Which had brought me here, to the place of our last family outing before Brian shipped out for the fall. One of my last happy memories.
Sophie had loved this apple stand. She’d consumed three cups of cider and then, hopped up on fermented sugar, had run laps in the pumpkin patch before picking out not one pumpkin, but three. A daddy pumpkin, a mommy pumpkin, and a girl pumpkin, she’d declared. A whole entire pumpkin family.
“Can we, Mommy? Can we can we can we? Please, please, please.”
“Sure, sweetheart, you’re absolutely right. It would be a shame to separate them. Let’s save the whole family.”
“Yippee! Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, we’re gonna buy a pumpkin family! Yippee!”
“Turn right up ahead,” I murmured.
“Right?” D.D. braked hard, made the turn.
“Quarter mile up, next left, onto a rural road.…”
“Three pumpkins?” Brian shaking his head at me. “Softy.”
“You bought her the donuts to go with the cider.”
“So three donuts equals three pumpkins?”
“Apparently.”
“Okay, but dibs on carving the daddy pumpkin …”
“The tree! Turn here. Left, left. Now, thirty yards, road on the right.”
“Sure you couldn’t have drawn a map?” D.D. scowled at me.
“I’m sure.”
D.D. turned right onto the smaller, rural road, tires spinning on the hardpacked snow. Behind us, one, two, three, four cars labored to follow suit, then a couple of white SUVs, then the line of police cruisers.
Definitely going to snow, I decided.
But I didn’t mind anymore. Civilization was long gone. This was the land of skeletal trees, frozen ponds, and white barren fields. The kind of place lots of things could happen before the general population noticed. The kind of place a desperate woman might use for her last stand.
Bad Tessa, rising.
“We’re here,” I said.
And Detective D. D. Warren, heaven help her, pulled over.
“Get out,” she said crossly.
I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. I looked the fine detective in the eye and I said, “Words I’ve been waiting to hear all day.”
29
“I don’t want her walking the woods!” D.D. was arguing with Bobby ten minutes later, off to one side of the stacked-up vehicles. “Her job was to get us here. Now her job is done, and our job is beginning.”
“The canine team wants her help,” Bobby countered. “There’s no wind, meaning it’ll be hard for the dogs to catch the open cone of the scent.”
D.D. stared at him blankly.
“Scent,” he tried again, forming a triangular shape with his hands, “radiates from the target in the shape of an expanding cone. For the dog to catch the scent, it has to be downwind, in the opening of the cone, or the dog can be two feet from the target and still miss it.”
“When did you learn about dogs?” D.D. demanded.
“Thirty seconds ago, when I asked Nelson and Cassondra what they needed us to do. They’re concerned about the conditions. Terrain’s flat, which I guess is good, but it’s open, which is more complicated—”
“Why?”
“Scent pools when it hits a barrier. So if this were a fenced-in field or brush-lined canyon, they’d start at the edges. But no fence or brush. Just big open … this …”
Bobby waved his hand around them. D.D. sighed heavily.
Tessa Leoni had brought them to one of the few half-forested, half-fielded, all-in-the-middle-of-nowhere places left in Massachusetts. Given Sunday night’s fresh snowfall, the fields were a flat white expanse of sheer nothingness—no footprints, no tire tracks, no drag marks, interspersed with dark patches of skeletal trees and shaggy bushes.
They were lucky they’d been able to drive in, and D.D. still wasn’t sure they’d be able to get back out. Snowshoes would be a good idea. A vacation even better.
“Dogs are gonna tire faster,” Bobby was saying, “trudging through fresh snowfall. So the team wants to start with the smallest search area possible. Which means having Tessa get us as close to the target as possible.”
“Maybe she can point us in the right direction,” D.D. muttered.
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Tessa’s shackled and trying to walk through four inches of powder. Woman’s not running away any time soon.”
“She doesn’t have a jacket.”
“I’m sure someone has a spare.”
“She’s playing us,” D.D. said abruptly.
“I know.”
“Notice how she answered none of our questions.”
“I noticed.”
“While doing her best to milk us for information.”
“Yep.”
“Did you hear what she did to the male inmate who attacked the CO? She didn’t just take him out. She drove a shank into his thigh and twisted it. Twice. That’s a little beyond professional training. That’s personal satisfaction.”
“She seems … edgy,” Bobby agreed. “I’m thinking life hasn’t gone too well for her the past few days.”
“And yet here we are,” D.D. said, “dancing to the beat of her different drummer. I don’t like it.”
Bobby thought about it. “Maybe you should stay in the car,” he said at last. “Just to be safe …”
D.D. fisted her hands to keep from hitting him. Then she sighed and rubbed her forehead. She hadn’t slept last night, hadn’t eaten this morning. Meaning she’d been tired and cranky even before receiving the news that Tessa Leoni was willing to take them to her daughter’s body.
D.D. didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be trudging through snow. She didn’t want to come to a faint mound and brush it back to find the frozen features of a six-year-old girl. Would it look like Sophie was sleeping? Wrapped up in her pink winter coat, clutching her favorite doll?
Or would there be bullet holes, red droplets giving testimony to a last moment filled with violence?
D.D. was a professional who didn’t feel professional anymore. She wanted to crawl into the backseat and wrap her hands around Tessa Leoni’s throat. She wanted to squeeze and shake and scream, How could you do such a thing! To the little girl who loved you!
D.D. probably should stay behind. Which meant, of course, that she wouldn’t.
“The SAR team is requesting further assistance,” Bobby was stating quietly. “We have four hours of daylight left, in less than ideal conditions. Dogs can only walk so fast. Same with the handlers. What do you suggest?”
“Shit,” D.D. murmured.
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Any funny business, I’m going to have to kill her,” D.D. said after another moment.
Bobby shrugged. “Don’t think too many people out here will argue with that.”
“Bobby … if we find the body … If I can’t handle it …”
“I’ll cover for you,” he said quietly.
She nodded. Tried to thank him, but her throat had grown too tight. She nodded again. He clasped her shoulder with his hand.
Then they returned to Tessa Leoni.
———
Tessa had left the Crown Vic. No coat, shackled at the wrists and ankles, she’d still managed to make it over to one of the SAR trucks, where she was watching Nelson unload his canines.
First two pet carriers contained smaller dogs, who were twirling in excited circles while barking maniacally.
“Those are search dogs?” Tessa was asking skeptically, as Bobby and D.D. approached.
“Nope,” Nelson said, opening a third, much larger carrier to reveal a German shepherd. “Those are the reward.”
“What?”
Having released the German shepherd, who loped around him in a tight circle, Nelson bent down to open the other two carriers. The smaller, shaggier dogs were out like twin shots, leaping at the German shepherd, Nelson, Tessa, Bobby, D.D., and everyone else in a twenty foot square radius.
“Meet Kelli and
Skyler,” Nelson drawled. “Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers. Definitely smart as whips, but a little high strung for SAR work. On the other hand, Quizo thinks they’re the best playmates in the whole world, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t choose them for his reward.”
“He doesn’t eat them, does he?” Tessa asked skeptically. She appeared as a stain of orange against bright white snow, shivering from the cold.
Nelson was grinning at her, obviously amused by her statement. If talking to a murder suspect bothered him, D.D. thought, he didn’t show it. “Most important part of training a dog,” he said now, unloading more supplies from the back of his covered truck bed, “is learning the dog’s motivation. Each pup is different. Some want food. Some affection. Most hone in on a particular toy that becomes the toy. As a handler, you gotta pick up on those signals. When you finally figure out what the reward is, the single item that truly motivates your dog, that’s when the serious training begins.
“Now, Quizo, here”—he gave the shepherd a quick pat on the head—“was a tough nut to crack. Smartest damn dog I ever saw, but only when he felt like it. ’Course, that doesn’t work. I need a dog who searches on command, not when he’s in the mood. Then one day, these two”—he flicked a hand toward the bouncing, barking terriers—“showed up. Had a friend who couldn’t keep ’em anymore. Said I’d help out for a bit, till he could make better arrangements. Well, damned if it wasn’t love at first sight. Miss Kelli and Mr. Skyler ran all over Quizo like twin rugrats and he chased them right back. Which got me to thinking. Maybe playtime with his best buds could be a reward. Tried it out a few times, and bingo. Turns out, Quizo is a bit of a show-off. He doesn’t mind working, he just wants the right audience.
“Now when we arrive on-scene, I bring all three. I’m giving Quizo a moment here to interact with his buds, know they’re on-site. Then Kelli and Skyler will have to be put away—or they’ll be underfoot the entire time, let me tell you—and I’ll give Quizo the command to work. He’ll get right to it, as he understands the sooner he’s completed his mission, the sooner he gets to return to his friends.”
Nelson looked up, regarded Tessa squarely in the eye. “Skyler and Kelli will also help cheer him up,” the canine handler said levelly. “Even SAR dogs don’t like finding bodies. Depresses ’em, making it doubly important for Skyler and Kelli to be here today.”
Was it D.D.’s imagination, or did Tessa finally flinch? Maybe a heart still beat under that façade after all.
D.D. stepped forward, Bobby beside her. She addressed Nelson first. “How much more time do you need?”
He glanced at his dogs, then the rest of the SAR team, unloading in the vehicles strung out behind his. “Fifteen more minutes.”
“Anything more you need from us?” D.D. asked.
Nelson cracked a thin smile. “An X to mark the spot?”
“How do you know when the dogs have found it, made a hit?” D.D. asked curiously. “Quizo will bark … louder?”
“Three-minute sustained bark,” Nelson supplied. “All SAR dogs are trained a little different—some sit to indicate a hit, others have a particular woofing pitch. But given our team specializes in search and rescue, we’ve gone with a three-minute sustained bark, assuming our dogs might be out of sight, behind a tree or boulder, and we might need three minutes to catch up. Works for us.”
“Well, I can’t supply a marked X,” D.D. said, “but we do have one way of getting started.”
D.D. turned to Tessa. “So let’s take a trip down memory lane. You drove this far?”
Tessa’s expression had gone blank. She nodded.
“Park here?”
“Don’t know. The road was better formed, packed down. I drove to the end.”
D.D. gestured around. “Trees, fields, anything look familiar?”
Tessa hesitated, shivering again. “Maybe that copse of trees over there,” she said at last, pointing vaguely with two hands bound on the wrists. “Not sure. The fresh snowfall … it’s like someone wiped the chalkboard clean. Everything is both the same and different.”
“Four hours,” D.D. said crisply. “Then one way or another, you’re back behind bars. So I suggest you start studying the landscape, because if you really want to bring your daughter home, this is the only chance you’re gonna get.”
Something finally moved in Tessa’s face, a spasm of emotion that was hard to read, but might have included regret. It bothered D.D. She turned away, both arms wrapped around her middle now.
“Get her a coat,” she muttered to Bobby.
He was already holding an extra jacket in his hands. He held it out and D.D. almost laughed. It was a down-filled black coat emblazoned Boston PD, no doubt from the trunk of one of the patrol officers. He draped it around Tessa’s shoulders, as she could not slide her shackled arms into the sleeves, then zippered up the front to hold it in place.
“What’s more incongruous?” D.D. murmured out loud. “A state trooper in a Boston PD field coat, or a Suffolk County Jail inmate in a Boston PD field coat? Either way,” her voice dropped, sounding dark, even nasty, “it just doesn’t fit.”
D.D. stalked back to her car. She stood alone, huddled against the cold and her own feeling of impending doom. Dark gray clouds gathered on the horizon.
Snow’s coming, she thought, and wished again that none of them were here.
They set out twelve minutes later, a shackled Tessa in the lead, Bobby and D.D. on either side, with the canine team and an assortment of officers bringing up the rear. The dogs remained leashed. They hadn’t been given the work command yet, but strained against their leads, clearly anxious.
They’d made it only twenty feet before having to stop for the first time. No matter how vindictive D.D. was feeling, Tessa couldn’t walk shackled in four inches of fresh snow. They released the binds at her ankles, then finally made some progress.
Tessa led the group to a first copse of trees. She walked around it, frowning as if studying hard. Then she entered the cluster of bare-branched trees, making it ten feet before shaking her head and withdrawing again. They explored three more patches of woods in a similar fashion, before the fourth spot appeared to be the charm.
Tessa entered and kept on walking, her footsteps growing faster, surer now. She came to a massive gray boulder jutting up from the landscape and seemed to nod to herself. They veered left around the rock, Quizo whining low in his throat, as if already on-scent.
No one spoke. Just the squeaky crunch of footsteps trampling snow, the panting of dogs, the muffled exhalations of their handlers and officers, bundled up in neck warmers and wool scarves.
They exited the copse of trees. D.D. paused, thinking that must be a mistake, but Tess kept moving forward, crossing an open expanse of snow, fording a small, trickling stream just visible between fluffy white banks, before disappearing into a more serious line of woods.
“Awfully far to walk with a body,” D.D. muttered.
Bobby shot her a glance, seeming to think the same thing.
But Tessa didn’t say a word. She was walking faster now, with purpose. There was a look on her face that was almost uncanny to see. Grim determination rimmed with ragged desperation.
Did Tessa even register the dog team, her entourage of law enforcement handlers? Or had she gone back somewhere in her mind, to a cold Saturday afternoon. Neighbors had seen the Denali depart around four p.m., meaning there hadn’t been much daylight left by the time she made it all the way out here.
What had Tessa Leoni been thinking in those last thirty minutes of twilight? Struggling with the weight of her daughter’s body as she careened through the woods, across flat white fields, heading deeper and deeper into the dense underbrush.
When you buried your child, was it like imparting your greatest treasure into the sanctity of nature? Or was it like hiding your greatest sin, instinctively seeking out the darkest bowels of the forest to cover your crime?
They came to another collection of moss-covered rocks, this time
with a vague man-made shape. Rock walls, old foundations, the remnants of chimneys. In a state that had been inhabited as long as Massachusetts, even the woods were never totally without remnants of civilization.
The trees gave way to a smaller clearing and Tessa stopped.
Her throat worked. It took her a couple of times, then the word came out as a whisper: “Here,” Tessa said.
“Where?” D.D. asked.
“There was a fallen tree. Snow had collected in front of it, forming a snowbank. Seemed … like an easy place to dig.”
D.D. didn’t say anything right away. She peered at the clearing, smothered with fresh white flakes. Over to her left, there appeared to be a gentle rise, like what might be formed by a toppled tree. Of course, there was another such rise a few feet in front of that, while she made a third on the other side of the clearing, next to a patch of stray trees. Still, she was gazing at three hundred square yards of space, give or take. Given a team of three experienced SAR dogs, the search area was highly manageable.
Bobby was studying the landscape as well, going over it with his fine sniper’s eye. He looked at D.D., pointed out the first couple of swells, then an even broader rise next to the far edges of the woods. D.D. nodded.
Time to release the hounds.
“You will return to the car now,” D.D. said, not looking at Tessa.
“But—”
“You will return to the car!”
Tessa shut up. D.D. turned back to the assembled team. She spotted an officer in the back, same one who’d worked the murder book at the original crime scene. She waved him over. “Officer Fiske?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You will escort Inmate Leoni back to your cruiser and wait with her there.”
The kid’s face fell. From active search to passive babysitting. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.