Blind Switch

by John McEvoy

  Mortvedt’s grip tightened on the handle of the pitchfork. He looked across Bolger’s prostrate form at the shaken Repke. “Don’t turn pussy on me now, Jud. Not now. I’ll teach this old boy not to mess us up,” Mortvedt said, his chest heaving.

  Repke paled as he saw Mortvedt raise the pitchfork. “Ronnie, wait, don’t kill him,” Repke pleaded. “I’m not in this with you for no murder charge.”

  Mortvedt paused, the fork at shoulder level. “All’s I said was teach him a lesson. And I will.” He looked across Bolger into Repke’s face, grinning that terrible little icy grin of his, the meanness of him thick and tangible in the darkened barn.

  He brought the pitchfork handle down with a sickening thud on Bolger’s left knee. The sound was like a muffled gunshot. Mortvedt raised the fork again, this time slamming it down on Bolger’s right knee. Bolger cried out from the depths of his unconsciousness. Mortvedt hooted with satisfaction. Repke, stunned by the terrible damage he’d just seen done, was barely aware of Mortvedt shoving him toward the barn entrance.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Mortvedt said. He motioned to Repke to pick up the electrical cord and clips. He handled the pitchfork himself. The only sound as the two men exited the barn was that of the unsettled horses, moving about in their stalls.

  Chapter 23

  Just after 2:30 that rainy morning, Doyle was awakened from one of his rare dreamless sleeps by the sound of the phone near his bed. As he reached for the receiver in the dark, the thought flashed to mind that never in his life had he ever answered a phone call in this section of the night that signaled good news.

  “Jack,” he heard Caroline’s voice saying, speaking low so as not to awaken her children, “Jack, I’m terribly sorry to call you at his hour. But,” Doyle heard her whisper urgently, “Aldous has gone out, and not come back, Jack. I think he went on one of his late-night inspection tours. I was reading in bed, and I barely heard the front door open and close. He said nothing before he left.”

  “How long ago?”

  “More than a half-hour. He never takes that long usually. And I just rang his cell phone but there’s no answer. Jack, could I ask you to go and take a look for him?”

  “No problem,” said Doyle. “I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” he added, wishing that he felt a bit more confident of what he’d told her, “but I’ll go right out. We’ll be back soon,” he assured Caroline before hanging up. He slipped on his jeans and boots, reached for yesterday’s T-shirt, and was out the door in his poncho a minute later. Before he started down the cottage steps, however, he turned back, went inside and grabbed the heavy flashlight he kept in a pantry cupboard. It was the only weapon-like object he owned. He hoped he’d need it only for its illuminating powers.

  Doyle trotted through the rain to the stallion barn and entered through its open door. The horses stirred and shifted noisily in the darkness. Doyle felt for a light switch to the right of the door. Unable to locate it, he switched on the flashlight, then the lights. Moving forward slowly he approached the body centered on the barn floor with horrified disbelief.

  The right side of Bolger’s head was so swollen and disfigured Jack briefly thought it was another man, one he did not know. But then he recognized the New Zealander’s blood-spattered windbreaker, the one with the Willowdale Farm logo, and his eyes fastened on the distinctive white-blond hair turned dark by the pool of cranial blood in which it lay.

  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 pr
ess, 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 agreeing 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.