Defining Heroes V3

By Dan Lee

Three exciting adventures in one volume. Action, Romance, Cops, Killers, Journalist, all define the meaning of "Hero".
"Black 'till Daylight"--A police officer, eluding cop killers, faces a fate worse than death itself.
"Old Man, Cop"--Features cop tales, told by an Old Man, while small town officers elude death at the hands of a gunman bent on massacring church school children, a quarrelling couple, and a sniper.
"Josh Jones, An Unwilling Hero"--Our most popular E-book, features a small town journalist who unwittingly falls into deadly situation after situation. Poignant and Romantic.
"Deputy's Neighbor"--A fantasy romance that keeps a sheriff's deputy on his toes avoiding killers and gunmen.
These four novellas are only available in this volume.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Lee
• Release date: Sep 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476086101

Dan Lee

Devon C. “Dan” Lee is a native of Wabash, Indiana. He grew up during the 1940’s World War 2 era, and the 1950’s. He usually writes about young adults (18-30) drawing on his own experiences, and those of others around him. Although fictional, much of what he writes has real situations he has lived as the foundation. Mr. Lee is a retired former journalist and businessman. All “Danny Boy Stories” are available in E-Book formats and in Paperback. His novels are: "120 Letters", and "The Bamboo Murders" (part of the Cain and Able Mystery Series). "The Family Unrelated", and "Defining Heroes", are novella collections of five and four complete stories.. Search for “Danny Boy Stories”. Web site: http://www.dannyboystories.com

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Defining Heroes

Fiction in Four Parts

(Inspired by Real Events)

Four exciting adventures in one volume. Action, Romance, Cops, Killers, Journalist.

Black Till Daylight--A police officer, eluding cop killers, faces a fate worse than death itself.

Old Man, Cop--Features cop tales, told by an Old Man, while small town officers elude death at the hands of a gunman bent on massacring church school children, a quarrelling couple, and a sniper.

Josh Jones, An Unwilling Hero--Features a small town journalist who unwittingly falls into deadly situation after situation. Poignant and Romantic.

Deputy’s Neighbor—A brand NEW STORY. Is it real or a dream. A deputy sheriff faces hazards and killers every day, but is he dreaming or facing reality. A fantasy romantic cop adventure.

Black Till Daylight Fiction

CHAPTER 1

Friday, January 1, 1960 – 3:35 A.M

Black!

Pitched black nothingness was all Officer Paul Brackett could see.

Paul was lying on his face. He felt the prickles of smashed, ice covered, brush on his forehead, nose and mouth. Instinctively, he lifted his head off the underbrush and felt sharp pains firing up the right side of his neck behind his ear. He lowered his head back down onto the cold brush.

The officer heard hissing sounds nearby, and smelled the acrid odor of steam from an automotive engine cooling system. He turned his eyes upward and around in as many directions as he could without moving his head.

Black!

His mind flashed, he could hear voices nearby, but Paul made no sound.

Where’d that son-of-a-bitch land? said the first voice quietly.

Shut up and shine your light over this way, the second voice commanded. That cop got a good look at us. We have to find him, voice two urged.

Again, Paul attempted to raise up to see where he was, grimacing with a searing pain that seemed to envelope his entire body. Paul managed to get his head two or three inches off the ground.

Black!

Paul rolled his eyes up. He could barely make out the definition of the horizon, dimly illuminated by lights behind and above his position. He could see nothing else at all. He saw nothing near him and nothing in the distance, except a thin line where the ground meets the sky, much higher than where he was laying. Paul figured he was about 75 feet or so from the top rim of the embankment. Slowly, he lowered his head back onto the icy brush. Again, it stuck into the skin on his face like a thousand dull needles.

Paul heard the voices again, this time very near.

I’m sure I hit him with my shot through the window, just like the other cop, voice one whispers. That other cop never knew what hit him. Maybe this one’s dead down here.

Just keep looking, dumb-ass, voice two whispered more loudly this time, We gotta make sure he’s dead.

Paul attempted to roll onto his left side. The resulting right side pain from his movement was too much. He began taking a quick inventory of his body. He knew his right shoulder was smashed when the bullet crashed through his passenger side patrol car window slamming into bone. He could not move his right arm at all, even when he forced himself to suffer excruciating pain. It was as if there were a thousand white-hot ice picks stabbing his shoulder.

The officer’s right femur was broken, likely caused when thrown from the car as it rolled. He could feel the bone ends in his thigh rub against one another when he attempted to move. Paul felt the bones of his leg below the knee rubbing against the skin and his pant leg. He knew that meant he had compound fractures of the fibula, and maybe the tibia, too. The injuries made it all but impossible to move his right side, even if he could ignore the pain.

The dry-stone quarry pit on the east edge of Carlisle was at one time active. Now, drainage pipes keep it nearly dry for safety, but the pit was more than 100 feet to the bottom. The side embankment alongside extended Main Street, just outside the city limits, was easily a 50-degree slope. It was difficult, nearly impossible to climb straight up, and was dangerous to walk, even in the best daylight conditions.

* * *

--About an hour previously.

Officer Jerry Drake and Officer Paul Brackett were patrolling New Year’s Eve, in separate cars. It was nearly midnight when the freezing rain began. The weather report called for an ice storm--a condition dreaded by every Carlisle resident--temperatures not expected above freezing until about 9:00 A.M. New Year’s Day.

Rainwater froze almost the instant it touched anything, pavement, tree branches, light posts and lights, everything. More ice accumulated on all it touched. A thin film of water spread on frozen, flat, surfaces. Even walking was difficult, yet Drake and Brackett were obligated to patrol the businesses of Carlisle at a time burglary was more probable due to the weather conditions.

Carlisle, Illinois, an incorporated community of about 15,000, was located 50 miles east of the western state line in farm country. It was a clean city, streets wider than most towns, a single high school, a junior high school, and two elementary schools, all a part of the Carlisle Community School District.

The boxy looking 1880’s red rock county court house with a square clock tower, not the usual round, pointed towers popular in the Midwest. City Hall was directly across the street from the courthouse and was the newest building in the downtown district. Crime was minimal for a city its size, but there was a jail still located in the basement of the courthouse. The small, well equipped, Carlisle City Police Department generally worked well with the small sheriff’s department.

A middle-class farming community, most citizens do not consider Carlisle cosmopolitan in its makeup.

Drake was answering a disturbance call at Carlisle’s only liquor store, still open for business at 2:30 A.M. He called to Paul on his car-to-car radio.

"There’s a 53 Dodge sedan sitting in front, License 294HGT, but I don’t see anyone inside. Billy (the owner) must be in back.

I’m gonna take a look Paul," Jerry radioed Officer Brackett.

Jerry Drake was only one month younger than Paul, but has been on the department about two years. Enrolling in college at a late age, Jerry holds an AA degree in criminal justice, a new course, from a nearby community college. At five feet, 10 inches, Jerry was also one of the smallest officers in the area, making up for it in tenacity and spunk. He won the regional law enforcement boxing championship the past two years. Born and raised in Iowa, Jerry came to Carlisle in 1955 while bopping around the Mid-West with high school friends.

Jerry took a liking to Carlisle and decided to enroll for college credits, choosing a police career after meeting Carlisle Police Sergeant Mike Ronson.

Jerry’s steady girl was Kim Sampson, a clerk at Carlisle Drugs downtown. She was studying to be a pharmacist and was nearly ready for state license testing. Kim and Jerry openly planned to marry once Kim obtained her license. They were regularly together at various community events, and Kim was Jerry’s date for the recent black tie reception following the Carlisle Performing Arts Foundation free Christmas concert. Her long, flowing red hair and gold lame` dress prompted Jerry to introduce her to everyone present as This beautiful woman on my arm.

Carefully, Paul turned his patrol car around to follow Jerry to the liquor store. His vehicle slid sideways on the water covered ice. Paul made three attempts before he was able to point the car up Main Street toward the direction of Jerry’s call, at the eastern edge of the downtown business district. Paul was unable to use the accelerator on the ice. Instead the officer let the car idle forward to avoid sliding into the curbing again. The rear of the patrol car fishtailed more violently as he increased his speed.

Minutes stretch into half an hour for the short distance, less than 12 blocks. It seemed like hours to Paul before the illuminated liquor store sign finally came into view. Everything ahead was icecovered, sparkling eerily in the night rainfall. The ice reflected Paul’s headlights back at him, making it difficult to discern specific outlines of buildings, posts, and the like. He grabbed the car’s spotlight handle with his left hand and began raking the beam across the street-side ahead.

Paul saw Jerry’s patrol car stopped behind a Dodge in front of the liquor store. He felt a lump in his throat, adrenalin coursing through his body, as he realized his fellow officer appeared to be slumped over the steering wheel. Paul hit the brakes, but his patrol car slid violently on the ice, hitting the high curbing, and just missing the driveway entrance to the store. He grabbed the car door handle, attempting to bolt from his car without waiting to radio for assistance. Paul wanted to know Jerry’s situation, He pulled his .38 revolver out of its holster.

Paul heard the glass on the passenger side shatter a split second before the bullet hit his right shoulder. The force of the bullet shoved Paul into the driver door, and caused him to drop his weapon. He saw his assailant on the right about to take another shot through the window, but another man running out of the liquor store shouted at the assailant. The second man screamed for Paul’s would-be killer to get in his car.

In the deadly assault, Paul’s service weapon landed on the patrol car floor. He groped with his left hand, and now felt the searing pain in his right shoulder. Paul could not locate the gun.

Paul shoved his car into gear and punched the accelerator to give chase on the ice-covered street. The two perpetrators were able to get their car out of the gravel driveway and up the street out of sight before the officer maneuvered his patrol car away from the curbing. As he pulled away, Paul took a fleeting glance of Jerry still in his patrol car driver’s seat, lying across the steering wheel, the windshield spattered in blood. Paul realized the killer shot Jerry before he knew what hit him.

Grabbing the radio microphone, Paul called for any assistance in the area using the officer needs help code. He fought to control his car on the ice. With no answer, Paul realized the radio was disabled, apparently by his assailant’s bullet, as the projectile exited his shoulder at an angle, careening into the dashboard. He was on his own. He reached with his left hand and managed to snap the release button on the 12-gauge pump shotgun holder next to him, and switched on his top-of-the-car red light.

Paul lost sight of the Dodge, but guided the police car at a crawl on Main Street, hoping to find the vehicle and the two who shot Jerry. Pain from the gunshot wound to his shoulder spread down his useless right arm. He felt the warm blood trickling down the arm, soaking his shirt under his winter uniform jacket.

The sudden crash was deafening inside the patrol car. The Dodge smashed broadside into the patrol car driver’s side. Paul’s vehicle slid sideways on the ice, pushed by the culprit’s car toward the guardrail protecting traffic from the dry quarry pit at the east end of Carlisle.

Paul heard the spinning rear wheels of the Dodge, the tires screaming wildly, and he smelled the hot rubber as his police vehicle skidded sideways on the ice.

Crashing into the low wooden guardrail, the police car tipped sideways over the rail, and began tumbling down the steep embankment. Paul did not know how many times the car rolled over before the momentum hurled him out of the vehicle. He heard the crunch of the underbrush as his unit came to a stop.

He could see nothing in the pitched black night.

* * *

Now, the voices seemed to be nearly on top of him. Paul, lying almost face down, saw a flashlight beam pierce the darkness and sweep across the brush only a foot in front of his face. There were two lights moving forward on the steep embankment at an angle Paul thought would bring them just in front of his position.

Paul summoned all his strength to pull his left arm out from beneath his chest. The brass cuff buttons on his winter uniform coat caught on the front closure. He kept pulling until he felt something tear on the coat, his arm slipped free. The effort caused horrific throbbing pain in his right side, especially the right shoulder.

Now that he had one arm marginally useable, Paul had to think of something to do. The rain continued to freeze the ground around him. He realized his clothing was slowly freezing to the surface where he landed. Paul tried to reach his left hand down toward a small revolver strapped to his left ankle, an unusual place for a right-handed shooter, but the crackling of the ice-covered brush caught the attention of one of the two killers searching the quarry.

Hey, did you hear that? voice number one said.

Naw. The crunching ice is all I hear, was the reply from voice two. Just keep looking. We gotta make sure this cop is done. We already killed his buddy, and a cop that can I.D. us ain’t good.

Paul felt the brush move as the foot of one man stepped within inches of his left ear. He held his breath, grateful for the total darkness hiding him. The two stopped to listen. Paul’s heart was beating so loudly he thought the two men could surely hear it. Paul rolled his eyes upward to try to catch a glimpsed of them.

Black!

He could not see anything.

Hey, there’s the cop car, voice one whispered loudly, his flashlight beam shining on the undercarriage of the car.

Although he cannot turn his head, Paul rolled his eyes up and to the left as much as he could. He could see his patrol car wheels, pointing at an angle upward, outlined in the light of a flashlight. The car had stopped nearly on its top about 30 feet from where he was thrown, Paul guessed.

Paul could make out at least one silhouette as the two men trudged carefully on the steep embankment toward the squad car, their flashlight beams bounced around franticly. One of the men slipped, falling sideways twice before they reached the car.

He ain’t in here! voice one shouted to the other. He made no attempt to be quiet. Where the Hell did he go? he demanded of the other.

Their lights revealed smoke and steam escaping from the wreck, no vehicle lights were working.

Ah, crap. He’s dead, too, the other declared. "Even so, he probably rolled the rest of the way down in the quarry. That’s a long way and he’ll bleed to death before anyone finds him. I know

I hit ‘im."

The words crashed into Paul’s mind, more adrenalin surged through his body, the sudden realization of his dire situation now clearly in focus. Maybe he will bleed to death before rescue arrives. It was only a few minutes after 3 A.M. when this all started. January sunrise was not until about 7:15 A.M., at least three or four hours from now, Paul realized. The freezing rain overcast will extend the time for any daylight visibility maybe another half an hour, he reasoned.

Makes no difference, someone’s gonna find the dead cop at the liquor store pretty soon and start looking around, voice two says, breaking into Paul's thoughts.

Let’s get to the car and get the Hell out of here. How much do you suppose we got out of the drawer? he asked the other as the two slipped and slid upward toward the rim of the embankment.

Couple of hundred, maybe, voice one said.

Damn slim pickins’ considering all the hassle, voice two said.

Paul could hear the men slipping and sliding, struggling as they climbed the embankment. After a few moments, he heard the engine of their car start and the vehicle slowly drive away, headed west. Paul finally relaxed. Again, he tried to look around. He was frozen to the ground!

CHAPTER 2

January 1, 1960 – 4:42 AM

Carlisle Police Chief Rodney Oliver awoke with a start. He fell asleep on the couch in his police department office. He immediately sat erect. Charging the door to his office, he flung it open into the bright lights of the front desk office. Looking out of the front door glass the chief sees glistening ice on everything.

Damn, this is going to be a mess in a real hurry, he said aloud.

Chief Oliver knows more than a quarter inch of ice will begin bringing down tree limbs and power lines, the community could soon be without power. That means he will have no long-range radio communications capability. He also knows ice brings trees and limbs on homes, creating the possibility of injuries, other emergencies.

Rod Oliver was a big man. He stood six feet, five inches, tipped the scales at 255, size enough to take a bit of good-natured ribbing about playing for the Chicago Bears. He was a crack shot, winning an annual regional pistol match the past four years running. Rod served on the national chiefs of police association board for several years, but was now content to concentrate on running his own department.

Pulling open the door to the radio room, Chief Oliver startled dispatcher Jeff Stewart. Jeff was reading a book while operating the radio. He was the lone civilian on the department, with the exception of the clerk/secretary. What’s going on, the chief demanded of Jeff.

All quiet, Jeff replied. I haven’t heard a peep from Jerry or Paul in more than an hour, this freezing rain has everything locked down, he continued.

An hour, the chief exclaimed, concern showing in his voice. Get them on the horn. I want to know where they are, Jeff. You should have kept tabs on them every 15 or 20 minutes in this lousy weather, besides it’s New Year’s.

Jeff had been leaning back in the chair; he dropped the book, popping up to the desk and microphone in front of him.

One-fourteen, Carlisle, he called Paul first, and paused for an answer. One-fourteen, Carlisle, he again called for Paul.

Try Jerry, Oliver demanded.

One-sixteen, Carlisle, Jeff called through the microphone, waiting for a response. One-sixteen, Carlisle, he called again.

Try the sheriff’s deputy on duty, Oliver demanded. He was now angry at Jeff, and more than a little concerned. The expression on the chief’s face was changing, the color draining. His 30-years of police experience told him something was not right. Training emphasizes patrol officers must frequently call in at night to report position, particularly during inclement weather.

Jeff flipped a button on the radio console switching to the county’s radio frequency.

Bryce County, four-three, Carlisle City, Jeff called.

Four-three, was the immediate radio response, from Deputy Dick Cavanaugh.

Your twenty? Jeff said, asking the deputy’s location.

South on Eight Mile Road headed to Molly’s for a cup, he replied.

What now, chief? Jeff turned to Oliver.

Oliver grabbed the microphone.

Four-three this is Oliver. We can’t raise either of our duty cars. I don’t like it. Can you head this way? the chief boomed over the radio.

Doing it right now, chief. It’s going to take me at least half an hour. Do I need the reds? asking if he should use his red lights and siren.

I’d like to be able to tell you, Four-three. I don’t like it when none of my patrols answer, Oliver radioed.

Rod, that’s not like Paul or Jerry. I’m coming red. I’m eight miles out so it’ll take me a while in this stuff. Can you call the sheriff and tell him I’m doing mutual aid, he won’t be asleep in this kind of weather anyway? the deputy suggested.

Will do. Carlisle City out, the chief said. Looking at Jeff, You call in everyone, and I mean everyone! We’re going to need them in this weather anyway. You understand me, Jeff, you do it right now! Oliver demanded. He stormed out to the front office and grabbed the telephone to call the sheriff’s home number.

* * *

Paul Brackett spent two year’s active duty Army service as a military policeman in Korea following high school graduation. His six-one frame was always straight and tall, as if standing at attention at all times. The youngest of four, his parents have both passed and his siblings all moved away from Carlisle a few years ago. At 30, Paul has been on his own since joining the