Kitty Kitty (7 page)

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.

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

The letter said:

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.

Little Life Lesson 21: If you are in the middle of crime fighting but have had a particularly harrowing day, avoid breathing deeply the sweet, sweet air of freedom.

Little Life Lesson 22: Especially while closing your eyes.

Little Life Lesson 23: And lying in bed.

The next thing I was aware of was a weird cramp in my leg from having fallen asleep in my cowboy boots. I raised my eyelids and saw that it was light outside, and the clock on my nightstand read 6:32.

Then I heard the noises. Getting up–type noises. Coming through the wall of my room that adjoined Dadzilla and Sherri!’s.

If I was going to get to Arabella’s apartment, I’d have to do it before Dadzilla was in his full upright-and-unlocked position. Which meant right that second. Which meant no changing out of leather pants.

Le sigho.

I grabbed the map and took off.

It was
molto
more foggy outside now than it had been the night before so spotting the street names, when they were posted, was a super-fun game of hide-and-seek, minus the super
fun part. Even with the map, it took me almost an hour and a long discussion with a garbage man to find Arabella’s address. Cannaregio 5524 turned out to be next door to Cannaregio 2230 and across a canal from Cannaregio 618. Naturally.

Little Life Lesson 24: Garbage men = urban heroes.

It was an ancient-looking corner building with the front facing the
fondamenta
that ran along one canal and the side rising directly up from the water of another canal. A marble balcony jutted out from the second floor of the facade with a statue of cupid precariously perched on the corner. Sitting next to it was a black cat who stopped cleaning itself as I came closer. It was a perfectly nice-looking cat, shiny with a fancy collar, and yet something about the way it was watching me through the mist could have been used as a teaching aid for the words SINISTER INTENT in a language textbook. I hoped this was not the funny look Arabella had been talking about.

Beneath the marble balcony was a massive wooden entrance door with flaking green paint. There was a row of six brass buzzers next to it that could have used some polishing, and the one next to apartment 2 had the initials AR in swirly writing taped above it.

The biggest key on I-Heart-Hotcakes worked the lock on the entrance door. Behind it was a crumbly stone courtyard with a water gate opening onto the canal at the left. The sound of the water lapping outside gave the space a kind of tranquil feeling that my accidentally letting Big Door slam
behind me didn’t really add to. But no one threw open their shutters to see what was going on, so I crept up the marble staircase with the lions’ heads carved into it which wound along the right side of the house, to the second level where I could see the number 2 on a door without anyone seeing me.

Or so I thought.

I’d sort of figured Arabella just sent me her whole keychain without bothering to weed out the ones I’d need, but when I got to her door I saw that actually there was a reason for all the keys, or at least most of them. There were five locks on the door, four of them shiny and new. In case I’d needed more proof she was terrified for her life. Or, anything to add to the knot of guilt for not believing her growing in the pit of my stomach.

My first thought when I opened the door was, if eyeballs could talk, mine would be squealing, “WOW!” Also, “HE
LLLLLLLLLLL
P US!” My second thought was that I really hoped she’d rented the place furnished and hadn’t done it herself because otherwise I would be required to believe she was completely insane and capable of anything. It looked like what I imagined a Keebler Elf brothel would look like (not that I’ve spent a lot of time imagining that).

There was only one room, which appeared to function
as a living room–dining room–bedroom–kitchen. It had dark wood walls and a dark wood-beamed ceiling but every object that could have a red-and-black-lace ruffle did, from the vent over the stove to the curtains, dining-room chair cushions, side tables, kitchen sink, soap dispenser, coffee table, coffee pot, garbage cans, massive armoire, sofa, and candy dish. Any parts of the room not suitable for Ruffling were filled with porcelain statues of pugs wearing red ribbons around their necks in a variety of appealing poses like “sitting,” “begging,” and “sitting and begging.” There was one supremely awful one on the (ruffled) desk next to her cell phone and laptop with a plaque below it that I think said THE RUNT, but I could only give it a quick look before my eyeballs started to twitch uncontrollably. All the furniture except the armoire were smaller than normal, which would have been fine for Arabella because she was pixie size, but it made me feel like a visitor from Planet Gigantor.

Beyond the main room was the bathroom. It was covered—walls, floor, and ceiling—in tiles with red roses printed on them, which went nicely with the black-and-pink-lace skirts on the toilet, bathtub, and soap dish.

The place was a little dusty but, apart from a pillow and comforter stacked next to the couch, tidy. At least as tidy as an apartment stuffed with Pugs-n-Ruffles could be. I was surprised because with her crazy fashion sense and swirly writing, Arabella didn’t seem like the a-clean-house-is-a-happy-house type. It was definitely not the apartment of someone
whose signature scent would be called TROUBLE (unless that was followed by “WITH HER VISION”). But from the fake eyelashes carefully lined up on the vanity table to the boxes of stationery neatly stacked on the dining room table, order prevailed. Everything seemed to have its place and be in it.

Except the one thing I had come for: There was no goldfish. Not even a sign of a goldfish. No fish food, no indentation left by a (possibly ruffled) goldfish bowl. Nothing to suggest that the Elf House of Pleasure had ever harbored any water-dwelling animal in its walls. So it had to be some less obvious, more figurative form of goldfish.

I decided I would work methodically around the apartment searching for it. I started in the kitchen, checking through all the drawers (no fish), the cabinets (no fish), the garbage can (two used tea bags, three squeezed lemons, an empty Sweet’N Low envelope, but no fish), and the refrigerator (box of milk, distinctly non-fishy). I thought I might have hit on something in a drawer filled with odds and ends in the kitchen but although it held a bag of change, a ten-year-old Venice phone book, and a tide chart from six months earlier, there was nothing fish or fish related.

Moving to the bathroom, I examined the bathtub (no fish soap or fish-shaped tub stopper), the shower curtain (slightly ripped in the corner but not in a fish shape), beneath all the ruffles (no fish, although I did find a bright blue shirt button), and the garbage (empty). The ruffle around the bathtub was slightly damp, and for a second that made my heartbeat
pick up—Who showered before they committed suicide?—but I could already hear the lady detective telling me nicely but firmly that you couldn’t use logic when people killed themselves.

Along the side wall there was a dressing table with jewelry on it (no fish). There was a square that was less dusty than the area surrounding it, showing that something had been there and been moved, but it was too small to have been a fishbowl.

The only thing in the laundry hamper was a pair of argyle socks. Fishy in their own way—argyle, Arabella? Really?—but not fish.

As I looked in vain for anything with a fishy cast, I registered other things. Like how in the sink in the kitchen area there was just one glass and one bowl and one spoon. One napkin in a gold (non-fish-patterned) napkin ring on the counter. I’d always assumed Arabella had tons of her own friends outside of class, but now I began to wonder. Maybe she had been as lonely as I was.

There was only a single shelf of books, most of which looked like they’d come with the apartment because they were all in Italian and mainly travel guides to places with deserts (ergo: no fish). The only ones in English were three paperback mystery novels and
Grieving for Dummies
. I spotted something sticking out of that one and got excited in case it was a picture of a fish or marking a passage about “Grieving for Your Lost Fish.” Le not.

The bookmark was a photo of Arabella and three people:
a dashing-looking gray-haired man, a bitter-looking scruffy guy, and a very put-together dark-haired woman in her twenties. It looked like it had been taken during a party and everyone except the young guy seemed to be having fun. The section it was marking was titled “After a Parent Dies.” Parts of it were underlined, but what struck me most was that from the way the pages were warped it looked like someone had been crying when they read it.

It talked about how there’s a period after a parent dies when you try making a lot of deals with God, even if you don’t believe in God, begging for a sign or gesture, anything, that shows you they are still near you. That it’s a phase to believe that every shadow in the night is the parent’s ghost, or every flicker you see out of the corner of your eye is your late parent, watching you, missing you, wanting to be close to you to make sure you are okay.

But the book was wrong, because it wasn’t only a phase, at least not for me. My mom died when I was six, which was a long time ago, and I still sometimes did those things. Even though I knew it was irrational, I still woke up in the middle of the night hoping to catch a ghost hand caressing my cheek, still felt jealous when I heard people talking about being haunted by ghosts. Because if they could be, why wasn’t I? Where was my mom? Didn’t she love me enough to haunt me?

I stood for a long time staring at the wavy pages and imagining Arabella alone in her apartment, reading and sobbing and missing her parent so, so much. I must have been allergic
to something on the bookshelf because my eyes got a little teary then and I had to wipe my nose on my sleeve.

As I did that, I had the strangest feeling of being watched, and looking at the window, I saw the black cat sitting there, staring at me, with huge green eyes. This wasn’t surprising given my superpower, but it was a little disconcerting. It tilted its head to one side, like it was curious about me, then got interested in something outside and jumped away. When it left I noticed that although the windowsill was dusty on the sides it was clean on the middle and I wondered if Arabella had sat there playing with the cat.

I went to slide the book back onto the shelf and something fell out of it, a pamphlet entitled “MAKING MEMORIES: HOW YOU CAN BECOME PART OF THE ‘YOUR NAME ON RICE’ FAMILY, AMERICA’S #1 GRAIN-BASED SOUVENIR!”

Okay, who would kill someone whose life fantasy was to have a kiosk at the mall and make the “gift they’ll never re-gift”?

Themselves
, a voice in my head that sounded a lot like Alyson’s suggested.
Seriously, with life dreams like that, why not just end it all? Have you considered that perhaps the reason you have no evidence she was murdered and the police don’t think she was murdered was because she wasn’t murdered?
Happy Friendly Hench Voice said.
Why do you think you’re so smart? It’s after 8
A.M.,
which means you’ve been here almost an hour and you’ve
found what? Oh, that’s right, NOTHING. Not even the goldfish
.

HELLO WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT WHEN I NEED YOU MOST! It is always cheering to know that you can count on your own head to be supportive.

But the truth was, Evil Hench Voice was kind of right. I was fighting the good fight against Creeping Doubt, but as I turned to tackle her desk I would have given anything for some confirmation, some sign, that I was on the right track about Arabella’s death.

Right when I thought that, her cell phone started to vibrate.

Le Creepy,
adj.
1. having a dead person’s phone ring immediately after you’ve pretty much begged the heavens for a clue. 2. having that happen at 8:10 A.M. on a Sunday.

It rang again. I stared at it. It rang a third time.

Picking it up carefully by the edges, I flipped it open. “Hello?”

There was a slight pause on the other end, like someone was surprised and then a woman’s voice said in English, “Hello? Is that you, Bella? It’s Beatrice. Look, I’m sorry to call so early but I know you’re always up and—”

I cut her off. “I’m afraid this isn’t Arabella.” And, with a sinking feeling, I realized this probably wasn’t my clue.

The voice said, “Not Arabella? Oh. I see. I’m sorry. May I please speak to her, then?”

“She can’t come to the phone right now. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Who am I talking to?” the woman asked.

“Who am
I
talking to?” I asked back.

There was another pause and then the woman said in a professional tone, “This is Miss Portinari, Arabella’s father’s secretary. Would you please ask Arabella to phone me at her earliest convenience? She has the number.”

“I’m afraid—” I started to say, but she’d hung up.

Only after the call was over did I realize how weird it was that Arabella’s phone was even there. I mean, like any person who had a cell phone (NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW, THANK YOU, DADZILLA), she always carried it with her. The fact that she’d left it behind when she went out that night disturbed me because it suggested that she’d known she wasn’t coming back. Like she would have if she’d planned to commit suici—

The sound of heavy footsteps stopping outside Arabella’s apartment interrupted these cheery thoughts. They were followed by the jingling of keys and one of the locks on the door started to turn.

Although I had a totally legitimate reason for being there, something in my head told me to hide! Fast! Pocketing the phone and the photo from the book, I considered both the Elf couch and the Elf desk, but there was really only one place big enough to hold me.

Little Life Lesson 25: Being tall can be an occupational hazard while detecting.

To leap to the armoire and wrench open one of the double
doors was but the work of a moment. I just had time to nestle myself between a green fur vest and a zebra trench coat and catch a black wig that fell off the shelf before the last of Arabella’s locks unlatched to admit a woman who, judging from the number of ruffles swathing her, was probably the owner of the apartment.

Followed by a more-rumpled-but-not-any-less-mean-looking-for-it Officer Allegrini.

Which is the only reason I didn’t scream when something shifted in the darkness behind me and said in a male voice, “Stay quiet and you won’t get hurt.”