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labeled letter-size manila folder that contained pages I printed from the World Wide Web. Laura Skipcliff’s name had appeared on many web sites; hers was a thick folder.
    The first page of her dossier showed the results of a search using InfoSpace, a popular “people finder,” as such sites are called, a superduper internet phone and address directory. According to InfoSpace, “Skipcliff, Laura” lived on East Eighty-third Street in New York, NY 10021. Her phone number began with the familiar Manhattan area code: 212. Beneath the directory listing, InfoSpace offered the options of getting a map of the area, finding nearby businesses, and  adding Laura Skipcliff to an address book. Three lines followed:
    Find out more about Laura Skipcliff.
    Find Laura Skipcliff on Classmates.com!
    Send flowers to Laura Skipcliff.
    The next page was similar to the first, but came from another people finder, Any Who. Its listing was for “Skipcliff, Laura, MD,” and specified the street number. The line below the directory information offered the opportunity to get a map and directions to her address, and asked, Did you go to school with Laura MD Skipcliff?
    The next three pages showed pictures of Laura Skipcliff, photos printed in black and white. The first, which had come from her hospital's web site, was a small close-up of her face, together with a paragraph about her. Her skin was deeply lined, and she had prominent pouches under her eyes. I wondered whether cosmetic efforts had backfired; perhaps makeup had sunk into the creases of her skin, thus highlighting the signs of age. Her hair suggested a woman who’d cared about her appearance. It was dark and cut in an attractive, youthful style, shoulder length and smoothly straight. The second photo was an enlargement of the first. The quality of the original graphics file must have been poor. The blowup blurred Laura Skipcliffs features and grotesquely exaggerated her haggardness. On the following page, however, printed from the web site of a modern dance company, was a group shot of three donors attending a fund-raising dinner. Laura Skipcliff was on the right. She’d dressed up for the occasion. She wore a short-sleeved dress in what I guessed was black. Her hair was a bit bouncier than in the previous picture, and she wore earrings, bracelets, and an ornate necklace. It was now easy to see that she’d once been pretty.
    Next in the dossier came information that naive people are shocked to discover is readily available online. A page printed from AnyBirthday.com revealed that Laura Skipcliffs birthday was October 27. She had been fifty-seven at the time of her death. The site offered the unintentionally gruesome opportunity to receive an E-mail reminder when her next birthday approached. The USSearch site confirmed that Laura Skipcliff had lived in Manhattan and that her age had been fifty-seven. For a fee, the site would’ve gone on to look for judgments, liens, bankruptcies, and a great deal more. Indeed, the people finders and the other free sites all abounded in low-cost opportunities to find out almost anything about anyone: to search Social Security records, court records, and property records. Searchers were also exhorted to click on hyperlinks that would presumably benefit themselves: Get a home loan, Rent a truck, Refinance now, Save on lodging, Find contractors, Enjoy hassle-free shopping, and Meet Mr. Right.
    As it was, the results of free searches left no doubt that Dr. Skipcliff had been a wealthy woman. The web sites of four or five arts organizations listed her as a donor; she’d been especially supportive of dance. She’d served on the board of a well-known dance center in the Berkshires. InfoSpace and AnyWho had provided an address and phone number for her in that lovely region of Western Massachusetts. The town where she’d had what was presumably a summer house was one that posted its property assessments on the web. Laura Skipcliff had owned a house that