Death Before Facebook

was.”
    “Oh. Just passing through. I was born and raised in Metairie. Lived a lot of other places, though.”
    “How long have you been married?”
    He had to pause and figure it out—Neetsie was eighteen. “Nineteen years,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”
    “That’s a long time.”
    “It’s been good, though. It’s been great.”
    “Happy marriages don’t come along every day.”
    “Neither do women like Marguerite.”
    She smiled at him more warmly, he thought, than she had before: All the world loves a lover.
    It was hard to convey the way he felt about Marguerite. “Did you ever meet someone that you knew in that instant was right for you—was your life’s partner?”
    “I don’t think many people do. How did you two meet?”
    “Well, it wasn’t even that we met—I saw her across a crowded room and wouldn’t rest until I found out who she was. It took me an hour to work up the courage, though. Lucky for me, she was just out of a marriage to a very abusive man. What can I say? We fell desperately in love.”
    “Leighton or Mike?” she said.
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Who was the abuser?”
    “I guess they both were, now that I think about it, but I met her after Mike. Otherwise I’d have snapped her up a few years earlier. Neetsie was born about a year after we got married, and meanwhile Geoff and I formed a real father-son bond. Mike had been abusive to him as well as to Marguerite; but maybe you knew that.”
    She nodded, not giving anything away.
    “He was withdrawn at first, but I found the cyberpunk lurking under the quiet exterior.”
    Her smile looked painted on as she said good-bye, he didn’t know why. Maybe he’d run on too much. It was a habit, Marguerite had said.

CHAPTER NINE
     
    SKIP HATED TO leave without talking to Marguerite, but she had a feeling it might be for the best—better to catch her without the doting hubby hanging around.
    Cole had surprised her.
    He was vaguely handsome in that clean-cut, fraternity-boy way so many New Orleans men were blessed with. But he had something else—a kind of wild energy, a charisma. He was a fast talker and a little short on modesty, but she felt herself drawn to him, drawn to the whirling center of all that electricity. How did a man like that sit at his computer all day? He seemed as if he should be out playing tennis. Not only that, how did he hook up with a dud like Marguerite?
    But she must be missing something about Marguerite. The woman appeared to have had very nearly the male population of New Orleans in love with her at one time, and it didn’t seem to have abated much. What did she have that men saw and women didn’t?
    Skip pulled into her parking place, thinking that the biggest mysteries she encountered weren’t always who did what to whom.
    Remembering that Ted Bundy had been famous for his charm, she wasted no time checking Cole’s alibi—but his business associates confirmed the meeting he’d attended, and the Holiday Inn said he’d checked out at midmorning the day of the murder.
    She turned her attention to a note she’d found on her desk when she walked in: “Call Mike Kavanagh ASAP.”
    Gladly,
she thought.
About time we met.
    Kavanagh had a classic New Orleans accent, not exactly yat, but pretty close. He said he’d be right ’dere.
    He was overweight and red-faced, veins popping on his nose. He clearly ate too much and drank too much. His hair had been red, but it was mostly gray now. When he shook hands with her, he stood close enough so that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. She hoped he wasn’t too attached to his liver.
    She hated cops who gave cops a bad name, and Mike Kavanagh, she could see at a glance, was capable of that. She had taken what Cole said about his being abusive with a grain of salt, but now she wondered.
    “What can I do for you?” she said.
    “I came to ask you that. May I sit down?”
    “Of course.” They both sat.
    “I knew you’d find me eventually. Terrible thing about Geoff.” He looked at his lap and shook his head. “Terrible thing. Wasn’t it?”
    She nodded, thinking he looked shaken indeed.
    “I thought you’d like my ideas on the case.” He attempted a smile.
    “You have some?”
    “Nah, not really. But you do—you think I’m a pretty good suspect, don’t you?”
    “Are you?”
    “Well, Suby told me about all this memory stuff. She says half that goddamn thing—the TOWN—thinks I did it.”
    “Suby?”
    “My