Page 5 of The Perfect Poise

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.”

CHAPTER THREE

Jessie was glad they waited.

Before calling Laurent Baptiste, she suggested they check in with their research team to get some more background information on the man. Better to know who they were dealing with before dealing with him. As they made the short trip to the Baptiste’s home address, Jamil and Beth filled them in.

“We’ve been doing a crash course on the couple since you gave us their names,” Jamil said over speaker. “Laurent Baptiste runs Groupe Passage, a French film conglomerate. It operates as both a mini-studio and an international distributor of both high-end awards fare and action blockbuster type stuff. The company also recently got into the streaming world. Their platform includes their entire back catalogue of films, as well as original TV programming. They also just got into sports, including some race car series, a bit of soccer, and tennis. All told, the company is valued at over $6 billion, and his personal wealth is estimated to be between $100-150 million. Articles describe him as being a UHNWI.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Jessie asked.

“It means ‘ultra-high-net-worth individual,’” Jamil explained. “It’s a term that has come into vogue of late. It’s a way of referring to the super-rich. The people who make these designations informally use a net worth of thirty million dollars as the cutoff to be considered a UHNWI.”

“Okay,” Jessie said, amazed. She was familiar with dealing with the rich. Many of their cases involved wealthy celebrities or business people. But this was a whole different level.

“It sounds like the Baptistes embraced that lifestyle too,” Beth added. “Looking at their holdings, they have multiple homes all over the world, a couple of jets, and at least one yacht. He’s currently at a film festival in Paris.”

“Are they both ultra-high-net people or is it just him?” Ryan wanted to know.

“It looks like he brought the bulk of the wealth to the marriage,” Beth said. “When they got married four years ago, Laurent was recently divorced. Chloe was an up-and-coming art buyer. In fact, that’s how they met. He hired her to represent him at a big auction in Milan. Since they hooked up, she can be seen on the pages of glamour magazines everywhere.”

“Any children?” Jessie asked.

“No,” Beth answered. “Laurent is more than double her age. He’s 66 and she was 32. He has three kids from his first marriage and two from his second.”

“Maybe he was all tapped out,” Ryan suggested jokingly as they pulled up in front of the Baptiste’s mansion. The squad car sent to accompany them parked right behind them.

“Very funny,” Jessie muttered. “You know that you’re about to call this guy and that he’s now a widower, right?”

“Just some gallows humor,” he replied, undaunted. “Now that we’re here, I guess I can’t stall any longer.”

“Just a heads up,” Jamil added. “I just spoke to the security company for the house. They’re ready to send a representative to give you access as soon as Baptiste authorizes it. If he balks, we’re ready to put the paperwork in requesting a search warrant.”

“Hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Jessie said.

“One last thing before you go,” Beth told them. “I’ve been trying to get in contact with the gallery owner, Lena Ortega, but all her calls go straight to voicemail.”

“According to the gallery manager, Ortega was suffering from a migraine,” Jessie recalled. “She may have shut everything off for the night. If we don’t hear back from her tonight, we’ll pay her a visit first thing in the morning. Thanks guys.”

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