by Lisa Gardner
Sixty to eighty women held at a time in the pretrial units. Sixteen cells to a unit. Two to three women to a cell.
I was led to a cell with only one other female. Her name was Erica Reed. She currently slept on the top bunk, kept her personal possessions on the bottom. I could make myself at home on the butcher block that also served as a desk.
Second the metal door shut behind me, Erica started chewing her discolored fingernails, revealing a row of blackened teeth. Meth addict. Which explained her pale sunken face and lank brown hair.
“Are you the cop?” she asked immediately, sounding very excited. “Everyone said we were getting a cop! I hope you’re the cop!”
I realized then that I was in even bigger trouble than I’d thought.
22
Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Hamilton didn’t sound thrilled to talk to D.D. and Bobby; more like resigned to his fate. One of his troopers was involved in an “unfortunate incident.” Of course the investigative team needed to interview him.
As a matter of courtesy, D.D. and Bobby met him in his office. He shook D.D.’s hand, then greeted Bobby with a more familiar hand clasp to the shoulder. It was obvious the men knew each other, and D.D. was grateful for Bobby’s presence—Hamilton probably wouldn’t have been so collegial otherwise.
She let Bobby take the lead while she studied Hamilton’s office. The Massachusetts State Police were notoriously fond of their military-like hierarchy. If D.D. worked in a modest office space decorated as Business-R-Us, then Hamilton’s space reminded her of an up-and-coming political candidate’s. The wood-paneled walls held black-framed photos of Hamilton with every major Massachusetts politician, including a particularly large snapshot of Hamilton and Mass.’s Republican senator, Scott Brown. She spotted a diploma from UMass Amherst, another certificate from the FBI Academy. The impressive rack of antlers mounted above the LT’s desk showcased his hunting prowess, and in case that didn’t do the trick, another photo showed Hamilton in green fatigues and an orange hunting vest standing next to the fresh kill.
D.D. didn’t dwell on the photo too long. She was getting the impression that Baby Warren was a vegetarian. Red meat bad. Dry cereal, on the other hand, was starting to sound good.
“Of course I know Trooper Leoni,” Hamilton was saying now. He was a distinguished-looking senior officer. Trim, athletic build, dark hair graying at the temples, permanently tanned face from years of outdoor living. D.D. bet the young male officers openly admired him, while the young female officers secretly found him sexy. Was Tessa Leoni one of those officers? And did Hamilton return the sentiment?
“Fine officer,” he continued evenly. “Young, but competent. No history of incidents or complaints.”
Hamilton had Tessa’s file open on his desk. He confirmed Tessa had worked graveyard Friday and Saturday nights. Then he and Bobby reviewed her duty logs, much of which made no sense to D.D. Detectives tracked active cases, cleared cases, warrants, interviews, etc., etc. Troopers tracked, among other things, vehicle stops, traffic citations, call outs, warrants served, property seized, and a whole slew of assists. It sounded less like policing to D.D. and more like basketball. Apparently, troopers were either making calls or assisting other troopers making calls.
Either way, Tessa had particularly robust duty logs, even Friday and Saturday night. On Saturday’s graveyard shift alone, she’d issued two citations for operating under the influence—OUI—which in the second case involved not just taking the driver into custody, but arranging for the suspect’s vehicle to be towed.
Bobby grimaced. “Seen the paperwork yet?” he said, tapping the two OUIs.
“Got it from the captain a couple of hours ago. It’s good.”
Bobby looked at D.D. “Then she definitely didn’t have a concussion Saturday night. I can barely complete those forms stone-sober, let alone suffering from a massive head trauma.”
“Take any personal calls Saturday night?” D.D. asked the LT.
Hamilton shrugged. “Troopers patrol with their personal mobiles, not just their department-issued pager. It’s possible she took all sorts of personal calls. Nothing, however, through official channels.”
D.D. nodded. She was surprised troopers were still allowed their cellphones. Many law enforcement agencies were banning them, as uniformed officers, often the first responders to crime scenes, had a tendency to snap personal photos using their mobiles. Maybe they thought the guy who blew his head off looked funny. Or they wanted to share that particular blood spatter with a buddy they had in a different field office. From a legal perspective, however, any crime-scene photo was evidence and subject to full disclosure to the defense. Meaning that if any such photos surfaced after the case had been adjudicated, their mere presence would be grounds for a mistrial.
The DA didn’t like it very much when that happened. Had a tendency to get downright nasty on the subject.
“Leoni ever reprimanded?” D.D. asked now.
Hamilton shook his head.
“Take a lot of days off, maybe personal time? She’s a young mom, spending half her year alone with a kid.”
Hamilton flipped through the file, shook his head. “Admirable,” he commented. “Not easy meeting both the demands of the job and the needs of a family.”
“Amen,” Bobby murmured.
They both sounded sincere. D.D. chewed her lower lip. “How well did you know her?” she asked the LT abruptly. “Group bonding activities, the gang meeting for drinks, that sort of thing?”
Hamilton finally hesitated. “I didn’t really know her,” he said at last. “Trooper Leoni had a reputation for being distant. Couple of her performance reviews touched on the subject. Solid officer. Very reliable. Showed good judgment. But on the social front, remained aloof. It was a source of some concern. Even troopers, who primarily patrol alone, need to feel the cohesiveness of the group. The reassurance that your fellow officer always has your back. Trooper Leoni’s fellow troopers respected her professionally. But no one really felt they knew her personally. And in this job, where the lines between professional and personal life easily blur …”
Hamilton’s voice trailed off. D.D. got his point and was intrigued. Law enforcement wasn’t a day job. You didn’t just punch a clock, perform your duties, and hand off to your coworkers. Law enforcement was a calling. You committed to your work, you committed to your team, and you resigned yourself to the life.
D.D. had wondered if Tessa had been too close to a fellow officer, or even a commanding officer, such as the LT. In fact, it sounded as if she wasn’t close enough.
“Can I ask you a question?” Hamilton asked suddenly.
“Me?” Startled, D.D. blinked at the lieutenant colonel, then nodded.
“Do you fraternize with your fellow detectives? Grab a beer, share cold pizza, catch the game at one another’s homes?”
“Sure. But I don’t have a family,” D.D. pointed out. “And I’m older. Tessa Leoni … you’re talking about a young, pretty mom dealing with a barrack of entirely male officers. She’s your only female trooper, right?”
“In Framingham, yes.”
D.D. shrugged. “Not a lot of women in blue. If Trooper Leoni wasn’t feeling the brotherly love, can’t say I blame her.”
“We never had any complaints of sexual harassment,” Hamilton stated immediately.
“Not all women feel like doing the paperwork.”
Hamilton didn’t like this assertion. His face shuttered up, he looked intimidating, harsh even.
“At the barracks level,” he stated crisply, “we encouraged Leoni’s commanding officer to create more opportunities for her to feel included. Let’s just say it met with mixed results. No doubt it is difficult to be the lone female in a dominantly male organization. On the other hand, Leoni herself did not appear inclined to bridge the divide. To be blunt, she was perceived as a loner. And even officers who made an effort to befriend her—”
“Such as Trooper Lyons?” D.D. interrupted.
“Such as Trooper Lyons,” Hamilton agreed. “They tried and failed. Teamwork is about winning the hearts and minds of your fellow officers. In that regard, Trooper Leoni got it half right.”
“Speaking of hearts and minds.” Bobby sounded apologetic, as if sorry to reduce the LT down to the level of gossipmonger. “Any reports of Leoni being involved with another officer? Or perhaps an officer who was interested in her, whether she returned the interest or not?”
“I did some asking. Trooper Leoni’s closest associate seems to be Trooper Shane Lyons, though that relationship is more through the husband than Leoni.”
“Did you know him?” D.D. asked curiously. “The husband, Brian Darby? Or her daughter, Sophie?”
“I knew them both,” Hamilton answered gravely, surprising her. “At various cookouts and family functions over the years. Sophie is a pretty little girl. Very precocious, that’s my memory.” He frowned, seemed to be wrestling with something inside himself. “You could tell Trooper Leoni loved her very much,” he said abruptly. “At least, that’s what I always thought when I saw them together. The way Tessa held her daughter, doted on her. The thought …”
Hamilton looked away. He cleared his throat, then clasped his hands on the desk before him. “Sad, sad business,” the LT murmured to no one in particular.
“What about Brian Darby?” Bobby asked.
“Knew him even longer than Tessa. Brian was a good friend of Trooper Lyons. He started appearing at cookouts a good eight, nine years ago. Even joined us a couple of times to see the Boston Bruins, attended poker night every now and then.”
“Didn’t know you and Trooper Lyons were so close,” D.D. stated, arching a brow.
Hamilton gave her a stern look. “If my troopers invite me to a function, I always try to attend. Camaraderie is important, not to mention that informal gatherings are invaluable for keeping the lines of communication open between troopers and the chain of command. Having said that, I probably join Trooper Lyons and his ‘posse,’ as he calls them, three or four times a year.”
“What did you think of Brian?” Bobby asked.
“Followed hockey, also liked the Red Sox. Made him a stand-up guy in my book.”
“Talk to him much?”
“Hardly at all. Most of our outings were of the male-bonding variety—catching a game, playing a game, or betting on a game. And yes,” he turned to D.D. as if already anticipating her complaint, “it’s possible such activities made Trooper Leoni feel excluded. Though from what I remember, she also follows the Red Sox, with the whole family attending many of the games.”
D.D. scowled. She hated it when she was so transparent.
“And Trooper Leoni’s alcoholism,” Bobby asked quietly. “That ever come up?”
“I was aware of the situation,” Hamilton replied just as evenly. “To the best of my knowledge, Leoni had successfully completed a twelve-step program and remained on track. Again, no history of incidents or complaints.”
“What about that whole matter of her shooting and killing someone when she was sixteen?” D.D. asked.
“That,” Hamilton said heavily, “is gonna bite us on the ass.”
The bluntness of his statement took D.D. by surprise. She had a moment, then got it. The press digging deeper into Boston’s latest femme fatale, demanding to know what the state police were thinking, hiring a trooper who already had a history of violence …
Yep, the LT would have a lot of explaining to do.
“Look,” the commanding officer said now. “Trooper Leoni was never charged with a crime. She met all of our candidacy requirements. To refuse her application—that would’ve been discrimination. And for the record, she passed the Academy with flying colors and has performed exemplary in the line of duty. We had no way of knowing, no way of anticipating.…”
“You think she did it?” D.D. asked. “You knew her husband, her child. Think Tessa killed them both?”
“I think the longer I stay in this job, the less I’m surprised by all the things that should surprise me.”
“Any talk of marital problems between her and Brian?” Bobby asked.
“I would be the last to know,” Hamilton assured him.
“Noticeable changes in behavior, particularly the past three weeks?”
Hamilton tilted his head to the side. “Why the past three weeks?”
Bobby merely studied his superior officer. But D.D. understood. Because Brian Darby had only been home for the past three weeks, and according to his personal trainer, he’d returned from his last tour of duty not very happy with life.
“There was one situation that comes to mind,” Hamilton said abruptly. “Not involving Trooper Leoni, but her husband.”
D.D. and Bobby exchanged a glance.
“Probably six months ago,” Hamilton continued, not really looking at them. “Let’s see … November. That sounds right. Trooper Lyons arranged an outing to Foxwoods. Many of us attended, including Brian Darby. Personally, I took in a show, blew my fifty bucks in the casino, and called it a night. But Brian … When the time came, we couldn’t get him to leave. One more round, one more round, this would be the one. He and Shane ended up in an argument, with Shane physically pulling him off the casino floor. The other guys laughed it off. But … It seemed pretty clear to me that Brian Darby should not return to Foxwoods.”
“He had a gambling problem?” Bobby asked with a frown.
“I’d say his interest in gaming appeared higher than average. I’d say that if Shane hadn’t yanked him away from the roulette table, Brian would still be sitting there, watching the numbers spin around.”
Bobby and D.D. exchanged glances. D.D. would like this story better if Brian didn’t have fifty grand sitting in the bank. Gambling addicts didn’t normally leave fifty grand in savings. Still, they studied the lieutenant colonel.
“Have Shane and Brian returned to Foxwoods lately?” Bobby asked.
“You would have to ask Trooper Lyons.”
“Trooper Leoni ever mention any financial stress? Ask for extra shifts, more OT hours, that sort of thing?”
“To judge by the duty logs,” Hamilton said slowly, “she’s been working more hours lately.”
But fifty grand in the bank, D.D. thought. Who needed OT when you had fifty grand in the bank?
“There is something else you probably should know,” Hamilton said quietly. “I need you to understand, this is strictly off the record. And it may have nothing to do with Trooper Leoni. But … You said the past three weeks, and as a matter of fact, we launched an internal investigation exactly two weeks ago: An outside auditor discovered funds had been improperly moved from the union’s account. The auditor believes the funds were embezzled, most likely from an inside source. We are trying to locate those monies now.”
D.D. went wide-eyed. “How nice of you to mention that. And to volunteer it so readily, too.”
Bobby shot her a warning glance.
“How much are we talking?” he asked in a more reasonable tone.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Missing as of two weeks ago?”
“Yes. But the embezzlement started twelve months prior, a series of payments made to an insurance company, which it turns out, doesn’t exist.”
“But the checks have been cashed,” Bobby stated.
“Each and every one,” Hamilton replied.
“Who signed for them?”
“Hard to make out. But all were deposited into the same bank account in Connecticut, which four weeks ago was closed out.”
“The fake insurance company was a shell,” D.D. determined. “Set up to receive payments, a quarter of a million dollars’ worth, then shut down.”
“That’s what the investigators believe.”
“Bank’s gotta have information for you,” Bobby said. “Same bank for all transactions?”
“The bank has been cooperating fully. It supplied us with video footage of a woman in a red baseball cap and dark sunglasse
s closing out the account. That has become internal affair’s biggest lead—they are pursuing a female with inside information on the troopers’ union.”
“Such as Tessa Leoni,” D.D. murmured.
The lieutenant colonel didn’t argue.
23
If you want someone dead, prison is the perfect place to do it. Just because the Suffolk County Jail was minimum security didn’t mean it wasn’t filled with violent offenders. The convicted murderer who’d just served twenty years at the state maximum security prison might finish up his or her county sentence here, completing eighteen months for burglary or simple assault that had been in addition to the homicide charge. Maybe my roommate Erica was locked up for dealing drugs, or turning tricks, or petty theft. Or maybe she’d killed the last three women who’d tried to get between her and her meth.
When I asked the question, she just smiled, showing off twin rows of black teeth.
Unit 1-9-2 held thirty-four other women just like her.
As pretrial detainees, we were kept separate from the general inmate population, in a locked-down unit where food came to us, the nurse came to us, and programming came to us. But within the unit, there was plenty of intermingling, creating multiple opportunities for violence.
Erica walked me through the daily schedule. Morning started at seven a.m., with “count time,” when the CO would conduct head count. Then we would be served breakfast in our cells, followed by a couple of hours “rec time”—we could leave our cells and roam unshackled around the unit, maybe hang out in the commons area watching TV, maybe shower (three showers located right off the commons area, where everyone could also enjoy that show), or ride the squeaky exercise bike (verbal insults from your fellow detainees not included).
Most women, I quickly realized, spent their time playing cards or gossiping at the round stainless steel tables in the center of the unit. A woman would join a table, pick up one rumor, share two more, then visit a neighbor’s cell, where she could be the first to provide the big scoop. And around and around the women went, table to table, cell to cell. The whole atmosphere reminded me of summer camp, where everyone wore the same clothes, slept in bunks, and obsessed over boys.
