Free Kitty Kitty by Michele Jaffe

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 Allegriniand 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