Love You More

27

Fuck that!” D.D. exploded two hours later. She was at BDP headquarters, in a conference room with Bobby, the deputy superintendent of homicide, and Tessa Leoni’s lawyer, Ken Cargill. Cargill had called the meeting twenty minutes ago. Had a limited-time offer, he’d told them. Needed D.D.’s boss in the room, because if a decision was going to be made, it had to be made fast. Meaning, he was planning on negotiating for something above D.D.’s paygrade. Meaning, she should be letting the deputy superintendent, Cal Horgan, respond to his preposterous demand.

D.D. had never been good at keeping silent.

“We don’t give guided tours!” she continued hotly now. “Tessa wants to finally do the right thing? Good for her. Bobby and I can be cell-side in twenty minutes, and she can draw us a map.”

Horgan said nothing, so maybe he agreed with her.

“She can’t draw you a map,” Cargill answered steadily. “She doesn’t remember the precise location. She’d been driving for a bit before she pulled over. As it is, she may not be able to get you to the exact spot, but figures she can get fairly close, by looking for familiar landmarks.”

“Can’t even get us to the exact spot?” Bobby spoke up, sounding as skeptical as D.D. felt.

“I would arrange for a dog team to assist,” Cargill replied.

“Cadaver team, you mean,” D.D. said bitterly. She sank back down in her chair, both arms crossed over her stomach. She had known, after the first twenty-four hours, that little Sophie Leoni with the curly brown hair, big blue eyes, and heart-shaped face was most likely dead. Still, to hear it said out loud, from Tessa’s lawyer of all people, that it was time to recover the body…

There were days this job was just too hard.

“How did she say Sophie died again?” Bobby asked.

Cargill skewered him with a glance. “She didn’t.”

“That’s right,” Bobby continued. “She’s not really telling us anything, is she? She’s just demanding that we spring her from prison and take her for a drive. Imagine that.”

“She almost died this morning,” Cargill argued. “Coordinated attack, six female detainees going after her, while a male inmate took out the CO. If not for the quick response by Trooper Leoni, Officer Watters would be dead and probably Tessa, as well.”

“Self-preservation,” Bobby said.

“Another fanciful story,” D.D. added harshly.

Cargill looked at her. “Not fanciful. Caught on tape. I’ve watched the video myself. Male inmate attacked the CO first, then six females rushed Tessa. She’s lucky to be alive. And you’re lucky that the shock of said events has led her to want to cooperate.”

“Cooperate,” D.D. stated. “There’s that word again. ‘Cooperate,’ to me, means to assist others. For example, she could draw us a map, perhaps one based on recalled landmarks. That would be cooperating. She could tell us how Sophie died. That would be cooperating. She could also tell us, once and for all, what happened to her husband and child, yet another form of cooperation. Somehow, she doesn’t seem to be getting it.”

Cargill shrugged. He stopped studying Bobby and D.D. and turned his attention to the deputy superintendent instead. “Like it or not, I don’t know how long my client is going to continue to want to cooperate. This morning she suffered a traumatic experience. By this afternoon, certainly by tomorrow morning, I can’t guarantee the impulse will remain. In the meantime, while my client may not feel like answering all your questions, I would imagine that the recovery of Sophie Leoni’s body would answer a great deal of them for you. You know-by supplying evidence. Or are you people still in the business of gathering evidence?”

“She goes back to jail,” Horgan said.

“Oh please.” D.D. blew out a puff of breath. “Never negotiate with terrorists.”

Cargill ignored her, attention still on Horgan. “Understood.”

“Shackled at all times.”

“Never assumed otherwise.” Short pause. “You might, however, want to coordinate with the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department. From a legal perspective, she is under their custody, meaning they may want to be the ones providing escort.”

Horgan rolled his eyes. Multiple law enforcement agencies, just what they needed.

“How long a drive to the site?” Horgan asked.

“No more than one hour.”

D.D. glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten-thirty a.m. Sun set by five-thirty. Meaning time was already of the essence. She stared at her boss, not sure what she wanted anymore. Hating to give in to a suspect’s demands, and yet… She wanted to bring Sophie home. Yearned for that small piece of closure. As if it might ease some of the ache in her heart.

“Pick her up at noon,” Horgan said abruptly. He turned to regard D.D. “Get a dog team. Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Horgan, turning back to Cargill. “No runarounds. Your client cooperates, or all her existing prison privileges vanish. She’ll not only return to jail, but it’ll be hard time now. Understood?”

Cargill smiled thinly. “My client is a decorated member of law enforcement. She understands. And may I congratulate you on getting her out of jail, while she’s still alive to assist in your efforts.”

– -

There were a lot of things D.D. wanted to do right now-kick, storm, rage. Given the day’s tight time frame, however, she restrained herself and contacted the Northern Massachusetts Search & Recovery Canine Team.

Like most canine teams, the Mass. group was comprised of all volunteers. They had eleven members, including Nelson Bradley and his German shepherd, Quizo, who was one of only several hundred trained cadaver dogs in the world.

D.D. needed Nelson and Quizo and she needed them now. Good news, team president Cassondra Murray agreed to have the whole crew mobilized within ninety minutes. Murray and possibly Nelson would meet the police in Boston, and follow caravan style. Other members of the team would arrive once they had a location, as they lived too far outside the city to make it downtown in a timely manner.

That worked for D.D.

“What d’ya need?” D.D. asked by phone. She hadn’t worked with a dog team in years and then it’d been a live rescue, not a body recovery. “I can get you clothing from the child, that sort of thing.”

“Not necessary.”

“ ’Cause it’s a body,” D.D. filled in.

“Nope. Doesn’t matter. Dogs are trained to identify human scent if it’s a rescue and cadaver scent if it’s a recovery. Mostly, we need you and your team to stay out of our way.”

“Okay,” D.D. drawled, a bit testily.

“One search dog equals a hundred and fifty human volunteers,” Murray recited firmly.

“Will the snow be an issue?”

“Nope. Heat makes scent rise, cold keeps it lower to the ground. As handlers, we adjust our search strategy accordingly. From our dogs’ perspectives, however, scent is scent.”

“How about time frame?”

“If the terrain’s not too difficult, dogs should be able to work two hours, then they’ll need a twenty-minute break. Depends on the conditions, of course.”

“How many dogs are you going to bring?”

“Three. Quizo’s the best, but they’re all SAR dogs.”

“Wait-I thought Quizo was the only cadaver dog.”

“Not anymore. As of two years ago, all our dogs are trained for live, cadaver, and water. We start with live searches first, as that’s the easiest to teach a puppy. But once the dogs master that, we train them for cadaver recovery, then, water searches.”

“Do I want to know how you train for cadaver?” D.D. asked.

Murray laughed. “Actually, we’re lucky. The ME, Ben-”

“I know Ben.”

“He’s a big supporter. We give him tennis balls to place inside the body bags. Once the scent of decomp has transferred to the tennis balls, he seals them in airtight containers for us. That’s what we use to train. It’s a good compromise, as the fine state of Massachusetts frowns on private ownership of cadavers, and I don’t believe in synthetic ‘cadaver scent.’ Best scientists in the world agree that decomp is one of the most complicated scents on earth. God knows what the dogs are honing in on, meaning man shouldn’t tamper with it.”

“Okay,” D.D. said.

“Do you anticipate a water search?” Murray asked, “because that poses a couple of challenges this time of year. We take the dogs out in boats, of course, but given the temperatures, I’d still want them in special insulated gear in case they fall in.”

“Your dogs work in boats?”

“Yep. Catch the scent in the current of water, just like the drift of the wind. Quizo has found bodies in water a hundred feet deep. It does seem like voodoo, which again, is why I don’t like synthetic scent. Dogs are too damn smart to train by lab experiment. Do you anticipate water?”

“Can’t rule anything out,” D.D. said honestly.

“Then we’ll bring full gear. You said search area was probably within an hour drive of Boston?”

“Best guess.”

“Then I’ll bring my book of Mass. topographic maps. Topography is everything when working scents.”

“Okay,” D.D. said again.

“Is the ME or a forensic anthropologist gonna be on-site?”

“Why?”

“Sometimes the dogs hit on other remains. Good to have someone there who can make the call right away that it’s human.”

“These remains… less than forty-eight hours old,” D.D. said. “In below freezing conditions.”

A moment of silence. “Well, guess that rules out the anthropologist,” Murray said. “See you in ninety.”

Murray hung up. D.D. went to work on assembling the rest of the team.