He looked disturbingly alive even now. His face was flushed and swollen beneath the thick white whisker-frosting, a look in keeping with the popular representation of Santa Claus, but hideously altered from the pale, blandly patrician features of Brent Colby, Jr.
Kendall sat alone on a folding chair, her body angled away from the gruesome scene by the chimney.
Savannah Ashleigh and cats, as well as Maurice and handler, had vanished along with the party-goers.
Temple had not been allowed to leave, not since The Client had pointed out her experience in what they called "the murder line."
Midnight Louie remained by default, and because his paw prints were probably all over the crime scene. Temple wondered what Lieutenant C. R. Molina would say about that, happy that she and Louie had no history as suspicious characters in Manhattan. Yet.
Janos and Renaldi had shown their executive mettle, though, from the tense moments of rescue to the realization that came when they laid the body on the floor and stared down at the scarlet face of their dead partner in its gruesomely jolly guise.
"Was it a freak accident?" Renaldi asked again.
"Coulda been." Janos's cigarette, lit minutes before and forgotten, did a slow burn between his first two fingers, building a precarious smokestack of ash.
"The chain?" Janos again.
"Maybe Brent wanted an extra prop, wanted to make a jingling sound as he exited the chimney, I dunno. Coulda been a last-minute inspiration he concealed up there before the party got started."
The partners' wives and adult children occupied the first two rows of circled chairs, as ordered, their grim faces oddly contrasting with the rich colors of their expensive holiday best. Temple suspected that their role in the death investigation would be what it was in real life and the company brochure: photogenic but anonymous moral support.
Colby had been a single parent with one child, Kendall, the only member of her immediate family present. She sat alone, facing the back of the long room, sobbing quietly. Temple wondered why no one comforted her.
"Where are the goddamn police?" Janos's usual staccato style was seasoned with unusual profanity.
Despite his quick, cool action during the attempted rescue, he was clearly the over excitable partner.
Renaldi shook his head. "I called only a couple minutes ago, Vic; it only seems longer. This is a weekend before a major holiday. We can't expect instant response."
"We are an important firm," Janos said, temper flaring. His tone implied that he cared less about the firm's high standing than its usefulness in getting speedy official response. "God. Poor Colby."
Among the accidental audience on the folding chairs, a woman smothered a sudden sob.
"Can't we . . . cover the body?" Renaldi asked Temple again.
She was used to being consulted about public relation policies, not police matters.
"Ah, I don't think so. Anything that disturbs the victim or the area hampers the crime-scene technicians. Remember, that was an issue at the Nicole Brown Simpson crime scene. Taking him down was a major disruption, but we had to try to revive him."
"Even in 'Nam we could cover the . . . bodies," Janos muttered.
Temple could guess what adjective he had edited out at the last minute, an adman to his bones now, but still a grunt in his soul.
"Nobody there cared about how or when; they knew," Janos went on. "I thought it was cruel then, but this is crueler."
Janos and Renaldi exchanged a mute glance of shared memory. A look that was also wary, Temple noticed. Cautionary. Like a Santa Claus putting a finger to his lips. Was she watching men who had fought in war together reverting to battlefield discipline? Or murderous partners putting on a good show for the survivors?
Louie lingered by the chimney. When she went to collect him, he was batting something around in an utterly catlike way. She bent to find a small dark screw, wood fibers clinging to its curves.
"Leave that for the cops," she said as she hefted him into her arms.
The Client had taken the four front-row seats nearest the exit and farthest from the scene of the crime.
"Miss Barr," one of the women called softly.
Temple tiptoed across the carpet, not wanting to disturb those sober, drooping faces of family watchers in the front row. An instant had transformed the festive conference room into a bizarre funeral parlor: the corpse on display without the concealing grace of a coffin, the mourners dressed more for Mardi Gras than the Service for the Dead.
Temple slipped into a vacant seat alongside The Client, beside the woman with a graying bob whose name tag read murielle koslow, promotions.
"Did your cat really sense something was wrong?" Murielle asked, patting his sagacious head.
"Possibly, Louie has a talent for that." Temple looked down to find a flake of white defacing her velvet skirt. Probably litter from Louie's paws. She picked it off. Then, not wanting to, uh, litter the floor, put it in her skirt pocket. If you wear black so black cat hairs won't show, trust the contrary species to leave a pale dandruff of litter well. "Or," Temple continued in light of Louie's latest cat trick, "this big lug may have just been acting like a cat, climbing for the challenge of it or to serenade the lady kitties from the nearest thing to a rooftop. Why?"
Murielle sighed, a gesture that lifted each Client's chest in turn. "I wondered if we had paid attention ... if that might have made a difference. Someone getting to him sooner."
Temple knew what bothered her, and almost everyone in the room who had taken time to think about it. A man had not only died before them, but had probably taken a while to do it, the entire struggle hidden by a painted chimney and abetted by a complacent audience anticipating the next "special effect."
"The fall and the tightening noose could have snapped his neck," Temple said. "Death might have been instant."
"Oh. I suppose that would have been better."
Down the line, the senior Client leaned his torso into Temple's view. "How will the police deal with so many witnesses? Can they do it without keeping us all here until tomorrow?"
"Maybe they can't." Temple watched four strained faces tighten. "Usually, in a crowd scene like this, they question everyone and let the least likely suspects go. That's why I suggested the others go to the other conference room. It'll speed things up."
"You mean we're suspects?"
Janette, the older woman next to Gerald, spoke with appalled realization.
Temple shrugged. "We're the current account on the docket. A death like this could be a freak accident, or murder with a motive ranging from soup to nuts."
"And we're the nuts?" The Client number three was named Arden Hoyt. She had a round figure with curly hair to match and looked like she'd be a lot of fun under better circumstances.
"More likely the appetizer," Temple reassured her, and them all. "We're out-of-towners. What are the chances of one of us blowing into Manhattan and deciding to commit Murder One?"
"You mean--" The Client, senior, leaned forward in his seat again, to speak in a stage whisper. "You mean that if the death wasn't accidental, the murderer has to be either family, or a business associate?"
Temple glanced around to ensure that no one else could hear her. "And this being a family business--"
"It could be both," The Client number four, Janette, added with a sober nod.
Temple shrugged again. The less she committed herself, the more her stock rose in their eyes. She began to understand why the police were so tight-lipped on a sensational case. Better to say nothing at all than to stick your neck out and be wrong.
Temple rose and went to Kendall. Louie was there too, nosing her slack, curled hand that hung near the floor. Kendall's other arm curved along the chair's metal back, that hand fisted as well, and her face rested on the wrist's wet surface.