Death of a Blogger

The characters and events in this post and all connected posts are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. 

The Final Post

            A bolt of lightning ridges out across the sky as torrential rains cascade down onto the asphalt outside your window. You glance up, too engrossed in what you are reading to be impressed by nature’s sudden onslaught except to reach over to shut the window to keep the computer screen from getting dowsed. A second take at the date on the blog entry and you’re convinced it’s time to move. Two days since the body was discovered and the case is already in active decay. Opening the file, you glance over the police report and nestle the receiver under your chin as you absentmindedly dial. “Can you get in here? We’re going to take another look into the Thebeauld case.” Without waiting for an answer, you drop the receiver into its cradle and tap out the seconds as you wait for the appearance of your reluctant partner.

            You watch as she meanders through the semi-chaotic corner of the police station you can view from your desk, strolling past favorite officers who pause to admire her passing, a small smile of pleasure on her face. “Too pleased with herself” you scowl, vaguely aware of your own sagging flesh. Her skirt brushes the upper arm of a young detective as she passes and she laughs at grasping fingers that reach for her ankle just as she slips away. She clicks into the office, her high heeled shoes registering impatience with your summons. Her whole demeanor always shifts in your presence to being slightly agitated, annoyed at your "so-called" experience, bored with your “insight” and ready to give her own This-is-what-my-prof-said opinions that are  little more than nettling. But it is your job to train her, not befriend.  

            She slouches across the room and angles herself in the chair as though she is keeping an eye on escape. You study her for a moment, wondering if she’s going to cooperate, decide it doesn’t matter and shrug off the ambivalence. “Give the Medical Examiner a call and tell him we’re going to need him to do a more thorough exam of the body.”

            “Never fly. Clear cut case. Serg has already stamped it.”

            “Not even close and I’ll talk with the Serg. He’s not going to be a problem.”

            “The ME didn’t find anything suspicious. There’s no reason to open it up again. Why do you want to get into this? It’s a can of worms that is just going to cause extra paperwork and you’ll wind up right back where you started. Even if there is something odd about it, chances are that you won’t—”   

            “That so-called Medical Examiner downstairs has his head so far up his ass that he may as well quit trying to look up. Just tell him he’s missed something. I’m not sure what we’re looking for and it might be that he won’t find anything new but he’s going to want to cover his ass, head and all. He won’t want to say it’s a simple suicide and then have questions later. And trust me, there are questions.”

            “What have you got.”

            “A blog entry. Written after time of death.”
            “Who says he wrote it?”

            “Password protected. Either he wrote it or someone else did. Either way.”
            “Could be written in advance. Set to post later. It would be odd but not unheard of.”
            “Then he doesn’t know much about himself. Says he’s got kids, dedicating himself to his marriage, giving up writing.”

            “So he lied.”

            “Seems like odd lies. And he doesn’t mention the kids anywhere else which is bizarre. At least from any other entries so far. It’s enough. Get it moving. You’ll want to start looking over that blog. Plenty there to give you some ideas. And we need his computer. Where is it? Somebody might have hacked it.”

            You shew your beauty queen partner out of your office with a to-do list that will keep her out your hair for a while and flip open your laptop. You study the blog with renewed interest, less intrigued in the biography of the author than you are in the followers and commenters the blogger seems to have collected along the way. Who were they and what might they know about the man behind the blog? Hmmm… Rogue Mutt, Botanist, Gideon 86, Mooderino, L’Aussie… some of the more eclectic pseudonyms— useful for keeping an identity hidden. Any one of them could be a suspect. This could take some time…

Who do you look at first?