The Payback Man (7 page)

“The credenza locks.”

“I could open it with a paper clip. Besides, you’ll need to store paper and things, won’t you?”

“Why would they steal the computer? They couldn’t use it.”

Selma came in and leaned against the doorjamb, easing her back against the angle of the door like a bear. “God, that feels good. Listen, they snatch the computer, they stash it somewhere outside, call a buddy, and shazaam, that night it’s picked up and sold before morning. The men aren’t moving around much on their own yet, but they will be when they start working the cows, won’t they?”

“Yes.”

“So requisition a safe.”

Eleanor nodded. “Right. Okay. And the warden finally agreed to issue an extra set of clothing to each man to keep here for emergencies. I thought we could put each set into a grocery sack with each man’s name on it. Think that would do?”

“You’ll have to lock the clothes up, too,” Selma said. “Won’t be room in the safe or the credenza.”

Eleanor thought for a minute. “Okay. I’ve got an old footlocker at my place I used to pack books. It’s a little musty, but it’s got a good padlock. How about I bring that down tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Selma grinned. “The least I can do is contribute the grocery sacks. My family hoards them.”

Eleanor looked at her watch. “I’m leaving for my regular shift at the clinic in about fifteen minutes,” she said. “Will you take the laptop home with you for tonight?”

“Sure.”

“You will be back tomorrow, won’t you?”

“I think so. Will
you?
”

“I beg your pardon?” Eleanor asked.

“Pretty obvious this isn’t what you thought it was going to be. So, are you going to pack it in or stick it out?”

Eleanor didn’t answer her right away. Instead, she headed out to her truck, Selma right behind her. Part of her wanted to leave this place and never come back, even though it meant finding another place to live. At least she wouldn’t be faced with Steve Chadwick every day. She wouldn’t have feelings she didn’t want to admit to herself, nor would she have to worry whether he was innocent or guilty. And if he really
was
innocent, what on earth could she do about it?

She slid into the front seat of her truck. Selma stood outside the door, hands on her ample hips. Finally Eleanor
leaned out the window. “I’ll be here tomorrow and the next day and the next. I’m not quitting.”

“Good,” Selma said, then laid her hand on Eleanor’s arm. “Remember, if you want to keep your peace of mind, keep your distance from the men—
all
the men.”

E
LEANOR FELT HER FACE FLAME
as she drove out through the farm gates toward Creature Comfort. She should have realized Selma would know that something out of the ordinary had happened between her and Steve.

He was plausible, good-looking, charming and intelligent. Of course, he might also be a sociopath and a liar. He probably had a dozen women writing him fan letters and coming to see him on visiting days. She sure did not intend to be one of them.

When she drove into the Creature Comfort staff parking lot, Jack Renfro, the ex-jockey and veterinary technician, and her boss, Sarah Scott, met her before she had a chance to climb out of her truck.

“Guess what you’re going to do this afternoon?” Sarah said. “You like sheep?”

“Not one of my favorite of God’s creatures.”

“I’m sure you’ll learn to love them before the afternoon’s out. You’ve got to vaccinate a herd of about thirty and oversee dipping them.”

Eleanor stared at Sarah. “You’re not going with us, are you? The last thing a pregnant woman needs is to be around all those chemicals.”

“Nope, you and Jack are on your own. You’ve got coveralls and rubber boots in the truck, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Took time to persuade her to stay out of it,” Jack grumbled. “Sheep kick and butt like goats. I’ll not have you putting my godson in danger.”

“I do miss going out on calls,” Sarah said wistfully. “My stomach’s finally settling. I’m only three months pregnant, and I’m already starting to get cabin fever.” She looked down at the top of Jack’s head. “And your god-child is a she, not a he.”

“Not certain yet, are you? I’ll spot you eight to five on a boy.” Despite his years of riding racehorses in the United States and Canada, and his wife from Marion, Arkansas, Jack had traces of his Cockney accent, although overlaid with an Arkansas drawl and an occasional “y’all.”

“You’re just bored, Sarah,” Eleanor said. “Go help Bill Chumley with his exotics or Rick with the cats and dogs. Come on, Jack. Ah, the odor of sheep-dip on the balmy October air—my favorite perfume.”

They drove out before Sarah could change her mind.

“Jack, I have a very strange and terribly personal question to ask you,” Eleanor said after a few minutes on the road. “Tell me to stuff it if you like. I won’t take offense.”

“Takes a lot to offend me, Eleanor. Go ahead and ask.”

“Did you ever know anybody in prison?”

Jack sat up. “This side of the pond or the other?”

“Either.”

“Couple of what I believe are called ‘domestic disputes,’ a couple of public drunkenness cases among my friends when I was riding. Jockeys can come all over bad-tempered when they’ve had a drop too much or too many losses in a row. Small men, you know.”

“Not some overnight thing in the county jail. Real prison. For a long stretch.”

“Oh. Then, no.”

“Darn. I was hoping you could give me some advice. I don’t seem to be handling my new job very well.”

“Can’t get them to work for you?”

“Everybody but one works hard. That’s not a bad average. The problem is that I seem to be getting involved in their lives, listening to them as though they were telling
me the plain unvarnished truth. I was warned ahead of time how plausible they can be, but I thought I’d be able to tell the difference. I can’t.”

“Listen, my girl, don’t you turn into one of those loonies who fall in love with killers and marry them in prison. We’ll none of us have it.”

“That won’t happen.” She turned down a narrow lane and began checking mailboxes. “But what if I find that one of them actually is innocent? Then what do I do?”

“Run like hell.”

She dropped the subject and turned at the entrance to the sheep farm.

Two hours later, both she and Jack were dripping with sweat and soaked to the knees with sheep-dip. The pungent aroma made her eyes water and her nose run.

She watched as Jack and the owner of the sheep, a retired engineer from New Jersey who’d moved south, wrestled the ram to the edge of the dipping pool and shoved him in.

“Bloody stupid animals, and mean with it,” Jack snarled. “Ewes are bad enough, but yon tup’s a devil.”

“Tup?” Eleanor asked.

“What the Highlanders call ’em.” He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows. “Why they calling it tupping.”

“Call what tupping?”

“Don’t be dense, girl. Tumbling a lass in the clover.”

“Oh.”

The farmer, Salvatore Montano, a burly man with gray hair as curly as one of his sheep’s, poked the backside of the ram as he catapulted out of the dip pond and ran to his ewes. “I only bought these animals to keep me from going crazy after I retired. And I couldn’t get decent pecorino cheese down south. Decided to make my own. More fool I.”

“No cheese?”

“Ever milk a sheep? I don’t recommend it. Now I sell a few lambs, and the ewes are almost like pets.”

“Yon tup’s no pet.”

“That’s for sure. He’ll knock you down and stomp on you while he’s butting you with those horns of his.” Montano started toward the gate. “So, Doc, I’ll see you in lambing season.”

In the truck on the way back to the clinic, Jack groaned and complained about his aches and pains. Eleanor took about five minutes of it, then said, “So how would you like some help?”

“What kind?”

“What if I could bring you a man who could pick that ram up, swing him around his head and dump him head-first in the sheep-dip, then turn right around and do the same thing with a two-year-old bull calf?”

“Even I’ve heard of Paul Bunyan. He’s a myth.”

“Big Little is no myth.”

“Big Little? You’re having me on.”

“Not at all. His name is Bigelow Little. He doesn’t have much education and may even be a little slow, but he’s a kind man who tries very hard to do what I ask of him.”

“One of your criminals?”

Eleanor wanted to say that Big was in for something minor and nonviolent, but she didn’t know. “He’s serving time, yes, but I’ve been told he’s eligible for work release, and if I request him, he might be able to work three days a week.”

“I’m no Igor playing no benighted flute for Frankenstein’s monster.”

“He’s not like that. Meet him, see what you think.”

Jack grumbled some more, but in the end he agreed. Now all Eleanor had to do was figure out how to spring Big for work release so soon in the program. And not only Big. Steve Chadwick was too smart and well educated to be doing the job he was doing. But she didn’t think Jack Renfro would like giving him orders, and if Jack had any inkling of the feelings Steve engendered in her, Jack would
flay him alive. She’d have to find—or make—another job for him at the clinic.

A
S SOON AS THE EVENING MEAL
was finished, Steve dragged himself back to the dormitory and stood under a hot shower for ten minutes before he pulled on fresh underwear and slid into bed. It was much too early for most of the men to sleep, but he’d learned to tune out the conversations, the television set, the card games, the yelling and, deep in the night, the snoring, the sobbing and the screams when someone had a nightmare.

Tonight, however, he couldn’t sleep. He told himself it was because his body still ached so badly that he couldn’t find a comfortable position to lie in, but he knew that wasn’t it. He couldn’t get Eleanor off his mind. When he closed his eyes, he could smell her light, airy fragrance, which was probably only soap or makeup, but still lingered in his nostrils.

Eleanor wasn’t classically beautiful, but her face had strength and character. Above all, he liked the kindness and concern she showed to all the men. And there was something about her eyes that spoke of sadness and loss. Maybe loss was the thing they had in common.

Steve’s wife, Chelsea, had come from a wealthy family. She’d been socially prominent, with the right education, the right connections. She rode to hounds, played scratch golf and a good game of tennis. She was also very beautiful with a knockout body, and spent more than a thousand dollars a month keeping herself that way.

He’d never begrudged the money. They could afford it, and besides, the major capital in the marriage was hers, not his. He’d loved having her on his arm at parties, watching other men staring at her, seeing the lust in their eyes.

Maybe if they’d had children, they might have kept the magic alive. By the time he lost her, they were good friends, but seldom lovers.

He suspected she’d had affairs from time to time. If so, she was discreet.

He should have made more time for her—for them. As the business grew ever more successful, he spent more and more time away. He forgot how closely they’d worked when they were getting it off the ground, how much he’d relied on her judgment.

No wonder she became a shopaholic, one of the “ladies who lunch.”

But the last few months before she died, they’d been beginning to rediscover each other. He’d expected her to hate the idea of using some of the profits from the business to invest in inexpensive water-purification systems that could be used in Third World villages. The potential for profit was there, all right, but his “dream” was just as likely to bankrupt them. She’d listened grudgingly at first, then with mounting enthusiasm.

Maybe she realized that their marriage, their partnership, needed a challenge they could share together.

All he’d known was that they were happier together than they’d been for several years.

She’d been the one who suggested he keep his plans secret even from Neil, his best friend, his brother-in-law, his business partner. She’d known instinctively that Neil and her sister, Posey, would feel threatened by any change in the status quo.

How
threatened neither of them had any way to guess.

The grief Steve felt when she died stunned him. He was no longer a whole person without her.

Then he’d had to endure the horror of accusation, trial, conviction…

How could anyone who knew him think he’d kill Chelsea?

Yet a jury had believed he was that kind of man. Even his lawyer thought he was guilty. At first.

So he’d gone from relative wealth and power, to earning
a dollar a day working in the library at Big Mountain prison.

That’s where he’d learned to value small things. A new toothbrush or a current paperback novel gave him as much pleasure now as a new polo pony had in the old days.

But Neil would return the wealth to him before he died, if only to try to save his life. In Brazil, Steve would find ways to make that wealth count toward the public good. Prison had taught him that, as well. Each man was responsible for his own actions, but living in poverty, illiteracy and despair made many people easy prey for evil. Somehow Steve would use Chelsea’s wealth to help at least some of them get an honest job and a decent life.

But first he had to bring Neil to justice. And Steve couldn’t count on the legal system.

Steve hadn’t thought he’d miss anything in this country that had falsely condemned him, but suddenly the image of Eleanor popped into his mind.

Why should he care about the opinion of a woman he’d known only a couple of days? Yet, he did. Even on such short acquaintance he knew in his heart that she wouldn’t want him to do what he was planning to do to Neil.

Obviously she mustn’t find out until it was too late to stop him.

He had thought there was nothing about his old life he would miss. Now he had to admit that he’d miss Eleanor Grayson. And that was crazy.

He was on the edge of sleep when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man, you awake?”

Steve groaned and rolled over. Sweet Daddy leaned above him in the semidarkness. “I am now.”

“What you got goin’ with that sweet mama?”

Steve shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“Man, we all seen. She took you off to that office and shut the door. Next thing we know Selma’s gone to find out what you two been doing.”

“Working on a computer program to track the cattle operation.” Steve sat up.

“Riiight. I want me one of them sweet office jobs, man.”

“What do you know about computers?”

“Computers, my skinny butt. It ain’t your computer skills she likes.”

“Elroy,” Steve said, keeping his temper with difficulty, “a computer program is what she wants and what she’s getting. I’m going to be digging manure right beside you most of the time. Now go to bed and let me get some sleep.”

“Ain’t I helped you when Lard Ass cracked your kidneys?” Sweet Daddy whined. “You don’t know nothin’ about treating a lady right.”

“And you do?”

“Indeed, I do. My ladies visit me every Saturday now that we come down to Memphis from Big Mountain. Way they cry, I know they miss Sweet Daddy, just prayin’ for me to get out.”

“I’ll bet.” Steve rolled over. “Go to sleep, Elroy.”

For a moment Elroy didn’t move, then muttering some curse under his breath, he slid off Steve’s bed and padded to his own. “Friends help friends, sucka.”

Steve lay still with his eyes closed, his breathing slow and even. But Sweet Daddy’s visit had his mind churning furiously again. He rolled over and lay on his back, stared up at the cracks in the ceiling and did what he always did at times like these. He fantasized about killing Neil.

For the first time, he couldn’t focus. And for the first time, the idea made him uneasy.

E
LEANOR FOUND
a fat envelope of file folders on her front steps when she got home. She stooped to pick it up.

“Well, hello, neighbor,” said a voice from the darkness.

Eleanor jumped. She knew that voice. “Mr. Newman. I
had no idea you lived in this compound.”
I wouldn’t have taken the house if I had.

“On the other side of Miz Precious. Didn’t know that? We’re neighbors.”

He came out of the darkness and walked to the foot of her front steps. “Heard you mentioned my name to the warden.” His grin was a leer. “I don’t think you were trying to do old Mickey a favor, but you did. Got me a cushy inside job.”

She hunted for her house key in her pocket and clutched the folders to her chest like a shield.

“Once it gets cold, we can roast us some neighborly marshmallows in front of a roaring fire. Maybe pop us some popcorn. And have us some good barbecues next summer.”