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“He’s dead,” deadpanned the wiry-haired medical examiner, and got up with a slight creaking sound of the knees. “Wounds consistent with a drop from that window up there,” he said, pointing to a window on the third floor. “Death would have been instantaneous.”

“So what do you think happened? Was he pushed? Did he jump?”

“No defensive wounds as far as I can tell. He just fell on his head and died.” He shrugged. “Nothing more to tell, really, unless you want me to get technical.”

“Time of death?”

“Between two and five last night.”

“I wonder if there’s a camera,” said Chase as he glanced around.

“There’s a camera covering the parking area,” said Gran. “But that’s on the other side of the building. I doubt there’s any cameras out here.”

“No, I don’t see any either,” said Chase. “I’ll talk to security to make sure.”

And since there was nothing more for us to do out there, we moved indoors. The actual scene of the crime—if a crime had been committed, that is—was Michael Madison’s office. So the small gang gathered once more there. The window was still open, but there were no signs of a struggle as far as I could tell. Crime scene people were checking the office, and one of them beckoned Chase over and showed him something on a laptop.

Chase’s face hardened. “Suicide note,” he told us, and read from the screen, “‘I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. Goodbye, cruel world, goodbye.’ Looks like we’ve got a suicide on our hands, people.”

“He was under a lot of pressure,” Gran confirmed. “Trouble with his wife, with his mistress, personnel problems, numerous scandals.” She shook her head. “It must have all gotten too much for the poor guy, so he saw no other solution.”

“It’s a great drop,” said Harriet, who’d jumped up on that window.

“Can you please get down from there?” said Odelia, when she saw several of Abe’s CSI people freaking out at the sight of a cat jumping all over their crime scene.

“Too bad Michael Madison wasn’t a cat,” said Harriet as she jumped down again and joined us. “He would have landed on his feet and been just fine.”

“I guess that could be said about all humans,” said Brutus, the philosopher.

“When was the note written?” asked Odelia.

Chase checked the laptop.“Three o’clock.”

“Consistent with Abe’s time frame.”

Chase nodded.“Looks like a cut-and-dried case of suicide.”

An officer escorted a man into the office who was dressed in a uniform. I’d seen him hanging around the lobby the day before, keeping an eye on things.

“Detective,” said the security guard, touching his cap.

“Are there any cameras covering this side of the building?” asked Chase, not wasting any time.

“There’s a camera covering the fence, but it doesn’t cover the back of the building,” said the man.

Chase nodded.“Any cameras inside the office?”

“I’m afraid not. There’s a camera in the lobby, but not in the actual offices.”

The detective’s eye fell on the door, which had one of those electronic locks that can only be opened with a badge. “Could you pull up the badge activity from last night? See if there was anyone else in the building apart from Madison?”

“I already checked, sir,” said the security guard, “and the only badge that was used last night was Mike Madison’s. He arrived early yesterday morning and never left.”

“Who was the last person to leave, apart from Madison?”

“That would be Janice Wiskari, sir. She’s the cleaner in charge of this floor. She left at eleven last night.”

“And no one else entered?”

“No one, sir.”

“So Madison was all alone in here from eleven o’clock onward, until three o’clock, when he wrote that message,” Chase murmured as he fingered his chin.

“When can we allow people in, sir?” asked the security man. “It’s just that they’re all starting to arrive, and they’re getting antsy.”

Chase nodded, and walked out to confer with the security guy.

And since there was nothing further for us to do, Dooley and I wandered off, and soon found ourselves outside again, taking a closer look at that crime scene.

“Humans are fragile, aren’t they, Max?” Dooley remarked. “I mean, it’s not that high, and still Mr. Madison ended up dead? It’s hard to imagine.”

“Humans are fragile,” I confirmed. “Though some have been known to survive a fall from an even greater height.”

“It’s true,” he said. “I once saw a documentary about a woman who fell from a plane and survived. Planes fly very high in the sky, and she fell all the way down and lived. The plane did fly over a jungle, so the jungle must have broken her fall.”

“Yeah, Madison had no jungle,” I said, glancing at the mass of people smoking and talking and generally looking shocked—but also strangely pleased. As if this tragedy had supplied a modicum of excitement to an otherwise dull day.

Just then, I thought I saw movement in a nearby bush, and moved a little closer. And it was as I approached said bush that I saw what had caused the movement: it was a small, brown creature, with a pointy head and a round nose.

“Will you look at that,” said Dooley. “It’s a badger, Max.”

“A badger?” I said. “What is it doing here?”