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really talking to him?”
    “Well, it’s weird. The actual illusion is that you know people intimately when all you see is a few words on a screen. But because that is an illusion, you get bold. The most obvious example is flirting. People flirt online, or anyway it starts out that way and next thing you know, they’re talking dirty to a perfect stranger.”
    “Oh, God, you’re not making me feel any better. They feel safe, is what you’re saying.”
    “Yes.” His brow was really quite wrinkled.
    “How can I get a printout of this stuff?”
    “I’ll make you one if you like.”
    “Now?”
    “Sure.”
    “And I’ll need the sysop’s number.”
    “Okay, but you’ve got to talk to Bigeasy, too.”
    “Who?”
    “Our fearless leader, Bigeasy. He knows more about this stuff than anybody in Louisiana.”

CHAPTER THREE
     
    SKIP SPENT THE rest of the day going through Layne’s printouts and waiting for a callback from the sysop, the user ID Wizard. Aside from the terrifying thought that the murderer was monitoring the entire discussion, probably even participating in it, there were other revelations. Plenty of them.
    Geoff had posted, in front of ten thousand people, not only that he thought he might have witnessed a murder and was soon hoping to get a flashback of the murderer’s face, but that he’d always thought it kind of funny his mother got married so soon after his father’s death. She’d waited eight months and married his Uncle Mike, his father’s brother.
    Mike Kavanagh was a name Skip knew. Like his brother Leighton, he was a cop—a working cop even now assigned to Robbery, and a cousin of her nemesis, Frank O’Rourke. This was less than wonderful news. O’Rourke had proved time and again that he’d do anything to sabotage her—why, she didn’t know, except that he didn’t like women, didn’t like cops who came from Uptown, and had the disposition of a copperhead. With his cousin a suspect in the case, no telling what he’d pull, if he was in town. Fortunately, he wasn’t.
    There was another notable thing about Geoff’s posts—they weren’t complete. Sometimes there’d be a blank space with only the word
deleted
in it.
    Just as she was getting her eighth or ninth cup of coffee, more out of boredom than otherwise, so eager was she to be out in the field, the phone rang.
    “Hello, this is Wizard.”
    “Hi, Wizard. I got a problem down here.”
    “Yeah, I’ve been expecting to hear from you.”
    She felt once again the irritation that 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