CECIL: Of all the gin-joints in all the towns in all the world, this one also has laser tag. Welcome to Night Vale.

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Jalen Rutherford woke up on the wrong side of the bed. No hooch last night, just a dame dancing around in that gravy can of his. He can't shake the thought of her. She's a looker, to be sure, but she's trouble, and everyone knows it. But what woman isn't trouble, Jalen thinks.

Actually, a whole host of gals are pretty balanced people, he corrects himself. In fact, his new boss, the Tec, the gumshoe, the sneaky possum, you know the Private Investigator, Dana Cardinal… she's got a mind like a steel trap that's caught its dinner tonight. A dinner made of clues.

Speak of the big boss woman, Jalen checks the clock. He's late. Dana will be waiting, and you don't want to keep DC waiting. But his mind feels like it's at the bottom of a well, like that cute little girl from The Ring. His mind feels like he had a whole night of eel juice and hanky-panky, but he only gets to do the time, not the crimes.

Still, his gray matter wriggles under the weight of that troublesome dame Ilana. He can’t shake the thought of her. But he can't be thinking of dolls and birds right now. He's got a murder to solve… his own.

###

Dana Cardinal’s on the horn with another DC, Diane Crayton, a data cruncher, a numbers junkie, a spreadsheet-splainer. Diane Crayton’s the kind of tough broad you go to when you don't know your rows from your columns, your sorts from your filters, your elbow from your pie hole. And Diane’s always here to help a friend with a spreadsheet, whether it’s taxes or evidence for murder.

Dana thanks Diane and checks her watch. Nine am, as the crow flies. Jalen's late. Dana will have to start without him. She picks up her laptop and sits outside under the warm smile of the spring sun. The golden light holds her like a gentle father who is scared to hurt the baby.

Dana sleeps well these days. She's good at what she does. She has loving friends, a healthy diet, a nice house, and several adorable ferrets - you know nickel weasels, snake terriers, longmice. They’re not only great guide animals, but they spook away the plug-uglys and ruffians.

In the buttery warmth of a spring morning, Dana remembers her last session with Doubles Anonymous. It's group therapy, but for people who killed their doubles, their doppelgängers, their twinkies, their deuces. But in Dana's case, she doesn't know if she's the real Dana Cardinal, or the double. She may never know who offed who with that stapler.

Dana had invited Jalen to join her at the next Doubles Anonymous meeting. You see, Jalen Rutherford, well, he's a double, too. Only he never got a chance to kill his original. Some other hatchet man danced that jig first.

Dana texts Jalen, asking where he is, but she's not worried. It's a sunny day, and she might put on the old feedbag for some yogurt and berries.

###

Jalen's doing figure-eights around his bedsit. What sort of sap oversleeps and then can't find his satchel. He feels like a sucker, a mouth-breather, a fool, but he's found his gear and he's about to take a hike. That’s when the pounding begins.

The knocking on the door echoes in his aching noggin. He peeps through the venetians, and his heart skips, like a stone on clear water, like a quarter note in a rag, like a hopscotch tournament.

It was Ilana, the dame, the dish, the doll-faced troublemaker. Ilana was a no-goodnik, and he didn’t want to open the door, but he had no other way out of this roach motel. Besides, she knew he was here. Like a turkey, he left his jalopy parked right in front. Might as well put up a neon sign that said Dunce Incorporated. Open for Business.

He cracks the door, and silver light slaps him across the face, like it's threatening an 18th Century duel.

"Why are you running?" she says, her voice all bass and breath, like a cello on a windy day.

"Why are you chasing" he snarls back, his voice breathless and scratched, like an old shoe on wet concrete.

"Talk to me, Jalen," she implores.

"I'm not who you think I am," he says, firmly, finding his lungs at last. Thankfully, they were where he last left them.

"I'm not who you think I am either," she says, stepping into his darkened studio apartment, and pulling the door shut behind her.

###

Dana Cardinal cracks open the spreadsheet, the grist grid, the tic-tac-toe board. Her eyes scan the numbers, and the numbers make as much sense as a Jackson Pollack painting that fell into a paper shredder. She's not just trying to solve the murder of the original Jalen Rutherford, she's trying to crack the case of the Locked Library Murder of one Marcus Vanston, aka Billions with a B, aka Erika, aka Moneybag Cherub.

How do you kill an angel? How do you kill someone in a locked room, when they were the only one with the key, AND it was locked from the inside? And why?

She's got the Where and the When, for this cardinal sin, but not the How. She might, though, be close to the Who and the Why. Harrison Kip, the archeologist, the ditch-digger, the mummy-rustler, well he's started a little congregation, a communion… a cult, if we're being honest. He's also started a radio show. The Twilight Gospel Hour. And 2 moons back, old professor Kip all but put the bracelets on and signed his own arrest warrant. He admitted that Marcus Vanston had promised a large donation to Kip’s religious goons, but that Cabbage never made it to the soup.

Kip was burnt about the double-cross, steaming like iron on cotton. It was enough to make a man murder an angel. So Dana had a Who. Harrison Kip. But Why? Money madness. And How? Yes, that's the 64,000 dollar question, isn't it? How, indeed.

Marcus was no dummy, no nincompoop, no goose. The richer you are, the deader they want you. Vanston knew it, and Kip knew it too. Kip's a schemer, but he's a tad dim. She can't imagine how he would break into Vanston's Fort Knox.

Dana turns on the kettle. Jalen's 20 minutes late, and no text, no call, no blip bleep or bloop from that infernal little black rectangle in her hand. She's not worried. Not yet.

###

Jalen leans to Ilana's ear. She smells fresh as a daffodil, crisp as a cornet at Reveille. She smells like the gal he once knew. The good girl he loved. The one on the other side, the land of the doubles. That Ilana, he adored. He'd've taken a slug for her, a bat to the bean. He'd’ve walked in front of a Mack truck to impress that femme fabuleuse.

But this Ilana… she's no Ilana.

"You're right," Jalen says. "You're not who I think you are. I loved you, or a girl like you. But she was from the other side of the tracks, a different place, an ethereal plane of existence. You catching what I'm throwing?"

"I'm not the same girl," Ilana pleads, "but give me a day, an hour, a little kiss even. And you'll forget her completely."

"No," Jalen pulls away. "My Ilana was kind. She was patient. She was a model, in more than one way."

"And you," Ilana exhales into his collar, "You are true to your woman. You're nothing like the Jalen I knew before. He was rotten, a rat, a wag, an overcooked duck."

Jalen looks surprised. He had never considered that his double might not have been on the up and up. "He did you wrong?" he asks, but he already knows the answer.

"He ripped out my heart, and stomped it out like a cigarette."

Ilana pulls him close and says "I'm glad that sorry lug is dead."

###

Dana makes herself another cup of Joe. She takes her time with it. She likes the fancy-pants pourover style. No black sludge stuck to a stained carafe. No, DC takes her beans lightly roasted, pale as a polar bear who just saw a ghost. While the Java brews, she mulls over some letters that were found in the original Jalen's files. Letters between Vanston and Kip.

She couldn't understand. Marcus Vanston was completely enamored with Kip and his mob of red-robed thugs. Why would Vanston suddenly revoke the greenbacks he promised? And moreso, why would the angel of one God want to donate so much money to the church of a different god all together?

Why, the good folks down at Temple Beth Shalom raised money last year for Our Lady of the Shambling Orphan. It was after the church ran out of gruel and tattered smocks for all the grime-stained factory urchins. It's not uncommon for different religions to help each other in times of need, Dana thinks.

But is Harrison Kip's religion really a religion, or is it a cult. Kip said on his radio show, they can’t take donations directly. And according to Jalen’s spreadsheets, Marcus Vanston’s gift was supposed to go through the Community College, where Kip heads the Archaeology department.

Eureka! Huzzah! Hot-damn. She’s onto something. There it is in cell M78: Vanston’s millions going to the College Archaeology Department. That dough wasn’t meant to help students understand history or culture, it was meant to get laundered by Kip. But why didn’t the college ever get the bread?

Then her phone buzzes. A text, a missive, a message from Diane Crayton. Dana doesn't know it, but she feels it deep in her sinew, that Diane has found something. Something big.

###

Jalen studies Ilana's face, her mug, her grill. It's stone, concrete, serious as a root canal.

"He broke my heart," she says, "but worse… he broke my mind. I couldn't control my rage when I found out he had double-crossed me with that floozy from Pine Cliff. That girl’s a nothin’, a wisp, a see-through. Everyone in Pine Cliff is a literal ghost.”

Ilana adds while leaning in to Jalen: “What could he have seen in a chick he can’t even touch?"

"What are you saying, Ilana?" Jalen asks cautiously. "Did you kill my double?"

She pulls him close, their lips only an inch apart, and says "What does it matter? You're here now."

She kisses him. He kisses her back. The lovers stand silhouetted against the open window, the light growing brighter in the mid-morning sky, but they were in too deep to care about The Weather

###

WEATHER

###

It's night, and Jalen sits in a circle of chairs with a bunch of no names, randos, schmucks. After the day he had, he wants out of here. He wants to run to Ilana. He wants to run away from Ilana. He doesn't know what he wants, but he knows what he doesn't want. He doesn't want to be at a meeting for Doubles Anonymous. But he missed work today with Dana, and he's feeling pretty low. He owes her this.

The door swings open and in Dana walks, all sunshine and popsicles. That is… until she sees Jalen.

Her face turns sour like orangemilk left in a car on a hot day.

"I'm surprised to see you at the meeting, Jalen," Dana says. Then she adds, her eyes as stern as the back of a boat: "We need to talk after."

Jalen can’t look at her. He knows he laid an egg, gummed up the investigation by going awol.

Then the meeting starts, and Jalen forgets about his day for a bit. The gang lets him tell his story, talk about his fears, his challenges. He tells them he learned that his original self was a louse, a twit, an oaf, and maybe as crooked as a hockey player's grin.

He admits it’s hard to accept that he is the double of a deadbeat. The strangers assure him that he is different. "They Are Not We; We Are Not They," is the mantra of Doubles Anonymous, and Jalen feels admired, like a bronze idol or a snow leopard.

Dana was right, Jalen thinks, Doubles Anonymous is the bee’s knees, the spider’s butt, the hornet’s fedora. He thanks Dana in front of the whole meeting, but her smile looks as phony as a 3-dollar bill that was handdrawn while riding a bike.

Jalen is over the moon, happy as a rock at a landslide. He has so much to talk to Dana about, but Dana says she has something very important. It's about the case.

"I do too," Jalen exclaims.

He tells Dana about Ilana, about how she came to him today. How she's now the top suspect in his own murder. Jalen believes she killed the original Jalen in a fit of jealousy and revenge.

"I mean, that Casanova had it coming," Jalen adds. "Maybe not the big sleep, but he needed a knuckle sandwich at least."

Jalen loves Ilana, but doesn't trust her. She's wild-eyed and unpredictable, not like the Ilana he once knew. This Ilana was a conniver, with more plots than a Brooklyn boneyard. Jalen was in over his head, both smitten and terrified.

Dana takes a deep breath and says calmly: "Ilana is the least of your worries, kid"

Dana scans the rec center parking lot. They’re alone. She tells Jalen what Diane found in the original Jalen’s files.

See, Jalen was Marcus Vanston’s bookkeeper, and according to Diane, the books Jalen kept were ringers, set-ups, fake-a-rooskis.

Diane said if this spreadsheet was a false front, then there must be a real ledger somewhere, and Dana found it. It was hidden in Jalen's computer under the file name “Boring Old Numbers Who Cares Don’t Even Bother Looking Dot XLS.” This original Jalen was a trickster, a grifter, a con, a real shifty lizard. This spreadsheet was for an LLC called JR Financial Services, and it proved that that donation from Vanston never made it to the College. Instead, it went to this ‘JR.’

“That’s right: Jalen Rutherford,” Dana says. “I think your double double-crossed his boss, and was going to launder Vanston’s moolah for himself,” she adds, smug as a thug stealing a rug.

"That's it," Jalen snaps. "Maybe Ilana killed the original Jalen and stole the money. If I play my cards right…"

Dana interrupts. "Hold your ponies. I found one other thing."

“I visited the coroner again, to go through Jalen's belongings. I found his keyring, with his apartment keys, a car key, and one other key"

Dana pauses for effect and says, "A key that fits the lock on Marcus Vanston's library. Of course his trusted bookkeeper and assistant would have a spare key.”

“But the room only locks from the inside,” Jalen says.

“Ahhh, but if he had a special accomplice,” Dana says. “A shapeshifter? Another angel? A sentient patch of haze, even?”

Jalen gasps. “Or a ghost,” he says. Ilana had said that the original Jalen was cattin’ around with that broad from Pine Cliff. A girl with a body that won’t quit, but a body you can’t touch. A lady like that could walk through walls.

“That’s the ticket,” Dana exclaims. “Vanston discovered the deception. Confronted Jalen. And Jalen and this Immaterial Girl bumped off the billionaire!”

'By golly," Jalen says. "You've cracked this case, cracked it wide open, boss!"

Then another voice, "Hey Dana. Hey Jalen."

From behind a Dodge Grand Caravan in the Rec Center parking lot steps a man in jeans, a T-Shirt, and a baseball hat that says "Sheriff's Secret Police"

"I was just hiding under this minivan, eavesdropping," says the undercover copper, "and it sounds like you're really making headway on those murder cases."

Dana agrees and asks if the secret police have been hitting the bricks, sussing out perps, and the like.

"Oh no, not at all," the flatfoot says, "Murders are really hard to solve, but it looks like this one is getting pretty easy. We can take it from here."

"What?" Dana says.

"Arrest this man," the lawman calls out. Many undercover officers emerge from beneath cars and grab Jalen Rutherford.

"You're under arrest for the murder of the angel Marcus Vanston," they tell him.

"No, not me. It was my double who did it!" Jalen's double shouts.

"And we don't even have proof of that," Dana pleads.

Well, you're the closest looking thing we have to the murderer, the cops explain.

As the prowl cars slither away under clinically white street lights, Dana stands dumbfounded and alone. She knows she has to solve these murders, and soon.

But if it turns out Jalen WAS Vanston's killer, and not Kip, then the fuzz could make trouble for Jalen’s double the likes of which Ilana couldn't even imagine. And who murdered Jalen? That jealous moll Ilana? That greedy breeze of an accomplice? Sometimes an answer is just another question in disguise.

Stay tuned next for the slam of a cell door and baleful whistling. Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

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PROVERB: Call me old-fashioned, but anything you can say to me over text, you could have delivered by horse.