Read Death Before Facebook for Free Online

did.”
    “Excuse me. Ten thousand of them?”
    Layne looked uncomfortable.
    “Good God!” she continued. “This is what shrinks are for.”
    “The TOWN’S a hell of a lot more accessible—and cheaper.”
    “Not in this case.”
    Now he looked downright sheepish. “It might have been one of us. We know that.”
    “What’s the deal with the autopsy report?”
    “Lenore got it—don’t ask me how. She posted it and RX, who lives in Portland, Med from Pensacola, and Sayah of Savannah, all gave their medical opinions. A lot of the stuff on today is about whether or not we should notify the cops.”
    Skip sighed. “You might as well show me what the monster looks like.”
    Layne grinned like a kid. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
    His computer room looked a lot like the Starship Enterprise. Clearly, much more thought had gone into the design of this than the decor of the rest of the apartment. Skip sat down in front of the color monitor.
    “Okay, I’m logging on. See? I’m typing my user ID—Teaser. Now it’s going to ask for my password.” He hit keys, but nothing appeared on the screen. Then the announcement: “You’re On The TOWN!”
    “Who knows your password?”
    “You and the sysop. That’s it.”
    “Come again?”
    “The systems operator.”
    She nodded.
    “Shall we go straight to Confession?”
    “By all means.”
    He typed out a few things and pretty soon “Murder at Home” was on the screen, its actual name being: “What Murderers Do You Know?”
    “This is going to take a long time to read. There are four hundred and eleven poss on this one. Let’s get out of it and I’ll show you Geoff’s.”
    The first post was Layne’s: “Geoff Kavanagh (Vidkid) was found dead at his home this morning, apparently the victim of an accident. Who believes it?”
    The next entry said: “The flashbacks! Somebody saw his posts.”
    Geoff’s body had been found at ten A.M. Thursday—this post was at twelve-thirty P.M. , two and a half hours later and about 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