“I nearly let hate destroy me, my darling,” he told her. “It very nearly cost me your love, and then I damn near killed the wrong man. Now that he’s the one facing prison, he’s going to need all the help he can get just to survive. I have to do what I can.”
Now Eleanor and Steve sat facing Warden Portree’s desk. He sat there shaking his head.
“You want what?” he asked.
“You are a justice of the peace, aren’t you?” Steve asked.
“I have to be, yes.”
“So will you marry us, here, in your office?” Eleanor asked. “We were thinking of waiting until late April or early May so the weather will be pretty but not too hot.”
“Why on earth would you want that, Chadwick? To come back here after all you’ve been through?”
“It’s the only place where everybody who was on the team can attend—even Slow Rise.”
“What about Eleanor’s new team members? The ones who replaced Steve and Big—and Elroy?”
“We want them, too, of course, but mostly we want Gil and Robert and Slow Rise and Selma to be able to come,” Eleanor answered.
“Gil Jones is due for parole in July.”
“I know,” Steve said. “He’s got a job waiting for him with an old friend of mine who runs a limo service.”
“And Robert’s already working two days a week for J. K. Saunders,” Eleanor said. “But he’s not eligible for parole until next Christmas. And of course, Slow Rise…”
“Isn’t eligible for parole for years.” Portree sighed. “Of course I’ll do it. Maybe we can even arrange a little reception afterward in the mess hall if you’ll pay the county for the refreshments. No alcohol allowed.”
Eleanor asked Precious to be her maid of honor. Sarah Scott fought against what she called “waddling down the aisle like Egg Roll” in her advanced state of pregnancy.
“You’re not due until late June or early July. You’ll look beautiful.”
“I’ll look like a beer barrel.”
Eventually, however, she was persuaded to act as matron of honor.
Steve had asked Big to be his best man. Big would wear a specially tailored navy blue suit with a specially tailored white shirt and extra long red power tie for the second time in his life. Steve worked hard with his tailor to make sure the suit was large enough.
BIG IN FACT got to wear his special suit a few weeks before the wedding when Gil Jones drove Big, Steve and Eleanor, Robert Dalrymple, Big’s dog Daisy, and Selma to Mission, Tennessee. At first the warden had refused to let Robert and Gil leave the prison compound, but Eleanor had persisted. After all, Selma could keep them in line.
“Gilford Jones, do you swear to me this limousine is not hot?” Selma twisted in her seat and frowned at Gil, who had on regular slacks and a polo shirt specially purchased for the expedition, and who drove the white stretch limousine with casual ease.
“Gilford? Your name Gilford?” Robert Dalrymple, who sat on the jump seat behind the driver, guffawed.
“Shut up, Robert,” Selma said.
“Yes, Selma, I promise you this limousine is not hot. I borrowed it from the man who’s going to hire me when I get out on parole.”
“Does he know you borrowed it?”
“Yes, Selma,” Gil said patiently. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get you busted in a hot limousine.”
Eleanor squeezed Steve’s hand and whispered, “Just like old times.”
Big overflowed the jump seat next to Robert. He had refused to take the rear seat, even though he would have fit much better on that.
From time to time he pulled at the collar of his white shirt. “I ain’t never had no nice suit like this,” he said again and again. Daisy, the one-eared pit bull, slept at his feet with her brindle head on his shiny new shoes.
Outside the softly purring stretch limo, spring had already begun to ripen into summer. The trees were in full leaf, and thick hedges of wild roses rioted along the verges of the road.
“Steve, you sure this is a good idea?” Big asked. “Me going home like this to see Mama’s grave?”
“Absolutely.” Steve tucked Eleanor’s hand under his arm. He never wanted to let her go again. He’d come so close to losing her, and then, having to endure another two months of prison over Thanksgiving and Christmas before his pardon came through had been worse hell than he could have imagined.
Eleanor and Steve had already driven up to Mission once to oversee setting the tombstone they’d ordered for the grave of Big’s mother, Mattie Little. Big had no idea how much the stone had cost, and Eleanor and Steve promised each other he never would.
They hoped he’d like the marble-and-granite headstone. It was simple but impressive.
As the limo drove into Mission shortly before noon, heads turned to follow their progress down the shabby main street. Eleanor saw a few people point fingers and whisper as they recognized Big.
Without telling anyone what she’d done, Eleanor had sent a complete story of Big’s heroism and subsequent pardon to the Mission Weekly Missive. She’d included Big’s story of the nearly burned hound and the mayor’s rotten son, but she was certain the paper wouldn’t print that part. They didn’t.
They did, however, grudgingly print a short squib about Big. The limo pulled up to the small country church with its equally small graveyard, and everyone climbed out.
“Look, there’s somebody new buried,” Big whispered, and pointed to a large arrangement of spring flowers beside one of the graves.
The others hung back. Steve wrapped his arm around Eleanor’s shoulders. She held his hand very tight.
Big walked around the graves, searching for some sign that would identify his mother’s plot. Daisy trotted behind him. Finally he stopped in front of the flower arrangement with its tall headstone. He turned to the others with a puzzled expression. “This says it’s my mama’s grave, flowers and all.”
“That’s right, Big,” Steve said. “We took the liberty of setting the headstone and sending the flowers. I hope it’s all right.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said, and began to cry.
Daisy looked up at him and began to whimper.
Eleanor and Selma were the next to dissolve. Gil and Robert and Steve refused to look at one another.
Big snuffled, pulled out a large white handkerchief, blew his nose, and stuffed the handkerchief back into his trouser pocket, but only halfway. It stuck out from under his coat like a flag of surrender.
Eleanor heard the front door of the little church open, and a moment later a man pattered down the steps. “Mr. Little?” He held out his hand to Big. “I’m Reverend Sumner. I’ve been hoping to meet you.” He turned a sunny smile on the rest of the group. “All of you are most welcome, yes, most welcome.”
“Thank you, Reverend,” Steve said.
“I have a cardboard box of your mother’s keepsakes, Mr. Little,” Reverend Sumner said. “I brought it out here to the church when I found you were coming today. Would you like to take it with you? It’s not much, I’m afraid, but there is a rather lovely old quilt, and some of the finest pine needle bowls I’ve ever seen. Quite valuable, I’m sure. I kept them back from the sale because I thought they might be family heirlooms.”
“My mama made those,” Big said proudly.
They had lunch at the same restaurant as before. People looked at Big, but only a few spoke to him, as though they were afraid someone in authority would see them.
As Gil drove them out of town, Big said, “Whew-ee. I don’t never want to come back again except to visit my mama’s grave.”
“Very wise,” Steve told him.
“Good thing I got me a good job at the clinic now, and a place to live I can keep Daisy.”
“We’ve needed a watchman on the place at night,” Eleanor told the others. “Now that Dr. Weincroft’s research building is finally finished, it’s going to be even more important. His research is highly sensitive. Lots of pharmaceutical companies would love to ste
al it.”
“Gil, when you and Robert get out, you got to come see me. I got my own little apartment.” Big smiled at Steve. “Steve even got me a bed big enough to sleep on.”
“Parolees aren’t supposed to associate with known criminals,” Selma said with a sniff.
“Lighten up, Selma,” Steve said. “Nobody in this limousine is ever going to be inside a prison looking out again.” He leaned forward. “Right, Gil?”
“Yeah, yeah, I guess.”
“Right, Robert?”
“Yeah, man. Mr. Saunders’s already moved my wife and boy into one of the houses on his place. I ain’t never gonna leave them again. I like horses a lot better’n I like drugs.” He grinned. “Me and Old Will’s just alike. I have finally figured out I hate cows.”
EPILOGUE
THE WARDEN’S OFFICE WAS SMALL, so only Eleanor’s team members, the Creature Comfort veterinarians, and Mary Beth and the Colonel attended.
As Steve’s best man, Big shuffled from one foot to the other throughout the ceremony and nearly dropped the rings, but he managed.
The clinic staffers and some of the prison staff joined the others at the reception in the mess hall after the ceremony. Raoul Torres brought his lovely wife and his two children. When he introduced Eleanor to his family, he added, “Hey, even I occasionally miss one. Good thing you didn’t listen to me.” He raised his cup of punch. “But don’t make a habit of it.”
“I promise I will not marry any more convicted murderers,” Eleanor said.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Big actually managed a respectable toast of fruit punch to the happy couple. He blushed like a child when everyone applauded.
Slow Rise kept patting Eleanor’s shoulder as the tears ran down his cheeks. She didn’t know what to say to him, so she simply hugged him.
“Steve, now that you’re married to one of my staffers,” Warden Portree said over a large slice of wedding cake, “will you be moving into Eleanor’s cottage?”
“Until we can find a house away from the farm to buy,” he said. “Frankly I can hardly wait to rub Mike Newman’s face in the fact that I’m now his neighbor—his free neighbor.”
“Better do it soon. I fired him yesterday. He finally went too far. Put a youngster in the hospital.”
“He’s the one ought to be in jail,” Eleanor said from Steve’s side.
“One thing at a time,” Portree answered. “He won’t be able to get away with anything outside in the world. We may well see him back before too long, but in a prison uniform.”
ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT, lying in the king-size bed in the bridal suite at the Peabody, content in the afterglow of love, Eleanor lay curled against Steve’s shoulder. He kissed the top of her head. “It’s nice making love in a real bed.”
She played with the hair on his chest. “Desks and showers are fun, too.” She lifted her face and kissed him under the chin.
“Are you still sure you’re doing the right thing?”
Steve nodded. “Absolutely. It’ll take some time to get the kinks worked out, but in the end maybe I can make a difference, even if it’s only a small one. I don’t have to go to Africa or Brazil. There’s plenty of work to be done here.” He slid up onto the pillows. “If we can identify the cons who really want to turn their lives around, and if I can give them training and place them with my company or somebody else’s when they’re paroled…”
“You sound like Raoul Torres.”
“Don’t sell old Raoul short. If anyone can tell the bad apples from the good, it’s Raoul.”
“He thought you were a bad apple.”
“So he’s not perfect.” He ran his hand down her shoulder and her arm. “I can’t ever be the man I was before.”
“I wish you could talk more about it. Will the nightmares ever go away?”
“With you to hold me, yes. I may never be able to tell you everything that went on in prison, my darling.”
“I understand. I just wish I could help more.”
“You help more than you can ever know. At least in prison I learned that what I do for the rest of my life has to mean something. Making money alone won’t cut it.”
“Your father thought you’d stay as far away from what he calls ‘those people’ as possible. He can’t believe we’re actually going to live on the prison grounds.”
“It’s different. I’m free now.”
She pulled his face down and kissed him softly. “If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never be free. Not of me.”
He slid down in bed and turned to take her in his arms. “Free of you? Never’s fine with me. For once I’m glad I have a life sentence.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4370-5
THE PAYBACK MAN
Copyright © 2001 by Carolyn McSparren.
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