The Payback Man (12 page)

Eleanor sighed in exasperation. “How about you go back to work and we don’t talk anywhere?”

“Mind my own business, you mean? Uh-uh. Anything that affects the doctors in this practice
is
my business.”

“Don’t mother-hen me, Mabel, I’m a grown woman. And I’m fine.”

“You’re acting like Juliet just before she took the poison. Now come up front with me. You have two minutes to decide or I come right back here.” Without waiting to see whether Eleanor would follow, Mabel turned around and walked out of the office.

Two minutes. Sarah’s office combined the familiar scents of disinfectant, clean wood shavings and just the slightest hint of manure. The equipment that Sarah had fought Mark Scott so hard to get lined the walls, waiting to be taken out to calls or used on their large patients. For Eleanor this office had become her refuge, her den, her nest. She felt safe here, certain of her skills, sure that she could do the job asked of her.

She did not allow emotion to color her professional decisions. Pity she couldn’t say the same about her private life.

Without the support of this clinic, these doctors, this staff, she’d still be a grieving widow in her studio apartment watching daytime television, eating take-out pizza when she remembered to eat at all and sleeping eighteen hours a day.

She’d been so certain she was back at full strength. How wrong could one person be?

Eleanor told herself she deserved a pleasant uncomplicated life. She’d had about all the emotional upheaval one person should have to endure.

She and Jerry had thought they were going to work side by side in their practice in Franklin, treating the suburban horses and pets. They’d been together since veterinary school. She knew people who said they could never work with their spouses, but she and Jerry had loved every minute of it.

Until the cancer. Even now she couldn’t bear to think of her beautiful, funny, big handsome husband wasting away while she had to treat him like a baby. She knew how much he hated it.

Not as much as she did. She knew she was supposed to go from anger to acceptance, but she’d never made it that far.

And after Jerry’s death, her world kept collapsing until there was simply nothing left.

Eleanor had nothing left either by that time—emotionally or physically. If not for Rick Hazard and Mac Thorn, who came up to Franklin to buy some of the equipment at the bankruptcy sale, she might well be homeless now.

But Rick, ever the organizer, had simply dragged her up and away to Memphis, pressured her to work part-time at night in one of the local emergency clinics, and harassed and cajoled her until she could go a whole afternoon without bursting into tears.

But thanks to Creature Comfort and Rick Hazard, professionally at least, she was back at full strength. However,
there weren’t any reserves. She didn’t know how to deal with the deluge of feelings she had for Steve.

The intercom buzzed. “You have thirty seconds. And we still have no clients, so we can talk in private.”

“Coming, Mother.”

She stopped in the staff conference room, picked up a couple of diet sodas out of the machine and carried them up front. She slid her rear onto the second bar stool behind the high reception counter and handed a can to Mabel.

“I think I’m going to quit.”

“The clinic?” Mabel sounded horrified.

“The prison.”

“You’ll lose your new cottage. You haven’t even had a housewarming yet.”

“Everybody is going to say I told you so.”

“The work’s too much?”

“Not the work. The people, the rules, the atmosphere. You know what cognitive dissonance is?”

“Isn’t that where you know what you’re supposed to be seeing and hearing isn’t what’s really going on, but you’re not certain you can trust yourself?”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself. The thing is, I
like
the members of my team, except for Sweet Daddy, and even he makes me laugh sometimes.”

“Sweet Daddy?”

“Most of them have nicknames. The only person I’ve met I truly dislike and am scared to death of is a certain CO.”

“What’s that?”

“Corrections Officer. Guard. One of them is a sadistic monster named Mike Newman who beats up prisoners who can’t fight back and has come pretty close to stalking me.”

“So report him.”

“I have. My word against his, and he’s been there far longer and has a lot more seniority. After the first day, managed to get him off my team, but I think that was more his choice than because the warden believed me.”

“You want to quit because of a guard? I don’t believe you. There’s more to it than that. I heard you even want to bring a couple of those guys over here on work release a couple of days a week. I probably wouldn’t feel any more comfortable around them than you do.”

“I made a big mistake, Mabel. I wasn’t going to read their prison files so I wouldn’t know what they were in prison for. But my curiosity got the better of me.”

“Sounds like simple self-protection to me.”

“Maybe. But I found out things I don’t want to know about what they did to wind up in jail. One man in particular. I can’t believe he did what they say he did.”

“Uh-huh. And what does this guy look like?”

“He’s just a man, all right?”

“Whoa! Did I ever touch a nerve!” Mabel looked at her through narrowed eyes.

Eleanor knew she was blushing. She also knew she was stammering. “He’s…he’s fairly attractive.”

“Do not get involved with a prisoner. I read the advice columns just like you do—these guys prey on unattached women, get them to send money to them, romance them, write them poetry. A couple of years ago one guy even convinced his lawyer—his
lawyer,
—to help him in a prison escape. Now she’s in prison, too.”

Eleanor dropped her eyes. “He swears he’s innocent.”

“I’ll bet he does.”

“But what if he
is
innocent? What if I believe him? What do I do then?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“There’s got to be some way to find out for myself.”

“A prosecution team and a jury thought he was guilty. It’s over and done with.”

“But people do investigate, don’t they? I see you here behind the registration desk reading all these true-crime books when there aren’t any clients. Where do those reporters come up with their facts? The police do make mistakes. Look at all the rapists that were wrongly convicted.”

“Good grief! Don’t tell me he was convicted of rape?”

“Certainly not.” She couldn’t bear to tell Mabel that his crime was even worse. “Just tell me. How do I find out the facts for myself?”

“I thought you said you’d read his file.”

“The prison file. That just tells me what he was convicted of, how long he has to serve before he can be paroled, and what kind of a prisoner he’s been—solitary, detention for breaking rules, things like that. It assumes he’s guilty. I need to make up my own mind.”

“Well, I suppose you could go down to the courthouse and request a copy of the arrest reports. They’re a matter of public record. I think they charge a small fee for copying.”

“That will still only give me one side—the side of the people who arrested him.”

“So talk to his lawyer.”

“Right. Like Leslie Vickers is going to talk to me in any sort of depth.”

Mabel took a deep breath. “There is one way you can find out.”

“Tell me. Why are you so hesitant?”

“Because it’s expensive. You can request a copy of the trial transcript. It costs two or three hundred dollars and can run to seven or eight hundred pages—more, if it’s a high-profile case.”

“How do I request one?” Eleanor felt a rising tide of excitement. At least with a transcript she’d see what the jury saw—the evidence that made them believe he was guilty. Then she could see if she agreed with their decision.

What she’d do about Steve after that she had no idea, but it was better than wringing her hands and worrying. Even in vet school her professors had said she was decisive, quick to make a diagnosis. That could have caused problems if she’d just shot off her mouth, but she always garnered all the facts first.

Maybe it was time for the old Eleanor to reassert herself
once and for all, whatever the consequences. Her heart would mend a lot more quickly now than it would if she allowed herself to fall in love with Steve, then was forced to agree that he was a murderer.

“Do those true-crime books of yours really tell you how much a transcript costs?” Eleanor asked.

“That I know firsthand. I have a nephew who got busted for dealing drugs. The family chipped in and bought a transcript in case there was something his public defender missed.”

“And did he?”

“She. No, it was pretty much open-and-shut. The idiot was guilty. He’s out now and straight, but he nearly broke his mother’s heart.”

“Oh.” Eleanor’s shoulders slumped. Suddenly the enthusiasm she’d felt drained away and left her exhausted again.

Mabel leaned over and rubbed her shoulder. “Honey, don’t quit your new job over this. No man’s worth it. Why not get rid of
him,
instead? Get him assigned to some other team?”

Eleanor’s stomach lurched. Send him away? Miss seeing him even at a distance? Eleanor dropped her head into her arms on the desk. “I thought this job would be exciting, that I might actually make a difference. Now I don’t think I’ve got the strength or the stamina to cope. I wanted a quiet simple life without complications, without aggravation, without…”

“Without love?”

She raised her head. “I loved Jerry, and his death wore me out.”

“You can’t possibly love this guy. You’ve known him a week. You’ve never even been alone with him.” Mabel looked at her with suspicion. “You haven’t, have you?”

“Not the way you mean. And no, I don’t love him. Or at least I don’t think I do. But it’s there all right, the same feeling in the gut I got every time I looked at Jerry’s big
blue eyes or heard his laugh or watched him walk into a room. Except Jerry was fun. Steve Chadwick is not fun. He’s sad and angry. He scares me and he attracts me and, God help me, Mabel, I want him so badly I can taste it.”

“Honey.” Mabel covered Eleanor’s hand with hers. “You need to get laid, but not by some jailbird.”

Eleanor began to laugh. At least it started out as laughter, but after a moment she couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. And she couldn’t stop.

“How about you let me and Ernest T. in on the joke?” Mr. Bass strode into the clinic with Ernest T., the Great Dane, padding along behind him with his head low. “We could use a laugh.”

W
HILE THE MEN WERE WORKING
to increase the height and strength of the fence that Eleanor hoped would keep the buffalo in their pasture, Eleanor strolled over to Big. When she touched his arm, he jumped and stammered, “Ma’am, Doc, am I doing it wrong?”

“Not at all, Big. I just need to talk to you a few minutes.” The day had dawned gray with a hint of the kind of cold fog that chilled worse than a driving rain. Now that the sun was fully up, however, it promised to be another perfect Indian-summer day. “Come on, let’s go sit in my truck.”

Selma shook her head. “Against the rules.”

“Even with you watching? It’s okay, Selma, Big and I need a few minutes. I promise he won’t drive off in my truck, will you, Big?” She grinned at him, and after a moment of confusion, he smiled shyly back.

“Don’t know as I’d fit in your truck, Doc. Not with you in it, too.”

Eleanor drove a big 350 with an extended cab, but looking at it and at Big, she considered that he might be right. In any case, there’d be no way he could be comfortable. “So let’s go sit under the pine trees. That against the rules, Selma?”

“Nope. Better take one of the tarpaulins or you’ll come back with a wet rear end.”

As they strolled over to the clump of pines that grew beside the front pasture, Eleanor asked, “You really ought
to wear a baseball cap, Big. I’m surprised as fair as you are, you don’t burn to a crisp.”

Big ran his palm across the stubble of his white-blond hair and grinned at her. “Must be that touch of Cherokee blood my mama used to talk about.”

“How on earth do you manage to sleep in the dormitory? Do you have a longer bed?”

“No ma’am. I scrunch up. I been doing it most of my life.”

Eleanor tossed the tarpaulin out onto the pine straw, sat cross-legged and invited Big to sit. He sank onto his haunches with surprising grace for such a large man.

“I done something wrong, ma’am?”

“Not at all. That’s not why I wanted to talk to you. I know I said when we started working together that I didn’t want to know what any of you did before you came here, but then I felt obliged to change my mind.”

Big hunched his huge shoulders and moaned softly, “Oh, Lordy.”

“There are some things in the works that made it imperative—things that might be good for you. But I really have to hear your side of the story. Don’t worry about sounding bad. Just tell me the plain truth.”

Big sighed. His huge chest rose and fell as though his lungs were an industrial-strength bellows. He wouldn’t look at Eleanor. Instead, his frightened eyes sought the men by the fence.

“Please, Big. Tell me what happened. Trust me. I won’t betray you.”

For a long moment he still didn’t speak, and when he did, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“My mama told me us Littles dassen’t ever get mad.” He looked at Eleanor under long, soft lashes. He reminded her of the Great Dane Ernest T., whose ungainly body and sore tummy had never once made him grumpy or angry at the people who worked with him.

“See, all us Littles is big. My mama was tall as Steve
and a lot wider, and my daddy could pull stumps without a mule. Mama said if she’d a’known I was gonna be as big as I am, she’d a never let Daddy name me Bigelow Little, Jr.—but she woulda, ’cause my daddy could be right mean when he was crossed and when he’d been drinking. By the time he got killed logging when I was eight, it was too late to change.”

Eleanor nodded. She wasn’t certain what Big’s life story had to do with his crime, but now that he’d started talking, she wasn’t about to cut him off.

“I’m not real smart, Doc, and I pure D hated school. Run off whenever I could until Mama stopped whupping me and just let me help with the farm and help folks stack wood and stuff.”

“The report said you got in a fight in the parking lot of a roadhouse. Were you like your daddy? Did you drink, too?”

“Lordy, no!” Big turned horrified eyes to her. “My mama woulda killed me if I ever touched a drop. My daddy used to run ’shine sometimes, and he always had a couple of bottles stashed, but the day he died Mama poured every one onto the hydrangeas. Took ’em two years to bloom. No, ma’am. I was in that parking lot ’cause I had a job.”

“A job?”

“Yes, ma’am. See, Mr. Dacus, the owner, hired me to wash dishes.”

He picked up a dozen strands of pine straw and began to twiddle it in his fingers.

At first Eleanor assumed he was keeping his hands busy so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes, but when she looked closely, she realized he’d begun to weave the straw into a small tight circle. “Can you weave pine baskets?”

His fingers stopped and he dropped the straw.

She picked it up. “This is beautiful, Big. It’s almost a lost art. How’d you learn to do that?”

“Mama taught me. Her grandmamma taught her. Daddy
said it was sissy, but I always kind of liked doing it. Holds real well once you get it started. My mama’s would hold water more’n an hour, longer if I varnished it.”

She handed him his perfect circle. “Keep on doing it. Even small baskets like this one sell for a great deal of money.”

“They do? Seems kinda silly, little old thing like this.”

His huge, clumsy fingers didn’t seem so big and clumsy working with the flimsy straw. She encouraged him to go on with his story.

“Yes ma’am. I washed the dishes, and sometimes if the customers got rowdy, Mr. Dacus would get me to ask them to leave.” He shrugged. “They mostly did.”

“I’ll bet they did.”

His fingers began to move faster and faster. “See, there was this bunch of boys home from college for Thanksgiving, at least that’s what Mama told me later. They’d been causin’ a real ruckus, and Mr. Dacus told me to ask ’em to leave. They did, but then a couple of them come back. They was in the parking lot when I come out to walk home.”

“Did they have guns?”

“Yes’m.” He looked up. “But they didn’t go to use ’em.
Everybody’s
got guns.”

Too true, Eleanor thought.

“They found somebody’s coon hound down the road.” He looked straight at her as though he was the teacher and she the student. “When folks hunt over coon hounds, like as not a couple of ’em’ll get lost. Folks look a while, then they take the rest of the hounds on home and hope the lost one’ll either find his way, or somebody’ll pick him up, see his collar and take him home. This ole boy, he was runnin’ a while. Lost his collar somewheres. You could tell he was a fine hound, though, just skinny.

“I know’d both them boys, and I knowed they was bad, and they was still drunk and mad at getting thrown out. One of ’em, he had that ol’ dog by the scruff of the neck.”

Big was becoming agitated. His shoulders hunched, his fingers clutched at the straw and began tearing apart the careful weaving. “The other’n, he said that ol’ hound had so many fleas, wadn’t but one way to get rid of ’em. He had some kind of can in his hands, and he poured it all over that poor dog. I could smell it. Kerosene. What Mama and me used in the winter. That hound started howling and jumping around. Then the first one, he took out this fancy lighter, and he flicked it. He said if I didn’t get down on my hands and knees and apologize, they was gonna set that poor dog on fire.”

Now it was Eleanor’s turn to shudder. She didn’t want to hear the rest of the story. Tears were flowing from Big’s eyes, streaming down his dusty cheeks.

“See, I knowed them boys. Didn’t matter what I did, they was gonna burn that ol’ dog and make me watch it.” He dropped his head. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to say, I got mad. Kinda lost track of time.”

“Good for you.”

“Next thing I know I’m running through the woods with that ol’ hound over my shoulder, and there’s all this crashing around and yelling behind me.”

“What’d you do?” Eleanor whispered.

“First, I washed that ole dog clean in the creek, then I went on home so Mama could give him a meal. Didn’t know noplace else to go.”

“And you’re in jail for that? They should have pinned a medal on you.”

“No ma’am, they shouldn’t. Folks said them boys was just funning. I had no call to break Dewayne’s shoulder and his arm in four places when I took that lighter away from him, said I was a danger to the community and had to be locked up to keep me from killing somebody. Said I was like Frank somebody’s monster.”

“Frankenstein.” Eleanor could barely hear her own voice.

“Yes, ma’am. I told Dewayne I was sorry.” He raised
his head and his jaw set. “But I’m not. Not a bit. I’ll do my time, but I’d probably do the same thing again. See, they’re right. I
am
a danger to the community.”

“What happened to the hound?”

“Mama found the man owned him. He gave her a reward for finding him. He testified at my trial, said he woulda done the same thing or worse. But nobody believed me about the fire. See, I washed the dog off real good, and one of those boys—he’s the mayor’s boy.”

“I see. Thank you for telling me, Big. Oh, and would you give me a lesson on how to weave those baskets sometime?”

He smiled. “Sure, Doc.”

At lunch she went home and called the number listed for the sheriff’s office in Marlton County, of which Mission was the county seat. Even if she believed Big, Ernest Portree would want confirmation. If anybody could tell her the circumstances of Big’s arrest, it should be the sheriff listed as the arresting officer. But she found out he’d retired.

It took her some time to convince the young deputy to give her the sheriff’s home number, but eventually he did, and when she called, she found him at home having lunch. She explained the reason for her call. “Do you remember Bigelow Little’s case?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s one I am embarrassed to have on my record.”

“Oh?”

“See, the sheriff is an elected official, and I’d just won a real tough fight. The mayor backed me, so I owed him. But now I’m retired I don’t owe that fool or that scum-sucking hooligan son of his the time of day. Shoulda given Big a medal for what he did, not throwed him in jail for three years.”

“So he told me the truth about saving the dog?”

“Big Little can’t lie. Now, I’ll grant you that he broke that kid’s arm in four places—damned near tore it off at
the shoulder. Don’t think the boy’s got the full use of it back yet, but given Big’s size and the way he feels about animals, it’s a miracle he didn’t tear his head off. People said his mama was a witch, but she was just a poor, uneducated hill woman who kept to herself. I used to see her in town sometimes selling those baskets of hers. Damn near tall as Big, with white hair she could sit on, and those blue eyes… No wonder folks gave her a wide berth. I’ve heard she taught Big how to walk up on a wild doe with a fawn and pet her, but I doubt it. One of those country legends.”

“So he’d be a good candidate for work release at a veterinary clinic?”

“Perfect. When’s he due out?”

“About six months, if he’s paroled.”

“Tell the boy not to come back here for his own good.”

“What about his mother’s place?”

“She only rented the house and the land, too. After she died, everything got sold to pay for the funeral. Preacher saved a couple of boxes of family pictures and things up in his attic for Big, but they didn’t have much to start with. Mostly lived on social security after Big’s daddy’s death—until Big got to be eighteen.”

“He wants to come home to visit his mother’s grave.”

“Then let me know ahead of time, and somebody important better come with him. I’d hate to see him get hurt.”

“That’s some town you got there, Sheriff.”

“I know. Why I retired.” He sighed.

The moment she’d hung up from speaking to the sheriff, she called Ernest Portree. He picked up his own phone. Eating at his desk as usual. She told him about the sheriff’s assessment and asked again to have Big on work release.

“Give me twenty-four hours to assemble the paperwork. You get your people to fill out the forms, and we’ll let him go.”

“I’d like to take him over there tomorrow to meet the staff, see if they approve of him. Would that be possible?”

“Sure. Check him out and check him in. I’ll leave word.”

“Now about Steve Chadwick…”

“I said no, Eleanor. Drop it.”

“No way. He’s eligible, we need him, and the next time I ask, I’ll have my ducks in a row.”

S
TEVE WATCHED
Eleanor surreptitiously all morning while he worked on the fences, saw her talk with Big and wondered what it was about. Big would tell him if he asked, but then the other men would know, as well. Better wait until they could be private.

Eleanor had stayed well away from him, had refused to make eye contact, or even to speak to him.

Last night he’d come close to having a panic attack for the first time since he’d moved from Big Mountain. He’d tried to focus on his escape and how great it would feel to kill Neil.

This morning on the fence line he was closer to being truly alone with his thoughts than he’d been in three years. There had always been someone else in his cell, the yard, the showers, the latrines, the mess hall, even in his classes. He’d been constantly aware, always on the alert for trouble.

But as the chill wind whipped his face, as his fingers mechanically tensioned and twisted and hammered, there were no distractions. He thought about his revenge. Once he’d worked out that Neil had killed Chelsea, had framed him for murder, had stolen the company, he’d hated the man with an all-consuming passion. And until now, when he visualized his revenge, he’d always focused on Neil’s terror as he faced death.

Now instead he saw Neil’s dead body and Posey’s grief. She loved the man. Even if she knew for certain he’d murdered Chelsea, she’d still love him.

Steve understood grief. God knows he faced it every
day. Until now he’d never allowed himself to think of the aftermath of Neil’s death.

Worst of all, Steve finally acknowledged that he would grieve for Neil, too.

From the day Neil had walked into Steve’s dorm room his sophomore year, they’d shared pizza and beer, double-dated, played soccer and softball, married sisters, started a company together. Neil was the brother he’d never had.