Julie & Jill

Jill found a set of keys in Julie’s purse and unlocked the door to her apartment. At first, all she could do was sit on the couch and gaze numbly out the large windows overlooking the city. She was too stunned at the moment to do much else. Julie, a murderer? Was it possible? Finally, she stood up and decided to check the apartment out. She was aware of the fact that she had no legal right to do so and was perhaps doing the wrong thing, but she needed some sense of what she was dealing with. She certainly wanted to believe Julie hadn’t killed April, but if she had, she needed to know. Whatever the truth was, she needed to know it. She began with the computer. Locating the power switch, she turned it on. She waited the few moments it took to boot up. Once things settled down and the hard drive stopped cranking away, present were a handful of icons against a background picture of a multicolored bushel of tulips. Suddenly, the picture changed. Now Jill was looking at an image of a cute kitten, slumbering upon a plush magenta-colored blanket. Jill also noted the tiny icons scattered across the bottom of the screen. Not knowing where to begin, she took hold of the mouse and began to move it around. Then she found that a box of writing would appear if she held it still on the various icons, describing what the programs entailed. When one said ‘word processor’, she clicked the mouse and the word processor program opened. She had very little computer knowledge, but she knew enough from the computer at work to click on the small picture of the folder that was present in one corner. This dropped down a list of files. There were five of them. One was titled the current year, and the rest were titled the four years before it. She clicked on the present year. “What the hell?” she asked aloud. A bunch of senseless mumbo-jumbo suddenly appeared. There were all kinds of characters. Letters, numbers, and even symbols Jill couldn’t decipher. The screen looked full of a very complex mathematical formula, unlike any she’d ever seen before. Jill clicked on the previous year and found the same thing. The three years before that also produced an array of jumbled letters, numbers, and symbols. Jill decided to have a closer look around the apartment. After finding nothing out of the ordinary in the living room, kitchen, or bathroom, much less anything to say that Julie was or wasn’t guilty of murdering April, she headed for the bedroom. She started going through the dresser drawers only to find the usual items one would have in them, then she turned her attention to the closet. Searching through pockets on any garments that had them, she found nothing other than old gum wrappers, grocery and drugstore receipts, plus a few paperclips. On the closet shelf, amongst many pairs of shoes, stood a single brown box. It wasn’t very big. Julie took the box down and set it on the twin-size bed. Sitting down next to it, she removed its lid. She first found Julie’s birth certificate, then sifted through old birthday cards, poems, and photos, and finally, a newspaper clipping. It was dated four years back and appeared to be from a Massachusetts newspaper. The headline read: Woman Sentenced for the Attempted Murder of Her Eighteen-Year-Old Daughter. A chill ran down Jill’s spine. She began to read the article. When she was done, she placed a hand on her chest to try to calm her heart, which now seemed to be beating out of control, and jumped up off the bed. She ran out to the kitchen and dialed Kathy’s number. Please be home! she pleaded in her mind, heart still beating wildly. “Hello?” “Oh, Kathy! Thank God you’re home. I need your help.” “Jill? What’s wrong? Where are you?” “I’m at Julie’s place,” she said, and proceeded to explain Julie’s arrest, her past problems with April, the fight April had with the aloof Barry Davis, and the assault charges Julie did time for in the past.” “Wow,” said Kathy, “you’ve really got yourself quite a web to untangle. Do you think she did it?” “I don’t know, I just don’t know,” Jill answered, stress evident in her voice. “I sure hope not. I mean, I guess I’d have to say no, I don’t think she did it. Being feisty and bullying someone around is one thing; killing them is another. Besides, it was almost like they enjoyed getting a rise out of one another. They loved to make cracks and chase each other in their apartments.” “Hmm,” responded Kathy, not sure what to make of the situation. “It gets worse,” said Jill. “Uh-oh.” “I went through her apartment looking for anything that could give me some answers either way and came across a very disturbing newspaper clipping from four years ago, back east, where she’s from.” “What about?” “Her mother tried to kill her.” “What?!” “Her mother was poisoning her food little by little over a period of time, hoping to collect insurance money from her death. Julie kept going to the emergency room sick. She had all kinds of abdominal pains, nausea and weakness, but no one could figure out what was wrong at first. When they finally did, the mother was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. Right before the sentencing, her father committed suicide.” “Holy shit! How awful,” said Kathy. “So what do you think?” Jill asked. “Well, having your mother try to kill you and assaulting old neighbors doesn’t necessarily make one a killer, but it does make you wonder.” “At some point, I’m going to tell Julie I found the article, but not the next thing I’m about to discuss with you. This has to remain forever secret, just between you and me.” “Sure. Whatever you need, hon.” “I’m coming to you with this because you and I have been friends for so many years and because you’re so good with computers. You see, Julie has a computer.” “Yeah?” “She keeps journals, and I’d like to know what’s in them. Particularly what she’s been writing about most recently.” “Can’t you bring them up?” Kathy asked. “I can bring them up, but I get all kinds of funny letters, numbers, and symbols across the screen. None of it makes one bit of sense. They all open this way. I figured it must mean something, though, and that you could probably tell me.” “Sounds like an encryption code.” “What’s that?” asked Jill. “It’s a program that scrambles text so no one else can read it. Only the user has a secret password, also known as a key. It’s what they type into the program to encrypt and decrypt files.” “So there’s no way to unscramble the garbage that comes up?” “There’s a way, but it may take time,” Kathy told her. “What do I do?” “Has she got internet access?” “Yes.” “I’ll come over right now and download a program that can unscramble the files. What’s the address?” Jill told her. “Be there in a few.” Jill hung up and called her voice messaging number. She had two messages. One was from work, wanting to know what happened to her. The other was from Julie. “Jill, please help me!” cried Julie’s desperate voice. “I don’t know if I’ve convinced Detective Biasman to check into that Barry Davis guy or not. All I know is that I have nothing to do with this. Just please, please help me!” Jill hung up and called work, explaining that a personal emergency had come up. Because of how long she’d been at the clinic with a good work and attendance record, and given the fact that she was a supervisor there, she was told to take all the time she needed. She would call the detective after meeting with Kathy. When Kathy arrived, she began searching online for a program capable of breaking encryption keys. “This might take a few days,” she told Jill. “How does it work?” “You just set it up to run till it hits the proper characters in their proper sequence. It tries thousands and thousands of combinations till it gets the right one. The longer the key is, the harder it may be to break.” “So you just put it to work and wait till it breaks it?” “Yup. Could she be getting out on bail anytime soon? Because if she is, I should copy these files and break it at my place.” “There wasn’t any bail set, and even if there was, this is murder we’re talking about. There’s no way I could afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars it’d take to bail her out.” “That’s true, unfortunately. Especially if you really love this girl and believe in her.” “I’m going to love and believe in her until and if something happens to give me a reason not to.” Kathy installed the program and began running it. Then she turned to face Jill. “Love is often blind and hard to suddenly fall out of. Think it’d make a difference?” “Huh?” asked Jill with confusion as she ran her hands through her silky hair. “What if she did do it, Jill? Would you instantaneously fall out of love with her and dump her right on the spot? Or would you convince her to keep her mouth shut while you did the same, then carry on as if it never happened and hope for a wonderful life together?” Jill went stone still. Before she could answer, the phone rang. She snatched up the receiver. “Hello?” “Hi, babe. I was just hanging around to see if anyone came by here but just hang tight, honey. I’m going to talk to that detective and convince him to find that guy. If he won’t, I will.” Kathy left the program running on Julie’s computer and agreed to meet back at the apartment in the morning. “It could have a hit for us then, but I doubt it. Hopefully, the system won’t crash during the night, either.” Kathy took off for the pet shop she worked at, while Jill headed straight for the police department. Once there, she asked to speak to Detective Biasman. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” Jill sat on a wooden bench and waited. A few minutes later, she saw Biasman weaving through a maze of desks toward her. Jill stood up. “What have you done to find Barry Davis?” she asked as soon as Biasman was within earshot. “We have located his residence, but not his whereabouts.” “What does that mean?” “It means he wasn’t home at the time. His mother says he comes and goes to and from friends’ places quite often, though she assures us he’ll be back any second. She said she’ll contact us when she sees him, but we’ll keep checking either way.” Jill searched the detective’s eyes. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re doing everything we can to locate Mr. Davis, and if he’s our man, Miss Welles will be let go.” Jill headed home, wanting to believe that Julie was innocent and that she’d be released soon enough. The next day, Jill and Kathy met at Julie’s place as planned. “Ok, let’s see what we got here,” said Kathy as Jill paced the room anxiously. While Kathy set to work, Jill peered out the window at the city below. She thought about Julie and wondered how she was feeling. “Weep no more, my fair lady,” Kathy suddenly said. “Huh?” said Jill, turning to face her. “That’s her key… weep no more my fair lady.” “Oh.” Kathy showed Jill how to encrypt and decrypt the files with that key. “When you’re done, make sure you’ve encrypted everything if you don’t want her to know about it, and do not change or alter anything within the journals in any way shape or form, got it?” “Got it. Thanks, Kathy.” “No problem,” said Kathy before she left for work. Now alone, Jill sat down at Julie’s computer and spent most of the day browsing through her journals. Nothing was mentioned. Not even so much as a hint of a slight possibility to say that Julie could’ve killed April. The only things that were mentioned pertaining to her were the things Jill already knew about. Jill breathed a huge sigh of relief. Her worries were soon replaced with pleasure when she read about how much Julie had come to care for her, even admitting to the fact that she was falling in love with her. Jill giggled when she read the more explicit descriptions. Satisfied that she’d seen enough, Jill encrypted the files as Kathy had shown her, then locked up and left. She hadn’t even gotten to the elevator when the cell phone she was now carrying rang. She pulled it from her pocket and hit a button. “Hello?” “Jill! Guess what? They released me!” cried Julie with excitement. “They got Barry.” “Oh, great!” exclaimed Jill. “That is so, so wonderful. Where are you now, baby?” “At the station still. I’m waiting for them to finish their paperwork.” “I’ll be right there. Just hang tight.” “Ok, see you soon.” “Real soon.” Ecstatic with joy, Jill rushed to her SUV. Along the way to the police station, it took everything she had to keep from speeding, which would certainly delay her from picking up Julie if she were to be pulled over to be given a ticket. Nonetheless, it took all the strength she could muster to keep from pushing the gas pedal practically to the floor. Jill saw Julie coming towards her as she chatted with Detective Biasman in the middle of a large room. “Jill!” she exclaimed happily. “Hey, honey!” said Jill, as she hugged Julie fiercely. Then she stood up straight and looked at the detective. “Thank you for doing the right thing,” she said. “Yeah, as I was telling your friend here, we went to the house and his mother said he wasn’t home. Just then, another officer who could see towards the back of the house spotted Mr. Davis running out the back door towards the alley in back. He’s been insisting he’s innocent, yet we found a bloody bat in the far corner of his yard behind a thick bush. The blood tested as a positive match to Miss Emerson’s.” Julie and Jill thanked the detective again and headed out of the station. Once in the SUV, Jill pulled Julie into her arms before pulling out. “I am so, so glad you’re free!” “Me too,” said Julie, as they pulled back to gaze lovingly at one another. “Thank you for believing in me and for standing by me, Jill.” “Oh, it’s no problem, sweetie.” Jill kissed her. “You’ve really changed me, girl. Maybe I was a bit too serious, but with you, I feel like I can just relax and let go. I can laugh when I’m with you. In fact, I’ve come to love you enough to ask you to move in with me. What do you say?” Julie’s eyes brightened and beamed with joy. “Oh, I love you too, Jill, and I’d love to move in with you!” And so it would come to pass that over the next week, Julie would move in with Jill. Jill helped Julie move her belongings into her house little by little. What wouldn’t be used or needed was stored in the garage. On her way out of the building for the final time, Julie stopped by Linda’s apartment, and the two promised to keep in touch. Jill decided not to even bother mentioning the news article to Julie about her mother. Instead, they enjoyed life and each other’s company. A week later, while Julie was out shopping for new clothes with Linda, Jill stumbled into the spare bedroom where Julie’s computer was now set up. She had been giving Jill lots of computer lessons. It was something Jill thought she could get into. How fun and convenient it would be to shop for things like beauty supplies from the quiet privacy of home, versus in crowded stores at set hours. Her curiosity was mounting as she stood staring at the monitor. Don’t do it, she told herself, it’s wrong. But try as she might, the curiosity won over her conscience. She sat down and brought up the program she knew Julie used to unlock and lock her journals, and typed in the key. She pulled up the current journal and began reading what Julie had written since being released from jail. It started off wonderfully, full of the things she expected Julie would write about. Then things changed drastically. I can’t believe I did what I did and got away with it, too! Well, you see, I spent a couple of days in jail as a suspect in April’s murder. The night she chased Barry Davis out of her apartment was the night she did me a huge favor. If I hadn’t known any names of anyone she knew, I’d never have been able to pull off my plan. I probably wouldn’t have bothered had I known I’d be moving out of there so soon anyway, but at the time, I didn’t know when or if I’d be moving and I was so sick of April. I just couldn’t take any more of her shit! So, I went and knocked on her door. At first, she was a snob screaming, “What do you want?!” I made it like I was sympathetic to her situation and suggested that since we both had just broken up with our lovers, perhaps we should be kinder to one another, maybe even friends. Once I managed to sweet-talk my way into her apartment, I saw the bat leaning against the wall in a corner of her living room. She was pacing the room, bitching about the fight she and Barry had that night. I guess he didn’t want to get as serious as she did. Anyway, as soon as her back was towards me, I made a grab for the bat and slammed her over the head with it. Once I was convinced she was dead, I made up my mind to blame it on Barry Davis if I were ever questioned, then I planted the bat behind a bush in the corner of Barry’s backyard after I found out where he lived. I had to look up and call people with the last name Davis in order to track him down. I’m just so glad it’s him sitting in that cold jail cell and not me! Jill started to shake. Her hands fluttered to her cheeks. She thought of Kathy’s question as far as what she would do if Julie were truly guilty, though she never dreamed at the time that she’d ever have to answer it for real. “I thought I could trust you!” Jill spun around to face the doorway. Julie looked furious beyond anything she’d ever seen before in her life. Jill was speechless, but it didn’t matter, for as fast as Julie pulled the gun out of her pocket, she wouldn’t have time to say anything anyway.