Judas Horse

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the dedicated professionals in the Los Angeles Field Office of the FBI who shared their expertise with frankness and generosity: Special Agent George Carr, SWAT; Special Agent Kevin G. Miles, bomb technician; Supervisory Special Agent Bruce Stephens, retired; Special Agent in Charge Randy Parsons, retired; and especially Special Agent Larry Wilson, retired, whose experience as an undercover helped inspire this book.

At the FBI Academy in Quantico, I was educated in the rigors of undercover school by Stephen R. Band, Ph.D.; Carl Jensen III, Ph.D.; and Arthur E. Westveer, violent crime specialist. The interviews were facilitated with the much appreciated support of Philip L. Edney, public affairs specialist at FBIHQ.

This book grew out of a research trip to Oregon undertaken with my stalwart husband, Douglas Brayfield, and daughter, Emma, whose care for and knowledge of horses informs every page. Special thanks to Halle Mandel and Rick Sadle for their warm hospitality in Portland; to our guide, Crofton Diack; to Norm Sharpe and Frank Klejmont, formerly of the Portland police department; Captain Donna Henderson; Patrick Barry of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; and at the FBI’s Portland Division, Public Affairs Specialist Beth Anne Steele.

I owe an enormous debt to the accommodating folks at the Bureau of Land Management, Burns District, who allowed us to observe the mustangs in the wild, a life-changing experience. Thomas H. Dyer, Mark L. Armstrong, Ramona Bishop, and Tom Seley all work tirelessly on behalf of the horses.

Thank you to hazelnut farmers Harry and Carol Logerstad; horse trainer Richard Goff; music expert Piero Scaruffi; Barry Fisher, Crime Laboratory Director, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department; pathologist Lisa Sheinin, M.D.; author and FBI historian Richard Gid Powers; equine veterinarian David Cox, DVM; and Michael Grunberg of Sandline International, who were all kind enough to answer dozens of inquiries.

An author is sustained through three years of writing not only by the compassion of strangers, but by the good humor of family and friends, publishers and agents. I am thankful to my son, Benjamin, for his spirited counsel; my parents and my brother, Ronald, for their faith; to Michelle Abrams, Susan Baskin, Carrie Frazier, Lauren Grant, Joy Horowitz, Evan Levinson, Janice Lieberman, Linda Orkin, and Julie Waxman for being such good pals; Angela Rinaldi for wisdom in all things; to everyone in the first-rate Knopf organization, headed by the incomparable Sonny Mehta; and to the terrific assistant editor, Diana Coglianese. On the agent side, thank you once again to the beloved Molly Friedrich; Bruce Vinokour and the team at CAA; and the two outstanding individuals to whom this book is dedicated: FBI Special Supervisory Agent Pam Graham, for her integrity and friendship, and David Freeman, who gave the greatest gift one writer can give another, which is to find the soul of a troubled manuscript and light the way home.