A Book of Short Stories and Poems

I Solemnly Swear

"I solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," a gruff looking man said. He was big and burly. His face looked worn from years of work and a small stubble began to grace his cheeks. He wore a police officer uniform.

"Sheriff Scott," began the prosecutor, a tall, lean man named Alister that looked as if he would show no one any mercy, "why don't you tell the court about what happened to your daughter, Priscilla Scott?"

"Of course," replied the officer. He sat with his spine straight as a needle. He had done this hundreds of times, but never for a case so personal. "One day, at work, one of my officers comes up to me. He told me about a man that had called with information about a kidnapped girl. Apparently, her kidnappers were going to kill her the following month. I told him to look into it, but if other things arose, then he should focus on those tasks instead. You see, the man had not provided any evidence that this woman was going to be killed in a month's time. Therefore, we assumed he was bluffing. We thought that he was making the case seem worse than it was so that we would look into it quickly.

"The world went on as normal for another three weeks or so. Honestly, I forgot about the case. I hear about so many cases in a single day that many are bound to slip my memory. I knew, however, that the officers on the case had not forgotten. They never do.

"One day, after it having been three weeks since I had heard about this case, I received a phone call from my wife while I was still at work. She never does that unless it is something very important, so I answered right away.

"'It's Priscilla,' she said. 'She's gone!' She was crying.

"'What do you mean gone?' I asked. 'Did she run away?'

"'No! Someone took her!'

"'Why?' I questioned. I was getting scared.

"'There's a note on the door saying that they want a case to become primary priority.'

"Stay right there,' I told her. 'I will be there in about ten minutes with some of my best officers.'

"I held true to that promise. When we got there, I saw this note she was talking about. It was taped onto the front door. It said that it was from the man that had called about the kidnapped woman. He wrote that she was supposed to be murdered in a weeks time. If we did not get her back alive for him, then he would kill my precious daughter."

Alister entered the note into evidence.

"I tried my hardest to do what I could for the man. I really did. My best just wasn't enough. I was desperate, and at the moment, I couldn't see any other option besides helping the man. If I could help him, then I would get my daughter back.

"When we arrived at the gang's known place of occupation, there was no woman. There was only a pile of ashes. We had to assume that it was the missing woman.

"My men and I went to the man's house to inform him about the death, but he wasn't there. Only my daughter's lifeless body. She just laid there in a pool of her own blood. She was stabbed four times! I knew that the man had somehow already found out about the woman's death.

"The man was not home, so we hid. We could see that he had left some cash on his living room table. When a person runs from the cops, they take as much cash as they can so that they don't use credit cards. He would not have forgotten that cash that sat in plain view.

"We waited until he returned home. He was carrying grocery bags. This man had just commited murder then went on with his daily life like nothing had happened! We arrested him and processed the scene.