Death Before Facebook

remember coming home—climbing the stairs with his mother, going into the bedroom, and finding the body. But once he’d asked her, and she said it wasn’t like that at all. She said Geoff ran right up the stairs and went to the bathroom; meanwhile Marguerite—that’s his mother—went into the bedroom and turned on the light. It was all she could do to keep from screaming, but she didn’t want little Geoffrey to know what was going on, so she turned out the light, closed the door, and went downstairs to call the cops.”
    “Pretty damn cool.”
    “Well, who knows what really happened? That’s just what she told Geoff. Anyway, it got him to thinking his own memory was bogus—or might be. And after he had that dream, he kept getting these weird flashbacks, if you want to call them that, like incest survivors are supposed to have—little half-memories. Like being in bed and hearing an argument. Running down the hall. His mother’s face. His dad on the floor… actually, he had that one all the time, from before his mother told him he’d never seen that. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
    “He posted this stuff?’
    “Yes.”
    “Under his own name?”
    “You can’t hide your identity on the TOWN—you have a user ID, but anyone can check you out in about two seconds. Geoff was Vidkid.”
    “So if it was true, if he really had witnessed the murder, or had even been in the house when one was committed, he was putting it out there for the world to know. Is that what you’re saying?’
    “That was our reasoning, yes. When we found out about the ‘accident’.”
    Skip could see why this was the talk of the TOWN. “Okay, anybody on the TOWN could find out who Geoff was. Was there any way for him to know who was reading the posts?”
    Layne shook his head. “Absolutely no way in hell. The TOWN has almost ten thousand subscribers all over the world. Someone in Marrakech could have seen the posts and come to New Orleans for the sole purpose of dispatching Geoff before he got that final damning memory.”
    Or maybe he’d already gotten it; and confronted the murderer. It needn’t be anyone on the TOWN at all—all it had to be was someone who knew he knew.
    “What was he thinking of?” she wailed.
    “To post like that? Well, it’s kind of a TOWN tradition. When you’re going through something bad—and he was—you come to your buddies for aid and comfort.”
    “He didn’t even know these people.”
    “Yes, he did.”
    “Excuse me. Ten thousand of them?”
    Layne looked uncomfortable.
    “Good God!” she continued. “This is what shrinks are for.”
    “The TOWN’S a hell of a lot more accessible—and cheaper.”
    “Not in this case.”
    Now he looked downright sheepish. “It might have been one of us. We know that.”
    “What’s the deal with the autopsy report?”
    “Lenore got it—don’t ask me how. She posted it and RX, who lives in Portland, Med from Pensacola, and Sayah of Savannah, all gave their medical opinions. A lot of the stuff on today is about whether or not we should notify the cops.”
    Skip sighed. “You might as well show me what the monster looks like.”
    Layne grinned like a kid. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
    His computer room looked a lot like the Starship Enterprise. Clearly, much more thought had gone into the design of this than the decor of the rest of the apartment. Skip sat down in front of the color monitor.
    “Okay, I’m logging on. See? I’m typing my user ID—Teaser. Now it’s going to ask for my password.” He hit keys, but nothing appeared on the screen. Then the announcement: “You’re On The TOWN!”
    “Who knows your password?”
    “You and the sysop. That’s it.”
    “Come again?”
    “The systems operator.”
    She nodded.
    “Shall we go straight to Confession?”
    “By all means.”
    He typed out a few things and pretty soon “Murder at Home” was on the screen, its actual name being: “What Murderers Do You Know?”
    “This is going to take a long time to read. There are four hundred and eleven poss on this one. Let’s get out of it and I’ll show you Geoff’s.”
    The first post was Layne’s: “Geoff Kavanagh (Vidkid) was found dead at his home this morning, apparently the victim of an accident. Who believes it?”
    The next entry said: “The flashbacks! Somebody saw his posts.”
    Geoff’s body had been found at ten A.M. Thursday—this post was at twelve-thirty P.M. , two and a half hours later and about