“Just that I loved them when I was a kid. Superman. Batman. Supergirl. I especially loved the creepy comics. Tales from the Crypt. Boris Karloff. Scared the crap out of me.” I shook myself. “Those were good times.”
“Sounds like a happy childhood. Now you’re about to learn a whole lot more about comics, starting as soon as we finish here.” He looked up at the wall of drawings again, crossed his arms, and frowned. “Noah Asher didn’t have a shortage of interests.”
I nodded. “Starting with that train and the punks.”
“And all those men with guns.”
“And the hot babes.”
His frown deepened. “Doing things their mamas wouldn’t approve of.”
“It’s a lot of crazy pieces.”
“And the thing is . . .” He narrowed his eyes at the artwork. “I’m not sure the pieces even come from the same puzzle.”
“Maybe he was searching for something. Trying to find himself.”
“With sex and guns?” He grunted. “I’ll say one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“When I look at all this shit . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Makes the hair rise on the back of my neck.”
We spent another hour in the house, and the surprises kept coming.
The living room held an L-shaped sofa in black leather, a glass-topped coffee table covered with a fan of GQ magazines, and floor-to-ceiling built-ins—open bookshelves with closed cabinets at the bottom. The mantel above the fireplace was covered with a series of photographs, a timeline that marched from left to right. On the far left, the pictures were black and white, showing a stern couple in wedding clothes followed by an equally stern couple with a baby girl. The next generation was the little girl—I presumed—all grown up. Several photos in, she was pregnant and starting a family of her own. The photos after that showed two babies becoming toddlers, teenagers, young men.
“Noah has a twin brother,” I said.
Bandoni came over from the bookshelves and took a look. “Two peas in a pod.”
Sarcasm. The boys looked nothing alike. Noah was dark haired, maybe six feet, pale with a tendency toward pudginess. His brother was several inches taller and fair, with lean features, a Cupid’s-bow mouth, and intense blue eyes.
If Noah identified as straight, it must have been hard getting a date with a brother like that beaming his high-wattage smile on the girls. Assuming the brother was straight.
The final photo, and apparently the most recent, showed Noah and four other men standing in his backyard, a section of the house visible behind them. The camera had caught them clowning around, each boy-man striking a ludicrous pose—tongues out, one guy flashing a gang sign in a way only rich suburbanites can, another man air-kissing Noah’s cheek. Noah’s twin had his arm draped over his brother’s shoulders as if to highlight the differences between them.
I picked up the photo in my gloved hands. One man stood slightly apart from the others, and unlike the rest, he didn’t look like a goofy frat boy. He was tall and heavily built, and something about his pose—arms folded, a mocking look on a naturally severe face—made me think he was the group’s leader. The others had on fashionable suits and flashy ties. But this man wore a plain black T-shirt and jeans. He stared directly into the camera with a look that was both commanding and arrogant.
I frowned.
He was also familiar. I took a minute to try and chase the memory before deciding I’d have to come back to it.
I pulled the photo out of the frame. On the back, someone had written THE SUPERIOR GENTLEMEN.
Could one of these men be Noah’s killer? Other than the leader, the men in the group looked like good friends. But maybe there’d been a falling-out.
Betray me with a kiss.
I showed the photo to Bandoni—who grunted—and added it to the pile of things we would take with us. The invoices, receipts for a local comics store, bills, and credit-card statements. The photos of the gutter punks and several of Noah’s sketches, including the Milkshake Lady.
“You making a note of everything on the Return on Inventory sheet?” Bandoni asked. “We’ll have to run a copy over to court.”
“I’m on it.”
Like most of the rest of the house, the front room was neat and clean. Not the typical bachelor pad. There wasn’t so much as a sheen of dust.
“Company coming maybe,” I said.
Bandoni was searching the shelves next to the fireplace, which was laid with unlit logs.
“What?”
“Everything is freshly cleaned. I’ll bet he was expecting company.”
“Or he was OCD,” Bandoni said. “Or maybe he had a cleaning lady. Don’t jump to conclusions.” He pointed toward the coffee table. “What do you make of the tray and decanter?”
“You asking me to jump to conclusions?” I said.
“Speculate. Not the same thing.”
I looked more closely. A silver tray held a crystal decanter one-third filled with amber liquid. I lifted the stopper and inhaled. Brandy. Also on the tray were two glasses turned over on leather coasters so as not to collect dust.
“It’s like it’s staged,” I said. “Maybe he was getting ready to put the house on the market.”
“Nah.” He gestured toward the mantel photos. “When you’re staging a house, you hide all the personal stuff.”
“Yeah?”
He shrugged and turned away. “Divorce.”
On the wall opposite the front door, framing the archway that led to the rest of the house, were built-in wooden bookcases and cabinets. Modern pieces of objets d’art alternated with leather-bound versions of the classics. One shelf held modern mysteries and thrillers, all hardcover. There was also a series of books apparently intended for self-enrichment, each book a doorstop: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die; 1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die; 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die; 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
I wondered how many books and movies and albums Noah had managed to knock off his bucket list.
As Bandoni had done in the studio, I went through each book looking for notes or cards. Nothing.
“There are flyers here for a lecture series at DU,” Bandoni said
