Bad Kitty

  At the bottom there was no furniture and very little light, and I stumbled on the last step of the ladder. Which was why I flew forward into the room. And found myself nose to nose with a man.

  Or rather, a murderer.

  Red Early looked me over from head to toe and said, “Jasmine Callihan, I presume.” He glanced behind me as everyone else came down the ladder. “How nice, you’ve brought some friends. I’ve always thought it would be so much more pleasant to die with others than alone.”

  Twenty-nine

  His words would have been more ominous if I had understood exactly what was going on then. And if he hadn’t been handcuffed to a pole.

  Polly came to stand beside me. “Isn’t that—?” she whispered.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s Red Early.”

  “But why is he—?”

  “Handcuffed like a prisoner?” I filled in for her. “I’m not sure.” Which wasn’t exactly true. Because the moment I saw him stuck in the boat hold like we were, the moment I noticed there was some dried blood around his nose and a few drops on his clothing, I’d had a startling thought.

  Maybe Red Early wasn’t a murderer at all.

  But there was at least one objection to that theory. I said to him, “Fred told me he saw you standing over Len Phillips’s body, holding a bloody knife. Did he?”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Miss Callihan,” Red Early replied. “How does a nice girl like you end up in a place like this?”

  Apparently Red Early hadn’t gotten the instructional memo that said if you happen to encounter a six-foot-tall girl who has just watched her cowboy boots get pitched into a lake, not to mention her best friend almost get KILLED, skip the clever bantering. It will be lost on her.

  And it might cause her to want to bite you.

  I said, “I just want to know—”

  “Miss Callihan, I have never spoken about the events of that day, not even to my lawyer, and I’m not going to now,” he said, like he had a copyright on Strong & Silent Behavior. Not to mention Lonely Suffering.

  I thought I could bolster his spirits. “We’ve got someone on the outside with connections in the police who knows we’re here. If we don’t waste time, there’s still a chance we can be rescued. All hope isn’t lost.”

  “It is for me. I’ve lost everything that matters. Hope is the least of it.”

  And that is when I lost it. “Sir, I know we’ve only just met, so I probably shouldn’t be this honest,” I said. “But really? This is no time for a pity party.”

  “A pity party?” he repeated, kind of choking as he said the words.

  “I recognize that you’ve probably had a bad day, but what I mean is—”

  “A bad day?” he said, repeating after me again. I began to worry about his mental competence. “A bad DAY?” he did it again. “I beg your pardon, did you say—” And then to my complete astonishment, he started to laugh. “My dear Miss Callihan, I suppose that to some people, going to a hotel room with the hopes of seeing the woman they’ve been seeking for months, and instead being knocked over the head by an ape of a man, tied up, searched, and stowed in the hold of a boat could be considered a bad day. But being on the run from the law for a murder I didn’t commit puts everything in perspective. I haven’t had a bad day, Miss Callihan. What I’ve had is a bad year. A really incredibly lousy year.” He looked up at me. “Although I do feel somewhat better now. I haven’t laughed like that in a very long time.”

  Well, it was nice to know that my power to amuse unintentionally was still functioning.58

  Tom said, “I don’t understand. If you’re innocent, why did you refuse to talk to your lawyer? Why didn’t you stick up for yourself?”

  Polly said quietly, “And why didn’t Fiona stick up for you?”59

  But Red just hit them with more Strong & Silent Behavior©, only this time with the added reminder that, “It’s all about to be over, anyway.”

  Thanks, Red! Now I see where Fred gets his fine conversational stylings from! I found myself thinking that if this was typical of his witty repartee, I could not really fault Fiona for having an “Alex, darling” on the side.

  Despite the glad tidings Red’s words offered, a distinct pall fell over those of us marooned in the boat hold. Roxy slid into a depression about the end of her crush.60 Tom and I tried to figure out if Tom could pick the lock on his own handcuffs with our help (no) or somehow, working with his hands behind him, on Red’s (double no). We checked Red’s fingerprints just in case to see if he had tented arches (nope), and then wandered around looking for a way out (none). It was saved from being too peaceful by Alyson muttering, “You’re going to be in so much trouble if we miss dinner, Jas,” and other helpful things from time to time. She did, finally, relent and share her gum stash with everyone, which was good since I had begun hallucinating that she was a large and delicious dancing hamburger.

  My piece had just lost its flavor and I was starting once again to see two smiling all-beef patties where Alyson’s head had been, when she and Veronique had a disagreement. At first we couldn’t hear what they were saying, just saw a lot of dangerous-looking, black belt–level Accusatory-Pointing-with-Nail Tips, but then Veronique got up and went over to where Red Early was sitting with his head against the post his hands were cuffed to.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said.

  Red nodded.

  “When we first came down here, you said you were glad to see us because you thought it would be more fun to die with people than alone.” She picked at the edge of her white vinyl boot. “Um, what did you mean?”

  For once Red decided to give a complete answer. “I’m fairly sure the original plan was just to kill me, but they can’t do that in front of you, so you’ll have to go too. I think they are going to keep us down here until dusk, then motor out to the middle of the lake and kill us.”

  Oh, that Red and his words of comfort and joy! More, please! And don’t spare the details!

  “But who is going to kill us?” Veronique asked. “Why?”

  Alas, before we could see if Red had some other inspirational sentiments for us or was going to return to his old Strong & Silent© ways, Alyson jumped in.

  “Did you say until dusk?” she demanded. “Great. We’re going to miss our family dinner. Jas, you are so busted-slash-dead when we get out of here.”

  “Mission control to Allie,” Veronique said. “That’s the point. We’re not getting out of here. Like I told you.”

  We all turned to stare at her. I’d never seen Veronique talk back to her Hench Idol before.

  “I’m sorry, Veronique, did you just call me Allie?”

  “Yes. I think Allie sounds cute and nice. I like it as a nickname.”

  “Anything else you’ve been keeping from me, Vera?”

  “Yes. I think you should apologize to Jas. You blame her for everything just because you’re jealous of her and her relationship with her dad, but it’s not fair. She’s nothing but nice to you.”

  I swear, if my own head had exploded at that moment, I could not have been more shocked.

  “That is such a total lie-slash-lie!” Alyson shouted. “I am not—”

  “Whatever,” Veronique interrupted. She turned to Polly now. “And you. You know you love Tom just as much as he loves you. Why are you being such a baby and not admitting it? Personally, I think you have intimacy issues and are afraid to let someone get close to you because they might know the real you and reject you. But that’s not going to happen. He is a great guy, and you two can make each other really happy.”

  We were all gaping at her, Polly included, but only she was blushing at the same time.

  Then Roxy clapped and said, “My turn! Do me next!”

  Veronique shook her head. “I can’t. I’m only up to chapter three in Psychology for Dummies. I don’t think we covered you yet.”

  Veronique and Roxy got into a deep speculative huddle over what Roxy’s problem might be and what Veronique’s
problems were and somehow segued into Veronique’s study of Feng Shui for Dummies.

  I looked at Alyson, but she pretended I had already been vaporized under her gaze and ignored me. I felt like I had to say something, though, so finally I said, “Don’t worry. I know that’s not true. What Veronique said about my dad and all. I mean, first of all, your father worships you. And secondly, my relationship with my dad is not something anyone would—”

  “Uh, Jas? Just because Veronique is delusional doesn’t mean you have to go all Dr. Phil on me. Of course she’s wrong. I’m glad my dad doesn’t feel the need to spend every minute with me or take people on laps of the Boring Grand Prix every time he talks about how smart I am, the way some people’s dads do.”

  “Okay. Good.” Clearly Alyson did have issues about someone’s dad, but it wasn’t mine. He’d done many a lap at the Boring Grand Prix, but never when I was the subject; of that I was positive.

  Across the way, in the last glimmer of light from outside, I thought I caught Polly slipping her hand onto Tom’s lap.

  That made me smile, but feel a little sad. I mean, what if this really were it? What if we were all destined to die on a ship called the Payoff?

  What kind of a name was that for a boat anyway? Payoff.

  I tried to think of happier things, like all that L. A. Curtis could be doing to save us…if he’d been able to exit: stage out-of-there. Since Alyson and Veronique didn’t see him, he must have had enough strength to get away before they came by to “help.”

  “Do you really think my dad worships me?” Alyson whispered, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because—”

  All of a sudden, my brain, which had been taking a commercial break, started to function again. Fast. “At, not for,” I said. “The finger. And the window.”

  “Hello? I was talking?”

  “Allie, look, yes I am sure he worships you, yes he thinks you fart perfume, can we discuss this later?”

  “I do not fart!” Alyson said.

  “Yes, you do,” Veronique chimed in.

  “That is so—”

  But I ignored the rest of it, repeating to myself “finger, window, aliens, broken cookie, Payoff, look at the whole picture.”

  I slid over to where Tom and Polly were sharing their first and last precious moments together. “Do you still have those envelopes I gave you in Fiona’s room, Tom? ‘Evil boy hairs from deathmobile’? And the matchbook?”

  “Yeah, they’re in here,” Tom said. He half sat up so Polly could reach into his back pocket (!!!!)61 and pull them out.

  “What’s going on?” Roxy asked. “Are we going to—hey! I like all my little hairs. Where are you taking them?”

  “I need a control sample to burn,” I told her.

  “Did you say burn?” Roxy said. “As in fire? Goodie!”

  “Uh, Calamity,” Alyson chimed in with her usual supportive tone, “we’re in a wooden boat here. I know you may feel your life is so boring-slash-pointless there’s no reason to go on, but, hello, some of us have things we want to get back for, and not with burns over eighty percent of our bodies. Think about someone else for a change.”

  “Actually, it was you who gave me the idea,” I told my darling cousin. “You said the person driving the car that tried to run me over had a beard ‘like a religious freak.’ That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “No, I’m asking if you’re a liar. It’s totally different.”

  “He had a beard. Why does that mean you’re going to go all pyro on us?”

  “Fake hair burns differently than real hair.” I lit Roxy’s hair to show how real hair burned. Then I lit one of the samples we’d collected. It curled up at the end and gave off a sweet smell, totally different from Roxy’s.

  “Artificial,” Tom announced. “Which means the beard was a fake.”

  “So?” Alyson asked. “What does that mean except that now it smells like a barn-slash-men’s urinal in here?”

  “For real? How do you know what a men’s urinal smells like?” Roxy asked.

  “If the beard is a fake, that means whoever was driving the car was in disguise,” Tom said. “So it must be someone who was afraid of being recognized by Jas or Jack.”

  Caftan Man, I said to myself. Always popping up wherever Fiona was—or rather, wherever she had just been.

  “Tom, what about that other envelope I gave you? The one with the pill bottle?”

  “Side pocket,” he told Polly, and she reached all the way in (!!!!)62 and handed me the envelope with Fiona’s sleeping pill bottle in it.

  I wrangled Alyson’s precious eye shadow compact from her so I could dust the pill bottle for prints. Given the not-exactly-ideal circumstances of being in a boat hold and the fact that Alyson was leaning over my shoulder the whole time to ensure I didn’t do anything “gross-slash-typical” with her makeup (oh, the temptation. Horrible, drool-inducing condition, where are you when I need you?), it wasn’t the best job I’d ever done.

  And yet, it was good enough. Good enough to bring up a beautiful thumbprint, with a tented arch. A print that identified the mastermind behind all of this.

  I’d been looking for explanations that confirmed what I thought I knew, rather than looking at the bare facts. I’d started with the story of Fiona being on the run from a murderous husband and looked for things that confirmed that picture.

  But that picture was wrong.

  The real meaning of my own words in the Pink Pearl earlier—“It seems obvious her husband would come after her”—hit me. Now that I knew the hairs from the car were fake, that someone was wearing a disguise, all the evidence clicked together. The purple fibers, the tented arch fingerprint, Red’s silence, Fiona’s unwillingness to help him. I knew who was under the Caftan Man disguise. I knew what Fred had seen the day Len Phillips died. I knew who the murderer was. I knew what the killer had been searching for. And—

  “I think I know how to save us,” I said. “We have a bargaining chip, but we’ll need Mr. Curtis’s assistance. We have to act fast, before we leave the dock.”

  Just as I said that, the motor started.

  Thirty

  This could still work, I told myself. And if it did—

  Well, I might live to floss another day. And that would just be the beginning. Still, it was going to take everything I’d ever learned on TV to pull it off. Because the only thing standing between us and death would be my ability to hold everyone’s attention, no matter what I had to stoop to.

  I banged on the hatch door to get attention but nothing happened.

  “I don’t think they’ll come to get us until they are ready for us,” Red said.

  I shrugged. “You’re probably right. Still, a girl can dream.” And dream I did, for the half hour it took us to get out to what I had to assume was the darkest and most vacant part of Lake Mead. When the hatch finally did open, I was sitting on the ladder, ready.

  “Hi, Fabinator,” I said cheerily. “Miss me?”

  “Go stand on deck.”

  “You did!” I said. “Ivan, that’s so sweet!”

  “Did you just this instant decide to put a lifetime of clean living behind you and start taking drugs?” Polly asked as she followed me toward the back of the boat. “Because only someone on drugs could be happy at a time like this.”

  “Not true, my turtledove. I have a plan.”

  “Is it a good plan?”

  “No. But it’s the only plan we have. That counts for something, right?”

  “By ‘something,’ do you mean ‘some thing’?”

  “You, my friend, are the beef. Filet mignon.”

  “You are on drugs,” Polly said.

  I was a little nervous as I walked forward. Everything hinged on what was waiting to greet us.

  I came around the corner and saw our welcoming committee and let out a long breath of
relief. Fiona was there, looking tense and exhausted. Fred was lying in a bundle of blankets next to her, fast asleep. And unless he’d grown the tail that was peeking out of the corner of one of the blankets, Mad Joe was in there too.

  That was it. My final piece of proof.

  I almost smiled to myself, but I knew we were far from safe. Plus, the reunion of Fiona and Red was not exactly a Kodak Moment. When Red came around the side of the boat and caught sight of her, his face was like an encyclopedia of emotion. His first impulse, you could tell, was that he still, somewhere deep inside, loved her. But then the anger came flooding over and turned into rage when he caught sight of Blankets of Fred.

  He started toward the boy-blanket meld, but was cut off at the pass by the Fabinator. That was when his face went into pure hatred.

  It was also when I had to stop watching. Because now that we were all assembled, I had a job to do, and only until they started weighing down our feet with the cement blocks I now noticed stacked alongside the deck in which to do it.63

  We’d divided up into two groups along the Us–Them axis, with my crew, the Too Young to Dies featuring Red Early, and Fiona’s crew, We’re Man Enough for Bows, facing off. We had more people, but they had a gun, so things seemed to be stacked in their favor. Plus, two of our members were still handcuffed.

  It was time.

  I took a deep breath, moved past the Fabinator to stand roughly between the two sides, and said, “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Everything on my body that could be crossed for luck was crossed for luck.

  “Get back,” the Fab one said.

  “Can’t I talk to my friends for a second?” I asked him. “I got them into this. The least I can do is tell them what they mean to me.”

  “No.”

  From behind me, Fiona said, “Just let her speak.”

  I spoke. “Before we get started, I just wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed meeting and getting to know all of you, and you’ve each taught me something in your own way.” I drew a circle in the air around me. “This is a Bambi Circle. It’s a circle of honesty and compassion. In here we only tell the truth, and we abide by the Bambi Creed, ‘If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.’ I would like to invite two people to join me in the Bambi Circle. Can I have Red and Fiona up here, please?”