Free Kitty Kitty by Michele Jaffe Page A

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 thought 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 thatwasn’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