D.D. arched a brow. “So wife has a crazy schedule. Husband has a crazier schedule. Interesting. Was he a big guy?” D.D. hadn’t lingered over the body, given her tender stomach.

“Five ten; two hundred ten, two hundred twenty pounds,” Bobby reported. “Muscle, not flab. Weight lifter, would be my guess.”

“A guy who could pack a punch.”

“In contrast, Trooper Leoni’s about five four, hundred and twenty pounds. Gives the husband a clear advantage.”

D.D. nodded. A trooper had training in hand-to-hand combat, of course. But a smaller female against a larger male was still stacked odds. And a husband, to boot. Plenty of female officers learned on-the-job skills they didn’t practice on the home front; Trooper Leoni’s black eye wasn’t the first D.D. had seen on a female colleague.

“Incident happened when Trooper Leoni first came home from work,” Bobby said now. “She was still in uniform.”

D.D. arched a brow, let that sink in. “She was wearing her vest?”

“Under her blouse, SOP.”

“And her belt?”

“Drew her Sig Sauer straight from the holster.”

“Shit.” D.D. shook her head. “This is a mess.”

Not a question, so again Bobby didn’t answer.

The uniform, not to mention the presence of a trooper’s duty belt, changed everything. For starters, it meant Trooper Leoni had been wearing her vest at the time of the attack. Even a two hundred and twenty pound male would have a hard time making an impact against an officer’s body armor. Second, a trooper’s duty belt held plenty of tools other than a Sig Sauer that would’ve been appropriate for defense. For example, a collapsible steel baton, or police-issued Taser or pepper spray or even the metal handcuffs.

Fundamental to every officer’s training was the ability to quickly size up the threat and respond with the appropriate level of force. A subject yells at you, you didn’t pull your gun. A subject hits you, you still didn’t necessarily pull your weapon.

But Trooper Leoni had.

D.D. was starting to understand why the state union rep was so eager to get Tessa Leoni appropriate legal counsel, and so insistent that she not talk to the police.

D.D. sighed, rubbed her forehead. “I don’t get it. So battered wife syndrome. He hit her one too many times, she finally cracked and did something about it. That explains his body in the kitchen and her visit with the EMTs in the sunroom. But what about the kid? Where’s the girl?”

“Maybe this morning’s fight started last night. Stepdad started pounding. Girl fled the scene.”

They looked at the snow, where any trace of small footsteps had been thoroughly eradicated.

“Calls went out to the local hospitals?” D.D. asked. “Uniforms are checking with the neighbors?”

“It’s a full Amber Alert, and no, we’re not stupid.”