The Trojan Colt (26 page)

“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.”

“Yeah?” 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.

“We're going to have to start charging you board,” he said with a smile.

“Just making what I hope is my last tour of the place.”

“You've got some leads?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Just looking around again.”

“Looking for . . . ?”

“Damned if I know,” I said. “Same as the last few times: anything that'll tell me where Tony Sanders might be.”

“So you haven't made any progress?” said Standish. “I hope he's okay. He was a good kid. I hate to think of him lying outside somewhere with maybe a busted ankle.”

“I sure as hell doubt that's the case,” I said. “He could have crawled to Louisville by now.”

“True,” agreed Standish. “I really don't know why he left. He liked the work, he loved the business, and everyone here liked him. Hell, even Mr. Bigelow liked him.”

“Oh?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought he barely knew him.”

“Maybe I worded that wrong,” replied Standish with a smile. “What I meant is that he appreciated the job that Tony did with Tyrone. He had the colt in perfect shape for the sale, and you know how valuable that turned out to be.” He paused. “In fact, just a few hours after Tyrone sold, Bigelow declared it Tony Sanders Night.”

“He did?” I asked curiously.

Standish nodded. “He gave me a couple of hundred dollars and had me take the night staff—there are six of them—to the movies in the farm's van, and then to a late-night dinner. Of course, the guest of honor was missing . . . but still, it was a nice gesture, and they had a great time. One of the half-price rerun houses was showing a pair of the old Sean Connery James Bond films. I hadn't seen them, even on television, in maybe fifteen years.”

“Sounds like fun,” I remarked.

“It was. I know Bigelow's having a lot of financial troubles, so that made it even more generous of him.”

“I can't argue that.”

He got to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “I've got something to show you.”

He walked out of the office and down the aisle until he was outside, with me just a step behind him. We began walking between the paddocks and finally came to one that housed four mares—two bays, a gray, and a chestnut—and their offspring, which looked like they ranged from two to maybe four months old.

“Okay,” I said. “What am I looking at?”

“See the chestnut mare?”

“Yeah.”

“That's Tyrone's mother. And the little chestnut filly running around is his half sister, by Instant Replay.” He paused and turned to me. “If you find Tony, tell him I don't care why he went AWOL, his job is still waiting for him, and I'm saving the filly for him.”

“I'll do that,” I said.

“We had quite a fight to keep her alive,” Standish continued. “It was a rough birth.”

“Especially without a vet on the grounds,” I said. “Who do you use?”

“Jim Grady,” he answered. “I brought him with me. Which is to say, I convinced Bigelow to use him when I came to work here. He's about six miles away, but he'll come out any time of the night or day on a moment's notice. I've been using him for, oh, it must be fifteen years now.”

We watched the foals frisking about for a few minutes, then turned and headed back to the big barn.

“Got a question,” I said as we walked. “I know Tony's job at Keeneland was to stick with Tyrone around the clock, but surely he had other duties on the farm here?”

Standish nodded his head. “He had four other yearlings as well, including a filly who sold the night after Tyrone, he helped with some of the babies, and while he wasn't a foaling man, he'd spend about every fifth or sixth night here, keeping an eye on mares who were about to drop their foals. He knew which staff members to call, and if there were problems after that, it was out of his hands. Once the foaling team showed up, he was free to leave.”

“So he walked the foals into the barns at night or when it was raining or snowing?” I asked.

He chuckled. “He walked the
mares
in and the foals followed on their own. Try to lead a month-old or two-month-old foal away from its mother and you've got a panicky foal, and half the time a panicky thousand-pound mare as well.”

“Which barns would he have put them in?” I asked. “I just need to take one look to make sure I'm not missing anything.”

He pointed out three barns to me, left me to my own devices, and walked back to his office. I waved to a couple of grooms I recognized, entered each barn in turn, examined the tack rooms and any other areas I could think to look, and found absolutely nothing relating to Tony in any way.

It was frustrating. I had the run of the farm, carte blanche to peek into every corner. I
knew
Billy Paulson was dead, and I'd have given long odds that Tony had been killed too, but I couldn't pick up a single piece of evidence, couldn't add a thing to what I'd found—or failed to find—the last few times I'd come to the farm. Standish had been absolutely open with me, hadn't made a single corner of the multitude of barns or hundreds of acres off-limits to me, and still I kept coming up blank.

Somehow I knew I wouldn't be back looking for clues or leads again. You only get so many strikes in a baseball game or an investigation before you become a failure and then a nuisance.

All right
, I thought as I walked to the car,
there's nothing to be learned here
. It was useless to talk to Jason Kent; he didn't know a damned thing until I'd visited him in his office this morning. There was no sense confronting Bigelow; comic books and bad movies to the contrary, mighty few criminals brag about all the details of their crimes to the good guys.

I went through the whole cast of characters in my mind. There was only one left to speak to, the least likely of all to help me track down Tony Sanders. But I had simply run out of alternatives, so I started the Camry and headed off to Blue Banner Farm to talk to Hal Chessman.

Chessman was in Blue Banner's breeding barn when one of the hired help told him I was there. He came out a minute later to greet me.

“Hi, Eli,” he said with a welcoming smile on his pudgy face. “We're just introducing Marauder to one of today's lady friends. Care to watch?”

“I think I'll take a pass,” I said. “If he can score on the first date, it'll just depress me.”

He laughed at that. “So what can I do for you?”

A stallion's shrill, impatient scream came from the barn.

“Take care of
his
needs first,” I said. “Mine can wait a few minutes.”

“It won't be long,” he said. “I'm really just overseeing the men who are actually working with the horses.”

He disappeared into the barn as Marauder screamed again, and I heard an answering scream coming from deeper in the stallion barn, a scream that sounded very jealous to me. They had a bunch of stallions at the farm, but somehow I was sure it came from Pit Boss, who'd always been a fierce competitor on the track.

There was some more noise, and then Chessman's voice barking orders, and then silence, and ten minutes later he emerged from the barn again.

“Everyone needs a rest,” he announced. “That's the fifth mare today—and the second one for Marauder. I'm giving them all an hour off before the next one.”

“Is there someplace where we can talk in private?” I asked.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I've been up since six-thirty, and it's getting near my dinnertime. Why don't you join me—my treat—and we'll talk there?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “At least let me do the driving.”

“It's a deal,” he said. He stopped a passing employee, told him that he'd be back in an hour or so, and then we walked to my car.

“This is a special place we're going to,” he said as he started giving me directions.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Tilly's?”

He laughed. “Funny,” he said. “You don't look like a native.”

“I've been in the company of some,” I answered.

We got there in about seven or eight minutes and took a booth in the back. Neither of us looked at a menu. Chessman ordered some salt-cured ham, and I'd liked the hot brown so much I ordered it again. We each ordered a beer.

“Okay,” he said when Tilly had delivered our beers and gone back behind the counter. “How's the search coming?”

“It's expanded beyond the Sanders kid,” I said.

“Oh?”

“I want it understood that what I'm telling you is in confidence and goes no farther until I okay it.”

He frowned. “You've got it.”

“Let me start with a question,” I said. “Were you at the sale?”