Love You More (Tessa Leoni, #1)(13)

At the mention of Sophie’s name, Trooper Leoni stiffened on the sofa. She wasn’t looking at D.D., or at any of the men in the room. She had her gaze locked on a spot on the worn green carpet, hands still tucked beneath the ice pack.

“I searched everywhere,” Leoni said abruptly. “The house, the garage, the attic, his vehicle—”

“Tessa,” Trooper Lyons interjected. “Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”

“When was the last time you saw your daughter?” D.D. asked, seizing the opening while she had it.

“Ten forty-five last night,” the officer answered automatically, as if speaking by rote. “I always check on Sophie before reporting for duty.”

D.D. frowned. “You left here at ten forty-five for your eleven o’clock shift? You can make it from here to the Framingham barracks in fifteen minutes?”

Trooper Leoni shook her head. “I don’t drive to the barracks. We drive our cruisers home, so the moment we take the wheel, we start our patrols. I called the desk officer from my cruiser and declared Code 5. He assigned me my patrol area and I was good to go.”

D.D. nodded. Not being a state trooper, D.D. didn’t know these things. But she was also playing a game with Trooper Leoni. The game was called establish the suspect’s state of mind. That way, when Trooper Leoni inevitably said something useful, and her eager-beaver attorney sought to block that admission by claiming his client was suffering from a concussion and therefore mentally incapacitated, D.D. could point out how lucidly Leoni had answered other, easily verifiable questions. For example, if Leoni had been able to accurately recollect what time she’d called the desk officer, where she’d gone on patrol, etc., etc., then why assume she was suddenly mistaken about how she’d shot her own husband?

These were the kind of games a skilled detective knew how to play. Couple of hours ago, D.D. might not have used them on a fellow officer. She might have been willing to cut poor battered Trooper Leoni some slack, show her the kind of preferential treatment one female officer was inclined to give another. But that was before the state troopers had trampled her crime scene and placed D.D. squarely on the other side of their blue wall.

D.D. did not forgive. She did not forget.

And she did not want to be working a case right now involving a small child. But that was not something she could talk about, not even to Bobby.

“So you checked your daughter at ten forty-five …” D.D. prodded.

“Sophie was asleep. I kissed her on the cheek. She … rolled over, pulled the covers up.”

“And your husband?”

“Downstairs. Watching TV.”

“What was he watching?”

“I didn’t notice. He was drinking a beer. That distracted me. I wished … I preferred it when he didn’t drink.”

“How many beers had he had?”

“Three.”

“You counted?”

“I checked the empties lined up next to the sink.”

“Your husband have a problem with alcohol?” D.D. asked bluntly.

Leoni finally looked up at D.D., peering at her with one good eye, as the other half of her face remained a swollen, pulpy mess. “Brian was home sixty days at a stretch with nothing to do. I had work. Sophie had school. But he had nothing. Sometimes, he drank. And sometimes … Drinking wasn’t good for him.”

“So your husband, who you wished didn’t drink, had had three beers and you still left him alone with your daughter.”

“Hey—” Trooper Lyons started to interrupt again.

But Tessa Leoni said, “Yes, ma’am. I left my daughter with her drunken stepdad. And if I had known … I would’ve killed him then, goddammit. I would’ve shot him last night!”

“Whoa—” Attorney was out of the chair. But D.D. didn’t pay any attention to him and neither did Leoni.

“What happened to your daughter?” D.D. wanted to know. “What did your husband do to her?”

Leoni was already shrugging her shoulders. “He wouldn’t tell me. I got home, went upstairs. She should’ve been in bed. Or maybe playing on the floor. But … nothing. I searched and I searched and I searched. Sophie was gone.”

“He ever hit her?” D.D. asked.

“Sometimes, he got frustrated with me. But I never saw him hit her.”

“Lonely? You’re gone all night. He’s alone with her.”

“No! You’re wrong. I would’ve known! She would’ve told me.”

“Then you tell me, Tessa. What happened to your daughter?”

“I don’t know! Dammit. She’s just a little girl. What kind of man hurts a child? What kind of man would do such a thing?”

Trooper Lyons placed his hands on her shoulders, as if trying to soothe. Trooper Leoni, however, shrugged him off. She rose to her feet, obviously agitated. The movement, however, proved too much; almost immediately, she lurched to one side.

Trooper Lyons caught her arm, lowering her carefully back to the love seat while skewering D.D. with an angry stare.

“Steady,” he said gruffly to Tessa Leoni, while continuing to glare at D.D. and Bobby.

“You don’t understand, you don’t understand,” the mother/trooper was murmuring. She didn’t look pretty or vulnerable anymore. Her face had taken on an unhealthy pallor; she looked like she was going to vomit, her hand patting the empty seat beside her. “Sophie’s so brave and adventurous. But she’s scared of the dark. Terrified. Once, when she was nearly three, she climbed into the trunk of my cruiser and it closed and she screamed and screamed and screamed. If you could’ve heard her scream. Then you would know, you’d understand.…”