CHAPTER TWO

Jessie quickly learned that they didn't have to go far.

"There's been a murder in Larchmont Village," Ryan told her as soon as they left the restaurant.

Larchmont Village was a busy shopping district adjacent to Hancock Park, a wealthy, mid-city community. It was only a fifteen-minute drive away.

"Any details?" Jessie asked as she got in the car.

"Parker didn't have many to share," he admitted as he started the car and punched the gas, "just that the wife of some huge medial mogul was stabbed to death in an art gallery parking lot. They only discovered her body twenty minutes ago. They were going to call in Wilshire Division detectives but when they realized that this was such a high profile victim, the call was redirected to HSS. Since Susannah, Sam, and Nettles are all on cases, we were next up in line."

Susannah Valentine, Sam Goodwin, and Jim Nettles were the other three detectives that made up Homicide Special Section. Along with Jessie, Ryan, Karen, and researchers Jamil Winslow and Beth Ryerson, they comprised the entirety of the close-knit team.

Jessie didn't need to ask if the order to put HSS on the case, and specifically the two of them, had come from on high. She already knew the answer. The chief of LAPD, Roy Decker, used to be the captain at Central Station and HSS, and whenever possible, they knew he liked to call on his old unit, which he trusted implicitly.

Ryan put the cherry light on the roof and turned on the siren so they could get to the scene quicker. With that and the reduced traffic at 9:30 p.m. on a Monday night, they arrived at the gallery in less than seven minutes. By the time they pulled up across the street, there was already a phalanx of squad cars, along with an ambulance.

They hopped out and headed toward the back parking lot, where an officer held up his hand until Ryan flashed his badge. The officer stepped aside, and they rounded the corner to the back, where they found two more squad cars and a crowd of people surrounding one of the two civilian vehicles still in the lot. As they approached, a familiar face waved at them .

Sergeant Paul Delco, who had worked with them on a case in the past, was a rail-thin officer in his late thirties with crew cut brown hair and a scowl. Despite his expression, Jessie was glad to see him. In their previous experience together, he'd proven to be competent and professional.

"Thanks for getting here so quickly," Sergeant Delco said as they met him about thirty feet from the silver Tesla where a woman could be seen slumped over the steering wheel. "As soon as the first officer on the scene told me the name he got from the victim's driver's license, I knew your team would want to be involved."

"Who is she?" Ryan asked.

"Her name is Chloe Baptiste," Delco said. "Her husband is Laurent Baptiste, the CEO of that big French film conglomerate, Groupe Passage. According to the gallery manager over there who found her, she had just purchased two paintings at an auction held here tonight."

He nodded at a twenty-something woman in a flowing dress with frizzy blonde hair, sitting in the back seat of a squad car. The door was open, and her head was in her hands.

"Should we go talk to her now?" Jessie wondered.

"She's not much good to chat at the moment," Delco said. "I only got a few answers out of her before she broke down. She's pretty messed up after what she saw. I would have been too.

Jessie could understand that. Even from this distance, the collection of blood that had pooled under Baptiste's car was sizable.

"She didn't take the paintings with her when she left, obviously," Ryan confirmed.

"Right," Delco said. "Per what the gallery manager said before she lost it—her name is Jane Birkett by the way—the pieces were to be delivered via armored truck later this week. Together, they're worth over a million bucks. Birkett mentioned that Baptiste said her husband would kill her for overspending on them."

"Where is he right now?" Ryan asked, intrigued.

"Apparently Chloe Baptiste told Birkett that he was in Europe for some kind of film festival," Delco explained.

"We'll need to reach out to him," Ryan said, already pulling out his phone. "I'll text Jamil and Beth ask them to get his contact information."

While he did that, Jessie continued to pepper Delco with questions. "So Birkett is the manager here, but is she the gallery owner too? She looks young. "

"No," Delco answered, looking at his notes. "The owner is a woman named Lena Ortega. But she left the auction a little early because of a migraine. Apparently, she was upset that she had to leave because she and Baptiste are friends."

"We'll definitely need to talk to her too," Ryan said, still typing into his phone. "I'm adding her to the list of folks we'll need Jamil and Beth to get contact info for. I'd rather get that stuff from our people than bother Ms. Birkett with it in her condition."

Jessie appreciated her husband's sensitivity to the matter, but it occurred to her that they would still have to question the woman.

"I know she's in rough shape, but we need to get a time frame from her—when Baptiste left the gallery, stuff like that."

Sergeant Delco flipped to the next page on his pad. It was clear that he had gotten that answer too. Jessie remembered again why she liked the guy.

"I actually have that," he said. "Birkett was okay answering straightforward questions. It was only when I asked about finding the body that she fell apart. She said that Baptiste left the gallery just after 9 p.m. The auction had ended, but she stuck around to sign some paperwork related to her purchases. Birkett said that she closed up and left about ten minutes later. That's when she found her in her car like that."

Jessie looked over at the Tesla again.

When is the Crime Scene Unit getting here?" she asked. "I don't want to get too close to the vehicle until they've had a chance to go over it."

"Last update was that they should be here in the next ten minutes," Delco said. "Same with the medical examiner. In the meantime, we have officers inside the gallery. The place has security cameras so we're hoping they might provide something useful."

"You'll keep us updated on that?" Ryan asked.

"Of course," Delco assured him.

Ryan turned to Jessie. "Do you want to see what we can determine about the body from a distance?"

Jessie nodded. They walked over to the vehicle along with Sergeant Delco, stopping ten feet from the driver's side door. There was a purse on the ground near the door. Delco pointed at it.

"Our first officer on the scene checked the purse to get ID," he said. "He didn't do a thorough search but noted that there was over $300 in cash in there, along with multiple credit cards. "

"So likely not a robbery gone wrong," Ryan surmised.

"I tend to doubt that," Jessie muttered, looking at the woman in the driver's seat.

Baptiste's face, slumped on the steering wheel, wasn't visible. Her brown, blood-matted hair clung to what remained of her neck. Her entire back and neck was a mass of deep punctures and oozing blood. From this distance, it was hard to determine the number of stab wounds, but Jessie guessed it was at least a half dozen.

"This was personal," she said. "Whoever did this didn't just stumble across Chloe Baptiste. They wanted to punish her."

Jessie didn't know much of anything about Chloe Baptiste. She didn't know if she was a good person or not. She didn't know if she had children or gave to charity or was cruel and self-involved. But whatever her strengths or faults, no one deserved to die like this. Whoever was responsible had to pay.

Jessie caught herself. Her job was to seek justice, not retribution. It was a distinction she'd briefly lost sight of when Ryan pounded Hank Costabile into oblivion. And it was one she found herself increasingly struggling to keep front and center of late. Her self-recriminations were interrupted by a buzz on Ryan's phone. He looked down at it.

"It's Jamil," he said. "He sent Laurent Baptiste's contact information along with their home address. It's only a few blocks from here."

"I say we head over there and see what we can glean from looking around," Jessie suggested. "We can call him on the way there."

"Sounds good," Ryan agreed, before turning to Sergeant Delco. "Please have CSU reach out to us once they have more particulars on the nature of the killing."

"Will do," Delco promised.

They started back toward the car. On the way, Jessie asked the question she knew her husband was already pondering.

"When you call the husband, are you treating him as a grieving husband or a suspect?"

"You already know the answer to that," he said. "Both—always both."