“The twenty-two. Tessa handed it right over. Her prints were on the handle and ballistics matched the slug that killed Tommy Howe to the gun. We bagged and tagged her discarded clothes. No semen on the underwear—she claimed he didn’t, ahem, get to finish what he’d started. But some blood on her clothing, same type as Tommy Howe.”

“Test her hands for powder?”

“Negative—but then, she’d showered.”

“Rape kit?”

“She declined.”

“She declined?”

“She said she’d been through enough. I tried to convince her to let a nurse examine her for bruising, tried to explain it would be in her own best interest, but she wasn’t buying it. Girl was shaking like a leaf. You could see—she was done.”

“Where’s the father through all this?” Bobby wanted to know.

“He woke up when we entered the home. Apparently figuring out for the first time that his daughter had returned early from her sleepover and that there’d been an incident. He seemed a little … checked out. Stood in the kitchen in his boxers and wife-beater T-shirt, arms crossed over his chest, not saying a word. I mean, here’s his sixteen-year-old daughter talking about being attacked by a boy, and he’s just standing there like a goddamn statue. Donnie,” Walthers snapped his fingers as the name came to him, “Donnie Leoni. Owned his own garage. Never could figure him out. I was guessing drinking, but never confirmed it.”

“Mother?” D.D. asked.

“Dead. Six months earlier, heart failure. Not a happy household, but …” Again, Walthers shrugged. “Most of them aren’t.”

“So,” D.D. replayed the events in her mind, “Tommy Howe is dead from a single GSW in his family room. Tessa confesses to the crime, all cleaned up and unwilling to submit to a physical exam. I don’t get it. The DA simply took her word for it? Poor traumatized sixteen-year-old girl must be telling the truth?”

Walthers shook his head. “Between you and me?”

“By all means,” D.D. assured him. “Between friends.”

“I couldn’t make heads or tails of Tessa Leoni. I mean, on the one hand, she was sitting in her kitchen trembling uncontrollably. On the other hand … she delivered a precise recounting of every minute of the evening. In all my years, never had a victim recount so many details with such clarity, especially a victim of sexual assault. It bothered me, but what could I say: Honey, your memory is too good for me to take you seriously?” Walthers shook his head. “In this day and age, those kinds of statements can cost a detective his shield, and trust me—I got two ex-wives to support—I need my pension.”

“So why let her off with self-defense? Why not press charges?” Bobby asked, clearly as perplexed as D.D.