All Jem did, though, was pull open a door with a plaque marked MS.WINFIELD and wave Tean through.
Soft music—a harp, possibly Celtic—met them as they entered.Fairy lights were strung overhead, and they left much of the room in shadow.Sofas were pushed up against two of the walls to complement the tablet-arm chairs, and to judge by the faint mustiness, the additional furniture had come from a secondhand store.Or from somebody who had owned cats.Double doors at the back of the room connected, Tean guessed, either to a storage closet or perhaps to the theater itself.And at a desk in the corner, a woman raised her head.
She was large, dressed in a jumpsuit with a busy print, and she had a giant bow in her hair that made Tean think of newborns getting their first photo shoot.In the dim light, she could have been anywhere between forty and sixty.“Hi,” she said.“Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Jem said.“Ms.Winfield?”
“That’s me.”
“Jem Berger.This is Teancum Leon.Do you have a minute?”
She glanced at the clock on the wall.“I have…thirteen minutes, I believe.Is this for ITS?”
“No.”Jem pulled out his phone as he crossed the room.“This is going to sound strange, but we’re investigators looking into someone we believe you know—”
“Kai Butler,” she said.“You’re talking about Kai.”
“How did you know that?”Tean asked.
“Because I just talked to someone about him,” she said with a smile.“I don’t get reporters and police detectives coming around to interview me all the time.”
“Just to be clear,” Jem said, “we’re not police.We’re private investigators.”
“Oh.Okay.”
“Have the police talked to you?”Tean asked.
“Well, no.I thought you were—” She frowned.“You probably can’t tell me who you’re working for, can you?”
Jem shook his head.
“Who was the reporter who talked to you?”Tean asked.
“River,” Ms.Winfield said.“River Jordan.Why?What’s going on?”
Jem shook his head.
“You haven’t heard?”Tean said.
“Heard what?”
“She was killed,” Tean said.“A little less than two months ago.”
“But—” She closed her mouth.Finally, she said, “She was killed?”
“Yes,” Jem said.
“Oh my gosh.”Tears rushed into Ms.Winfield’s eyes.She fanned herself with one hand.“She was such a sweet woman.”
“Did you know her well?”Tean asked.
“No, I’d never—” She stopped again, found a packet of tissues in her purse, and dried her eyes.In a firmer voice, she continued, “No, I’d never met her before.I wasn’t familiar with her website or her podcast or any of it.But she was so pleasant.What happened?”
“The police are still looking into it,” Jem said.“We think it might be connected to the investigation she was conducting.”
She moved the tissue more slowly against her eyes, careful of her makeup now, studying them.“What does that mean?”She gave a wet laugh.“Did Kai kill her?”
“Yes,” Tean said.
