D.D. pursed her lips, regarded the elderly woman.

“How would you describe Trooper Leoni as a mother?” she asked.

“There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for Sophie,” Mrs. Ennis replied immediately.

“Trooper Leoni ever drink?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Gotta be stressful, though. Working, then coming home to a child. Sounds to me she never had a moment to herself.”

“Never heard her complain,” Mrs. Ennis said stubbornly.

“Ever get a call just because Tessa’s having a bad day, could use a little break?”

“No, ma’am. If she wasn’t working, she wanted to be with her daughter. Sophie’s her world.”

“Until she met her husband.”

Mrs. Ennis was silent for a moment. “Honestly?”

“Honestly,” D.D. said.

“I think Tessa loved Brian because Sophie loved Brian. Because, at least in the beginning, Brian and Sophie got along so well.”

“In the beginning,” D.D. prodded.

The older woman sighed, looked down at her tea. “Marriage,” she said, a weight of emotion behind the word. “It always starts out so fresh.…” She sighed again. “I can’t tell you what goes on behind closed doors, of course.”

“But …” D.D. prodded again.

“Brian and Tessa and Sophie made one another happy in the beginning. Tessa would come home with stories of hikes and picnics and bike rides and cookouts, all the good stuff. They played well together.

“But marriage is more than playing. It also became Brian shipping out, and now Tessa’s in a house with a yard and the lawn mower is broken or the leaf blower is broken and she’s gotta figure it all out because he’s gone and she’s here and houses have to be taken care of, just like kids and dogs and state police jobs. I saw her … I saw her get frazzled more. Life with Brian home was better for her, I think. But life with Brian gone grew a lot harder. She had more to deal with, more to take care of, than when it had just been her and Sophie in a little one-bedroom apartment.”

D.D. nodded. She could see that. There was a reason she didn’t have a yard, a plant, or a goldfish.

“And for Brian?”

“Of course, he never confided in me,” Mrs. Ennis said.

“Of course.”

“But, from comments Tessa made … He worked when he shipped out. Twenty-four/seven, apparently, no days off. So when he came home, he didn’t always want to go straight to house chores or lawn tending or even child rearing.”

“He wanted to play,” D.D. stated.