High Stakes (3 page)

Chapter Seven

They met at the clubhouse entrance just before the fourth race. Ingrid pressed number six on the elevator panel, and they got off at the press box level. They heard track announcer John Toomey say, “They're in the gate. We're ready for a start. And they're off.” Ingrid preceded Jack onto the porch where Caldwell was poised, binoculars aimed at the track below, his call taker, Sheryl, ready to record his report of the race about to get under way.

The event for filly and mare claimers took a minute and twelve seconds for the winner to complete six furlongs. Jack and Ingrid listened, rapt, as Caldwell rattled off the position of each horse in the event four times. His account was much more detailed than that of announcer Dooley, which they could hear in the background.

“Mitt the Flip still on top as they turn for home but about to give way like the faint-hearted phony he is…Kansas Mama a length back and a length before Horace Nealy. Favored Tricky Travis still fifth and five lengths back, doesn't look interested today. But shifting to the outside now and moving like a bat out of hell and going to make me a rich man is old Ready Roger. He's gonna win off all by himself!”

Doyle knew that none of Caldwell's colorful editorializing would make it into the straightforward reportage eventually comprising the
Racing Daily
chart footnotes of this race. But he smiled in appreciation as he listened to Caldwell.

After the horses had crossed the finish line, Caldwell kept his binoculars on them until they'd been pulled up, turned around, and began jogging back. Sheryl picked up her clipboard. She said, “Pat, these folks want to talk to you. This is Ingrid, and that's Jack.”

Caldwell smiled and shook their hands, saying, “Ingrid McGuire. The famed veterinarian and horse communicator? And Jack Doyle, former jock's agent? Come on into my office. I want to take a quick look at the tape of this race before Sheryl sends her chart on the computer. Then we can talk.”

They waited as Caldwell reviewed the just-completed race, rewinding the shot of the final turn to watch it three times. “That's what I thought,” he muttered, “old Mitt the Flip came out two paths when he started to quit, bothered Horace Nealy.” He made a note on the yellow legal pad next to the television before turning to them. “What can I do for you folks?”

Doyle summarized the recent horse killings, Caldwell acknowledging that he'd heard about them. Ingrid recounted her efforts to discover possible suspects. “I haven't had much luck, Pat. The only name I kept hearing was Esther Ness.”

Caldwell groaned and sat back in his chair. “Aw, crap.”

“You know her, right, Pat?” Doyle said.

“Yeah, sorry to say I do. We had a thing going for a month or so back in the winter. It ended. Pretty badly.”

Ingrid said, “What can you tell us about Esther?”

“You got a day and a half?” Caldwell said with a grimace. “No, here's the short version. We met at a horsemen's association dinner a year ago. She helped sponsor it. She's an heiress. To a dog food fortune. Very intriguing woman. Very, very smart. But, as became evident to me after a while, she's got some loose screws.”

Doyle said, “What do you mean?”

“Esther has a lot of interests, and a lot of money. She travels around the country, sometimes around the world, on whatever whim hits her. Unpredictable? Oh, yeah. When she had her own racing stable, she went through trainers like an allergy-sufferer through Kleenex. Generous with her money? Sure, but only if you agree with her. She's spoiled, pampered, eccentric, good but not great looking, but interesting as hell.”

Caldwell paused and went to the window to aim his binoculars at the field of horses walking out of the paddock tunnel for the next race. They heard him saying quietly to himself, “Chris Kotulek's gelding in the white and blue, all red on the two horse, three horse only one with blinkers,”etc. After a minute, he turned back to them. He was smiling now. “That must sound kind of outdated, right? Most of the announcers today call the race using the color-coded saddle cloths to identify by numbers. I was brought up as a chart caller by men who prided themselves on memorizing jockey silks for each race. Pretty impressive skills. You finish one race, erase memory of those colors, and insert another bunch into your head in the next twenty minutes. I've never been able to give up that old-fashioned way of doing it. Matter of pride, I guess. Or stubbornness.”

Doyle said, “Anything else you can tell us about Esther Ness?”

“You've got to understand, Esther did things you'd never forget, some of them good things. About a year ago, she taught herself to play the guitar. In only about three weeks, she was pretty decent at it! She started appearing at the Heartland Downs Chapel Sunday mornings. Reverend Dave, he's in charge of the backstretch ministry, welcomed her. She did what she called ‘A Sunday Sermon Through Song.' I went to one of these. Hey, the woman was something to hear and watch. The congregation loved her, especially after she threw in a couple of Hispanic-sounding numbers.

“I didn't attend the next week's service. At that one, according to Reverend Dave, she was handing out business cards. Wait a minute.” Caldwell walked to his desk, opened the middle drawer. He gave an embossed, laminated business card to Doyle who leaned over to allow Ingrid to see it. In addition to the color photograph of a thirtyish, dark-haired woman who was smiling confidently at the camera, there was a list of the services she offered:

• •
  A Musical Ministry. Concerts, Workshops, and
  Private Performances Upon Request.
  
• •
  Trans-Denominational Minister/Wedding Officiant
  
• •
  Certified Passion Workshop Facilitator
  

Doyle said, “Wow.” He handed the card back to Caldwell who returned it to his desk drawer. “Anything else?” Doyle said.

“Probably too much to tell. And I probably don't know the half of it. What I
do
know is that Esther is obsessed with the belief that animals, especially thoroughbred horses, are too often being mistreated. She loves just about every non-human creature that walks. Or flies, for that matter. One night when I picked her up—she lives with her mother in a mansion out in Barrington Hills—she was wearing a tee-shirt that said ‘Adopt a Canadian Goose.' She seemed to me to kind of get nuttier the more we went out. I finally quit her.”

Doyle frowned. “What do you mean, ‘kind of'? I hate that expression. Last week I read about a football lineman who beat up his girlfriend and said things ‘kind of got out of control,' that he ‘kind of' messed her up. The woman was hospitalized. Then there's that fourth-rate celebrity actress who comes out of rehab every few months always saying she ‘kind of' lost control of her life. They'd probably say the
Titanic
‘kind of' sank. I hate that.”

Ingrid and Caldwell listened to this brief diatribe in stunned silence. Doyle blushed. “Forgive me. Sometimes I get worked up about things that rile me. So Pat, when you said Ms. Ness ‘kind of' got nuttier, it set me off. Sorry. Go on.”

“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.