Love You More_ A Novel - Lisa Gardner [9]
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?”
“It’s a full Amber Alert, and no, we’re not stupid.”
She stared pointedly at the snow. Bobby shut up.
“What about birth father?” D.D. tried. “If Brian Darby is the stepdad, then where’s Sophie’s birth father and what does he have to say about all this?”
“No birth father,” Bobby reported.
“I believe that’s biologically impossible.”
“No name listed on the birth certificate, no guy mentioned around the barracks, and no male role model visiting every other weekend.” Bobby shrugged. “No birth father.”
D.D. frowned. “Because Tessa Leoni didn’t want him in the picture, or because he didn