Love You More: A Novel (9 page)

But not Brian Darby. He spent his money on electronics, a leather sofa, and his car. Not the house.

“They made an effort for Sophie,” D.D. murmured out loud, “but not for each other.”

Bobby looked at her.

“Think about it,” she continued. “It’s an old vintage house that’s still an old vintage house. As you keep pointing out, he’s an engineer, meaning he’s probably got some basic skills with power tools. Combined household income is a good two hundred grand a year, plus Brian Darby has this whole sixty days of vacation thing going on. Meaning they have some expertise, some time, and some resources they could spend on the home. But they don’t. Only in Sophie’s room. She gets the fresh paint, new furniture, pretty bedding, etc. They made an effort for her, but not for themselves. Makes me wonder in how many other areas of their life that same rule applied.”

“Most parents focus on their kids,” Bobby observed mildly.

“They haven’t even hung a picture.”

“Trooper Leoni works long hours. Brian Darby ships out for months at a time. Maybe, when they’re home, they have other priorities.”

D.D. shrugged. “Like what?”

Bobby nodded. “Come on. I’ll show you the garage.”

T
he garage freaked D.D. out. The broad, two-bay space was lined on all three sides with the craziest Peg-Board system she’d ever seen. Seriously, floor to ceiling of Peg-Boards, which were then fitted with shelving brackets and bike holders and plastic bins for sporting goods and even a custom golf bag holder.

D.D. took in the space and was struck by two things at once: Brian Darby did apparently have a lot of outdoor hobbies, and he needed professional help for his anal-retentiveness.

“The floor is clean,” D.D. said. “It’s March, it’s snowy, and the entire
city has been sanded within an inch of its life. How can the floor be this clean?”

“He parked his car on the street.”

“He parked his sixty thousand dollar SUV on one of the busiest streets in Boston rather than dirty his garage?”

“Trooper Leoni also parked her cruiser out front. Department likes us to keep our vehicles visible in the neighborhood—presence of a cop car is viewed as a deterrent.”

“This is nuts,” D.D. stated. She crossed to one wall, where she found a large broom and dustpan racked side by side. Next to them sat two plastic garbage cans and a blue bin for recycling. Recycling bin revealed half a dozen green beer bottles. Garbage cans were already empty—the bags probably having been removed by the crime-scene techs. D.D. strolled by his and her dirt bikes, plus a pink number that clearly belonged to Sophie. She found a row of backpacks and a shelf dedicated to hiking boots of various weights and sizes, including a pink pair for Sophie. Hiking, biking, golfing, she determined.

Then, on the other side of the garage, she got to add skiing to the list. Six pairs of skis, three alpine, three cross country. And three sets of snowshoes.

“If Brian Darby was home, he was moving,” D.D. added to her mental profile.

“Wanting the family with him,” Bobby commented, gesturing to the wife and child sets that rounded out each trio.

“But,” D.D. mused, “Tessa already commented—she had work, Sophie had school. Meaning, Brian was often alone. No loving family to join him, no appreciative female audience to be dazzled by his manly prowess.”

“Stereotyping,” Bobby warned.

D.D. gestured around the garage. “Please. This is a stereotype. Engineer. Anal-retentive. If I stay in here much longer, my head will hurt.”

“You don’t iron your jeans?” he asked.

“I don’t label my power tools. Seriously, check this out.” She’d arrived at the workbench, where Brian Darby had arranged his power tools on a shelf bearing names for each item.

“Nice tools.” Bobby was frowning. “Very nice tools. An easy grand worth.”

“And yet he doesn’t fix up the house,” D.D. lamented. “So far, I’m siding with Tessa on this.”

“Maybe it’s not about the doing,” Bobby said. “Maybe it’s about the buying. Brian Darby likes having toys. Doesn’t mean he plays with them.”

D.D. considered it. Certainly an option, and would explain the pristine condition of the garage. Easy to keep it clean if you never parked in it, never worked in it, never retrieved any of the gear from it.

But then she shook her head. “Nah, he didn’t gain thirty pounds in muscle sitting around all day. Speaking of which, where’s the weight set?”

They looked around. Of all the toys, no dumbbells or free weight systems.

“Must belong to a gym,” Bobby said.

“We’ll have to check that out,” D.D. concurred. “So Brian is a doer. But his wife and child are also busy. So maybe he does some stuff on his own to pass the time. Unfortunately, he still comes home to an empty house, which leaves him restless. So first he cleans the place within an inch of its life …”

“Then,” Bobby finished, “he tosses back a couple of beers.”

D.D. was frowning. She walked toward the far corner, where the concrete floor appeared darker. She bent down, touched the spot with her fingertips. Felt damp.

“Leak?” she murmured, trying to inspect the corner wall where moisture might be penetrating, but of course, the cinder-block surface was obscured by more Peg-Board.

“Could be.” Bobby crossed to where she knelt. “This whole corner is built into the hillside. Could have drainage issues, even a leak from a pipe above.”

“Have to watch it, see if it grows.”

“Concerned the house will fall down on your watch?”

She looked at him. “No, concerned it’s not water from a leak. Meaning, it came from something else, and I want to know what.”

Unexpectedly, Bobby smiled. “I don’t care what the other staties
say: Trooper Leoni is lucky to have you on her case, and Sophie Leoni is even luckier.”

“Oh, fuck you,” D.D. told him crossly. She straightened, more discomfited by praise than she was ever riled by criticism. “Come on. We’re heading out.”

“The pattern of the water stain told you where Sophie is?”

“No. Given that Tessa Leoni’s lawyer hasn’t magically called with permission to interview her yet, we’re gonna focus on Brian Darby. I want to talk to his boss. I want to know exactly what kind of man needs to color-code his closet and Peg-Board his garage.”

“A control freak.”

“Exactly. And when something or someone undermines that control—”

“Just how violent does he get,” Bobby finished for her. They stood in the middle of the garage.

“I don’t think a stranger abducted Sophie Leoni,” D.D. stated quietly.

Bobby paused a heartbeat. “I don’t think so either.”

“Meaning it’s him, or it’s her.”

“He’s dead.”

“Meaning, maybe Trooper Leoni finally wised up.”

8

A
woman never forgets the first time she is hit.

I was lucky. My parents never whacked me. My father never slapped my face for talking back, or spanked my behind for willful disobedience. Maybe because I was never that disobedient. Or maybe, because by the time my father got home at night, he was too tired to care. My brother died and my parents became shells of their former selves, using up all their energy just getting through the day.

By the time I was twelve, I’d come to terms with the morbid little household that passed as my own. I got into sports—soccer, softball, track team, anything that would keep me late after school and minimize the hours I spent on the homefront. Juliana liked sports, too. We were the Bobbsey twins, always in uniform, always rushing off somewhere.

I took some hits on the playing field. A line drive to the chest that knocked me flat on my back. I realized for the first time that you really do see stars when the breath has been knocked from your lungs and your skull ricochets against the hard earth.

Then there were miscellaneous soccer injuries, a head butt to the
nose, cleats to the knee, the occasional elbow to the gut. Take it from me, girls can be tough. We dish out and man up with the best of them, particularly in the heat of battle, trying to score one for our team.

But those injuries were nothing personal. Just the kind of collateral damage that happens when you and your opponent both want the ball. After the game, you shook hands, slapped each other on the butt, and meant it.

First time I really had to fight was at the Academy. I knew I would receive rigorous training in hand-to-hand combat and I was looking forward to it. A lone female living in Boston? Hand-to-hand combat was an excellent idea, whether I made it as a trooper or not.

For two weeks, we practiced drills. Basic defensive stances for protecting our face, our kidneys, and, of course, our sidearms. Never forget your weapon, we were lectured again and again. Most cops who lose their gun are then shot and killed with that gun. First line of defense, subdue the offending party before ever getting within arm’s length. But in the event things go sour and you find yourself in a personal combat situation, protect your weapon, and strike hard first chance you get.

Turned out, I didn’t know how to deliver a punch. Sounded easy enough. But I fisted my hand wrong, had a tendency to overuse my arm, versus throwing my whole body behind the blow by rotating at the waist. So there were a couple more weeks, teaching all of us, even the big guys, how to pack a punch.

Six weeks into it, the instructors decided we’d had enough drills. Time to practice what they’d preached.

They divvied us up into two teams. We all donned protective padding and, to start, were armed with padded bars the instructors affectionately referred to as pogo sticks. Then, they turned us loose.

Don’t believe for a second I got to fight another woman of my approximate size and weight. That would be too easy. As a female officer, I was expected to handle anything and anyone. So the trainers made their picks deliberately random. I ended up across from another recruit, named Chuck, who was six one, two hundred and forty pounds, and a former football player.

He didn’t even try to hit me. He just ran straight at me and
knocked me flat on my ass. I went down like a ton of bricks, remembering once more that line drive to my chest as I struggled to regain my breath.

The instructor blew his whistle. Chuck offered me a hand up, and we tried again.

This time, I was aware of my fellow recruits watching. I registered my instructor’s scowl at my disappointing performance. I fixated on the fact this was supposed to be my new life. If I couldn’t defend myself, if I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t become a trooper. Then what would I do? How would I earn enough money for Sophie and me to live? How would I provide for my daughter? What would happen to us?

Chuck rushed. This time, I stepped to the side and slammed my pogo stick into his gut. I had approximately half a second to feel good about myself. Then two hundred and forty pounds of Chuck straightened, laughed, and came back at me.

It got ugly after that. To this day, I don’t recall it all. I remember starting to feel genuinely panicked. That I was blocking and moving, and putting my shoulder behind the blow, and still Chuck kept coming and Chuck kept coming. Two hundred and forty pounds of linebacker against my one hundred and twenty pounds of desperate new motherhood.

The padded end of his pogo stick connecting with my face. My head snapped back as my nose absorbed the blow. I staggered, eyes flooding with instant tears, off balance, half-blinded, wanting to fall, but realizing frantically that I couldn’t go down. He’d kill me. That’s how it felt. Couldn’t go down or I’d be dead.

Then, at the last second, I did fall, into a tight little ball that I then sprang out of, straight into the towering giant’s legs. I caught him at the knees, jerked sideways, and toppled him like a redwood.

The instructor blew the whistle. My classmates cheered.

I staggered to standing, touching gingerly at my nose.

“That’s gonna leave a mark,” my instructor informed me cheerfully.

I crossed to Chuck, offered him a hand up.

He accepted gratefully enough. “Sorry ’bout the face,” he said, looking sheepish. Poor big guy, having to take on the girl.

I assured him it was all right. We were all doing what we had to do. Then we got to square off against new partners and do it all over again.

Later that night, curled up alone in my dorm room, I finally cradled my nose with my hand and cried. Because I didn’t know if I could go through that again. Because I wasn’t sure if I was really prepared for a new life where I had to hit and be hit. Where I might honestly have to fight for my life.

At that moment, I didn’t want to be a trooper anymore. I just wanted to go home to my baby girl. I wanted to hold Sophie and inhale the scent of her shampoo. I wanted to feel her chubby little hands pressed against my neck. I wanted to feel my ten-month-old daughter’s unconditional love.

Instead, I got pummeled the next day, and the day after that. I endured bruised ribs, whacked shins, and aching wrists. I learned to take a blow. I learned to deliver in kind. Until by the end of the twenty-five-week course, I came out of the gate swinging with the best of them, covered in purple welts but ready to rumble.