amazing slice of Cub mania.”
Doyle said, “These saps are like my uncle Owen. What they’re doing should be interpreted as a cry for help. Let’s get our asses out of this cathedral of the delusional.”
On their way to the exit, Moe stopped, looking back at the diamond. “When I was a kid, Fifi Bonadio and I used to sneak into this ballpark. I’m talking years ago. Back then, when the game was over, fans could leave the stands and walk across the diamond to the exit on the right field side under the El tracks. I would always stop on the mound. Stand there on the rubber, wind up, pretend I was pitching for the Cubs. It was a huge thrill for a kid like me. I’ll never forget it. They don’t let people do that anymore.”
“The Cubs might have used your pitching talents in recent years.”
Moe said, “Ha ha.”
Out on Addison, they wended their way through the souvenir sellers of Cubs tee-shirts, hats, and caps, all doing a brisk business. Moe’s driver Pete Dunleavy was standing next to the double-parked Lincoln, chatting with a Chicago Police patrolman. Moe waved at Dunleavy before saying, “Jack, have you ever considered giving up on the Cubs? Becoming a White Sox fan?”
“Not for a second,” Doyle said.
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