Blind Switch Read online

  Damon was a native of Chicago’s Little Italy, a tightly knit neighborhood on the near west side of the Loop. He had developed an anti-crime attitude as a young boy, its source the fact that his father’s tiny sandwich shop was forced to pay “tribute” to the arrogant, “made” guys who strutted around Taylor Street like, as Damon used to sneer, “little Mussolinis.” He developed a powerful contempt for these small-time hoods who preyed on their fellow Italian-Americans, secure in the knowledge that they would not be “ratted out” to the law.

  That contempt never left him through the years when Damon earned a business degree at the nearby University of Chicago-Illinois, then a law degree on scholarship at Northwestern University. At age forty, Damon had now been an FBI agent for twelve years. He was happily married, with three sons, all of whose youth soccer teams he helped to coach.

  Two years earlier, after they had progressed through the early months of their partnership, Damon had finally felt at ease enough with Karen to begin kidding her that the reason they would work well together was that she had “been brought up with enough Dagos to know what to expect.”

  It was true that Karen had had several good friends among the sizable Italian-American community in her home town of Kenosha, Wisconsin. She had certainly stood out from most of them physically, with her Swedish-American complexion and her size: at five feet ten inches and one hundred forty-five pounds, she had the athletic build and the ability to earn a volleyball scholarship at the University of Wisconsin, from which she’d graduated with a degree in criminal justice. She’d also taken her law degree there, and it was at the UW law school that she’d met and married Dan Litzow.

  That ranked as her only real mistake made in Madison, she once told Damon; she and Litzow had divorced after three years. At thirty-three, Karen entertained few thoughts of marrying again. She dated occasionally, but for the most part found herself satisfied with making her work the overwhelming priority of her life.

  Karen smiled to herself as she glanced sideways at her super-serious partner. Damon’s only real flaw, as far as she was concerned, was his major lack of a sense of humor. He wasn’t dour, but rarely did Damon permit himself even a chuckle, even when smack dab in the middle of situations that cried out for laughter. Karen remembered Damon’s all-business attitude when the two of them had apprehended a missing Chicago grain exchange dealer hiding in the canvas-covered jacuzzi of his hunting lodge in the northern Wisconsin woods. Once they’d pulled the cover back off the steaming jacuzzi, the finance felon had leaped to his feet from the roiling water, hands in the air, wearing only a Green Bay Packers ball cap. “Don’t shoot, I’ll pay it all back,” he had said loudly. Karen could hardly retain her grip on her revolver as she took in this ludicrous scene.

  Damon had responded by looking impassively at their dripping-wet quarry. “You’re damn right you will, Cheesehead,” was all he had said.

  A few days later, back in Chicago and describing this arrest scene to their supervisor, Karen had commented, “And Damon, well, he was the epitome of cool.” She had meant it as a compliment. Hearing her say that, Damon shook his head and sighed. “I’m not cool,” he insisted quietly. “I’m like most people. I spend my life bouncing back and forth between boredom and hysteria. I just cover it up pretty well,” he had added with a small smile.

  Damon, driving with his usual calm precision, was not devoting any thought to his partner’s psyche. He had immediately accepted Karen as a required presence in his career, one whose ability to perform her job was, to his mind, never jeopardized by the fact that she was tall, intelligent, and right on the border of beautiful, despite her practical hairstyles and understated makeup.

  Nor, in spite of the kidding remarks of envious male colleagues, had Damon ever thought of Karen in any way other than as that of trusted partner. Damon had grown up in a household with four very bright older sisters, a circumstance that had early on given him an abiding liking of and respect for women. And once he had, ten years before, married Marie Romano, Damon Tirabassi had never evidenced any hint of a roving eye. In his marriage, as in his professional life, Tirabassi was steadfast.

  Damon shifted slightly in his seat. “You’ve read what there is on this Mortvedt,” he said to Karen. “Sum it up for me, will you?”

  Karen said, “It’s not much. Just a summary of reports and rulings from the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, the horse racing industry’s security arm.”

  Mortvedt, she said, early on was the subject of the normal number of suspensions for occupational infractions—rough riding, careless riding, failure to exercise proper judgment. But as his career settled into the trough of mediocrity, his temper often took hold of him in public, and the young Cajun was fined for “striking his horse on the head” after three different losing races. On two other occasions he was suspended for viciously kicking his mount in the belly after dismounting. In his third year as a jockey, Mortvedt drew a six-month suspension for blatantly attempting to put a rival rider over the rail during a race at New Orleans’ Fair Grounds.

  Alphonse LeBeau, a trainer who for some time employed Mortvedt as his regular rider, later told the track stewards that he had “never known a rider to hate horses like this little bastard.”

  When Mortvedt was twenty-four, he was discovered to have ridden a series of favorites in such a way as to prevent them from finishing in the money in trifecta and exacta races. He was working at the time in conjunction with a small ring of New Orleans-based professional gamblers who used to their benefit the knowledge that certain horses would finish “nowhere” in specified races when Mortvedt was riding them.

  Trainer LeBeau, who had parted company with Mortvedt three years earlier, was one of several honest horsemen who reported their suspicions to investigators. Eventually Mortvedt was arrested, tried, and convicted of race-fixing and sent to Oakdale Prison. He served seven years of a fifteen-year sentence before being paroled. Because of his conviction, Mortvedt was banned for life from ever again working as a professional jockey.

  “Mortvedt appealed that ban twice to the state racing commission,” Karen said, “but was turned down. His last unsuccessful appeal was three years ago.”

  “Not long before the horse killings began in Kentucky,” Damon said.

  “That’s right,” Karen said.

  What was not a part of the Ronald Mortvedt file was anything explaining how he, a convicted felon from deep in America’s south, had ever gone into business with Harvey Rexroth, press lord and prominent Kentucky horse owner and breeder. Their unlikely alliance arose from two shared traits: both men understood the value of horses, while not respecting them any more than they would any other commodity; and through each of these otherwise disparate individuals ran a broad streak of larceny parallel to a sizable streak of cruelty.

  Mortvedt, like dozens of jockeys before him, hailed from the rural area near Lafayette, where young boys begin to ride horses in match races when they are so small they have to be tied on to their mounts.

  But unlike the vast majority of his Cajun colleagues, Ronald Mortvedt harbored no love of horses: he saw them only as a way out of a life he despised. He had enough physical talent to have realistic hopes for escape, too.

  Besides his ability as a hustling, hard-hitting little rider, Ronald Mortvedt brought with him into the world outside his native Acadiana a truly venomous attitude toward his fellow human beings in general. This undoubtedly had its source in the years of physical and mental abuse Ronald had suffered at the hands of his alcoholic father, Maurice. Or perhaps he had, in the words of his beleaguered mother, Audrey, just been “born mean, like his daddy.” Ronald had coal black hair, the same color as his father’s, and the same icy black eyes that seemed to state to the world, “I don’t trust you. And if you’re any way smart at all, you’d better not trust me.”

  Ronald was an only child. One was more than enough for Audrey, who fled the company of her sociopath husband and son when Ronald was f
ourteen, running off with an East Texas truck driver she had met at the Abbeville match races one Sunday.

  Young Ronald himself moved away barely a year later, some two months before Maurice Mortvedt killed himself by driving into a concrete abutment while en route home from Guidry’s Tavern early one Tuesday morning. At that time, Ronald was working at Evangeline Downs Racetrack for trainer LeBeau. Informed by phone of his father’s death, Ronald accepted the news without comment, hung up the receiver in LeBeau’s office and went back to work, a wicked little smile on his narrow face. “He’s a cold-hearted little coon ass, ain’t he?” LeBeau said to his assistant trainer when the screen door of the office had slammed behind Mortvedt.

  Nineteen months later, Ronald Mortvedt rode for the first time in a race at a recognized racetrack. LeBeau had put him up on an old, sore-legged gelding named Friar Tuck, who went off at nearly fifty to one in a cheap claiming race at Evangeline Downs. Under Mortvedt’s furious whipping, the old horse got up to be second. LeBeau was livid. “Goddam you, boy, I told you not to abuse that old horse. He always tries his best. Don’t have to whip that horse.” Mortvedt barely acknowledged his boss’ words before swaggering back to the jockeys’ room, eminently pleased with himself.

  Thus began a riding career that could best be described as checkered. It produced a decent number of victories, for Ronald Mortvedt had “some talent,” as Alphonse LeBeau had noticed early on. Mortvedt was also fearless, ruthless, and ambitious. And, like most professional jockeys, he was blessed with amazingly quick reflexes and a level of strength inordinate for his size—five feet four inches, one hundred ten pounds.

  But Ronald Mortvedt’s level of riding skill proved to be far below that of such famous fellow Cajuns as Eddie Delahoussaye, or Kent Desormeaux, who went on to fabulously successful careers at the major California tracks. Young Mortvedt realized that much early on. He adapted by looking to find ways to make money illegally. It was not just an attempt to enhance a modest income, but a form of revenge against the sport that he had hoped to use as his meal ticket.

  ***

  Ronald’s conviction was welcomed by his co-workers. “I’m glad they nailed that bastard,” said Evangeline Downs’ leading rider, Ray Moreau. Privately, Moreau admitted to friends his amazement at Mortvedt’s skill in “stiffing” horses. “You gotta watch him close,” Moreau said. “I tell you, he’s awful good at it.

  “If he worked at hard as trying to win as he does trying to lose, he’d make a decent living for himself. That boy’s so strong he could hold an elephant away from a barrel of peanuts.”

  Chapter 10

  As the Taurus neared the outskirts of Lafayette that afternoon, Karen said, “It’s after two o’clock. I’d like something to eat.”

  “Sure,” Damon said. A few blocks later, he pulled into the small, dusty parking lot of Guerin’s Café. Seated at one of the six tables inside, they discussed strategy over bowls of gumbo and a shared platter of fried catfish—barbue frittes, as the worn menu described it. As usual, Karen ate with rapid relish, while Damon worked his way methodically through his meal.

  Besides the friendly, heavy-set waitress, the only other people in the place were two elderly men in work clothes. They were sitting at the small counter, talking quietly and drinking bottles of Dixie beer. An ancient black radio, positioned on the shelf dividing the kitchen from the counter, played Cajun music from station 1050-AM. “The races?” replied the waitress to Karen’s question. “Sure, they goin’ on now.”

  Following the waitress’ directions, the agents drove a couple of miles to LaCombe Downs, one of Louisiana’s last remaining bush tracks, meaning horse racing at its most rudimentary: amateur jockeys wear T-shirts, jeans, and gym shoes; a handwritten, mimeographed track program lists the day’s races and entries; and the horses have been trained on their owners’ farms, then trailered over to the track for the day. No pari-mutuel betting adds to the excitement, as at the larger, recognized tracks; instead, all the wagering done here is up front and personal between interested patrons.

  As they slowly walked on a sand path that led from the little paddock to the railing that rimmed the racetrack, Engel and Tirabassi observed racing fans of all ages, from very small children to extremely senior citizens, all rooting on their favorites, then talking about the next race to come. Women sat in lawn chairs, fanning themselves against the heat as they watched lively, laughing children. Groups of men wearing straw cowboy hats talked softly, so softly that Karen could barely discern that the language they were employing was French. As Clayton Fugette had said, Karen thought, this is a different world.

  Damon made inquiries as they advanced through the crowd; the third one produced directions to the tented area in which food and drink were served. “You can’t miss her,” Damon was told by a helpful young girl. “Old Alice Cormier’s big enough to take up two chairs. She’s that Mortvedt boy’s aunt.”

  The agents approached a corner table at which sat a middle-aged white woman who appeared to weigh at least two hundred fifty pounds. She was wearing a flower-patterned yellow dress. Her bright, brown eyes were almost lost in the folds of fat that served as her cheeks. A small, red mouth above a triple layer of chins widened into a guarded smile when Tirabassi introduced himself and Karen, being careful to display his badge discreetly so that onlookers could not see it.

  “Don’t have to show me no badge,” Alice Cormier said. “If you weren’t FBI or some such, don’t think you’d be out here in your business clothes on a afternoon hot as this.”

  She motioned for them to sit down across from her, then pushed forward a plate of meat. “That’s barbequed raccoon,” Alice said. “Help yourself. If you don’t like that,” she added, “the red beans and rice are awful good here.” Alice briskly transferred three forkfuls of food into her mouth, her eyes never leaving their faces as she did.

  Karen learned forward. “We just had our lunch, Ms. Cormier,” she said, “but thank you anyway.

  “The reason we’re here,” Karen continued, “is to try to get an idea of how to locate a man you’re related to. His name is Ronald Mortvedt. We understand he’s your nephew.”

  Alice Cormier slowly lowered her fork onto her plate. She looked pained under the weight of unbidden memory. “Oh Lord,” she sighed, “what’s that boy gone and done now?”

  ***

  In the sweltering south Louisiana afternoon, as a portable fan swept back and forth nearby, making ripples in the fetid air but cooling nothing, Karen and Damon listened patiently as Alice Cormier recounted her recollections of “my sister Audrey’s only child.”

  “Ronnie,” she said, “was an unhappy baby, crying all the time, poor little fella, and as he got older he was just a real mean-tempered little boy. And he got to be meaner every year, it seemed.

  “Ronnie’s daddy, Maurice, would come home drunk and beat on the both of them, Audrey and Ronnie. It was terrible, what went on there for years. Audrey went to the sheriff a lot of times but never got no help that I remember. I don’t know why. Finally, Audrey just up and run out on them, and later on Ronnie left here, too. I ain’t seen him since. I read about him the papers, though. Last I heard he was over in that prison west of here. I wrote him some letters up there, but I never heard back from him.”

  Alice paused to run a kerchief across her forehead. She took a long drink of iced tea before continuing. “Ronnie’s a boy that probably was no good just from his father’s blood—them Mortvedts are nothing but trouble. Never been nothing else. But I always felt sorry for Ronnie. There’s many a time, Audrey told me, that Maurice would whup him for no reason at all. So he was never surprised when he got whupped for something he did do.

  “By the time he was nine or ten and starting to ride in the match races around here, he was as hard as oak. There didn’t seem to be anything he was scared of or could bother him—even the beatings from his daddy. Boys four or five years older than him was afraid of Ronnie.”

  Over the c
ourse of the next hour, Alice took considerable pains to emphasize that Ronnie Mortvedt’s character was in no way representative of his mother’s side of the family. “I’ll tell you all day long that them Mortvedts was the matter here,” Alice said forcefully. “Our people hardly never got into no trouble with the law. And we sure didn’t enjoy it when we did.

  “We had people in racing, too,” Alice emphasized. “My daddy, Mervin Cormier, was a very, very well respected horseman. He was known over in New Orleans. He raced his horses there for many years and made a lot of friends doing it.

  “I’ll never forget when daddy died. Before they brung him back here to be buried, they had a service for him right there at the Fair Grounds racetrack in the morning. We all drove over there for it.

  “It was kind of a memorial service. They held it right after the workouts was over. All daddy’s friends from the racetrack turned out, even though it was a rainy morning, and kind of cool, too. The racetrack chaplain gave a little talk, and then the hearse with daddy in it drove all the way around the track. That’s a mile around there, I believe.

  “When that hearse turned into the homestretch one of daddy’s old friends, a horse owner named Jack Muniz, he hollered out, “‘Yeah! Here he comes, here comes the winner!’

  “And everybody else started joining in, saying the same thing: “‘Here comes the winner!’ I remember standing right by the winner’s circle when that hearse moved by real slow. I was crying, and so was most of the rest of them.”

  Alice Cormier sat back in her chair. “When you think of what kind of people Ronnie came from—at least on one side,” she said with a snort—“it is hard to believe he turned out so bad, it truly is.”

  “So he left to work at the racetrack about”—Karen paused to consult her notes—“eleven or twelve years ago?”