The Payback Man

Now Stephen knew why all those prisoners he’d watched being sentenced on television never showed emotion. None of this felt real, but it was nothing like a nightmare. He knew he was awake. He knew this was the end of his life as he’d known it. He simply couldn’t take it in. He wanted to scream, but that would do no good. At this point, why should his precious dignity mean anything?

It was all he had.

How could the jury believe he’d killed his beautiful, clever, funny wife? His Chelsea, his friend, companion and support in all his crazy schemes?

As he was led away to the holding area and the bologna sandwich, already curling at the corners, that awaited him as it had every day from the start of the trial a week earlier, he kept his eyes straight ahead.

ALL AFTERNOON character witness after character witness testified to his value to the community, his kindness, his honorable business dealings. Even his sister spoke for him through her tears. Their father the Colonel would make her pay for that.

Stephen glanced around the courtroom, not really expecting to see his father. Yet he hoped that somehow the Colonel would support him in this way if in no other.

It was as though the witnesses were speaking of some other man. How do you prove you’re a good man when you’ve just been convicted of killing your wife?

Most who spoke up for him were business acquaintances or men he played polo with, women he knew casually from the committees his wife had sat on.

How trivial his life sounded. He hadn’t been a great philanthropist, hadn’t adopted orphans or even coached Little League. He’d worked eighty hours a week building his company, and when he played, which was seldom, he played polo.

Vickers had told him after lunch that it was the polo that had convicted him. In the eyes of the jury, a man who plays polo is perfectly capable of killing his wife. But even they weren’t certain enough of his guilt to convict him of murder. How could they be? Dammit, he was innocent!

He sat up when Neil Waters took the stand on his behalf. Neil was his only true friend, and as his brother-in-law, he must have endured hell from his wife, Chelsea’s sister, to come forward like this. He said he still believed in Stephen’s innocence, just as he had as a hostile witness for the prosecution during the trial.

Then it was over. He stood to hear his sentence.

“Stephen Chadwick, I have heard a great deal about what a fine man you are, but a fine man does not kill his wife. Granted, the jury only found you guilty of manslaughter, but I can hardly sentence you to community service. I therefore sentence you to not less than six years nor more than twelve years in prison.” Again the gavel sounded.

Stephen couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. From behind his shoulder, Neil said, “Don’t worry, old buddy, you can handle it.”

The judge gaveled the room to silence, and Leslie Vickers went up to the bench. “Your Honor, we request continuance of bail until such time as an appeal can be heard.”

The prosecution broke in hurriedly. “Your Honor, the defendant is a wealthy man with many ties worldwide. He is a substantial flight risk. We request that bail be denied.”

The judge looked at Stephen with something like compassion. Then he said, “Bail is denied. The defendant will begin serving his sentence immediately pending appeal.”

Again the sound of wood on wood. He’d never forget that sound. It would doom him again and again in his dreams.

He felt the heavy hand of his jailer on his shoulder and barely heard Leslie Vickers’s words of encouragement. As he was led away, the voice of the prosecutor cut through his consciousness. “Leslie, old son, you give me a hostile witness like that Waters guy and I’ll whip your ass every time.”

Stephen stopped and turned to look at the prosecutor. Despite his appearance—big, heavy, florid, in a suit too tight across the shoulders—he was a formidable lawyer. His laugh was as big as he was, and it boomed out as he clapped Vickers on the shoulder. “Talk about your damning with faint praise.”

Stunned, Stephen turned to look into the courtroom. Neil Waters was just walking out. No, not walking. Swaggering. The way he swaggered in the plant when he’d just pulled off a really great marketing ploy.

Neil Waters was happy.

CHAPTER ONE

“IS RICK CRAZY to recommend you to that place? Are you crazy for even considering the job?” Dr. John McIntyre Thorn looked up momentarily from resectioning the flipped intestine of the young Great Dane who lay on the surgical table in front of him.

“Probably.” Dr. Eleanor Grayson watched carefully. Her specialty was large animals, but she never missed an opportunity to observe Mac Thorn’s surgical expertise with small animals. Not that the Great Dane was small—except in relation to a thousand-pound horse. Amazing that such a large man as Mac Thorn could work so delicately. She’d once watched him successfully pin the tiny broken bones of a sugar glider’s leg.

“So why are you applying for the blasted job?” Mac continued speaking but went back to his careful cutting. “Those men are dangerous. Oh, damn and bloody hell!” He picked up a section of intestine that had been hidden behind the original necrosis. As he worked to remove the necrotic tissue, he kept up a string of epithets aimed not at the dog but at the owners who had allowed the dog to suffer for twenty-four hours before bringing him into Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic for treatment.

His longtime surgical assistant, Nancy Mayfield, raised her eyebrows at Eleanor. There was probably a smile to go with the eyebrows, but it was hidden behind her surgical mask.

Eleanor kept silent until Mac finally relaxed, allowed Nancy to irrigate and tossed the dead tissue into the waste barrel beside him.

“Well,” he asked, “why are you applying for the job?”

Eleanor sighed. “First, if I get the job, I can keep working part-time here at Creature Comfort. With Sarah Scott three months’ pregnant, you’re going to need another large-animal vet for as many hours as I can manage. Second, it’s a minimum-security prison, so probably most of the inmates are in for nonviolent crimes. Third, they’re starting their beef herd from scratch as a show herd for the prison farm. I’ve never done that before, and it ought to be a real challenge. Fourth, the stipend includes a three-bedroom staff cottage on the grounds, so I’ll have no rent to pay, and fifth, the pay is fantastic for part-time work. I can probably save enough in a couple of years to buy into a decent vet practice somewhere in East Tennessee.”

“Or here?” Mac glanced up over his magnifying glasses. “If Sarah wants to cut down on her hours after the baby is born, we’ll have room for another full-time partner. Sponge, Nancy, dammit!”

Nancy, whose hand had already been poised over the intestine with the sponge, didn’t bother to nod. At least Mac was an equal-opportunity offender. He cussed everybody—everybody human, that was. Never an animal.

“Okay. Let’s close this sucker.”

“Will he live?” Nancy asked.

Mac shrugged. “Lot of dead tissue, but with luck, he’s got enough gut left.”

The intercom beside the door crackled. “Eleanor?” The strangled voice of the head of the large-animal section of Creature Comfort, Eleanor’s immediate boss, Dr. Sarah Scott, came over the intercom.

“Yes, Sarah?”

“We’ve got a bloated cow over at the Circle B ranch. You mind taking it? I’m tossing my cookies every five minutes. Oh, blast!” The intercom switched off.

Eleanor began stripping off her gloves and scrubs. “Poor Sarah. I don’t think she planned on having morning sickness quite so badly.”

She went directly to her truck in the staff parking area at the back of the Creature Comfort main building. Sarah was probably in the bathroom. She’d confessed to Eleanor that she and her new husband, Mark Scott, vice president of operations for Buchanan Enterprises, Ltd., and financial manager of Creature Comfort, hadn’t planned to get pregnant quite so soon after their marriage six months earlier. Now the pair couldn’t be happier. Except for Sarah’s morning sickness. Everyone kept saying it would pass after three months, but so far she still spent at least an hour a day in the bathroom.

That put a strain on the large-animal staff of Creature Comfort, which consisted of Jack Renfro, a Cockney ex-jockey who knew everything that could be known about horses, their part-time assistant, Kenny, a senior in high school, and part-timers hired on an as-needed basis. Eleanor worked three nights a week and most weekends, and was on call when someone was needed to fill in.

Eleanor sped out the gates to the clinic, past the brass sign that read Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic—Aardvarks to Zebras, and turned right toward the Circle B.

She drove as fast as possible along the back roads under big old oaks still not bare of leaves, although it was October. In West Tennessee, this close to the Mississippi River and the Mississippi border, the area usually stayed warm through Thanksgiving.

Indian summer would be a blessing if she did get the job at the prison farm. There’d be a great deal of work to clean up the old cattle barn and make it usable, as well as fences to be mended, pastures to be trimmed—a dozen major tasks that were easier in good weather. Once the cold rains came in November, working outside could be miserable.

Eleanor had one final interview at two o’clock for the position of veterinarian-in-residence at the new prison. Well, not new. That was part of the problem.

The prison had been run as a penal farm in the forties and fifties, then allowed to deteriorate while the prisoners were hired out as road crews.

Now that the farm was being reopened and recommissioned, the county was putting a significant amount of money into making it a model operation.

A real opportunity for a veterinarian. But so far, getting the job had been an uphill fight. Eleanor could not afford to be late for her interview. She knew that she was not the unanimous choice of the board, but despite the problems, she wanted the job badly.

She turned into the gates of the Circle B Limousin farm and prayed that the bloated cow would deflate fast and without complications so she’d have time to change from her coveralls and rubber boots before her interview.

“YOU DO SEE OUR PROBLEM, Dr. Grayson,” Warden Ernest Portree said.