she’d called the desk officer, where she’d gone on patrol, etc., etc., then why assume she was suddenly mistaken about how she’d shot her own husband?
These were the kind of games a skilled detective knew how to play. Couple of hours ago, D.D. might not have used them on a fellow officer. She might have been willing to cut poor battered Trooper Leoni some slack, show her the kind of preferential treatment one female officer was inclined to give another. But that was before the state troopers had trampled her crime scene and placed D.D. squarely on the other side of their blue wall.
D.D. did not forgive. She did not forget.
And she did not want to be working a case right now involving a small child. But that was not something she could talk about, not even to Bobby.
“So you checked your daughter at ten forty-five…” D.D. prodded.
“Sophie was asleep. I kissed her on the cheek. She… rolled over, pulled the covers up.”
“And your husband?”
“Downstairs. Watching TV.”
“What was he watching?”
“I didn’t notice. He was drinking a beer. That distracted me. I wished… I preferred it when he didn’t drink.”
“How many beers had he had?”
“Three.”
“You counted?”
“I checked the empties lined up next to the sink.”
“Your husband have a problem with alcohol?” D.D. asked bluntly.
Leoni finally looked up at D.D., peering at her with one good eye, as the other half of her face remained a swollen, pulpy mess. “Brian was home sixty days at a stretch with nothing to do. I had work. Sophie had school. But he had nothing. Sometimes, he drank. And sometimes… Drinking wasn’t good for him.”
“So your husband, who you wished didn’t drink, had had three beers and you still left him alone with your daughter.”
“Hey-” Trooper Lyons started to interrupt again.
But Tessa Leoni said, “Yes, ma’am. I left my daughter with her drunken stepdad. And if I had known… I would’ve killed him then, goddammit. I would’ve shot him last night!”
“Whoa-” Attorney was out of the chair. But D.D. didn’t pay any attention to him and neither did Leoni.
“What happened to your daughter?” D.D. wanted to know. “What did your husband do to her?”
Leoni was already shrugging her shoulders. “He wouldn’t tell me. I got home, went upstairs. She should’ve been in bed. Or maybe playing on the floor. But… nothing. I searched and I searched and I searched. Sophie was gone.”
“He ever hit her?” D.D. asked.
“Sometimes, he got frustrated with me. But I never saw him hit her.”
“Lonely? You’re gone all night. He’s alone with her.”
“No! You’re wrong. I would’ve known! She would’ve told me.”
“Then you tell me, Tessa. What happened to your daughter?”
“I don’t know! Dammit. She’s just a little girl. What kind of man hurts a child? What kind of man would
Trooper Lyons placed his hands on her shoulders, as if trying to soothe. Trooper Leoni, however, shrugged him off. She rose to her feet, obviously agitated. The movement, however, proved too much; almost immediately, she lurched to one side.
Trooper Lyons caught her arm, lowering her carefully back to the love seat while skewering D.D. with an angry stare.
“Steady,” he said gruffly to Tessa Leoni, while continuing to glare at D.D. and Bobby.
“You don’t understand, you don’t understand,” the mother/trooper was murmuring. She didn’t look pretty or vulnerable anymore. Her face had taken on an unhealthy pallor; she looked like she was going to vomit, her hand patting the empty seat beside her. “Sophie’s so brave and adventurous. But she’s scared of the dark. Terrified. Once, when she was nearly three, she climbed into the trunk of my cruiser and it closed and she screamed and screamed and screamed. If you could’ve heard her scream. Then you would know, you’d understand…”
Leoni turned to Trooper Lyons. She grabbed his beefy hands, peering up at him desperately. “She’s gotta be safe, right? You would keep her safe, right? You would take care of her? Bring her home. Before dark, Shane. Before dark. Please, please, I’m begging you,
Lyons didn’t seem to know how to respond or handle the outburst. He remained holding Leoni’s shoulders, meaning D.D. was the one who grabbed the waste bucket and got it under the ashen-faced woman just in time. Leoni puked until she dry-heaved, then puked a little more.
“My head,” she groaned, already sagging back into the love seat.
“Hey, who’s disrupting our patient? Anyone who’s not an EMT, out!” Marla and her partner had returned. They muscled into the room, Marla giving D.D. a pointed glance. D.D. and Bobby took the hint, turning toward the adjoining kitchen.
But Leoni, of all people, grabbed D.D.’s wrist. The strength in her pale hand startled D.D., brought her up short.
“My daughter needs you,” the officer whispered, as the EMTs took her other hand and started administering the IV.
“Of course,” D.D. said stupidly.
“You must find her. Promise me!”
“We’ll do our best-”
“Okay, okay,” D.D. heard herself say. “We’ll find her. Of course. Just… get to the hospital. Take care of yourself.”
Marla and her partner moved Leoni to the backboard. The female officer was still thrashing, trying to push them away, trying to pull D.D. closer. It was hard to say. In a matter of seconds, the EMTs had her strapped down and were out the door, Trooper Lyons following stoically in her wake.
The lawyer stayed behind, holding out a card as they stepped from the sunroom back into the home. “I’m sure you understand none of that was admissible. Among other things, my client never waived her rights, and oh yes, she’s suffering from a
Having gotten his say, the lawyer also departed, leaving D.D. and Bobby standing alone next to the kitchen. D.D. didn’t have to cover her nose anymore. She was too distracted from the interview with Officer Leoni to notice the smell.
“Is it just me,” D.D. said, “or does it look like someone took a meat mallet to Tessa Leoni’s face?”
“And yet there’s not a single cut or scrape on her hands,” Bobby provided. “No broken nails or bruised knuckles.”
“So someone beat the shit out of her, and she never lifted a hand to stop it?” D.D. asked skeptically.
“Until she shot him dead,” Bobby corrected mildly.
D.D. rolled her eyes, feeling perplexed and not liking it. Tessa Leoni’s facial injuries appeared real enough. Her fear over her daughter’s disappearance genuine. But the scene… the lack of defensive wounds, a trained officer who went first for her gun when she had an entire duty belt at her disposal, a female who’d just given such an emotional statement while studiously avoiding all eye contact…
D.D. was deeply uncomfortable with the scene, or maybe, with a fellow female officer who’d grabbed her arm and basically begged D.D. to find her missing child.
Six-year-old Sophie Leoni, who was terrified of the dark.
Oh God. This case was gonna hurt.
“Sounds like she and the husband got into it,” Bobby was saying. “He overwhelmed her, knocked her to the floor, so she went for her gun. Only afterward did she discover her daughter missing. And realize, of course, that she’d just killed the only person who could probably tell her where Sophie is.”
D.D. nodded, still considering. “Here’s a question: What’s a trooper’s first instinct-to protect herself or to protect others?”
