Майкл Коннелли - Fair Warning

I have to admit that even though I knew she was dead, I felt envious as I reviewed photos of her recent life and saw how full and active it was. My life was not nearly as exciting in comparison and I fell into morbid thoughts about her upcoming funeral, where invariably her friends and others would say she had lived life to the fullest. The same could not be said about me.

I tried to shake off the feelings of inadequacy, reminding myself that social media was not a reflection of real life. It was life exaggerated. I moved on and the only post I found of real interest was a photo and caption from four months earlier that showed Tina and another woman about the same age or slightly older. They had their arms around each other. The caption Tina had written said: “Finally tracked down my half sis Taylor. She’s a blast and a half!!!!!”

It was hard to tell from the post whether Taylor was a half sister who had fallen out of touch and therefore had to be tracked down, or whether Taylor had been previously unknown to Tina. What was clear was that the two women definitely looked related. Both had the same high forehead and high cheekbones, dark eyes, and dark hair.

I searched to see if there was a Taylor Portrero on Instagram or Facebook but drew a blank. It appeared that if Tina and Taylor were half sisters, they had different last names.

After my survey of social media ended, I went into full reporter mode and used a variety of search engines to look for other references to Christina Portrero. I was soon able to find the side of her not celebrated on social media. She had a DUI arrest on her record as well as an arrest for possession of a controlled substance — that being MDMA, more commonly referred to as Ecstasy or Molly, a party drug with mood-elevating effects. The arrests resulted in two stints in court-ordered rehab and probation, which she completed in order to have the judge expunge her record of convictions. Both arrests had occurred more than five years before.

I was still online, looking for more details about the dead woman, when my phone buzzed and the screen showed a blocked number.

I took the call.

“This is Lisa Hill.”

“Oh, good. Thank you for calling me.”

“You said you wanted to do a story. For who?”

“Well, I work for an online publication called FairWarning. You might not have heard of it but our stories are often picked up by newspapers like the Washington Post and the L.A. Times. We have a first-look agreement with NBC News as well.”

I heard her typing on a keyboard and knew she was going to the site. It made me think she was smart and nobody’s fool. There was silence for a moment as I guessed she was looking at the FairWarning home page.

“And you’re on here?” she finally said.

“Yes,” I said. “You can click on the link where it says our staff in that black header and it will take you to our profiles. I’m the last one. The most recent hire.”

I heard the click while I was giving directions. More silence followed.

“How old are you?” she asked. “You look older than everybody but the owner.”

“You mean the editor,” I said. “Well, I worked with him at the L.A. Times and then joined him here after he set it up.”

“And you’re here in L.A.?”

“Yes, we are based here. Studio City.”

“I don’t get it. Why does a site like this for consumers care about Tina getting murdered?”

That was the question I was ready for.

“Part of my beat is cybersecurity,” I said. “And I have sources in the LAPD and they know I’m interested in cyberstalking because that gets into the area of consumer security. That’s how I heard about Tina. I talked to the detectives on the case — Mattson and Sakai — and they told me that she had complained to friends that she felt some guy she had dated or met was digitally stalking her — that was the phrase the detectives used.”

“They gave you my name?” Hill asked.

“No, they wouldn’t give out a witness’s name. I—”

“I’m not a witness. I didn’t see anything.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. From the investigation standpoint, they consider anybody they talk to in the case a witness. I know you don’t have any immediate knowledge of the case. I saw your name in the Times story and that’s why I reached out.”

I heard more typing before she responded. I wondered if she was checking on me further by typing an email to Myron, who was at the top of the FairWarning staff page and listed as founder and executive director.

“Did you use to work for something called Velvet Coffin ?” she asked.

“Yes, before I came to FairWarning, ” I said. “It was locally based investigative reporting.”

“It says you went to jail for sixty-three days.”

“I was protecting a source. The federal government wanted it, but I wouldn’t give up the name.”

“What happened?”

“After two months the source came forward on her own and I was released because the feds got what they wanted.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was fired for leaking information to me.”

“Oh, man.”

“Yeah. Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“I’m curious. How did the Times find you?”

“I once dated someone who works there in the Sports section. He’s on my Instagram and saw the photo I posted after Tina died, and he told the reporter that he knew somebody who knew the dead girl.”

Sometimes it takes a break like that. I’d had more than a few of those in my career.

“Got it,” I said. “So, can I ask you, then, are you the one who told the detectives about the cyberstalking?”

“They asked me about anything unusual with her lately and I couldn’t really think of anything except some asshole she hooked up with in a bar a few months ago seemed like he knew too much about her, you know? It freaked her out a little bit.”

“Knew too much how?”

“Well, she didn’t really say a lot. She just said she met this guy at a bar and it was supposed to be some rando hookup but that it felt like a setup. Like they were having drinks and he said stuff that made her realize he already knew who she was and things about her and it was really fucking creepy and she just got the hell out of there.”

I was having trouble tracking the steps of the story so I tried to break it down into pieces.

“Okay, so what was the name of the place where they met?” I asked.

“I don’t know but she liked to go to places up in the Valley,” Hill said. “Places on Ventura. She said the men up there weren’t so pushy. And I think it had something to do with her age.”

“How so?”

“She was getting older. The guys in the clubs in Hollywood, West Hollywood, they’re all younger or looking for younger.”

“Right. Did you tell the police about her preferring the Valley?”

“Yeah.”

I had met Tina in a restaurant bar on Ventura. I was beginning to understand Mattson and Sakai’s interest in me.

“She lived near the Sunset Strip, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Hill said. “Just up the hill. Near the old Spago’s.”

“So would she drive over the hill to the Valley?”

“No, never. She got a DUI a while back and she stopped driving when she went out. She used Uber and Lyft.”

I assumed that Mattson and Sakai had gotten Tina’s Uber and Lyft records. They would help identify the bars she frequented and determine her other movements.

“And so, getting back to the stalking thing,” I said. “She just went to the club on her own and met this guy, or was it prearranged like through a dating app or something?”