Kitty Kitty

by Michele Jaffe

  Little Life Lesson 18: If you are ever in a Bad situation, you can always count on the support and understanding of your loved ones.

  I’m not sure if there’s a How to Behave When Your Friend or Relative Gets Arrested for Dummies book, but if there is I don’t think Alyson read it closely. Unless it advises running alongside the person in question as she is dragged away, hissing, “This is uncalled for-slash-ridiculous-slash-lame, even for you, Jas. Wait until your father finds out.”

  I should have been cheered by her words. I mean, if it came down to Los Angeles, where I had never once been arrested (that he knew about), or Venice, where it appeared I was going to be held for murder, surely even Lo Zilla would see Los Angeles as a safer locale. Except I had a suspicion that being arrested wouldn’t simply get me transferred back to LA, it would get me chained forever to a post in a locked room atop a special turret my father would have constructed for this sole purpose. No, from my perspective, things were looking a little bleak.

  Because I am blessed, the Evil Hench One wasn’t done showing her Support & Understanding. “If you think we’re going to hang around waiting for you, you’re wrong,” she said.

  “Did you know that your eyes glow red in this light?” I asked her.

  “It’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that we’re already late to meet Reggie,” Veronique explained over her shoulder as she followed Alyson.

  I said, “Have a great time! If you hear from the dead, call me!” and if Officer Allegrini hadn’t chosen that moment to drag-slash-lead me away I would unquestionably have added that they were heading in the complete wrong direction.

  Depending on your definition of “un.”

  The San Marco precinct headquarters, which is where Officer Allegrini took me, looked a lot like police stations in America (hypothetically), except that instead of a Mr. Coffee they had an Espressione! machine on which you could push a button and get an espresso or caffè latte for a euro. Where by “you” I mean, “all those people who were not handcuffed to Officer Allegrini’s desk.”

  I guess that’s what I got for confessing to murder, but it was kind of frustrating because everyone in the place was running around chicken-minus-head style, and I couldn’t do anything. Or understand what they were saying, because they talked too fast. Except for Officer Allegrini, who seemed to be telling anyone who would listen that I had, in his words, “a brain like a squash,” which I think was his polite way of saying I was mentally disabled.

  Sitting in a police station when no one is talking to you turns out to be much more boring than you would think. On TV, there are brawls and stuff, but in reality, at least in Italy, it just involved me at a desk watching people—and hours—go by. I was left alone with my thoughts, which were pretty much:

  Whether Alyson and Veronique ever found Centrale

  Whether I actually cared

  What I would say if they asked me the name of my parent or guardian to contact

  Why they hadn’t yet

  How I’d only been joking when I asked Dr. Lansdowne if going to jail was good for extracurriculars

  How you should never joke about things like that

  Melts in your mouth, not in your hands

  How long it would take me to learn how to perform “The Rose” in sign language

  How Mr. T managed to spend so much time in leather pants

  Oh yeah, and WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO ARABELLA?!?

  As entertaining as these thoughts—now with bonus reel images of Jack and Candy eating chocolate crème puffs together in a candlelit bathtub—were, they only occupied me for about thirty-eight seconds. I tried to think of other things to do, but practicing my moonwalking didn’t seem very appealing (HELLO LEATHER PANTS) or possible (AND HELLO TO YOU AS WELL HANDCUFFS) so I turned to studying my surroundings.

  Which roughly equaled Officer Allegrini’s desk. This proved more interesting than it at first seemed, because in addition to a pack of Brooklyn chewing gum, there were some case files on it. Since he seemed to have disappeared and since I was being unjustly held and also because I had just remembered that I was trying to be Bad and therefore would not exactly be cooperating and rolling over like a trained dolphin, I decided to do something Bad and started flipping through them. I know! How Bad is that? Reading classified police documents! Really, really Bad!

  I hadn’t just thrown caution to the wind. I’d hoisted it up like a flag and set fire to it.

  My secret fantasy was that they would be about Arabella, but of course they weren’t. Venice isn’t exactly the Wild Wild West, so most of the reports were of incidents in which tourists got lost and fell into canals. The most interesting files I read were about an eight-year-old who was suspected in more than a hundred thefts but kept eluding the police, and a robbery that happened in broad daylight with no signs of forced entry and in which all that was stolen were teapots. This allowed me to add some choice phrases to my vocabulary like “pickpocket,” “bag snatcher,” and “inside job,” but even the pursuit of knowledge could not hold my interest forever. I’d just decided that getting to go home, even if it meant someone calling Dadzilla, was better than becoming one with Officer Allegrini’s furniture, when I realized someone was talking to me in English.

  It was the plainclothes detective lady I’d seen next to Arabella’s body, and she was asking, “What do you mean when you say you killed this girl? Do you mean that you actually murder her?”

  Finally a chance to explain myself! And in my native tongue! The Fates, for once, were smiling upon me.

  Little Life Lesson 19: Ha ha ha with a side of ha-sauce.

  “No,” I said, “I meant that she’d told me she was in danger but I thought she was just being paranoid. And maybe if I’d taken her seriously, she wouldn’t be dead.”

  “Bene. It is as I thought.” She turned to Officer Allegrini and said something too fast for me to understand, but it made him unlock my cuffs. Turning back to me, she said, “You are free to go.”

  Although this was an exciting development and I do have a fairly trustworthy air about me, it seemed a bit abrupt. “Just like that?” I asked. “Don’t you have any other questions?”

  She was already walking but paused to say: “No.”

  “Does that mean you know who killed her?”

  She nodded. “No one. She killed herself. Suicide.”

  I think part of me had known that was coming and had been trying to deny it. Because what if my not believing Arabella earlier, and hedging on the phone, had been the things that pushed her over the edge? “You’re sure?” I asked.

  “Sì. A girl wearing all black with a large diamond pin is seen leaving her apartment at nine-oh-five. She often wears this pin, yes?”

  “Yes, always,” I said.

  “Exactly. So we know it is her. At nine fifteen the same girl is seen on the bridge. One or two minutes later there is a splash. And then at nine thirty-three the body is found. There can be no question. The medico-legale—the medical examiner you say?—confirms there was water in her lungs. She died from drowning.”

  I sat up abruptly. How had I missed this before? “No way,” I said. “She died too early.”

  “I know it is always hard when someone so young—”

  “No, I mean, she thought she was going to meet me at ten. If she was going to kill herself, it would have been after that, if I didn’t arrive. Don’t you see? She wouldn’t have lost hope until after ten. Someone must have pushed her.”

  “No, Signorina Callihan, no one pushed her. Three witnesses saw only one person on the bridge. And then no people. And then the body in the canal. Also, there is no sign of a struggle and no one heard a struggle. She committed suicide. You must believe me.”

  But I couldn’t. “Someone must have done something to her,” I said. “There has to be another explanation. This just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No, there is no logic with the suicide.”

  “No, but—”

  “You yourself thoug
ht she was crazy, no? Didn’t you tell my officers this today? That she thought an assassin was after her but he turned out to be a gondolier?”

  “Yes…”

  “Bene, you were right. No one was after her. But the voice in her head, they were too much.” She came closer and put a hand on my shoulder. “She was instabile. Unstable. There was nothing anyone could do.”

  But Arabella hadn’t been crazy. Someone really had been after her. I was positive now. And not just because I didn’t want to feel responsible for her killing herself. “It’s all wrong,” I tried again. “I swear to you, she didn’t commit suicide. Not before ten.”

  “You have proof of this?”

  “No, I just know it,” I told her, and even as I said it, I heard how the words sounded. Like I was le bOnKeRs.

  Like I was Arabella.

  But it didn’t matter because I was talking to empty air. The detective had already walked away.

  I turned to Officer Allegrini, who was sitting at his desk. I had to make one last attempt. “You’re wrong, man,” I said in CHiPs-talian.

  “We in the Venice police are not in the habit of asking the opinion of schoolgirls,” he said in regular Italian without looking up.

  Maybe it was his tone that brought out the extraBadness in me. Or maybe it was because my leather pants were cutting off oxygen to my brain.

  Whatever caused it, I couldn’t stop myself. I hit him with some more ChiPs-talian, saying, “You’re wrong about the teapot-snatch job too, my main man. That wasn’t no inside job. You should be looking for a left-handed guy with a limp who’s trying to quit the cigarettes. Feel my vibe?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the female plainclothes detective had circled back, and was now looking at me with tears in her eyes. And I am sure the noise she was making only sounded like repressed hysterical laughter but was really some kind of Italian version of awe.

  And she wasn’t the only one. Officer Allegrini was staring at me wordlessly, no doubt stunned by my deduction and my incorporation of my new vocabulary words—snatch AND inside job. Double bonus score! Indeed, judging by the several appealing colors of red his face was turning, I think he was really moved.

  But then I noticed how he was clenching his fists, and I decided maybe it was me who should be really moved. Like toward the door. “I’ve got to hit the pavement, guy,” I said, standing up, “but you’ll see. I’m right about this and I’m right about Arabella.”

  I was halfway across the room when he yelled, “You read the files on my desk? She read the files on my desk! You had better pray that I never set eyes on you again, Signorina Callihan!”

  Little Life Lesson 20: Some people are very rude about taking help from others.

  His boisterous bon voyage followed me out of the station and into the foggy Venetian night. My heart was racing with the thrill of my exit, but halfway back to the hotel it had slowed, and I suddenly felt drained of energy. Along with the will to live, the ability to function any longer without food, and the desire to ever wear leather pants again.

  Mostly what I kept thinking was: This was my fault. If only I’d been less worried about being a Model Daughter and more worried about believing Arabella, if only I’d helped her, maybe then she wouldn’t be dead.

  I was convinced she hadn’t committed suicide. Even if she were going to kill herself, she wouldn’t have done it fifteen minutes before we were supposed to meet. And that wasn’t the only thing wrong.

  But knowing something is wrong, and knowing what it is, are like Ugg boots and Cuteness: unrelated. I had no idea who would want to kill her, or why, or how they could have done it. I was the only person who thought she’d been murdered, which meant I was the only one looking for her killer. And not only did I have no leads, I didn’t even know where she lived. All I needed was one piece of evidence to show the police, one thing to convince them. But I didn’t have le clue where to start looking.

  Not that it would matter, I realized. The fact that I had not been arrested but merely spent part of the night at the police department would not, I felt, do anything to calm the Dadzilla Wrathphoon that was headed for the Isle of Jas as soon as I encountered him the next morning. Or sooner, since, as I reached the door of the hotel, someone cleared his throat in the alley next to me and stepped out of the fog.

  But it wasn’t Dadzilla. It was a little boy in an Ali G–style tracksuit four sizes too big for him.

  “Missy Callihan?” he said. “It is you, pretty lady?”

  “Sì.”

  He shoved an envelope into my hand. “This is for you, then.”

  The envelope was lumpy and had an address, CANNAREGIO, 5524, embossed on the flap. On the other side, my name and Grissini Palace Hotel were written in big swirly writing.

  Writing I recognized as Arabella’s.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “The lady gives it to me and says if she doesn’t arrive to take it back, I should come here and deliver it to you personally I’ve been waiting for hours. Good-bye.”

  “Wait, I—” I started to say, but the boy had completely vanished.

  There was nothing else to do. I opened the letter.

  Chapter Ten

  I don’t know what I was expecting. Something profound, maybe a little moving, with a precious object accompanying it.

  The letter said:

  Dear Jasmine,

  In case I have to depart abruptly, please look after my goldfish.

  Kissos,

  Arabella

  And the object? An I-Heart-Hotcakes keychain with seven keys on it.

  !

  Although the letter only contained sixteen short words and they were all in English, I had a hard time understanding it. I read it over three times, looking for some sign that it was in code. This allowed me to discover that GOLDFISH is an anagram for both DISH GOLF and FIG HOLDS, but that didn’t exactly enrich my comprehension.

  Please. Look. After. My. Goldfish.

  It was practically a haiku! Which is, of course, everything you want in a note from a dead person! If your address is 1 Opposite Road, Backwardsville, Planet of Not.

  It was only two in the morning but my day was already going from strength to strength. If I’d been hoping for le clue decisive that Arabella had been murdered that I could show to the police, I was out of luck. They would laugh like tiny hyenas in my face.

  Here were the facts:

  1) Arabella had, in fact, departed abruptly.

  2) Her goldfish would, therefore, need looking after.

  3) Once I encountered Typhoonzilla and he learned how I’d spent the past few hours, I would no longer be allowed to leave the hotel.

  4) Ever.

  5) The last thing in the world I wanted to do right then was walk across Venice in my leather pants.

  6) I had no choice.

  I was starting to see what Polly meant about Arabella’s signature scent being TROUBLE.

  The thing is, Venice is a small city, but it was laid out by someone who hated their friends and never wanted them to be able to visit. To get to Arabella’s, I would need to consult a map. Since there weren’t any map stores conveniently open at two A.M., the best place to find one was in my room upstairs. Which meant sneaking in without alerting Lo Zilla. And then sneaking out again.

  Awesomeo!

  (Although it did mean I could change my pants.)

  The sneaking-in portion of the program went pretty well. I got through the lobby and up to my room and inside it without alerting anyone. I’d just pulled the map out of my desk, when there was a thrashing noise outside my door. Dadzilla’s loving voice cooed, “What’s going on in there? Open up!”

  Not only did it say that, but I saw the key on my side start to turn in the lock as he used a key on his side. I’d been right—he totally did have a secret key!

  But this wasn’t the moment for Patting Myself on the Back. It was the moment for Leaping into Bed and Pulling the Covers up Over My Clothes. By the time he
opened the door, I was fully covered and doing a brilliant imitation of someone who’d just been roused from the slumber of the Model.

  “Santa? Is that you? Did you bring me a pony?” I said, pretending to be in the middle of an ace dream.

  “Stop being ridiculous,” Dadzilla said, not in an ace-dreamy way at all. “It is me, your father. Who is Santa?”

  I know it was two in the morning and he’s a genius, but really. “Santa Claus is the man who delivers presents to children at Christmas,” I told him. “Always wears red? White beard? Jolly?”

  “Don’t be fresh.”

  I could have assured him that I was feeling ANYTHING but fresh. Fresh and white leather pants are not two great tastes that go great together. Instead I said, “What brings you to my room at this hour?”

  “I thought I heard the door open. I wanted to make sure there were no intruders.”

  “None except for you.”

  “This is not something to joke about.”

  “I completely agree. Are you hearing other noises as well? Voices in your head?”

  “Be quiet, Jasmine.” He then turned to scan my room with Everywhere Eye. As he did that, I realized the note from Arabella was lying on my desk next to the map.

  Gulp.

  I had to coax him out of there. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” I asked pleasantly. “Any small service? Perhaps some witty conversation to help you relax?”

  That did the trick. “Go back to sleep, Jasmine,” he rumbled. Giving me one last scowl for good measure, he backed out of the room.

  Although it stings to have your conversational abilities scorned, I couldn’t really focus on the pain, due to the fact that my heart was beating so hard it was about to burst through my Wonderbra (yes, that hard). I closed my eyes and did some deep breathing to encourage it to slow back down to normal. Then I did a little more deep breathing because I was tasting the sweet, sweet air of freedom.