"Dad-dy," she screams.
Now I am a daddy myself (though not intentionally, but that is never taken into account). It does give me a chill to hear that note of panic and disbelief in Miss Kendall's wail.
Miss Temple, upon hearing it, rushes over. Now we are in good hands.
She does not have to bend far to peer up the chimney.
"Lights," she orders. "Bring the camcorder. It has a light that will fit up this chute. We need some slight men who aren't afraid of heights or close quarters, fast! From what I can see, it might not be too late to get him down."
Janos Senior is the first to respond. He and the cameraman son arrive at the same time. Andrew Janos, who has been tirelessly shooting the party as he has tirelessly shot banal events all day, points the lens up the flue.
"Colby?" Janos senior calls up the dark tunnel.
I look down, my eyes slitting to the width of a straight pin at the direct light. That way I can see perfectly, and it is as I expected. Just below me, Santa twists slightly in the chimney, creating an eerie scraping sound. His booted feet hang loose of the wooden ladder nailed to one side of the chimney. A golden snake shines in the fractured light from below, circling the uppermost rung of the ladder. It extends down to lose itself in Santa's curled white beard, beneath which it has no doubt tightened on his neck.
A chain of gold. My own fur brushed against it on exiting the chimney the second time tonight, when my ladder was not wooden rungs, but a red velveteen suit.
I watch Janos senior's harried face block the light as he scrambles up the ladder. "Oh, my God."
He must shimmy past the dangling Santa suit, and it was not an easy task for me. But he is a wiry little guy. Somehow he manages it and wriggles out onto the narrow roof ledge near me. I do not expect him to balance on the two-by-four chimney rim like the foot sure dude I am.
"Tony!" Victor Janos yells to Renaldi senior in a voice that would start a parade. "Get in the chimney and lift up his feet. He's . . . caught on something. I'll try to release him here."
The watching crowd whispers and rustles. Some hang-up, they think. Some glitch. A few men head for the bar and mothers bend to rub paper napkins over sticky chins.
Miss Temple does nothing of the sort. She keeps her place at the crowd's forefront, needing to be there just to see, and keeps a steady eye on the action. Tall, uneasy Kendall follows her, glancing at my little doll nervously.
The men are grim, shouting and grunting only at each other. Brent Colby, Jr., was no lightweight. Or do I give something away? Surely no one of any brains who has been modestly attentive, like my little doll, can have failed to realize that what we have here is no overweight Santa wedged in his escape route, but a dead man hanging in a chimney by a golden chain.
I give that Janos senior credit. You can tell he has been in a war zone. That plucky fellow manages to pull up Santa by his suit shoulders enough to loosen the chain. It thuds against wood.
"Tony!" Janos senior shouts sharply.
And below Tony grunts, but catches the freed weight. The chimney is narrow enough that it will brace the corpse if Tony can keep it from crashing to the floor, which he does. Beside me, Janos senior lets himself over the chimney side, hanging by his hands, and jumps lightly to the carpet below.
I do not follow his derring-do example. Not that I could not, you understand, but I wish to examine the inside of the chimney now that the unfortunate victim is not obscuring the murder weapon. The police will not like having Janos senior's fingerprints on it, but did they expect me to make like a Russian sailor and yo-ho heave-ho to the "Volga Boat Song"? Manual labor is not something I am made for.
"Did he pass out?"
I watch Miss Kendall hurry to the supine Santa the two partners pull from the blackened hearth. Even I wince before I turn and jump down onto the first telltale rung. The police will not like my pad prints on the wood, nor my claw marks, but tough tooters.
The chain hangs in a long straight golden tail, like a plumb line.
When last I saw it and the last that Brent Colby, Jr., saw it, the chain was arranged in an open coil like a basketball hoop from the second-to-top rung. I think back to my alley-running days to figure how it happened. Probably much as my pal Mumblety-peg met his end on a loop of jump rope left hanging from a jungle gym. As this dude Colby climbed, the victim tripped some mechanism that released the gold chain to fall on his shoulders. Startled by the unexpected weight, he backed down, too late. The chain tightened and choked, and his hasty retreat only caused his feet to miss the narrow rungs. He swung free, to his death.
Below me I hear the piercing cries of Miss Kendall, who now knows the obvious and the worst.
But I am not quite ready to desert my observation post. Yes, something is still here, and even stronger now, although it is disembodied: the faint whiff of a relative of my favorite stimulant, catnip.
Some call it cannabis, but I have more often heard people call it marijuana.
Is it possible that Mr. Brent Colby, Jr., was dying for a smoke?
Chapter 18
"... Hung by the Chimney with Care"
Temple was amazed by how fast the festive conference room had cleared of all but essential personnel.
Gone were the children in their gay attire. Gone were the mothers with their hankies and Handiwipes in hand. Gone were most of the Colby, Janos and Renaldi copywriters and junior account executives.
They would all have been banished to the other conference room, but Temple had reported seeing Santa waiting to make his entrance in there. The police might want to examine the room without it having been trampled by dislocated Christmas party emigres.
"What won't the police want to examine?" Victor Janos burst out, running arthritis -swollen fingers through his hair. He winced at the gesture, and pulled his hands away. "I must have strained my hands." His face was almost as flushed as the corpse's.
Tony Renaldi no longer looked lithe and dapper. He even stooped a little to show his fifty-some years. But he laid a hand on the smaller mans shoulder.
"You did good," he said, lapsing into the talk of the barracks, the polished overlay of the boardroom lost for the moment. "You got in there quick and we got him out as fast as we could. It was just too late, Victor. You know what that's like."
Victor shook his head. With his suit jacket gone, and his white shirtsleeves rolled up, he looked younger despite the strain on his face.
"And you, young lady." Renaldi summoned a shred of charm. "You thought pretty fast. You and your . . . terrifying cat."
Renaldi had been the first to pull himself together and summon the police. "I'll call the precinct," he had said, rushing out. "Too bad it's a weekend," he had added.
Now Temple wondered what a holiday death by misadventure meant in New York. Fewer police on duty, slower response? Las Vegas was the opposite case. She glanced again at the supine Santa. He resembled a department-store mannequin abandoned on the chic gray industrial carpeting.
She understood what Tony Renaldi was saying. Louie had tried to draw their attention to the chimney. When he had perched up there the second time, he seemed to be saying: why didn't you listen when I tried to tell you something was wrong?
It was too close to the parody of the Lassie films: "I think she's trying to tell us something." Animals often are trying to tell us something: that they're lost or homeless, or hungry or want affection. Why couldn't they try to tell you something more subtle as well?
Brent Colby would never know that a cat had played a key role in the discovery of his death.