He had a horrible way of trapping me—with a steaming cup of surprisingly good coffee and an even greater smile.

  I decided to start our friendship with truth. “I’m a journalist and wanted to stay in New York but in order to get a job and keep it, I had to come here. I’m still healing my bruised ego.”

  “You can sit in a mouse hole and still be a journalist as long as there is a microwave tower nearby and you have your laptop,” he said.

  “That’s the corporate way of thinking,” I nodded and took another sip of the coffee. It was really good. If I woke up every morning to something that was this good, I might even get to spend seven days in the barn without complaining…too much. But I had a purpose and needed to follow it.

  “Do you have WiFi in here?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Laptop?”

  “Out of sight but sure, yes. What did you have in mind?”

  “No, nothing like that. I was just wondering…I write a blog….”

  He didn’t let me finish. “C-Murder of the Week. I know. I read your posts.”

  I hid my lips in the coffee cup. The coffee was hot. It burned but that’s what I needed to contain my reaction.

  “Did you subscribe to it?” I made it sound as if didn’t care about his reply.

  “No. I don’t need my cell phone chiming every time something’s posted…somewhere. Your colleagues are here couple of times a week. They tell me when the blog post goes up.” He came to refill my cup and I saw that his ring finger on the right hand had a band of lighter skin around it. I would have liked to have asked the obvious but this wasn’t time for it. It was our first meeting and first impressions were…well, I didn’t want to ruin it. I needed him in a favorable state of mind. be.paradigm could turn out to be just a pest but he was an aggressive, angry pest.

  A couple of young guys came to sit at the end of the bar and he went to serve his customers. He walked away without a word, as if turning his back on me was the most natural thing in the world. He wasn’t dismissing me but neither was he interested in me. I was just a customer who finally came into his establishment and if I never chose to return, that would be just fine with him. Once was important. It set the tone. After that, the music didn’t matter.

  Was he lying about being my subscriber? I looked around. A family with two pre-teen kids, an older couple with grandkids that were surprisingly well-behaved, two couples, about my age, probably on a double-date, and a few others—all of them what you’d expect to see in a family restaurant that also had a liquor license.

  My be.paradigm subscriber was aggressive, a bully. I also felt he was someone who would turn violent if his wishes, whatever they were, were not carried out quickly enough for his taste. His words were thrown down, rather than just typed onscreen. When I read them I could almost hear their impact. Ben Doublinth just did not fit my profile of bully-subscriber.

  “What do you think of it?” I asked when the bartender returned and I put down the cup.

  “Of what?”

  “My blog. You said you read both posts.”

  “Your motives are light. There’s usually a lot more complexity in any given murder than what you put down in your blog-posts.”

  I didn’t like to be criticized by someone I’d just met. “I’m a journalist, not a policeman. Besides, the blog is for entertainment purpose. I’m not profiling anyone.”

  “You should.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I read all the comments too. You were pretty steamed about your subscriber who wouldn’t shut up and quit commenting.”

  “be.paradigm,” I said.

  “That’s my email address but I told you, I don’t subscribe. Where did you get it? Did Jake give it to you?"

  I shook my head. Something didn’t feel right. “If you read the comments, you’d have seen the subscriber who won’t abstain from commenting has the email address be.paradigm.”

  “No. I did not see that.” He must have seen that I didn’t believe because he brought out his laptop from under the bar counter. A minute later he turned the laptop around for me to see.

  “Your blog, your posts, the comments from….”

  “WrongQuestion,” I read the username that was also the email address, with a different extension than ibnet.com. I fumbled in my shapeless bag until I found my cell phone. My fingers mis-hit a few times because I was totally rattled. Finally, my blog-site came up.

  “WrongQuestion,” I whispered when I saw it was identical to what Ben was showing me on his laptop.

  “Did my email address show up for you before?” he asked.

  “Every time…but now,” I mumbled, feeling foolish because it was better than feeling afraid.

  “Well, you just have to take my word for it—I am not a subscriber. You have nothing to worry about. I would never make these kind of comments. Are they bothering you?”

  I shook my head. “No, no. It’s just annoying to…well, what else do you think about my fictional murders…and make it constructive input.”

  “The problem I see is that your motives are what the police would think but like you said, you’re a journalist. You should put a bit more work into your motives. A journalist should dig deeper.”

  Dig deeper—when all I wanted to do was run away and keep running until I ended up anywhere but here.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” I said and fished out a fiver then put it down.

  “It’s on the house. I treat all my first-time customers. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  He saw I wasn’t. It’s not what I wanted. I fixed my expression as best as I could, wriggling my nose, rubbing it, moving my shoulders as if to exercise stiffness then I rose. “I should go and join my colleagues in your kitchen.”

  “Is your blog syndicated?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You know, same principle as a columnist whose column is picked up all over the country.”

  “I think so.” Truth was I wasn’t sure because I didn’t ask Ganz anything that I should have asked before heading for Kinematic, Idaho.

  “Then your subscribers can come from anywhere in the US. Idaho is just where your newspaper parked you. Think of it as overflow but that doesn’t mean you’re not with the New York Times because you are. Dig deeper. Do a bit more work on your murder of the week. You’re a journalist, be creative. Your readership is not homogenous. You’ll have harsh critics and readers who’ll praise you to high heaven. You have a lot of work to do just to stay on the middle ground.”

  “Thank you for the motivational pep-talk. I’ll think about it,” I said and headed for the table where my colleagues sat in his kitchen, drinking beer and playing cards.

  “You know you’re sitting in the bartender’s kitchen,” I approached with those words.

  “Of course we do. Ben doesn’t mind,” Emilie said and leaned to the side so she could smile and wave at the man who turned out to be my harshest critic—from the moment we’ve met. Compared to Ben, my subscriber was a teddy bear.

  “You could do this back in the barn,” I said, moving so as to block her the view of the bar.

  “That’s our office,” Jake said. “And at least I like to keep things on a professional keel. Besides, in our office I don’t get to scratch the puppies behind their ears and have my hand licked in return.”

  “Fantastic,” I said. “Now, move over so I can join you.”

  “You’ll have to ask the table guardians for permission,” he said.

  “What…oh,” I said even as a low growl came from under the table. I bend my knees. I wasn’t going to bend over just to be able to see the canine crowd under the table.

  “Their names are White Fang, Milo and Body,” Melina said.

  “How do you do, guys? Are you comfy under there? Do much guarding…? Read much Jack London…?” I cocked my head so I could see the trio better. So far, all I saw were three pairs of glowing eyes.

  “Sit down before they change their mind about you,” Jake said and pulled me down on a chair next to him.

  “Where’s your beer?” Melina wanted to know.

  “I want to sleep tonight,” I shot back and very carefully adjusted my chair so I could fit in my feet—pointing away from the two massive paws. This time I set my purse down very, very carefully—and as far away from the canine noses as I could. Just in case.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In the last twenty-four hours, too many things had landed on my shoulders. Not only my knees but my spirit was buckling. No sooner I sat down at my rustic desk, I set up a chant in my head. “It’s a job that pays your student loan. It’s a job that pays your student loan. It’s a job….” When I got the rhythm just right, I booted my laptop and desktop. Neither pinged; then again, they weren’t supposed to.

  I had a murder to plot, plan and execute…with finesse. But first I needed to do what I should have done when the jerk started showing off.

  I googled Carmen Batista, Naples, Florida and prepared for onslaught of news articles. After all, Florida was your vacation state. Tourists had the right to know if a local was eaten by a crocodile. Then again, the local chamber of commerce might want to downplay such an incident because it was bad for tourism. However, google brought back nothing. Not about Carmen Batista in Naples, dead or alive. There were thirty-three Carmen Batistas in Naples. If I had the victim’s age, I would have been able to narrow it even further. But there was no point. If Carmen Batista was carried off by a crocodile, she’d not be listed in white pages. The whole thing started to feel like a hoax. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Ganz was behind it. He hired a hacker to heckle me from the shadow zone. To what purpose? To find out whether I’m a conscientious journalist who researches even a smallest reference? To diss my efforts anonymously? To rattle me…? Ganz was a manipulating troll but he didn’t strike me as a borderline psychopath.

  I was still not fully convinced that Ben was not behind the blog comments. He freely admitted to reading my blog but he flat out denied subscribing to it. I had to drop the subject because his email no longer featured anywhere in the blog’s comments. Obviously my pestilent subscriber, a.k.a. WrongQuestion, must have changed it…but why?

  I rose and announced, “I’m going outside to make a call.”

  “Why can’t you make it from here?” Jake sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “Because I don’t want any of you eavesdropping on my conversation. Geez, I thought you’d have figured it out, Jake,” I said and headed out the door.

  “Hi, Dad. I need to run something by you,” I said when my father picked up. I thought I heard a faint humming in the background but it could just have been my imagination. He wouldn’t be taking my call—walking through his apiary, would he?

  “I like the crocodile as a murder weapon but the motive was a bit simplistic,” he said.

  I should have just asked him what he thought of my second blog post, not try to avoid the very same issue that he just nailed. But I didn’t want to talk about my blog. I wanted to know something else.

  “Dad, you must have heard hundreds of creative stories from your clients, particularly those that were up for parole and needed your endorsement to get out. How could you tell if they were telling the truth or just telling you what you wanted to hear?”

  “Well, after thirty years working exclusively with clients whose goals were almost always polar opposite to mine, I can tell you that telling the truth comes a lot, lot harder than spinning a creative story,” he said.

  “You mean lying is easy?”

  “Exactly. To most people, not just those who test or outright break the law, telling the truth is difficult.”

  “I’d have thought the other way would be more difficult. You’re saying that lying comes naturally to people? I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Of course it’s not. That’s not what I’m saying at all. When you ask a person directly, an open not closed question, he will hesitate before he starts answering. It’s because he’s making a choice whether to tell the truth or lie. If he chooses to be truthful, his answers will be labored. Someone who is telling the truth wants to be believed so he takes care with what he’s bringing forth from his memory. A lie will be glib. It’ll have an astonishingly natural flow because the person doesn’t care about what he’s telling you. He’s making it up as he goes, taking his cue from his audience’s reaction.”

  “On some level that makes sense, Dad, but you can apply that theory only to your clients. Why would someone give you a very convincing case history when there’s never been such a case?”

  “It has to do with your blog. I can tell. Why don’t you tell me what you really want to talk about?”

  If he read my blog then he’d eventually see the comments anyway. I capitulated and told him about the no-nonsense presentation of what sounded like a real, actual murder case.

  “He didn’t give the year. It could be a historical case that happened long time ago. Anyway, I googled it and there’s nothing about any crocodile attacking a female-domestic. Not in Naples and for all I could see, not in the continental States. I feel like he’s testing me,” I said.

  “We test others for two reasons. To find their strength or to find their weakness. Which one do you think he’s searching for in your case?”

  The way I felt I didn’t have either. I was a tabula rasa.

  “I don’t know, Dad. It just seems weird. It reads like a real case, but I guess that’s what he wanted me to think. I didn’t go for the insurance angle or two perps, turning a woman into crocodile bait for money. I stuck to my revenge motive. The next day he sent me an angry message, berating me for not taking his offering,” I said.

  “It sounds to me like you have a subscriber who wants to be an active contributor to your blog. Would your employer allow that sort of thing?”

  “No, Dad. I’m getting paid to write the blog. The choice of the topic was mine…well, it was mom’s suggestion but I’m the only one who has to write it.”

  “Then you have a subscriber who is a pest,” Dad said. “I’ll go read his comments. Has anyone else engaged him?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve only a handful of subscribers and they haven’t bothered commenting.”

  “Maybe I will make a comment about his angry message,” my father said.

  “You won’t find that in the comments. He emailed me….” I caught myself but knew it was too late.

  “Emailed you? Does the blog have your email?”

  “No. That’s what the comments section is for. There is a contact form to fill out if you want to send me email but it’s a form; email address does not show.”

  “Then how did he get your email?”

  “He used my colleague’s email address.”

  “He hacked your colleague’s email work account? Bree-Ann, we’re not discussing a pest anymore. We’re discussing a criminal.”

  “Dad, this is my lunch hour. It’s almost over. I’ve got to go. Thanks for your insight. I’ll call you in a couple of days,” I said hurriedly and shut off the cell phone.

  When I walked inside the office, Jake asked, “Mom, Dad, Ben or an old boyfriend?” He stared at me with upturned face, eager as a boy scout. Maybe that’s why I took pity on him.

  “My Dad, if you must know,” I said. No sooner my voice died down when my other three colleagues rose from behind their desks and each of them put a five dollar bill on Jake’s desk.

  “I can’t believe that you would take a bet on who I called,” I shook my head and turned my back to grinning Jake.

  “Your dad’s Bartholomew Carver,” Jake said. “He was the youngest of the three psychiatrists who sat on a panel during the sanity hearings for Triple-B.”

  “What?” I spun round. I hadn’t heard that one yet. Then again, in all my formative years and those spent in academia, I never googled my father—in his profession. When my mom bought me my first laptop, she asked me to abstain from googling family members. I gave her my word and never broke that promise. I’m sure my brother did. He was the one prone to solar flare-ups like an exploding star when he heard the word ‘no.’ I had respect for the word. He thought it should have been stricken from the dictionary.

  “Didn’t you know?” Melina decided to add fuel on the fire.

  “No.”

  “But you do know what Triple-B stands for?” she tested further.

  “Brittle Boogeyman Bill—a sexual predator who, twenty-nine years ago, terrorized high school kids along the Maine coast, mostly between Boston and Brunswick. He was a dedicated stalker of his victims. He attacked them in isolated spots and lovers’ lanes where teens went to make out. He killed sixteen kids before he was apprehended. Four of his victims were from New Hampshire. The parents appealed and won. Bill’s case was tried in New Hampshire which has a death penalty and Triple-B was executed twelve years later when all appeals for clemency were exhausted.”

  “I’m impressed,” Jake declared.

  “You’re not the only fact-checker on staff, you know.” I laughed when I saw his startled expression and relented. “I’m not after your job, Jake, relax. I did a case study on sexual predators who operated on the East Coast in my first year at Columbia.”

  “And you got an A, right?” He smiled.

  “Actually, I got an A-minus. My prof said my presentation was biased. Journalists are allowed some degree of slant but it can’t be an outright bias.”

  “You can ask anyone for help with setting up your murder cases,” Emilie spoke up. “There’s no restriction on how you write your blog posts. You don’t have to leave when you need to consult with your dad. If I had a father who was a criminal psychiatrist and had to write a murder-blog, I’d be plugged into my Bluetooth all day long.”

  I tried not to promise things I knew I couldn’t deliver so I just feigned exasperation, saluted and went to my desk.

  In our family, things were always backwards. Mom was a Madison, Dad was a Carver. They never married—formally that is. They met while backpacking through the southern hemisphere. The trip was a ‘college graduation gift’ from their respective parental camps. Their marriage certificate had a hand-print of a Maori chief who officiated at their ‘coupling’ in the late seventies. My brother was born days after the two returned to homeland. He could barely be considered a ‘millennial.’ I, however, was. Ten years after my only sibling’s arrival, they received a surprise gift—and named me in the established tradition, Bree-Ann Madison-Carver. I asked for only one thing as a graduation present from grade school—a permission to shorten my name. I told my mother that I lost marks on many tests because I ran out of time, just signing my name. She laughed and said I had a great story-telling talent. I wanted to believe her but I wasn’t lying about losing marks because it took me forever to spell out my ambitious name.