The Payback Man (9 page)

“How old’s your little boy?”

His face lit with more animation than she’d yet seen. “Tyrell’s going on two.”

“You have any pictures?”

“Yeah.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a grimy and much-folded envelope. He handed it across to Eleanor. She carefully pulled out a faded shot of a very young, pretty woman holding a fat, grinning little boy.

“He’s very handsome.”

“Hey, he gonna be a doctor or a lawyer or something,” Robert said.

“Sure he is.” Sweet Daddy snorted and rolled his eyes. “You gonna deal enough crystal meth to pay for Hahvad?”

Robert surged to his feet, fists clenched, face contorted in anger. Selma surged to hers, shotgun at her hip.

“Relax, Robert!” she commanded. “And you, Elroy, you apologize, you hear me?”

“Hey, man, chill. I didn’t mean nothing.”

Robert hunkered down again and was once more his sulky self.

Eleanor sat, too stunned to move. For the second time she’d experienced the sudden flare-up between the men. She kept forgetting how dangerous they were. And that in itself was dangerous to her.

To try to cool the moment down, she asked Gil, “How about you, Gil? You got visitors?”

She knew from his file that he had a wife and a daughter, but he had no way of knowing she knew.

“Yeah. I got a family. My wife visits. She don’t let the kid come. Don’t want her to see me like this. Hey, how about you, Doc? We told you about our families. What about yours?”

Eleanor was aware that Steve raised his head and was watching her intently. She avoided his eyes and kept hers directly on Gil. “Fair enough. I’ve been a widow for two years. No children. My husband was a veterinarian, too. Since his death I’ve been working part-time at a large veterinary clinic in the suburbs, and I hope I can place at least some of you there on work release when and if you work out.”

“Hey, cool,” Robert said.

“And this Saturday, I’m spending the afternoon unpacking. I’m still not completely moved into my house.”

“You got one of them bungalows?” Sweet Daddy asked.

Eleanor wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Now they all knew she lived on the place. She definitely did not want uninvited guests, especially Sweet Daddy. She ignored the question. “How about we get back to work?”

On her way out that afternoon, she stopped at Ernest Portree’s office. The warden’s secretary, Yvonne, said he
was terribly busy, but when she buzzed him, he called Eleanor in.

She walked in and shut the door behind her. “Why wasn’t Bigelow Little allowed to go to his mother’s funeral?”

Portree looked up from the stack of folders on his desk that never seemed to grow shorter. “I have no idea. He was at Big Mountain at the time. Maybe it was too far to go. You’d have to check with them.”

“They’re supposed to take them, aren’t they? Close relatives? Parents?”

“Generally, unless the prisoner is a flight risk or has committed so heinous a crime that he has life in prison without parole and has nothing to lose by trying to run.”

“Bigelow doesn’t fall in that category, certainly.”

“Take a look at the man. My guess would be that the warden decided that if Big Little wanted to take off, nothing short of an elephant gun would stop him, and that he couldn’t afford to send half a dozen COs along with him to see that he didn’t.”

“That’s cruel.”

“That’s good sense. I’m sorry he didn’t get to go to his mother’s funeral, but I’m busy, Eleanor. Go away.”

“I want him for work release.”

Ernest Portree blinked and sat back, his broad hand on the four-inch stack of file folders on his desk. “What brought this on? You’ve been working with him less than a week.”

She slipped into the uncomfortable chair across from him. She suspected he used that chair so nobody would stay long. “Raoul said he’s close enough to his parole hearing to be eligible, and he’s the type of person we can really use at the clinic.”

“You read his file?”

“Not yet.”

“You go read it, then you tell me whether you want him for work release. Besides, don’t you need him here?”

“Of course. We’re talking work release two days a week to start, then working up to three if I can spare him here. Maybe a job when he gets out.”

“If you still want him after you’ve read his file, I’ll look into it.” He looked down at his hands. “Anything else?”

Eleanor took a deep breath. “I want the same thing for Steve Chadwick.”

“No.”

“Ernest? Why on earth not?”

“No.”

“I think I deserve an explanation.”

He sighed and shoved the folders to the edge of his desk. “You don’t deserve anything, Eleanor. You think I don’t hear about the preferential treatment you’ve given Chadwick?”

“That’s not true. I asked him to do a computer program for me because he’s good with computers. That’s why I want him at the clinic. We desperately need someone to back up our business manager, Mark Scott, who’s having to spend more and more time at his regular job. Steve’s good, and frankly, he’d work cheap.”

“You may think this is an ivory tower, but it’s not. I hear all the gossip. He’s a good-looking man with an education. You speak the same language. You’re a young widow. Not surprising you should be attracted.”

“I am not attracted!”

“Have you read his jacket?”

Eleanor blushed. “No. Raoul gave me copies of all my team members’ files. I knew about Slow Rise, but so far the only file I’ve read is Gil Jones’s.”

“You don’t want Jones for work release?”

“Not at the clinic. Come on, Ernest. If he works anywhere, it ought to be in a garage or someplace he can fix motorcycles or cars. He doesn’t seem like an animal lover, and I don’t think all those tattoos would endear him to our clients. Steve Chadwick is at least presentable.”

“You go read his jacket, Eleanor. Tonight. I’ve seen it
too many times—guards, teachers, administrators get involved with prisoners and they get hurt. Steve Chadwick is not like the men you meet on the outside.”

“I already checked his status. He’s eligible for parole in just under two years—maybe less than a year with his good time. He could certainly be released a couple of days a week under my supervision. He’d be crazy to try to run with only a couple of years on his sentence. Whatever he is, he’s not crazy.”

“I’ve had cons run when they had a week to serve. He’s definitely a flight risk. He has more resources than the others, and his family lives in town.”

“He told me he didn’t have any family.”

Portree leaned back and templed his fingers. “Oh, he’s got family, all right. His old man probably disowned him the day the gates at Big Mountain closed behind him. I don’t blame him.”

“By the way, don’t pay any attention to anything Mike Newman says.”

“Why’s that?”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“Yes, you should.”

“All right. I told you I didn’t think Newman was the best CO to look after my team. He found out about it, by the way, and made a really nasty comment about my speaking to you.”

“Sorry, but I warned you that very little in this place is private.”

“I didn’t tell you that Newman beat Chadwick with his baton the night we started because I called Newman on his neglect to provide the men the gloves I’d requested. He’s a sadistic bastard and he ought to be fired.”

“Wait just a minute. Mike’s just tough.”

“He’s vicious. None of the other COs has the nerve to tell you.”

“What did Steve do to provoke him?”

“Nothing.”

“As far as you know.”

“As far as the rest of my guys know. Please forget I said anything about Newman. I’d prefer that he not get any more angry at me than he already is. In the meantime, I think Steve would do fine on the outside. I’d personally guarantee he wouldn’t run.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Maybe not legally.”

“Go home, read Little’s file and Chadwick’s, then call me and tell me you still recommend they should be allowed outside.”

“No problem.” She got up to leave.

Ernest’s voice caught her at the door. “The last woman who loved Steve Chadwick died for it.”

“What?” She spun and stared at him.

“Prosecution could only make the case for manslaughter. He ought to be on death row. He murdered his wife.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe it.”

“Then it was like Slow Rise—he caught her with a lover. A crime of passion.”

“It was passion, all right. Passion for the two million dollars he planned to inherit. Your fancy man, Eleanor, offed his wife for money.”

E
LEANOR WENT STRAIGHT FROM
Ernest Portree’s office to her house to pick up the remaining prisoner files Raoul Torres had brought her, then drove to Creature Comfort for her shift. She kept glancing at the files on the seat beside her as though they might rear up like that copperhead snake and strike at her.

She couldn’t have been so wrong about Steve! A killer? There must have been extenuating circumstances. Could it have been an accident? Ernest said it was over money. That made it worse, somehow.

If Steve’s wife had been having an affair, had betrayed him some terrible way…

No. There was no betrayal terrible enough to warrant killing someone. She simply couldn’t put herself into the mind of anyone who would conceive of the death of another human being as any kind of solution to even the worst problem.

She remembered his softly spoken
I’m innocent.
Could he really be innocent?

Raoul Torres thought he was taking advantage of her naiveté. Maybe. If Steve Chadwick were all that Raoul and Ernest said he was, then she’d lost every instinct she’d ever had to read people.

Maybe the pain, the grief, the loneliness of those months after Jerry died had screwed up her perceptions.

Was there a possibility that her instincts about Steve were right and everyone else was wrong?

She’d like to believe that, but she wouldn’t, not until
and unless she had a lot more facts. She pulled into the staff parking lot at Creature Comfort and sat in her truck for several minutes. At the first sign of unhappiness she showed, the clinic staff would be all over her, worrying about her. They didn’t need that added burden, nor did she.

She put a ridiculously perky expression on her face and went to find her boss.

Usually Sarah Scott and Jack Renfro spent a half hour with Eleanor at the start of her shift to bring her up to speed on her current patients. Most large-animal calls took place during daylight—pre-purchase exams for horses, routine vaccinations for herds of cows. Only real or perceived emergency calls came in at night, and many nights were quiet.

Eleanor floated among all three sections, large and small animals and exotics, throughout her shift. She usually spent most of her time with sick pets that clients brought in after their own work hours.

Initially, after Jerry’s death, the quiet time had been a godsend. Eleanor’s spirit was so frazzled, her body so exhausted by not only Jerry’s sickness and death, but the bankruptcy and closing of the practice, that she was simply emotionally incapable of handling too much pressure. But with the help of the staff at Creature Comfort, she’d made it back to full strength.

Now the quiet hours were often
too
quiet, especially after ten o’clock. A colicky horse or a cow having trouble calving were becoming welcome breaks. She didn’t like seeing animals in pain or trouble, of course, but she did like being able to cure them.

Tonight, however, she looked forward to her quiet time so that she could read the rest of the prison files.

As she walked into the reception room at the front of the clinic to check in with Mabel Haliburton, the night receptionist and clinic earth mother, she literally ran into Nancy Mayfield, the small-animal vet technician.

“Eleanor, thank God! Sarah had to go home sick and Mac’s left for the day.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The cops just busted a dogfighting operation in Tipton County. Mabel says they’re bringing in some badly wounded pit bulls.”

“Oh, my Lord!” Eleanor crossed quickly to Mabel. “What do you know about the situation?”

“Nothing, except that they’re in a pretty bad way. I’ve called Mac. He’s coming back in, but it’ll take him at least forty-five minutes. I tried to call Rick, but he’s at some kind of fancy dinner party with his pager off, and Bill Chumley’s giving that paper on rehabilitating bald eagles in Cincinnati. Should I call Sarah?”

Eleanor shook her head. “Don’t you dare. She and Mark have little enough time together as it is, and I know she’s still woozy from morning sickness. Is Kenny here?”

“In the back. I’ve got him setting up some additional cages.”

“Good. How are you at triage?”

“I know blood when I see it,” Mabel said grimly.

“Okay.” Eleanor checked the waiting room, where half a dozen clients had listened avidly with their own pets either in their arms, in cages or at their feet. She walked over. “Folks, I’m so sorry. We’ve got a real emergency situation here as you heard.”

“Are any of those horrible animals rabid?” One very large lady asked. Her hairless Chinese crested female shivered in her arms.

“Highly unlikely. There hasn’t been any rabies in West Tennessee in fifteen years, Mrs. Milligan, not even among bats.”

“Will these pit bulls be under restraint?”

Eleanor turned to the small man next to Mrs. Milligan. He held a leather leash attached to the collar of the Great Dane whose bowel Mac had resectioned. The dog lay qui
etly on the tile floor, his large brown eyes following Eleanor.

“I’m sure they will, Mr. Bass. How’s Ernest T. doing? Any fever?”

“Nope. Seems to be doing fine, but he’s awfully quiet. Dr. Mac told me to bring him in tonight so he could check the incision.”

Eleanor stooped and rubbed the Dane’s ears, then coaxed him gently onto his back. The incision looked perfect, but then, she had expected it to. Mac did not sew ragged incisions. There seemed to be no heat, no sign of infection. The Dane’s ears were uncropped in the continental way and flopped endearingly against his broad forehead. “He eating?”

“Baby food.”

“Pooping?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then I suggest you take him home, watch him tonight and bring him back tomorrow morning. Mrs. Milligan, can you wait until tomorrow for us to look at Wang Chun?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. I want her out of here before those ruffians arrive.”

Still on her knees, Eleanor turned to the three other clients. “Any emergencies, folks?”

Three heads shook.

“I know it’s terribly inconvenient to have to come back, but the police say this is a pretty bad scene. If you want to wait, we’ll see you after we’ve taken care of the worst injuries, but if you want to come back tomorrow—” She called to Mabel over her shoulder, “Mabel, leave Alva Jean a note not to bill these folks for their next office visit. They’re going out of their way to be accommodating, aren’t you, folks?”

She caught a glare from the man at the end who was holding a struggling Persian cat, but at the offer of a free visit, even he relaxed.

Eleanor stood. So did everybody else.

“Thanks so much for your forbearance.”

She could hear sirens in the distance. Mrs. Milligan grabbed her Chinese crested and bolted for the door. “I want to have Wang Chun safely locked in my car before they arrive. I suggest you all do the same.”

As the double glass doors leading from the reception room to the clients’ parking lot closed behind the last patron, Mabel raised her eyebrows at Eleanor. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I made a decision. A free visit is a small price to pay to keep from losing a client, am I right?”

“I hope Rick sees it that way.”

The sirens were louder, and the first flashing lights could be seen turning into the parking lot from the road in front of the clinic.

“Mabel, buzz Kenny. Tell him to get to OR and suit up. He’s about to become a surgical assistant. And keep trying to get Rick. If you know where he’s having dinner, page him.”

“Margot won’t like it. They’re having dinner with her father and his new girlfriend.”

“I don’t care if Margot doesn’t like it.”

Mabel grinned. “Go. I’ll handle this end.”

By the time Mac Thorn barreled into the small-animal OR ready to do surgery, Eleanor had already stitched up some of the nastiest wounds she had ever seen in animals that were so pitifully thin they broke her heart.

One of the pit bulls had died of blood loss in the animal control van.

“Well?” Mac snarled.

Eleanor knew that once he saw what she was working with, he’d use language she’d probably never even heard before, but at this point, all Mac could see was the sheet draped over the ripped shoulder of an emaciated dog.

“We’ve lost one, and we’ll be lucky not to lose at least one or two more,” Eleanor said. “At the moment Nancy’s
the only surgical technician. She was still here when the call came in, and she stayed, bless her. So did Kenny.”

“Kenny?” Mac shouted. “Hell and damnation, the kid’s still in high school!”

“He’s doing fine. Hush, Mac. You take Nancy, I’ll take Kenny. Second table’s already set up for you.”

“Who’s bringing in the patients?”

“The Humane Society people stayed and so did a couple of the animal-control guys. Just stick your head out the door and yell for Mabel to send you another dog.”

The OR doors swung open and two men from animal control carried in a litter on which a wounded dog was strapped. Sure enough, Mac Thorn began to curse. Not his usual full-throated snarls of rage, but low in his throat as though his very anger choked him.

Eleanor had no time even to look at the state of Mac’s patient. She had her hands full with her own.

Kenny was willing but inexperienced. She thanked God that now that Mac was here, Mabel would send the most difficult cases to him as a matter of course. In the meantime, she and Kenny had to insert IVs, airways, collars to keep the dogs from biting at their wounds when they awoke, and disinfect the skin and tissue surrounding the wounds and shave the hair away.

The dogs were half starved, covered with their own excrement and jumping with fleas, but there was no time to clean more than the affected areas until their wounds were closed. Tonight they’d have to be kept separated from the other animals in the ICU, and those that lived could be cleaned up tomorrow. Assuming they could be handled.

“They catch the bastards who set up the fights?” Mac snapped.

“No idea.”

“I say shoot ’em. Just stand ’em up against a wall and mow the SOBs down with machine guns. No—better yet, hang ’em up and flay ’em. I’ll be happy to do it myself.
Anybody who’d do this to an animal…” The sound he made was in itself more animal than human.

“Shut up, Mac, and work. You’re distracting me,” Eleanor said. A year ago she’d never have spoken to him like that. He’d terrified her. But then everything and everyone had terrified her then.

Behind her she heard the doors to the operating room open. “We’re not ready for another dog yet,” she said without looking up from her needle. “We’ll let you know.”

“I’m not a dog,” Rick Hazard said. “What do you need me to do?”

Eleanor gave a sigh of relief. “Help Kenny move the cages he set up into an isolation area at the end of the large-animal area—probably in the cattle pen, since we don’t have any cows in residence at the moment. Then come back here and help out.”

“Got ya. Come on, Kenny, let’s move us some houn’ dawg cages.”

As always, Rick was in his element in an emergency. He might seem laconic in day-to-day operations, but he thrived on crises that would make the average person huddle in a corner and suck his thumb.

“Can I help you until he gets back?” Nancy said from across the room.

“Don’t you move, woman!” Mac snapped. “Hold that hemostat still, dammit!”

“I’m fine, thanks, Nancy. I’m only stitching.”

“God, we have got to get some more help around here at night!” Nancy said.

“Tell Rick.”

“I have.”

“Tell him again.”

The team worked for what seemed like hours before all the dogs were lying sedated in recovery cages in the ICU. Eleanor looked at her watch. Nearly midnight.

“Kenny, you ought to be home in bed,” she said.

He clicked the cage door shut on their final patient, a brindle female missing most of one ear and with a laceration on her flank that was already infected when she was brought in. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I can sleep all day.” He nodded at the dog. “She’s had puppies. She’s still got milk. Wonder what happened to them.”

“Sold, probably. Pray they went to somebody who only wanted house pets. Even as guard dogs, they would be better off than this. Somebody who’ll feed them and socialize them.”

“Yeah.” He pulled himself up. Obviously he was exhausted.

“Go home,” Eleanor repeated.

He shook his head. “No way. You need somebody to stay here tonight, watch the dogs.”

“Your dad will have a fit.”

“I already called him and told him I might stay. He’s okay with it. He’d rather I was here than out with my friends.”

“Where would
you
rather be?”

“Here.” He glanced at the cages. “Like these guys
are
my friends, you know?”

Eleanor smiled and squeezed his arm. In six months Kenny had gone from being a kid in trouble to a committed assistant at the clinic. His dad said his grades had improved, along with his attitude.

Eleanor hoped his enthusiasm would last. The boy was a born veterinarian. He had the same healing touch Mac Thorn had, the same empathy for the animals, and yet he didn’t allow his emotions to cloud his judgment.

“Okay. Bed down in one of the equine recovery stalls,” Eleanor said. “I’ll be in Sarah’s office with my feet up. Call me if you need me.”

“You staying, too? Don’t you get off at midnight?”

“I can sleep in tomorrow, too, at least until noon. Of course I’m staying.”

She waited until she saw him curled under a horse blan
ket in one of the padded recovery stalls. He fell asleep and began to snore the moment his body was prone.

Had she ever been that young? Tomorrow she’d feel as though she’d been beaten with a two-by-four. Her hands would ache for a week from her careful needlework. She grabbed a bottle of horse liniment off the supply shelf and used it like hand lotion, then dropped it into her purse. She’d promised Steve Chadwick she’d bring him some. This was the best. The liniment immediately began to warm her skin. The stuff might not be approved for human beings, but it certainly did the trick for her.

The prisoner’s files sat like a fat brown toad in the center of Sarah’s desk, daring her to read them.