Death Before Facebook

had surged up at Layne’s: How dare these people know more than the police? “Can you let me know all your Louisiana users?”
    “I’ve got to talk to our lawyers about anything you ask me.”
    “Okay, that’s Question One. Question Two is technical. Is there a way to recover deleted material?”
    “Not mail. Anything else, yes.”
    “Who can delete material, by the way? Can anybody on the TOWN?’
    “Anybody can delete his or her own posts. And the conference hosts or I can do it if we need to—for legal reasons, say. But other than that one user can’t delete another’s.”
    “I notice a lot of Geoff’s are missing. I’d like to know why.”
    “My guess is he did it himself. I’ll see what I can find out.”
    “Thanks. Here’s what else I need: everything Geoff Kavanagh ever posted; and everything he posted that ended up deleted. Can you get that for me?”
    “I’ll ask the legal eagles.”
    Legal eagles. He was probably the kind of guy who said “thingie.” They all probably did. They were nerds by definition.
    “Hey, listen,” she said, “what kind of people subscribe to the TOWN? I mean, just in general—do you have any kind of demographic breakdown?”
    “Not really. There are thousands of lurkers who never identify themselves other than to give their names.”
    “What are lurkers?”
    “People who don’t post. You could monitor every conference except the private ones and no one would even know you’re there if you don’t speak up. That’s a lurker.
    “Anyway, we’ve had these sort of self-surveys online, but they don’t really mean anything because the lurkers so far outnumber the posters. On the TOWN, I think it’s about eight to one.”
    “Well, of the posters—or at least those who respond to the surveys—what are most people like?’
    “For openers, they’re all ages. Lots and lots of them are in computer-related jobs, of course. But we’ve got a fair number of writers and actors—we’re near L.A., so I guess you’d expect it.”
    “No dearth of doctors, I noticed.”
    “I think one of them is even a forensic pathologist. Yeah, we’ve got just about everything you can name. I’ll tell you one thing—we have a reputation for being one of the least nerdy bulletin boards.”
    “Did you say something about private conferences?”
    “Yes, anyone can start one. The most popular ones are the Men’s, Women’s, Gays, and Recovery, but we have lots that have just two or three people in them.”
    “Can I find out if Geoff was in any of them?”
    “I’ll talk to the…”
    “… legal eagles. You do that thingie.”
    Another dead end. Disgusted, she packed up and went home.
    There were other things she could have done; she felt a little odd about giving up so easily the first day of a big case, but the truth was, she was feeling overwhelmed by this one. She needed a good night’s sleep to get her mind in cyberspace.
    She had painted her new apartment melon, like the one she had left, in the Big House. As its former tenant, Jimmy Dee, had had it a deep, masculine aubergine, that hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth it. Melon walls, white trim, gauzy curtains, and French doors made a cool, light, airy, happy place, though she could have done without the cool and the air at the moment. She had a beautiful blue-and-white Chinese lamp that stood on an antique table, a shiny, dark wood coffee table, her almost-new gray-and-white-striped sofa, and very little else, except for her cherished Marcia Mandeville painting and a new bed, since she now had a bedroom. In the smaller apartment, she’d just used the fold-out sofa. Next she was going to need a set of fireplace tools, that was obvious. Even with the wide open spaces caused by an unconcealable dearth of furniture, she would have been perfectly happy here if she hadn’t had to wear three sweaters.
    Of course, she could always go over to the Big House.
    She’d been doing that a lot lately, and it had only just turned cold. Jimmy Dee had said he needed her, that’s why he’d given her the garconniere so cheap, and why she’d accepted. That and the fact that it was an offer no one in her right mind would dream of refusing. It was one of the best apartments in the French Quarter.
    But now she was developing a strange uneasiness about intruding in the Scoggin-Ritter family. The kids had been without a father quite a while before their mother died; and they’d never really known their Uncle Jimmy Dee very