The Payback Man (17 page)

Little by little the buffalo slackened their pace, until at last they broke into a trot and then slowed to a walk.

When the last buffalo dropped her head and began to graze, an eerie calm settled over the pasture. Steve looked at the little group assembled on the other side of the fence. Even Eleanor looked stunned. Robert sat on the back of the four-wheeler with his head in his hands.

J.K. raised an eyebrow at Steve. “Didn’t think you’d make it—get the boy, I mean. Should have known. I’ve seen you play polo. More guts than sense, if I remember. Lost, but you shoulda won.”

“I’d rather none of the men knew. I’d never live it down,” Steve said.

“You got my word on it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a mite of dressing-down to do.”

He moved off, the riderless horse trailing him quietly.

He walked to the cab of the truck where Larry Duntreith huddled. “Larry, you like to have got somebody killed slamming that door like that.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. J.K.,” Duntreith said. “I never thought it’d set ’em off the way it did. They’re usually real quiet when that longhorn Rowdy’s in with ’em.”

“You owe us one. All of us. Mostly you owe that young man there,” J.K. pointed at Steve, “And the one that near got smashed to smithereens.”

“Yessir. What can I do to make it right?”

“We’ll work something out.” J.K. turned his horse and ambled to the gate. Robert’s horse followed meekly. Steve followed both.

“Larry, you better not set those fools off running when you fire up that diesel, you hear me?”

“Nossir, I’ll try not to.”

“O
KAY
, E
RNEST
,” Eleanor said as she perched carefully on her tailbone in the kitchen chair on the far side of the
warden’s desk. “I told you I’d be back to argue my case. Steve Chadwick is the hero of the prison. Robert Dalrymple would have been killed if Chadwick hadn’t rescued him from those buffalo.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t look at me like that. You say you know everything around here.”

“What’s that got to do with letting him off the leash on work release?”

“Chadwick and Big Little can be dropped off and picked up at the clinic together. The place is always full of people—staff, clients, doctors. It’s also at least five miles away from the nearest bus line, and the neighborhood is so upscale that anybody who’s not wearing a fancy track suit and three-hundred-dollar running shoes gets stopped by the cops before he’s run a block.”

“He could hijack one of your clients’ fancy SUVs.”

“Ernest, come on, you’re grasping at straws. A stolen car wouldn’t get out of the area before it was stopped. And don’t talk to me about taxis. They don’t run out that far.”

“Doctor, you do not play fair.”

“Nope.” She smiled.

He didn’t smile back.

“What?”

He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, which groaned under his weight. “I thought the prison gossip system was fast. That clinic of yours beats all. So far this morning I have had calls from a Dr. Hazard, a Dr. Scott, and a Mr. Mark Scott, all three begging me to put Chadwick on work release. Apparently you’ve convinced them that he’s the answer to all their logistical problems. Scott wants him to design a computer program to handle their inventory, purchasing and patients’ records. Don’t forget, Eleanor, Steve Chadwick is a killer.”

“Didn’t you tell me once that killers are the least likely repeat offenders? Unless they’re mobsters or hit men or something.”

“Now you’re throwing my words back in my face. I knew we shouldn’t have hired you. Women don’t ever let go.”

“We also squeeze from time to time.”

“I’ve noticed. I’ll give you this much. I’ll interview Chadwick myself, and I’ll allow him to ride the prison bus one time so that your people can interview him.”

“I can take him to the clinic. I took Big.”

“He rides the bus. Take it or leave it.”

She stood and extended her hand. “It’s a deal. You won’t regret it.”

“I already do.”

S
TEVE LAY ON HIS COT
with his hands locked behind his head. He hadn’t planned to be a hero. Hadn’t planned at all. He simply saw that Robert was in trouble and did what he could to save him. No thinking required. He’d have done the same for anyone, even Sweet Daddy.

Work release. Steve couldn’t believe that Eleanor had actually arranged for him to leave the prison. He would be able to use a telephone without calling collect and leaving a record of the people he called.

He might even be able to arrange to see Mary Beth. He knew his father had forbidden her to visit him in prison. Of course, she didn’t have a pet to use as a reason to come to the clinic. The Colonel had never allowed them. His excuse was that an army family moved too frequently to assume the added responsibility.

Most important, he’d see Eleanor without Selma and the others looking over his shoulder. He kept telling himself that he was complicating her life when all he wanted was to be with her. He had nothing to offer but heartache.

Before he’d met Eleanor, being assigned to work release had been the first step in his escape plan. Being picked up from the prison, dropped at the clinic, then returned via the prison van might present a small problem, but not an insurmountable one.

Then again, Eleanor, even though she still might not believe he was innocent of Chelsea’s murder, had gone to bat for him anyway. How could he justify using her as a means to escape or expose her to the repercussions?

He had an obligation to see that whatever path he chose, she would not be blamed. Whatever the jury said, he’d never yet betrayed anyone’s trust. Not yet.

Maybe he ought to sit out his remaining sentence, take his parole and try to build a new life. He could come to Eleanor a free man. And in her eyes at least, an honorable one.

But he wouldn’t be whole.

Neil would have gotten away with murder. He’d be sitting in Phoenix with his millions, married to the sister of the woman he killed. Chelsea deserved better. Hell, Posey deserved better than to spend her life with a man like Neil.

Until now he’d never considered that he had a choice. He could never convince anyone that Neil had killed Chelsea. So it was up to him to avenge her death.

Now that he had met Eleanor, had started to think like a normal human being outside the prison walls, he knew he could choose to let Neil go and try to build a life after he was paroled. Eleanor had already awakened emotions he’d ignored. With her his angry spirit found at least momentary peace. With her he could relearn what it meant to feel tender, protective….

But he hadn’t protected Chelsea. Chelsea had never trusted Neil, hadn’t thought he was good enough for her sister. Steve had been the one to plead Neil’s case to Chelsea. In a sense he was the one who brought the snake into the house. His guilt wouldn’t simply vanish, no matter how he longed to find peace.

No, he would never be free, never be whole, until he had paid his debt to Chelsea by avenging her death. He would have liked to see Neil standing in front of that judge while sentence was passed on
him.
That would never happen. Chelsea had no other champion but Steve. Until he had righted that wrong, he could never simply go on with his life, never open himself fully to another love. Only when the wound was purged of infection could it begin to heal.

Whether he punished Neil or not, Steve knew he was already branded as a murderer.

He’d have to leave town. He couldn’t live where everyone remembered him. No matter how he longed to stay, to try to build a future with Eleanor, he’d have to go away, start fresh with a new identity, a new name.

Big had seen her at Creature Comfort, said she was real happy there. He had no right to ask her to uproot her life for him, a man she barely knew.

That was the problem. How could they learn to know each other fully, build a relationship, while Steve was locked away so that they couldn’t even speak together without someone trying to listen in?

For three years he’d kept a tight lid on his libido, but he was a man, not a eunuch. Being around Eleanor made him happy, but it also drove him crazy. He loved watching her, talking to her, but he wanted more, and he thought she did, too.

It was his bad luck that the first attractive woman he’d met in three years stirred more than lust. After he met Chelsea, he’d never looked at another woman, although he was the reason their marriage had become merely comfortable. He’d taken her for granted, assumed she’d always be there, beautiful, willing, when they both took time out of their busy lives to affirm the bond that they had made.

Her death had taught him not to take love for granted. He would never be casual again. Each day was too important, too short and too fragile.

And if he did move away, make a new life, manage to become successful again, how long before some enterprising competitor discovered his true identity? How long before Neil himself traced him and blew the whistle on him? Neil wouldn’t simply let him be. He’d come after him again and again, if only to satisfy Posey. She’d want Steve hounded for the rest of his life for killing her sister. If Neil refused, Posey might begin to wonder why.

No. For Neil crime had paid handsomely. Loving wife,
wealth and the good name Steve had once possessed. He had to be stopped. And there didn’t seem any other way to do that except by killing him.

Steve had known from the beginning that Eleanor was trouble. Now his feelings for her were the biggest roadblock to his plans. Either he’d have to harden his heart or he’d have to let Neil go.

He worried at the problem like a dog with a particularly nasty piece of roadkill until he fell into a troubled sleep.

“Hey, Steve, wake up boy,” the voice whispered.

Steve fought his way to the surface to stare up into the concerned face of Slow Rise.

“I ain’t never heard you moan and groan like that. Your back hurting you?”

Steve shook his head. He was dripping with sweat. The sheet was soaked and the blanket damp. “I’m okay. Thanks for waking me.”

“Some of these boys get right nasty when they get their beauty sleep interrupted.” Slow Rise smiled at him, gave his shoulder a perfunctory pat and climbed back into his cot on the other side of Steve. Steve rolled over and tried to find a dry spot to keep the chill out. The least his mind could do was to allow him to deal with his problems when he was awake, not trouble what little sleep he got.

By morning winter had made its first appearance. The skies were the gray of dirty gym socks, and frost lay heavy in the hollows.

Steve and Big huddled in the heavy jackets that had been issued to the men as they waited to enter the prison van along with the other prisoners on work release.

Steve knew several of them by sight. Some, he knew, were working as painters or construction laborers for contractors. In this area, construction didn’t shut down when winter came.

Others prisoners worked behind the counters of fast-food restaurants. He wondered how many customers knew
that the men who served them their burgers and fries returned at night to sleep behind razor-wire fences.

He and Big sat across from each other. Nobody sat beside Big. He needed both seats to accommodate his bulk.

“I can’t hardly wait, Steve,” Big said. “You gotta see. They got puppies and kitties and deer with funny eyes and possums and raccoons and I don’t know what all.”

“What about the people?” Steve asked.

“They’re real nice. Even the doctors. Dr. Mac, he sounds real gruff, but he don’t mean nothing by it. And Dr. Sol, he’s this little bitty old guy who’s working on some kind of important research.” Big chuckled. “He fusses all the time, but he’s real nice, too. In the springtime Dr. Rick, he’s the head doctor, he wants me to play on the football team. I ain’t played football since I was a kid.” He looked over at Steve with concern. “You think I can play football?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m gonna be cleaning and keeping everything neat. But maybe they’ll let me pet some of the animals.”

By now, the other prisoners had been dropped off and only Big and Steve remained on the bus. Big was almost bouncing in his seat, for all the world like a child on his way to the circus.

The area was familiar to Steve. His house hadn’t been more than three miles away from this subdivision, although in a much more secluded location and on a larger lot. He and Chelsea had loved all the trees and the wild area that separated his place from Neil and Posey’s. Posey had worked to turn her backyard into a garden, but Chelsea and Steve had let theirs go wild, except for a small rock garden beyond the deck.

Maybe if they’d had open manicured lawns and a swimming pool like Neil and Posey did, someone might have seen something the night Chelsea died.

Seen Neil slipping through the trees on his way to commit a murder.

“We’re here!” Big jumped up from his seat and banged the top of his head against the ceiling. “Shoot.” He rubbed his head. “Come on, Steve. I’ll introduce you.”

Steve climbed out of the van and stood looking at the outside of the clinic. Architecturally designed—not some contractor off-the-peg generic office structure. Handsome. The entire place, which looked to be at least four or five acres, possibly more, was surrounded by a dark brown four-board fence, very much like a Kentucky horse farm.

A pair of tall wrought-iron gates separated the driveway from the road. He could see a keypad and electronic control beside them. Radio operated, then. Could probably be opened and closed from inside. At the moment the gates stood wide open in expectation of clients. Probably only closed at night to prevent any of the large animals from escaping.

The fence would not keep in a dog or cat. Or a man. Even if the gates were closed, he could vault that fence easily. There was no electric wire running across the top of it.

The landscaping was elaborate, but low to the ground and pretty much maintenance-free, although they might add flowers in the spring. Big would enjoy gardening. From things he had said about his small farm in East Tennessee, he seemed to like plants almost as well as he liked animals, and probably had the same talent for making them flourish.

A broad brick path led from the double glass doors into the front of the clinic from an asphalt parking area. The driveway continued around the side of the building. Probably to an area where large-animal vans could be unloaded.

He’d go exploring the first chance he got. He needed to know how far back the land went and what lay behind the clinic’s land. From the territory they’d driven across to get here, he suspected that at least part of the clinic land backed up to the Wolf River bottoms, a federally protected wetlands area.

In spring and summer, the river would be too high and swift to cross without a boat of some kind, and the bottoms were crawling with both cottonmouth moccasins and copperheads. Possibly even rattlesnakes. At the moment, however, the snakes would be hibernating, although the water would be both too cold and too swift to swim. If he decided to make his escape that way, he might drown, but he wouldn’t be bitten by a snake.

“Come
on,
Steve!” Big took his arm and half dragged him to the front door and inside.

Straight ahead sat a high reception desk. Behind it, a pretty blonde of twenty-five or so presided over a bank of telephones, a computer terminal and a bank of file cabinets. She wore a telephone headset so that her hands remained free to write down appointments while she spoke on the telephone.

The moment she saw Big, she gave him a broad smile and waved. Her gaze moved to Steve, then looked away shyly. Big was already accepted; Steve was an unknown commodity. To his left a comfortable waiting room sat empty. Big had told him the clinic didn’t open for business until eight-thirty, twenty minutes from now. To his right another set of double doors. Must be the way to the examining rooms and the working part of the clinic.

The receptionist punched the button on her phone to break the connection.

“Hey, Big.”

“Hey, Alva Jean. This here’s Steve. He’s gonna be working here, too.”

“Hey, Mr. Steve.”

“Just Steve. Steve Chadwick.”

The phone rang once more. “Oh, darn. Big, y’all go on back. Dr. Rick’s waiting for you.”

Big shoved through the double doors, turned a corner and led Steve down a hall with doors on either side. He stopped at the first door, which was ajar, and stuck his head in. “Hey, Dr. Rick. I got Steve with me.”

Rick came out and shook hands warmly. “Heard what you did with those buffalo. Man, I hate those things. Can’t ever trust them. Good thing they didn’t go straight through that fence and keep going all the way to the river.”

“I was lucky.”

“Eleanor says you’re great with a horse, but that’s not why we need you.” He turned to Big. “Big, why don’t you go find Nancy Mayfield? She’s got a list of things for you to do long as your arm.”

“Yessir, Dr. Rick.” Big lumbered off, whistling under his breath.

“Sit,” Rick said, and pointed to the chair across from his desk. “Eleanor vouches for you, says you’ve got experience in running a business. And my wife Margot is on several committees with your sister. Doesn’t quite make you a member of the family, but when Margot tells me someone is competent, I generally believe her.”

Steve inclined his head, acknowledging the compliment. He knew that Margot Hazard had been on committees with Chelsea, too. Better not bring that up. If Dr. Hazard chose to ignore the fact that he was a convicted criminal and act as though they were simply business colleagues, let him. It certainly made their dealings much simpler.

“So I’m going to be up-front with you,” Rick Hazard continued. “Creature Comfort is in a bind. We’re making money, but the margin is slim. Every penny counts. We can’t afford to waste anything or to lose track of what we have. We need to have what we need when we reach for it. There are packaged computer programs out there that are supposed to do inventory and such like for veterinary clinics, but Mark Scott, who at present is handling the business end of the clinic, says none of them is adequate for our needs.”