Page 8 of The Perfect Poise

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.”

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