The Last Commandment

by Scott Shepherd

  The maid knocked and announced herself. “Housekeeping.”

  They waited for an answer the two cops knew wasn’t coming.

  Frankel nodded to the maid. She used her pass key to unlock the door and Frankel motioned for her to remain outside. The maid was happy to comply.

  “Maybe I should go get my cart?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you finish up what you were doing?” Frankel suggested. “You’ll be back here soon enough.”

  She walked away faster than Grant thought her capable of moving.

  Frankel didn’t pull his weapon, but he kept his hand close enough to it.

  “Mr. Silver? NYPD.”

  Frankel cautiously entered the room. Grant followed close behind.

  Unless Silver was hiding in the closet (spoiler alert, he wasn’t), it was obvious that the man they were looking for had vacated the room.

  The drab decor was a perfect match for the ho-hum hallway they had just left. The furnishings were simple and at best nondescript. A made-up bed, a sofa, and a chair by a wooden desk were basically it.

  The detective moved back to the hallway and called again for the housekeeper. “Ma’am? One more moment of your time, please?”

  The maid came back into the corridor and headed toward 515 with more than a trace of trepidation in her step. “Yes?”

  Frankel waited for her to join them at the threshold. “Not having seen the other rooms in this fine establishment, I was wondering if this was something that came with the other ones?” he asked.

  Frankel pointed at the wall directly above the bed.

  The maid shook her head. “No, sir. I’ve never seen that before.”

  “I didn’t think so,” said Frankel.

  Grant looked from the two of them back at the wall.

  And the cross that hung directly above the bed.

  A couple of hours later, the cross from the wall of the abandoned insane asylum in Far Rockaway was waiting for them in a plastic evidence bag on Rachel’s desk in the basement office.

  Grant wasn’t surprised to see it could have been the twin of the one found in room 515 of the Hotel Penn.

  “Things are looking a little gloomier for your old friend Prior,” said Frankel.

  “I highly doubt he’s going to be waiting for us in the BA lounge on Christmas Eve to have a little chat before he heads back across the pond,” agreed Grant.

  Rachel was looking at a calendar on her laptop. “He was supposed to stay what—three more nights? I wonder why he left so early.” She glanced back up at the two of them. “Do you think he knew you were coming?”

  Grant shook his head. “No way of knowing. But it doesn’t look like he spent last night there.”

  “What makes you say that?” Rachel asked.

  “The bed was made,” explained Frankel. “I don’t care if you’re a tourist, businessman, or serial killer, no one makes up their rooms when housekeeping will do it for nothing.”

  “Where do you suppose he went?” she wondered.

  “Out disposing of victim number six?” replied Frankel. “Maybe looking for a cheating spouse’s forehead he can carve a Roman numeral seven on?”

  “That’s presuming he’s still in the city,” Rachel pointed out.

  “We’re checking flight manifests and waiting for another hit on his debit card,” said Frankel. “He hasn’t used it since checking in to the Penn.”

  Grant was only half-listening, continuing to stare at the plastic-covered cross. Something was gnawing at his brain again. He glanced back up at his daughter and Frankel.

  “We might be looking at this all wrong,” Grant said, tapping the cross.

  “How do you figure?” asked Frankel.

  Grant shook his head. “I wish I could tell you. I just . . .”

  He broke off and simply shrugged.

  Rachel looked from her father to the detective. “He gets this way. He used to come home and pace around the living room for hours saying something didn’t feel right about the case he was working.”

  A few minutes later, Detective Morton entered the room holding a piece of paper. The look on his face could hardly be described as happy.

  “Bad news, I’m afraid,” informed Morton. Frankel took one look at what Morton handed him and cursed out loud.

  “Shit.” He nodded at Morton. “Thanks, Detective. That’ll be all for now.”

  The second Morton left, Rachel whirled on the NYPD detective. “What is it?”

  Frankel extended the piece of paper. “Silver took the red-eye last night. Norwegian Air flight out of JFK into Gatwick. He must have landed a few hours ago.”

  “Seems our man is on the run,” Grant said.

  Rachel sighed. “So he’s headed back home to spread his brand of repentance and belief.”

  “With his very special knife and a few crosses,” added Frankel.

  Grant started to speak, then stopped himself. He turned to Rachel. “Repeat what you just said.”

  “He’s gone back to England to spread his brand of repentance and belief.”

  “Repent and believe,” murmured her father. Grant pointed at the computer. “That sermon you showed me this morning. Can you bring that up?”

  It took Rachel less than a minute to find a copy of the pamphlet. Grant was hovering over her shoulder waiting. “There—I knew I’d seen that somewhere. Take a look.”

  He was pointing at the title of the article.

  “Repent and believe,” read Rachel.

  “Repent and believe,” Grant said, stressing the middle word. “Look closely enough and you’ll notice the ‘and’ isn’t a plus sign.”

  REPENT + BELIEVE

  “It’s a cross,” explained Grant. “A cross that looks just like the one we found in the hotel room and this one from the hospital in Far Rockaway.”

  He indicated the plastic evidence bag on the desk.

  “So Silver sticks with what works for him,” said Frankel.

  “It’s more than that.” Grant glanced around the room. “Do we have a picture of the hospital wall down here somewhere?”

  “No, but I can get one easily enough.” The detective checked himself, remembering something. “Wait. I took a couple of pictures with my phone. Will that do?”

  “It should,” answered Grant.

  Frankel quickly located one and showed it to him. Though the lighting wasn’t optimal, Grant could make out the three columns of papers and photos arranged in a Roman numeral V and two I s with the now-familiar cross situated between them.

  Grant’s eyes brightened. “That’s it.”

  “What’s it?” asked his daughter.

  Grant pointed at the picture. “What do you see there?”

  “The pictures of Leeds and his parents arranged into a Roman numeral seven,” stated Frankel.

  “But why is the cross there?” asked Grant.

  “Because it’s Silver’s calling card?” Frankel wondered. “I don’t know . . .”

  The detective suddenly broke off. His eyes moved from the picture on his iPhone back to the computer screen where Prior Silver’s pamphlet was still displayed.

  Grant could see Frankel reach the same conclusion that his own brain had been able to unfurl.

  “Six and seven,” Frankel said. “It’s not meant as a cross. It’s meant to be a plus sign.”

  Grant nodded.

  “It’s why we haven’t been able to find a sixth body.” Rachel had caught on as well. “He hasn’t killed them yet.”

  “Precisely,” Grant said.

  “So, he’s gone back to England to kill numbers six and seven at the same time? A murderer and adulterer?” asked Frankel.

  Grant started to respond, then stopped. A look of woe appeared in his eyes.

  “Damn it to bloody hell.”

  “What is it, Dad?” asked Rachel.

  “That’s exactly what he’s going to do,” said Grant. “And I’m pretty sure I know who he’s going after.”

  16


  Stanford Hawley would always remember the first time he’d met Commander Austin Grant of Scotland Yard.

  He had been absolutely petrified.

  Coming from a working-class family, having spent his youth immersed in P. D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh novels and watching Inspector Morse on the telly, Hawley had long dreamed of becoming a Scotland Yard man (Morse actually worked at Oxford, but the copper was bloody brilliant). To be assigned to Grant’s team as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed constable was almost more than Hawley could handle—as Grant was well on his way to becoming a legend at the Yard.

  When introduced to Grant, he had stammered his name was Hanford Stawley before correcting himself.

  “Well, which one is it?” Grant had asked.

  Luckily, there had been a trace of a smile on the man’s face, otherwise Hawley might have skulked out, never to return. He assured Grant it was the latter, but it didn’t stop his new superior from calling him Stawley most of that first year.

  This set the stage for Hawley’s apprenticeship—where he stuck to his father’s advice that he should go about his job with ears and eyes open and mouth closed. Looking back, Hawley recalled that ninety percent of his contributions to conversations with Grant early on were two- or three-word sentences, with plenty of “Yes, sirs” and more than his fair share of “I’m sorry, sirs.”

  But Grant had stuck with him and soon Hawley was the commander’s trusted aide-de-camp. The happiest moment of Hawley’s life had been the day he was promoted to sergeant and Grant had tapped him on the shoulder to say, “I’m proud of you, lad.” Grant had also been instrumental in helping him through his saddest days—after Hawley’s father succumbed to a heart attack a few years back. He had offered sage words of advice and comfort, keeping the sergeant focused on work while allowing him the breadth to grieve at his own pace.

  Now Hawley was dreading the arrival of the new year. He already felt rudderless, unsure how things would be without Austin Grant. It would be like losing his father all over again, and he even considered leaving the Yard; it wouldn’t be the same without Grant. But Hawley knew he would carry on, if only to avoid disappointing his mentor.

  Hawley understood Grant’s reasons for calling it quits. Three decades at the same job was plenty long in any vocation; the pressures of police work made it doubly so. When Mrs. Grant had taken ill, Hawley could see the light dim in the man’s eyes and a lag appear in his step. Her subsequent passing and Grant’s inexplicable estrangement from Rachel had taken their inexorable toll, so Hawley wasn’t surprised when he announced his retirement.

  And now with this case completely consuming the commander’s last days, Hawley wouldn’t blame Grant for taking it as a personal affront from on high. How much pain and suffering was one man meant to endure? Especially when he should have been celebrating a career that rivaled that of anyone who had stepped through the doors of Scotland Yard.

  At least fate had taken the case to New York City, resulting in a reunion of sorts with Rachel. It had given Hawley solace to know that father and daughter were talking again, and he’d taken great joy working with Rachel the past few days.

  But as gratifying as it had been to come up with Prior Silver as the prime suspect, it had been equally frustrating to feel the man slip through their grasp upon his return to England. By the time they’d tumbled to the former mechanic’s return flight on Norwegian Air, Silver had been on British soil for hours and was nowhere to be found. There had been no sight of him near his small flat in the East End, and though Hawley had dispatched constables to comb the surrounding area, he had a sinking feeling Silver wasn’t returning home any time soon.

  If Grant were right, Prior Silver and his trusty knife were on their murderous way to catching up with Jared Fleming and Liz Dozier.

  The trouble was that Hawley and his colleagues hadn’t been able to get in touch with either of them—and that was of great concern.

  The Fleming Mess.

  Deep down, both Hawley and Grant had known they weren’t done with it; and sure enough, it had raised its ugly head once more. Just in time to put a further damper on the conclusion of Grant’s illustrious career.

  It seemed appropriate. The Fleming Mess, as Grant referred to it, had probably been what got the commander thinking about retiring in the first place.

  Fleming’s was a British tobacco company dating back to the eighteenth century, when Joshua Fleming had begun importing crops he owned from the Carolina territories. Now, generations later, Jared Fleming had led the company into the twenty-first century—an industry leader producing cigarettes and a selection of fine cigars. A few years back, Jared had brought Matthew Dozier aboard as a partner with the man’s infusion of cash. At first the partnership went swimmingly, but in recent years there had been debate about the future direction of the Fleming’s brand.

  Recently, Dozier had been a strong supporter of vaping. What had begun with the introduction of e-cigarettes to combat the anti-nicotine campaigns and government restrictions on advertising had blossomed into a craze, with teens and millennials flocking to vape bars springing up all over London, vowing never to buy a pack of cigarettes again.

  Jared, ever the traditionalist, had argued with his partner about adding a vaping line to the well-established Fleming products that had kept his family rolling cigarettes and in the money. Jared maintained an impressive estate in Esher, just southwest of London in the county of Surrey, along with a pair of fancy cars and a boat he took out every weekend on the Thames.

  The one thing that Jared Fleming desired but didn’t have was Elizabeth Dozier, his partner’s beautiful blond wife.

  But if you were to believe Commander Austin Grant (and Sergeant Hawley always did), it had only been a matter of time until that situation was rectified.

  Six months ago, Matthew Dozier had accompanied Jared on one of his weekly jaunts on the Thames. Jared had admitted that he and his partner had been in their cups, having polished off two bottles of wine while trying to come to an agreement on which way Fleming’s was headed.

  The next day, FME Jeffries confirmed that alcohol intake when he found a high level in Dozier’s bloodstream after dragging his body from the river.

  Jared Fleming had certainly been inebriated the previous evening when he phoned the Yard to tell them his partner had taken a drunken misstep and fallen overboard into the dark waters.

  Austin Grant was convinced Jared Fleming had helped Dozier over the side.

  The first thing that convinced him was the bruise on the right side of the dead man’s head. Jeffries said it could have come from a blow struck by a strong left hook. Even though the FME also pointed out that the bruise could have been Dozier hitting his head on the side of the boat when he stumbled overboard, Grant’s mind was made up. Especially since Fleming was left-handed.

  Even more damning, as far as Grant was concerned, was the behavior of Liz Dozier—a new widow who didn’t seem all that broken up by the sudden demise of her husband. She’d readily accepted Jared’s explanation of the accident without bestowing an ounce of blame on him. She didn’t find fault with him for liquoring up her husband on their fatal journey or for failing to prevent him going over the railing.

  Liz Dozier had told Grant that she was just seeking comfort and friendship from her dead husband’s dear business partner.

  Grant didn’t believe it—and therefore neither did Hawley.

  When the good sergeant unearthed evidence of Jared and Liz having spent a weekend at a bed and breakfast under assumed names in the village of Chipping Camden, Grant took it a step further.

  He brought a charge of murder against Jared Fleming.

  Nothing would have pleased Grant and Hawley more than to slap Liz Dozier with coconspiracy. But try as they might, they couldn’t place her in the vicinity of the boat; on that fateful evening Liz had conveniently been enjoying a five-course supper with a friend in Chelsea.

  The ensuing trial had been a media circus. Reporters like Monte Ferguso
n had dined out on the scandalous nature of it all, and despite Grant and Jeffries (along with any other expert witness the prosecution could drum up) doing everything in their power to secure a guilty verdict against Fleming, the tobacco heir was acquitted in less than an hour once the case went to the jury.

  Ferguson and his fellow journalists had taken Grant to task in the papers, blaming him for pushing a flimsy case to trial in the first place.

  Grant had done his best to appear as though he were taking the defeat in stride, but his loyal sergeant could see the toll it had taken on the man.

  When word arose that Jared had put the family estate in Esher up for sale and was moving in with the widow Dozier up on Primrose Hill, Grant had locked himself in his office for an entire day.

  And now, if Grant were right, the Fleming Mess was back for one last nasty go-round.

  If Prior Silver was going to claim his sixth and seventh victims at the same time, Jared Fleming and Liz Dozier perfectly fit the bill.

  Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

  One a murderer, the other an adulterer.

  I suppose Jared is an adulterer as well, thought Hawley.

  He shook his head as he negotiated a roundabout on the southeast outskirts of London. He didn’t suppose that Silver cared that Fleming was guilty of both.

  Like Grant had said on the phone from New York—it checked all the boxes.

  The moment Hawley disconnected from Grant, he had immediately tried to contact Dozier and Fleming at the house on Primrose Hill. No one had answered the phone. Neither picked up their mobiles.

  He hoped that the two of them had gone on holiday somewhere far away.

  But he had dispatched constables to the north part of London to double-check and see if anyone in the neighborhood knew of their whereabouts.

  No one had seen either Jared or Liz for a few days. Hawley told the constables to keep the Primrose Hill house under watch until they returned or responded to the sergeant’s messages.

  That should have made Hawley feel a touch better. But he hadn’t spent all that time with Commander Austin Grant without something rubbing off on him. Hawley wished he could disregard that gnawing feeling at the back of his brain, the one Grant had taught him to never ignore.