CHAPTER FOUR

They never even went home.

Jessie was plying herself with some early morning coffee as she walked to the Research department at Central Station and thought back on the horrible night they'd just had. It was 5:10 a.m., and she was feeling the weight of the last eight hours.

After spending four of those hours at the Baptiste mansion, along with two CSU teams, scouring the massive place, they left at two in the morning with nothing noteworthy to show for it.

So they headed to Central Station to review what the crime scene unit and the medical examiner from the Chloe Baptiste murder site had uncovered. Unfortunately, it wasn't much more than they already knew.

The medical examiner had pegged the time of death as being between 8:30 and 9:30, which wasn't hugely useful considering they already knew from the gallery manager, Jane Birkett, that Baptiste had died between nine and 9:10 p.m.

Slightly more helpful were the details on the murder weapon. Because of the depth and width of the stabbing injuries, he determined that the weapon was a hunting knife approximately seven inches long. Chloe Baptiste had been stabbed a total of six times, but according to the M.E., she likely died well before the final blow.

They had also gotten a call from Sergeant Delco, who relayed what they'd learned from the art gallery's security cameras.

"I just sent you the parking lot footage we were able to pull," he told them. "it's not the highest quality, which was surprising considering the gallery traffics in expensive art. But as you'll see it, it was good enough for our purposes."

Jessie and Ryan looked at the video that Delco had sent. It showed Chloe Baptiste approaching her car at 9:03 p.m. As she opened the door, a figure emerged from behind the only other vehicle in the parking lot. The person was clad all in black, wearing a ski mask with holes for their eyes but not their mouth or nose.

As Baptiste settled into the driver's seat, the assailant lunged forward and stabbed her with a gloved hand. After five subsequent blows, they turned and left, leaving Baptiste slumped over the steering wheel. They disappeared through a gap in some hedges at the back of the parking lot.

"The crime scene unit checked back there," Delco said, answering their question before they asked it. "They couldn't find any DNA on the hedge branches that the killer brushed against, nor on the other vehicle in the parking lot that they hid behind, which belonged to Birkett."

"There was nothing to speak of in the alley behind the lot either," he continued. "We don't know if the killer parked back there and drove off or walked to some other location, where they might have had a vehicle waiting. We've checked other cameras in the neighborhood, but they're all on major streets, and there are too many pedestrians in the area to draw any conclusions. No one we saw made it easy by wandering by in all black."

"We might have our research people review the footage to see if they can create a physical profile of the killer based on their size compared to the height of the cars," Ryan suggested.

"Feel free," Delco said. "I know you're team is pretty amazing. Having said that, we asked our tech people to hazard a guess. They estimate, based on the height of the vehicles and the hedges, that the killer is between five foot seven and five foot eleven and somewhere between 140 and 180 pounds. They couldn't determine gender but based on the fluidity of movement they used, they guessed the person was under fifty."

"That narrows it down some," Jessie noted, "we'll see if our people can add to the description. Thanks very much, Sergeant."

The two of them walked down the mostly quiet hallway of Central Station until they got to the door for the Research department. It was closed and there was a handwritten signed taped to it, reading: Napping. Please don't wake until five.

Jessie looked at her watch. The time was 2:28 a.m.

"I think they've got the right idea," she said to Ryan. "There's not much more we can do until later this morning. How about we try to get a few hours of shut eye too?"

Ryan nodded in agreement. They silently trudged to the station's main conference room, which had several relatively comfy couches and blinds that could be lowered enough to block out most light.

Jessie grabbed a couple of blankets from the closet while Ryan settled in on the larger couch, lying on his side. Rather than take the smaller one, Jessie snuggled in beside him, letting him spoon her as she draped the blankets over both of them .

She could already hear Ryan's breathing get slow and heavy as she set the alarm on her phone for 5 a.m. By the time she put the phone on the floor by the couch, he was snoring softly. She closed her eyes and less than two minutes later she had joined him in slumber.

***

The alarm almost made her topple off the couch.

As Jessie reached down to turn it off, she heard Ryan snort behind her. She sat up and tried to get her bearings. Her head was heavy, and she wasn't sure the two and half hours of rest she got would make much difference. She got up, shook Ryan to make sure he didn't fall back to sleep, then went to the restroom to brush her teeth and throw some water on her face.

As she stared at herself in the mirror, she thought she looked fairly presentable under the circumstances. She was wearing tan slacks that complimented her athletic frame and a long-sleeved black turtleneck that she hoped would protect her from this morning's chill. Her shoulder-length brown hair was tied back in a ponytail and her green eyes looked alert. She wore utilitarian brown loafers that added a half inch to her already formidable five foot ten height.

By the time she and Ryan walked into the Research department with their coffee at 5:10, Jamil and Beth were already hard at work.

"You guys get any sleep?" she asked by way of a greeting.

"I got a little," Beth said, looking up and offering them a wan smile, "but based on the soft typing I heard all night, I don't think he did."

Jamil, who hadn't looked up from his screen when they walked in, shrugged in embarrassment. He didn't try to deny the charge.

"Okay then," Ryan said. "Did that all-night cramming do any good?"

Jamil sighed heavily.

Not as much as I would have liked," he admitted. "Untangling the Baptiste's financials is a real challenge, probably by design. There are a web of shell companies that sometimes lead to other shells and back again. It's probably something better suited for a forensic accountant, which I realize doesn't help us right now, what with a killer on the loose. But so far, nothing I've found supports the idea that Laurent Baptiste hired someone to kill his wife. "

"Did anything suggest another reason she might have been killed?" Jessie wondered. "Any suspicious, regular payments that might indicate blackmail or bribery."

"Nothing jumps out," Jamil conceded, "but I'm only two-thirds through his holdings. I think that I might have more success looking at things through the lens of Chloe's accounts. Maybe they're less labyrinthian. I'll dive into those when I get a chance."

"Well," Beth spoke up, "I've been going through some seemingly less complicated material."

"What's that?" Ryan asked.

"I'm reviewing a list of former staffers for the couple," she explained, "seeing who was let go and if there were any grievances filed. I'm even checking the gossip magazines to see who might have had a beef with Chloe. From what I've uncovered so far, once she married Laurent and became a big deal, she proved to be…an alienating personality."

"That was diplomatic," Jessie noted. "Find any good beefs?"

"Mostly just anonymous quotes describing her outlandish exploits," Beth answered. "But nothing rises to the level that might lead someone to murder."

"Well, keep checking," Ryan instructed. "Sometimes what seems like nothing to us can be the thing that sets an unstable person off."

"What about Lena Ortega, the gallery owner?" Jessie asked. "Did you ever hear back from her?"

"No," Beth said. "I stopped trying to contact her after you said she might have gone to bed because of her migraine. Should I start calling again?"

"No," Jessie said, turning to Ryan. "I think that should be our first stop this morning. Maybe Ortega saw an interaction last night that could prove useful. Or maybe she left the gallery for reasons other than a headache."

"You don't think it's too early?" Ryan asked, looking at the time.

"I guess we could get some breakfast first," Jessie said, "but I don't want to wait too long. With the night I had, I'm worried there might be a migraine in my future."

As soon as she saw the worried expression on Ryan's face, she regretted saying it. It had only been a few months since she'd had brain surgery to deal with the effects of multiple concussions. She'd been doing well ever since, but it was still a source of concern for both of them .

"Sorry," she muttered. "I was just kidding."

He nodded silently, though she could tell he was still a bit spooked. They left the Research department and were heading down the hall when Karen Bray rounded the corner with Detective Susannah Valentine beside her.

"You're here early," Jessie noted.

Karen nodded in exhausted agreement.

"Apparently the son of some big time movie executive died of an overdose last night," she said. "The detectives assigned to the case think it was an accident, but the film exec is insisting it was foul play. Chief Decker asked Captain Parker to have HSS take a second look and since you guys are on this Baptiste thing, we got the call."

Beside Karen, Susannah looked disgusted. The detective, a voluptuous 29-year-old brunette with a sharp mind and a propensity to let her temper get the better of her, wasn't wearing one of her standard body-hugging outfits.

"What are you so upset about?" Ryan asked, deciding not to tease Susannah about her more conservative attire for fear it might not be well-received this morning.

"Let's just say that my night out with Drake lasted well into the morning and I wasn't as well-rested as I might like when I got the call to come in."

Drake was Drake Breem, a 41-year-old police sergeant in Manhattan Beach, a beach community where Jessie and Susannah worked a case over Labor Day weekend four months ago. Breem was assigned to help them. Susannah, who had been burned in the romance department, had taken a liking to the deeply tanned, weathered and wiry surfer cop with shaggy gray hair. But it was only at Jessie's prodding that she'd agreed to meet the guy for a drink. They'd been seeing each other ever since and apparently spending evenings together that bled into the morning.

"You know," Jessie teased, unable to hold back any longer, "when you use phrases like ‘let's just say,' people assume you're going to be cryptic, but then you go and overshare."

"What can I say? I'm happy," Susannah replied unapologetically.

After years of getting leered at by seemingly every male member of the LAPD, Jessie was glad to see the often edgy, combative detective enjoy herself a little with an older guy who didn't seem so caught up in her physical attributes. Instead of giving Susannah more of a hard time, she turned her attention to Karen .

"Everything go okay after we left the restaurant?" she asked.

"Sure, until we got home," Karen said. "Turns out Calvin bit the babysitter when she tried to make him go to sleep. She locked him in the bedroom until we got back."

"Jeez," Ryan muttered under breath.

"I know," Karen said. "It was bad. He broke the skin and really left a mark. Mickey ended up taking her to urgent care to get it looked at, and I spent half the night trying to get Calvin to stop crying."

"Because he felt bad?" Jessie asked.

"No, because he knew he was going to get punished and worried we were going to send him away to live with my sister. He hates her, so we sometimes threaten him with that. I guess he took it more seriously than we expected."

"I'm sorry," Jessie said, even as she felt Ryan tug at her shirt.

"Maybe you can commiserate later?" he suggested. "We've got to talk to a witness."

"Go ahead," Karen said. "And don't worry about me. That's what my therapist is for."

Jessie and Ryan left the other detectives and headed down the hall to the elevator.

"We weren't in that much of a rush," Jessie said while they waited for it to arrive. "Why did you want to get out of there so quick?"

Ryan glanced over his shoulder.

"Too many ears here," he said. "I'll tell you when we're out of here."