The Trojan Colt (28 page)

“Why did you want his plate number?”

“He was driving a distinctive car, and he'd taken a shot at me earlier at my motel, either because I'd spoken to you or more likely because I'd already driven around the area near the Kroger's lot trying to figure out what the hell Tony had been doing there.”

“So he's still on the loose and we could both be in danger right now?” asked Chessman, suddenly peering into the parking lot.

“No, you're not in any danger,” I assured him.

“How do you know?”

“You were gone when Branson did his work on the colt, and just knowing that Branson exists isn't a killing offense. Besides, if I could walk in on you twice in the past couple of days, don't you think Jimenez could if he wanted to?”

“You've got a point,” he admitted, relaxing visibly.

“Anyway, I'm going directly to the police station from here, and then some uniformed friends and I will decide on our next move. But in the end, Bigelow—and Jimenez, if he hasn't flown the coop yet—are going down.”

“I've watched enough mystery shows on television to ask: don't you have to have a body to charge someone with murder?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah, you do. We'll have three—the two grooms and Branson.”

He looked completely puzzled. “Where?”

“I wasn't sure when the day started,” I told him. Then I smiled. “But I know now.”

After I dropped Chessman off at Blue Banner Farm I went back to the station. Berger and Bernice were still there, though I didn't know if they were on duty or just waiting to hear what I'd learned.

I laid it out for them, and they agreed with my conclusions.

“I'm going to arrest that son of a bitch tonight,” announced Berger.

“Which one?” asked Bernice with a smile.

“Bigelow,” he said. “We'll stake out Branson's condo too, just in case, and put out an APB on Jimenez before we leave.” He picked up his phone. “Sam? Lou. We're gonna take Bigelow down tonight. Get me a court order to bust in if I have to . . . hell, I don't know. Make it a search warrant, and say we're looking for the real Trojan colt.”

He hung up and turned to me. “We've got a couple of understanding local judges. Sam'll contact one of them, and he should be back with a warrant in fifteen or twenty minutes. Why don't you two grab some dinner or something, while I line up a couple of boys in blue and a paddy wagon?”

“Hell, no!” I said. “I started this investigation. I'm going to be in on the end of it.”

“The end of it is probably a two-year attempt to extradite Jimenez from New Mexico once he runs back there and thirty mob members swear he never left.”

“I'm coming with you!” I insisted.

“So am I,” said Bernice.

He shrugged and turned to Bernice. “I know better than to argue with you,” he said. “Keep your blues on.”

She nodded and turned to me. “Let him make all his arrangements and we'll get ourselves some coffee.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“And he'd damned well better not try leaving without us,” she added, raising her voice.

He put a pained expression on his face, then picked up his phone and went to work as we walked down the hall to get some coffee.

“So Jimenez isn't working for Bigelow!” she said. “That one got right by me, but of course given his financial situation he couldn't pay for a high-priced hitter.”

“And the end result is the same,” I added. “Anyone he wants to get rid of, it's in the mob's best interest to do the dirty work for him.”

“At least until the check for the colt clears,” she said.

“He sold it to one of those Dubai oil sheikhs,” I said. “The guy probably makes more in a day than what the colt cost. It must be a nice life.”

“Yeah,” she said dubiously. “But he can't watch Big Blue go up against Louisville.”

“My mistake,” I said with a smile. “I don't know what I could have been thinking.”

She laughed, we talked a bit more and were about to return to Berger's office when he emerged from it and approached us.

“Everything's set,” he said. “You want to ride in the squad car or the paddy wagon?”

“Why don't we just take my own car and follow you?” I said. “That way if you're stuck there for a few hours, we can leave once he's under arrest.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

We turned and fell into step behind him as he walked to the front entrance. The paddy wagon was parked just a few feet away, its motor idling. Lou walked over to a squad car, and Bernice and I went to the Camry. Night had fallen and we needed the headlights. We fell into formation behind them as we all drove out—I hoped for the last time—to Mill Creek Farm.

It was obvious as we pulled up to the house that something was wrong. The door was open, and Hector the doorman was lying unconscious about ten feet to the right on it. Sounds emanated from the house, sounds like someone was getting the crap beat out of him.

We rushed in through the foyer and then to the living room. Travis Bigelow was tied to a chair, blood streaming down his face. Horatio Jimenez was working him over, screaming, “Where is it, you lying bastard?”

“That's enough!” I said, starting to approach them.

Jimenez turned and rushed at me. A single shot rang out, and he fell to the floor, bellowing in pain, and I could see a huge bloody stain spreading out from his knee. I turned and saw that Bernice had her gun in her hand, aimed at him.

“You kneecapped me, you goddamned puta!” he roared, pulling his gun out of his shoulder holster.

There was another explosion, and his gun went flying through the air and he screamed again as blood began spurting from his hand.

“Call me a puta again and you may have to learn how to sign your autograph with your nose,” said Bernice pleasantly. Then, to no one in particular, she added: “I no longer resent all those hours at the shooting range.”

“Call an ambulance,” said Berger to one of the officers. “And ride with him to the hospital to make sure he doesn't try any funny stuff. We'll arrange for a twenty-four-hour guard once he's there.”

The officer nodded, pulled out his cell phone, and called 911 on it.

“All right, Mr. Bigelow,” said Berger as he went over and began untying him. “You'll make a side trip to the hospital, but then you're going to jail. Let me guess: you not only promised the three million, or a substantial portion of it, to Jimenez's employers, but to a bunch of other people as well.” He smiled. “You've been a very bad boy.”

“Those are my private dealings,” mumbled Bigelow weakly but defiantly. “His employers aren't going to press charges, and neither are you.”

“You got it all wrong,” said Berger. “We don't care if you rob the mob. But you ran a ringer in the sale, and you're going to jail for it.”

“I won't admit to a damned thing,” whispered Bigelow as we heard the siren of an approaching ambulance.

“You don't have to,” answered Berger. “We'll just run a DNA test on the colt.” Bigelow's swollen eyes widened—well, as much as they could—in surprise, and Berger chuckled. “Welcome to the twenty-first century, Mr. Bigelow.”

Then they were loading Jimenez and Bigelow onto a pair of stretchers, and Berger had both of his officers ride along with them.

“Where's Mrs. Bigelow?” asked Bernice.

“I checked before we came out there,” answered Berger. “She's in New York, spending money she doesn't have on things she doesn't need.”

“Well, that's that,” she said, finally putting her gun away.

“Not quite,” said Berger. He turned to me. “So where are the bodies?”

“Follow me,” I said.

I walked out of the house and headed toward the largest barn, the one that housed Frank Standish's office. We walked past the huge backhoe, and just before we reached the barn I stopped.

“Right there,” I said, pointing to the little equine cemetery.

“Silk Scarf?” he said, shining a flashlight on the small cement marker.

“She died this spring, so the grave is fresh. It hasn't had time for anything to grow on it, so it was easy to open it up without anyone paying any attention. He did it the night the colt sold, when he paid Standish to take the night staff out to dinner and the movies.”

“You'd better be right,” said Berger.

“I am,” I replied confidently.

“What the hell,” he said. “Even if you're wrong, we've still got Bigelow on a felony, and we'll have plenty on Jimenez before he's healthy enough to move. We'll wait here for some replacements to arrive, and then I'm buying you and Annie Oakley here a drink.”

The next morning, armed with a court order to go with the previous night's search warrant, they opened the grave and found three bodies—Billy Paulson, Tobias Branson, and Tony Sanders—just atop that of Silk Scarf. Then they dug a little farther down and found the remains of a young colt with a broken foreleg.

I reported the sad news to Tony's parents, had one last dinner with Bernice, and drove home.

Some people have strange senses of humor. Khalid Rahjan, the Arab who shelled out three and a quarter million for the colt, was one of them. He viewed the whole thing as a huge joke on himself. He never tried to return the colt, never asked for his money back, didn't even ask for a price adjustment. He even made “Tyrone” its official name. I suppose when you make a million dollars an hour on slow days, you can find humor in almost any situation.

It had been ten months since the night we arrested Bigelow and Jimenez, and they were both doing time. I'd driven down a couple of times to visit Bernice, but in January she told me that she was dating a local. MacDonald moved to some obscure little town in Utah, God knows why, and joined the force there, and Lou Berger got a commendation and transferred to headquarters.

I hadn't been back since the turn of the year, but I found myself driving down to Kentucky on a pleasant April day just to see an old friend in action. I had a late breakfast at Tilly's with Hal Chessman, and then we drove an hour over to Churchill Downs in Louisville, where they were running the Bashford Manor Stakes for two-year-olds.

The very first Trojan colt to reach the track would be making his debut. So would the first starter by the imported British champion Morpheus. And there was one other colt who'd be starting for the first time. His sire was Spellsinger, a nice but not outstanding racehorse who had sired a couple of stakes winners and a lot of losers, and his dam was a Mill Creek Farm mare named Sassy Suzie. The colt's name was Tyrone, and he was the old friend I'd come to see.

“He's 65-to-1,” noted Chessman. “Figures for a nonstarter going against two of the best-bred colts in the crop. Of course,” he added, “all that could change overnight.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Breeding's not a science,” said Chessman. “Citation had a couple of full brothers who never won a race. And on the flip side, Polynesian and Bold Reasoning, who sired Native Dancer and Seattle Slew, weren't classic sires until the Dancer and Slew came along, and then overnight they were. So for all anyone knows, the best-bred colt in the field might be Tyrone.”

I looked at the tote board. He was up to 80-to-1. “I don't think a lot of people agree with you.”

“They're probably right,” he agreed. “I'm just pointing out that nothing's written in stone. Or to coin a phrase: That's what makes horse races.”

“There he is,” I said, pointing to Tyrone as he walked by us in the post parade.

“He looks fit,” said Chessman. “I'm going to go put ten dollars down on him. Want me to lay a bet for you?”

I looked at the board: 90-to-1. The bay by Trojan was even money, and the black Morpheus colt was 8-to-5. Which figured. They were that well-bred.

“No,” I said at last. “I don't want to jinx him, I'll just root for him.”