The Good, The Bad, and The Different

My name is Jenna and I like to kill people.

***

Jenna was sitting at the bar of Cav, her long legs reaching the floor, which was impressive given the height of the bar stool. I wonder who wants to have some fun tonight. Her hungry, crazed-looking, eyes roved over the crowd until they alighted upon a very tall, very dark man sitting alone. Bingo. She lithely rose from her seat and walked over to the mysterious tall man. She saw him noticing the black Valentino dress she had carefully chosen for the occasion.

“Hi, I'm Jenna,” she said, voice soft, low in the throat.

“I'm Garett.”

“And what do you do, Garett?”

“I'm an architect. And what does Jenna do for fun?” he asked, the corners of his mouth pulling up.

“Apparently I like to meet gorgeous men in wine bars,” Jenna said with a laugh. He stood and leaned over to her and whispered something only she could hear. Jenna nodded. I am so going to enjoy killing him. They left Cav, both laughing, heading down Market Street towards his penthouse apartment.

As they passed by the doorman, Jenna kept her face turned towards Garett's the whole time.

“Come on,” she said to Garett, “Let's go, I'm getting impatient.”

“OK, Jenna. Right this way.”

Garett poured two glasses of Chardonnay from the refrigerator and turned to Jenna and offered her a glass. She declined from taking it and instead lay a hand upon his arm. His penthouse apartment is not at all shabby. Nor is it too antique-y or messy. I am so attracted to those with strength, power, and wealth. Overpowering those with strength, power, and wealth is much more fun than picking on slimy weaklings.

She led Garett wordlessly to the bedroom, and he followed completely willingly. Once he put the glasses on the table Jenna undid all the buttons on his shirt. Soon they were standing next to the bed with their clothes pooled around their feet, discarded on the floor. He was completely desirable to look at, chiseled ebony chest contrasting Jenna's ivory skin nicely. Ebony and ivory might be nice, but as it is, I think my favorite color is red.

***

Norah awoke alone after dreamless sleep as she normally did. She went through her normal routine to get to work precisely on time. She arrived at the Homicide Detail Department of the Investigations Bureau at 8 o'clock every morning. Her partner David Wakefield always greeted her with love in his eyes, but she noticed nothing.

“Good morning, Norah,” he said, “Have a good weekend?”

“Yeah, I remember sleeping a lot. And yet I can't seem to get rid of this long-term headache.”

“The sleeping sounds nice to me, but the headache sounds less good. How long has that been going on?”

“Ever since I was young, I think. But enough about that, David. How's life? Please tell me that you have some sort of good news.”

“Not much to report really,” David said while watching as Norah settled herself in the chair behind the desk opposite his. “And how about you? Anything new?”

“Same old, same old. Single, independent woman here. As it should be.”

“If you say so,” David said, eyes downcast on his desk.

“Do we have a new case today?”

“Yes we do. Here.” David passed Norah a manila envelope. Inside was a crime scene photo of the deceased victim of a targeted murder lying naked in a pool of blood on his bed.

“What's the case?” Norah asked.

“His name is Garett Drumer of 795 Pine Street, Nob Hill Chateau, in number 602, a penthouse suite.”

“OK. We'll go to the crime scene and I'll talk to any neighbors or witnesses there might be, but I think you should take a look at the apartment. Your eyes always seem to pick up all the details better than mine do.”

“Alright. We'll meet back here after?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to drive, or shall I?” David asked.

“You should drive—I'll probably be done before you.”

***

David drove towards the parking garage after dropping off Norah in front of the Nob Hill Chateau. Norah discovered that the night doorman had been called upstairs to the crime scene so she took the elevator to the sixth floor. Apparently he had been the last person to see Mr. Drumer alive with the first suspect.

Norah flashed her detective's badge to the old doorman, Mr. Stawalski who was waiting in the hall outside the apartment.

“Would you say the suspect was about my height or taller?” Norah asked him.

“Well, I'd say she was taller than you because of the heels she was wearing. At least 5' 9” or 10.”

“Hair color, eye color, clothes, any other details you can remember?”

“Her hair was very dark, up in some sort of twist. I noticed this particularly because I never saw her face—only the back of her head. Although, I do recall that her black dress was about as short as it could be. She also said something, but I couldn't quite hear what she said. I could hear Mr. Drumer say her name though—Jenna. Her voice was deep though, deeper than yours. Kinda husky, I guess you would say. That's all I can remember.”

“Thank you, sir. If there is anything else,” Norah passed a card to Mr. Stawalski, “you can reach me at this number.”

Norah walked down the hall to the elevator, passing Mr. Drumer's room where David was working, and waited for the down arrow to light up. She had the strangest feeling of déjà vu even though she knew she had never been here before. The down arrow finally became illuminated and she stepped into the elevator. While she was looking at her reflection in the elevator doors on the way down she thought she saw herself smirking contentedly. She didn't know why she would be smirking. Norah rubbed at her eyes and pounding temples. When she looked again her reflection was no longer smirking.

Norah took a cab back to the station and recorded her findings for David to look at later. She found that she was very tired with a slight headache and decided to call it an early day and go home and get some rest. She wrote David a note saying that she was at home taking a nap, but to call her if there was anything important.

***

David lifted up the bright yellow police tape that crossed the door to Garret Drumer's apartment. His eyes quickly passed over the spotless living room area. He could see that nothing of importance had occurred there; no blood, not even a couch-seat indentation. However, the camera flashes of the forensic photographer were coming from the bedroom. As David was passing the kitchen his eyes were drawn to a small detail out of place. One of the cabinet doors was ajar.

David pulled on blue latex gloves and opened the cabinet. Inside were wine glasses and shot glasses in neat rows with two empty spaces. He turned to the refrigerator and opened it to see a partially empty white wine bottle. When David finally went into the bedroom he could see the two wine glasses on the bedside table and that the coroner beginning to prepare to take the body to the laboratory.

“Wait a moment,” David said to the coroner, “I thought I saw something.” David peered at dark marks on the forearm. There were four marks on one side and one on the other. The small bruises could have been made by a hand. David was confused by the color and size of the bruises. The color suggested that someone with a great amount of strength inflicted the injuries, but the size was far too small to be from a male hand.

When David eventually returned to the police station he read both Norah's findings and her note. With Norah's discovery of the suspect, “Jenna,” the evidence that he found now made sense, but the coroner at the laboratory called to say that there were no fingerprints or DNA to collect. Jenna must have been very careful cleaning up after herself.

***

Later that day David walked in and sat at the bar and ordered a drink. He often found himself here after a long day. Intangible thoughts kept his mind occupied as he reflected on the case. David wanted to solve the case, he always needed to find justice in the world—without it he felt incomplete. While he was also focusing on the case his thoughts continued to return to Norah. He loved her independence and her fellow passion for distributing justice. He was fiddling with the napkin absentmindedly when he heard a familiar voice from down the bar, but was not expecting to hear it at Cav. Although he couldn't see Norah's face David recognized her voice, but what she said in a sexy, low voice surprised him because Norah had said that she was at home, sleeping.

“Let's go back to your place.” David could remember countless conversations with Norah describing her complete lack of a love life. David had always hoped that he would be the love in her life, but she had never shown an interest in him, or in anyone to his knowledge. Norah prided herself in being independent. But when the anonymous man Norah was talking to replied, David's heart skipped a beat.

***

The next day Norah arrived at the station to an empty office. David had scribbled a note on her desk.

“Meet me at Cav on Market at 7 pm.” She didn't know why he wasn't here to discuss the case. Throughout the day Norah wondered about David's disappearance, but when six-thirty finally arrived she gathered her coat, hurriedly swiped on a bit of night-time make-up and drove to Cav.

David was sitting at the farthest end of the bar with two glasses of white wine. Norah went to go and sit with him and took the proffered glass.

“So what's this all about, David?” she asked while taking a sip of wine, “Wow, this is really good! I don't know if I've had this before. What is it?”

“It's a Chardonnay. Norah,” he said, not meeting her eyes. His fingers were tracing patterns in the condensed water on the sides of the glass. “I've figured out something extremely important and I'm not sure how to tell you.”

“Hey,” Norah said and reached for his hand, which he withdrew from her touch. “You know that you can tell me anything. I'm your partner. Not only that, I'm your friend. So explain to me what this important thing is that you've got to tell me.”

“I don't think I can tell you here. My place is nearby. Let's go there.” He stood abruptly and started for the door. Norah hastily paid for the forgotten drinks, her own empty while his was still full, and walked quickly after him.

David's apartment was on the smaller side, but homey. He had many bookshelves on the sides of the rooms. When they got inside David sat in the chair next to the couch leaving the whole couch open for Norah to sit on.

“Now then,” she said. “tell me, the anticipation is killing me.”

“I've solved the case.” David's voice had no emotion in it and he wouldn't meet Norah's eyes. Norah's head slightly tweaked to the side and she had the sudden feeling that she couldn't control her body and her head started to pound.

“Did you really?” she asked in a low voice. “Would you excuse me for one second? I'm going to go to the bathroom—I've got a pounding headache again.”

Norah stood and walked down a short hallway and locked the bathroom door. She didn't really know why she was locking the door until she looked in the mirror.

“Hi, Norah. It's me, Jenna,” she said to her reflection. Norah whipped around, expecting to see another woman behind her, but there was no one.

“That's right,” the reflection of Jenna said, “There's no one here but us.”

“What are you talking about,” Norah whispered in disbelief to the mirror.

“I'm Jenna. You know, the suspect in your little murder investigation. And I'm in you.” Norah rushed a hand to her moving lips. They were moving, speaking on their own, speaking someone else's words.

“How?” Norah was able to croak out a question.

“As far as I can tell, Norah, you created me because of our father. It was the night he “fell” down the stairs.”

Norah gripped her hair trying to remember what had happened. Her father, Gary Dumal, was a drunk. She remembered blacking out after her father started beating her when she was fifteen. He had been drinking heavily when he came into her room, screaming at her. Half of what was said was profanity directed at Norah. She wanted him to stop, but she couldn't do anything against the blows to her head, she could only cower on the floor, terrified. The last thing she remembered was his tall figure standing over her, a silhouette against the light. When she came to, he was at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck. She couldn't remember anything after being unconscious except a long-term pounding headache, but at the time Norah had just thought it was because of head trauma. A tear fell down her cheek.

“Whoa,” Jenna said sharply. “Don't start crying now, you'll ruin my make-up.” Jenna wiped away the tear roughly and straightened her eyeliner. “You need to keep your wits about you if you want to stay alive tonight.”

“Oh my god,” Norah said, her voice high-pitched and strained. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Girl, use your head! If you die, I die. No, it's David. He knows about our connection.”

“How?”

“Ugh, he heard me in Cav last night. I think he thought I was you, which would explain why he looked like a hurt puppy. Which would have been fine and all except that he heard the guy I killed last night call me Jenna.”

“What do you think he'll do?”

“Well, what would you do in this situation. Let us go?” Jenna laughed. “He'll turn us in, we'll go to a mental institution and stay there, forever. Now, you don't want that to happen, do you?”

“No,” Norah whispered, gripping the edges of the sink in defeat. Her headache finally started to subside.

“I didn't think so,” Jenna said smugly. “I think you better let me take care of this.”

There was a knock at the door. Norah and Jenna started.

“Norah, are you OK in there?”

“I'm fine,” Jenna called. “I'll be right out.”

Jenna heard David's footsteps retreat from the door. She opened the door cautiously and went to the bag she left on the couch. She took out the handgun and stealthily walked towards the kitchen where she could hear David running water. She kept to the wall, mostly out of sight. But when she passed the bedroom door she felt the cold metal of a gun press against the back of her neck.

“Hello, Jenna,” David said coolly.

“What are you talking about, David? It's me, Norah,” Jenna lied.

“No, you're not. You know I figured it out.” Jenna gently turned around and looked up at David through her eyelashes.

“Aw, come on, Baby. Don't be that way.” Jenna leaned up against him. His gun-arm relaxed and pointed away. “I know that you love, Norah. I could be with you. Isn't that what you have always wanted?”

“No, it wouldn't be real. Everything that you say now is a lie. I loved Norah, but you are a sociopath. I can't allow you to roam free, killing at will. You need to pay for those innocents that you murdered. I need to uphold the law and bring you to justice.” His arm tightened and he aimed the gun at Jenna's head.

“So be it.” Jenna swiped the gun away from her face, its bullet passing three inches away from her head. She quickly pivoted around David and forcefully kicked the back of his knee and then the back of his head. Her blows came quickly and with incredible power. Jenna had been practicing subduing strong men for a long time. David crumpled to the floor.

“Wait,” Norah cried out, pushing past Jenna's control. Norah couldn't help but feel pity for her former partner. David looked up at her with pleading eyes.

“Norah,” David begged. “You need help. I can help you. Please let me help you. I won't let you go to prison. You can get help at the hospital. I know that there are doctors who can help people with problems like yours. I promise to find a psychotherapist who can help you by keeping you safe and under control.” Norah's eyes grew hard. Her lip started to curl.

“I'll do it, Jenna. It seems only fair,” Norah said, her face impassive and merciless.

“It seems only poetic to me because he was the one who loved you, but go ahead,” Jenna said, looking down at David's fear stricken face.

“Good-bye, lover,” Norah said, firing a single shot between David's eyes. A pool of blood started to form around his head. Norah no longer felt the headache caused by the separation of her two identities. Now that Norah and Jenna had the same agenda, there was no knowing what they would accomplish together. “OK, Jenna. What's next?”

***

My name is Norah and I like to kill people, too.