Love You More

19

Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren and Detective Bobby Dodge came for me at 11:43 a.m. I heard their footsteps in the corridor, fast and focused. I had a split second; I used it to stash the blue button in the back part of the lowest drawer in the hospital bed stand.

My only link to Sophie.

My final unnecessary reminder to play by the rules.

Maybe, one day I could return and retrieve the button. If I was lucky, maybe Sophie and I could do it together, reclaiming Gertrude’s missing eye and reattaching it to her dispassionate doll’s face.

If I was lucky.

I’d just sat down on the edge of my hospital bed when the privacy curtain was ripped back and D.D. strode into the room. I knew what was coming next and still had to bite my lower lip to hold back my scream of protest.

“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my…”

I realized belatedly I was humming the song under my breath. Fortunately, neither of the detectives seemed to notice.

“Tessa Marie Leoni,” D.D. began and I steeled my spine. “You are under arrest for the murder of Brian Anthony Darby. Please rise.”

More footsteps in the corridor. Most likely the DA and his assistant, not wanting to miss the big moment. Or maybe some muckety-mucks from the BPD, always attuned to high profile photo ops. Probably some brass from the state police, as well. They wouldn’t abandon me just yet, a young, abused female officer. They couldn’t afford to appear so insensitive.

The press would be amassing in the parking lot, I realized, impressed by my own detachment as I rose to my feet, presenting both wrists to my colleagues. Shane would arrive shortly, as union rep. Also my lawyer. Or maybe they would meet me at the courthouse, where I would be formally charged with killing my own husband.

I had a flashback to another moment in time, sitting at a kitchen table, my freshly showered hair dripping down my back as a heavyset detective asked over and over again, “Where’d ya get the gun, why’d ya bring the gun, what made ya fire the gun…”

My father, standing impassively in the doorway, his arms crossed over his dirty white T-shirt. And me, understanding even then that I’d lost him. That my answers didn’t matter anymore. I was guilty, I would always be guilty.

Sometimes, that’s the price you paid for love.

Detective Warren read me my rights. I didn’t speak; what was left to say? She cuffed my wrists, prepared to lead me away, then encountered the first logistical issue. I had no clothes. My uniform had been bagged and tagged as evidence upon my admittance, delivered to the crime lab yesterday afternoon. That left me in a hospital Johnny, and even D.D. understood the political dangers of a Boston cop being photographed dragging away a battered state trooper who was wearing nothing but a hospital gown.

She and Detective Dodge had a quick conference, off to one side of the room. I sat back down on the edge of the bed. A nurse had entered and was watching the proceedings with concern. Now she crossed to me.

“Head?” she asked crisply.

“Hurts.”

She took my pulse, made me track her finger with my eyes, then nodded in satisfaction. Apparently, I was merely in pain, not in crisis. Having assured herself that her patient was in no immediate danger, the nurse retreated out the door.

“Can’t use a prison jumpsuit,” D.D. was arguing in low tones with Bobby. “Her lawyer will argue we biased the judge, bringing her before him in jailhouse orange. Hospital gown presents the same issue, except this time we look like insensitive jerks. We need clothes. Simple nondescript blue jeans, sweater. That sort of thing.”

“Get an officer to swing by her house,” Bobby muttered back.

D.D. regarded him for a second, then turned to study me.

“Got a favorite outfit?” D.D. asked.

“Wal-Mart,” I said, standing up.

“What?”

“Couple blocks over. Size 6 jeans, medium sweater. I’d appreciate underclothes, too, plus socks and shoes.”

“I’m not buying you clothes,” D.D. said crossly. “We’ll get some from your house.”

“No,” I said, and sat back down.

D.D. glared at me. I let her. She was arresting me, after all, what did she have to be so angry about? I didn’t want clothing from home, personal articles the Suffolk County Jail would seize from me and lock away for the duration of my incarceration. I would rather arrive in a hospital gown. Why not? The look bought me sympathy, and I would take all the help I could get.

Apparently, D.D. figured that out, as well. A uniformed officer was summoned, instructions given. The patrol officer didn’t even bat an eye at being told to buy women’s clothing. He disappeared out the door, which left me alone with D.D. and Bobby again.

Others must be staying out in the hall. Hospital rooms weren’t that big. They might as well wait in the corridor for the show.

I was counting down, though I didn’t know to what.

“What did you use?” D.D. asked abruptly. “Bags of ice? Snow? Funny, you know. I noticed the damp spot on the basement floor, yesterday. I wondered about it.”

I said nothing.

She walked toward me, eyes narrowed, as if studying a particular species of wildlife. I noticed when she walked, she kept one hand splayed over her stomach, the other on her hip. I also noticed that her face was pale with dark circles under her eyes. Apparently, I was keeping the good detective up at night. Score one for me.

I regarded her with my good eye. Dared her to look at the swollen, eggplant purple mess of my face, and pass judgment.

“You ever meet the ME?” she asked now, switching gears, becoming more conversational. She halted in front of me. From my vantage point, perched on the edge of the hospital bed, I had to look up at her.

I didn’t speak.

“Ben’s good. One of the best we’ve ever had,” she continued. “Maybe another ME wouldn’t have noticed it. But Ben loves the details. Apparently, the human body is like any other meat. You can freeze it and thaw it, but not without some changes in-how did he put it?-consistency. The flesh on your husband’s extremities felt wrong to him. So he took a few samples, stuck them under a microscope, and hell if I understand all the science, but basically determined damage at a cellular level consistent with the freezing of human tissue. You shot your husband, Tessa. Then, you put him on ice.”

I didn’t speak.

D.D. leaned closer. “This is what I don’t get, though. Obviously, you were buying time. You needed to get something done. What, Tessa? What were you doing while your husband’s corpse lay frozen in the basement?”

I didn’t speak. I listened to a song instead, playing in the back of my mind. All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth…

“Where is she?” D.D. whispered, as if reading my mind. “Tessa, what did you do with your little girl? Where’s Sophie?”

“When are you due?” I asked, and D.D. recoiled as if shot, while five feet away, Bobby inhaled sharply.

He hadn’t known, I determined. Or maybe he’d known, but not known, in that way men sometimes do. I found this interesting.

“Is he the father?” I asked.

“Shut up,” D.D. said curtly.

Then I remembered. “No,” I corrected myself, as if she’d never spoken. I looked over at Bobby. “You’re married to another woman, from the state mental institute case, couple years back. And you have a baby now, don’t you? Not that long ago. I heard about that.”

He didn’t say anything. Just stared at me with cool gray eyes. Did he think I was threatening his family? Was I?

Maybe I just needed to make conversation, because otherwise I might say all the wrong things. For example, I used snow, because it was easy enough to shovel and didn’t leave behind trace evidence such as a dozen empty ice bags. And Brian was heavy, heavier than I’d imagined. All that working out, all that pumping up, just so myself and a hit man could lug an extra forty pounds down the stairs and into his precious, never-any-tool-out-of-place garage.

I’d cried when I scooped the snow on top of my husband’s dead body. The hot tears formed little holes in the white snow, then I had to pile on more snow and all the while my hands were shaking uncontrollably. I kept myself focused. One shovel full of snow, then a second, then a third. It took twenty-three.

Twenty-three scoops of snow to bury a grown man.

I’d warned Brian. I’d told him in the beginning that I was a woman who knew too much. You don’t mess with a woman who knows the kind of things I know.

Three tampons to plug the bullet holes. Twenty-three scoops of snow to hide the body.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, my two front teeth, my two front teeth…

Love you more, he’d told me as he died.

Stupid, sorry son of a bitch.

I didn’t speak anymore. D.D. and Bobby also sat in silence for a good ten, fifteen minutes. Three members of law enforcement not making eye contact. Finally, the door banged open and Ken Cargill barged in, black wool coat flapping around him, thinning brown hair mussed. He drew to a halt, then noticed my shackled wrists and turned on D.D. with all the fury of a good defense lawyer.

“What is this!” he cried.

“Your client, Tessa Marie Leoni, has been charged in the death of her husband, Brian Anthony Darby. We have read her her rights, and are now awaiting transport to the courthouse.”

“What are the charges?” Cargill demanded to know, sounding appropriately indignant.

“Murder one.”

His eyes widened. “Murder with premeditated malice and forethought? Are you out of your mind? Who authorized these charges? Have you even looked at my client lately? The black eye, the fractured cheek, and oh yes, the concussion?”

D.D. simply stared at him, then turned back to me. “Ice or snow, Tessa? Come on, if not for us, then for your lawyer’s sake, tell him how you froze the body.”

“What?”

I wondered if all lawyers went to acting school, or if they just came by it naturally, the way cops did.

The first uniformed officer was back, breathing hard; apparently he’d run all the way through the hospital with the oversized Wal-Mart bag. He thrust it at D.D., who did the honors of explaining my new wardrobe to Cargill.

D.D. unshackled my wrists. I was handed the pile of new clothes, hangers and other sharp objects removed, then allowed to disappear into the bathroom to change. The Boston patrol officer had done a decent job. Wide-leg jeans, stiff as boards with their newness. A green crewneck sweater. A sports bra, plain underwear, plain socks, bright white tennis shoes.

I moved slowly, dragging the bra, then the sweater, over my battered head. The jeans were easier, but tying my shoelaces proved impossible. My fingers were shaking too hard.

Do you know what had been the hardest part about burying my husband?

Waiting for him to bleed out. Waiting for his heart to stop and the last ounce of blood to still and cool in his chest, because otherwise he would drip. He would leave a trail, and even if it was small and I cleaned it up with bleach, the luminol would give it away.

So I sat, on a hard chair in the kitchen, holding a vigil I never thought I’d have to hold. And the whole time, I just couldn’t decide, which was worse? Shooting a boy, and running away with the blood still fresh on my hands? Or shooting a man, and sitting there, waiting for his blood to dry so I could clean up properly?

I’d placed three tampons in the holes in the back of Brian’s chest, as a safety measure.

“What are you doing?” the man had demanded.

“Can’t leave a blood trail,” I’d said calmly.

“Oh,” he’d said, and let me go.

Three bloody tampons. Two front teeth. It’s funny, the talismans that can bring you strength.

I hummed the song. I tied my shoes. Then, I stood up, and took one last minute to study myself in the mirror. I didn’t recognize my own reflection. That distorted face, hollowed-out cheeks, lank brown hair.

It was good, I thought, to feel like a stranger to myself. It suited all the things about to happen next.

“Sophie,” I murmured, because I needed to hear my daughter’s name. “Sophie, love you more.”

Then I opened the bathroom door and once more presented my wrists.

The cuffs were cool; they slid on with a click.

It was time. D.D. on one side. Bobby on the other. My lawyer bringing up the rear.

We strode into the bright white corridor, the DA pushing away from the wall, ready to lead the parade in triumphant glory. I saw the lieutenant colonel, his gaze steady as he regarded his shackled officer, his face impossible to read. I saw other men in uniform, names I knew, hands I had shook.

They did not look at me, so I returned the favor.

We headed down the corridor, toward the big glass doors and the screaming mob of reporters waiting on the other side.

Command presence. Never let them see you sweat.

The glass doors slid open, and the world exploded in flashing white lights.