Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(20)

“With all due respect, forgetting things isn’t the same as making things up.”

“What do you mean?” Wyatt asked.

“Did you confirm with the doctors that this woman is indeed delusional?”

“Physicians don’t talk. HIPAA and all that. What we know we got from the husband.”

“Please. Wouldn’t be the first time the husband was the last to know.”

“But they obviously don’t have a child—”

“And yet she’s looking. I mean, even if she’s delusional, why that delusion? Of all the short circuits running through her head, why this one? I’d check the odometer, too. Because maybe that’s what she was doing for the six hours. Driving around searching for her lost girl.”

“Who doesn’t exist,” Wyatt repeated.

“And yet is clearly important to her. First time she’s done this?”

Wyatt hesitated. “Didn’t think to ask that question.”

“Friends, support system?”

“New to the area.”

“Job?”

“Self-employed. Husband and wife work together making props for Hollywood.”

“Meaning her only family, only contact, is her husband.” Tessa’s voice picked up. “The one telling you they don’t have kids. The one reporting his wife has had three ‘accidents’ in six months.”

Wyatt got her point. Same thought had crossed his mind, too. And in a cop’s world, where there was paranoia, there was often probable cause.

“You suspect domestic violence. Which, I have to say, is what worries me, too.” Wyatt thought again of the bruise that had discolored Thomas Frank’s jaw. From an impaired wife, lashing out in agitation? Or from a terrified woman acting in self-defense?

“Fits the profile,” Tessa was saying, “not to mention a man who beats his wife . . .”

“Might also beat his kids. Leading to what, the death of a girl who doesn’t exist? Let’s not get completely lost in the land of wild conjecture. I already spent the morning, not to mention significant county and state resources, on a wild-goose chase. At this point, my boss, the sheriff, would appreciate a lot more facts and a lot less fiction.”

“Have you even talked to the woman—”

“All in good time.”

“You haven’t interviewed the driver?” Tessa sounded dumbfounded.

“She’d just been sedated! Woman’s having medical issues, thought we covered that.”

“So you haven’t even questioned her directly—”

“First thing tomorrow. Doc says she needs more time to recover. Which gives us the rest of today to get our ducks in a row: Single-car accident. Lone driver. Possible aggravated DWI.”

He could feel Tessa rolling her eyes at him again. Crazy part was, her daughter rolled them exactly the same way.

“Fine. I’ll play by your county-cop rules,” she granted him. “So looking at just the accident . . . If your driver’s blood alcohol level was only .06, why’d she crash?”

“Inclement weather. Impairment from her brain injury combined with said blood alcohol level. Either way, she went off the edge of a steep road; car flew down an embankment.”

“Went off or drove off?”

“Waiting for the state police to help us with that one; we need the info from the vehicle’s electronic data recorder.”

“Suicide?”

“She had her seat belt on, which is one vote in the no column. Then again, open bottle of scotch could be taken as a vote in the yes department. However, and probably most interesting, after the accident, the driver clawed her way up a two-hundred-foot ravine in the pouring rain to flag down help.”

“Certainly sounds like a woman with a will to live,” Tessa commented.

“Except.” Wyatt couldn’t help himself. He paused uncomfortably. “She didn’t seem to think she needed help for herself. Instead, she begged for assistance to help find her missing girl. She pleaded for Vero.”

“The little girl who doesn’t exist?”

“Yeah. That one.”

“Some delusion,” Tessa said knowingly.

“Don’t you have a lunch to attend?” Wyatt asked her irritably. “You know, with your favorite detective, D. D. Warren.”

“The one and only.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Luck? Please, I need more like heavy armor.”

Which made Wyatt roll his eyes at her, before ending the call.


* * *



THE STATE POLICE were good guys. In New Hampshire, all members of law enforcement attended the same training academy, from city to county to Fish and Game. Kept everyone on the same page and helped build bridges in an area long on mountains and short on people. Especially north of Concord, where law enforcement resources were particularly scarce, the various agencies relied upon one another for backup. And not just for manpower, but also for equipment. Contrary to those TV cop shows where crime labs looked like space stations and SWAT teams started out with a hundred grand in equipment per officer, real-world policing required more cooperation . . . and at times, sheer inventiveness. Wyatt had run undercover drug stings with surveillance equipment that had been pieced together from three different towns. Sometimes it felt less like policing and more like passing a collection plate.