Photo Finish: A Jack Doyle Mystery (Jack Doyle Series Book 5)

by John McEvoy

  Almost at once, Doyle felt a glancing but painful blow on the back of his head. It knocked him to his knees. He fell flat and rolled over onto his side. He recognized the voice of Lenny Ruffalo saying, “Theresa. Theresa. Are you all right?”

  The figure in the bushes struggled up. Doyle realized he had punched a tall, sturdy woman with his quick right cross. He tried to stand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lenny raising a baseball bat.

  Ruffalo kicked Doyle in the stomach twice. Doyle gasped. He could see Lenny reaching back for another kick. Doyle swiveled onto his left hip and kicked the feet out from under Ruffalo whose head bounced off the concrete. Doyle managed to get to his feet.

  Lenny was helped up by his companion. Blood dripped from his scalp where it had landed on the concrete stair. The woman said, “We gotta get out of here.” She picked up the bat Lenny had dropped.

  “That’s what you get, Doyle, you son of a bitch, for threatening me in my house. And there’ll be more you ever do that again,” Ruffalo screeched. The woman grabbed Lenny by his elbow and hustled him down the entrance walk and around the corner. Doyle heard the loud rasp of an old car’s engine, then the screetch of tires.

  Doyle, dizzied and in pain, leaned over the curb and vomited into the gutter. A couple of jaunty joggers swept past him, laughing, one saying, “Can’t hold your booze, buddy?”

  “Fuck you,” Doyle mumbled. He retrieved the brown sack with its now flattened cheeseburger and fries, walked slowly to the rear of his condo building, and deposited the bag in the dumpster. He briefly considered an emergency room visit. Instead, he stumbled through the back door of his building and into the elevator and rode to the second floor. Before making it to his couch, Doyle got a towel, filled it with ice, and held it to his bloodied head.

  “This,” he vowed, “will not go unanswered.” He slept. Four and a half hours later, he woke up, sore as hell, mad as hell.

  It was almost noon when he arrived at the Ruffalo’s Berwyn home. His knock on Lenny’s door as well as his knock on the front door went unanswered. As he started to leave, neighbor Pat Sena leaned across the fence. “If you’re looking for Elvira, she’s at her flower shop.”

  “Actually, I came here to see Lenny.”

  “Well, you’re not going to have any luck there. Lenny and his lady friend left about an hour ago. Said they were going on vacation.”

  “Did they say where?”

  Pat Sena said, “No, they did not.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Doyle made his phone calls, lining up mounts for Mickey Sheehan in the upcoming weekend races. He’d gotten her on some decent mounts. He walked out of Tenuta’s office onto the patch of grass bordering the barn area.

  Raised his face to the early morning sun. Breathed in the air pungent with the odor of hay and horses. Listened to a pair of Mexican-American grooms trying to sing along with the salsa song playing on the boom box they had positioned on the railing at the north end of the barn. A procession of female hot walkers followed with their horses, not at all into the music provided by their co-workers. The men were on their toes while leading their horses, bopping up and down. The women looked tired as they trudged behind but they were chatting happily. Doyle knew a couple of them. Single mothers rearing young children working their asses off to get by. He gave them what he hoped was an encouraging smile. “Hola, Jack Doyle,” answered one of them.

  The two lead men, both in their late twenties, continued down and around the large barn. Their singing was so awful as to be comical. And they knew it. They laughed as they passed him by. He gave them a grin and a thumbs-up. As a survivor of the corporate account executive wars, he was always delighted and appreciative when he observed people at work who liked their work, no matter what the hell it was.

  Doyle saw Ingrid McGuire approaching, groom Paul Albano beside her.

  “Ingrid,” Doyle said, “when you’re done here this morning, can I see you for a minute?”

  She gave him a long look, then a lengthier laugh. “I’ve never seen you wear a ball cap before. Much less one turned backwards.”

  Doyle said, “I’m working on changing my image.” Actually, he had put on the cap to conceal the still sizeable lump on the back of his head from Ruffalo’s bat attack the night before.

  “Do you want to interrogate me about horse communicating, you skeptic? I’ll give you maybe half a minute.” This was the most relaxed he’d seen Ingrid on her backstretch rounds in several days.

  “I’ll be in Ralph’s office. Come in when you can.”

  An hour later, as they sat in Tenuta’s office, Paul Albano poked his head in the door. “Jack, I’m going home to kick back for a couple of hours. I’ll be back before the first race. When you leave, lock the door.”

  Doyle said, “Ingrid. Coffee?”

  “No, thanks. Does Ralph have any bottled water in that battered old mini-fridge?”

  “As a matter of fact, he does. That appliance,” Doyle said as he stepped toward it, “looks like it dates back to the early days of electricity. But it still works.” He handed Ingrid a bottle of water. Reached deep into the second shelf and extracted one of the bottles of Dr. Pepper he had placed there.

  Ingrid opened her water bottle. “Thanks, Jack.” She drank a third of it. Said, “Tell me, how is Ralph dealing with his suspension?”

  “According to Rosa, he’s ‘pacing his house like a panther. Wearing a path in the carpet.’ In other words, driving her nuts. I went there last night for dinner. Great meal as usual. But fun was not had. Ralph is depressed, and pissed, and bewildered and puzzled. He had nothing to do with Madame Golden’s positive. But here he is, stuck with the results. The time away from his job, the smear on his record, it’s killing him.”

  Doyle answered the phone. Relayed Tenuta’s instructions to blacksmith Travis Hawkins for the following day about the horses that needed to be reshod. “Take care, man,” Doyle said as he hung up.

  He turned on the ancient desk fan. It whirred weakly. He said, “Look, Ingrid, I’m sorry I ragged on you the other day about your horse communicating. I was, well, not myself.”

  “Maybe you were yourself,” Ingrid smiled. “But I appreciate your apology. A hard guy like you, you probably don’t do much apologizing.”

  “You’ve got that right,” Doyle grinned. “But I’m working on improvement in that area.”

  “I think you’ve got work to do,” she laughed.

  Ingrid sat back on the couch and lay her head back. “My communicating with horses is a special thing in my life. As, for the most part, horses are. I find them fascinating. Last week I read about what some researchers in France had recently determined. Amazing stuff.”

  Doyle said, “Like what?”

  “Well, they did acoustic analyses of whinnies and the reactions of horses to various recorded whinnies. It all suggested that vocal calls play a very important social role. The whinnies appear to be unique to each individual horse. The researchers described the whinny as a three-part call, having an introduction, a climax, and an ending that varies according to sex. Stallions have low-pitched frequencies. Mares and geldings have higher-pitched frequencies. Horses apparently recognize the voices of their social partners, as the researchers termed them, even when they can’t see each other. That explains their reactions when they’re separated. If these buddies, or social partners, are still within hearing range of each other, which is up to six-tenths of a mile, their reactions are vocally strong.”

  The reclusive cat Tuxedo spurted out from behind a turned-over cushion and leaped onto Ingrid’s lap. Ingrid patted her absently. “I’m kind of used up this morning. Taking over the whole practice from Eric is more than I had bargained for. I’m doing the work, hard work, of two people. But,” she sat up and smiled, “it’s got its rewards. Most of the horses I treat are all doing well and running well. And I’m making more money that I ever have in my life. I’ve actually started to make major inroads into my student loan debt.”

 
; “Do you have any contact with Eric?”

  “Not that I enjoy. He’s so angry and bitter. I just want to stay away from him. He said he went to a counselor on alcoholism and that it was ‘a fiasco.’ People tell me he spends his afternoons in that Big Players Bar at the track. Drinking and betting. Losing money. They’d had to call his brother Rudy a couple of times to take him out of there he was so obnoxious.” She turned her face away from Doyle and looked out the window. “God, it’s just so pitiful what this man is doing to himself. I first knew him when he was a much different, better person.”

  Doyle restrained himself from declaring he’d long considered Eric Allgauer a premier asshole. He changed the subject.

  “Has Plotkin had anything to say for himself lately? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She sat up. “Plotkin is a happy little colt. We’re lucky, you know, that horses can communicate in ways we have yet to imagine. People keep considering them dumb animals. If people would take their time and look into this, they would lose their prejudicial attitude I guarantee you, Jack.

  “I saw a film the other night about a famous cowboy horse trainer named Brannaman. The man holds clinics all over the country on educating horses. He says something early in the movie that struck home to me. ‘A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I’m helping horses with people problems.’ I know exactly where he’s coming from.”

  Ingrid checked her watch and stood up. “I’m due over at Buck Norman’s barn. Gotta go. I’ve got to worm that new filly he just bought.Thanks for the conversation, Jack.”

  Doyle walked her to the door. “You’ve succeeded in making a believer out of me as far as communicating, Ingrid. And I know you’re doing the best for these animals that you treasure and treat. I sure as hell respect that.”

  “Thanks. Maybe you’re more open-minded than I thought.”

  “People have started to say that a lot about me,” Doyle kidded.

  Ingrid climbed into the driver’s seat of her pickup and keyed the ignition. Doyle leaned into her open window. “Listen. Be very careful how you deal with Eric. From all I’ve heard, he’s running off the rails.”

  “Thanks, Jack. I know enough to be careful.”

  She started the engine but didn’t drive off. “Jack, do you ever think about reincarnation? No, no, don’t laugh. I’m serious. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. There are millions of people who believe that after dying and leaving this life, they will return as something other than what they were.”

  “This is a little early in the day for me to tackle serious subjects. I didn’t know they included philosophy in the University of Illinois vet school courses. That’s where you went, right?”

  Ingrid said, “I know you’re being facetious, Jack. That’s probably ingrained in what you are.” She pulled her hat down on her head. He could see she was angry.

  “Ingrid, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that I have many doubts about many practices. Whether they be religious. Philosophical. Hell, culinary, for that matter. I have a hard time trying to determine who is right on a lot of things. Freud? Jung? Noam Chomsky? I lived with a woman for a year and a half who was trying to fight her way through that maze. Had to leave her.”

  “Why was that?”

  Doyle said, “She wore me out.”

  A breeze came up and kicked dust into the parking lot.

  Ingrid put her truck in gear. She said, “It’s not even ten in the morning and I’m asking you probing questions. I’ve got to get going. See you.”

  He leaned back from her truck window. “If I had my choice of animals to return as, I’d be a popular thoroughbred stallion. Good food, good care on some beautiful Kentucky farm. Active sex life lasting for years, with a variety of mates.”

  “Jack, you are something else.” She was still laughing as she turned onto the roadway leading to Buck Norman’s barn, where she had succeeded Eric Allgauer as the chief vet. Doyle waved as she pulled out onto the asphalt roadway.

  Five days later, the horse Keno Chemist, trained by Buck Norman, won the ninth race at Heartland Downs. Four days after that came the positive report of the drug elephant juice discovered in Keno Chemist’s blood and urine tests. The winning purse was ordered to be taken away and redistributed.

  Despite his protests, Buck Norman, another trainer with a previously unblemished record, joined Ralph Tenuta on the thirty-day suspension list.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Doyle drove to their apartment and picked up Mickey and Nora to take them to the Wilfredo Gavidia fund-raising dinner at Heartland Downs. The sisters sat in the back seat of his Accord. He looked in the rear view mirror. “Ladies, you both look great. Save a dance for me.”

  He could see Nora in the mirror nodding to him. Mickey was silent, looking out the window. Doyle said, “Mickey, anything new on Wilfredo?”

  “No. His condition remains the same. I talked to his wife just before you came to get us. She’s having a terrible, terrible time.”

  They sat at a table that had been reserved for them by Moe Kellman. Tenuta had reserved the tickets, but Moe insisted on buying a table. He had told Jack he was unable to attend, but wanted to participate. Doyle read the program. Among the $5000 donors was M. Kellman. Jack sat between the Sheehan sisters. The other two chairs at the table were vacant.

  It was bounteous dinner served buffet style, courtesy of Heartland Downs owner R. L. Duncan. All ticket proceeds would go to the fund for Wilfredo Gavidia and his family.

  A country and western quartet worked assiduously from the temporary bandstand. Every twenty minutes or so, they played a number that lured some of the jockeys and horsemen and their wives or dates to hit the dance floor and line-dance the Texas two-step in impressive fashion.

  Nora watched avidly. “Jack, have you ever done that dance? Looks tricky to me.”

  “It is. And I don’t. I made a fool of myself when I first tried it. Even with all my good footwork carrying over from my boxing days.” He sipped his glass of beer. “When they play one of those slow, mournful country numbers, involving heartbreak and trucks and booze and guns and dogs, deceit, and desertion, I’d be happy to guide you gently and gracefully around the floor.”

  Mickey returned to the table carrying a mounded plate. “Fantastic food display up there, Nora. And Jack. You should give it a go.”

  He followed Nora in the buffet line. She was wearing a well-cut light brown dress. Short enough to show what Doyle thought of as “her excellent wheels.” She was getting admiring glances from several of the nearby males as she talked animatedly to the two women in front of her in the line.

  Back at their table, Mickey had quickly eaten everything on what had been her full plate. “I’ve got my eye on that dessert table,” she said seriously. “Looks feckin’ brilliant.”

  “Your sister is an amazing little person,” Doyle said.

  “I wouldn’t argue with you about that. I love her dearly. She is, well, completely open and enthusiastic. Not like most of the rest of our family.”

  “You’re referring to brother Kieran?”

  “I am indeed.”

  Another couple came from the buffet line to claim the two open seats at their table. Doyle got up, shook hands with the man, and introduced himself and the Sheehan girls.

  The man, medium height, husky, well dressed, said,”I’m Mel Benbow. I’m a customer of Moe Kellman’s. He was nice enough to invite us to share his table. This is my wife Melody. Nice to meet you.”

  Benbow dug into his his laden food plate. He said, “Jack, I think I remember you. I used to work in television. Now, I produce a lot of product for various Internet sites. I saw those clips of you at that racetrack balloon disaster a years ago. Am I right? You’re that guy, right?”

  “Yes. That was me.” Nora was looking at him. Surprised and expectant. Waiting for an explanation. Doyle gave her a look suggesting that he would explain later. “Yes, Mel, that was me. If you don’t mind
, I’d rather not talk about it.”

  Melody Benbow laughed dismissively. She looked to Doyle as if she’d had at least a couple of visits to the open bar to rev up what appeared to be her unpleasant attitude. “He’d rather not talk about it,” Melody said. “What a hero.” She drained her glass of Scotch and soda. Challenged him with a snarky little grin.

  Melody’s makeup was draining in small rivulets down her obviously surgically remodeled face. Jack turned to talk to Nora, but Melody would not let go. “So what kind of hero were you?” Doyle knew she was being contentious. “I was not a hero,” Doyle said. “All I did in that moment was get the hell out of the way of being killed. Hero. It’s a much overused word these days. It’s thrown around without a lot of regard for accuracy.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Mel Benbow said.

  “I’m sure we all recall the plane that went down in the Hudson River after leaving that New York airport. I don’t remember if it was from Kennedy or LaGuardia. A few years back. Whatever. The media repeated again and again that the pilot was a hero. Bullshit.”

  Melody said, “Why wasn’t that pilot a hero, Doyle?”

  “Because a hero is someone who risks his or her own life to save another or others. This pilot, adroitly landing his plane on the river with no damage to his passengers, was not a ‘hero.’ He was saving his own ass as well as all the people on his plane. What he was was an extremely efficient practitioner of his craft. God bless him. A remarkable man. Very good pilot. But no ‘hero’ by my definition.”

  Melody, angry, said, “Well, who do you consider heroes, Mr. Doyle?”

  “Heroes? The soldier that falls on a live grenade to protect his platoon. Firemen who charge into burning buildings. Cops who get into gun fights with armed criminals. In other words, people who voluntarily risk their lives and well being. There was nothing voluntary about what the Hudson River pilot did. He had to try and do what he did.” Doyle stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get a beer. Nora, you want anything?”