Most of it looked brand new and top dollar, including three large-screen monitors occupying a single table.
Bandoni whistled. “This shit’ll keep the computer forensics guys busy for weeks.”
He tapped a flat silver trackpad next to one of the monitors. The center console lit up, revealing the cartoon image of a scantily clad woman walking toward us, ass swaying, breasts swinging, her expression come-hither. The image enlarged until only her breasts showed, then the image rewound and she began her seductive walk anew. When Bandoni tapped again, a password box appeared.
“Not what I would have expected for a gay guy,” Bandoni said.
“You’re hung up on gay. Or maybe there’s a roommate.”
“Not according to the DMV, for what that’s worth.”
Bandoni watched the woman sashay again. After two more passes, he sighed and turned away.
The other screens remained dark when he touched their trackpads.
Another table held six laptops. All were powered on, and all were password protected.
“Who the hell needs six laptops?” Bandoni muttered. “Notepad and pen is good enough for me.”
“There’s this thing called the internet now. You should give it a try.” But I wondered the same thing.
While Bandoni looked around the rest of the space, I returned to the main table with its three large monitors. Taped to the wall above the center console was a piece of paper torn from a legal pad. Written on it in red felt-tip pen was a single line.
OUR ANGER IS RIGHTEOUS
“What’s that?” Bandoni asked.
“His mantra?” I shrugged. “His brand?”
“‘Our,’ though. Sounds like he’s part of a group.”
Paperwork next to the computer caught my eye. I picked up the top sheet, and a spider skittered away. “Maybe this one.”
It was an invoice from Water Resources, Inc. with Noah’s name typed at the top. The invoice showed two weeks’ worth of billable hours for work on a project called Water Assets Development DB.
I studied the numbers. Noah was very well paid.
“One mystery solved,” I said, handing the invoice to Bandoni. “Our guy was a software geek. DB is probably database.”
Bandoni scanned the page. “Explains all the computers. Maybe those words are the motto of the group he works with. Doesn’t seem real business friendly, though, if he’s on their payroll. And what about water would piss a guy off?”
“That there’s not enough of it?” I got on my phone, looking for information on the company. “Water Resources Incorporated is a hydrology business. Offices throughout the West. They seem more interested in turning water into money, not conserving it.”
“Bet the environmentalists love that,” Bandoni said.
I looked at the words again. Our anger is righteous. “Maybe Noah was on their side.”
We considered the implications of that while we finished looking around. Bandoni found an accordion folder with more invoices, which showed Noah had been employed at Water Resources for a little over a year.
The room yielded nothing else of immediate interest.
Back upstairs, we went more slowly through the rooms, starting with the kitchen.
Wolf appliances. Crate & Barrel dishes. An extensive collection of glassware, from whiskey tumblers to brandy snifters.
The refrigerator revealed what I would have expected—shelves filled with boxes of takeout. Chinese, Italian, Ethiopian, some of it well past its shelf life. My fridge used to be its twin. There was a cardboard box of beer from a local brewery, one end ripped open, two cans gone.
The room also held a well-stocked liquor cabinet, and the stuff was high end. I recognized some of the bottles from the scotch in Cohen’s grandmother’s collection. The old woman’s cellar held the kind of liquid ambrosia that would lure the gods down from Olympus.
“He had expensive taste,” I said. “Hundreds of dollars for some of these bottles.”
Bandoni shot me a look of surprise. “I thought you grew up on the other side of the tracks.”
As a flush rose in my face, I busied myself reading labels.
But Bandoni’s surprise settled into a knowing grin. “Cohen. Whole new world, huh, kid?”
The best defense is a good offense. “You were his partner for how many years? You learn anything from hanging out with him?”
“Relax, Parnell. You want boundaries, we got boundaries. It’s the secret to a successful partnership. Didn’t work so well with my ex, but . . .” He moved the bottles around with his gloved hand. “Two inches gone from one bottle. Maybe one from another. The rest hasn’t even been opened.”
In the master bedroom, I took the closet while Bandoni headed toward the dresser.
Noah’s walk-in was meticulously arranged. Shirts and pants on the left, finely tailored suits and jackets on the right, shoes arrayed on metal racks. There wasn’t a single dress or pair of high heels or anything else to suggest Noah had a secret life. I glanced at some of the clothing labels. I knew enough from Cohen’s wardrobe to realize I was looking at tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes.
My guess was when we got to Noah’s banking records, we’d be equally impressed. Software development sure beat the hell out of a cop’s salary.
A gym bag sat on the floor next to the shoe racks. I knelt and unzipped it. Neatly folded gym clothes, a stainless-steel water bottle, and in the side pocket, a membership card to a national fitness chain.
Pushed into a back corner of the closet was an unsealed cardboard box. Inside were faded, ratty sweatpants, a couple of hoodies, and a slew of T-shirts with the necks stretched out of shape and holes under the arms. The tees had tech logos, and a couple were from COMDEX. I looked it up on my phone—COMDEX was a Las Vegas hi-tech conference.
I stared at the old clothes for a moment. Out with the old and in with the new. Noah Asher was shedding feathers, molting into something new and shiny. Or at least vintage and cool.
But he hadn’t gotten to enjoy his transition for long.
I straightened, stretched my back.
Was Noah’s transformation a conscious change
