Love You More: A Novel

“Brian and Tessa and Sophie made one another happy in the beginning. Tessa would come home with stories of hikes and picnics and bike rides and cookouts, all the good stuff. They played well together.

“But marriage is more than playing. It also became Brian shipping out, and now Tessa’s in a house with a yard and the lawn mower is broken or the leaf blower is broken and she’s gotta figure it all out because he’s gone and she’s here and houses have to be taken care of, just like kids and dogs and state police jobs. I saw her … I saw her get frazzled more. Life with Brian home was better for her, I think. But life with Brian gone grew a lot harder. She had more to deal with, more to take care of, than when it had just been her and Sophie in a little one-bedroom apartment.”

D.D. nodded. She could see that. There was a reason she didn’t have a yard, a plant, or a goldfish.

“And for Brian?”

“Of course, he never confided in me,” Mrs. Ennis said.

“Of course.”

“But, from comments Tessa made … He worked when he shipped out. Twenty-four/seven, apparently, no days off. So when he came home, he didn’t always want to go straight to house chores or lawn tending or even child rearing.”

“He wanted to play,” D.D. stated.

“Man needed some time to relax. Tessa changed the schedule, so the first week he was home, I’d still come over to help Sophie in the mornings. But Brian didn’t like that either—said he couldn’t relax with me in the house. So we went back to the old routine. They were trying,” Mrs. Ennis spoke up earnestly. “But their schedules were tough. Tessa had to work when she had to work and she didn’t always come home when she was supposed to come home. Then Brian disappeared for sixty days, then reappeared for sixty days … I don’t think it was easy on either of them.”

“Ever hear them fight?” D.D. asked.

Mrs. Ennis studied her tea. “Not fight … I could feel the tension. Sophie sometimes … When Brian came home, she’d have a couple of days where she’d be unusually quiet. Then he’d leave again, and she’d perk up. A father who came and went, that’s not easy for a child to understand. And the stress of the household … kids can feel that.”

“He ever hit her?”

“Heavens no! And if I so much as suspected such a thing, I would’ve reported him myself.”

“To whom?” D.D. asked curiously.

“Tessa, of course.”

“He ever hit her?”

Mrs. Ennis hesitated. D.D. eyed the older woman with renewed interest.

“I don’t know,” the older woman said.

“You don’t know?”

“Sometimes, I noticed some bruising. Once or twice, not so long ago, Tessa seemed to limp. But when I asked her about it—she fell down the icy steps, had a minor accident snowshoeing. They’re an active family. Sometimes, active people get injured.”

“But not Sophie.”

“Not Sophie!” Mrs. Ennis said fiercely.

“Because you would’ve done something about that.”

For the first time, the woman’s mouth trembled. She looked away, and in that moment, D.D. could see the woman’s shame.

“You did suspect he was hitting her,” D.D. stated levelly. “You worried Tessa was being abused by her husband, and you did nothing about it.”

“Six, eight weeks ago … It was clear something had happened, she wasn’t moving well, but was also refusing to acknowledge it. I tried to bring it up.…”

“What did she say?”

“That she fell down the front steps. She’d forgotten to salt them, it was all her fault.…” Mrs. Ennis pursed her lips, clearly skeptical. “I couldn’t figure it out,” the older woman said at last. “Tessa’s a police officer. She’s had training, she carries a gun. I told myself, if she really needed help, she’d tell me. Or maybe another officer. She spends all day with the police. How could she not ask for help?”

Million dollar question, D.D. thought. She could tell from the look on Bobby’s face he thought the same. He leaned forward, caught Mrs. Ennis’s attention.

“Did Tessa ever mention Sophie’s biological father? Maybe he contacted her recently, showed interest in his child?”

Mrs. Ennis shook her head. “Tessa never spoke of him. I always assumed the man didn’t have any interest in being a father. He had a better offer, she said, and left it at that.”

“Tessa ever mention being worried about an arrest she’d made recently?”

Mrs. Ennis shook her head.

“What about trouble on the job, maybe with another trooper? Couldn’t have been easy to be the only female in the Framingham barracks.”

Again, Mrs. Ennis shook her head. “She never spoke of work. Least not to me. Tessa was proud of her job, though. I could see that, just watching her leave for patrol each night. Maybe she picked the state police because she thought it would help her child, but it helped her, too. A strong job for a strong woman.”

“You think she could’ve shot her husband?” D.D. asked bluntly.

Mrs. Ennis wouldn’t answer.