Love You More: A Novel

“I found a major one in July—forty-two grand. But that money was replaced right before Brian shipped out in September, and after that, I don’t see any more significant lump sum transactions until the past two weeks.”


“The intervention,” Bobby commented. “Six months ago, Tessa and Shane confronted Brian about his gambling, which Tessa had figured out due to the sudden loss of thirty grand. He replaced the money—”

“Winning big, or borrowing large?” D.D. muttered.

Bobby shrugged. “Then he moved his habit underground, using a bunch of phony credit cards, with the statements mailed to a separate PO box, so Tessa would never see them. Until two weeks ago, when apparently Brian Darby fell off the wagon, this time withdrawing fifty grand. Which maybe Tessa found out about, which would explain its rapid replacement six days later.”

“And why she might have withdrawn it Saturday morning,” Phil pointed out. “Forget starting a new life; seems to me Tessa Leoni was working pretty hard to save the old one.”

“All the more reason to kill her spouse,” D.D. declared. She moved to the whiteboard. “All right. Who thinks Brian Darby had a gambling problem?”

Her entire taskforce raised their hands. She agreed, added the detail to their murder board.

“Okay. Brian Darby gambled. Apparently, not successfully. He was in deep enough to run up debt, commit credit card fraud, and perhaps receive some poundings from the local goons. Then what?”

Her investigators stared at her. She stared back at them.

“Hey, don’t let me have all the fun. We assumed Tessa Leoni’s lover beat the crap out of her. Instead, it turns out it was a fellow police officer, who felt he was doing her a favor. Now we can corroborate half that story—Brian Darby did gamble. Brian Darby may have had debt worth an enforcer paying him a visit. So where does that leave us?”

D.D. wrote a fresh header: Motive.

“If I were Tessa Leoni,” she stated, “and I discovered my husband was not only still gambling, but that the sorry son of a bitch had run up tens of thousands in credit card debt in my daughter’s name, I’d kill him for that alone. Interestingly enough, my-husband-is-a-worthless-asshole is not an affirmative defense, meaning Tessa’s still better off arguing battery and getting Lyons to beat the shit out of her.”

Several officers nodded agreeably. Bobby, of course, poked the first hole in the argument.

“So she loves her daughter enough to be offended by the credit card scam, but then kills her anyway?”

D.D. pursed her lips. “Point taken.” She looked at the room. “Anyone?”

“Maybe she didn’t kill Sophie on purpose,” Phil suggested. “Maybe, it was an accident. She and Brian were having a fight, Sophie got in the way. Maybe, Sophie’s death became one more reason to kill Brian. Except now her family’s dead, her husband shot by her service weapon—automatic investigation right there,” Phil added, “so Tessa panics. Gotta figure out a plausible scenario—”

“Self-defense worked for her once before,” Bobby commented. “The Tommy Howe shooting.”

“She freezes her husband’s body to buy her time, takes Sophie’s body for a drive, and the next morning concocts a story to manipulate both Shane Lyons and us into believing what she needs us to believe,” D.D. finished. “Sunday morning becomes showtime.”

“What if she withdrew the fifty grand Saturday morning because she discovered Brian was gambling again?” another officer spoke up. “Brian found out, or she confronted him. Events escalated from there.”

D.D. nodded, wrote a new note on the board: Where’s the $$$?

“Gonna be hard to trace,” Phil warned. “Check’s made out to cash, meaning it can be deposited at any bank under any name, or taken to a dealer and cashed.”

“Big check for most dealers,” Bobby said.

“Guaranteed percentage,” Phil countered. “Especially if she called ahead, there are several check cashers who’d make that deal. Bank checks are good as gold and it’s a tight financial market out there.”

“What if Tessa needed the money?” D.D. asked abruptly. “What if she had a payment to make?”

Thirty pairs of eyes looked at her.

“It’s another possibility,” she thought out loud. “Brian Darby had a gambling problem. He couldn’t control it, and like a sinking ship was taking Tessa and Sophie down with him. Now, Tessa is a woman who’s already hit bottom once before. She knows better. In fact, she’s worked doubly hard to rebuild a life, particularly for her daughter’s sake. So what can she do? Divorce takes time, and God knows how much Brian will destroy their financials until it goes through.

“Maybe,” D.D. mused, “maybe there was an enforcer. Maybe, Tessa Leoni hired him—a hit man to finally put her husband out of his misery. Except the man in black took out his own insurance policy—Sophie Leoni—so Tessa couldn’t turn around and arrest him.”