Death Before Facebook

certain section of this fine institution.”
    Maybe, Skip thought. But one thing was painfully obvious—this was a terribly unhappy woman; a woman who didn’t know where to turn to get out of the doldrums.
    I wonder if she has a boyfriend.
    It doesn’t matter—whoever he is, he isn’t enough.
    “I have to get back to work.”
    “Could I ask you one more question? Neetsie told me where she works, but I forgot. Do you happen to know?”
    “Sure. All Systems Go.” At Skip’s blank look, she said, “Are you sure she told you?”
    “I guess not. Maybe it was Suby.”
    “Well, it’s not classified information. It’s a computer store.”
    On the way back (driving being Skip’s favorite time to philosophize), she thought about the irony of Geoff, the computer whiz, working in a video store, while his sister the actress spent her days flogging computers.
    Right before lunch, Steve called. “How’s everything?”
    “Just awful. Sheila ran away last night.”
    “Sheila?” He couldn’t seem to place her.
    “Dee-Dee’s kid.”
    “Oh, sure. What’s the matter with me?”
    “I mean, she really ran away. We didn’t find her until two o’clock.”
    “In the morning? You were up till two in the morning?”
    “Three-thirty, actually. We had to bribe her to come home by taking her for a burger.”
    “Yikes, I hope you didn’t have to go to McDonald’s. Better to leave her to freeze.”
    “Steve!”
    “Hey, I’m kidding. Joke, okay? I didn’t mean anything.”
    “Sorry. I’m sleep-impaired.”
    “We’ll talk tonight.”
    But she couldn’t, of course. She had to spy on a bunch of cultists.
    Anyway, she didn’t want to talk. Bad news could wait.
    She hung up feeling snappish. He had seemed blithely unconcerned about Sheila; in fact seemed to have forgotten her entire existence.
    She was angry at Steve anyway, and this didn’t help. She couldn’t help thinking a real man would show some concern for children.
    To which the corollary was all too obvious:
Like Darryl
.
    She called Wizard, the TOWN sysop. “Oh, yeah, I’ve been meaning to phone you.”
    “Did you talk to your lawyers?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll send you the stuff. You knew I’d have to, didn’t you?”
    “I knew you would if I subpoenaed it. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”
    “Yeah, well, if I’d had my way, it would have.”
    Is this something I need to know? Why is this man so irritating?
“Could you send it today, please? Federal Express?”
    “Are you going to pay for it?’
    “If you like.”
    Skip rang off.
Self-important bastard
.
    Then:
I’m evil today
.
    It was a phrase she’d picked up from Cindy Lou, whose grandmother used to say she “got evil” when she reached menopause. “So far as I could tell,” Cindy Lou had said, “it’s like galloping negativity. You don’t like anything or anybody and you snap at whoever you run into.”
    Apparently more things than menopause could cause it. Lack of sleep, for one.
    The phone rang again. “Goddamn it.”
    “Hi, it’s Layne.”
    “Oh. Hi.”
    “You don’t sound that glad to hear from me.”
    “Sorry. What can I do for you?”
    “It’s what I can do for you. I’ve got a present for you.”
    “Information, I hope.”
    “It’s this great piece of software I designed. You can track who posted where and when and how many times and all kinds of neat stuff. Sort of a detective bureau on a disk. So you can manipulate your computer data just like other stuff—like putting it on three-by-five cards.”
    “Wait a minute. You mean I could figure out what somebody did in a given session on the TOWN? If they posted in a lot of different conferences?”
    “Sure.”
    “Would it tell me when? Like what order it all happened in?”
    “Elementary, my dear.”
    She was warming toward him. She could track Geoff and Lenore and anyone else she wanted to.
    “So shall I come over tonight and install it?”
    “I don’t think that’s the way to do it.”
    “Hey, I’m gay. Did I mention that?”
    She laughed. “It’s not that. It’s just that until the case is over we need to maintain a professional relationship.”
    “Huh?”
    She kept quiet while the penny dropped.
    “Hold it. Hey, hold it. I think I just got it. I’m a suspect—is that what you’re saying?”
    “Like the man said, I suspect everyone.”
    “I can’t get over it. I’m a suspect.” He laughed for about a minute and a half, making her feel evil again.
    “Listen,