The Promise

by Patrick Hurley

  Gallagher shrugged, “I have no idea. Now, because the mortician who worked on him is dead, we are going to have to do it the hard way. Catch him before he kills again. This is unbelievable.”

  The phone rang again, “Yeah?” Chief Parker answered, after a few seconds he slammed the phone down into the receiver. “Double damn! They lost her. Margaret Williams got away.”

  His detective said the four simple words that people have said for centuries when confronted with a seemingly impossible situation, “I need a drink.”

  But, by the time his boss heard the last word of that sentence, Gallagher was gone.

  The drink was calling him.

  Chapter Eighty-one---Arch Taylor bares his Soul

  Since Elie was at the garage trying to get her hopeless car fixed, Gallagher went alone to see Archer Taylor.

  He had promised Allison’s father he would see him as soon as he got home from the hospital. As a professional courtesy, he felt it would be a nice gesture. As the detective walked slowly up the walk to Archer Taylor’s mansion, he tried to smile at the security guard but his face hurt too much.

  He promised himself, “I am never going to drink again for the rest of my life”…”

  His head was pounding as he staggered to the door where a servant lightened his burden by opening the door for him before he even got there.

  The detective entered and was escorted upstairs to see the furniture mogul. Arch looked good. He had the color back in his face and he smiled broadly to the detective. “How the hell are you, Gallagher!” he bellowed.

  The volume of the greeting made Gallagher’s head wince even more.

  “As good as can be expected, Mr. Taylor. Good to see you home…”

  “Well, I don’t plan on being here on a daily basis much longer. I’m just tired a lot. I keep falling asleep on a moment’s notice. It’s that damn heart medicine. I’m anxious to get back to work. I need to take my mind off things.”

  Gallagher knew the “things” Arch Taylor was referring to. A missing daughter is a huge thing. He knew how much he was hurting as he tried to solve the Taylor case. He could only imagine what kind of demons the father was encountering.

  “I heard you upped the reward for Allison, Arch.”

  The powerful man sighed, “Yeah, I did. $100,000.00 to anyone who gives us information whether we find her alive or,” He stopped abruptly.

  It was an ending of a sentence about to go bad.

  “We’ll find her, Mr. Taylor. I have confidence we will bring her back to you alive,” Gallagher smiled as he wondered how honest he was being with himself at that moment. “I’m sorry about your former partner, sir.”

  “Redding was a good man at one time, but he seemed to have lost his way. No man deserves death like that, no matter how unethical he is, but, he was playing in dangerous waters the last few years and this doesn’t really surprise me.”

  Gallagher perked up upon hearing that piece of news. “Dangerous waters, Arch?”

  Mr. Taylor looked at him for a moment then proceeded, “Well, let’s just say his business dealings got a lot of people mad. When you anger a man, he usually lets you know it. If you run with pigs, you’ll wind up in slop.”

  The detective nodded his head. “I guess we all have things in our life we’re not proud of, yes.”

  Gallagher was amazed at how his sentence suddenly affected the crusty tycoon. He looked at tears almost spontaneously forming in Taylor’s eyes.

  “You okay, Arch?” He gently asked.

  For over a minute, Archer Taylor couldn’t speak.

  Finally, he whispered so low that the detective had to move closer to the bed to hear him. “There’s something I need to tell you, Gallagher. If you want skeletons, I have ‘em. This one may have scared away my baby girl.”

  Wondering what was coming next, Gallagher took out his notepad. The older man frowned. “Put that damn thing away. What I am going to tell you is man to man, just you and me.”

  The detective acquiesced. He was all ears.

  “About a year ago, I met a very special young lady. My marriage was unhappy and I was trying to feel young again, so I allowed myself to get close to her. She took some trips with me and I took care of her needs. She was volatile, but I didn’t care. I liked her sassiness.

  I never planned to marry her, but, she brought a new spirit to my life. I really enjoyed her company. I would still be with her now, but my daughter couldn’t stand her. She told me in no uncertain terms that I had to choose between this younger girl or her. So, I chose my daughter, of course.”

  Gallagher was a little confused. “Do you believe there is a connection between this girl you were with and your daughter’s disappearance?”

  Arch Taylor nodded yes. “I believe so. She and my daughter were nitro and glycerin. There was no way they could co-exist together. One of them had to go.

  “What happened to this girl, Arch?”

  He paused, “I haven’t talked to her in several months. But, she was very bitter about me choosing my daughter over her. Since I have had a lot of time to think about all this, I wonder if she was vengeful enough to take the one person I loved the most.

  Maybe I’m just being dramatic here.”

  Gallagher looked at him quizzically, “Maybe, maybe not.”

  Taylor smiled as he continued to reminisce, “Boy, she was a pistol. Best sex I ever had. Our favorite place was out at Redding Shaw’s ranch under the stars. We’d roll around in the hay and then ride horses at midnight and camp out in the hills.

  She was hard to understand and didn’t really mix in with the crowd. But she was the most exciting gal I’ve ever been with. She was sassy, irreverent, full of life, unpredictable and devoted to me. She made me feel like a young man again. Hell, for awhile we were inseparable. We went everywhere, France, Italy, England…”

  Gallagher had to smile to himself as he listened to Arch Taylor talk like a high school kid. As he turned to ask him another question he heard the first snore come out of the man’s mouth signaling the end of conversation.

  The detective whispered to him, “I hope you dream about that roll in the hay, Arch,” as he tiptoed out of the room to let the man get some rest.

  After reliving his libido, he figured Taylor was one tired cowboy.

  Chapter Eighty-two--What the file Revealed

  As Gallagher drove home his thoughts were on Malcolm Oden. “This guy’s had more resurrections than Jesus,” he wondered to himself in amazement. There has to be a way to track him down.

  The detective thought of insurance policies, bank accounts, ATM cards, past addresses, then, it hit him. The Colony school had a file on him.

  Of course, that was it.

  That’s how the lab was able to get his fingerprints. They probably had the school provide them. Sometimes it was the obvious clue that was the hardest to think about.

  He decided to make a quick stop at the former assistant headmaster’s office and see what he could dig up. He drove to the Colony and was walking towards the office when he ran into Catherine Bretz who was just locking up.

  She was a little more cordial to him than she had been on their first encounter. Obviously, the murder of her boss had softened her up. “Hello, Mr. Gallagher, what can I do for you today?”

  “Ms. Bretz, you can do something very special for me today. I need a favor.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I need to see any files you have on Malcolm Oden. It would mean a great deal to our investigation, ma’am.”

  Unsmiling, she unlocked the door to the office and walked back inside. She went over to a locked cabinet and opened it. It didn’t take her long to pull out a computer disk along with a file folder.

  She handed it to Gallagher, “I am not doing this as a favor for you. I never liked the man.”

  Gallagher chuckled at her honesty. He thanked her and walked briskly to his car. Instead of going home, he went to his office and sat down.

  He called Alisha, “H
oney, I’m going to be late for dinner. Sorry.”

  He paused to listen to her disappointment. Finally, he said, “I just have to look over something here that will require my attention. Miss you.”

  He hung up the phone and began to read the material hoping to find some clues to this mystical being who seemingly refused to depart this earth. Maybe he was a Norse god.

  As he read and re-read, nothing seemed unusual. Mark Halverson was an assistant headmaster at an exclusive private school. He had been in two previous schools serving as a counselor and as a psychology teacher.

  He was a transplanted Southerner having been raised in the Midwest. He earned a bachelor of science in psychology from Loyola University and a Masters Degree in counseling from Illinois State. Gallagher smiled to himself, “Ah, the Redbirds from Bloomington, Illinois.”

  He knew most of the college nicknames, their school colors and the city they were located in. Mr. Trivia was an appropriate moniker for this detective. He loved knowledge.

  He also remembered that Loyola University had actually won the NCAA championship in 1963 over Cincinnati. That was a huge year in sports for the city of Chicago because the NFL Bears had also won a championship over the New York Giants.

  For awhile, Gallagher’s mind wandered as he began testing himself on basketball championships in the ‘60’s and beyond. He was already at 1993 when he saw something in the resume that caught his attention.

  “Spent two summers as a coroner’s assistant, Cook County Coroner office. 1992-94.”

  Gallagher just stared at the print as he whistled softly to himself “Maybe that’s where he learned to fake his death?” he reasoned.

  This kind of experience could give someone an ability to not only understand death, but to manipulate it in some form. As he read on, there was a notation from his high school days that also triggered a familiar jolt to the detective:

  “President of the Leif Erickson Adventurers Club. King of the Odin Festival. 2000.”

  Gallagher’s research was paying off when his cell phone went off. It was his partner. “Can you come get me, Gallagher? I need a ride home. They found out what was wrong with my poor car!”

  He teased her, “Dead chipmunks?”

  “No, smarty man, it’s the transmission. I am going to be walking for awhile. Can you drop me off so I can sit at home and curse American-made car manufacturers, specifically, Saturns?”

  He laughed. “Sure, where are you?”

  “Hodge Automotive, it’s at the corner of…”

  “I know the place. I used to take my cars there!”

  “Used to, what are you saying? They are not great mechanics. Hello?”

  Laughing, he hung up on her. It was fun making people paranoid once in a while. It gave him something to smile about.

  He put the folders under his arm and headed out. It didn’t take long for him to pull up to Hodge’s. Of course, Elie was sitting on the curb looking glum like a little girl who had lost her favorite stuffed animal. Since Gallagher had his, he tossed Mick at her when she got in the car. “Here, catch! My little friend will make you feel better!”

  She didn’t even try to catch it. She just shook her head as the little leprechaun rolled down her legs to the floor of the front seat. She let him stay there.

  She was not in the mood to play nice. “I don’t know how I’m going to pay for this!” She moaned. The bill is going to be over $800.00.”

  Gallagher tried to reassure her, “Don’t panic. They’ll take payments. You’ll just have to cut back on certain expenses for awhile. We’ll talk to the Chief and see what we can do for you. Okay?”

  That seemed to soothe her. She had been through a lot lately. Losing her car was the last thing she needed. Gallagher had other things on his mind, “I just read a file on Malcolm Oden. You won’t believe what it revealed.”

  “Really, what?”

  Gallagher was happy she was back in work mode. He liked her much better that way. “In high school he was in some Odin Festival and get this, he worked as a mortician’s assistant for two summers. Interesting, huh?”

  Elie added her own personal comment, “Did he teach a class on, ‘How to write threatening notes!’ too?”

  He tried to be light-hearted with her, “How did you know? He was voted most likely to be a serial killer in his senior year!”

  It worked.

  She laughed uproariously.

  The rest of the ride was an ongoing litany of murder and psycho references as they dissected Malcolm Oden. By the time he dropped Elie off she was smiling again. “Thanks, Gallagher. You’re really twisted. I love that about you.”

  “My pleasure, madam Elle. Do you need a ride to work tomorrow?”

  “No, my insurance company is providing me with a rental car for a week. I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Bundy.”

  Laughing some more, she went into the house. Gallagher stayed to make sure she turned the lights on and waved at him through the window. The last thing he needed was to lose his partner.

  Chapter Eighty-three---A spot of Raven

  As Gallagher drove home his mind was turning in several directions at once. The questions tumbled through it like a load of clothes in a hot dryer. He would catch glimpses of potential solutions but just as he reached out to grab one, another piece of fabric intruded causing him to start perusing that one.

  By the time he arrived at his house, his mind was filled with inconclusive possibilities which led nowhere. He was also developing a nasty cold, evidenced by a sudden sneezing spell.

  Alisha greeted him as he cruised into the kitchen. “Hi honey, don’t touch the deviled eggs,” she warned just as her husband popped one into his mouth.

  “Achoo!” He snorted, as remnants of egg and its delectable filling spewed out of his mouth across the counter finding its way unerringly to the chocolate cake his wife had baked for dessert.

  “Michael!” she exclaimed as she saw the yellow and white speckles dot the icing.

  Realizing this was now a former dessert, she glared at him. “Run over to Kroeger and get another cake. Make sure it is nowhere near your nose as you drive home. Hurry!

  Bob and Judy will be here in twenty minutes.”

  Gallagher sheepishly nodded long enough to seem repentant, but inside he was laughing.

  This was funny to him, until the next nasal explosion, “Ahchoo! This is one wicked cold that hit me when I wasn’t looking. I’m sorry, honey.”

  Alisha softened, “I doubt you are, but, you can make amends by getting that other cake. You can have the egg-flavored one all to yourself.”

  Her husband walked swiftly to the car and was relieved to notice the sneezing had stopped. As he fiddled with his keys in the cooling September night, he suddenly felt less congested. “Miraculous,” he thought to himself “I am healed!”

  As he drove, the questions reappeared in his mind. One after another, tumbling incessantly, over and over,

  “How could Malcolm Oden have faked his death so effectively? Where was Raven? With Oden? Were the two of them involved in the disappearance of Allison Taylor? If so, why? Were any of the recent murders linked to the Taylor case?

  Is Margaret Williams capable of murder? Is Allison Taylor still alive? Did she fake her abduction and run away?”

  He would have asked more questions but the Kroeger parking lot stopped his intellectual momentum. Just as he exited his car, he began sneezing again.

  Violently.

  One after another, they came, in a barrage of mini-bursts. He kept his hand over his mouth and nose as he entered the grocery store where his sneezing abruptly stopped.

  He went to the bakery section, found a suitable replacement cake and as he re-entered his car he observed an SUV whiz by within a few feet of him. The person in the front passenger seat turned and smiled at him.

  It was Margaret Williams.

  As he turned to check out the license plates, another sneeze violently forced him to look downward instead. Several more sn
eezes followed and as he cleared his eyes from the tears caused by his new-found cold, the car had disappeared onto the thoroughfare.

  He thought about calling it in, but he realized he didn’t have enough information to do so. It was too brief a look.

  It was Raven, she was gone.

  As he drove home in a flurry of more sneezes, he felt like throwing the cake out the window.

  Chapter Eighty-four---foul Play?

  The next day, as Gallagher sat in his office, his cold felt better. He called in the Chief and Elie and they went to the conference room for an evidentiary meeting.