by John McEvoy
“I didn’t know Damon had that much of a sense of humor.”
Karen said, “Jack, let’s face it. He’s not the only person you know who doesn’t, well, ‘much care for you,’ as you put it. You tend to be abrasive a lot of the times. Acerbic. You know what I mean.”
Doyle, starting to get pissed off, was about to prove her right when he sat back in his chair, took a deep breath. “And often an asshole. Does that sum it up? Is that what you’re saying?” He thought he could hear her draw a deep breath, too. Karen said, “Could we get back to business here? What I called about?”
“I looked around the room and found my composure,” Doyle said. “Proceed.”
“Shall I pick you up at Petros’ at about six-thirty. Is that good? Are they open then?”
Doyle said, “That Greek starts heating the grease at six. Want to join me for an early breakfast? I’ll buy.”
“Frankly, watching you devour another one of your cholesterol-packed platters does not appeal to me. Bring me out a Danish and a large decaf, black, okay? I’ll be in front of the restaurant.”
“In one of the usual, unmarked, extremely recognizable government-issue cars?”
“Of course.”
Doyle laughed. “If I supplied you with one of Petros’ Greek-baked leaden Danishes, you wouldn’t be able to steer the car. I’ll grab you a raisin bagel from the Brooklyn Boys shop down the street. They’ve got decent coffee, too. See you in the a.m.”
***
Karen was an excellent driver, smoothly zipping down the Dan Ryan before taking the Chicago Skyway to the Indiana Tollway and heading east. Wearing a dark blue pants suit and white blouse, black hair cut short, practical shoes, she looked to Doyle like her usual model of efficiency. Maybe a couple of worry lines had been added to her pretty face since he’d first known her, perhaps a pound or two to the athletic frame that had earned her a scholarship and women’s volleyball honors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison a decade earlier. He sat back in his seat, ready to enjoy again the company of this attractive woman. He said, “I’ve been to Carmel in California. Never to the Hoosier version. How long do you figure it’ll take?”
“We should be there by ten. That’s when we’re scheduled to meet with the head of the college vet school. A Dr. Hank Oettinger. He’s still pretty shaken up over the death of their horse. Eager to help me. Us,” she amended, smiling.
Doyle said, “I guess these fed mobiles don’t allow for music CDs. Anything frivolous of that sort.”
“’Course not.”
He looked out the window at the gray industrial face of Gary, Indiana. and briefly recalled a song of that name from some movie musical soundtrack his folks played. “What about polite conversation during these taxpayer-financed ventures? That okay?” Karen smiled in agreement, keeping her eyes on the string of long distance haulers she was about to pass. He’d finished his coffee now. The sun was struggling to supersede the glowering Gary skyline. Doyle was beginning to feel perky.
Karen tucked into the right lane. “Talk about what?”
“What did you do before the Bureau? I know you were a UW athlete, then a lawyer. Mind me asking?”
She laughed. “Like it would bother you if I did? We’ve got a couple of hours to go. Hand me half of that bagel, will you?”The next sixty minutes went quickly as they chatted. After Karen turned off Highway 94 onto Interstate 65 heading south for Indianapolis, the cloud cover lifted. Tall wind turbines dotted the green fields in some areas near the highway.
“I think you know I come from Kenosha, right, Jack? Southeastern Wisconsin town, not far north of the Illinois border, right on Lake Michigan.”
“I remember you, or Damon, telling me that. Didn’t a bunch of actors come from there?”
Karen said, “Yes. Quite a few. Don Ameche, Jim Ameche, Charles Siebert, Harry Bellaver, Daniel J. Travanty, Mark Ruffalo, Al Molinaro, some others I can’t recall. Except, of course, Orson Welles.”
“Wait a minute. I think I read somewhere that Welles was born there. But that he didn’t live there long.”
Karen turned to Doyle to grin, “Orson probably lived there just enough to get his genius going.”
She adjusted the air conditioner. “That okay?”
“Fine.”
“The reason that I was thinking about my hometown this morning is that this is the date of the annual Taste of Kenosha held there at a place called the Brat Stop. Food, drinks, music all day and most of the night.” She laughed. “There’s going to be a music group appearing that I’d not heard of. According to the e-mailed notice of the event I received, a female accordion group called The Squeezettes will be providing, I am quoting now, German power-polkas.”
“Hmm,” Doyle said. “That’s a musical concept new to me. But, back to famed Kenoshans, what about Don Ameche’s cousin Alan Ameche? Great football player at your alma mater. Heisman Trophy winner, later All Pro with the Baltimore Colts, right?”
“Better believe Alan was from Keno. My dad, when he was in Bradford High School, was a lineman on Alan’s championship football team. Dad was two years behind Alan in school. One of Dad’s fondest, and most repeated, high school memories is being flattened in practice day after day trying to tackle Alan, the guy they called ‘The Horse.’”
“Your father was an athlete,” Doyle said. “Genes that must have helped lead you to being a jock. At UW-Madison on an athletic scholarship, right?”
He paused to say, “That idiot,” referring to a Consolidated Printing Express sixteen-wheeler that had just pulled in front of them in the passing lane to begin a ponderous blockage. “It’ll take this idiot five miles to ease past that lead truck,” Doyle said. “He’s going about a mile an hour faster than the right lane truck.”
“Calm yourself, Jack. I think some of these long distance truck drivers pull these capers just to amuse themselves, maybe irritate drivers of the cars behind them.”
Doyle said, “Well, what do you know? Here beside me am I hearing a governmental voice sympathetic to overworked, Dexedrine-fueled, bored-to-shit truckers?”
Karen finally pulled abreast of, past, then around the Consolidated truck, using her right blinker. The Consolidated driver gave an appreciative two-tap honk for her road courtesy.
Doyle said, “Good driving. Another question. Coming from where you did, I mean from liberal leaning UW-Madison, how’d you wind up joining the Bureau?”
Karen said, “Long story I’ll make short. Got my BA degree in social studies, then my law degree from UW. Didn’t have to pass a bar exam because in Wisconsin, if you graduate from either UW-Madison or Marquette University in Milwaukee with a law degree, you automatically become a member of the Wisconsin Bar.”
“Really? You can make it out of a single law school and go right into practice? I think Chicago plumbers have to meet more licensing requirements than that. Whatever. What’d you do then?”
“I was recruited by a, quote, very prestigious, unquote, Milwaukee law firm, Bowen and Michaels. New hire entry assignments, scut work, did great, got promoted. Two years onto that payroll, I married the man in the firm who was mentoring me.”
She paused to accelerate past another commercial truck caravan before saying, “And two years after that, I divorced him. A nice guy, actually. But it just didn’t work out.”
Doyle turned to look out his window. “Maybe like my sorry matrimonial experiences.”
She smiled. “I don’t think so, Jack. Not comparable.” She paused, looking straight ahead, said “I think my life partner, Cynthia, would agree.”
He sat up and turned to look at her. “Cynthia?”
Karen kept her eyes on the road ahead. “Cynthia Sandler. She’s a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital in Chicago. We’ve been together for nearly three and a half years.”
Doyle said, “Well, I’ll be damned.” He paused. “On the other han
d, maybe I won’t be. Just surprised.”
“So were my ex and my parents. I guess it just took me longer than a lot of people to discover exactly who I was. I’m just glad it happened. Cynthia and I have a great life together.”
Doyle frowned. “What about the Bureau? Do you have to, uh, keep this relationship from them?”
“No, no,” Karen laughed. “Times have changed. There’s been a sizeable increase in Bureau personnel in both women and ethnic minorities. The ‘White Boys’ Club’ of the past has been markedly broken up. And the Bureau doesn’t discriminate against a person’s sexual orientation with regard to either hiring or advancement. We have openly lesbian, gay, bisexual employees. Our Sexual Orientation Program was created to address diversity issues, to ensure equal employment opportunity. I’ve had no trouble along those lines.”
Doyle said, “So, just asking, how many of your colleagues know that you’re a lesbian? And how about Damon? Does he know?”
“I don’t flaunt my lifestyle, Jack. I don’t bother keeping track of whether people other than my immediate supervisors are aware of it. Damon? Sure, he knows. I told him more than three years ago.”
“And,” said Doyle, thinking of Karen’s married FBI partner with his very conservative outlook on life, “how did Damon react?”
Karen said, “Like the friend he has been to me ever since we first partnered. My lifestyle has never been an issue between us. In fact,” she smiled, “Cynthia and I spend parts of some holidays with Damon and his family.”
They rode in silence for several miles before Karen said, “You’re pretty quiet there for you, Jack Doyle. Have I shocked you by telling you about Cynthia and me?”
Doyle said, “You should know me better than that by now. I haven’t found a whole lot of life to be shocking for a whole lot of years. Not after my oldest brother got killed in the first Gulf War. For me that was the leadoff item in the reality check lineup. What the loss of my brother did to my folks, to me. Then the stuff I dealt with, on the Bureau’s behalf I might add, with Rexroth and his scumbag minions. I’m not really surpriseable anymore.” He went silent, looking out his window.
“Are your folks living?”
“No. Long gone. Think about it,” Doyle said, turning to smile at her, “for years now I’ve been an orphan. Without receiving any sympathetic treatment.”
“There you go, making light again of something serious. Seems to me, Jack, you put in a lot of effort to skirt the border of your emotions.”
“C’mon. That sounds like you’re quoting psychobabble from some afternoon cable TV sensitivity show. Please.”
No response, so Doyle said, “I take that back. Didn’t mean to be harsh with you. Karen, I’ve always respected your professionalism. Talking to you today, I further respect your personhood, too. God bless you. Must have taken some courage to apprise the FB Bureaucrats of your status. More power to you.”
She reached over and patted his hand. “You’ve such a way with words, Jack Doyle. Sometimes, even, with emotions.”
He reached down to the car floor to retrieve the Brooklyn Bagel Boys bag. “There’s one sesame still in here. Want to split it?”
Chapter Twenty-three
Karen checked the GPS and took a right turn after their ten minutes on U.S. 52 East. “Carmel,” she said. “Eighty thousand residents of an affluent suburb selected as, quote, One of the Best Places to Live in America by CNN Money Magazine, unquote. That’s what our web search came up with.”
“Maybe not one of the best places in America for horses to live,” Doyle said. “At least not where we’re going.”
A crowded arterial intersection temporarily halted their conversation. When the light finally went green for them, Doyle said, “I have a fortunately distant cousin, Doris Morton, who grew up someplace around here. Now she lives in downstate Illinois. She sends what’s left of our family a Holiday Letter every year. Filled with boring details nobody but Doris gives a shit about. Last year she included before and after photos of her son Bo and his successful acne treatments. Doris, along with her mother and a lot of her friends, are addicted to those televised afternoon melees. All those unhappy people, screaming at each other, so eager to exhibit their various degrees of unhappiness. I guess that’s life, for them. Just not life slices I want to watch.”
“Hey, Jack, much of life is messy,” Karen said. “Much of it brutally so. But we go on dealing with it, right?” She turned to ask, “How do you deal with it? You’ve been down several different paths I know of. Probably some I don’t know.”
Doyle smiled. “Maybe later I’ll detail how I deal with life’s messy aspects.”
Entering the city limits, they passed a green sign declaring the population of Carmel to be 80,110. “Many of them living comfortably,” Karen said. “When I Googled Carmel, it said this is a very well-to-do suburb of Indianapolis.”
He said, “You’ve got to turn right up there at the next intersection, onto Spring Mill Road, that’s what the sign for Carmel College says. The school must be on the southern edge of town.” Karen switched to the right lane and came up behind a black pickup truck bearing a bumper sticker sign reading Hoosier Daddy.
Waiting for the light to change, Doyle said, “To answer your question about life dealings, paths I’ve gone down, et cetera, I’m going to paraphrase something that I’ve been told the great jazz saxaphonist John Coltrane once said about his music, or maybe his life. Both of which a lot of people had trouble understanding.”
Karen said, “My dad had Coltrane records. Played them all the time. Who told you about what Coltrane said?”
“Guy named Kelly Sill, a terrific jazz bass player I’ve gotten to know in Chicago. Kelly said some old grouchy guy, probably from the Glen Miller era, once confronted John Coltrane between sets at a New York jazz club and said to him, ‘That stuff you’re playing? Sounds like scrambled eggs to me, man.’ And ’Trane said to him, ‘Man, it’s all scrambled eggs. Depends on how you scramble them eggs.’”
“I’ll go along with that. This bass player, how do you know him?”
“Kelly’s a big racing fan. Sometimes he rides out to Heartland Downs with me. Funny guy. One time we’re at this stoplight on Willow Road, waiting for it to change, and there’s a big semi next to us. When the light changes, there’s a sharp sound from the truck. Its air brakes, I guess. Anyway, I kind of jumped, and said, ‘What was that?’”
“‘E-flat,’ Kelly shot right back. Broke me up.”
The light changed. They’d moved a block north when a soccer ball hurtled onto the street from between two cars in front of them. Karen stomped the brake just in time to avoid striking its young, towheaded, first oblivious but now startled, pursuer. Doyle could hear the boy’s father hollering at him, at them, from the nearby yard. Karen waited while the kid shame-facedly retrieved the ball and ran back to his father. The man hugged the boy with one hand, waving a thank you at their car with the other.
“That should be Ninety-sixth Street ahead of us,” Doyle said. “Take a left.”
Karen pulled into a slot in the visitors’ parking lot behind the main Veterinary School building. “Ten o’clock. Right on time,” she said.
In the outer office Kim Budnik, the very attractive receptionist, informed that Dr. Oettinger was “certainly expecting you. No, my dear, I don’t need any identification.” When Karen started to return her brown leather wallet to her purse, the woman said, “Wait, wait, I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to see an FBI badge in person.” Karen smilingly obliged and displayed the gold-plated item with its impressive seal. Doyle fidgeted for the few moments the women made small talk about Karen’s occupation. “I’d long thought about going into law enforcement,” Kim Budnik confided. “But here’s where I wound up, charting the progress of animals, and actually darned happy to be doing so. Although, I can’t say that my parents feel that way about it,” she added.
“Runner-up?” Doyle said. “The judges must have been blind and deaf.”
It was a two-block walk on a gravel pathway to the major barn during which Karen said, “You are so full of crap, Jack.”
“Of what do you speak, woman? One of my father’s heroes, H.L. Mencken, said men should always wink an eye at homely girls. I do that. I also find it just as much fun to flatter knockouts like that Kim. They never seem to tire of hearing such comments.”
Waiting for them at the barn entrance was a stocky, middle-aged man wearing green scrubs and a welcoming smile. “Agent Engel? Mr. Doyle? Glad to see you. I’m Hank Oettinger.”
“Our pleasure, Doctor,” Karen said.
“Please. Call me Hank. I just completed a small surgical procedure on one of our resident goats. That’s why I’m dressed this way. Come into my office and we can talk.”
Karen said, “If you don’t mind, Hank, we’d like to see the exact stall in the barn where your horse was killed.”
He led them past a collection of curious four-footed herbivores and stopped in front of a stall occupied by an old gray mare. “This is Knight’s Girl. A retired racehorse we accepted from our donors’ list once we lost poor Fullerton Avenue. Luckily for us, there are many horse owners who are interested in supporting our research. A fact that, I am sure, enrages those crazies in that ALWD.”
Oettinger showed them the door whose broken lock had been repaired in the wake of the killer’s forced entry. “Up there, as you can see, we’ve installed a closed-circuit camera. Yes, I know, this is kind of like closing the barn door too late. But at least now there are two more cameras that have been placed in this building. Anyway, that’s the scene of the crime.”