“I’ve been out to eat five times, man, and let me tell you, there’s only so much chicken-fried steak, or steak-fried chicken, or mush puppies or whatever, that I can handle.
“You ever hear of something called a ‘Kentucky hot brown’?” he asked. “I didn’t think so. I’ll spare you the description.”
More silence on the other end. Doyle exhaled, feeling his blood pressure and anger levels descending steadily. He scuffed one of his western boots in the gravel of the parking lot. “Okay, folks,” he said in a normal voice, “I’m done. Rant’s over. Lost my cool, there, but it’s come back. Go ahead, either one of you.”
Karen said, “How about Bolger? How’s he doing with this? And with you?”
“Fine,” Doyle replied. “Actually, he’s a real good guy-and plenty sharp. He’s got it set up so that I never do any work that would reveal my astounding ignorance of the breeding farm business.
“To tell you the truth, though, I think he’s getting a little tired of babysitting me. And we don’t ever go out at nights, get off the farm, except Fridays. The rest of the time he pretty much stays home in his house there, with his sister and her kids.
“I’ve had dinner over there several times. Must say that I’ve enjoyed those family evenings, as alien to me as they might seem, if you know what I mean,” Doyle said. Damon coughed on the other end of the line, but said nothing.
Doyle paused as a red pickup, its truck bed replete with teenage boys, came to a sliding halt near where he was standing. He tried to wave away the cloud of dust thrown up by the truck’s wheels. The driver hit the horn twice to emphasize his arrival.
“What’s that?” Damon said sharply.
“Nothing. It’s nothing. Just some of your local youths, stopping to pick up some suds.” What the hell else do they have to do out here in the country, Doyle thought to himself, ride around and count hay bales? He fleetingly recalled stories he’d read about a popular rural pastime involving tipping over cows as they stood, sleeping on their feet, in their pastures.
Damon said, “Jack, any sign of the ex-jockey we told you to keep an eye out for? Ronald Mortvedt?”
“Nothing,” Doyle said. “There’s plenty of those little guys around here, but they’re involved in breaking and training the horses. Aldous knows them all. I told him what you told me about Mortvedt, so he’s got an idea of what to look for.”
It was after Karen and Damon had returned from Louisiana and their trip to Cajun country, and prior to Doyle’s departure for Kentucky, that they had met with Doyle and briefed him on the background, habits, and criminal dossier of Ronald Mortvedt. The agents had not had any luck in locating Mortvedt, but everything they heard about Mortvedt had served to make him a possible suspect. He “profiled out big time” was how Damon phrased it.
“One of the New Orleans racetrack snitches told our man down there he heard Mortvedt was doing business with some rich Yankee horse owner. From what we’ve learned, Mortvedt could very well be the guy doing the horse killing for Rexroth,” Damon had said, adding: “And be careful if you ever spot this guy. He may be about half the size of Randy Kauffman, but from what we’ve heard of him, this little sucker may be twice as bad as that oaf.”
Over the Wildcat-Jiffy-Shopper phone, Doyle heard Karen ask, “How often do you see Rexroth?”
“Every two, three days.”
“Does he ever say anything to you? Pay any attention to you?”
Doyle said, “Not really. I’m not saying he’s not polite. He knows who I am. He always says hello. But he’s usually in and out of the barn area in a few minutes. Sometimes he’ll grab a cup of coffee in Bolger’s office, or have that Neanderthal, Kauffman, get it for him, but he never stays around to drink it.
“It’s almost as if Rexroth needs to take a quick inventory every day or so-you know, to make sure all his toys are in place.”
Karen said something, but Doyle couldn’t hear her over the noise made by the departing red pickup truck. It looked to Doyle as if the truck-bed attendance count had almost doubled. Maybe they’re on a recruiting drive, he thought, need some extra hands to help topple a big Black Angus.
Doyle said, “I’ve got one piece of intelligence for you regarding Rexroth.” Doyle was grinning now. He could almost feel the high level of expectation emanating from the two FBI agents.
He waited until Damon said, impatiently, “Well, what is it, Jack?”
“You know the poolside rollerblading setup I told you about before? With the naked girls? Rexroth’s secretary, Stoner, told me something interesting the other day concerning that.
“Aldous had asked me to go up to the big house to deliver some notes he’d made about broodmares, mares of Rexroth’s that Aldous thought should be sold at the fall sales.
“The butler lets me in. He directs me to the indoor pool, and that’s where Stoner meets me. He says Rexroth is too busy to see me, that I should just give him Aldous’ report on the mares. Fine, I say.
“While we’re talking, I can’t hardly help but notice some kind of ruckus on the other side of the glass doors involving a couple of members of the Rexroth Roller Derby. I can hear Rexroth bellowing at one of them, Darla, the redhead. And I can hear her giving it back to him pretty good before she clomps off the track and out the door. Meanwhile, I can see little Deirdre, the one built like a sprinter, kind of simpering and smiling on the sidelines until Rexroth gives her a signal and she starts zooming around the track without a stitch on. So I say to Stoner, ‘What was all that about?’”
Doyle stopped talking as another pickup pulled up near the phone, its front bumper halting about a yard away from him. “Nice driving, Ace,” he said to the driver, who ambled into the store without taking any notice of Doyle.
“Anyway,” Doyle said back into the phone, “Stoner fills me in on this situation. He says, ‘Mr. Rexroth is an extremely superstitious man. Each week that the financial report for RexCom is up over the corresponding week of the preceding year, Mr. Rexroth keeps the same skater working for that full day and rewards her with a handsome bonus.’
“‘But if a week comes that profits are down, Mr. Rexroth immediately changes bladers. If the news is not good and Darla, let’s say, is the designated skater that day, well, whoosh, she’s dismissed and replaced and put on the sidelines for at least two days without pay.’
“‘Most of the girls have come to recognize this as equitable and just part of their job assignments. Some, of course, occasionally react rather bitterly,’ Stoner says.
“Is this the damndest thing you’ve ever heard?” Doyle said. “I wonder if Rexroth learned this at Harvard Business. It could be the basis of a real popular course, providing visuals are included.”
There was a momentary silence on the line after Doyle finished. Doyle then heard Damon say, as if to himself, “This Rexroth truly is nuttier than I’d thought.”
Doyle looked out at the store’s parking lot. Much of it was now completely in shadow, and most of the vehicles were gone. He was about to begin another quiet night alone at Willowdale. Then, motivated as much by the desire to keep talking to the agents as to inform them, Doyle said, “You know that Chicago jockey, Willie Arroyo? Well, he’s been making these kind of quick visits here once a week to work some mystery horse for Rexroth. Aldous doesn’t know what the story is on this horse, can’t even find out its real name. And Rexroth won’t tell him anything about it, either. Kind of interesting.
“Arroyo knows me from when I groomed City Sarah,” Doyle added. “I’ve made sure he hasn’t spotted me, because he sure as hell would think something was up if he saw me working here. But as to this mystery horse, I don’t know what the deal is with him.”
Karen said, “If you learn anything else you can tell us when you call Friday. Unless something comes up. If it does, call right away. And be careful, Jack.”