High Stakes

by John McEvoy

  “I shouldn’t have used those words, Jack. You’re right. There’s nothing halfway about Esther’s eccentricities. She’s a nutcase.”

  Ingrid said, “So much so you think she’d kill horses to, quote, ‘put them out of their misery,’ unquote, like the notes left behind suggest?”

  Caldwell considered this. Finally, he said, “Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t put it past her. Esther’s basically a good gal, believe me. But she’s a fanatic on this subject. But she’s also one very, very bright woman. Not one used to getting her hands soiled in any kind of dirty work. But, with all her money, I guess she could afford to hire out jobs she doesn’t want to do.” He paused to look out over the racetrack. “And,” he said slowly, “get her going about retired horses being used for experiments, or whatever, and she loses all cool. Hell, when she came to the track she wouldn’t even watch races. Couldn’t stand to see jocks using their whips.”

  ***

  Riding down in the elevator, Doyle said, “I’m glad you asked Caldwell for Esther’s phone number.”

  “Odd that she doesn’t have a cell phone. That he contacted her by calling her home.”

  They sat on a bench outside the clubhouse entrance. Doyle pulled his phone from his pocket.

  “Wait. What are you going to say to Esther?”

  Doyle said, “Just that I’d like to talk to her. About her charitable work for animal safety. That I’m interested in becoming involved. How’s that sound?”

  Ingrid shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

  The phone at the Ness home rang seven times before it was picked up. Doyle asked to speak to Ms. Ness. After he gave his name, he was told by a woman identifying herself as Esther’s mother that Esther “continues to be traveling out of the country.” Was there a way to reach her? “Oh, no,” the woman laughed, “our daughter is a very independent spirit, Mr. Doyle. I have no idea where she is or when she’s coming back. But, she always does. I’ll tell her you called and leave her your number. Let me get a pen…”

  Chapter Eight

  Doyle returned from his early morning run along Chicago’s beautiful lakefront, feeling, as usual, both pleasantly tired and thoroughly invigorated. Five miles in forty-five minutes without pulling a hamstring or popping a quad. A good feeling on a soft and sunny early summer morning.

  As the door to his condo foyer closed behind him, he noticed that his mail had already arrived. It included a couple of bills, that week’s The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated, and the usual collection of unwanted catalogs plus a few requests for charitable donations. Standing out was a beige envelope bearing several Irish stamps. He waited until he had toweled off and downed a bottle of cold water before opening it.

  The enclosed invitation was from the Irish Sportswomen’s Association, an organization he had never heard of. It summoned him to a dinner in Dublin honoring the Association’s Person of the Year, Mickey Sheehan. As delighted as he was surprised, Doyle grinned while uttering “Yesssss! All riiiight!” His one-time jockey client had obviously made her successful mark in her native country after returning from her stint in the States at Heartland Downs.

  Thanks to e-mailed updates from Mickey’s older sister, freelance journalist Nora Sheehan, Doyle was aware that Mickey’s first full year of riding back on home turf had been notably successful. Mickey had finished fourth in Ireland’s very competitive jockey standings, the only woman in the top twenty, with ninety-seven victories. An impressive eight of those triumphs had come in stakes races. As was the case at Heartland Downs when Doyle was selecting horses for her to ride, little Mickey had become a big name.

  In addition to the invitation, there was a handwritten note in the envelope:

  Dear Jack, I know this is short notice, but Mickey and I surely hope you can come over for this dinner. It would be great to see you again. If you wish, you could stay with me in the little house I recently rented in Bray. Let us know soonest, please. All the best, Nora

  During the Sheehan sisters’ previous summer spent in the U.S., when Nora served as companion and chaperone for her jockey sister, Doyle had become close with both. Especially the beautiful, witty, and adventurous Nora, an ambitious freelance journalist. Doyle booked mounts for Mickey and, on several mutually pleasing occasions, bedded her sister. Like Doyle, Nora was an ardent believer in lovemaking between eagerly consenting adults without, as she once put it, “any bit of string attached.” He couldn’t have agreed more.

  Nora, never married and some ten years younger than Doyle, had asked him about his marital status, having assumed, she said, “that you are single.”

  “Twice married,” he told her. “Two painful disasters. Never again. As far as women go, I live my life a la carte.”

  Doyle placed the envelope on the coffee table, walked over to look at his desk calendar and saw nothing but white space for the Irish weekend in question. Certainly he could take at least a few days away from his sleuthing in pursuit of the mysterious horse killer, which had thus far been an exercise in futility. Then he got out his credit card and linked to the Aer Lingus website on his laptop.

  Two afternoons later Doyle took his window seat on the about-to-be-filled airplane destined for Dublin. He nodded to his seat partners, an elderly couple both quietly friendly and disposed to keeping to themselves. Fine with Doyle. He’d suffered in-flight boors during previous flying days. There was very little chatter, he noticed, as most of the younger people on board were engrossed with texting or already leaning back, eyes closed and earplugs in, listening to music they’d brought.

  He accepted a copy of USA Today provided by the flight attendant offering reading matter up and down the aisle. After a quick perusal of the sports section, he was about to place the paper in the seat pocket in front of him when he noticed a bold-faced story on the business page.

  “Internet Phenom Reaps Fortune” read the headline above the photo of the large, gloating face of a young man named Wendell Pilling. According to the article, Pilling, now in his late twenties, “created and developed the latest sensational entry in the lucrative field of Internet social media. Only three years after its introduction, his company was sold to a giant American hedge fund for an estimated half-billion dollars.

  “What next for this young genius?” the story continued. “‘I’m not one to brag,’ Pilling said. ‘I’ll just be looking around for new worlds to conquer. Isn’t that what Alexander the Great did when he was about my age?’”

  Doyle crumpled up the paper. “Christ, another Gen X asshole,” he muttered as he shoved the paper into the seat pocket. The elderly lady beside him gave him a startled and inquiring look. He sat back in his seat. “Not to worry,” he smiled. “It’s just something I read in the paper.” He turned away and looked out the window as the plane headed east, away from the starting-to-set sun.

  Chapter Nine

  Waiting in the Customs line at Dublin Airport, Doyle looked ahead of the crowd in front of him and grinned as he spotted the same effusive official he had seen on his only previous visit to his ancestral homeland. He well remembered the tall, lanky, friendly, middle-aged man energetically greeting both first-time visitors and returnees. Doyle didn’t need to see the man’s nametag to know it said F. Flynn.

  “Doyle, now. From the U.S. of A.,” Flynn said as he opened the passport. “Ah, now, a second trip here, eh? Well, Mr. Doyle, welcome home. Are you back to see relatives?”

  “No, just friends.”

  Flynn waved him forward. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing old ones and making new ones, yeah.”

  When he’d phoned Nora the previous afternoon to tell her his arrival time, she’d said, “Sorry I can’t meet you, Jack. I’ve got an assignment to finish for my new Internet employer, World Irish. I’ll be busy all day.”

  “No problem,” said Doyle, disappointed though he was.

  Nora said, “Just take a taxi to the dinner and I’ll see you
there. You can park your luggage in the cloakroom until we go to my place after the event. Cocktails at six, dinner at seven. Travel safely. Mickey and I are very much looking forward to seeing you.”

  Doyle told the driver, “the Mansion House,” then settled into the backseat of the taxi. Traffic was heavy this late Saturday afternoon. Driver Tim Carey could be heard muttering in frustration as they were forced to lag for blocks behind a slow-moving bus.

  A copy of that day’s Irish Times, the nation’s leading daily newspaper, lay on the seat. Doyle picked it up. His eyebrows elevated when he saw a headline at the bottom of the front page “Reptile Sanctuary Opens.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “What’s that, sir?” Carey said.

  “Story here about a reptile sanctuary. I thought your island was famously free of snakes, thanks to St. Patrick.”

  Carey laughed. “For the most part we still certainly are. Are you reading now about the man who has been saving snakes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Carey said, “those creatures are not native to our island. Back in the boom days, owning a snake became kind of a status symbol for, thank God, a small segment of our new rich folk. They were paying, oh, six hundred or seven hundred Euros for these imported creatures. Said they used them for conversation starters, if you can imagine that now. But it happened. Then, when the boom went bust, many snake owners discarded their so-called trophy pets. Feckin’ amazing.”

  Doyle said, “I’d agree with that.” He opened the paper to where the story continued. “Says here the fellow who opened a reptile sanctuary is housing a couple of pythons. And a California king snake, whatever that is. Even a six-foot boa constrictor. I’ll be damned,” Doyle repeated as he put the paper back on the seat next to him.

  Ten minutes into the ride, as Carey waited at a traffic light, Doyle saw a large, noisy group of protestors marching up and down outside six-story building that appeared to be abandoned “What’s that all about?” he said.

  “Ya see the weeds in the sidewalk there?” Carey answered. “Inside that dingy brick facade you’d find ripped up floors and holes punched into walls. What you’re looking at is one of what we call our ‘ghost developments.’ Apartment buildings thrown up when the Celtic Tiger was roaring.” He lowered his window and spat into the street. “Now, of course, the Tiger has turned feckin’ tabby. Some folks call it the ‘Celtic Carcass.’ I don’t know if I’d term it that meself. What you’re seeing is a bunch of furious folks who bought apartments in a building that was never completely finished before the economy tanked and the value of the building went down the drain with it. They’re stuck. They’re still supposed to keep up mortgage payments on those failed properties. And they’re furious mad. Can’t blame ’em, yeah. There’s a protest there every weekend.”

  The light changed. Carey took a sharp right. “Let me show you another bunch,” he said. “Won’t take but a minute, it’s on our way.”

  Five blocks later, Doyle could begin to hear the bullhorns. This was an even more vociferous collection of citizens, both sexes, many ages and sizes.

  “See those protest signs?” Carey said. “This group is on about the one-hundred Euro tax on all households by our government. Thieves and ijits sank the feckin’ economy and now regular folk are supposed to do the rescuing. Well, that’s a non-starter for these folks. Or me either.” He rolled down his window for another emphatic expectoration before finally pulling up to the entrance of Mansion House on Dawson street, site of the dinner.

  “Well,” Jack said, handing in the fare and a sizeable tip, “that was an educational trip.”

  Doyle had done his Google research regarding this famous edifice. It had been the official residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1715. Tonight’s event would be held in Mansion House’s Round Room, built in 1821 in preparation for a visit by England’s King George IV. The Round Room accommodated as many as five hundred diners, Nora had e-mailed him, adding, “The place reeks of history. There’ll probably also be layers of whiskey and ale fumes in the mix during cocktail time.”

  Before he’d reached the top of the steps, he saw Nora Sheehan waving a greeting. They embraced. “My God,” Doyle said, “this damp climate surely agrees with you. You look terrific.” He took a step back for assessment. “Great green dress that matches your eyes,” he said, “and a certain flush of excitement highlighting those classic cheekbones. Must be my presence.”

  Nora laughed as she took his arm. “Same old Jack Doyle. Thank heavens for that.”

  He shifted his traveling bag to his left hand and circled her small waist with the other arm as they walked through the entrance.

  “The coat room folks will take your bag now,” Nora said. “I’ll have room at my little house for it tonight.” She gave his arm a squeeze.

  Nora led him to a table in the front row and introduced him to the six people already seated there, all friends of hers from Dublin’s journalism world. A hulking man named Seamus O’Sullivan gave Doyle a hearty handshake while thanking him for “coming to us across the pond. I know Mickey is delighted you’re here.”

  Doyle shook hands with the other men and smiled at the ladies before sitting down and looking up at the head table that stretched across a raised stage. Little Mickey Sheehan, beaming, waved enthusiastically down at him. More used to seeing her either in jockey silks or morning work clothes for exercising horses, he looked appreciatively at her petite figure in a stylish light blue dress with white collar and cuffs. He waved back before walking to the bar for cocktails for Nora and himself.

  Dinner was buffet style. Following Nora in the line, Doyle opted for the green pea and ham hock soup, char-grilled Hereford sirloin steak (“It’s not Gibson’s back home, but it’s pretty damn good,” he told Nora), white chocolate raspberry truffle. Her salad and salmon pave, Nora said, “was surprisingly excellent for catered food of this sort.” Nora nudged Doyle when they looked over from their table to see Mickey go through the food line for the second time. “The girl still measures five feet and weighs just over seven stone,” Nora said. “A marvelous metabolism for that lucky person.”

  Before the speeches began, Doyle said, “Nora, what about your brother Kieran? I see he’s not here. Are he and Mickey still back on good terms?” The riding siblings, estranged for years, had reestablished a relationship the previous summer when Mickey rode against, and defeated, her older brother in a rich race at Heartland Downs. That was headline news in the racing world, the young female apprentice besting her older brother, the man who had for several seasons been Ireland’s leading jockey.

  Nora said, “Oh, Jack, you know Kieran. An iconoclast of the first order. He has little time for racing’s press, or its fans. Good public relations has never been one of Kieran’s strengths.”

  Seamus O’Sullivan leaned forward across the table toward Jack. “Kieran pulls no punches along those lines. I covered probably the last dinner at which he spoke publicly. Kieran was very definite, the scowling little man. Said most turf writers don’t know shite, that they just write what they want to write, not knowing what they’d seen. Somebody asked him if he felt any obligation to communicate with the bettors. Hah! Kieran’s response was, and I remember it well, ‘My first obligation is to the horse. Then the owner and trainer. You can have all the bettors. They’re like coat holders. If you get in a fight, they’re happy to hold your coat. If you win, they’re with a winner. If you lose, they keep your coat.’” Doyle joined in the laughter at that statement. “That’s our brother,” Nora said quietly.

  “Have Mickey and Kieran ridden against each other here recently?” Doyle said.

  Nora said, “Not recently, and not ever over here. They rode against each other a couple of times in France, once in Germany. Kieran won them both. Mickey got a third and a fourth.

  “It’s not like it is in the States. Here in Ireland, direct competition
between blood relatives is prohibited under the rules of racing. Of course, they’ve ridden on the same racing program, but never against each other. That’s so there can never be any possibility of collusion. Not that Kieran or Mickey would ever agree to anything like that.”

  “You must be a very suspicious people,” Doyle smiled.

  “Perhaps rightfully so,” Nora said.

  Chapter Ten

  As tea, coffee, and after-dinner drinks were being served, mistress of ceremonies Bernadette Ann Trainor tapped the microphone for attention and the program proceeded. First up was a five-minute video of Mickey Sheehan riding highlights from races both at Irish tracks and Heartland Downs. The topper, of course, was Mickey’s thrilling photo-finish victory aboard Plotkin in the Heartland Downs Futurity in which she beat her famous brother Kieran. The video elicited hearty applause, as did Ms. Trainor’s introduction of the honoree.

  Watching his former client approach the microphone, Doyle thought, She is a marvel. He vividly recalled the horrible racing accident in which Mickey had been involved when he served as her agent at Heartland Downs during her lone Chicago summer. The anguished trip to the hospital that followed, the fearful hours before it was determined she had suffered no critical injuries when she’d plummeted to the turf, her protective helmet leaving a large divot, “only” a badly bruised face and tendon damage in her right wrist and hand. He remembered Nora’s yelp of relief when the emergency room physician delivered that report and Nora’s assurance. “My sister will fight back from this, Jack,” she’d said. Embracing the trembling Nora that evening, Doyle had his doubts. He shouldn’t have.

  During the weeks after the spill, Doyle watched Mickey almost immediately begin physical therapy. Her rehab regimen included swimming and jogging to maintain aerobic levels and she resumed her yoga that she said helped her with flexibility and balance. All of it led to her being back in the saddle in less than a month, this to everyone’s amazement accept Mickey’s.