Forever My Hero Read online

  “Thank you so much,” she said, and disconnected.

  Dan waved Shelly down, got his bill and his hat, and paid Lovey on the way out.

  “Thanks for breakfast,” he said.

  She grinned. “Any time, cowboy.”

  * * *

  Lon Pittman wasn’t really worried about Elliot—yet. What was odd was how the old man had flown under the radar in Blessings for as long as he had. He’d lived across the street from Preston Williams for years, but spent a lot of that time traveling. But after Elliot’s wife, Helena, passed away, he’d given up everything and turned into something of a hermit.

  It wasn’t until Mercy Dane had come to Blessings that he’d come out from under the shadow of loss. When Mercy became the renter of the apartment over Elliot’s garage, it was her indomitable spirit that, once again, pulled him into the flow of life.

  Even though Mercy and Lon were married now and living in Lon’s home on the other side of Blessings, she’d stayed in touch with her old landlord, and it was Mercy who’d called attention to the damaged shrubs and then to his absence yesterday evening when she’d stopped to check on his welfare. When she went by again and he still wasn’t there, she alerted Lon to the fact.

  He’d started out thinking this welfare check would amount to nothing, but he wasn’t so sure now. The longer he looked and the more people he talked to, the more concerned he became.

  Elliot Graham was no longer in Blessings, of that he was certain. But where did he go? When was he coming back? Or had something happened? Was he lost? Had he become the victim of a crime? The possibilities were endless, and the longer he stayed gone, the less chance Lon felt he had for a positive resolution.

  Lon was cruising the perimeter of the park when his cell phone rang. It was the police dispatcher.

  “What’s up, Avery?” Lon asked.

  “Just got a phone call from Millie Powers. Said there’s a car parked out at Gray Goose Lake that’s been there for two days now. She saw it yesterday and didn’t think anything of it, but when she went back today and saw it was still there, she felt something was wrong. It was unlocked, so she checked inside and found mail in the passenger seat addressed to Elliot Graham. That’s why she called us instead of the sheriff.”

  “Did she give a location of the car?”

  “Do you know where Millie lives?” Avery asked.

  “Yes,” Lon said.

  “So, she said take the first turn west past her place, and it’s parked near boat ramp number two.”

  “Notify County what’s going on, and let them know I’m already en route. I’ll stay in touch.”

  “Will do, Chief.”

  Lon hit the lights and siren, then made a U-turn before heading out of Blessings. He was already planning to get Charlie Conroy and that bloodhound again if he couldn’t locate the old man in a timely fashion.

  The closer Lon got to the lake, the more anxious he became. By the time he passed Millie Powers’s home, he was sick to his stomach from thinking about what might await him. He braked as he arrived at the turn and took the gravel road.

  He saw Elliott’s car just after he pulled up. He was thinking of the snakes, big cats, and occasional black bear that might be around the lake. Animal attacks were rare, but they were a possibility.

  He grabbed a handheld radio and popped the trunk to get a rifle. After checking to see if it was loaded, he pocketed some extra rounds, shouldered his backpack, and headed toward the car. He knew Millie Powers had been inside it looking for a clue as to who owned it, but he looked inside to satisfy himself before striking out. After circling the car a couple of times, he finally found a set of tracks leading along the shore and followed them.

  About two hundred yards from the car, he found his first clue. It was a tube of oil paint—burnt umber. That was when he remembered that Elliot was an accomplished artist, so he took a picture of the tube of paint, put up a marker to indicate where he found it, then dropped the paint tube in an evidence bag and kept moving.

  Lon paused a moment along the shore to look around and slowly became aware of what might have led Elliot out here. The views from any direction were stunning. He turned back to the footprints and kept walking. About fifty yards farther, the land began to slope upward, forming a cliff about thirty feet from the water below. It was the high point at the lake, and the place people referred to as the overlook.

  He started up the slope in long strides and, only seconds after breaching the crest, saw a folding easel on its side, a canvas lying in the grass, and a little folding chair still sitting in its upright position. Elliot was flat on his back on the ground beside the chair.

  “Oh no,” Lon muttered, and started running. The moment he reached the body, he dropped to his knees, all but certain Elliot was dead.

  But when he checked for a pulse, to his great relief he felt one. However, having been faceup with the sun beaming down on him all day yesterday, and no water to drink, the old man was in bad shape. His eyelids were burned and crusted shut. His skin was red and blistered, and his lips were swollen and cracked to the point of bleeding and peeling. Lon began to check for injuries and almost immediately found a bad wound on the back of Elliot’s head, but nothing to explain how he’d gotten it.

  Elliot could have had health issues that caused him to lose consciousness and fall onto a rock, but there was nothing anywhere close to him that could have caused that wound, which made him suspicious. If there were no rocks behind him, then passing out and falling backward would not cause this huge wound on the back of his head.

  Lon reached for his radio to call it in, then changed his mind. The fewer people who heard this call, the better for all concerned, so he used his cell phone instead and called the dispatcher.

  Avery answered on the first ring.

  “Dispatch. Avery speaking.”

  “Avery! I found Elliot Graham. Notify County to go due north along the shore past his car. He’s on the ridge, he’s alive, and I need a Medi-Lift chopper, ASAP.”

  “Will do, Chief. Anything else?”

  “Tell them to hurry,” he said, then shrugged off the backpack.

  Before he moved anything at the scene, he needed to record it as he found it, so he began taking pictures. When he saw the canvas with a hole punched right in the middle of it, his skin suddenly crawled. Elliot saw something he wasn’t supposed to see and it nearly got him killed. He took pictures of that, and then the entire area around his body before he set his camera aside and grabbed a couple of water bottles from his pack.

  “Elliot, can you hear me? It’s Chief Pittman. I have water.”

  Because of the wound on Elliot’s head, Lon was afraid to move him, so to keep him from choking, he dug through his pack again, found a clean bandanna, soaked it with water, then squeezed the tiniest bit between Elliot’s lips. He repeated that several times, then switched to Elliot’s face and poured a small but steady stream across his forehead, letting it run across his burned and crusted eyelids. As he did, Elliot moaned.

  The sound was encouraging. “Elliot! This is Chief Pittman. I have water. Can you open your mouth a little?”

  Elliot tried, then cried out in pain when movement made the cracks in his lips begin to bleed.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Lon said. “I’ll squeeze some more between your lips. I won’t let you choke. You’re safe now. A medical chopper is on the way. We’ll get you to the hospital ASAP.”

  Elliot moaned and lost consciousness again.

  Lon continued to pour water on his face and around his eyes. He found some Vaseline in his backpack and rubbed a tiny bit on the cracked and bleeding places on the old man’s lips. By the time he was beginning to hear the voices of the county officers, he also heard the sound of an approaching helicopter.

  “Elliot! Can you hear that chopper? Help is coming,” Lon said, then looked up.

  County officers Butler and Treat were coming up the slope on the run. Lon knew both of them.

  “Chopper’s here!” Butler said, pointing as he ran, but the warning was unnecessary. The downdraft from the rotors was stirring up everything loose on the forest floor around them.

  “They’re sending down a litter and a medic,” Treat added.

  Lon looked down at Elliot and checked his pulse again, reassured by the faint throb of a heartbeat.

  In less than fifteen minutes, the medic had assessed Elliot’s condition and stabilized him enough to be moved.

  Lon and the officers watched, unable to take their eyes off that basket swinging in midair until Elliot and the medic were safely inside the chopper.

  As soon as the chopper headed back to Blessings, Lon grabbed his backpack.

  “I’ll leave the scene to you guys. I assume you’ll be treating it as a crime scene, considering the hole someone punched in the canvas and the wound on the back of his head. Note that he’s lying in nothing but grass and dirt, so there’s nothing here that would have caused that wound had he fallen. Oh, I found this tube of paint on the trail, and I took a picture and left a marker before I bagged and tagged it for you. I also took photos of the scene as I found it before I tended to Elliot. I’ll email those to the sheriff’s office when I get back to the precinct.”

  “Yes, sir. All scenes are crime scenes until proven otherwise. It’s protocol. We’ll enter the tube of paint into evidence and tell Sheriff Ryman to look for the photos. If I learn anything new, you’ll be notified, and by the same token, a copy of whatever information Mr. Graham is able to share will be appreciated.”

  “Of course,” Lon said, and headed off down the slope as fast as he could go, then ran all the way back to his cruiser.

  The first thing he did was send Mercy a text. If it hadn’t been for her, Elliot Graham would surely have died.

  Mercy was up to her elbows in piecrusts when she heard the phone in her pocket signal a text. Lon had promised to let her know what was up, and she quickly cleaned her hands before reading it. Her reaction was one of pure shock.

  “Oh my God!”

  Lovey was on her way back into the dining area when she heard Mercy. She stopped and turned around.

  “Honey! What’s wrong?” Lovey asked.

  Mercy was shaking. “Lon found Elliot unconscious at the lake. He’d been there since yesterday. He’s in bad shape, and his injuries don’t add up to an accident. They’re bringing him into the ER here by chopper.”

  “What on earth?” Lovey asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mercy said, but she was in tears. “Lon will keep me updated. All I can do is pray.”

  Elvis, the fry cook, was frowning. “Can’t imagine anyone hurting an old man like that, but there’s no accounting for how people behave these days.”

  Mercy shuddered. “I can’t bear to think of him being attacked in some way!”

  Elvis shrugged.

  “Keep me updated,” Lovey said.

  Mercy nodded, then sent a text back to Lon to keep her informed of what was happening before going back to work.

  The news quickly spread from Granny’s to the rest of the Blessings residents. They were horrified, thinking of Elliot out there alone overnight, the victim of an attack.

  * * *

  Dan Amos was on his way to Bloomer’s Hardware to get a part to fix Margie Wilson’s shower. He’d forgotten the shower was a tub/shower combination until he’d gotten to her house, but it soon became obvious the problem wasn’t with the actual drain. It was the part that released water in the tub so it could run out.

  He didn’t know exactly what it was called, but he’d taken a picture of it and watched a YouTube video of how to fix it. If Bloomer’s had the part, he was good to go. If they didn’t, the plumber was about to get a call.

  As he pulled up in front of the store, he smiled. He would get to see Alice Conroy again. She was pretty to look at, but it was her manner that was so engaging. And she was smart. And there was that brief kiss they’d shared about a month ago as she was helping him find some gaskets. She’d been talking and smiling and pointing out the sizes he needed when he just leaned over and kissed her.

  It was hard to say who was more shocked, Alice or him.

  He immediately apologized over and over. She was never upset or angry, but he’d obviously embarrassed her and he regretted that, even as he was breathing a sigh of relief that she’d given him an out. But ever since then, there was that spark of knowing what had happened between them, and the wondering if it would ever happen again.

  And today was no different. He was thinking about her as he walked into Bloomer’s. Then he heard Alice and the customer at the counter talking about Elliot, and it didn’t sound good.

  “Excuse me,” he said as he approached. “I don’t mean to intrude, but Mr. Graham is my neighbor. Did I understand you to say he’d been found?”

  “Yes,” Alice said. “They found him unconscious out at Gray Goose Lake. It appears he’d gone out to paint because his things were there beside him, but they don’t know what happened to him.”

  Dan was immediately overwhelmed with guilt. He should have paid more attention that Elliot hadn’t come home.

  “That’s terrible,” he said, and quietly walked away, moving down an aisle to distance himself so they could finish their conversation.

  He kept imagining the old fellow exposed to the weather, alone, and unconscious. It was nothing short of a miracle that he was alive. Dan was so upset that he forgot what he’d even come for, and then Alice found him standing in front of pipe fittings, staring off into space. He felt a gentle, tentative touch on his arm and turned around.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

  He nodded, then pulled the picture up on his phone and pointed to the part he needed. “This isn’t working anymore. At first I thought something had just come loose, but after unscrewing it for a better look, I discovered it was broken.” He showed her yet another picture and then watched her frown.

  “I’m so sorry. This is a little bit beyond my expertise. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll go get Mr. Bloomer to help you.”

  He nodded, and within a couple of minutes, Fred Bloomer was on the computer with Dan at his side, checking for the proper part number, then checking his online inventory to see if he had one. And he did. Dan was happy his renter wouldn’t have to wait for a part before he could fix the shower, and carried the part up front to pay.

  Alice was waiting at the register. She kept glancing at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. She might as well have been staring, which would have given him an excuse to stare back, because he was aware of everything about her. He’d seen her kids, and he’d seen her with her kids. He knew her husband was dead, and that she had tasted like peppermint when he had kissed her.

  Alice rang up the parts and then paused and glanced up at him. “Do you have everything else you’ll need?”

  “I think so. If I don’t, I’ll be back,” he said, and grinned.

  Alice sighed. Dan Amos was a very handsome man. She did not want to be attracted to any man. She’d had all the disappointment in her life that she could handle. And yet there was that kiss, and here he was, smiling at her, making her heart flutter.

  She smiled shyly. “Not wishing you any bad luck, but we’re always happy to see you.” The moment that came out of her mouth, she flushed.

  Dan grinned. “Well, thank you, ma’am.”

  “Considering the fact that you stole a kiss from me once, the least you can do is call me Alice,” she said.

  He blushed. “Yes, I did, and while I should apologize again, the truth is that I am not one bit sorry it happened.”

  She laughed.

  “And I’m Dan. Never Mr. Amos to you. In the meantime, I’m off to make Margie Wilson’s evening better than her morning,” he said, and headed out the door with the parts.

  He didn’t know he was still smiling until he got in his truck and caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror.

  Instead of shifting into a scowl, he just shook his head and drove away.

  Chapter 3

  Albert Rankin had spent the night in the hospital after the ordeal with his feet, and he was being released today with the understanding that he could not put weight on them until it was time to remove his stitches, which meant at least a week.

  Yesterday, as soon as Junior headed to Blessings with his brother, he had called their daddy to let him know what had happened. Big Tom left work and was there waiting when they arrived. Then, to their surprise, Big Tom stayed with Albert all night, sleeping in a chair beside his younger son’s bed.

  Junior went home to feed the livestock and was alone in the old house all night. Usually, he liked sleeping with ghosts, but not last night. He’d felt their judgment as surely as if they’d appeared before him. Albert’s sleep wasn’t much better, but going home gave his day a brighter outlook.

  Albert and Big Tom were on the way out of the hospital, with Big Tom walking beside the orderly who was pushing Albert’s wheelchair toward the exit. They came out of the hospital just as the chopper arrived with Elliot Graham inside.

  Big Tom looked up as the helicopter came down onto the landing pad. “What’s all that about?” he asked.

  Albert shaded his eyes against the sun to watch the descending medical helicopter as the orderly stopped the wheelchair at the curb.

  “They found an old man out at the lake and are bringing him in. Whatever happened, they said he was in bad shape and was out there alone all night,” the orderly said.

  “Who is it? Someone from Blessings?” Big Tom asked.

  “Some old man named Elliot Graham. I heard them talking about it down in ER when I went to get a wheelchair. Supposedly he’s some famous painter from back East who retired in Blessings several years back.”