Twice, Doyle remembered, he had met women here whom he’d subsequently dated: a wealthy divorcee with an obnoxious young son, and an unmarried veterinarian who worked in the zoo’s small animal house. He’d had a fairly lengthy relationship with the veterinarian until she took a job at the San Diego Zoo.
A breeze ruffled the baggy T-shirts of a group of black children in front of Doyle as he walked alongside the little zoo lake, over which a colorful flotilla of paddle boats moved in erratic fashion, guided by pilots with various degrees of proficiency. The kids, all between the ages of eight and ten, looked wide-eyed at the paddle boats, then at the sheep and cows that grazed behind fences near the red, wooden farm building.
A couple of the kids excitedly asked questions of one of the counselors who moved calmly among them. The kids’ shirts said Better Boys Foundation, a local organization Doyle knew was headquartered on Chicago’s poverty-ridden west side. “Must be an interesting field trip for them,” Doyle thought. He remembered reading a magazine article about gang members from that area of Chicago, only a few miles west of the Loop; several of the gang-bangers had admitted they’d never once in their lives seen Lake Michigan.
Doyle sat down on a bench near a water fountain. The bench was just to the side of the farm building, so he figured he should be visible to Bolger. Doyle remained there nearly fifteen minutes and was beginning to wonder if he’d been stood up. Suddenly, he felt a large hand grip his shoulder from behind him.
“No, no, mister, don’t get up. Sit right there,” Doyle heard the man say.
A man with hair so blond it was almost white moved around the bench to face him, large hand outstretched, broad smile spread across his tanned, pleasant face. He was wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt, blue jeans, and western boots. The man was a couple of inches taller than Doyle, about six feet two inches, but he looked to weigh at least forty pounds more than Doyle’s one-sixty. He looked extremely fit, Doyle thought, not from gym efforts but from years of hard, outdoor work.
Beside him stood a slim, very attractive woman in her early thirties, probably four or five years younger than the man, her hair almost exactly the same color as his. She, too, wore a blue denim shirt, opened slightly to reveal a slender neck, but instead of jeans had on a cream-colored skirt. She smiled at Doyle in friendly fashion, a smile that he found himself warmly returning. Standing between the man and woman were a young girl and boy; like the adults, they had white-blond hair, even features, and deeply tanned skin.
The man said, “Mr. Doyle, I’m Aldous Bolger. Pleasure to meet you.”
Doyle said, “My pleasure. And call me Jack, will you…er, Aldous?”
Bolger looked at Doyle with an expression of resigned amusement. “Let me explain the name,” he said. “Our old man thought Brave New World was the most important bloody book since the Bible, and Mr. Huxley was one of his all-time heroes. My father read Huxley’s novel to our family at least once a year. I know long passages of the bloody thing by heart.” He gave a short laugh.
Doyle said, “Do I call you Al?”
Bolger turned very serious. “Not even once,” replied the New Zealander. “Out of respect to my father, and Mr. Huxley, it will be Aldous, if you don’t mind.”
Doyle nodded in assent. He recognized Bolger as being one of those lifelong horsemen whose years of hard physical work made them gristle-tough and fiercely independent. I doubt I could dent this son of a bitch with a hand ax, Doyle thought. “Aldous it is,” he said aloud.
Bolger turned to the woman. “Caroline,” he said, “meet Jack Doyle. Jack, my sister, Caroline Cummings. And these are her children, Helen and Ian.”
“’Ello,” the children said, almost as one.
“Are you visiting, or do you live in the States, too?” Doyle asked their mother.
Caroline shook her head, her blond bangs moving across her forehead. “No, we don’t live here. This is actually our first time in your country. No, we’re on what you might call an extended visit to my brother down in Kentucky. Longer than he may have anticipated.” Her smile was somewhat apologetic. Doyle noticed that Caroline’s strikingly large, widely set eyes were brown-gold, while the children’s eyes were a very light shade of blue.
“Nonsense,” Aldous said. “Caroline,” he added, “as you know, Jack and I have some talking to do. Why don’t you take the kids in to those farm buildings. We’ll come back for you in a bit.”
“Right you are.” As the three of them moved off, one of the zoo workers announced over a portable microphone, “Our goat-milking begins in three minutes. Watch the milking and try some,” she invited. Helen and Ian dashed on ahead of their mother.
As Doyle and Bolger began walking in the opposite direction, Bolger said, “The ‘long visit’ my sister mentioned has only been about three weeks. She’s more than welcome to double that or more, if she wants. I’m not married. I’ve got plenty of space for her and the kids. They seem to like it at Willowdale. And they need the time away from home.”
Doyle looked at Bolger inquiringly. Bolger said, “Caroline’s husband, Grant Cummings, was a jockey, and one of my oldest friends. He carked it in a bloody awful spill back home at Ellerslie, that’s the track in Auckland, a little over a year ago.
“A terrible, shocking tragedy, it was. Grant was only just turned thirty. He was coming into his own as a rider, just starting to get the best mounts from the top stables. Grant was a great bloke, and a great husband and father as well. It’s been very tough on Caroline and her kids.
“I invited them over here after Grant’s funeral, trying to give them a change of scenery, something to help them along. It took them a long time before they finally decided to come. But I’m glad they did. They seem to be brightening up a bit every day they’re here. Thank God for that,” he said.
Seeing the earnest expression on Bolger’s face, Doyle felt himself warming to the man and his obvious sincerity.
“Caroline’s no bludge,” her brother continued. Seeing the look of incomprehension on Doyle’s face, he quickly amended, “I mean she’s not here to spend time with me because she’s in any financial straits. Her husband left her a goodly packet, and he was well insured. No, Caroline and the kids have got big bickies-what I mean is, more than enough money. They’ve no worries on that score, believe me.
“And for the kids, it’s not all holiday they’re on. It’s winter back home, and she made them bring a term’s worth of lessons with them. She spends hours with them on their school work near every day. Caroline’s a remarkable woman,” he said. “She’s got her own real estate business in a suburb of Auckland. Started it herself and built it up, dealing mostly with the high end properties.”
Bolger shook his head admiringly. “Sometimes I can hardly believe she’s what my little sis grew up to be.”
Strangely, Doyle found this glowing description to be somehow depressing. He realized he’d been immediately attracted to Caroline, but learning that she was a wealthy widow served to dampen his interest. A bit too high up the financial ladder for me, he thought regretfully, and abruptly changed the subject.
“What about you, Aldous?” he asked. “What’s your story?” It sounded ruder than Doyle had intended.
Bolger gave him a startled look at the sudden shift in tone. His ordinarily open and good-natured expression fled his face, replaced with a frown. Doyle realized he’d succeeded, however unwittingly, in hurting Bolger’s feelings.
“Well, then,” Bolger said gruffly to Doyle, “let’s try this path up to the right and I’ll try to sum things up as quick as you’d like. We’ll try to have you home and hosed in an hour.”