The Last Commandment

by Scott Shepherd

  “I really like that proposition.”

  She’d given him a playful shove.

  “I was talking about the view, you idiot.”

  “I knew that.”

  There was that smile again.

  A few minutes later they had walked across the Westminster Bridge and bought tickets. It wasn’t very crowded, which Rachel chalked up to the cold evening (it was supposed to snow), last minute Christmas shopping, and the fact that the attraction was shutting down in less than an hour.

  Now, having just reached the top of the arc, Rachel shifted around the tight compartment to look him directly in the eye.

  “My father isn’t an ogre, John.”

  “You’re not the guy taking his daughter away from him.”

  Her eyes brightened. “Is that what you’re doing, Detective?”

  “Let’s just say I’m on the case.”

  He gently took her hand and she made sure not to let it go.

  As the wheel began to swing them slowly back down, they sat in silence and looked out at the magnificent city. It gave the view from John’s ridge a run for its money. With all the London sights lit up and decorated in their holiday finery—Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tower Bridge—it was truly something to behold.

  “Wow,” John finally uttered.

  The first flurries of snow had begun to fall outside the bubble car.

  “Ditto,” echoed Rachel.

  A few moments later, they had reached the bottom. The wheel operator opened the glass door and motioned for them to step out.

  “One more go-round?” John asked.

  The operator, a roly-poly-jolly sort, who Rachel thought could easily be loading up a sleigh at the North Pole the next night, gave him a polite grin.

  “Wish I could, sir, but as you can see, it’s closing time.”

  He pointed at the embarkment area that was completely empty. John reached into his pocket and produced a badge.

  “We’re not quite done here,” he said, giving a little nod toward Rachel, who was trying to keep a conspiratorial grin off her face.

  The operator looked up at the cars on the way down behind them. When he turned back, there was a glimmer in his eye. He grinned and shut the door. “You two have a Merry Christmas.”

  “You too,” said Rachel with her warmest smile.

  The operator gave the bubble a slap and sent them back on their way.

  Rachel looked at John, who was putting the badge back in his pocket.

  “It has to be good for something,” he said with a slight smirk. “I’ll make sure to take care of him when we get back down.”

  “I thought those payoffs worked the other way with you American cops.”

  “Ha ha.”

  The compartment rocked back and forth as it began another climb.

  “I bet you did this all the time back in high school, taking that girl of yours—Shirley . . .”

  “Sheila.”

  “Sheila Whatzhername up to the top, hoping to get lucky.”

  “Sheila Rice,” corrected John with another grin. “And that would be no.”

  “What? No—didn’t get lucky?”

  “She didn’t like amusement parks,” he responded.

  “Ha ha.”

  They turned to look out the bubble window as the snow started to fall a little harder, swirling between them and the starting-to-shrink city below.

  “Besides, it was to hell and back to get to Coney Island,” John said. “And the one that used to be up the turnpike closed a few years before I was born. Palisades Park. Like the song?”

  “Song?”

  “My dad sang it all the time when I was growing up, telling me he wished he could’ve taken me there. It was Freddy ‘Boom Boom’ Cannon’s only hit.”

  He sang a few lines from a fast-paced rock and roll ditty about a guy meeting an awfully cute girl on the Shoot-the-Chute and the romantic evening that ensued in the amusement park.

  Rachel thought his voice was pretty good. She gave John a playful shrug—just enough encouragement for him to carry on.

  He reached over and took her hand as he slowed the song to a ballad’s pace, and she rocked gently in his arms along with the tiny glass cocoon as it made its way to the apex.

  John continued to sing of hot dog stands, dancing to a rocking band, and a cruise through the Tunnel of Love. It all culminated with a ride to the top of a Ferris Wheel where there was no better place for a young man to steal a kiss.

  And at the precise moment that John leaned in to do just that, Rachel smiled and finished the chorus.

  John stopped inches away from her lips. “You do know the song.”

  “My father made me listen to oldies from the day I was born. It made my mom completely crazy. Of course I know that song.”

  “Then, why did you pretend . . .?”

  She hushed him by bringing a finger to his lips. “Because I liked hearing you sing to me.”

  She looked up at the clear roof. The snow was starting to blanket the glassed-in car. Rachel pointed down at the city that was beginning to vanish in what was going to be a white Christmas.

  “So, here we are at the top,” she whispered. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”

  Twenty minutes later, when the operator let them out on the bottom of the Eye, Rachel realized she didn’t have to go all the way down to Palisades Park to know that she was falling in love.

  It was just past one when she got back to the Maida Vale house.

  They had gone from the Eye to one of Rachel’s favorite places, the Wolseley in Piccadilly Circus. Housed in what was originally a 1921 prestigious car showroom with marble pillars and archways, it had been converted to a new branch of Barclays bank before its current iteration as a splendid café-restaurant.

  They sat at the corner end of the bar and ordered up oysters, omelets, and a couple of hot toddies to cozy up in a world all their own.

  Shortly before midnight, they’d walked through Mayfair all the way to Maida Vale to find that London had been transformed into a winter wonderland with the snow on the ground glistening in the reflected holiday lights. The only thing missing was a reformed Ebenezer Scrooge racing down the street with a huge turkey earmarked for Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim.

  When Rachel told John she needed to spend at least one night under her father’s roof, he hadn’t protested—and it made her like him that much more.

  “There will be plenty of time after all this madness is over,” he’d told her.

  In that moment, she’d been brought back to the harsh reality of what had brought them together in the first place. “Do you think it will be soon?”

  “It damn well better be.”

  And Rachel knew he had come crashing back to murderous Earth as well.

  This time when she let herself in the house, it wasn’t Everett waiting for her.

  “It’s nice to see he walked you home.”

  Her father was sitting by the window in the living room. He had the same notepad in his lap that she’d seen on his desk earlier that day.

  “Mom used to wait in the exact same place,” she said sitting down beside him.

  “Except for the times she waited upstairs for you to come up off the trellis.”

  “She told you about that, huh?”

  “There were very few secrets between me and your mother, Rach.”

  She felt something pull inside of her and turned away slightly.

  “I know that.”

  “Rachel . . .”

  She turned back to look at him. “I think he’s a good man, Daddy.”

  “I know he’s a good policeman.”

  “And I probably should have said something to you.”

  “You’re a grown woman—you don’t need to explain everything you do.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She watched as her father struggled with what he wanted to say next.

  “But you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide things from me either.”

&n
bsp; Rachel closed her eyes briefly. Oh, if you only knew.

  When she opened them, she realized she had to say something.

  “I’m trying, Dad. I really am.” She looked around the house she’d grown up in and, though she’d only been gone a few years, those days seemed a lifetime away. “It’s just, things are changing so quickly.”

  “You can say that again.”

  She indicated the notepad. “Still working on what you’re going to say?”

  “It’s sort of one big mess.”

  “Can I look?”

  Grant hesitated.

  “It’s a work in progress, I understand,” said Rachel. “Maybe I can make a suggestion or two. I didn’t know Sergeant Hawley as well as you, but he was in my life for a long time.”

  Her father reluctantly handed the pad over. Rachel read through it and realized by the end that she was holding her breath.

  “I wouldn’t change a word.”

  “Really?”

  “Cross my heart.” She just hoped he could deliver it. She knew she couldn’t.

  She leaned over and gave her father a kiss good night.

  “Good night, Daddy.”

  “Sleep tight, Rach.”

  She started for the door, then turned back. “Dad?”

  “Hmmm . . .?”

  “I totally understand if you think John and I should be slowing things down.”

  “Not so much slow down, Rachel. It’s more like I just want you to be careful.” He turned and stared out the window. “I think we all need to be extra so right now.”

  She knew in that moment he was no longer talking about John Frankel.

  And it scared the hell out of her.

  24

  During his tenure with the New York Police Department, Frankel had attended the funeral of a fallen comrade on more occasions than he cared to recall. When a cop died in the line of duty in one of the five boroughs, all of his colleagues showed up to pay their last respects.

  The send-off for Sergeant Stanford Hawley of Scotland Yard was sadly no different. The turnout was simply staggering.

  The snow had stopped falling, but the temperatures refused to climb above freezing on a cloudy Christmas Eve. The flakes had stuck to the ground and with a touch of morning glare poking through gray skies, the streets of London glistened just enough to leave the impression someone was watching from above.

  In a procession that began at the Palace of Westminster and traveled over two miles until it reached Southwark Cathedral, the streets were lined with mourners, well-wishers, and curiosity seekers.

  Frankel had no idea how many women and men composed the Metropolitan Police service (the territorial force that patrolled Greater London), but imagined it must be at least ten thousand and all seemed to be present. Many were in uniform—some accompanying the carriage carrying the sergeant’s casket, others marching in orderly fashion, and the rest standing in formation on every corner the procession passed—not to keep peace in the streets but to say goodbye to one of their own.

  Rachel, walking beside Frankel, basically read his mind. “We Brits actually take it as a personal affront. These sorts of tragedies are not commonplace here.”

  Frankel knew the statistics supported her claim. England’s abolishment of handguns since the mid-1990s had resulted in fewer officers meeting violent ends.

  But those numbers had failed to help Sergeant Hawley.

  He had been cut down by going the extra yard when he was actually off duty. Stanford Hawley’s biggest fault had been that he was just too damn good a detective.

  Something Grant spoke directly to as he delivered the man’s eulogy to those fortunate to gain admittance into the Southwark sanctuary.

  “I actually realized this the first day I met him,” said the commander from the podium on the church’s altar. “Not that I let him know this. The last thing I needed was a wet-behind-the-ears constable with a swelled head. For starters, I would have had to send him back to fetch a different-sized hat.”

  There were lots of chuckles, especially from the first dozen rows where Hawley’s everyday colleagues sat, the denizens of the Yard building itself. Frankel realized that with neither of Hawley’s parents alive, and no sibling or wife to call his own, on this somber morning these people were the sergeant’s family.

  “We’d just gone over the morning report and I was having a devil of a time seeing it because I’d misplaced my favorite pair of reading glasses. I had searched my office, looked in every nook and cranny. When then-Constable Hawley had inquired as to what I was looking for and I told him, he stared for what probably seemed an eternity to him before asking in a voice barely above a whisper if the spectacles in question were the ones resting on my very own forehead.”

  Laughter circulated through the church.

  “From that moment on, I knew I could always count on Stanford Hawley to get me whatever I needed, whenever I wanted, and—more often than not—before I even realized I didn’t have or even desired it.”

  Grant took a deep breath.

  “Until right now.”

  It got quiet once again in the sanctuary.

  “Now, when I need something more than ever—he isn’t there to help me.”

  Frankel glanced at Rachel sitting beside him. Her eyes, brimming with tears, were locked on her father as he continued to speak.

  “What I need is Sergeant Stanford Hawley and the only thing that I can find at this point is that I’m at a complete loss without him.”

  The tears flowed down Rachel’s cheeks; Frankel took her hand and she gave him a grateful nod. He noticed her glance across the aisle to offer a sad smile to a handsome man in his fifties who bore a distinct resemblance to Grant. Frankel realized this must be Everett, the uncle Rachel was so fond of. The two men exchanged warm nods, then turned their attention back to the grieving Grant.

  The commander took everyone through the “cut too short” life of Stanford Hawley. He recalled his being raised in the southwest London suburb of Woking, the town where his father had worked as a shoemaker in the same shop as Hawley’s grandfather. Grant spoke of young Stanford doing his working-class father (who had raised Hawley as a single dad) proud when he joined the Yard. He talked about taking the constable under his wing and watching Hawley transform into a responsible, upstanding keeper of the law.

  “The thing I’m most grateful for is when Stanford was promoted to sergeant a few years ago, his father was there that day. He couldn’t have been prouder of the young man Stanford had become—and neither could I.”

  Grant took the time to clear his throat. Frankel could clearly see the man was doing everything in his power to hold it together.

  “Even if Stanford had been my own son.”

  Which in many ways he became, as Frankel and the other mourners learned when Grant spoke of the death of Hawley’s father and the subsequent closeness that had developed between the commander and his trusted sergeant.

  “Today we have gathered to honor one of our fallen brethren. Stanford Hawley will surely be missed and remembered. And by no one more so than me as I feel like I have lost one of my very own.”

  The crowd responded “Amen” in unison. Frankel was surprised when Grant remained behind the podium and turned to the casket beside him.

  “One last thing, Sergeant. The man who did this will be punished. I promise you this—even if takes me till my dying day. On that you have my word, Stanford.”

  Grant turned around to face the gathered mourners.

  “And so do all of you.”

  “You didn’t mention he was going to end with that,” Frankel said as he left the church with Rachel.

  “I had no idea,” she responded as she threw on her coat to ward off the cold. “It wasn’t in the draft he showed me last night.”

  “Maybe he decided to call an audible,” suggested Frankel.

  “An audible? Like a Peyton Manning, ‘Omaha, Omaha’ audible?

  Frankel raised an eyebrow.

&nb
sp; “I’m the girl who went to New York City to hang at the Garden, remember?”

  “You certainly are.” He gave her a sheepish grin.

  “You’ve spent enough time with my father to know the man doesn’t do anything without thinking it through.”

  “So, why did he do it?”

  “I guess we’ll have to ask him,” replied Rachel.

  Easier said than done. It had gotten very crowded outside the church and they had temporarily lost sight of Grant among all the uniforms, exiting guests, and lookie-loo Londoners who were milling around despite the cold.

  “There the two of you are.”

  Frankel and Rachel turned to see that a Grant had found them—though it was Rachel’s uncle Everett. He indicated the crowd with a nod, his hands staying in the pockets of his heavy wool overcoat to try and keep warm.

  “I had no idea this was going to turn into such a circus.”

  “None of us did,” Rachel said.

  Everett extended a hand toward Frankel.

  “I’m sorry to meet you under such terrible circumstances, Detective. I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about you from both my niece and my brother.”

  Frankel’s eyes widened. “You’re sure we’re talking about the commander?”

  “He checked in with me on more than one occasion while you two were raising such a ruckus across the pond. Austin told me you were—how did he put it? I think the exact words were ‘that more than competent detective fellow.’”

  Rachel grinned. “Those are high words of praise coming from my father.”

  Frankel glanced back at the cathedral. “If someone said half the things he had about Sergeant Hawley at my funeral, I might think it was all worth it.”

  Everett nodded while giving his niece a warm hug. “That was quite the eulogy your old dad just delivered.”

  “It was,” she agreed. “But I’m worried about the toll this is taking on him.”

  “We’ll have to gang up on him later at Christmas Eve dinner. That is, presuming you and Austin are still coming?”

  “As far as I know,” answered Rachel.

  “Because I would totally understand if you and Detective Frankel had made other plans.”