Bad Kitty

by Michele Jaffe

  While Polly looked through Fiona’s room, occasionally making disapproving noises about her wardrobe, I checked out the fax machine, the notepad by the phone, all the drawers, the phone book, and even flipped through the Bible to see if any clues had been stuck there.

  Nope.

  I dumped out the garbage can. The largest items were three local newspapers from the past week, each open to an article where Fiona was mentioned as having been spotted in different places around Las Vegas. There was also an empty prescription pill bottle in Fiona’s name, two Oreos with the top cookie broken the same way on both, some pinkish white powder, and a chewed piece of gum.

  Polly joined me then. “Fiona Bristol’s shopping habits show signs of deep torment,” she announced, slumping into one of the chairs at the breakfast table. “The poor woman needs help badly.”

  “Just because you don’t like her clothes?”

  “It’s not a taste thing, although she is a bit frumpy. It’s more her approach. Half the clothes are like two years old, while the other half were practically purchased yesterday. They still have the tags on them and everything. If they were different sizes, like she’d gained weight or something, I would understand, but they aren’t. Absent extenuating circumstances, that kind of binge shopping is a warning sign, a cry for help. It makes it impossible to establish a singular style. People think that bad dressing is a sign of inner unrest, but so often it goes the other way. Style dysfunction leads to lifestyle dysfunction.”

  “That is very deep. Tell me, Professor Prentis, did you happen to look in the garbage can in her bathroom?”

  “Yes, Madam Sarcastico, I did. There was nothing in it. It was bare. Empty. Devoid of contents. Why?”

  “I don’t know. I kind of hoped there would have been some pills. Look at this,” I said, using the pen from the hotel stationery set to lift the empty prescription bottle toward her so I wouldn’t mess up any fingerprints on it. “It is made out to Fiona and says to take for sleeping. The recommended dose is only two tablets a day, but it was filled two days ago and it’s empty.”

  “It’s no surprise Fiona was having trouble sleeping,” Polly said, holding open one of the hotel envelopes so I could slip the bottle into it for safekeeping. “If I had to share a room with that fuchsia Zandra Rhodes dress she’s got in the closet, I’d have nightmares too.”

  Before I could say something about how I was sure Polly was right, that it was a dress that was freaking Ms. Bristol out, and not, oh, her murderous husband on the loose, Tom staggered toward us, looking sort of dazed.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I just wanted to come out here to see if I could help. Roxy’s in there looking for, um, evidence.” He lowered his voice. “In Ivan’s underwear drawer. It’s hopeless, Jas.”

  “Is there any sign of a struggle in the Fabinator’s room?” I asked him.

  “No, why?”

  “It looked like there was only one set of footprints doing the searching, so I’m wondering, where was he during all this? He seemed to be protecting Fiona when I saw him, but it would take a strong man to overpower him.”

  Tom nodded. “Maybe he was actually working for Red Early all along. Another conspirator.”

  “Poor Fiona,” Polly said. “Are we the only ones on her side?”

  “It looks that way,” I said.

  “Then we’d better bust a move,” she said. “None of what we’ve found gets us any closer to figuring out where Fred and Fiona are.”

  Roxy came into the dining room then, holding up a sheet of paper. “This might. Look familiar, Jas?”

  It did. It was a note in handwriting I recognized. And not just handwriting. Even the wording was familiar. The note Roxy had found said:

  FIONA,

  I MUST SEE YOU, ALONE. MEET ME SOON—TODAY? TONIGHT? SO I CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. I KNOW MY ARRIVING SO ABRUPTLY LIKE THAT FRIGHTENED YOU AND I APOLOGIZE. I PROMISE TO LEAVE YOU IN PEACE AFTER WE TALK, IF YOU WANT ME TO. CALL ME AT 555-2437. IF NOT FOR MY SAKE, OR YOURS, FOR FRED’S. PLEASE.

  JACK

  “Where did you find it?” I asked Roxy.

  “Ivan had it. But check this out. This is the best part.” She flipped on the black light and parts of the note started to look almost three-dimensional.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It looks to me like someone traced over some of the letters.”

  I am embarrassed to admit it, but my heart started to beat very, very fast. Before I’d even asked, Tom pulled the two notes I’d received earlier out of his pocket and handed them to me. I said, “Thanks,” to him, and to Roxy, “Shine the black light on these too.”

  Different inks show up as different colors under fluorescent light. The ink on the first note I’d gotten, the one from “A Friend,” and the ink on the note to Fiona looked the same. But the ink on the note telling me to go to Madame Tussauds was definitely different. The pen strokes looked different too.

  And that wasn’t all. Under the fluorescent light, another message showed up on the Madame Tussauds note. It was an indentation of a note that had been written on a piece of paper above the one that the letter to me was written on. The writing was unfamiliar, but the message wasn’t. It said:

  MISS CALLIHAN,

  I MUST SEE YOU, ALONE. MEET ME AT GEORGE FORMAN MOHAMMAD ALI AT 5:30 PM TONIGHT SO I CAN EXPLAIN EVERYTHING. I KNOW MY ABRUPT ARRIVAL DEPARTURE FRIGHTENED YOU AND I AND APOLOGIZE FOR MY ABRUPT DEPARTURE. I PROMISE TO LEAVE YOU IN PEACE AFTER IF YOU WANT ME TO. COME, IF NOT FOR MY SAKE, OR YOURS, FOR FRED’S.

  YOURS,

  JACK

  TAC. CANION. 2:15

  It was like someone had written a rough draft of the letter I got, carefully selecting the words and then—

  “They traced the letters from the note to Fiona, to make it look like Jack’s writing,” Tom said. “The first note you got, from ‘A Friend,’ looks like it was real. But the second one you got was a forgery.”

  “What does that part at the bottom mean, ‘Tac. Canion’?” Polly asked.

  “It looks like someone made a note to themselves on the same page they were using to write the draft of the letter,” I said.

  “Canion could be Taqueria Cañonita,” Roxy suggested. “The taco place with the mints where we had dinner after the wax museum.”

  “So whoever was trying to scare me met someone there for a late lunch, and grabbed a mint then.”

  “By ‘whoever’ you mean Jack, right?” Polly said.

  “No. Someone forged the note to make it look like Jack wrote it, but he didn’t. Someone was trying to frame him and scare me at the same time. Last night at the roller rink Jack said he’d sent me a note and I assumed he was talking about both notes. But maybe he just meant the first one. Warning me to stay out of all of this.”

  Roxy said, “Does that mean Jack didn’t lure you to Madame Tussauds?”

  “I think it does.” Jack’s not evil! I wanted to scream. But I had to play it—He’s good! He’s innocent! He’s the man of my dreams!—cool.

  Polly was frowning. “Then whose fingerprints are those on the note and the mint wrapper?”

  “I have no idea. They could be the Fabinator’s since he had the note they were traced from.”

  “He is just holding it for a friend,” Roxy said positively.

  “Of course he is, Rox,” I told her. I could afford to be charitable. “But if someone was trying to convince me that Jack was evil—”

  “Then he could be good,” Polly said.

  “He is good,” I corrected.

  “But he could be in trouble,” Tom said.

  Polly nodded. “We have his digits. Why don’t we give him a call and see?” She dialed and handed me the phone.

  I willingly took it48 and listened through three rings.

  “No one is answering,” I said. “He’s—”

  Roxy interrupted me to say, “Shhh.”

  “What?” The phone bounced into voice mail. I hung up.

/>   “Dial again,” Roxy said.

  “There was no answer.”

  “Just do it.”

  Since Roxy almost never gives orders, I did what she said. The phone started to ring again.

  “Do you hear something?” she said. “It sounds like—”

  Polly’s eyes got huge. “The music to the arcade game Centipede.”

  Roxy said, “I think it’s coming from Ivan’s room.”

  She was right. Jack’s phone was in Ivan’s room. Under the bed.

  Along with Jack’s unconscious body.

  Twenty-six

  I would like to say that I reacted like a pillar of strength and clear-headedness to seeing Jack unconscious, but that would be, well, a total lie.

  Fortunately, due to their older brother’s occasional “bad trips,” Roxy and Tom had experience finding passed-out bodies on the floor and knew exactly what to do.

  Tom and I dragged Jack out from under the Fabinator’s love arena,49 then Tom bent down to inspect him. “His pulse is steady and he’s breathing, but his pupils are dilated. That means someone drugged him. He’ll be fine once he sleeps it off.”

  “So then we don’t need an ambulance,” I said, recradling the phone I hadn’t even realized I had picked up. I looked down and saw my hands were trembling.

  “It’s too bad Alyson isn’t here to stick her finger up his nose,” Roxy said. “That would wake him right up.”

  “Don’t invoke the name of the Evil Henches,” I said. “They’ll hear you.”

  “He looks peaceful,” Polly said.

  “As peaceful as a guy with a cut on his forehead and his hands tied behind his back can look,” I said. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn to the roller rink. I fingered the place on his jacket that was missing the button. There was some purple fuzz like the carpeting from the car that tried to hit me on the front of the jacket, and a little in his hair.

  Hair that, I learned by comparing them, did not match the dark hair we’d found on the driver’s seat of the car. But there was one of those, too, on his shoulder. “I think whoever tried to run me over last night must have conked Jack on the head first and put him in the backseat of the car.”

  “But who was it?” Tom asked as I handed him the envelope with the hairs back.

  I thought about that. “Alyson said it was a man with a beard and at the time I decided to ignore her, but what if she was telling the truth?”

  “You mean like your Caftan Man. I guess we just have to wait until Jack wakes up to figure out what is going on,” Tom said. And then he said, “Jas, why are you undoing his belt?”

  “I’m looking for evidence,” I explained. “There may be something on his person that will tell us who did this and where to find them.”

  “Something in his underwear?” Tom asked.

  “You never know where you will find evidence.”

  “Why don’t we start with untying his hands and looking through his pockets?” Polly said, stopping me before I could undo the top button of his jeans.

  “I can’t take off his pants? He saw my underpants. It seems only fair. And a lot of evidence could be trapped there.”

  “Maybe you could start with his shirt,” Polly said gently.

  “Oh, fine.” I put his belt back on (while surreptitiously using my fine detective skills to ascertain that he was wearing boxers with what looked like Snoopy on them. Snoopy! How could I ever have thought he was a bad guy?).

  Little Life Lesson 47: If everyone just went around in their underwear all the time, there would be less crime because it would be easy to tell who was nice—people wearing Snoopy boxers!—and who wasn’t—people wearing satin jock straps with holster attachments.50 Also, there would be a lot less stealing because people wouldn’t be able to hide things in their, ahem, pockets.

  We rolled Jack onto his side so we could free his hands. “We should cut the cords but keep the knot intact,” I said, “in case we need it later for evidence.”

  “What kind of evidence can you get from a knot?” Roxy asked.

  “Maybe there’s something special about the way it’s tied,” I said. “It looks kind of complicated. I think it might be a sailor’s knot.”

  “How do you know?” Polly asked. “You’ve never been sailing.”

  “No, but I have watched Horatio Hornblower every time it’s on TV,” I told her. “I am a storehouse of nautical facts.”

  Polly muttered something about my only being interested in the parts where Horatio had his shirt off, while I used the scissors from her pocket-size auxiliary sewing kit to cut the knot off. Even with his hands freed, Jack didn’t wake up. It was sort of weird, like having a Jack doll you could do whatever you wanted with.

  Unless of course you were with my friends. In which case the possibilities were severely limited. I will admit, however, that given how things turned out, their caution was all for the best.

  When Jack’s arms were loose it was easier to check the pockets of his jacket. What we found was a little strange. There was an invitation to the party the night before, a Velcro wallet with $31.64 in cash and no ID of any kind, and an unopened bag of Pounce kitty treats.

  “He could have been on a diet,” Polly said. “My father’s third-to-last girlfriend said cat food is the best diet she knows.”

  “You made that up,” I said.

  “I wish. You should have seen what she was like at restaurants.”

  “I don’t think Jack is dieting. If I had to guess, I’d say these were for Mad Joe. Fred’s cat.” I started patting down Jack’s jeans pockets. “I am not being perverted,” I told the room at large. “I am just trying to be thorough.51 Tom, stop looking at me like that.”

  “Touchy touchy,” Tom said.

  Little Life Lesson 48: cf. Little Life Lessons 43–45.

  “Well, isn’t this a cozy scene,” a familiar voice said from the doorway behind us.

  I turned around slowly and saw my good friend L. A. Curtis standing just outside the bathroom, staring at us. He had one hand on his hip.

  And his other hand on his gun.

  Twenty-seven

  “I heard about your call to hotel security,” Mr. Curtis said, bounce-walking toward us. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect to see you inside the Bristols’ room. May I ask, how did you get in?”

  “Door was open,” Roxy said, thinking quick.

  “I see,” Mr. Curtis said, not buying it for a second.

  It was time to change the subject, and fast. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I said, which was true. “I know that you have been protecting Fiona and Fred from Red Early.”

  Mr. Curtis nodded. “I have, but—is that guy on the floor okay? Does he need an ambulance?”

  “No,” I said, trying to look like I had not just been undressing him. “He’s just tired and his clothes were, um, binding. But we have no time to lose.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think Red Early has kidnapped Fred and Fiona and taken them somewhere. We’ve found a lot of evidence,” I said. “Including some blood. I tried to call the police but they laughed at me.”

  He nodded toward Passed Out Jack. “Where does he fit in? You sure he’s okay? I could—”

  “He’s fine,” Tom assured him. “He’ll start snoring in a second.”

  I said, “I’m guessing that Red Early brought him here to show Fiona what he thought of her go-between. And then he left him because he was a liability. He was tied up with this”—I held out the rope—“I think it’s a sailor’s knot.”

  Mr. Curtis fingered it and nodded. “You’re right. And from what my connections on the police force have told me, Red’s always been partial to the water. It was a filleting knife, a fisherman’s tool, he used to kill his victims. This could definitely be his handiwork. Nicely spotted.”

  “Will Red hurt Fred and Fiona? Now that he has them?”

  “It’s hard to know. A man who’s fallen that far, on the run, he’s pretty much capable
of anything.” He looked back at the piece of rope. “Thank you for showing me this. I’ve got to go.”

  “Then you know where he is? Where he’s keeping Fred and Fiona? We’ll come with you.”

  “I have a general idea, thanks to you, but you’ve got to leave this to me and the professionals now. It could be very dangerous.” And he made for the door.

  I ran to intercept him. “What is dangerous is leaving Fred and Fiona in Red’s hands.”

  “You are a persistent little lady, aren’t you?” he said.

  For the sake of efficiency, I decided not to point out that he was slightly shorter than I am. “I’m just worried. Look, the police are going to have to organize a rescue team, right? If you give us directions, where you think they are, we could go there now and just keep an eye on things until the police come. We won’t do anything, just make sure that Fiona and Fred are safe.”

  Mr. Curtis stared at me. “You think I am going to send a group of inexperienced kids to find a murderer? No, Miss Callihan.”

  “Then come with us. Let us drive you wherever it is. Polly is an excellent driver. Even my dad thinks she’s adequate. We won’t get in the way.”

  “No one would suspect us of working with the police if we’re in the Pink Pearl,” Roxy pointed out. “It will be the perfect surveillance vehicle.”

  “And we’re going to follow you when you leave here anyway,” Polly said.

  I wanted to kick her but, incredibly, that seemed to be the argument Mr. Curtis responded to best. He gave her a bemused half- BriteSmile, then looked down at his watch, absently twisting a brown thread caught in the metal band and shaking his head. “I don’t have time to argue with you, or to take any measures to make sure you don’t follow, so I think you’ve got me. I don’t like it”—he shook his head again—“not one bit. I’m going to notify the local cops. I’ll ride with you so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you stay safe. As soon as the police get there, though, you leave. And until then you have to promise to do whatever I say. Got that?”