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.
Karen’s face reddened. She said, “Contrary to what you think, we don’t
“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
“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
