This was the urban jungle in D.D.’s mind. No wrought-iron balustrades or decorative brickwork like Back Bay or Beacon Hill. Here, you paid a fortune for the honor of renting a strictly utilitarian box-like apartment in a strictly utilitarian box-like building. Parking was first come first serve, which meant most of the masses spent half their time cruising for spaces. You fought your way to work, you fought your way home, then ended the day eating a microwavable dinner in a standing room only kitchenette, before falling asleep on the world’s smallest futon.
Not a bad area, however, for a state trooper. Easy access to Mass Pike, the main artery bisecting the state. East on the Pike hit I-93, west brought you to 128. Basically, in a matter of minutes, Leoni could access three major hunting grounds for the trooper on patrol. Smart.
D.D. also liked the house, an honest to goodness single-family dwelling plunked down in the thick of Allston- Brighton, with a tidy row of three-story apartment buildings on one side and a sprawling brick elementary school to the other. Thankfully, being Sunday, the school was closed, allowing the current mass of law enforcement to take over the parking lot while sparing them from further drama caused by panicky parents overrunning the scene.
Quiet day in the neighborhood. At least it had been.
Trooper Leoni’s vintage two-bedroom bungalow was built into a hillside, white-dormered structure stacked over a redbricked two-car garage. A single flight of concrete steps led from the street-level sidewalk up to the front door and one of the largest yards D.D. had ever seen in downtown Boston.
Good family home. Just enough space to raise a kid inside, perfect lawn for a dog and a swing set outside. Even now, walking the lot in the dead of winter, D.D. could picture the cookouts, the playdates, the lazy evenings hanging on the back deck.
So many things that could go right in a house like this. So what had gone wrong?
She thought the yard might hold the key. Big, sprawling, and completely unprotected in the midst of population overload.
Cut through the school parking lot, walk onto this property. Emerge from behind four different apartment buildings, walk onto this property. You could access the Leoni residence from the back street, as D.D. had done, or by walking up the concrete steps from the front street, as most of the Massachusetts state police seem to have done. From the back, the front, the right and left, the property was easy to enter and easier to exit.
Something every uniformed officer must have figured out, because instead of studying a pristine sweep of white snow, D.D. was currently looking at the largest collection of boot imprints ever amassed in a quarter acre.
She hunched deeper into her winter field coat and exhaled a frustrated puff of frosty breath. Fucking morons.
Bobby Dodge appeared on the back deck, probably still searching for his vantage point. Given the way he was frowning down at the mucked-up snow, his thoughts mirrored her own. He caught sight of her, adjusted his black brimmed hat against the early March chill, and walked down the deck stairs to the yard.
“Your troopers trampled my crime scene,” D.D. called across the way. “I won’t forget that.”
He shrugged, burying his hands in his black wool coat as he approached. A former sniper, Bobby still moved with the economy of motion that came from spending long hours holding perfectly still. Like a lot of snipers, he was a smaller guy with a tough, sinewy build that matched his hard-planed face. No one would ever describe him as handsome, but plenty of women found him compelling.
Once upon a time, D.D. had been one of those women. They’d started out as lovers, but discovered they worked better as friends. Then, two years ago Bobby had met and married Annabelle Granger. D.D. hadn’t taken the wedding well; the birth of their daughter had felt like another blow.
But D.D. had Alex now. Life was on the up. Right?
Bobby came to a halt before her. “Troopers protect lives,” he informed her. “Detectives protect evidence.”
“Your troopers screwed my scene. I don’t forgive. I don’t forget.”
Bobby finally smiled. “Missed you, too, D.D.”
“How’s Annabelle?”
“Fine, thanks.”
“And the baby?”
“Carina’s already crawling. Can barely believe it.”
D.D. couldn’t either. Crap, they were getting old.
“And Alex?” Bobby asked.
“Good, good.” She waved her gloved hand, done with small talk. “So what d’ya think happened?”
Bobby shrugged again, taking his time answering. While some investigators felt a need to work their homicide scenes, Bobby liked to study his. And while many detectives were prone to jabber, Bobby rarely spoke unless he had something useful to say.
D.D. respected him immensely, but was careful never to tell him that.
“At first blush, it would appear to be a domestic situation,” he stated finally. “Husband attacked with a beer bottle, Trooper Leoni defended with her service weapon.”
“Got a history of domestic disturbance calls?” D.D. asked.
Bobby shook his head; she nodded in agreement. The lack of calls meant nothing. Cops hated to ask for help, especially from other cops. If Brian Darby had been beating his wife, most likely she’d taken it in silence.
“You know her?” D.D. asked.
“No. I left patrol shortly after she started. She’s only been on the force four years.”
“Word on the street?”
“Solid officer. Young. Stationed out of the Framingham barracks, working the graveyard shift, then racing home to her kid, so not one to mingle.”
“Works
He arched a brow, looking amused. “Scheduling’s a competitive world for troopers. Rookies get to spend an entire year on graveyard before they can bid for another time slot. Even then, scheduling is awarded based on seniority. Four-year recruit? My guess is she had another year before she could see daylight.”
“And I thought being a detective sucked.”
“Boston cops are a bunch of crybabies,” Bobby informed her.
“Please, at least we know better than to disturb crime-scene snow.”
He grimaced. They resumed their study of the trampled yard.
“How long have they been married?” D.D. asked now.
“Three years.”
“So she was already on the force and she already had the kid when she met him.”
Bobby didn’t answer, as it wasn’t a question.
“In theory, he would’ve known what he was getting into,” D.D. continued out loud, trying to get a preliminary feel for the dynamics of the household. “A wife who’d be gone all night. A little girl who’d require evening and morning care.”
“When he was around.”
“What do you mean?”
“He worked as a merchant marine.” Bobby pulled out a notepad, glanced at a line he’d scribbled. “Shipped out for sixty days at a time. Sixty out, sixty home. One of the guys knew the drill from statements Trooper Leoni had made around the barracks.”
D.D. arched a brow. “So wife has a crazy schedule. Husband has a crazier schedule. Interesting. Was he a big guy?” D.D. hadn’t lingered over the body, given her tender stomach.
“Five ten; two hundred ten, two hundred twenty pounds,” Bobby reported. “Muscle, not flab. Weight lifter, would be my guess.”
“A guy who could pack a punch.”
“In contrast, Trooper Leoni’s about five four, hundred and twenty pounds. Gives the husband a clear advantage.”
D.D. nodded. A trooper had training in hand-to-hand combat, of course. But a smaller female against a larger male was still stacked odds. And a husband, to boot. Plenty of female officers learned on-the-job skills they didn’t practice on the home front; Trooper Leoni’s black eye wasn’t the first D.D. had seen on a female colleague.
“Incident happened when Trooper Leoni first came home from work,” Bobby said now. “She was still in uniform.”
D.D. arched a brow, let that sink in. “She was wearing her vest?”
