Love You More: A Novel

D.D. respected him immensely, but was careful never to tell him that.

“At first blush, it would appear to be a domestic situation,” he stated finally. “Husband attacked with a beer bottle, Trooper Leoni defended with her service weapon.”

“Got a history of domestic disturbance calls?” D.D. asked.

Bobby shook his head; she nodded in agreement. The lack of calls meant nothing. Cops hated to ask for help, especially from other cops. If Brian Darby had been beating his wife, most likely she’d taken it in silence.

“You know her?” D.D. asked.

“No. I left patrol shortly after she started. She’s only been on the force four years.”

“Word on the street?”

“Solid officer. Young. Stationed out of the Framingham barracks, working the graveyard shift, then racing home to her kid, so not one to mingle.”

“Works only the graveyard shift?”

He arched a brow, looking amused. “Scheduling’s a competitive world for troopers. Rookies get to spend an entire year on graveyard before they can bid for another time slot. Even then, scheduling is awarded based on seniority. Four-year recruit? My guess is she had another year before she could see daylight.”

“And I thought being a detective sucked.”

“Boston cops are a bunch of crybabies,” Bobby informed her.

“Please, at least we know better than to disturb crime-scene snow.”

He grimaced. They resumed their study of the trampled yard.

“How long have they been married?” D.D. asked now.

“Three years.”

“So she was already on the force and she already had the kid when she met him.”

Bobby didn’t answer, as it wasn’t a question.

“In theory, he would’ve known what he was getting into,” D.D. continued out loud, trying to get a preliminary feel for the dynamics of the household. “A wife who’d be gone all night. A little girl who’d require evening and morning care.”

“When he was around.”

“What do you mean?”

“He worked as a merchant marine.” Bobby pulled out a notepad, glanced at a line he’d scribbled. “Shipped out for sixty days at a time. Sixty out, sixty home. One of the guys knew the drill from statements Trooper Leoni had made around the barracks.”

D.D. arched a brow. “So wife has a crazy schedule. Husband has a crazier schedule. Interesting. Was he a big guy?” D.D. hadn’t lingered over the body, given her tender stomach.

“Five ten; two hundred ten, two hundred twenty pounds,” Bobby reported. “Muscle, not flab. Weight lifter, would be my guess.”

“A guy who could pack a punch.”

“In contrast, Trooper Leoni’s about five four, hundred and twenty pounds. Gives the husband a clear advantage.”

D.D. nodded. A trooper had training in hand-to-hand combat, of course. But a smaller female against a larger male was still stacked odds. And a husband, to boot. Plenty of female officers learned on-the-job skills they didn’t practice on the home front; Trooper Leoni’s black eye wasn’t the first D.D. had seen on a female colleague.

“Incident happened when Trooper Leoni first came home from work,” Bobby said now. “She was still in uniform.”

D.D. arched a brow, let that sink in. “She was wearing her vest?”

“Under her blouse, SOP.”

“And her belt?”

“Drew her Sig Sauer straight from the holster.”

“Shit.” D.D. shook her head. “This is a mess.”

Not a question, so again Bobby didn’t answer.

The uniform, not to mention the presence of a trooper’s duty belt, changed everything. For starters, it meant Trooper Leoni had been wearing her vest at the time of the attack. Even a two hundred and twenty pound male would have a hard time making an impact against an officer’s body armor. Second, a trooper’s duty belt held plenty of tools other than a Sig Sauer that would’ve been appropriate for defense. For example, a collapsible steel baton, or police-issued Taser or pepper spray or even the metal handcuffs.

Fundamental to every officer’s training was the ability to quickly size up the threat and respond with the appropriate level of force. A subject yells at you, you didn’t pull your gun. A subject hits you, you still didn’t necessarily pull your weapon.

But Trooper Leoni had.

D.D. was starting to understand why the state union rep was so eager to get Tessa Leoni appropriate legal counsel, and so insistent that she not talk to the police.

D.D. sighed, rubbed her forehead. “I don’t get it. So battered wife syndrome. He hit her one too many times, she finally cracked and did something about it. That explains his body in the kitchen and her visit with the EMTs in the sunroom. But what about the kid? Where’s the girl?”

“Maybe this morning’s fight started last night. Stepdad started pounding. Girl fled the scene.”

They looked at the snow, where any trace of small footsteps had been thoroughly eradicated.

“Calls went out to the local hospitals?” D.D. asked. “Uniforms are checking with the neighbors?”