Dead Connection

determine shared interests and values. The company purported to know nothing about its individual members, let alone who was best suited for whom. In fact, FirstDate’s refusal to suggest potential matches was precisely what attracted the lovelorn, at least those who believed that chemistry and love were too irrational and unpredictable to be crassly calculated by a computer.

FirstDate left the hunt for these elusive objects to the hunters but made the possibility of a successful end to the hunt seem plausible. It did so by providing a virtual meat market with no geographic or temporal limits. With FirstDate, you could hook up with your next love from your desk, with none of the messiness (or potential lawsuits) inherent in dating a coworker. With FirstDate, you could meet someone on a Saturday morning while you surfed the net in your pajamas in front of the television.

But what really attracted customers to FirstDate was the anonymity provided by cyberspace. FirstDate users went by pseudonyms. No addresses, no phone numbers. Not even e-mail addresses. Members contacted each other – at least initially – directly through the FirstDate site, using the FirstDate mailboxes and messaging systems, rather than personal e-mail accounts. The entire system was set up so that careful members could “meet” and get to know any other FirstDate member without ever disclosing their identities.

Anonymity. Safety. Privacy. It all sounded good. Unless, of course, a killer used the anonymity to ensure safety and privacy from the police.

To find the men who contacted Amy Davis through FirstDate, Ellie and Flann needed access to her account. That simple task was proving to be frustratingly difficult.

The many pages on the FirstDate Web site listed only one telephone number, and that was for members of the media. Everyone else was supposed to make contact via e-mail. Ellie called the number, and a public relations representative eventually put her through to a customer service representative. Much to Ellie’s surprise, even after she identified herself and explained the nature of her inquiry, the FirstDate employee informed her that she would need a court order before the company would release any personal information regarding Amy Davis.

“The poor woman is dead,” Ellie protested. “I think if she were here, she’d be more concerned about the police finding the man who killed her than about her privacy.”

There had been an uncomfortable silence, followed by the comment, “We at FirstDate assume that our customers value privacy above all else. We will, however, comply with any lawfully issued court orders.”

Anonymity. Safety. Privacy.

After their efforts with FirstDate petered out, they tried the department’s computer technicians, but were told the staff was too backed up to look at Amy’s laptop. Apparently McIlroy’s suck with the honchos didn’t trickle down to the crime analysts.

“Aah, why bother? Corporations and crooks take all of the techies worth having anyway.” He and Ellie sat side by side at his desk, staring at Davis’s laptop screen. McIlroy picked up the phone. “I know an A.D.A. who will help us get a court order. We’ll force FirstDate to open Davis’s account.”

Ellie waved him off. “That’ll take forever. Let me try a few things.”

She pulled up the log-on page at FirstDate. She typed “MoMAgirl” in the user name box, offered a few random letters for the password box, then hit enter. The computer responded with an error message informing her that the user name and password did not match.

“No shit,” McIlroy said. “You really think you’re going to stumble upon it?”

“Nope.” Ellie clicked on the hypertext beneath the error message: Forgot your password?

Ellie smiled when the next screen appeared. The screen contained three prompts: the e-mail address the member had used to register, the member’s date of birth, and the name of the member’s pet. “For a company that values privacy, they sure haven’t done much to protect it.”

She had seen a few e-mails printed out on Amy’s desk at her apartment. They had all listed an e-mail address in her name at the Museum of Modern Art. She typed that address into the first box on the screen, followed by Amy’s date of birth, followed by “Chowhound.” That was a good cat name. Good and memorable.

She hit enter, mentally crossing her fingers. Then she received another message. Sorry but the information you provided does not match our records.

McIlroy reached again for the phone. “I’m going to make that call to the D.A.’s office now. Good thing I didn’t bring you onto the case for your computer skills.”

“Don’t you dare,” Ellie said, holding up her hand. “And here I thought you were starting to have some faith in me.”

She pulled up the member profile for MoMAgirl. The photograph of Amy Davis was flattering, but with enough shadows to maintain some mystery. Her dark hair was windblown, and she wore sunglasses. She was smiling, seemingly happy to be wherever she was when the picture was taken.

In the box of basic information, next to her photograph, and above a lengthier statement Amy had written about herself, MoMAgirl listed her height (5’3”), hair and eye color (brown and blue, respectively), body type (athletic), ethnicity (white), and age (29).

“Got it,” Ellie said, clicking back to the password reminder page. “Amy wasn’t twenty-nine, but she wanted FirstDate to think she was.”

Ellie typed in the requested information again, this time shaving two years off Amy’s birth year. When she hit the enter key, a message popped up informing her that her FirstDate password had been sent to the member’s e- mail address.

“Call MoMA, please? Ask them how employees check their e-mail from home. And make sure you get her log-in information.”

A few minutes later, McIlroy had the information they needed to access Amy’s work account. Ellie logged in and found eighty-two messages waiting. The most recent was from FirstDate, reminding Amy that her password for the profile MoMAgirl was “Colby.”

“Hot diggity,” Flann said, rubbing his palms together.

They were finally where they needed to be, logged in to Amy Davis’s FirstDate account. Now it was time to find out just who tried to get to know Amy Davis. Anonymously. Safely. Privately.

AT AN INTERNET cafe in Midtown Manhattan, the man who strangled Amy Davis sipped a cup of coffee and smiled. He smiled because he liked what he saw on the screen of his laptop.

He had been keeping an eye on MoMAgirl’s profile. Until Saturday evening, he had seen the words “active within 24 hours” posted above that pretty picture of hers. Then it morphed to “active within 48 hours.”

Patience, he told himself. Even the stupidest police officer could figure this one out. After all, the unsubtle clue left for them in Amy’s coat pocket had a purpose. Her e-mails would point the police directly to that insipid poseur she met that night at Angel’s Share. He would undoubtedly be of limited intelligence. Even so, sooner or later, he would persuade the cops of his innocence, and they’d start to dig for another suspect.

Now it appeared he had gotten what he was waiting for: another change in the text above MoMAgirl’s picture. “Online now!” the screen declared.

He caught himself smiling, then forced himself to stop. Smiling would bring attention to himself. He didn’t want the attention. Not yet, anyway. Not on him.

He read the words again. Online now. How thrilling. Amy Davis, of course, could not be the computer user who was online as MoMAgirl. He had made sure of that in the alley on Friday night. It had required more of a fight than he anticipated, but he had put her down for good. And now someone had logged into her FirstDate account. The police had made the connection. The game was on.

He was surprised that he didn’t feel at least some guilt. He’d expected some pangs of discomfort. But nothing. In fact, taking out Amy was a piece of delicious karmic balance. More than five years earlier, in a spontaneous act of curiosity, he had Googled the name, wondering what had ever become of Amy Davis. Lo and behold, she was in New York, where he had recently moved himself. It had been a few years since he’d thought about her, but when the moment presented itself, there she was. Still in New York. Still at the museum. Still single and lonely, living in that same apartment. It was as if fate had held her there for him, ready to be used at just the right time.

On further contemplation, he decided there was no reason for him to be surprised at his lack of remorse. The average person didn’t truly care whether other people lived or died; they just convinced themselves they did because they were supposed to. He, however, knew better than to assume any kind of ingrained benevolence. In