CHAPTER FIVE

They were halfway through breakfast at Swingers Diner on Beverly Blvd. when Jessie found that she couldn't contain herself any longer.

She'd been turning over what Ryan had said in her head for fifteen minutes now, and she knew that if she didn't get her feelings off her chest, it would mess up their whole dynamic for the day.

"I have to tell you something and you have to promise not to get defensive about it," she said after swallowing a bite of her breakfast egg sandwich.

"This sounds ominous," he replied before taking a chomp out of his pancake.

"Do you remember what you said about Karen's son, Calvin, when we left the station earlier?"

"Uh-huh."

"About how you didn't want to stay and hear about him biting the babysitter because it made you uncomfortable?" she said.

"I remember."

"And you told me that was because, when Karen and I went to the restroom at dinner last night, Mickey told you how Calvin had seen Karen put her weapon in her gun safe and later on got a hammer and tried to smash the safe open so he could get to the gun?"

"Jessie, that conversation was a half hour ago," he replied. "You don't need to recount it for me. I'm the one who told you."

"So you also recall saying that listening to more horror stories about their kid was too depressing at that hour of the morning."

"I do recall that," Ryan assured her before taking another bite of pancake.

Jessie shook her head in disbelief.

"Don't you see the irony in that?"

Ryan, whose mouth was full, shook his head that he did not.

"Okay," she said, aware that she was opening a can of worms. "You haven't brought this up in a while, which I appreciate, but I assume that you still want to have children, right?"

"Very much so," he answered .

The topic was a major bone of contention, one they'd agreed to set aside for the time being. Ryan was enthusiastic about the idea of having kids. Jessie, who had experienced personal trauma as a child as well as a miscarriage caused by her unhinged ex-husband several years ago, was far more circumspect about the prospect. Ryan had, for the time being at least, deferred to her desire to hold off for now, if not forever.

"But Ryan," she said, unable to keep a hint of condescension out of her voice, "you do know that children grow up? They don't stay cute, little babies. They eventually become five-year-olds with issues of their own who send babysitters to urgent care and try to smash a safe so they can get to a gun."

"The thought has occurred to me," he conceded.

"And yet, when a friend and colleague of ours reaches out about the challenges she's facing with her young son, you couldn't get away from the situation fast enough. Can you see how that might give me pause? How I might wonder how you'd respond if our theoretical future child had some kind of emotional problem that was hard to navigate?"

"Here's the thing," he said, clearly not feeling the guilt she hoped he would. "That's Karen's son. I wish her all the best, and I don't want anything bad to happen to him. But Calvin's not my kid. With mine, it wouldn't just be a disturbing anecdote, it would be personal. So of course I'd be invested. Just because I don't want to discuss the minutiae of her childrearing situation doesn't mean I wouldn't be laser-focused on ours. I'm just tired right now and didn't want to be bummed out. Is that such a big deal?"

Jessie slumped back against the cushion of their banquette.

"I'm truly not sure," she said, and she meant it.

"I have a question for you ," he said. "Does your question for me mean that we can now discuss the prospect of having children openly again?"

"No, it most certainly does not."

"When do you anticipate that changing?"

"I'll get back to you on that," she said, unable to hide the irritation in her voice. "Right now, I'm tired and don't want to get bummed out."

"Fair enough," he replied, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender before returning to his pancake.

Jessie tried to push the issue out of her mind. It was important, but right now they had something bigger to deal with. They were in the middle of a murder investigation and as soon as they finished breakfast, they had a witness to interview.

** *

By the time they pulled up at Lena Ortega's West Hollywood house, it was almost 7 a.m. Jessie knew that it was still pretty early to call on someone, but these were unusual circumstances. They walked up the path to the cute, Hansel and Gretel-style cottage house. Ryan waited until his phone officially read 7:00 before ringing the doorbell.

After sixty seconds without a response, he got restless.

"You don't think something happened to her or that she's maybe trying to sneak out the back?" he asked.

"Maybe," Jessie replied, "or she could just be struggling with a migraine and moving slowly at seven in the morning. How about we ring the bell again and give her another minute before breaking the door down?"

Ryan gave her a wry smile.

"So should I just assume you're going to be this snarky all day?"

Before she could tell him that he should, someone called out from behind the door.

"Who is it?" a woman asked in a tired, agitated tone.

"LAPD, Ms. Ortega," Ryan said, holding up his badge and ID so she could see them through the peephole. "We need to speak with you."

There was a long pause during which Jessie thought the woman was going to question their credentials, but just when she thought she'd have to cajole her, Lena Ortega unlocked and opened the door. The woman was in her forties with grayish-black hair that hung limply at her shoulders. She was wearing sweats and had dark circles under her eyes. Jessie recognized Ortega's wince at the sunlight in her eyes. It was the same one she often succumbed to when she was in the throes of her worst headaches.

"Whatever this is, let's do it inside," she said. "I'm not feeling the best right now."

She ushered them in, closed the door behind them, but pointedly didn't invite them beyond the foyer.

"What is this about?" she asked tersely.

"Ms. Ortega, we have some questions about the auction at your gallery last night," Ryan began cryptically.

"Was something stolen?" she demanded before cringing at her own volume .

"No ma'am," he said. "We'll get to the nature of the crime we're investigating momentarily. Right now we're trying to clarify some details. It's our understanding that you left the event early."

"That's right," Ortega said. "I suffer from migraines, and one came on in the middle of the auction. I took my medication and tried to tough it out, but it was too late. I had to leave right away. I barely made it home. In retrospect, I should have just gotten a rideshare instead of driving."

"How are you feeling now?' Jessie asked.

"I've been up most of the night dealing with it, though it's subsided slightly in the last hour. Now, can you please tell me what this is about?"

"I will in just a moment," Ryan promised. "But first, do you recall when you left the gallery?"

They already knew the time because of the surveillance footage, but Jessie understood what Ryan was doing. He wanted to see if Ortega would be forthright. She shook her head.

"The event started at 7:30 and think I lasted about halfway through, but I couldn't tell you for sure."

That jibed with the video, which showed her pulling out of the parking lot at 8:21.

"Ms. Ortega, would you like to have a seat for the rest of our conversation?" Ryan asked.

"No, thank you," she said. "As soon as we're done here, I plan to go straight back to bed so anything that prolongs your stay is something I'd like to avoid. Sorry to be so blunt."

"All right then," Ryan said. "We're here investigating the murder of Chloe Baptiste. She was killed in the parking lot of your gallery last night."

Lena Ortega's eyes widened, showing just how red they were from her long night. She stumbled slightly and looked like she was about to lose her balance. Jessie reached out and grabbed her forearm.

"Steady," she said quietly.

The woman gulped hard as she looked straight at Jessie.

"Are you sure?" she asked, as so many folks did when confronted with news like this. Part of Jessie continued to be surprised that people would question such a thing. But she understood that it was their way of processing the impossible and, in some cases, hoping to will away the truth.

"We are," she assured her sadly. "She was positively identified. "

"Jesus," she whispered. "How did she die?"

"She was stabbed multiple times," Ryan answered.

"Oh god," Ortega said, "Laurent is going to be destroyed."

"We've spoken to him," Jessie told her. "He's on his way back from Paris now. In the meantime, as difficult as it may be, we need your assistance."

"How can I help?" she asked weakly.

"We understand that you and Chloe were friends," Jessie said. "The more we know about who she was and the nature of her relationships, the better chance we have of catching her killer."

Ortega swallowed hard before responding.

"Okay. What do you want to know?"

Jessie found it incredibly uncomfortable to have to ask these questions standing in the foyer of the house, as the woman they were speaking to looked on the verge of collapse. But Ortega had agreed to answer those questions, a decision she might reverse if she had second thoughts when they switched rooms. So she pressed ahead.

"Let's start with what Chloe was like," she said. "We heard that she could be difficult sometimes."

Ortega took a few steps back so that she could lean against the far wall. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger as if trying to squeeze the migraine out of her head manually, sighed deeply, then finally answered.

"First off, you should know that Chloe was a great friend, super loyal. She was a huge supporter of my gallery before she ever met Laurent and became a semi-celebrity. And that didn't change afterward. She didn't need to help out some tiny gallery in Larchmont Village, but she did. In fact, she was supposed to join Laurent for that film festival in Paris but delayed going so she could be here for me and my artists. She wanted to bid up several of the pieces to help us out."

"That does sound very loyal," Jessie agreed. "So why the bad reputation?"

"Well," Ortega said with a shrug, "she could be tough sometimes. She didn't suffer fools, and she viewed a lot of people as fools. Plus, she was known to play hardball when it came to artists and works."

"What does that mean?" Ryan asked.

"Okay, well sometimes she would wine and dine artists she liked in order to get discounts on pieces."

"Is that against some rule?" Ryan pressed .

"No, but occasionally what she did before auctions might cross a line," Ortega said. "For example, she might badmouth her competition, spreading rumors about them so that the artist would be disinclined to show their work at a gallery that was friendly to the competition. Anything to undermine another potential bidder was fair game. She'd do whatever was necessary to get an advantage."

"How far would she go?" Jessie asked.

Again, Ortega sighed. When she replied, it was reluctantly.

"She wasn't above blackballing artists or galleries who didn't give her preferential treatment. Some artists and owners resented her. Others loved her, but they were all scared of her."

"Including you?" Jessie wondered.

"It never came to that," Ortega said. "Like I told you, she was a big supporter, and we were always on good terms. But yeah, in the back of my mind was always the concern that if I did something to upset or disappoint her, she could crush me."

"Did she ever crush anyone so badly that they might have wanted payback?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Ortega said. "Yes, she could make people's lives uncomfortable, but I never encountered anyone who said their career was ruined by her. Being on Chloe's bad side was a hindrance, but not a death knell."

"Before you left last night," Ryan pressed, "did you notice if she upset anyone during the auction?"

"I guess," Ortega said. "She beat out Garrett Leach for a piece. They both bid pretty high, but he eventually had to beg off when the price went past seven hundred thousand. He didn't seem happy. Then again, Garret never seems particularly happy."

Suddenly Lena's Ortega's eyes widened. It was clear that she had an idea.

"What?" Jessie asked.

"This is crazy to say," Ortega told her, shaking her head. "So much so that I hesitate to mention it, but it occurs to me that Garrett might be pretty adept with a knife."

"Why do you say that?" Jessie asked.

"He's a plastic surgeon."