“And that’s your case?”
“It’s enough to get an indictment, Lex. I hate it worse than you do. Especially on this side of it. But I can’t duck it.”
“And have you thought of this, Patrick? Every time I’ve seen Fitz in the past few months he’s been more worried about losing the stable. He hit a stretch of bad racing luck. That race could have pulled him out of the hole — at least given him breathing space ahead of the creditors. Why would he kill the jockey that could have won it for him?”
“Because he could have it both ways. He had an entry. The other horse was supposed to win the race. By the time the jockey, Pastore, went over the side, his horse had already drawn out the other horses. I hate it when I’m this clever. Especially now.”
“Alright, Clarence Darrow, I’ve got one more. Pastore rode in other races today before that one. His saddle would have been in the hands of his valet or on another horse right up to the time for that race. When did he make the cut?”
“I guess you never went to the track with Fitz. It was the cowboy in him. He always did the saddling of his own horses for a race. He could have cut the stirrup strap up under the saddle where it wouldn’t show just before Pastore got on the horse.”
I missed the next part of the conversation because I grabbed Mike Hunter’s sleeve and whispered, “Mike, I have to see that saddle and strap.”
“Why so?”
“It’s a phoney. It’s planted. Mr. Fitz didn’t do this.”
Mike whispered, “How do you know?”
I gave him a look like, How could you think otherwise?
“You’d make a terrible lawyer, Billy. You’d be blindsided by half your clients.”
But he caught Mr. Devlin’s eye and passed the word. Mr. Devlin put his hand over the speakerphone and mouthed the word, “Why?”
Mike said, “Because Billy’s the only one of us who knows which side of a saddle you sit on.”
Mr. Devlin was back on the speakerphone. “Pat, I need a favor. It’s an easy one. I’m sending an investigator over right now. Billy O’Casey. I want you to let him see the saddle and strap.”
“Alright, Lex. You’d see it eventually. I shouldn’t say this, but half of me hopes he finds something.”
Michael greased our way through the district attorney’s suite of offices to the evidence room. The officer on duty brought out the saddle and handed me the stirrup strap. The cut three quarters of the way through was clear. It took me about four seconds to check it out, and we were out of there.
When we hit the street, I pulled Michael over to a quiet section of sidewalk.
“Mike, it’s a setup. I knew it before, but now I can prove it.”
He looked doubtful, but interested.
“That strap was a plant. It’s not the stirrup strap that was on Bobby’s saddle during the race.”
“How do you know?”
“Only another jockey would know this. Bobby rode ace-deuce. He always kept the left stirrup a couple of inches shorter than the right. It gave him extra leverage on the turns since they’re all to the left. Some of the jocks do it. It’s the kind of thing we talk about among ourselves.”
“And?”
“That strap is buckled to exactly the same length as the right side. Whoever planted it thought that’s how it should be.”
I checked my watch. It was a little after seven P.M.
“And that leads to another thought, Mike.”
“What’s that?”
I could see he was still weighing the effect of what I’d said.
“We need to go for a ride. Your car or mine?”
We got to the backside of the track at Suffolk Downs at about quarter of eight. The late spring sun was fading, and I knew we had to hustle to work in light. The maintenance crew had gone for the day, so we were able to drive right up to where they keep the track equipment.
“Leave your suit coat in the car and roll up your sleeves, Mike. This could be worse than mucking out stables.”
Mike Hunter looked squeamish about plodding his five hundred dollar Bally loafers through the soft dirt at the edge of the track, but by the time we got down on our knees to grovel in it, he chalked the whole outfit, shoes to tie, up to expenses.
I showed him how to get down under the six-foot-wide drags that they pull over the dirt track after every race to smooth out the surface. We had to feel all the way to the bottom of each of the dozens of tynes that dig into the dirt.
I was nearly finished checking one of the drags when Mike yelled over from the one he was checking.
“Bingo!”
I looked over at a picture I’ll remember forever. He was up on his knees, crystal white shirt and Brooks Brothers pants so full of dirt he looked like he’d been planted, grin on his face, and holding a stirrup strap over his head. I checked the length.
“That’s the one that killed Bobby Pastore, Mike.”
He hauled himself up and caught his breath.
“Now tell me how you knew it was there.”
“I didn’t, but it was a fair hunch. I wondered why someone would plant evidence on Mr. Fitz that wasn’t the real strap. It had to be because they didn’t have the real one. I figured that was because it probably fell off the saddle when it broke and got ground into the track. It was either still out there, and we’d never find it, or it got caught in the tynes of the drag after the race. We lucked out, Mike. You’re a mess. You’ve got to take better care of your clothes.”
On the ride back I had time to think. I’d been so focused on Bobby’s death and the charges against Mr. Fitz that I’d blocked out everything else. Now I began thinking that if someone was fixing the race by eliminating Bobby and Fair Dawn, they’d have had to fix Trumpeter Swan, too. A bet on one part of the entry is a bet on both. If either part of an entry wins, it pays off.
That got me to thinking about how Trumpeter Swan had faded in the homestretch. It was one more odd circumstance that caused the stable to lose a race. I’m no vet, but Swan felt like a sound horse up to the moment he faded. Maybe it wasn’t just racing luck. Maybe it all tied together. That gave birth to an exploding thought that led to a quick U-turn and a heavy foot on the gas back to the track.
I drove up to the room at the end of the track stables where the exercise riders sleep. We came in the back door and saw a group of them playing cards at the far end of the room. Manny Vasquez was the regular exercise boy for Trumpeter Swan. I only needed a second to check his boots under his bunk.
I called Manny over and told him we needed a word with him outside. Manny got a little itchy by the time we walked over to the outside rail of the track.
“Been doing a little night riding, Manny?”
“Whatcha mean, Billy?”
He was looking back and forth between us. I doubt that he could read an expression in the dark, which made it more ominous. I left a pause.
“You know it rained last night, Manny. Long about two in the morning the track must have been pretty muddy. The rain stopped at midnight, so it was dry around six when you and the boys exercise the horses, right?”
“I guess so.” He wasn’t sure what he was admitting to.
“So sometime last night before the track dried out, probably around two in the morning when no one was around, you took Trumpeter Swan out to the track. You galloped the lungs out of him, cleaned him up, and put him back. No one would know in the morning. Except during the race in the afternoon, when he hit the homestretch, his energy gave out. He was running on dead legs. That’s a neat way to fix a race, Manny.”