by Lisa Gardner
“Saw the news,” the petite, dark-haired woman said, already looking worried. Bobby was trying to size her up. She appeared about five feet tall and ninety pounds, more gymnast than trainer. Then she twisted both her hands in an anxious gesture, and half a dozen tendons snaked to life in her forearms.
He revised his initial opinion of Jessica Ryan—tiny, but dangerous. Mini-hulk.
She’d been working out with some middle-aged man sporting a hundred dollar workout shirt and four hundred dollar haircut when Bobby had arrived. When Bobby first approached, Jessica had pointedly given him a cold shoulder, focusing on her obviously well-paying customer. Bobby had flashed his creds, however, and that quickly, Jessica with the tight pink T-shirt and sparkling purple nails was his.
Her disappointed client got to finish his workout with some kid whose neck was bigger than Bobby’s thigh. Bobby and Jessica retreated to the employee break room, where Jessica quickly shut the door.
“Is he really dead?” Jessica asked now, biting her lower lip.
“I’m here regarding Brian Darby’s death,” Bobby stated.
“And his little girl? They’ve been showing her picture all over the news. Sophie, right? Have you found her yet?”
“No, ma’am.”
Jessica’s big brown eyes welled up. For the second time in the past hour, Bobby was happy he’d left D.D. to work on his own. The first time, because it was either walk away from her or strangle her. Now because there was no way D.D. would’ve played well with a doe-eyed female trainer prone to glistening tears and hot pink micro-shorts.
Being a happily married man, Bobby was making it a point not to study the micro-shorts or the tight T-shirt. So far, that left him staring at the personal trainer’s extremely well-sculpted bicep.
“What do you bench-press?” he heard himself ask.
“One thirty-five,” Jessica replied easily, still dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
“What’s that? Twice your weight?”
She blushed.
He realized he’d basically just flirted and shut up. Maybe he shouldn’t have left D.D. Maybe no man, happily married or not, should be sequestered alone with a woman like Jessica Ryan. Which made him wonder if Tessa Leoni had ever met Jessica Ryan. Which made him wonder how Brian Darby had ever lived past the first week of fitness training.
Bobby cleared his throat, took out his spiral notepad and a mini-recorder. He turned on the recorder and placed it on the counter next to the microwave.
“Have you met Sophie?” he asked his interview subject.
“Once. School was canceled so Brian brought her in with him for his workout. She seemed really sweet; she found a set of one pound hand weights and carried them around, mimicking all of Brian’s exercises.”
“Brian works out solely with you?”
“I’m his primary personal trainer,” Jessica said with a touch of pride. “Sometimes, however, our schedules don’t mix, then another trainer might fill in for me.”
“And how long has Brian been working out with you?”
“Oh, nearly a year. Well, maybe closer to nine months.”
“Nine months?” Bobby made a note.
“He’s done great!” Jessica gushed. “One of my best clients. His goal was to bulk up. So the first three months I put him on this wicked hard diet. Eliminated his fats and salts and carbs—and he’s one of those guys that really loves his refined carbs, too. French toast for breakfast, hoagies for lunch, mashed potatoes for dinner, and a bag of cookies for dessert. Let me tell you, I didn’t think he was going to make it through the first two weeks. But once he got his system cleaned out and reset, then we started the next stage: For the past six months, he’s been following this regimen I developed from my fitness competitions—”
“Fitness competitions?”
“Yes. Miss Fit New England, four years running.” Jessica flashed him a white smile. “It’s my passion.”
Bobby tore his gaze away from her tanned, toned bicep and returned it to his notebook.
“So I gave Brian a week by week diet of six high-protein meals a day,” Jessica continued perkily. “We’re talking thirty grams of protein per meal, consumed every two to three hours. It’s a big commitment of time and resources, but he did awesome! Then I added in a fitness regimen of sixty minutes of cardio followed by sixty minutes of heavy weights.”
“Every day?” Bobby ran. Or had run, before Carina was born. He shifted his notepad two inches lower, in front of his waistline, which come to think about it, had been a bit tight this morning.
“Cardio five to seven times a week, strength training five times a week. And I introduced him to hundreds. He was great at hundreds!”
“Hundreds?”
“Lower weight, but higher rep, to see if you can hit a hundred. If we do it right, you can’t on the first try, but continue training, then four weeks later, try again. In the first two months, Brian nailed all his hundreds, forcing me to bump up his weights. Really, amazing results. I mean, not for nothing, but most of my clients talk a good game. Brian was delivering the goods.”
“He appeared to have put on a fair amount of weight in the past year,” Bobby commented.
“He put on a fair amount of muscle,” Jessica corrected immediately. “Three inches to his arms alone. We took measurements every two weeks if you want them. Of course, his work schedule means we missed months at a time, but he kept on track.”
“You mean when he shipped out as a merchant marine?”
“Yeah. He’d disappear for two months at a time. First trip out, totally wrecked him. Lost most of what we’d done. Second time, I prepared an entire program for him to follow, including diet, cardio, and weights. I got a list of all the equipment available on the ship, and tailored it perfectly, so he’d have no excuses. He did much better.”
“So Brian was working hard with you when he was here and hard on the ship when he went away. Any reason he was working so hard?”
Jessica shrugged. “To look better. To feel better. He was an active guy. When we first started, he wanted to improve his fitness so he could tackle some bigger mountains skiing, biking, that sort of thing. He was active, but thought he should be stronger. We took it from there.”
Bobby set down his notepad, regarded her for a moment. “So Brian wants to improve his skiing and biking. And in order to do that, he’s spending how much money a week …?” He waved his hand around the well-kept room in an obviously well-equipped gym.
“Couple hundred,” Jessica said. “But there’s no price tag for good health!”
“Two hundred a week. And how many hours of training, grocery shopping, food prep …”
“You gotta commit if you want results,” Jessica informed him.
“Brian committed. Brian got results. Brian was still following the program. Why? What’s he looking for? Forty pounds of muscle later, what was he lacking?”
Jessica regarded him curiously. “He wasn’t still trying to bulk up. However, Brian’s not naturally a big guy. When a … smaller man …”
On behalf of men everywhere, Bobby winced.
“When a smaller man wants to maintain bigger results, he has to keep working. That’s the truth. High protein, big weights, day after day. Otherwise, his body is going to return to its preferred size, which in Brian’s case was closer to one eighty, not two twenty.”
Bobby considered that information, which, as a smaller guy, wasn’t great to hear.
“Sounds like a lot of work,” he said at last. “Not easy for anyone to maintain, let alone a working parent. Time to time, I bet Brian’s schedule got a little busy, his hours squeezed. He ever … seek additional assistance?”
Jessica furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Products to aid his speed/ability to add muscle?”
Jessica frowned harder; then, she got it. “You mean steroids.”
“I’m curious.”
Immediately, she shook her head. “I’m not down with that. If I th
ought he was juicing up, I’d quit. Screw the two hundred a week. I dated a guy into ’roids. No way I’d go down that road again.”
“You were dating Brian?”
“No! I didn’t mean that. I mean associating with someone abusing steroids. It makes people crazy. The stuff you see on the news—it’s not a lie.”
Bobby regarded her levelly. “And for your own training?”
She met his gaze just as levelly. “Sweat and tears, baby. Sweat and tears.”
Bobby nodded. “So you’re not a proponent of steroids—”
“No!”
“But what about other trainers in the gym? Or even outside the gym. Brian got some great results very fast. How sure are you that it was all his sweat and tears?”
Jessica didn’t answer right away. She chewed her lower lip again, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I don’t think so,” she said at last. “But I couldn’t swear to it. Something was going on with Brian. He just got back into town three weeks ago, and this time around … He was moody. Dark. Something was on his mind.”
“You ever meet his wife?”
“The state trooper? No.”
“But he talked about her.”
Jessica shrugged. “They all do.”
“They?”
“Clients. I don’t know, being a trainer is like being a hairdresser. The ministers of the grooming services sector. Clients talk. We listen. It’s half our job.”
“So what did Brian say?”
Jessica shrugged, obviously uncomfortable again.
“He’s dead, Jessica. Killed in his own home. Help me understand why Brian Darby embarked on a major self-improvement program and it still wasn’t enough to save him.”
“He loved her,” Jessica whispered.
“Who?”
“Brian loved his wife. Genuinely, deeply, soulfully. I’d kill for a man to love me like that.”
“Brian loved Tessa.”
“Yeah. And he wanted to be stronger for her. For her and Sophie. He needed to be a big man, he used to joke, because guarding two females was four times the work.”
“Guarding?” Bobby asked with a frown.
“Yeah. That’s the word he’d used. Guess he’d screwed up once and Tessa had gotten on his case. Sophie was to be guarded. He took it seriously.”
“You ever sleep with Brian?” Bobby asked suddenly.
“No. I don’t screw around with my clients.” She shot him a look. “Asshole,” she muttered.
Bobby flashed his creds again. “That would be ‘Detective Asshole’ to you.”
Jessica merely shrugged.
“Tessa screw around on Brian? Maybe he discovered something, helped spark his quest to become a bigger man.”
“Not that he ever said. Though …” She paused. “No guy is gonna admit that to a girl. Especially a pretty one like me. Come on, that’s like saying, I’m a miserable weenie, up front. Guys make you find that out for yourself.”
Bobby couldn’t argue with that logic. “But Brian didn’t think his wife loved him.”
That hesitation again. “I don’t know. I got the impression … Tessa’s a state trooper, right? A police officer. Kind of sounded like she was tough. Things were her way or the highway. Brian jumped through a lot of hoops. Didn’t mean, however, she thought he was the greatest guy on God’s green earth. Just meant she expected him to jump through a lot of hoops, especially when it came to Sophie.”
“She had a lot of rules regarding her daughter?”
“Brian worked hard. When he was home, he wanted to play. Tessa, however, wanted him to babysit. Sounds like sometimes they went round and round a bit. But he never said anything bad about her,” Jessica added hastily. “He wasn’t that kind of guy.”
“What kind of guy?”
“Guy who rags on his wife. Trust me”—she rolled her eyes—“we have plenty of those around here.”
“So why was Brian moody?” Bobby cycled back. “What happened this last time he was on tour?”
“I don’t know. He never said. He just seemed … miserable.”
“You think he beat his wife?”
“No!” Jessica appeared horrified.
“She has a medical history consistent with abuse,” Bobby added, just for the sake of argument.
Jessica, however, stood by her man. “No fucking way.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“How would you know?”
“Because he was sweet. And sweet guys don’t whack their wives.”
“Again, how would you know?”
She stared at him. “Because I managed to find a wife beater all by myself. Married him for five long years. Till I got smart, got fit, and kicked his ass to the curb.”
She flexed her arms pointedly. Miss Fit New England four times running, indeed. “Brian loved his wife. He didn’t hit her, and he didn’t deserve to die. Are we done?”
Bobby reached into his pocket, fished out his card. “Think about why Brian might have been ‘moody’ since his last return. And if anything comes to you, give me a call.”
Jessica took his card, while regarding his outstretched arm, which did not look nearly as toned as her own.
“I could help you with that,” she said.
“No.”
“Why not? Cost? You’re a detective. I could cut you a deal.”
“You haven’t met my wife,” Bobby said.
“She also a cop?”
“Nope. But she’s very good with a gun.”
Bobby got his mini-recorder, got his notepad, and got out of there.
18
D.D. didn’t have any trouble tracking down Tessa’s childhood friend Juliana MacDougall, nee Howe, wife of three years, mother of one, living in a seventeen hundred square foot cape in Arlington. D.D. might have lied a little. Said she was from the high school, tracking down alumnae for an upcoming reunion.
Hey, not everyone wanted to take calls from their local detectives, and even fewer probably wanted to answer yet more questions regarding the shooting that had killed a brother ten years ago.
D.D. got Juliana’s address, established she was home, and took a ride over. On the way there, she checked her voice messages, including a cheery morning greeting from Alex wishing her the best with the missing persons case and letting her know he was in the mood to cook homemade alfredo, if she was in the mood to eat it.
Her stomach growled. Then spasmed. Then growled again. Leave it to her to be carrying a baby as contrarian as she was.
She should call Alex. She should make some time this evening, even thirty minutes to sit and talk. She tried to picture the conversation in her mind, but still wasn’t sure how it would go.
HER: So remember how you said you and your first wife tried to have a baby a few years ago, but it didn’t work out? Turns out, you were not the problem in that equation.
HIM:
HER:
HIM:
HER:
It wasn’t much of a conversation. Maybe because she didn’t have much of an imagination, or any experience with these things. Personally, she was more adept at the “Don’t call me, I’ll call you” conversation.
Would he offer to marry her? Should she accept that kind of deal, if not for her sake, then for the baby’s? Or did it matter in this day and age? Did she just assume he would help her? Or would he just assume she’d never let him?
Her stomach hurt again. She didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. It was too confusing and she wasn’t great with big life questions. She preferred more elemental debates, such as why did Tessa Leoni kill her husband, and what did it have to do with her shooting Thomas Howe ten years ago?
Now, there was a question for the ages.
D.D. followed her guidance system into a maze of tiny side streets in Arlington. A left here, two rights there, and she arrived in front of a cheerful red-painted house with white trim and a snow-covered front yard the size of D.D.’s car. D.D. parked by the curb, grabbed her
heavy coat, and headed for the door.
Juliana MacDougall answered after the first ring. She had long, dishwater blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and a fat, drooling baby balanced on her denim-clad hip. She regarded D.D. curiously, then blanked her face completely when D.D. flashed her creds.
“Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren, Boston PD. May I come in?”
“What is this regarding?”
“Please.” D.D. gestured to the inside of the toy-strewn house. “It’s cold out here. I think we’d all be more comfortable talking inside.”
Juliana thinned her lips, then silently held the door open for D.D. to enter. The home boasted a tiny, tiled entryway, opening to a small family room with nice windows and recently refinished hardwood floors. The house smelled like fresh paint and baby powder, a new little family settling into a new little home.
A laundry basket occupied the single dark green sofa. Juliana flushed, then lowered the plastic bin to the floor without ever releasing her grip on her baby. When she finally sat, she perched on the edge of the cushion, her child held in the middle of her lap as the first line of defense.
D.D. sat on the other end of the sofa. She regarded the drooling baby. The drooling baby stared back at her, then shoved its whole fist in its mouth and made a sound that might have been “Gaa.”
“Cute,” D.D. said, in a voice that was clearly skeptical. “How old?”
“Nathaniel is nine months.”
“Boy.”
“Yes.”
“Walking?”
“Just learned to crawl,” Juliana said proudly.
“Good boy,” D.D. said, and that quickly was out of baby prattle. Good Lord, how was she ever going to be a mom, when she couldn’t even talk to one?
“Do you have a job?” D.D. asked.
“Yes,” Juliana said proudly, “I’m raising my child.”
D.D. accepted that answer, moved on. “So,” she announced curtly. “I imagine you’ve seen the news. The missing girl in Allston-Brighton.”
Juliana regarded her blankly. “What?”
“The Amber Alert? Six-year-old Sophie Leoni, missing from her home in Allston-Brighton?”