Lisa Gardner - Love You More

“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.

Tuesday, twelve p.m. I stood shackled in the processing area of the Suffolk County Jail. No sheriff’s van parked in the garage this time. Instead, a Boston detective’s Crown Vic had rolled into the secured loading bay. Despite myself, I was impressed. I had assumed the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department would be in charge of transport. I wonder how many heads had rolled and markers had been called in to place me in Detective D. D. Warren’s custody.

She got out of the car first. Derisive glance flicked my way, then she approached the command center, handing over paperwork to the waiting COs. Detective Bobby Dodge had opened the passenger’s door. He came around the vehicle toward me, his face impossible to read. Still waters that ran deep.

No pedestrian clothes for my road trip. Instead, my previously issued pants and top had been replaced with the traditional orange prison jumpsuit, marking my status for the world to see. I’d asked for a coat, hat, and gloves. I’d been granted none of the above. Apparently, the sheriff’s department worried less about frostbite and more about escape. I would be shackled for the full length of my sojourn into society. I would also be under direct supervision of a law enforcement officer at all times.

I didn’t fight these conditions. I was tense enough as it was. Keyed up for the afternoon events to come, while simultaneously crashing from the morning’s misadventures. I kept my gaze forward and my head down.

The key to any strategy is not to overplay your hand.

Bobby arrived at my side. The female CO who’d been standing guard relinquished my arm. He seized it, leading me back to the Crown Vic.

D.D. had finished the paperwork. She arrived at the cruiser, staring at me balefully as Bobby opened the back door and I struggled to slide gracefully into the backseat with my hands and legs tied. I tilted back too far, got stuck like a beetle with its legs in the air. Bobby had to reach down, place one hand on my hip, and shove me over.

D.D. shook her head, then took her place behind the steering wheel.

Another minute and the massive garage door slowly creaked up. We backed up, onto the streets of Boston.

I turned my face to the gray March sky and blinked my eyes against the light.

Looks like snow , I thought, but didn’t say a word.

D.D. drove to the nearby hospital parking lot. There, a dozen other vehicles, from white SUVS to black-and-white police cruisers were waiting. She pulled in and they formed a line behind us. D.D. looked at me in the rearview mirror.

“Start talking,” she said.

“I’d like a coffee.”

“Fuck you.”

I smiled then, couldn’t help myself. I had become my husband, with a Good Tessa and a Bad Tessa. Good Tessa had saved Kim Watters’s life. Good Tessa had fought off evil attacking inmates and had felt, for just one moment, like a proud member of law enforcement.

Bad Tessa wore prison orange and sat in the back of a police cruiser. Bad Tessa… Well, for Bad Tessa, the day was very young.

“Search dogs?” I asked.

“ Cadaver dogs,” D.D. emphasized.

I smiled again, but it was sad this time, and for a second, I felt my composure crack. A yawning emptiness bloomed inside. All the things I had lost. And more I could still lose.

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth…

“You should’ve found her,” I murmured. “I was counting on you to find her.”

“Where?” D.D. snapped.

“Route two. Westbound, toward Lexington.”

D.D. drove.

We know about Trooper Lyons,” D.D. said curtly, talking from the front seat. We’d taken Route 2 past Arlington, exchanging urban jungle for suburban pipe dreams. Next up, the old money of Lexington and Concord, to be followed by the quaint, country charm of Harvard, Mass.

“What do you know?” I asked. I was genuinely curious.

“That he beat you up, in order to substantiate your claim of spousal abuse.”

“Have you ever hit a girl?” I asked Detective Dodge.

Bobby Dodge twisted in his seat. “Tell me about the hit man, Tessa. Find out how much I’m willing to believe.”

“Can’t.”

“Can’t?”

I leaned forward, best I could with my hands tied. “I’m going to kill him,” I said somberly. “And it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead.”

“Oh please,” D.D. interjected crossly. “You sound like a Looney Tune.”

“Well, I have taken some blows to the head.”

The eye roll again. “You’re no more crazy than I’m kindhearted,” D.D. snapped. “We know all about you, Tessa. The gambling-addicted husband who cleaned out your savings accounts. The horny teenage brother of your best friend, who figured he might get lucky one night. You seem to have a history of attracting the wrong men, then shooting them.”

I didn’t say anything. The good detective did have a way of cutting to the heart of the matter.

“But why your daughter?” she asked relentlessly. “Trust me, I don’t fault you for plugging Brian with three in the chest. But what the hell made you turn on your own kid?”

“What did Shane have to say?” I asked.

D.D. frowned at me. “You mean before or after your loser friend tried to deck me?”