Bad Kitty

by Michele Jaffe

  “Enough,” the Fabinator objected.

  Fiona said, “I want to hear what she has to say, Ivan,” and took a step toward me.

  “Jas, what are you doing?” Polly whisper-hissed.

  “Benefiting from my knowledge of trash TV,” I whisper-hissed back.

  Alyson chimed in with her moral support, saying, “This is the lamest-slash-stupidest thing you have ever done.”

  But the jeers from my team felt to my ears like soothing dewdrops, because both Red and Fiona had come to stand in the Bambi Circle with me! It was like they wanted to work everything out and actually thought I could help. Those televangelists were really on to something.

  I said, “Fiona, you’ve spent the past year thinking that your husband is a murderer. You’re wrong.”

  Fiona looked at the ground and shook her head.

  “Damn you, Fi, you know—” Red started to say, but I stopped him.

  “No no no,” I said. “Not in the Bambi Circle. Red, I want you to be honest. You’ve spent the past year hiding the fact that Fiona is a murderer, haven’t you?”

  There were appreciative gasps and a “no-slash-way” from behind me.

  Red stared at me. Then, like it cost him a huge effort to move his lips, he said, “Yes.”

  “You came home the day of the murder and saw Fiona standing over Len Phillips’s body with the knife. You took it from her, sent her away—”

  “I sent her to bed.”

  “Then you started to clean up. And that was what Fred saw. You were standing over the body with the weapon, but because you were cleaning up. You were trying to protect Fiona. That’s why you would never talk about discovering the body. And why you fled. You were afraid if you answered questions, you would say something wrong and implicate Fiona. And you loved her too much to do that.”

  “That’s insane,” Fiona said.

  “My God, can’t you drop the act now?” Red asked her, angry. “Can’t we just admit what happened? Do you have to add killing all these kids to your list of—”

  “Actually,” I interrupted, “you were wrong too, Red. Fiona didn’t kill Len Phillips.” Before he could object, I said, “And I don’t think she came out here on this boat to kill you or us. I’m pretty sure she has no idea of what is really going on. Do you?”

  Fiona said, “What are you talking about, Miss Callihan?”

  “Neither of you murdered Len. But through a combination of bad advising and bad judgment, you’ve both been encouraged to conclude the other person did it.”

  “This isn’t a funny joke,” Red said. “Not at all.”

  “I’m not joking. I have two pieces of proof.”

  Red looked past me now at Fiona, really meeting her eyes for the first time. “What are they?” he said.

  “The Finger and the Window. The finger is Len Phillips’s severed thumb. Murderers cut off fingers for two reasons: to take as souvenirs, and to menace victims into doing something. I believe Len’s finger was cut off to get him to open the bedroom safe. The murderer was making good on a threat. Neither you, Red, nor you, Fiona, would have had to do that, because you both knew the combination to the safe. So I’m going to postulate it wasn’t one of you.”

  “But it still—” Fiona started to say.

  “Please hold all objections until the end.”

  She stopped. People were listening to me! This was so cool! I loved the Bambi Circle.

  “Next, the window. The window in the bedroom was always kept closed by everyone in the household, right? Because otherwise Mad Joe ran out?” I looked at Red and Fiona and they both nodded. “But someone opened it that day and Mad Joe did run out, and his leg got hurt. So the window being open is suspicious on its own, but what makes it evidence is that there was a footprint outside it. A distinctive footprint, one that did not match either of you two, but showed a clear and unusual wear pattern. Which suggests someone else was in that room. Someone who entered with Len Phillips, killed him, and left through the window, leaving it open and allowing Mad Joe to run out. Someone who, disguised with a beard, tried to run me over the other night. And someone who, unlike either of you, had a motive.”

  “Who?” Red demanded.

  I turned around fast and pointed toward the Fabinator. “Him.”

  “Ivan?” Roxy said. “That too?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her take something out of her bra, drop it on the ground, and stomp on it.

  Please let me have guessed right please let this have worked please let Mr. Curtis have done what I thought he did please please please—

  A shadow moved from behind the Fabinator, and the murderer stood there. “Bravo, Miss Callihan,” L. A. Curtis said,64 showing no sign of a hurt ankle and coming into the light with his usual bouncy step—the one that wore the front of his shoes more than the back, leading Weekly World News to conclude the print outside the window had been made by an alien. “That is quite a story. I enjoyed it.”

  “You think Mr. Curtis killed Len?” Fiona asked. “That’s impossible. He only got involved because of me.”

  “No,” I told her. “That is what he wanted you to think. He pretended he was just trying to help you. The same way he pretended he was trying to help us today, just to get us here so he could keep us locked up. I bet Mr. Curtis got in touch with you and offered you the suite at the Venetian.”

  “He did,” Fiona said. “But only to make it easier for me to get my life back. He told me that if I came out of hiding, I’d be safe there. That we could trap Red, and then, finally, Fred and I would be able to move on. And last night he told me that everything was all set and if Fred and I would just move to his house on the lake, he would capture Red in our room at the hotel. He’s been a good friend to me.”

  “He wanted you to believe that. But once you had Jack set up the meeting, he didn’t need you anymore. In fact, you became a liability. That’s why he moved you, and that’s why he drugged Fred and Mad Joe with sleeping pills.”

  “What?” Fiona was aghast. “Fred isn’t drugged, he’s just tired. This whole thing has been such an ordeal for him, and he has a bit of a cold. I would never let anyone do that to my child.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. But you’d let Fred eat Oreos and he’d share them with Mad Joe. So after you left your room at the hotel, Mr. Curtis crushed up your sleeping pills and sprinkled the powder over the Oreo filling.65 It was insurance for him. He knew you would never go anywhere without Fred, and if he were asleep, it would be impossible for you to carry him.”

  “He did give Fred Oreos, but—but that’s impossible,” Fiona said. “It’s utterly—”

  “I found a fingerprint I’m sure is his on an empty bottle of your sleeping pills. I bet he offered you some reason why it would be better to talk to Red in the middle of the lake than on land. Why you should put off calling the police.”

  “He said this way I could finally get Red to tell me the truth, without worrying about being interrupted by anyone. That afterward, if I wanted to, I could let Red escape again without the police ever knowing.” She looked at Red. “I never wanted to believe you were guilty.” Then she moved her eyes to glare at L. A. Curtis, and for such a beautiful woman, she looked really scary. “You drugged my son and you—you used me.”

  But Mr. Curtis was not paying attention to her. He was looking at me, shaking his head with wonder. “You have quite an exciting imagination, Miss Callihan. Pity you have nothing to back your stories up.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “I have proof. In fact, you’re wearing it.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a brown-colored thread caught in the watchband you’ve been pulling on all day. I noticed it earlier but I didn’t realize what it meant. It’s from Jack’s jacket. You remember Jack? The guy you hit over the head last night outside the club, then tossed into the car you borrowed from one of your employees? Who is going to say no when the boss asks for a favor like that? Anyway, you must have gotten your watch caught on Jack’s coat. I
f I had to guess, I’d say the real reason you went back to Fiona’s room this afternoon was to finish Jack off. Too bad we got in the way. You also had a few purple threads on your back from being in that car. Some of them rubbed off on Roxy this afternoon when you fell against her. That proves not only that you were the one who grabbed Jack, but that you were driving—and that you were the Caftan Man. Following Fiona, trying to kill me. I should have realized it earlier, it was all so theatrical with the fake explosions and the disguises. Even the way you acted like you were on our side this afternoon—you just love playing the good guy, don’t you?”

  He smiled. “I am a good guy. And unless I misunderstand, your proof to the contrary hangs by a thread?”

  “Threads,” I corrected.

  “The thing about threads,” he said, tugging hard at the one in his watchband until it snapped, “is that they are very hard to hold on to.” He gripped it between his thumb and index finger, then let it be carried off by the wind. “Oops.”

  “The threads were just to prove to you and everyone here that I know the truth. Each of your ploys to scare me away from Fred left traces behind. I’ve written everything down in a letter I left in my room, and enclosed several pieces of tangible evidence, such as fingerprints—fingerprints the police will identify as yours as soon as they run them through their computer.66 If I am not back by nine tonight, my father will find it, read it, and call every security force on the planet to hunt you down.” I smiled sweetly.

  “This is getting more and more amusing,” Mr. Curtis said. “Do you really think I’d fall for that dime-store detective novel ploy? And fingerprints! I can only imagine how you think you lifted those. Even if you have written a note, you’ll be at the bottom of Lake Mead by the time anyone finds it, and there will be no link to me.”

  “But there is. I was stumped for a little while about what you would want that was small enough that you might think it was on Red Early’s body and have the Fabinator search him when you couldn’t find it in Fiona’s room, but then I figured it out. It was so obvious. The negatives.”

  “Negatives? Now you’ve really lost me.”

  “The ones you killed Len Phillips to get.”

  Mr. Curtis gave a little laugh that showed his teeth, but it sounded forced. “Why would I care about negatives from a fashion photographer?”

  “Sometimes the most interesting parts of a photo are in the background,” I said.

  He frowned. “What are you referring to?”

  “I’ll tell you. On land. In fact, I’ll show you. I happen to have the negatives.”67

  “I really don’t see what—”

  “The police won’t need more than the shots of you with Adam Nightshade.68 You remember him, right? What was he blackmailing you for that made you kill him? Was it the illegal payoff you named this boat after?”

  Suddenly there was no more laughing. “Where are the negatives?”

  “They are in my hotel room.69 You can send your crack search team to look for them like you did in Fiona’s room today, but they won’t find them. My father will, though. He knows me.”

  Mr. Curtis grabbed my arm in a distinctly non-WWBD way. “Tell me.”

  “Take us back to the dock. You have no choice. I won’t tell you until I see the Venetian rising up in front of me. And you can’t shoot me until you have the negatives.”

  Little Life Lesson 55: There are some situations they don’t teach you about on TV.

  “That’s not quite true, Miss Callihan,” Mr. Curtis said. “It’s you who don’t have a choice.” He swiveled his gun hand toward the sleeping form of Fred. “Tell me where the negatives are, right now, or I pull the trigger.”

  My plan came to a screeching halt.

  “Just tell him where they are, Jas,” Alyson said, in what was perhaps her greatest show of faith in me ever. “I want to go home.”

  Me too. And how. But now it didn’t look like that was going to happen. I’d been close, but as long as Mr. Curtis had his gun on Fred, I was powerless. Gun on me—okay, I would take my chances. Gun on boy—my bluff was called.

  Game over. Good-bye friends. Good-bye world. Hello murky depths of Lake Mead.

  “Actually,” a voice said from the shadows, “I have the negatives.”

  And saying that, Jack walked into the Bambi Circle.

  Thirty-one

  There are times in a girl’s life when she would like to faint, and that was one of them.

  Even Mr. Curtis looked like he wanted to faint. I had the distinct impression that Jack had not been on the Payoff passenger manifest and had somehow snuck onto the boat.

  Mr. Curtis turned to glare at the Fabinator, who said, “I told you. I looked all around the pink vehicle and did not find him.” The Fab one frowned at Jack. “How do you come here?”

  “Actually,” Jack told him, “I followed you. You seemed to be having such a nice time with those two lovely ladies”—he nodded toward Alyson and Veronique—“that I didn’t want to interrupt. So I just tagged along behind.”

  Mr. Curtis attempted a BriteSmile. “I’m really enjoying this little play, but I’m afraid it’s time for the curtain call.”

  “I agree. Do you want the negatives?” Jack asked.

  “Why? Are you going to tell me you’ve got them with you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Jack said. And reached for his belt buckle.

  “What are you doing?” Mr. Curtis said. “I’m not bluffing when I say I will shoot the boy.”

  “The negatives are on my belt. I taped them there.”

  Drat my puritanical friends. I knew I should have stripped him entirely. If they’d let me take his clothes off earlier, none of this would be happening. I would have found the negatives and solved the whole thing and gotten to have lunch and—

  On the plus side, maybe now I would get to see him without his pants on.

  Hello, inappropriate thought at life-threatening moment.

  “Go back over with your friends,” Mr. Curtis said to me, destroying yet another dream.

  As I walked by him, Jack’s eyes met mine and he said, “I hope you’re feeling macho.”

  And my insides started to tingle.

  I went and stood next to Polly and Roxy. Even from the sidelines, I watched Jack undress more attentively than I’d ever watched anything. Which is why I saw the split-second gesture when he reached into his pocket, brought his hand out clenched, and threw a fistful of what looked like pebbles at Mr. Curtis.

  At first nothing happened and I thought I’d misunderstood, but then all of a sudden Mad Joe came wriggling out of the blankets with the kind of determination he’d shown the day I’d met him, and leaped on Mr. Curtis, making strange crunching noises. Apparently, Pounce had the superpower to revive cats from the dead. I didn’t get to think anymore about that, because as Mad Joe jumped on him, Mr. Curtis’s gun hand flew away from Fred, and I decided it was time for action.

  With precision honed by hours of practice, Roxy and I got our wrists together, Polly jumped onto them, and we swung her onto Mr. Curtis’s back. She clung there with her hands over his eyes, and he started to turn around to try to smash her against a wall to get her off. But he floundered and tripped over his feet, going down face forward with Polly along for the ride.

  “What just happened?” I said.

  Roxy pointed at his feet. “Veronique tied his shoelaces in a box knot while you were talking about letters and proof. Nice diversion, by the way. Very Hogan’s Heroes.”

  “Thanks—” I started to say, but stopped when I saw the Fabinator heading our way and looking big and mean. Veronique was assisting Polly, who was sitting on Mr. Curtis’s back saying, “And this one is for the Pink Pearl too”; Alyson was clinging to Tom and sobbing; and Jack was helping Fiona and Red move Fred inside; which left Roxy and me alone to contend with all million pounds of the Fab one.

  Roxy and me and her heartbreak, I should have said.

  “Bend down and leave this to me,” Roxy
ordered. A second later, something pink whizzed past me and then the Fabinator’s head jerked back. When I looked up I realized that Roxy had made a weapon out of dental floss and gum, which adhered itself to his hair and then, by tugging on the piece of floss so his hair pulled, allowed her to distract him enough that I could wrap another piece of floss between an air duct and a cement block and watch him lose his footing just enough to make him ours.

  Leaving Roxy to tie the Fabinator’s hands up with his very own navy silk jockstrap, I turned my head to check on Polly and Mr. Curtis and was blinded by a bright light coming from next to the boat. I blinked and saw a figure in silhouette leaping over the edge and onto the deck like a comic book superhero.

  Or superheroine. Because she was wearing a black leather corset and black leather pants and black boots and a black leather choker and wrist cuff.

  It was my Sage Master! The Queen bartender from the Voodoo Lounge. And, I realized, the clumsy cocktail waitress at the roller rink who had raised my suspicions by distractingly spilling on the Fabinator. Only she was wearing an additional accessory tonight: the gold medallion of a police officer.

  She was a cop!

  Little Life Lesson 56: Just when you think there are no more surprises, there are more surprises.

  Fiona came running out to her, threw her arms around the woman, and said, “Alex! Thank God you’re here!”

  Alex was a girl. When my Sage Master had disappeared from her place behind the bar at the Voodoo Lounge, I thought she was on a cigarette break—but she’d gone to call Fiona. This was Alex darling. This was the person Fiona couldn’t be seen with. Alex, Fiona’s best friend since third grade, now a Los Angeles police detective on leave, working unofficially in Las Vegas to offer her friend support in a difficult time.