The Payback Man

by Carolyn McSparren

  “Big, watch out!” Eleanor shouted as Sweet Daddy lunged at him.

  Big swept him aside with one broad arm and ignored the knife that had come dangerously close to his chest. “Doc? You all right? Hey, you got blood on you!”

  “Big, behind you. Don’t let him light a match!”

  “Riiight,” Sweet Daddy whispered.

  The match flickered, then arced through the air to land in a pool of gasoline between him and Big.

  Big turned at the whomp. “Oh, Lordy!” He reached across the flames, grabbed Sweet Daddy by the collar, dragged him out of the way of the fire, and held him two feet off the floor while Sweet Daddy struggled to reach Big’s body with the knife. “You shouldna done that.”

  His voice was quiet, almost apologetic.

  “Big, put him down. We’ve got to put out that fire.” Eleanor held her bleeding arm against her side and reached for the fire extinguisher beside Marcus’s stall.

  “Elroy, now I am mad.”

  Big wrenched the knife from Sweet Daddy and tossed it aside, then he lifted him two-handed over his head.

  Sweet Daddy began to scream. He screamed as he flew through the air into the bull’s paddock. Then he stopped screaming and lay very still.

  Eleanor saw the angle of his head and his open mouth just before Marcus realized that his foe was at his mercy at long last.

  “I got to get him outta there,” Big said. “Oh, Lordy.”

  “The fire, Big, put out the fire!” Eleanor threw the extinguisher to him and turned on the water hose. She aimed it at Marcus full force to keep him away from Sweet Daddy. She didn’t think it mattered now, but she had to try.

  Marcus snorted, then reached under Sweet Daddy’s limp form with one of his horns and tossed the little man over his shoulder. Sweet Daddy landed like a broken puppet.

  Over the hiss and spurt of the extinguisher and the crackle of the flames, came Big’s litany of “Oh, Lordy, Oh, Lordy…”

  From the distance she heard sirens.

  The gasoline blazed on the concrete, crawled over the bales of hay, and ate at Marcus’s enclosure. She heard the snap as the flames hit the electric wire.

  Her eyes were burning and tearing. The smoke from the hay billowed thick and acrid. She felt light-headed, but started down the aisle toward the three horses who were screaming and kicking their stalls, desperate to get away from the flames.

  From behind she heard the sound of running feet, then someone grabbed her.

  “Get her out of here,” Gil shouted. He pushed her to Robert, who threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and raced out of the barn.

  “Robert, put me down!” She began to cough, and the bouncing made her arm throb. “Get the horses out.”

  He set her on her feet, gave her one look and sprinted back into the barn just as Gil drove the three horses out.

  “Where’s Big?” Eleanor shouted.

  “He’s gone to lock Marcus out into the back paddock.”

  “Sweet Daddy’s in there. In Marcus’s stall.”

  “Oh God.” Gil started back, but Eleanor stopped him.

  “Let the firemen bring him out.”

  “What you mean, woman?” Robert shouted. He looked from her face to Gil’s. “He dead?”

  Eleanor nodded.

  “Marcus got him?”

  Eleanor took a deep breath. “Marcus got him.”

  Gil saw her bloody arm. “You’re hurt.”

  “Superficial.”

  “Superficial, my ass.”

  A car screamed up the long driveway from the highway, skidded to a stop, the door opened and Steve jumped out.

  “Steve!” Eleanor cried. She forgot her arm, she forgot the fire and Sweet Daddy and everything else.

  “Are you all right?” He swept her into his arms.

  “Hell, no, man, she’s not all right. She’s bleeding.”

  “Eleanor?”

  “It’s nothing. A little cut. A couple of bandages will take care of it. Oh, Steve, I thought you’d gone. Please tell me you didn’t, didn’t…”

  “Didn’t kill Neil?” He shook his head. “Where the hell’s the EMT van?”

  At that moment Big came around the far side of the barn from Marcus’s paddock. He was black with soot and bent double with coughing.

  “Big, thank God you’re all right,” Eleanor said.

  “I got Marcus shut out in his pasture. I went back to get Sweet Daddy, but there was too much smoke, and then the firemen wouldn’t let me hunt for him.” Tears streamed down his face and mixed with the soot from the fire. “Oh, Doc, Lordy, Lordy, I told you I dassen’t get mad.”

  “What’s this about Sweet Daddy?” Steve asked.

  “You saved us all, Big.”

  “Not him.”

  “You tried.”

  THE FIREMEN WERE PUTTING AWAY their hoses and equipment. The last of the gasoline had been hosed out of the barn, the hay and shavings soaked to avoid the possibility of a flare-up later.

  Eleanor leaned against Steve. Her arm throbbed. It felt like the world’s biggest paper cut. “I told you it was just a scratch, Steve. I’m a doctor. I know these things.”

  “You’re a horse doctor. When I think of what could have happened…” He held her even more closely. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

  “You couldn’t know that Sweet Daddy would try to burn the barn down. I don’t think he expected to find me here.”

  “He would still have killed you.”

  “He hated me, Steve. Me. Not because of you, but because I’m a woman and he couldn’t control me.”

  “I should have warned you about Sweet Daddy. I told Big to watch out for you, but that wasn’t enough. I put you in terrible danger, but I was sure I’d be back before either one of you realized I was gone. If Big hadn’t come down when he saw Sweet Daddy was missing…”

  “But he did. Because you warned him. He saved me and he saved the animals.”

  “We didn’t save Sweet Daddy. Marcus got his revenge.”

  Eleanor made a sound, hugged herself and turned away from him.

  “I know you don’t like to think about it, Eleanor, but there’s nothing anyone could have done once he was in the stall with Marcus.”

  “If I tell you something, will you swear no one will else will ever know?”

  “Of course. The look on your face…my God, Eleanor, Sweet Daddy, he didn’t…?”

  She looked startled. “No, oh, no. He said he didn’t have time to teach me a lesson.” She looked around. Everyone seemed to be busy wrapping up the fire and transporting the remains of Sweet Daddy. Big sat on the running board of the EMT van with an oxygen mask over his face. Gil and the others stood around him in a protective phalanx.

  “Nobody must ever, ever, know this. Big couldn’t bear it. He caught Sweet Daddy and threw him into Marcus’s stall. I don’t think he knew where he was aiming—he simply wanted to get Sweet Daddy as far away from that fire and from me as he could.”

  “I’m sure he knows that.”

  “I doubt it, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I saw the way he landed.” She looked up at Steve with tears in her eyes. “The fall broke his neck. I think when Marcus Aurelius got to him he was already dead.”

  Steve closed his eyes for a moment. “Big’s no less a hero for that.”

  “He won’t see it that way. He still feels guilty about breaking that punk’s arm when he tried to burn that old hound. How do you think he’d feel if he knew he’d killed a man, even a man like Sweet Daddy who’d just tried to kill me and burn down the barn? He’s come so far, Steve. He can’t ever know.”

  “Will the autopsy be able to tell?”

  She shook her head. “The injuries came too close together. It’s even possible that Sweet Daddy was still breathing when Marcus got to him, though I doubt it.”

  Steve wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close. “No one will ever know from me, my darling.” />
  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Well, Doctor,” Ernest Portree said, “I see you’re breaking the rules again.” But he didn’t sound angry.

  “Yes, Warden,” Steve answered. “So am I.”

  “You’re damn lucky you pulled it off. I should never have agreed.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Eleanor asked.

  “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever let a prisoner of mine loose on purpose. And the last. This night has been hell on my nerves.” He patted Eleanor’s shoulder. “Sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes. I hope Big is.”

  “He’s fine. Damned moose.” Ernest shook his head. “Guess I’m going to have to move up his parole hearing.”

  “Parole hearing?” Eleanor pulled away from Steve. “Parole hearing? Ernest Portree, if you don’t get on the telephone to the governor first thing tomorrow morning and get that man a pardon, I’ll…I don’t know what I’ll do, but you won’t like it.”

  “Whoa, Doctor, settle down.” Portree smiled at her. “I was planning to do just that.” He glanced at Steve. “As for you, Chadwick, I want you in my office. Now.”

  “Yes, Warden.”

  “Steve?”

  “It’s going to be all right, Eleanor. Trust me.”

  He turned away and followed the warden.

  “You keep saying that!” Eleanor called after him.

  She worried about Steve while she and the team bedded Marcus down in his paddock, safely shut away from his charred stall, and saw that the horses were lodged in the spare pasture on the far side of the buffalo. The drenched bales outside the barn hung with icicles.

  The inside of the barn stank of wet hay and charred wood. Water ran down the aisles and had already glazed over in spots, but there seemed to be no damage to the new wood on Marcus’s stall that a good cleaning and some fresh paint wouldn’t cure. The smell would linger, but eventually that, too, would dissipate.

  Big kept fighting the EMTs who tried to administer oxygen to him. “I’m just fine, ma’am,” he said again and again.

  “Why don’t you take him back to the compound in your truck?” Gil asked Eleanor quietly. “Then you go home and get some sleep. We’ll handle this. Don’t worry too much. We all knew the kind of man Sweet Daddy was. We’re all responsible.”

  “No. Sweet Daddy was responsible. Thanks, Gil. Come on, Big, time to go home.”

  “But—”

  “Big, get yourself into my truck.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Neither said a word until they were within sight of the compound. Then Eleanor said, “Thank you, Big. You saved my life.”

  “Didn’t save his. I wish…”

  “You tried. Will there be other men in the dormitory?”

  “Yes’m.”

  “I probably should have insisted you go to the infirmary, maybe get a sleeping pill.”

  “I’d rather be with everybody else.” As he climbed out of the cab of the truck, he said, “Doc, did I kill him?”

  The question Eleanor had been dreading. She tried to sound completely surprised. “No, Big, of course not! Marcus killed him.”

  “But I throwed him in the pen where Marcus could stomp him. And he couldn’t get away. I saw that.”

  “He wouldn’t have been able to get away from Marcus in any case, Big. No, you did not kill him. Put that thought out of your mind. I saw what happened. You did the right thing. You saved my life and Marcus’s life and the horses, too.”

  “Yes’m. If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  “Doc, I got mad again.”

  “I know, Big. This time it was right you got mad. If you hadn’t been mad, I don’t think you could have gotten us all out alive.”

  “You think so?” He brightened.

  “I know so. Now go take a hot shower and go to bed. You’re a good man, Bigelow Little, and a hero. Don’t you forget that.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SHE DROVE TO the administration building and saw from the parking lot that there were lights in Ernest’s office. She might not be welcome, but she intended to see Steve, anyway.

  There was no one in the outer office to stop her. She could hear men’s voices from inside the office, but they didn’t sound angry. She knocked, then opened the door without waiting to be invited in.

  A half-dozen men lounged around the room. Ernest sat behind his desk, Steve in front of it, but he didn’t look as though he were under any sort of restraint. Through the haze of cigarette smoke she saw Leslie Vickers, the private detective Schockley and a couple of men who had “cop” written all over them.

  Steve started to get up, but Ernest stopped him with a hand.

  “I thought you’d show up, Eleanor,” he said. “We’re at the end of our little debriefing.”

  “What is this all about, please?”

  Leslie Vickers came over and took her hand in both of his.

  “We now have a confession in Chelsea Chadwick’s murder,” he said.

  She glanced at Steve in horror.

  “No, my dear, not Steve.”

  This time Steve did come to her and put his hands on her arms. “I was after the wrong man. Neil didn’t kill Chelsea. Posey did.”

  “Her sister?”

  “Neil knew almost from the beginning,” Leslie continued. “He says he had to protect his wife, and in law he couldn’t be forced to testify against her. I think he wanted the money. If Posey went to prison, the insurance money and Chelsea’s estate would have reverted to Steve.” He smiled at his client. “As it does now, of course. You are once more a wealthy man, Steve.”

  “And able to pay your bill, Leslie,” Steve said with a smile.

  Leslie laughed. “I had thought of that.”

  “But—”

  “Plenty of time for details later,” Leslie said. “At the moment suffice it to say that Mrs. Waters has confessed in great detail and on the record, Mr. Waters will probably go to jail as an accessory after the fact, and as soon as it can be arranged, Steve’s conviction will be vacated.”

  “Steve? Is it true?”

  He nodded.

  She clung to him. “Tonight when you weren’t there, I was so afraid you were going to…”

  “To kill him? It’s all right, Eleanor. It was a setup.”

  “A setup? And you didn’t tell me? You let me think…”

  “I couldn’t tell you. It had to look like a legitimate escape. The man driving my ‘getaway’ car was a cop, and I had Henry and Charlie over there on me all the time. If I had decided to run, there were so many cops around Neil’s house I wouldn’t have had a prayer.”

  “He was wearing a wire,” Leslie said. “I truly thought Neil was guilty. I seldom make mistakes like that.”

  “Posey actually confessed?”

  “When she thought I was going to kill Neil,” Steve said. “She would have shot me, except that he intervened. It was close. Neil’s in the hospital with a bullet in his shoulder that was meant for my heart.”

  “Oh, Steve!”

  “This is the first time I have ever aided and abetted a prison escape, and I’m damned sure it’s my last,” Warden Portree said. He turned to Charlie Schockley. “Charlie, we are now even. No more favors.”

  “Yeah, I was right on this one, though, you gotta admit,” Charlie said. He turned to the assembled detectives. “Ol’ Ernie here and me, we go back a long way, back to when Ernie was just a cop like the rest of us.”

  “You weren’t right the first time,” the warden said. “Remember that, why don’t you? Now, since we know Chadwick here isn’t going anywhere, may I suggest that we leave the prisoner and the doctor alone and go to the mess hall for some coffee.”

  The moment the room was empty, Steve kissed Eleanor. “We both came so damn close to dying tonight.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? I feel like an idiot.”

  “I didn’t dare. You had to seem truly worried when nobody could find me. You’re the reason
I’m not a killer. Before I met you, I was planning to kill Neil. For three long years it’s kept me going—until you came along. The more I thought about killing Neil, the more I thought about losing you. You believed in me, Eleanor, when nobody else did.”

  “I didn’t believe in you, either. Not at first.”

  “But you did believe in me eventually. And you fought for my soul. You gave me the strength to make one more try to prove I didn’t kill Chelsea.”

  She clung to him.

  He buried his face in her hair. “Thank God you did. I’d have killed the wrong man. I’ll never forget that.”

  “Tell me…”

  “Later. We’ll have all our lives to talk. Right now I just want to kiss you and hold you.” He smiled down at her. “I don’t suppose Warden Portree would be exactly thrilled if we made love on his desk, would he?”

  “All our lives?”

  “If you’ll have me. I don’t know what I’ll do with my life, but I do know that I want you to be a part of it forever.”

  “Yes, Steve, yes, yes, yes.”

  WARDEN PORTREE WAS STUNNED when Steve and Eleanor called on him a week after Steve and Big were pardoned.

  At first Steve hadn’t wanted to accept a pardon because it implied that he had done something he needed to be pardoned for.

  Leslie Vickers told him not to be a fool. It might take a year to get his record completely cleared, and then only if Posey Waters repeated her confession in court. Better to take the pardon, leave prison a free man and start to rebuild his life.

  That turned out to be easier than he’d thought possible. Neil officially confessed to being an accessory after the fact of Chelsea’s murder. His confession effectively nullified not only Steve’s sale of his part of the company to Neil three years earlier, but Neil’s sale to the conglomerate.

  The members of the conglomerate weren’t happy. They upped their offer twice. Steve was perfectly happy to give them a deal on his data engine, but he had no intention of relinquishing control of his company. He’d told Eleanor, “We’ll make a deal. It may take a while, but we’ll get it done.”

  She had been astounded when he had her drive him to see Neil in the prison ward at the hospital.