“Meaning he likely didn’t have the same cleaner from week to week?”
“Probably not.”
I pictured the dark-haired woman with a mop in Noah’s drawing of the milkshake shop. “You use a lot of minorities?”
A pause, as if she was thinking about where the conversation might be headed. “We’re totally legit. If applicants don’t have the right paperwork, we don’t hire them. We employ a lot of white people, too. Look, I got other calls I need to get to.”
Probably Grand Central station there. “All right, thanks, Candy. I’d like to talk to your manager in an hour or so. Can you set that up for me?”
“You mean Kaylee? Sure, if you really need to.”
“I really do.”
The comics store frequented by Noah, based on the receipts we’d found, was a place called Heroes and Villains located in the slowly gentrifying area of Denver near Tennyson and I-70. I drove past the storefront and kept circling around until I located a parking spot three blocks north by an empty lot. Worried I might need a shoehorn to get out, I wedged the Tahoe between a pickup and an aging BMW, and Clyde and I jogged back south. At least one of us was happy about it. Professional detective that I was, I was still wearing pumps.
A bell tinkled overhead as we walked in.
Inky gloom enveloped us, along with the delightful bookish funk of old and new paper, dust, and an organic underlay that made me think of the dying remnants of silverfish and carpet beetles. Comic books and graphic novels filled seven-foot-high display racks. There was a section for Marvel, another for DC, and plenty of new heroes and monsters I’d never heard of. A pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, browsed in separate areas of the store. There was also a father with his young son rifling through a box of Archie Comics.
In the front window, a cat stirred languidly, spotted Clyde, then arched its calico back and vanished into the rear of the store.
At a counter in the back, on a stool behind an old-fashioned register, sat a heavyset forty-something woman in a Hawaiian shirt and turquoise reading glasses. As I watched, she turned the page in a paperback. She didn’t look up when Clyde and I approached.
“You scared my cat,” she said.
“Which would make him a scaredy-cat, right?”
She raised her eyes from the novel. She didn’t look amused. “Help you?”
I showed my badge. “Detective Parnell with Denver Major Crimes. I’m trying to track down a man who was a customer here. Are you the manager?”
“Co-owner. Along with my wife. I’m Dana Gills.”
I pulled out the DMV photo of Noah. “Do you know him?”
She took the picture, held it under the dim light of a banker’s lamp. “That’s Noah Asher. Why are you looking for him?” She squinted at my badge, clipped to my belt. “What department you with?”
“I’m investigating a murder.”
“And Noah’s involved?”
“He’s the victim.”
For a moment, her face went perfectly still, her eyes blank. As if she were the one lying on the autopsy table. Then the skin creased in harsh lines around her mouth and eyes. “Please tell me you’re shitting me.”
“I wish I were.”
She set the picture down on the counter, folded her hands in her lap, and drew in a breath. When she looked up again, her eyes were damp behind the turquoise readers. “Now that’s a damn shame. Noah was a good kid.”
“You were close?”
“He was—Noah was—” Her lips and chin trembled.
“Take a minute,” I said.
She nodded and looked down again. She pulled a tissue from her pocket and pressed it to her eyes. My presence felt intrusive, but I didn’t look away. Interviewing 101: don’t give anyone a break.
After a moment, Dana said, “Okay.” She blew her nose, pitched the tissue in the trash, then looked up again. “What do you want to know?”
“How do you know Mr. Asher?”
“He worked here.”
I kept my face neutral. “He did?”
“Oh, not for Marcia and me directly. He uses the back room to teach.” She groaned. “Used the back room. Christ. The kid’s been coming here since he was knee high to a grasshopper. We’ve known him, what, almost twenty years.”
“Then he was a customer first. What did he read?”
“Everything.” She smiled. “Noah was in love with all of it. He started with the superheroes, then graduated to darker stuff. First Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jessica Jones. Then he moved on to Sandman and Preacher. Somewhere in there he started creating his own comics. Did the writing and the illustrating. Even the lettering.”
“Is that unusual?”
“It’s unusual for someone to be good at all those things.”
“And he was?”
“You seen his stuff?”
I pulled out the laminated copies of the drawings from Noah’s house and spread them out on the counter. The gutter punks and the men with guns. The man with yellow eyes and the Milkshake Lady. “Did he draw these?”
She turned the pictures around. Studied them. “I haven’t seen these particular drawings, but that’s his style. Although lately he’s been going for something totally different. A more austere look. He said he didn’t want the illustrations to get in the way of the story.”
“Were his stories dark?”
“Picture the bottom of a coal mine. When Noah hit high school, he was as self-centered as any teenage boy. Turned into a real jerk for a few years. But a couple of months ago, he rejoined the human race and started growing a conscience. The latest thing he was working on had to do with street kids. He called them gutter punks. Like these drawings here.” She pointed. “I tease”—she blinked—“teased him a lot. That he was becoming an SJW.”
“SJW? What is that?”
“Social justice warrior. It’s considered an insult now that the trolls have gotten hold of it. But it didn’t start out that way. It just means someone who supports causes, things like feminism and cultural inclusivity. You ask me, the SJWs are a breath of fresh air in the comics world. Something
