Death Before Facebook

ninety-three hours before the beginning of the police investigation.
    I’m just learning this now,
Skip thought,
and this cyberpunk knew it three days ago.
    The attached user ID was Gorilla. “Who the hell is that?” she growled.
    “Her name is Nancy, I think, and she lives in Boise or someplace. Want me to look her up?”
    “No. Let’s stay on topic.”
    “Well, it goes on in this vein for a while. Everybody coming to obvious conclusions. Then somebody—Med, I think”—he scrolled down—“got the idea of getting hold of the autopsy report and indeed Lenore was able to do that. She uploaded it and then things really took off—all those doctors saying the report wasn’t consistent with that kind of accident, everybody with their theories.”
    “Has anyone accused anybody?”
    “Not publicly.” Lane looked troubled.
    “But anybody could E-mail somebody. They could know something special they might not want to share, right? And simply contact the person directly.”
    “Yeah. I’ve thought of that too. Blackmail’s what you’re talking about, right?”
    “That or simple grandstanding.”
    He nodded, apparently following completely. “Have you ever been to one of those mystery weekends?”
    “No, why?”
    “Well, I’ve put a few of them together.” He spread his arms modestly. “I do games as well as puzzles. A weird thing happens to people. They all start thinking they’re Sam Spade and they do stuff they’d never do ordinarily. They break into each other’s rooms, they steal phone messages, they shadow people—it’s very disconcerting the first time you see it.”
    “Oh, shit. This is no game.”
    “A strange kind of reality kicks in once you get on the TOWN. It’s kind of like being in a car and yelling at people you’d never yell at in any other circumstance. You know that feeling of invincibility?”
    Skip felt queasy. “They think because they can’t see the person they’re talking to they’re not really talking to him?”
    “Well, it’s weird. The actual illusion is that you know people intimately when all you see is a few words on a screen. But because that is an illusion, you get bold. The most obvious example is flirting. People flirt online, or anyway it starts out that way and next thing you know, they’re talking dirty to a perfect stranger.”
    “Oh, God, you’re not making me feel any better. They feel safe, is what you’re saying.”
    “Yes.” His brow was really quite wrinkled.
    “How can I get a printout of this stuff?”
    “I’ll make you one if you like.”
    “Now?”
    “Sure.”
    “And I’ll need the sysop’s number.”
    “Okay, but you’ve got to talk to Bigeasy, too.”
    “Who?”
    “Our fearless leader, Bigeasy. He knows more about this stuff than anybody in Louisiana.”

CHAPTER THREE
     
    SKIP SPENT THE rest of the day going through Layne’s printouts and waiting for a callback from the sysop, the user ID Wizard. Aside from the terrifying thought that the murderer was monitoring the entire discussion, probably even participating in it, there were other revelations. Plenty of them.
    Geoff had posted, in front of ten thousand people, not only that he thought he might have witnessed a murder and was soon hoping to get a flashback of the murderer’s face, but that he’d always thought it kind of funny his mother got married so soon after his father’s death. She’d waited eight months and married his Uncle Mike, his father’s brother.
    Mike Kavanagh was a name Skip knew. Like his brother Leighton, he was a cop—a working cop even now assigned to Robbery, and a cousin of her nemesis, Frank O’Rourke. This was less than wonderful news. O’Rourke had proved time and again that he’d do anything to sabotage her—why, she didn’t know, except that he didn’t like women, didn’t like cops who came from Uptown, and had the disposition of a copperhead. With his cousin a suspect in the case, no telling what he’d pull, if he was in town. Fortunately, he wasn’t.
    There was another notable thing about Geoff’s posts—they weren’t complete. Sometimes there’d be a blank space with only the word
deleted
in it.
    Just as she was getting her eighth or ninth cup of coffee, more out of boredom than otherwise, so eager was she to be out in the field, the phone rang.
    “Hello, this is Wizard.”
    “Hi, Wizard. I got a problem down here.”
    “Yeah, I’ve been expecting to hear from you.”
    She felt once again the irritation that