Kitty Kitty (17 page)

I stayed up most of the night arranging and rearranging clues, and not getting anywhere. I must have drifted off at some point, though, because the next thing I knew it was ten thirty in the morning and I’d missed Italian, and Polly was standing in front of me holding the magazine with Jack’s kissy face picture on it. Only now it was open to the story inside. I hadn’t even known there was a story (Yes, okay, I never opened the magazine. I didn’t need to see more.) but apparently there was. With the title “NASCAR Dad Revs His Engine?” And the same picture as on the cover only now in a larger Hungry-Man-dinner-sized portion.

“Is this why you were so weird yesterday?” she demanded.

“Where did you find it?”

“Under your laundry where you hid it. I was looking for something.”

“You’re confiscating my last Wonderbra too? Is nothing sacred? Can’t you see this is a difficult time for me?”

“No. You’re not seriously upset about this, are you?”

“That old thing? Why, what would possibly upset me about a HALF PAGE PHOTO OF MY BOYFRIEND SUCKING LIPS WITH ANOTHER GIRL? I am not upset at all.”

“Jack would never wear Seven jeans.”

“Yes, that is clearly the crime in this photo.” It is so sad when Good Friends Go Mad.

“Don’t you see, Jas? Jack would never wear these jeans and he isn’t wearing them.”

“Of course he’s not, lovie. He’s actually naked. Those jeans are just a figment—hey, why are you pointing the BeDazzler at me?”

“To make you stop talking. Look at this photo,” she said, holding the magazine open and standing right in front of my face so I got a good long whiff of My-Boyfriend-Is-Making-Out-with-Another-Girl Poofume. “It’s not Jack.”

“Really? Has he been cloned? It has his unbelievably cute scar next to his lip that I used to, in happier times, so enjoy kissing.”

“The head is him, but it’s been Photoshopped onto someone else’s body. It must be a promo thing their label’s PR department did.”

I was suddenly interested. “I am suddenly interested,” I told her.

“I thought you might be. It’s actually easier to see at a distance. Step back and look at how the color of his neck
changes where it meets the shir—”

“Oh. My. God.”

“I know, it’s actually amazing they’re allowed to do it. It should be illegal. Anyway, I hope—”

“No,” I said. “That’s not what I’m looking at.” I pointed at the page facing the Jack page.

Polly leaned her head over it, then looked more closely. “Isn’t that Arabella in the photo?” she asked.

I nodded mutely.

“And isn’t that—is that Max with her?”

I knew why she thought that, because I’d thought it, too. It looked a lot like him. Then I saw the caption. It read, ARABELLA NEAL LAST YEAR WITH FIANCÉ GEORGE MANZONI. MANZONI WAS FOUND DEAD IN HER DINING ROOM TWO MONTHS LATER.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. The first thing I thought was,
Max hadn’t been lying when he said his uncle was the chief of police.
And that was the last happy thought I had. Because suddenly my brain went to BoNkErToWn.

Max was Arabella’s fiancé’s brother. The brother who had harassed and threatened the Neals after George’s death. The brother who still harbored enough hatred to kill them?

No. It wasn’t possible. I didn’t want to believe it was possible.

But it was. The more I thought about it, the more possible it became. Little things started to click into place. Him talking about how hard it was to accept the suicide
of someone you cared about. And—

“He recognized Bobby Neal.”

“So?”

“He made it sound like it was from gossip magazines or something. But the Evil Henches, who we know are certified experts on the men of Gossipshire, didn’t know who Bobby was. They had to consult their Ouija board to figure out his name, remember?”

“Yeah. So you’re thinking—”

“It shows Max was lying. He didn’t know Bobby from photos, but because he’d been studying the Neals.”

“Your Prada mystery caller said that Arabella’s ‘boyfriend’ spoke Italian. That could totally be Max.”

“And he was on the spot both times I was attacked. Only he came toward me rather than running away.”

Like he was daring me to make the connection. Bold. Clever. Like the killer the night before.

The killer he’d claimed to see run into a dead end. The killer who had disappeared.

And yet, even as the puzzle began to fill out, fill out perfectly part of me didn’t want to believe it.

“This is all circumstantial,” I told Polly.
⁴⁸
“We need to test this before we do anything.”

“How?”

I looked around at all the evidence we had. Fingerprints, the pen, the invitation from the night before—

“Do you have nail polish remover and a pair of nail scissors?”

Polly looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course I do.”

“We need those, and a glass from the bathroom.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We can assume that the killer sent the invitation to the ball, right?” Polly nodded. “We’re going to see if it was written by Max.”

“Like, match the handwriting? Do you have a note from him?”

“Only his phone number, no words. But that would just tell us that someone wanted it to look like it was from Max. We’re going to do better. We’re going to match the ink.”

Roxy and Tom came in then. “We wanted to see if—ooh, what’s going on?”

“Max is the killer, Jas is in denial, and we’re doing science.”

“I’m not in denial.” I carefully cut a thin strip of paper with writing on it off of the invitation from the killer, and another the same size, with the same amount of writing on it, from the note with Max’s phone number. On each piece, I left a little bit of blank paper on the bottom, which I trimmed into a point. Then I poured about a pinkie’s width of nail polish remover into the bottom of the glass, and stood the two strips in it.

“What happens now?” Roxy asked.

“We wait. The nail polish remover separates out the different chemicals in the ink. This will tell us if they were written
with the same pen.” I set the timer on Polly’s phone fifteen minutes.

Which was just enough time for me to call Jack, say something absurd about how I hoped he was having a nice bath-I-meant-night, hang up, explore the far corners of the Continent of Self-Loathing, and get dressed.

“So if Max’s phone number doesn’t match the ink on the note the murderer sent, what does it mean?” Roxy asked right before the timer went off.

“It means they weren’t written with the same pen. So it’s inconclusive, but we’ve still got circumstantial evidence.”

“And if they do match?”

“It means Max is the killer.”

It matched. Both inks separated exactly the same way, with a golden hue below, bleeding up into a darker gray. Both notes had been written by the same pen. I stood there staring at them, not wanting to believe it. Looking from the part of the killer’s note that read, “at 10:15,” to the strip of paper with Max’s phone number—

I grabbed Arabella’s phone and scrolled through the call log. My heart fell. I could have maybe come up with some explanation of how Max could have accidentally used the killer’s pen if I’d tried really hard. But there was no way around the fact that Max’s number was the other Venice number that had called Arabella. The one I’d tried and gotten no answer on. After all, what killer would take a
call from his victim’s phone?

I dialed it again, this time from the hotel phone. He answered on the second ring.

I hung up and dialed Beatrice’s number.

“Beatrice? It’s Jasmine. I was wondering, can you tell me the name of Arabella’s fiancé’s brother? The one who threatened the Neals?”

“George’s brother? Let me think. It was something that began with an M. Maybe Max. Why?”

“I think he might be the killer.”

“What? Do you have proof?”

“Yes.”

I looked at the last line of the note Arabella had written in lemon juice. FIND M.

I had.

“We need to go to the police,” I said.

Little Life Lesson 57: If you have once run into the police, announcing that a gondolier is an assassin, and another time saying you yourself are a killer, returning to the first theme is not the best way to gain their trust and admiration.

I guess I should have known based on the way Officer Allegrini put his hands on his head and groaned when I walked into the police station. Still, I was sure that he’d see things clearly once I’d laid my facts before him in Italian.

I said: “But, man, this is a real, live serious killer.”

He said: “Get out of here.”

Me: “For truth, man. It’s heavy. And he threatens my friends.”

Him: “Out.”

Me: “He did in both Ned Neal and his little girl.”

That got his attention. He went, “You want me to reopen two closed cases?” and when he said it he looked like someone had lit a firecracker under him. And not in a good way.
If there is a good way to look like that.

“I have proof. Look at the ink on these notes.”

“Get out or I will have you removed.”

After ten minutes like this I hadn’t managed to convince him that there really was a killer, but he’d convinced me—largely by rattling his handcuffs—that I had two choices: leave, or get thrown in jail. Since I couldn’t catch a murderer in jail, I left.

“That went well,” Polly said when we were outside. “What does
‘rompicoglioni’
mean, anyway? He kept muttering it.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“What do we do now?” Roxy asked. “It’s twelve thirty. That gives us less than four hours until the deadline.”

“Tom, did you bring your tools?” I asked.

“Always.”

“No,” Polly said. “We are not breaking into the house of a murderer.”

“He’s at work until four,” I told her. “Besides, what choice do we have? We’re going to have to drag solid pieces of evidence—and possibly a dead body—back here before the police will do anything. It’s the only chance we have of saving one of our lives.”

“How are we going to find out where he lives?”

“We could ask the Ouija board,” Veronique offered.

“We could look in the phone book,” Tom suggested.

We went with Tom’s idea. There were two M. Manzonis in
the phone book, so in the interest of time we decided to split up. Roxy and I took the farther one, along with Polly’s manicure kit, and Tom and Polly the closer one. I tried not to cry salty tears when the Evil Henches announced they were going with Tom and Polly because that was the address that the spirits told Alyson was right.

Although Tom is the actual pro lock-picker in the family, Roxy isn’t bad at it. Still, breaking and entering a house, especially if you don’t know it’s the right house, is not without its nervous moments. There were two sets of doors, an outer lock, which Roxy got through in forty-three seconds, and then one on the door of M. Manzoni’s apartment. That one took her almost three minutes, three of the longest minutes of my life.

Finally the door opened and we stepped inside. And gaped.

“I think this is the place,” I said.

One whole wall was covered with magazine photos, articles, and Xeroxes. Some of the photos had the faces scratched out. But even like that it was clear that all of them, every one, was about the Neal family.

“This should be enough to convince the police,” Roxy said.

I nodded. “Do you remember the way back to the station?” It was a stupid question; Roxy has a perfect sense of direction. “I want to stay here and look around, but you should go get Officer Allegrini.”

“Polly will kill me if I leave you here alone.”

“Max is at work for another three hours. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

Little Life Lesson 58: Never say “I’ll be perfectly safe” unless you’re prepared to lose a limb. Or your life.

“The place could be booby-trapped.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have my weaponized water wings.”

“Take these too.” She handed me a pair of tweezers with a battery pack connected to them. “It’s like a Taser. Just hold it against his neck and push the button on the battery pack. It’ll take him totally by surprise because he’ll think you just want to do some grooming.”

“Ingenious.”

“It works great too. I made the whole left side of my body numb yesterday when I sat on them.”

I slipped the Taser-Tweezers into my back pocket and made a mental note not to sit down. “Thanks. Go. The sooner you go, the sooner we can get this finished.”

Roxy gave me a last, concerned look from the door and took off. Alone, I started studying the wall. The first thing I noticed was that many of the photos had small holes in the faces, like they’d been used for dart practice. Cozy!

I was peering closer at one article that had a picture of a young Ned Neal and a young Lucien Wilder on crutches standing on either side of a dark-haired woman on the dock
of The House that Kills, when the door opened behind me.

“Roxy, that was fast. Does this woman remind you of anyo—” I said without taking my eyes off of it.

“You,” a voice said from the door, and my hair danced up-ended on my neck. It wasn’t Roxy at all. It was Max. “What are you doing here, Jasmine?”

His tone was like ice and so sharp you could have cut pizza with it.

“I was looking for you,” I said. I turned to face him. He was standing in a tense pose, like he was ready to leap. I suddenly wondered how much he’d learned in his six months of special forces training. Like, did they teach you to kill with a single blow? Or merely to disable?

“I see,” he said, moving carefully into the room. He shut the door behind him and locked it. “And you come looking for me why?”

I decided to keep things light and breezy. “To say hello!”

“You cannot call?” He stayed close to the wall, circling toward me. I circled away from him.

“I tried but you didn’t answer,” I said. “From Arabella’s phone. The one you’d called the night she died.”

“That was you. I should have guessed.” He was approaching me with his hands out, like he was trying to show that he was just a good guy, nothing to be afraid of.

His hands were big. And strong. Like they could circle my neck easily and crush the air out of—

“So, your apartment is cozy,” I said to distract myself.

“I do not wish to talk about my apartment.”

“Do you want to talk about the art on the walls? The Neals?”

He stopped, as if noticing the display for the first time. “That is old.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I am angry. I blame them for George’s death. I want it to make sense. Now, of course, I see that is not possible, but before…” His voice trailed off. Then he snapped abruptly, “Please keep your hands where I can see them.”

I stopped reaching into my back pocket for Roxy’s Taser-Tweezers.

“Thank you,” he said. “I had hoped—I did not want this to be the ending.”

I didn’t like that word,
ending
. I gulped. “It doesn’t have to be. You have a choice.”

“No, Jasmine, I am afraid I do not. I admire you, but I cannot let you—”

There was a thud from the other room. We both stopped moving and goggled at each other.

“What have you done?” he asked me.

Which seemed like a strange question, but before I could comment he bolted toward the room and went in. I followed but he was blocking the door. Over his shoulder I saw what he was staring at.

Beatrice was lying on the floor. She was gagged with her scarf, her legs and hands duct-taped together. The roll of tape
was still attached to her hands and when she saw Max her eyes looked terrified. Imploring. Above her was an open window. Roxy and I must have interrupted Max while he was binding her hands and he’d gone out the window and come back up when Roxy left, not realizing I was still in the house. I should have guessed that Beatrice would be next on his revenge list. The woman who had stood between him and the Neals. The one who had carefully filed his threats, filtered his phone calls.

This was the moment for le hightailing it out of there to get help, but I couldn’t leave Beatrice alone with him. I was trying for the Taser-Tweezers again when he whirled around and grabbed me in a headlock that immobilized me.

Little Life Lesson 59: The first six months of Italian army special ops training is pretty thorough.

Little Life Lesson 60: Your back pocket is not an ideal place for your weapon.

It all happened so fast it was a blur, but I still had time to see that his eyes burned with a mixture of rage-slash-fury. Like he’d had the Big Gulp–sized Haterade for breakfast. His grip on my arm made my hand numb and the Taser-Tweezers fell from my fingers and hit the floor, sparking.

Twisting my head, I saw him look at them with a demented smile. He brought his foot down hard on the battery pack and crushed it. Then he moved the smile to me. I struggled, and his hold on my neck got firmer. “I do this for your own good, Jasmine. You wish to meet a killer.
Bene
. You meet a killer.”

He shifted his body, like he was getting ready to slam me onto the floor, and then all of a sudden we were both falling. A glance beyond him showed me that Beatrice had managed to wiggle toward the door and kick him with her bound legs. It looked like she’d got him in the calf with a stiletto.

For a second his grip on me loosened and I wrenched my arm free. I clawed at his face to get away but he pinned my wrists to the ground. “You must stop. It goes better if you do not struggle.”

I asked myself WWMrTD and the answer came to me in a brilliant flash. Mr. T would remember there’s only one thing to do when you’re doing battle on your back on the ground with your wrists pinned.

The Windmill.

I sliced my legs into the air and brought them down on top of Max. I’d been aiming for his kidneys but I think the heel of my boot caught his head instead. There was a thump and a weird scattering noise and something that I could have sworn was a Skittle hit me in the eye.

Max groaned and flipped onto his back, so I was on his chest, and I decided this was a good time to pull out another break-dance move.

Which is when the door crashed open.

Little Life Lesson 61: Being caught doing a one-handed up-rock handstand on the chest of a killer, even if you are just doing it to get enough momentum to pull away from him, does not make you look like a serious citizen in the eyes of the law.

And yet, something in Officer Allegrini’s attitude had changed toward me. He moved quickly past sneering, and after helping me off, slapped some cuffs on Max. Roxy had a profound effect on most men, and I’d noticed her calling him “Arnoldo,” but this was pretty strong even for her.

She’d managed to find Polly, Tom, and the Henches too, so we all worked together to free Beatrice. She had tears running down her face, and as I untied the Hermès scarf around her mouth she said, “Thank God, Jasmine. I thought he was going to kill me.”

She explained that after she’d hung up with me, she’d gotten a call from Bobby saying he had something important to show her at Arabella’s but as soon as she stepped outside The House that Kills someone had knocked her out.

“Seems like a theme for our killer,” I said.

“Yes. I woke up here with the gag in my mouth and my feet taped and he was taping my hands when you came in. You—you saved my life.”

Roxy had been looking around the room while Beatrice spoke and now she said, “I think I found something.” She was standing at Max’s bureau. On the top of it was a metal trophy awarded to George Manzoni for Archery by a summer camp in Virginia years earlier. Like a kid would have. Inside the top drawer were Arabella’s brooch and a BB gun. Like a killer would have.

Tom pointed to a hair looped around the base of the trophy and it took me a second to realize it looked familiar
because it was my hair. “I think he used this to knock you out that first day. There’s no shortage of evidence,” Tom said.

“No,” I agreed. “There’s almost too much.”

“Whatever it takes to put him away,” Beatrice said. “Thank you, Jas. Thank you for catching him.”

There was a lot of giving statements and fingerprinting and evidence collection after that. “What did you do to Officer Allegrini?” I asked Roxy in between interviews. “He seems practically human.”

“Arnoldo? I fluttered my eyelashes. Also they were bringing in some man when I got there, and I had the impression that his arrest had something to do with you. He was wearing an old trench coat and had a limp and was carrying a teapot. Does that make any sense?”

I remembered the case file I’d seen on Officer Allegrini’s desk the morning of Arabella’s non-suicide and laughed. “Yeah.”

Finally, although it’s hard to imagine, the police decided they’d had enough of us and packed us onto an official boat to take us home. Another boat had been provided for Max, who glared at everyone and said what I thought was, “This is not over,” as they hustled him, handcuffed, inside. As we pulled up at the Grissini Palace dock I looked down at my watch. It was 4:13. Game over, with two minutes to spare.

I looked up and saw Dadzilla standing there. Boy, was he happy to see us. He was shifting from one leg to the other, and I could have sworn there were wisps of smoke coming out
of his nostrils. It’s not easy to talk when your jaw is firmly clenched in the closed position but he managed to pry out, “Jasmine, go to your room this instant. I’ll join you there shortly.”

Little Life Lesson 62: There are worse things than being attacked by a murderer and their name is Dadzilla.