Love You More: A Novel

  “What do you mean by ‘in a mood’?”

  “Personal trainer said he seemed darker, temperamental. She’d asked a couple of times, guessing trouble on the home front, but he wouldn’t comment. For what it’s worth, that makes him something of a novelty. Apparently, most clients pour out their souls while working out. Go to a gym, enter a confessional.”

  D.D. perked up. “So something was on his mind, but Darby wasn’t talking about it.”

  “Maybe he discovered his wife was having an affair,” Neil commented from the back. “You said when he returned, meaning, he’d just left his wife all alone for sixty days.…”

  “In addition to the rec room on the ship,” Phil spoke up, “there’s a computer room for the crew. I’m working on the warrant now to get copies of all of Darby’s ingoing and outgoing e-mail. Might find something there.”

  “So Tessa meets another man,” D.D. mused, “decides to off her husband. Why homicide? Why not divorce?”

  She posed the question generally, a challenge to the room.

  “Life insurance,” an officer spoke up.

  “Expediency,” said another. “Maybe he threatened to fight a divorce.”

  “Maybe Darby had something on her, threatened to make trouble if she divorced him.”

  D.D. wrote down each comment, seeming particularly interested in the third bulletin. “By her own admission, Tessa Leoni is an alcoholic, who’d already killed once when she was sixteen. Figure if that’s what she’s willing to admit to, what isn’t she willing to say?”

  D.D. turned back to the group. “Okay, then why kill her daughter? Brian’s a stepdad, so he doesn’t have grounds to challenge for custody. It’s one thing to end a marriage. Why kill her own kid?”

  Room was slower with this one. Of all people, it was Phil who finally ventured an answer: “Because her lover doesn’t want kids. Isn’t that how these things work? Diane Downs, etc., etc. Women kill their children when their children are inconvenient for them. Tessa was looking to start a new life. Sophie could not be part of that life, so Sophie had to die.”

  No one had anything to add to that.

  “We need to identify the lover,” Bobby murmured.

  “We need to find Sophie’s body,” D.D. sighed more heavily. “Prove once and for all just what Tessa Leoni is capable of.”

  She set down her marker, looked over the whiteboard.

  “All right, people. These are our assumptions: Tessa Leoni killed her husband and child, most likely sometime Friday evening or Saturday morning. She froze her husband’s body in the garage. She disposed of her daughter during a Saturday afternoon drive. Then she reported to work—most likely while unthawing her husband’s body in the kitchen—before returning home, letting her lover beat the shit out of her, and calling her fellow state troopers. It’s some story. Now get out there, and find me some facts. I want e-mails and phone messages between her and her lover. I want a neighbor who noticed her unloading ice or shoveling snow. I want to know exactly where Brian Darby’s white Denali traveled to on Saturday afternoon. I want Sophie’s body. And if this is indeed what happened, I want Tessa Leoni locked up for life. Any questions?”

  “Amber Alert?” Phil asked, as he rose to his feet.

  “We keep it active until we find Sophie Leoni, one way or the other.”

  The taskforce understood what she meant: until they found the child, or until they recovered the child’s body. The detectives filed out of the room. Then it was just Bobby and D.D., standing together, alone.

  He pushed away from the wall first and headed for the door.

  “Bobby.”

  There was just enough uncertainty in her voice to make him turn.

  “I haven’t even told Alex,” she said. “All right? I haven’t even told Alex.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because …” She shrugged. “Because.”

  “Are you going to keep the baby?”

  Her eyes widened. She motioned frantically to the open door, so he humored her by closing it. “Now see, this is why I didn’t say anything,” she exploded. “This is precisely the kind of conversation I didn’t want to have!”

  He remained standing there, staring at her. She had one hand splayed across her lower abdomen. How had he never noticed that before, he the former sniper? The way she cradled her belly, almost protectively. He felt stupid, and realized now he’d never needed to ask the question. He knew the answer just by looking at the way she was standing: She was keeping the baby. That’s what had her so terrified.

  Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was going to be a mom.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

  “Oh God!”

  “D.D., you have been great at everything you’ve ever wanted to do. Why should this be any different?”

  “Oh God,” she said again, eyes wilder.

  “Can I get you anything? Water? A pickle? How about ginger chews? Annabelle lived on ginger chews. Said they settled her stomach.”

  “Ginger chews?” She paused. Appeared a little less frantic, a little more curious. “Really?”

  Bobby smiled at her, crossed the room, and because it felt like the right thing to do, he gave her a hug. “Congratulations,” he whispered in her ear. “Seriously, D.D. Welcome to the ride of your life.”

  “You think?” She looked a little misty-eyed, then surprised them both by hugging him back. “Thanks, Bobby.”

  He patted her shoulder. She leaned her head into his chest. Then they both straightened, turned to the whiteboard, and got back to work.

  21

  I stood, my hands shackled at my waist, as the district attorney read off the charges. According to the DA, I had deliberately and willfully shot my own husband. Furthermore, they had reason to believe I may have also killed my own daughter. At this time, they were entering charges of Murder 1, and requesting I be held without bail, given the severity of the charges.

  My lawyer, Cargill, blustered his protest. I was an upstanding state police trooper, with a long and distinguished career (four years?). The DA had insufficient evidence against me, and to believe such a reputable officer and dedicated mother would turn on her entire family was preposterous.

  The DA pointed out ballistics had already matched the bullets in my husband’s chest to my state-issued Sig Sauer.

  Cargill argued my black eye, fractured face, and concussed brain. Obviously, I’d been driven to it.

  The DA pointed out that might have made sense, if my husband’s body hadn’t been frozen after death.

  This clearly perplexed the judge, who shot me a startled glance.

  Welcome to my world, I wanted to tell him. But I said nothing, showed nothing, because even the smallest gesture, happy, angry, or sad, would lead to the same place: hysteria.

  Sophie, Sophie, Sophie.

  All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth.

  I was going to burst into song. Then I would simply scream because that’s what a mother wanted to do when she pulled back the covers of her child’s empty bed. She wanted to scream, except I’d never had a chance.

  There had been a noise downstairs. Sophie, I’d thought again. And I’d sprinted out of her bedroom, running downstairs, racing straight into the kitchen, and there had been my husband, and there had been a man holding a gun against my husband’s temple.

  “Who do you love?” he’d said, and that quickly, my choices had been laid out for me. I could do what I was told and save my daughter. Or I could fight back, and lose my entire family.

  Brian, staring at me, using his gaze to tell me what I needed to do. Because even if he was a miserable fuckup, he was still my husband and, more importantly, he was Sophie’s father. The only man she’d ever called Daddy.

  He loved her. For all his faults, he loved us both.

  Funny, the things you don’t fully appreciate until it’s too late.

  I’d placed my duty belt on the kitchen table.

 
And the man had stepped forward, ripped my Sig Sauer from the holster, and shot Brian three times in the chest.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  My husband died. My daughter had disappeared. And me, the trained police officer, stood there, completely shell-shocked, scream still locked in my lungs.

  A gavel came down.

  The sharp jolt jerked me back to attention. My gaze went instinctively to the clock: 2:43 p.m. Did the time still matter? I hoped it did.

  “Bail is set at one million dollars,” the judge declared crisply.

  The DA smiled. Cargill grimaced.

  “Hold steady,” Shane muttered behind me. “Everything’ll be okay. Hold steady.”

  I didn’t dignify his empty platitudes with a response. The troopers’ union had money set aside for bail, of course, just as it assisted with the hiring of a lawyer for any officer needing legal assistance. Unfortunately, the union’s nest egg was hardly a million bucks. That kind of funding would take time, not to mention a special vote. Which probably meant I was out of luck.

  Like the union was going to get further involved with a female officer accused of murdering her husband and child. Like my sixteen hundred male colleagues were going to vote affirmative on that one.

  I said nothing, I showed nothing, because the scream was bubbling up again, a tightness in my chest that built and built. I wished I had the blue button, wished I’d been able to keep it, because holding it, in a perverse way, had kept me sane. The button meant Sophie. The button meant Sophie was out there, and I just had to find her again.

  The court guard approached, placing his hand on my elbow. He jerked me forward and I started to walk, one foot in front of the other, because that’s what you did, what you had to do.

  Cargill was beside me. “Family?” he asked quietly.

  I understood what he meant. Did I have family to bail me out? I thought of my father, felt the scream rise from my chest into my throat. I shook my head.

  “I’ll talk to Shane, present your case to the union,” he said, but I could already feel his skepticism.

  I remembered my superior officers, not meeting my gaze as I passed down the hospital corridor. The walk of shame. The first of many.

  “I can request special treatment at the jail,” Cargill said, speaking rapidly now, for we were approaching the doorway that led to the holding cell, where I would be officially led away. “You’re a state police officer. They’ll grant you segregation if you want it.”

  I shook my head. I’d been to the Suffolk County Jail; the segregation unit was the most depressing one in the place. I’d get my own cell, but I’d also be locked inside twenty-three hours a day. No privileges such as a gym pass or library hour, and no commons area boasting a finicky TV and world’s oldest exercise bike to help pass the time. Funny, the things I was about to consider luxury items.

  “Medical eval,” he suggested urgently, meaning I could also request medical time, placing me in the hospital ward.

  “With all the other psychos,” I muttered back, because last time I’d toured the prison, all the screamers had been down in Medical, yelling 24/7 to themselves, the guards, the other inmates. Anything, I suppose, to drown out the voices in their heads.

  We’d arrived outside the holding cell, the guard giving Cargill a pointed look. For a moment, my frazzled attorney hesitated. He gazed at me with something that might have been sympathy and I wished he hadn’t, because it merely made the scream rise from my throat to the dark hollow of my mouth. I had to thin my lips, clench my jaw to keep it from escaping.

  I was strong, I was tough. Nothing here I hadn’t seen before. Usually I was the one on the other side of the bars, but details, details.

  Cargill grabbed hold of my cuffed hands. He squeezed my fingers.

  “Ask for me, Tessa,” he murmured. “You have the legal right to confer with your lawyer at any time. Call, and I will come.”

  Then he was gone. The holding-cell door opened. I stumbled inside, joining five other women with faces as pale and detached as my own. As I watched, one drifted over to the stainless steel toilet, pulled up her black spandex miniskirt, and peed.

  “What’ya staring at, bitch?” she asked, yawning.

  The cell door banged shut behind me.

  Introducing the South Bay shuffle: To execute this time-honored jail transport maneuver, a detainee must link each of her arms through the arm of the person on either side, then clasp her hands at her waist, where her wrists will be cuffed. Once each detainee has been “pretzeled” with the inmates on either side, ankles are also shackled together and a line of six females can shamble their way to the sheriff’s van.

  Females sit on one side of the van. Males sit on the other. A clear Plexiglas sheet separates the two. The bleach blonde beside me spent most of the journey making suggestive motions with her tongue. The two hundred and fifty pound, heavily tattooed black male across from us urged her on with his hips.

  Three more minutes, and I think they could’ve completed their transaction. Sadly for their sake, we arrived at the Suffolk County Jail.

  The sheriff’s van pulled into the unloading bay. A massive metal garage door clanged down and locked tight, sealing in the place. Then the vehicle doors finally opened.

  Males disembarked first, exiting the van as a shackled line and entering the sally port. After a few moments, it was our turn.

  Stepping out of the van was the hardest. I felt the peer pressure not to stumble or fall, as I would take down the entire line. The fact I was white and wearing new clothes already made me stand out, as most of my fellow detainees appeared to be members of the sex and drugs trade. The cleaner ones probably worked for money. The not so clean ones worked for product.

  Most of them had been up all night, and to judge by the various smells, they’d been busy.

  Interestingly enough, the orange-haired woman to my right crinkled her nose at my particular odor of hospital antiseptic and brand-new blue jeans. While the girl to my left (eighteen, nineteen years old?) took in my bashed-in face, and said, “Oh honey, next time, just give him the money, and he’ll go easier on you.”

  Doors opened. We shuffled our way into the sally port. The doors behind us shut. The doors to the left clanged open.

  I could see command central directly ahead of me, staffed by two COs in dark blue BDUs. I kept my head down, afraid of spotting a familiar face.

  More hobbling steps, inching our way shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip down a long corridor, past cinder-block walls painted a dirty yellow, inhaling the astringent smell of government institutions everywhere—a mix of sweat, bleach, and human apathy.

  We arrived at the “dirty hold,” another large cell, much like the one at the courthouse. Hard wooden bench lining one wall. Single metal toilet and sink. Two public pay phones. All calls had to be made collect, we were informed, while an automated message would inform the receiver the call originated from the Suffolk County Jail.

  We were unshackled. The CO exited. The metal door clanged shut, and that was that.

  I rubbed my wrists, then noticed I was the only one who did so. Everyone else was already lining up for the phone. Ready to call whomever to bail them out.

  I didn’t line up. I sat on the hard wooden bench and watched the hookers and drug dealers, who still had more people who loved them than I did.

  The CO called my name first. Even knowing it was coming, I had a moment of panic. My hands gripped the edge of the bench. I wasn’t sure I could let go.

  I’d handled it so far. I’d handled so much thus far. But now, the processing. Officer Tessa Leoni would officially cease to exist. Inmate #55669021 would take her place.

  I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it.

  The CO called my name again. He stood outside the metal door, staring straight at me through the window. And I knew he knew. Of course he knew. They were admitting a female state police officer. Had to be the juiciest scuttlebutt around. A woman charged with killing her husband and suspected of mu
rdering her six-year-old daughter. Exactly the kind of inmate COs loved to hate.

  I forced myself to let go of the bench. I drew myself to standing.

  Command presence, I thought, a little wildly. Never let them see you sweat.

  I made it to the door. The CO snapped on the bracelets, placing his hand upon my elbow. His grip was firm, his face impassive.

  “This way,” the CO said, and jerked my arm to the left.

  We returned to command central, where I was grilled for basic information: height, weight, DOB, closest relative, contact information, addresses, phone numbers, distinguishing tattoos, etc. Then they took my picture standing in front of the cinder-block wall, holding a sign covered in the number that would be my new identity. The finished product became my new ID card, which I would be required to wear at all times.

  Back down the corridor. New room, where they took away my clothing, and I got to squat naked while a female officer pointed a flashlight into all of my orifices. I received a drab brown prison suit—one pair of pants, one shirt—a single pair of flat white sneakers, nicknamed “Air Cabrals” in deference to the sheriff, Andrea Cabral, and a clear plastic hooter bag. The hooter bag contained a clear toothbrush the size of a pinky, a small clear deodorant, clear shampoo, and white toothpaste. The toiletries were clear to make it harder for inmates to conceal drugs in the containers. The toothbrush was small so it would be less effective when inevitably made into a shiv.

  If I desired additional toiletries, say conditioner, hand lotion, lip balm, I had to purchase them from the commissary. Chapstick ran $1.10. Lotion $2.21. I could also buy better tennis shoes, ranging from $28 to $47.

  Next, the nurse’s office. She checked out my black eye, swollen cheek, and gashed head. Then I got to answer routine medical questions, while being inoculated for TB, always a major consideration for prison populations. The nurse lingered on the psych eval, perhaps trying to determine if I was the kind of woman who might do something rash, like hang myself with overbleached sheets.

  The nurse signed off on my medical eval. Then the CO escorted me down the cinder-block hall to the elevator banks. He punched the ninth floor, which held pretrial women. I had two choices, Unit 1-9-1 or Unit 1-9-2. I got 1-9-2.