The Promise

by Patrick Hurley

  “You can’t keep a good Norwegian down, Chief! How many hours have I been out?”

  “Four days, Elie,” the Chief answered, “But, you may be able to go home later today.”

  Elie swooned to herself, “Four days!”

  She tried to sit up, impossible.

  Chief Parker gently moved her back down. “You’ll have plenty of time to get up and get back to work. For now, you need to move a little slower. But, I need to ask you a few questions. I am a cop, after all.”

  “Sure,” responded Elie shakily.

  “What do you remember from last Friday night? Before you got that knock on your head?”

  Elie tried to clear her head. She wracked her memory, but nothing was forthcoming. It scared her. “I uh, don’t know.”

  Her boss was sympathetic. “That’s what I thought you’d say. The doctors told me to expect temporary amnesia. Hopefully, the pieces will be coming back to you. For now, please try to rest, but try not to sleep. We don’t want to lose you again.”

  Elie shuddered. “Was I in a coma?”

  “No, but you had a charming, little concussion. Nice recovery. You came out of it a lot better than Malcolm Oden did.”

  The police woman remembered, “He’s dead. He killed himself?”

  “Yeah, he did. He knew his position at the school was compromised and he had no choice but to face jail time with a lot of shame or,”

  “Or”

  “He could solve his problem quickly and permanently. I don’t think you were the only girl he violated. I never like to see a man die, but, in this case, he deserved what he got after all these years, those poor girls.”

  “I need to sleep now, Chief.”

  “No more sleeping, Larsen.”

  Parker quickly buzzed a nurse, “Yeah, get in here. Our patient wants to sleep so it’s time to take her on a walk!” Smiling at Elie he quipped, “Get some exercise, so you can keep that girlish figure of yours. See you back at work soon.”

  Elie smiled at him through clenched and aching teeth. Her nap fantasy was over. She was lucky to be alive. Now, it was time for healing.

  Chapter Twenty-four--Adjustment

  “So, what do we do now, Gallagher?” asked an anxious Elie on her first day back at work. “My cover is blown.”

  The detective smiled. “No, it isn’t. Remember what Oden said about he being the one who did the research on you. He figured all that out on his own. No one at that school suspects a thing.

  When he died, his knowledge of Elie Larsen died with him. My question is, why do you think he stopped assaulting you and then committed suicide?”

  “It’s because some kids from the school saw us together. He ripped my top off and I guess he knew it wouldn’t look good for an assistant headmaster to be doing things like to one of his students in the middle of the woods.

  Evidently, the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was all over for him. He made a snap decision to avoid the shame of what he would suffer. I was lucky he didn’t take me with him when he decided to end it.”

  “You’re will have to put this unfortunate experience behind you, Elie. We need you at that school. If you sense the other girls are suspicious of you, you’ll have to bail out. Let’s see what happens. We’re going to assign a second undercover girl in there as a backup. Take some time now to file a full report on what happened that night. Do the best you can.”

  “Okay, Mike.”

  “By the way, Malcolm Oden was not his real name.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “His real name was Mark Halverson. He changed his name to fit his favorite hero.”

  “I didn’t know there was a hero named Malcolm or Oden?”

  “That’s because you aren’t a trivia buff. Mal, short for Malcolm, is the root word meaning, “evil” as in malevolent. We uncovered some evidence that he was a Satan worshipper.

  Here’s the hero part. Oden is a derivative spelling for, “Odin” the Norse god of war and death. He was a weird dude.”

  “How did you find that out, Mike?”

  “Evidently, when he was in your room that night he left a folder with some pretty sick material in it. It was filled with satanic diagrams, pictures of animal sacrifices and several religious symbols indicating his involvement in the satanic church.

  He was a bad seed, Elie. You dodged a bullet, literally,” Gallagher smiled.

  Elie was thinking clearly now. “Wait a minute, if Oden wasn’t his last name, why is my roommate’s last name, Oden?”

  Gallagher pondered that for a moment, “Hmm, good point. Maybe she took his name when he, uh, I have no clue why her last name is Oden. It should be Verna Halverson…”

  Elie stood up. I think something is weird here. There may be more to my roommate than meets the eye. This is eerie. Why would Oden’s sister change her name just because her brother did so? Did she want to follow Norse mythology, too? I wonder what the name, “Verna” means.”

  The detective sat down at his computer and Googled the name. “It says here it has two different meanings, ’true one’ and, ‘springtime.’

  Nothing remarkable there.”

  Elie frowned. “It doesn’t make sense. Maybe she adored her brother. He did have some kind of control over her.”

  Gallagher laughed, “We may be pressing here. Maybe there is no rational reason, just a silly one.

  At any rate, try to find out if she has anything to do with The Promise. And, please be careful. Be more cautious than you have ever been. We need to be very careful right now.”

  Elie laughed, Maybe I can take drugs with them or do a séance or something!”

  “Sure, get high. I’ll ask Chief Parker for some drug money. I’m sure that’ll go over big with him, just before his heart attack.”

  “Let me know if you find out anything else about Oden, Mike. I‘m edgy right now. I wonder who else over there is living a lie. This is one creepy school.”

  Gallagher countered, “I am thinking a lot about Allison Taylor right now. She went to that school. She is now missing with no ransom note.

  I do believe that she knew her captor. So, keep your eyes open, not just for clues, but for you. This Verna character has my attention now. I have felt all along that our main list of suspects were not the perpetrators.”

  “Well, I need to file my report and head out. It’s going to be interesting to see how Verna treats me now.”

  Gallagher held up Mick and laughed, “May the force be with you. What was that movie from, Elie?”

  “That’s too easy, Mike. Star Wars!”

  “Good, now who was the voice of Darth Vader?”

  “Malcolm Oden!” laughed Elie.

  With that flippant answer, she was out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-five---back to the Colony

  When Elie returned to her dorm room her roommate was not in. This didn’t surprise Elie since the memorial service for Dr. Oden was earlier that morning.

  What did surprise the undercover agent was the condition of her dorm room. Elie mused to herself, “Verna’s bags are packed. Her bed is rolled up. She is moving out?”

  Elie plopped down on her own bed and thought about her roommate. She couldn’t believe that Verna was leaving the Colony. Her thoughts continued, “Had it been my brother, I would have done the exact same thing. But, I don’t want Verna to leave.”

  As she sat there, she heard the door knock and opening it, she came face to face with the school’s headmaster, Dr. Morgan.

  His face was splotchy and red. He looked like he had been crying. “Bree, I wanted to stop by and see how you were doing. Is everything okay with you?”

  Elie faintly smiled, “Yes, sir. I’m hanging in there. It was a pretty tough experience to go through. I know how close you and Dr. Oden were. I’m truly sorry.”

  “Yes, I am sorry to lose a fellow administrator and a friend. I did not get much sleep last night. We were very close.

  Verna is taking it pretty hard, too. I was t
old she stayed up all night next to it crying. She worshipped Malcolm. It is going to take her a long time to reconcile what he did to himself. I am having a difficult time understanding, too. I knew Malcolm was not perfect, but, I never saw him as, uh, self-destructive.

  You are lucky, Bree, to be alive. Evidently, when he saw those students who recognized him chasing you, he knew it was over. He chose to take his life over a life of ongoing shame. He was a very proud man. I guess he felt he could not live with the consequences of his actions. The Oden family is a proud family from the old country.”

  As soon as Elie heard the family name, she resisted the urge to ask the headmaster what Verna’s real name was. This was not the time to be an investigator. She let him continue talking.

  Dr. Morgan walked over to the window and paused. This was difficult for him.

  “I did treasure my friendship with Malcolm. I was impressed with him the day I hired him and brought him into our family here at the Colony.”

  Turning to face Elie he said, “I want to personally apologize to you for what happened. You should never have been exposed to such a horrible experience. I don’t know any of the details except for how it ended up, but, I am truly sorry for any pain he caused you that night.”

  Elie could feel her eyes filling up with tears. At that moment, Dr. Morgan reminded her of her own father. That was something she imagined him to say.

  She walked quickly over to the headmaster and buried her face into his chest and started sobbing. Up until that moment, she had been stoic and in denial about how hurtful the night had been.

  It was finally time for her to release her pent up emotions.

  Dr. Morgan holds her tight, “My dear child. I promise you that nothing like this will ever happen to you again under my watch. As long as you are one of our students, you will be safe. I am going to do everything in my power to protect you.

  That is my promise.”

  The last word of that sentence sent a chill through Elie. Especially in the way that Dr. Morgan said it. It just sounded odd and strangely perverse in the tone of his voice.

  Maybe Elie was overreacting, maybe she wasn’t trusting anyone at that moment. But, suddenly she felt creepy. She pulled away and looked up at Dr. Morgan.

  He had a funny look on his face. He seemed to be measuring her. In Elie’s mind he looked like a hungry lion surveying a helpless fawn.

  Elie took a step back and started feeling chills come over her. The mood in the room had abruptly changed. Elie wanted the headmaster out of her room as soon as possible.

  “Thank you, Dr. Morgan. I appreciate what you said. I am kinda tired. I think I need to rest. But, it means a lot for you to come by and see me.”

  She moved to the door, opened it and stood there suggesting that he take the hint and move through it, but he continued to stand there staring at her. Elie could now feel the hairs on the back of her neck stabbing into her. Her mouth went dry with nervousness.

  “Bree, we are a family here. Many of the girls come from dysfunctional homes and it is here they find love and nurturing they do not always get from their own parents. We are a very close-knit group. We are extremely loyal to each other. When we make a promise to each other, we keep it.

  It is not something we take lightly, this loyalty. It is something that is life or death to us. If someone does not take the promise seriously, there are consequences. Am I communicating, dear?”

  “Oh my God” Elie thought to herself. The Promise is headed up by none other than the Headmaster? Was she imagining his intent and choice of words or was she reading him clearly?

  She didn’t know what to say in response to him. She just stood there at the door and watched her hands begin to shake.

  “You see, Bree, not everyone is capable of making promises they can keep. It is a very select group. But, once you are in that group, you have to take the ultimate responsibility to fulfill the requirements of what that group expects of you.

  Because you are not only responsible for yourself, that is secondary, you are responsible for the rest of the group as well. Therefore, you cannot do or say anything that would compromise them in any way.”

  Elie was understanding him now. One phrase shot through her like a heat-seeking missile, “ultimate responsibility to fulfill the requirements of what the group expects of you.”

  What did that mean?

  Ultimate sounds life-ending if you fail in your response to what is expected of you. And, what does the group expect of her or anyone involved in this strange sorority?

  Was this an invitation into the core philosophy of what ended Allison Taylor’s life? Did Allison fail to live up to her ultimate responsibility? Is that why she is missing?

  Did the group exact out it’s punishment on the poor girl?

  “Bree, do not be surprised if someone very special contacts you and asks you to be a part of something wonderful. Just hear her out and consider the proposal carefully. It may mean something very beneficial to you for the rest of your life.”

  “Is he implying, the rest of my life or the end of my life!” Elie reasons to herself.

  With a pounding heart she calmly replies, “Thank you, Dr. Morgan, I’ll be open to any opportunities that may come my way. I like it here at the Colony School. I want to support it in any way I can.

  As far as a lawsuit, I’m not going down that road. You are very kind. Thank you for coming to see me.”

  As she smiles at the headmaster, her eyes notice a ring on his right hand. She sees something very familiar etched into it. She quickly looks away, so he won’t notice.

  As Dr. Morgan approaches the door, he smiles at Elie and cryptically says, “Nevermore, my dear.”

  With that, he is gone leaving her to ponder what he means by that phrase. Elie recognizes it instantly as a quote from, “The Raven,” by Edgar Allen Poe. But, why would he say it to her?

  She sits on her bed and before long she is sleepy and feeling very safe from any more advances from the late and seriously flawed, Dr. Malcolm Oden.

  But, just in case, she puts her revolver under the pillow and soon she is sound asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-six--A confrontation with Verna

  Gallagher sat in his office tossing his lucky leprechaun in the air and catching him like a baseball. He was also working on his trivia.

  ”Okay Mick, name the only coach in history to win both the NCAA and the NBA basketball championship? Come on, you know that.

  Larry Brown. Remember? He did it in college with Kansas in 1988 and then with the Pistons in 2004 when they swept the Lakers in the Finals How could you forget that?”

  This was Gallagher’s way of relaxing. Other officers had a different version of this mental exercise.

  Many of them thought their chief homicide detective was bordering not on mental sharpness, but on mental illness. They just shook their heads as they watched through the window of the office and saw the stuffed mascot being tossed up and down like an Emeril specialty salad.

  One of the officers nodded at his colleague, “He’s playing with his mascot again.”

  They both laughed but they couldn’t deny that Gallagher was as brilliant as he was goofy, an investigative genius.

  “Okay, here’s an easy one, Mick!

  Name the top grossing movies of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and 2000’s. Give up?

  I am disappointed in you, Mick. You should know these. You have watched them with me. In order of past decades,

  ’They are in order, ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘Star Wars,’ ‘E.T.’, ‘Titanic’ and ’Avatar!’ I see you need a little memory work, buddy.

  At this point, he was interrupted by his partner who burst through the office door sobbing. Elie was visibly shaken.

  Gallagher quickly put down his mascot and stood up and embraced her. She was shaking so hard she couldn’t talk.

  “What in the world is wrong, Elie? Are you okay?”

  Between gasps of air, Elie tried to give an explanation b
ut the words were all jumbled. So, Gallagher just held her gently until she was calm enough to talk. Finally, she sat down, still trembling and he brought her a glass of water and waited for her to tell him what had upset her so deeply.

  “I was attacked today, Gallagher…”

  Her partner looked sympathetically at her, “Attacked?” Gallagher’s face registered shock. He gently forced a smile and then tried to reassure her. “Take some time and tell me about it, Elie. Just try to breathe.”