Mortvedt’s grip tightened on the handle of the pitchfork. He looked across Bolger’s prostrate form at the shaken Repke. “Don’t turn pussy on me now, Jud. Not now. I’ll teach this old boy not to mess us up,” Mortvedt said, his chest heaving.
Repke paled as he saw Mortvedt raise the pitchfork. “Ronnie, wait, don’t kill him,” Repke pleaded. “I’m not in this with you for no murder charge.”
Mortvedt paused, the fork at shoulder level. “All’s I said was teach him a lesson. And I will.” He looked across Bolger into Repke’s face, grinning that terrible little icy grin of his, the meanness of him thick and tangible in the darkened barn.
He brought the pitchfork handle down with a sickening thud on Bolger’s left knee. The sound was like a muffled gunshot. Mortvedt raised the fork again, this time slamming it down on Bolger’s right knee. Bolger cried out from the depths of his unconsciousness. Mortvedt hooted with satisfaction. Repke, stunned by the terrible damage he’d just seen done, was barely aware of Mortvedt shoving him toward the barn entrance.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Mortvedt said. He motioned to Repke to pick up the electrical cord and clips. He handled the pitchfork himself. The only sound as the two men exited the barn was that of the unsettled horses, moving about in their stalls.
Chapter 23
Just after 2:30 that rainy morning, Doyle was awakened from one of his rare dreamless sleeps by the sound of the phone near his bed. As he reached for the receiver in the dark, the thought flashed to mind that never in his life had he ever answered a phone call in this section of the night that signaled good news.
“Jack,” he heard Caroline’s voice saying, speaking low so as not to awaken her children, “Jack, I’m terribly sorry to call you at his hour. But,” Doyle heard her whisper urgently, “Aldous has gone out, and not come back, Jack. I think he went on one of his late-night inspection tours. I was reading in bed, and I barely heard the front door open and close. He said nothing before he left.”
“How long ago?”
“More than a half-hour. He never takes that long usually. And I just rang his cell phone but there’s no answer. Jack, could I ask you to go and take a look for him?”
“No problem,” said Doyle. “I’m sure nothing’s wrong,” he added, wishing that he felt a bit more confident of what he’d told her, “but I’ll go right out. We’ll be back soon,” he assured Caroline before hanging up. He slipped on his jeans and boots, reached for yesterday’s T-shirt, and was out the door in his poncho a minute later. Before he started down the cottage steps, however, he turned back, went inside and grabbed the heavy flashlight he kept in a pantry cupboard. It was the only weapon-like object he owned. He hoped he’d need it only for its illuminating powers.
Doyle trotted through the rain to the stallion barn and entered through its open door. The horses stirred and shifted noisily in the darkness. Doyle felt for a light switch to the right of the door. Unable to locate it, he switched on the flashlight, then the lights. Moving forward slowly he approached the body centered on the barn floor with horrified disbelief.
The right side of Bolger’s head was so swollen and disfigured Jack briefly thought it was another man, one he did not know. But then he recognized the New Zealander’s blood-spattered windbreaker, the one with the Willowdale Farm logo, and his eyes fastened on the distinctive white-blond hair turned dark by the pool of cranial blood in which it lay.
But he could see Bolger’s chest heaving. He was alive. Then Doyle’s gaze fell on Bolger’s legs. Both knee caps were grotesquely inverted. A shard of bone projected through the torn khaki pants over the left knee. Doyle involuntarily retched.
The physical violence Doyle had known in his life was confined to the boxing ring, both during his fighting days and in the time since, when he still followed the only sport that had ever really appealed to him. He had seen men drubbed, noses smashed, eyes swollen shut. Doyle was familiar with such evidence of pain inflicted and suffered. But he’d never witnessed the results of such explosive brutality as he was looking at here, in the Willowdale stallion barn, as he looked down at Aldous Bolger.
After flashing the light through the barn, Doyle sensed no danger. He knew he was alone with the horses, that whoever had done this was gone.
Doyle shook his head as if to clear it. He rubbed a hand over his eyes that were now filled with tears of rage and sorrow at the horrible sight in front of him. He heard the shuffling feet of the nearby horses, huge, confined beasts terrified by what had unfolded before them.
Then he turned and ran to summon help, dreading the impending moment when he would have to knock on Caroline’s door.
Chapter 24
The hours immediately following the attack on Aldous Bolger were a blur to Doyle as he gave his account of discovering his battered friend to the sheriff’s deputies, then repeated it to Karen Engel and Damon Tirabassi, first over the phone, then face-to-face following their arrival in Lexington from Chicago. There was also the tortuous time spent attempting to deal with the shattering effects of this crime on Caroline Cummings and her children. Doyle knew he would never be able to forget the look of shock and then soul-tearing sorrow on Catherine’s lovely face when he told her what he’d found in the Willowdale stallion barn.
It was his “hard Kiwi head” that saved him, Aldous whispered to Jack in Lexington’s Central Baptist Hospital a few hours after regaining consciousness. Bolger’s speech was painfully slow, his eyes reflecting his desire to communicate faster and better than his concussed brain made possible.
All he remembered, he said, was the small man dressed in black “about to do something to one of our horses.” The physicians said Bolger’s head injury was “miraculously” less severe than the blow he’d received could normally be expected to cause. “A powerful blow that caused the equivalent of a temporary, minor stroke,” was how Dr. Howard Sill had described it to Caroline and Jack. “There’s trauma, but his speech patterns can be expected to return to normal in time,” Dr. Sill had assured them.
The doctor’s prognosis concerning Aldous’ other injuries was far less sanguine. Dr. Sill had called in a team of orthopedic specialists to examine Aldous’ shattered knees. The tissue trauma was so severe that CT scans were needed to disclose the extent of the damage.
Their opinion was that Aldous would require knee replacements if he were to walk again. “They are very effective procedures,” Dr. Sill told them. But the operations could not be done for several months, during which Aldous would need to recuperate from the damage he’d suffered.
Doyle was amazed at how stoically Aldous had accepted this news. When Jack was first allowed into the critical care unit, he was both appalled at the paper-white hue of his friend’s face and amazed at the look of defiant cheerfulness in his eyes. “Down, but not out, laddie,” were the first words Aldous had whispered to Jack. Couldn’t kill him with a hand axe, Jack thought again.
Rexroth had dispatched Byron Stoner to express his concern to Caroline and Jack. “Mr. Rexroth was, of course, appalled and saddened by what happened,” Stoner said in his prim way. “He would have told you that himself, but he was called away on urgent business early this morning.” Rexroth insisted that Willowdale pay all expenses involved in Bolger’s treatment.
“Mr. Rexroth wished me to also tell you,” Stoner said to Jack, “that he would appreciate it if you would remain on here at Willowdale temporarily, serving as acting farm manager until a successor to Mr. Bolger can be hired. You are, naturally, invited to apply for the position yourself,” Stoner added, “although I must tell you that it calls for a person with more extensive experience than your own.”