Love You More: A Novel

“Gas cans are against the outside wall. Help yourself.”


“Thank you.”

“Bring her,” he said suddenly. “When you find her, when you … get her back. I want … I want to meet my granddaughter.”

“Maybe,” I said.

He startled at my hesitation, glared at me.

I took the key, returning his look calmly. “From one alcoholic to another—gotta stop drinking, Dad. Then we’ll see.”

“Hard-ass,” he muttered.

I smiled one last time, then kissed him on his leathery cheek. “Get it from you,” I whispered.

I palmed the key, picked up my duffel bag, then I was gone.





35


Why was the scene in the woods so horrific?” D.D. was saying fifteen minutes later. She answered her own question: “Because what kind of mom would kill her own child, then blow up the body? What kind of woman could do such a thing?”

Bobby, standing beside her on Juliana Howe’s front porch, nodded. “Diversion. She needed to buy time to escape.”

D.D. shrugged. “Except not really. She was already alone with Officer Fiske and they were a quarter of a mile away from the search team. She could’ve easily jumped Fiske without the diversion, and still had a solid thirty minutes head start. Which is why exploding the child’s remains seems so horrifying—it’s gratuitous. Why do such a terrible thing?”

“Okay, I’ll bite: Why do such a thing?”

“Because she needed the bones fragmented. She couldn’t afford for us to find the remains in situ. Then it would’ve been obvious the body didn’t belong to a child.”

Bobby stared at her. “Excuse me? The pink bits of clothing, blue jeans, rib bone, tooth …”

“Clothing was planted with the body. Rib bone is approximately the right size for a six-year-old—or a large breed of dog. Ben just finished spending some quality time studying bone fragments in the lab. Those bones aren’t human. They’re canine. Right size. Wrong species.”

Bobby did a little double-take. “Fuck me,” he said, a man who hardly ever swore. “The German shepherd. Brian Darby’s old dog that passed away. Tessa buried that body?”

“Apparently. Hence the strong scent of decomp in the white Denali. Again, according to Ben, the size and length of many bones in a large dog would match a six-year-old human. Of course, the skull would be all wrong, as well as minor details like tail and paws. An intact canine skeleton, therefore, would never get confused for a human one. Scrambled pieces of bone fragments, however … Ben apologizes for his error. He’s a bit embarrassed to tell you the truth. It’s been a while since he’s had a crime scene mess this much with his head.”

“Wait a second.” Bobby held up a cautioning hand. “The cadaver dogs, remember? They wouldn’t hit on nonhuman remains. Their noses and training are better than that.”

D.D. suddenly smiled. “Fucking clever,” she muttered. “Isn’t that what Juliana said? Tessa Leoni is very clever, gotta give her that.

“Two front teeth,” she filled in for Bobby. “Also three bloody tampons, recovered from the scene after we left. Ben supplies some of the training materials used by the SAR teams. According to him, dog handlers are fairly creative at finding sources of ‘cadaver,’ since owning actual dead people is illegal. Turns out, teeth are like bone. So search handlers get teeth from a local dentist’s office, and use them to train the dogs. Same with used tampons. Tessa hid a dog body, but scattered the site with ‘human cadaver’—her daughter’s baby teeth topped with a dash of feminine hygiene.”

“That’s disgusting,” Bobby said.

“That’s ingenious,” D.D. countered.

“But why?”

D.D. had to think about it. “Because she knew we’d blame her. That’s been her experience, right? She didn’t shoot Tommy Howe, but the cops assumed she did. Meaning we were right before—the first experience ten years ago has informed her experience now. Another terrible thing happened in Tessa Leoni’s world. Her first instinct is that she will be blamed. Except this time she’ll probably be arrested. So she stages an elaborate scheme to get out of jail.”

“But why?” Bobby repeated. “If she didn’t do anything, why not tell us the truth? Why … such a complicated ruse? She’s a cop now. Shouldn’t she have more faith in the system?”

D.D. arched a brow.

He sighed. “You’re right. We’re born cynics.”

“But why not talk to us?” D.D. was continuing. “Let’s think about that. We assumed Tessa shot Tommy Howe ten years ago. We were wrong. We assumed she shot her husband, Brian, Saturday morning. Well, maybe we’re wrong about that, too. Meaning, someone else did it. That person shot Brian, took Sophie.”