The Trojan Colt Read online

  He stared at me for a minute, then got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

  He stopped by the reception desk to explain that he’d be gone for an hour, and then we went out to the parking lot. I led him to the Camry. He took one look and walked over to a silver Lincoln.

  “Let’s use this one,” he suggested.

  I had no problem with that, and a moment later we were on our way to “my” police station, passing two others along the way. He tried to start a conversation about the upcoming weekend races, and when that didn’t work, about which European horses figured to ship here for the Breeders’ Cup races in the fall, and when that didn’t work either, he began diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses of the Kentucky Wildcats’—excuse me: Big Blue’s—basketball team. I began to get the distinct impression that he lived, breathed, ate, and slept horse racing and beyond that was interested in very little else.

  We pulled into the police station and got out of the car. We entered the building and were greeted by Bernice.

  “Hi, Eli,” she said.

  “Bernice, this is Jason Kent, the editor of the Thoroughbred Weekly. Is Lou in?”

  “Yes.”

  “And alone?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “We’d like to see him.”

  “You know the way,” she said.

  “You’ve been involved in this too,” I said. “I’d be happy to have you in there.”

  “You go ahead,” she said. “I’ll be along in a minute or two, as soon as I get someone to watch the desk here.”

  “Thanks,” I said as Kent and I headed down the corridor to Lou Berger’s office. Berger was reading reports on his computer screen as we entered. He stood up and turned to face us.

  “Hi, Lou,” I said. “This gentleman is Jason Kent, the editor of—”

  “I know who he is,” said Berger. “You look younger than your picture,” he continued, extending his hand.

  “Which picture is that?” asked Kent, taking and shaking Berger’s hand.

  “The Thoroughbred Breeders dinner a couple of weeks back. You were handing out some award.”

  “Yeah, that was me,” said Kent. “And as I recall, I’d just flown in from England where I’d gone for the Epsom Derby. I hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.”

  “Have a seat, Mr. Kent,” said Berger.

  “Jason,” said Kent, sitting down.

  “You too, Eli,” continued Berger, turning to me. “And you’d better tell me what this is all about. You look so excited I’d guess you were either about to offer up a major revelation or wet your pants.”

  “Sounds like I got here just in time,” said Bernice from the doorway. “Shame I didn’t bring my camera.”

  “Well?” persisted Berger.

  “Lou,” I said, “the Trojan colt was a ringer!”

  He looked dubious, and as she walked into my line of vision, so did Bernice. Things like that just didn’t happen at the Select Sales.

  I explained that I’d seen the original photo—as they had—in Billy Paulson’s possessions, and that when it didn’t match the scar in the magazine’s photos I went down to the Thoroughbred Weekly’s office and asked Kent about it. He told me about the practice of flopping photos, which explained everything up to the photo of Tyrone in the ring with his hip number clearly not flopped.

  “Sonuvabitch!” said Berger. “Well, now we know how Bigelow planned to get out of debt.” Suddenly he frowned. “But why a ringer? Surely he can’t sell the real Trojan colt now. If this one is supposed to be the Trojan colt, then what can he get for the real one, sticking this one’s pedigree on it—fifty thousand? A hundred, tops?”

  “I agree,” I said.

  “So do I,” chimed in Kent. “He sold his best-bred stock at the sale. Any yearlings he has left aren’t worth that much.”

  Bernice had a sly smile on her face. “Do you want to tell them, Eli, or should I?”

  I returned the smile. “You doped it out?” I said. “Be my guest.”

  “There’s only one reason he’d risk everything by selling a ringer,” she said. “The real Trojan colt is dead—and he needed that purchase price to avoid going under.”

  “And whoever matched the scar on the ringer used the photo in the December issue of Thoroughbred Weekly,” I added. “A photo that showed the scar on the right side of the neck.”

  “Goddamn!” said Berger. “That makes sense!”

  “You know, it does at that,” agreed Kent. Then he frowned. “I hope no one will think my magazine’s in collusion on this.”

  “How could they?” said Bernice. “The Trojan colt was alive when you ran the photo.”

  “Oh, yes, of course,” said Kent, sounding much relieved.

  “What I don’t know is how they even got the ringer into the sale,” I said. “Doesn’t his implanted chip give him away?”

  Kent frowned. “What implanted chip?”

  “I think all domestic animals have them,” I said. “I’ve got a dog that can’t be worth five dollars on the open market, and he has one.”

  Kent shook his head. “Thoroughbreds are different. They’re identified by a lip tattoo, and the Jockey Club doesn’t require the tattoo until the first time the horse goes to the post. Most get them sooner, but it’s not a requirement.”

  “Well,” I said with a shrug, “that’s how they got away with it. The Jockey Club may remain in the dark, but we’re not the first to figure out what happened. Billy Paulson and Tony Sanders were his grooms, and they’re both missing. I’d be surprised if they hadn’t doped it out, and I’d be even more surprised if either of them is still alive.”

  “So you really think a murder was committed?” asked Kent.

  “More than one,” I said. “The two of them didn’t know each other, never met, and disappeared more than a month apart.”

  “Jesus!” whispered Kent hoarsely.

  “We couldn’t make any progress until this morning, until I knew why someone would want to get rid of them,” I explained to him. “But now that we know, we can start putting the pieces together. Only one thing can stop us.”

  He stared at me. “Me?” he said.

  “Releasing what we just discussed before we’re ready to move,” confirmed Berger, who clearly had figured out why I’d brought Kent along to the office. “We’re pretty sure Bigelow’s behind it. After all, he’s the only one who had anything to lose with the death of the colt. And we think we know who pulled the trigger . . .”

  “They’ve been shot?” exclaimed Kent. “But I thought they were both missing!”

  “A figure of speech,” said Berger. “We’ve got a suspect in Bigelow, and we think we know how he got the job done. We’ve identified a possible hit man. What we need now are some details, not many, just enough to justify arresting them and not have a lawyer spring them the same afternoon . . .”

  “Them?” repeated Kent. “I’m confused again.”

  “I don’t want to use names until we’re sure,” said Berger. “Let’s say Bigelow and his coconspirator.”

  “All right,” said Kent, nodding his head. “I can see that.”

  “We’re close,” continued Berger. “Very close. I’d hate to blow it now. Can we count on you to keep this a secret until we resolve it?”

  “There’s got to be a time limit,” said Kent. “Eli’s from out of town, but you two live here. You know how much this area depends on the thoroughbred industry, and how much an industry that’s basically supported by gambling depends on its integrity. A serious fraud has been committed here, and we’ve got to end it as quickly as possible, or you could see an awful lot of damage done to an industry that we all depend on.” He paused while we considered his words. “That’s for the industry. As for the magazine, we’ll put it off for as long as necessary, provided that Eli keeps his word.”

  “His word?” asked Berger.

  “He gives us all the details and gives Thoroughbred Weekly first shot at it.”

  “That mi
ght be difficult, if we march Bigelow out of his mansion in handcuffs,” said Bernice.

  “How’s this?” I suggested. “We’ll give your magazine all the details of the ringer story with a one-week head start on your competition. I think you have to agree that we can’t keep everything a secret if we arrest a prominent citizen for murder.”

  “We’ll also credit you and Thoroughbred Weekly for helping crack the case,” added Berger.

  Kent considered it for a moment, then nodded his agreement.

  “I agree, of course,” he said. “I’m not going to be responsible for letting that bastard get away with fraud in our most prestigious sale.”

  “Fraud and murder,” said Bernice.

  Kent shrugged. “And murder,” he agreed. It seemed like an afterthought.

  “All right,” said Berger, getting to his feet, and Kent and I followed suit. “We have an agreement.”

  They shook hands. Bernice went back to her desk, and Kent and I headed out of the office.

  “I want you back here as soon as possible, Eli,” said Berger. “We’ve got a killer to catch.”

  “Catching him should be easy,” I said. “We know where he lives. Proving he’s a killer is another matter.”

  He sighed heavily. “Yeah,” he replied. “I know.”

  I was back in Berger’s office half an hour later. He’d called MacDonald in on what I guessed was two hours’ sleep, and Bernice was there too.

  I walked in and sat down.

  “Morning,” croaked MacDonald.

  “Bernice, close the door,” said Berger, and she walked over and did so. “All right,” he said. “I’ve filled Drew in on the ringer. If I were a betting man, I’d say it’s even money that both kids were murdered, and a dead certainty that the Sanders kid was. So the first question is: how are they connected?”

  “Except for both being killed by Bigelow, or rather having their deaths commissioned by Bigelow, I don’t see how they can be,” I said. “Remember, the two never met, and if they were killed—and I think they were—they were killed more than a month apart.”

  “And we do know Jimenez was in town when each kid turned up missing,” added MacDonald.

  “Have they ever worked together before, I wonder?” mused Berger.

  “The kids?” said Bernice. “They never even met.”

  “No, I mean Bigelow and Jimenez,” replied Berger.

  “If they have, we sure as hell wouldn’t know about it,” said MacDonald. “After all, Jimenez is still on the loose, and no one’s accused Bigelow of anything like murder in the past.”

  “Okay,” said Berger. “Has anyone got any theories?”

  “I don’t think you have to be a genius to dope out the Paulson end of it,” said Bernice. “After, he worked for Bigelow last year. He handled the real Trojan colt, so he had to know there’d been a switch.”

  “Right,” I said. “If he was looking for some easy money—big money—he’d have played along and let Bigelow give him a few hundred dollars here and there while keeping the secret until he figured out what the colt was worth. But once the colt was approved for the Select Sale and people started talking about what he might bring, the kid probably confronted Bigelow and demanded some really big money to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Why just Paulson?” asked Berger. “What about the rest of the staff?”

  “He was just about the only holdover when Standish got here,” I said, “and probably the only one who knew what had happened. In fact, he had to know. He was in charge of the original, so whatever happened to it—broken leg, colic, anything—he’d have been right on the scene. He knew what was going on, all right, and clearly he was paid to keep quiet. Then he got greedy and went from being a conspirator to a blackmailer.”

  “So the way you figure it, he waited until Keeneland accepted the ringer, then went to Bigelow and threatened to expose him?”

  “Right,” I said. “That’s the only way it figures. Why else would he keep his mouth shut? And once the blackmail started, I figure Bigelow maybe paid him one small chunk and promised to pay him every week or told him it would take a few days to get the kind of cash the kid was talking about, and then he sent for Jimenez, so even if the body turned up full of bullet holes, you’d probably be looking for a local hitter.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” said Berger.

  “Just one problem,” added MacDonald. “It sounds good, it makes sense, it feels right—but without a body it’s all just theory.”

  “And they’ve had plenty of time to hide the body,” said Berger.

  “I agree,” said Bernice. “I think we should be concentrating on the Sanders boy. Eli knew him, he’s only been gone a few days, and that trail has to be fresher.”

  “Right,” I said. “If I just knew one thing, we could probably break this open in two minutes.”

  “What thing?”

  “The same thing that’s been driving me crazy since I came across it,” I answered. “What the hell was Tony doing near the Leestown Road Kroger the night he went missing? Whatever he was doing there, he had to figure he’d be fifteen minutes tops, because it was due to rain again in another half hour or so, and he left the top down on his convertible.”

  “And that’s also where Jimenez shot at you,” added Bernice.

  “The second time,” I said. “The first was at my motel.”

  “I wish I knew what to do next,” said Berger. “We could bring Bigelow in and sweat him, but he’s bound to come equipped with a team of high-powered lawyers. They won’t let him give anything but his name, rank, and serial number, and there’s no way we can keep him locked up overnight, so all we’d accomplish would be to let him know what we know.”

  “I agree,” said MacDonald. “We don’t touch him until we have something concrete.”

  They all turned to me.

  “I’ll go back to Mill Creek and look around again.” I grimaced. “I just wish I knew what I was looking for.”

  “You might talk to the other guy, too,” said Berger. “The one who used to work there.”

  “You mean Hal Chessman?” I asked. “He never laid eyes on Tony. He’s been gone since Christmas.”

  Berger grimaced. “I know, I know. I’m clutching at straws. You know the kids were killed, I know it, Drew and Bernice know it. But along with lacking a shred of proof, we’ve got a guy who thinks the greatest crime committed, whether they were killed or not, was that someone sold a ringer for three million bucks, and I saw a fanatical glow in his eyes. I don’t know if Jason Kent can keep his mouth shut for more than a week.”

  “Well, at least we’ve got that much on Bigelow,” said MacDonald. “If we can’t prove a murder, we can nail him on selling the ringer.”

  “I don’t give a damn about that,” I said harshly.

  They all looked at me.

  “I’m not a cop. I’ve been paid to find Tony Sanders, or to find out what happened to him, and putting one more slimeball in jail for fraud isn’t going to help my clients.”

  “Well, there’s got to be a time limit, Eli,” said Berger. “I’d give you a month or two, but there’s a major sale at Saratoga next month, and even if Bigelow hasn’t got anything in that one, he’ll be selling his lesser-bred yearlings this fall at Keeneland, and you know Jason Kent’s not going to wait anywhere near that long.”

  I sighed deeply. “I know.”

  “Okay, go back to the farm, talk to the trainer, talk to the staff, talk to Bigelow if you think it’ll help, do what you can. There’s got to be some proof somewhere.”

  I nodded my head. “I agree. It’s just a matter of finding it. And,” I added, “there is one more thing to consider.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Maybe whatever happened to the real Trojan colt happened so fast there was never any chance of saving him. Maybe he broke a leg, and five minutes later Bigelow or Paulson put a bullet in his brain. But there’s one thing neither of them had the skill to do.”

  “Y
eah?” said Berger.

  “Duplicate that scar. Screw it up and you’ve got a festering wound on a three-million-dollar yearling, and if it heals wrong, it won’t look like the scar in the flopped photo. So while I’m looking around the farm again, you might see if any veterinarians have been reported missing anytime since the end of December, when Chessman left the farm and before Standish arrived.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” said Berger.

  “It’s a damned good one,” Bernice chimed in.

  “Anything else?” said Berger.

  I checked my watch. “I’ll grab a quick lunch and pop back out to the farm.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said MacDonald. “I’m going to eat and then grab a couple more hours’ sleep before I come back to work for the night.”

  “Tilly’s?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  We drove there in his car. He just had coffee and a slice of pie. I had a hot brown, a kind of sandwich that’s unique to Kentucky, though it’s on the menu in two or three restaurants in Cincinnati.

  Then he dropped me at the station, I got into the Camry, and drove out to Mill Creek to make one last attempt to find out what happened to a troubled young man named Tony Sanders.

  I drove up the long driveway with the mansion on the right and the barns and paddocks on the left, turned and parked at the biggest barn, and got out of the Camry. Jeremy came out of the barn and greeted me.

  “Back again, Mr. Paxton?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Is Frank around?”

  “He’s in his office,” he said, indicating the barn. “Any word about Tony yet?”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  “Too bad. He was a nice kid. I hope he’s having a good time on whatever beach he wound up on.”

  “I hope so too,” I said, walking past him and entering the barn. I went directly to Standish’s office and stood in the doorway for a moment until he looked up.