Undermind: Nine Stories by Edward M Wolfe Page A

told you that I don’t know either of you,
so rather than repeating myself, how about you just tell me what
you think I did?”
    “Does the screen name moanalisa86 ring
any bells?”
    “No. I’ve never heard of it.”
    “Yes, you have, Tom. You heard of it, saw it,
and wrote a response to a request for advice that was posted by
someone using it.”
    “Okay, then. I don’t recall it.”
    “I believe you. As I said, it’s been years, so
that makes sense. Allow me to refresh your memory.”
    “Please do.”
    When we reached the street that I had walked
down to get to Lankershim, he pulled over to the curb in front of a
house. He was apparently taking me back to where I woke up a short
time ago – but not yet.
    “Lisa posted to Yahoo Answers about her
relationship in 2009. She complained about her boyfriend, saying
she suspected he was insane, and possibly violent. She said she
wanted to leave him, but literally scared for her life to do so.
She said she was in a bind and didn’t know what to do. She asked
for help. Are you starting to remember any of this?”
    “No. Not at all.”
    “Well, you should. It was your advice that she
took.”
    “What did I advise?”
    “You said, and this is verbatim, ‘You are
definitely with a classic psychopath. The sooner you leave the
better. He will not change, you cannot appease him, and sooner or
later, you won’t even think of asking for help. Your life will be
over. Get out now, while you can. Tell everyone you know when you
leave him, why you’re leaving him. The more you get the word out,
the less he’ll be able to do anything to you. Be safe, and good
luck!’ Does that refresh your memory?”
    “No. Maybe, vaguely. I used to write a lot of
responses on Yahoo Answers. I don’t remember all of them.”
    “Yes, you did answer a lot, and your answers
were frequently chosen as the best. You had a very high ranking.
But I’m surprised you don’t remember advising Lisa, since it was
such a serious departure from the standard idiotic questions that
most people could’ve answered themselves by just using Google, or
were we still using AltaVista then?”
    “It may have been a serious issue for her – it
was her life – but to me, it would’ve just been words on the screen
for a few minutes. That’s not something I would’ve committed to
memory. It was too insignificant.”
    “That’s rich. The ruining of my life was
insignificant to you.”
    “You’re the guy she wanted to leave?”
    “I’m the guy she did leave. Because of
you.”
    “How do you know it was because of me? I’m sure
plenty of other people told her to do the same thing. It’s common
sense. You think you’re living with a psycho, get the fuck out. How
can you pin this solely on me?”
    “You’re right. Seventeen other people also
advised her to leave me. But she chose your response as the Best
Answer, and she quoted you when she broke up with me. She said
she’d been told that I was a classic psychopath, that I wouldn’t
change, I couldn’t be appeased, etc. Later, I logged in to her
account and saw the email from Yahoo with a link to her question. I
read your advice, and I vowed that I’d get revenge. It’s been a
long time coming, but now it’s here. Today is the day of
retribution.”
    “I was right. You are a psychopath.
You’ll never get away with this. Especially now that you’ve just
confessed to me that you killed her and framed me for it. The
police will know that I don’t have any connection to her. But you
certainly do. You have motive. I don’t. How do you think you’re
going to convince the cops that I had any reason to kill someone
that I don’t even know? Someone that I posted to on Yahoo years
ago. The police aren’t that stupid, you know.”
    He reached into his inner suit jacket pocket and
pulled out something that looked like a wallet. He let it fall
open, revealing his identification as a Los Angeles County police
detective, and his badge.
    ***
    I woke up