Love You More

by Lisa Gardner

  Apparently, D.D. figured that out, as well. A uniformed officer was summoned, instructions given. The patrol officer didn’t even bat an eye at being told to buy women’s clothing. He disappeared out the door, which left me alone with D.D. and Bobby again.

  Others must be staying out in the hall. Hospital rooms weren’t that big. They might as well wait in the corridor for the show.

  I was counting down, though I didn’t know to what.

  “What did you use?” D.D. asked abruptly. “Bags of ice? Snow? Funny, you know. I noticed the damp spot on the basement floor, yesterday. I wondered about it.”

  I said nothing.

  She walked toward me, eyes narrowed, as if studying a particular species of wildlife. I noticed when she walked, she kept one hand splayed over her stomach, the other on her hip. I also noticed that her face was pale with dark circles under her eyes. Apparently, I was keeping the good detective up at night. Score one for me.

  I regarded her with my good eye. Dared her to look at the swollen, eggplant purple mess of my face, and pass judgment.

  “You ever meet the ME?” she asked now, switching gears, becoming more conversational. She halted in front of me. From my vantage point, perched on the edge of the hospital bed, I had to look up at her.

  I didn’t speak.

  “Ben’s good. One of the best we’ve ever had,” she continued. “Maybe another ME wouldn’t have noticed it. But Ben loves the details. Apparently, the human body is like any other meat. You can freeze it and thaw it, but not without some changes in-how did he put it?-consistency. The flesh on your husband’s extremities felt wrong to him. So he took a few samples, stuck them under a microscope, and hell if I understand all the science, but basically determined damage at a cellular level consistent with the freezing of human tissue. You shot your husband, Tessa. Then, you put him on ice.”

  I didn’t speak.

  D.D. leaned closer. “This is what I don’t get, though. Obviously, you were buying time. You needed to get something done. What, Tessa? What were you doing while your husband’s corpse lay frozen in the basement?”

  I didn’t speak. I listened to a song instead, playing in the back of my mind. All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth…

  “Where is she?” D.D. whispered, as if reading my mind. “Tessa, what did you do with your little girl? Where’s Sophie?”

  “When are you due?” I asked, and D.D. recoiled as if shot, while five feet away, Bobby inhaled sharply.

  He hadn’t known, I determined. Or maybe he’d known, but not known, in that way men sometimes do. I found this interesting.

  “Is he the father?” I asked.

  “Shut up,” D.D. said curtly.

  Then I remembered. “No,” I corrected myself, as if she’d never spoken. I looked over at Bobby. “You’re married to another woman, from the state mental institute case, couple years back. And you have a baby now, don’t you? Not that long ago. I heard about that.”

  He didn’t say anything. Just stared at me with cool gray eyes. Did he think I was threatening his family? Was I?

  Maybe I just needed to make conversation, because otherwise I might say all the wrong things. For example, I used snow, because it was easy enough to shovel and didn’t leave behind trace evidence such as a dozen empty ice bags. And Brian was heavy, heavier than I’d imagined. All that working out, all that pumping up, just so myself and a hit man could lug an extra forty pounds down the stairs and into his precious, never-any-tool-out-of-place garage.

  I’d cried when I scooped the snow on top of my husband’s dead body. The hot tears formed little holes in the white snow, then I had to pile on more snow and all the while my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I kept myself focused. One shovel full of snow, then a second, then a third. It took twenty-three.

  Twenty-three scoops of snow to bury a grown man.

  I’d warned Brian. I’d told him in the beginning that I was a woman who knew too much. You don’t mess with a woman who knows the kind of things I know.

  Three tampons to plug the bullet holes. Twenty-three scoops of snow to hide the body.

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

  Love you more, he’d told me as he died.

  Stupid, sorry son of a bitch.

  I didn’t speak anymore. D.D. and Bobby also sat in silence for a good ten, fifteen minutes. Three members of law enforcement not making eye contact. Finally, the door banged open and Ken Cargill barged in, black wool coat flapping around him, thinning brown hair mussed. He drew to a halt, then noticed my shackled wrists and turned on D.D. with all the fury of a good defense lawyer.

  “What is this!” he cried.

  “Your client, Tessa Marie Leoni, has been charged in the death of her husband, Brian Anthony Darby. We have read her her rights, and are now awaiting transport to the courthouse.”

  “What are the charges?” Cargill demanded to know, sounding appropriately indignant.

  “Murder one.”

  His eyes widened. “Murder with premeditated malice and forethought? Are you out of your mind? Who authorized these charges? Have you even looked at my client lately? The black eye, the fractured cheek, and oh yes, the concussion?”

  D.D. simply stared at him, then turned back to me. “Ice or snow, Tessa? Come on, if not for us, then for your lawyer’s sake, tell him how you froze the body.”

  “What?”

  I wondered if all lawyers went to acting school, or if they just came by it naturally, the way cops did.

  The first uniformed officer was back, breathing hard; apparently he’d run all the way through the hospital with the oversized Wal-Mart bag. He thrust it at D.D., who did the honors of explaining my new wardrobe to Cargill.

  D.D. unshackled my wrists. I was handed the pile of new clothes, hangers and other sharp objects removed, then allowed to disappear into the bathroom to change. The Boston patrol officer had done a decent job. Wide-leg jeans, stiff as boards with their newness. A green crewneck sweater. A sports bra, plain underwear, plain socks, bright white tennis shoes.

  I moved slowly, dragging the bra, then the sweater, over my battered head. The jeans were easier, but tying my shoelaces proved impossible. My fingers were shaking too hard.

  Do you know what had been the hardest part about burying my husband?

  Waiting for him to bleed out. Waiting for his heart to stop and the last ounce of blood to still and cool in his chest, because otherwise he would drip. He would leave a trail, and even if it was small and I cleaned it up with bleach, the luminol would give it away.

  So I sat, on a hard chair in the kitchen, holding a vigil I never thought I’d have to hold. And the whole time, I just couldn’t decide, which was worse? Shooting a boy, and running away with the blood still fresh on my hands? Or shooting a man, and sitting there, waiting for his blood to dry so I could clean up properly?

  I’d placed three tampons in the holes in the back of Brian’s chest, as a safety measure.

  “What are you doing?” the man had demanded.

  “Can’t leave a blood trail,” I’d said calmly.

  “Oh,” he’d said, and let me go.

  Three bloody tampons. Two front teeth. It’s funny, the talismans that can bring you strength.

  I hummed the song. I tied my shoes. Then, I stood up, and took one last minute to study myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize my own reflection. That distorted face, hollowed-out cheeks, lank brown hair.

  It was good, I thought, to feel like a stranger to myself. It suited all the things about to happen next.

  “Sophie,” I murmured, because I needed to hear my daughter’s name. “Sophie, love you more.”

  Then I opened the bathroom door and once more presented my wrists.

  The cuffs were cool; they slid on with a click.

  It was time. D.D. on one side. Bobby on the other. My lawyer bringing up the rear.

  We strode i
nto the bright white corridor, the DA pushing away from the wall, ready to lead the parade in triumphant glory. I saw the lieutenant colonel, his gaze steady as he regarded his shackled officer, his face impossible to read. I saw other men in uniform, names I knew, hands I had shook.

  They did not look at me, so I returned the favor.

  We headed down the corridor, toward the big glass doors and the screaming mob of reporters waiting on the other side.

  Command presence. Never let them see you sweat.

  The glass doors slid open, and the world exploded in flashing white lights.

  20

  We gotta start over,” D.D. was saying an hour and a half later. They’d handed Tessa over to the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department at the courthouse. The DA would present the charges. Her lawyer would enter a plea, bail would be set, and a mittimus prepared by the court, legally granting the county permission to hold Tessa Leoni until the requirements of her bail were met. At which point, Tessa would be either bailed out or transported to the Suffolk County Jail. Given that the DA was going to argue Tessa was a flight risk and request no bail, there was a good chance she was already on her way to the women’s detainee unit as they spoke.

  That still didn’t solve all their problems.

  “Our timeline was set by Tessa’s initial statement to police,” D.D. was saying now, back at BPD headquarters, where she’d hastily summoned all members of the taskforce. “We assumed, based upon her accounting of events, that Brian Darby was shot and killed Sunday morning, after a physical altercation with her. According to the ME, however, Darby’s body was frozen prior to Sunday morning, and most likely, unthawed for Tessa’s star-making performance.”

  “Can he tell how long it was frozen?” Phil spoke up from the front row.

  D.D. let their third squadmate, Neil, answer the question, as he’d been the one attending the autopsy.

  “Probably less than twenty-four hours,” Neil provided for the room. “Ben said he can see cellular damage consistent with freezing in the extremities, but not the internal organs. Meaning the body was on ice, but not long enough to freeze all the way through. Limbs, face, fingers, toes, yes. Deep torso, no. So probably put on ice twelve to twenty-four hours. He can only estimate because the timeline would be affected by room temperature. Then you must factor in at least a few hours for the body to return to room temperature… He’s guessing-stress guessing-Brian Darby was actually killed Friday night or Saturday morning.”

  “So,” D.D. stated, redirecting attention to her. “We’re going to have to recanvass all the neighbors, friends, and family-when was the last time someone saw or spoke to Brian Darby alive? Are we looking at Friday night or Saturday morning?”

  “Had a call on his cellphone Friday evening,” another detective, Jake Owens, commented. “Saw that when I was going through the records yesterday.”

  “Long call? Like he talked to someone?”

  “Eight or nine minutes, so not just leaving a message. I’ll trace the number, have a chat with the recipient.”

  “Make sure the person spoke to Brian,” D.D. ordered crisply, “and it wasn’t Tessa, using his phone.”

  “I don’t get it.” Phil had been doing all the background checks and in many ways knew more about the details of the case than anyone. “We’re thinking Tessa shot her husband, then froze the body-then staged a whole scene for Sunday morning. Why?”

  D.D. shrugged. “Interestingly enough, she wouldn’t tell us that.”

  “Buying time,” Bobby said, from his place, leaning against the front wall. “No other good reason. She was buying time.”

  “For what?” Phil asked.

  “Most likely, to deal with her daughter.”

  That brought the room up short. D.D. frowned at him. Obviously, she wasn’t happy with his conjecture. That was okay. He wasn’t happy to learn she was pregnant from a suspect in a murder investigation. Call him old-fashioned, but that stuck in his craw, and he was feeling pissy about it.

  “You think she hurt the daughter?” Phil asked now, his voice wary. He had four kids at home.

  “A neighbor saw Brian’s Denali leave the house Saturday afternoon,” Bobby said. “Initially, we assumed Brian was driving the SUV. Given that the lab techs believe a dead body was in the back of the vehicle, we further assumed that Brian had killed his stepdaughter, and was disposing of the evidence. Except, Brian Darby was most likely dead by Saturday afternoon. Meaning he wasn’t the one transporting a corpse.”

  D.D. thinned her lips, but nodded curtly. “I think we have to consider the notion that Tessa Leoni killed her entire family. Given that Sophie was at school on Friday, my guess is either Friday night, before Tessa’s patrol shift, or Saturday morning after her patrol shift, something terrible happened in the household. Brian’s body was put on ice in the garage, while Sophie’s body was driven to an undisclosed location and dumped. Tessa reported to work once again Saturday evening. Then Sunday morning, it was showtime.”

  “She staged it,” Phil muttered. “Made it look like her husband had done something to Sophie. Then she and Brian fought and she killed him in self-defense.”

  D.D. nodded; Bobby, too.

  “What about the facial injuries, though?” Neil spoke up from the back. “No way she made it through Saturday night patrol with a concussion and fractured face. She couldn’t stand yesterday, let alone operate a motor vehicle.”

  “Good point,” D.D. concurred. She moved in front of the whiteboard, where she’d written: Timeline. Now, she added one bullet-Tessa Leoni Injuries: Sunday Morning. “Wounds gotta be fresh. Can a doctor verify that?” she asked Neil, a former EMT and their resident medical expert.

  “Tough with contusions,” Neil answered. “Everyone heals at a different rate. But I’m gonna guess the severity of the injuries dictates they happened sooner versus later. She wouldn’t have been terribly functional after taking such massive blows to the head.”

  “Who beat her up?” another officer asked.

  “Accomplice,” Phil muttered up front.

  D.D. nodded. “In addition to revamping our timeline, this new information also means we need to reconsider the scope of the case. If Brian Darby didn’t beat his wife, who did, and why?”

  “Lover,” Bobby said quietly. “Most logical explanation. Why did Tessa Leoni kill her husband and daughter? Because she didn’t want to be with them anymore. Why didn’t she want to be with them anymore? Because she had met someone new.”

  “Hear anything through the grapevine?” D.D. asked him. “Rumors from the barracks, that sort of thing.”

  Bobby shook his head. “Not that plugged in, though. I’m a detective, not a trooper. We’ll need to interview the LT.”

  “First thing this afternoon,” D.D. assured him.

  “Gotta say,” Phil spoke up, “this theory fits better with what Darby’s boss, Scott Hale, reported. I talked to him at eleven, and he swore up and down that Darby didn’t have a violent bone in his body. A tanker crew is pretty tight. You see people sleep deprived, homesick, and stressed out, while maintaining a twenty-four/seven work schedule. As an engineer, Darby got to deal with all the technical crises, and apparently big things go wrong on big ships-water in the fuel, fried electrical systems, glitches in the control software. Still, Hale never saw Darby lose his composure. In fact, the bigger the problem, the more jazzed Darby was about finding a solution. Hale certainly doesn’t believe a guy like that goes home and beats up his wife.”

  “Darby was a model employee,” D.D. said.

  “Darby was everyone’s favorite engineer. And apparently, quite good at Guitar Hero-they have a rec room on board.”

  D.D. sighed, crossed her arms over her chest. She glanced over at Bobby, not quite meeting his eye, but looking in his general direction. “What’d you learn at the gym?” she asked.

  “Brian had spent the past nine months following a vigorous exercise regimen designed to bulk up. Personal trainer swore he wasn’t doing steroids, just pu
tting in blood, sweat, and tears. She only heard him say good things about his wife, but thought that having a state trooper for a spouse was tough on the guy. Oh, and in the past three weeks, since returning home from his last tour, Darby was definitely in a mood, but not willing to talk about it.”

  “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.”