He nodded, and kept on nodding as if he had a tic. “I should never have brought her here,” he muttered.

“What happened, Jett?” I asked as gently as I could. It looked pretty obvious even to me, but I wanted to hear it from his own lips.

“I don’t know,” he replied, his voice breaking like a teenager. “We were supposed to be working on a new song tonight, and when I went in, she was lying there.” He cleared his throat and sniffed. “So I came out and locked the door and called you.”

Gee, thanks. “Did you try her pulse?” I asked.

“No need. The spirit had left. I knew that right away.”

Thank you, Dr. Kildare. “Why aren’t the police here yet?” I asked, refraining from pointing out that she just might have been still alive when he made his New Age diagnosis.

“I didn’t call the police. I only called you. I thought you’d know what to do.”

I couldn’t credit what I was hearing. He’d found his ex-lover’s murdered body in his house and he hadn’t called the police? If Jett wanted to throw suspicion on himself, the only way he could have made a better job of it would have been to call his lawyer as well. “You’ll have to call them now, Jett. You should have done that first, before you called me.”

He shook his head obstinately. “No. I want you to handle it. I can trust you.”

“Jett, you can’t hush up a murder. You have to call the police. Look, I’ll make the call if you don’t feel up to it,” I offered desperately. The last thing I needed was for the police to get it into their heads that I was involved in concealing a crime.

He shrugged. “Please yourself. But I want you to handle it.”

“We’ll talk about it in a minute.” I stood up. There was a phone in the room, but I wanted some privacy to gather my thoughts so I headed for Gloria’s office down the hall. Neil was coming down the stairs as I reached the door. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. “Kate!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Jett needed a meeting,” I offered lamely, not feeling up to breaking the news.

“Maybe see you later,” he said, sketching a wave as he walked down the corridor into the far wing. Clearly he saw nothing odd about business meetings in the small hours.

I closed Gloria’s door behind me, picked up the phone and dialed 999. I was quickly connected to the police emergency line. “I’m calling to report a murder,” I said. To my amazement, I could feel a giggle welling up inside me. I must have been more shocked than I’d realized.