Noah probably hated him. And adored him.
“Please,” Hal said to us. “Sit. Todd, why don’t you get everyone water?”
“Of course.” Todd disappeared through a doorway.
“We appreciate your time,” Bandoni said as he perched on a leather recliner. The cushion sank beneath his weight. I took a chair across from the sofa, and Clyde lay down by my feet.
“Whatever we can do to help,” Hal said. He eased his wife back onto the couch as if she were a doll, then sank next to her and took her hand between his, gently rubbing her fingers.
Todd returned with cold bottles of water, which he passed around before sitting on the sofa next to his mother. He and his father bookended the much smaller woman. I wondered if she ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer mass of her husband and sons.
Husband and son.
On the table stood a bottle of Wild Turkey Revival and three partially filled glasses. Outside the windows, the surrounding buildings flashed stern facades of chrome and glass, as if the Ashers’ room sat in the middle of a fortress.
But a fortress served no purpose when death had already ridden in through the gate.
Julia eased her hand free from her husband’s and clasped her fingers. Hal picked up the water bottle. Set it back down. Picked up the tumbler. He drank down the bourbon in one swallow.
“What happened?” he asked. “Who did this to our son?”
“That’s what we’re working on, Mr. Asher,” Bandoni said. “We’d appreciate any information you can share about Noah.”
Hal set the glass down hard on the table, picked up the water bottle. “What do you want to know?”
“First, is it okay with the three of you if we record our conversation?”
Hal nodded, and Julia whispered her okay. Todd gave a regal dip of his head. Although Hal looked more like one of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders with his beefy build and old-style mustache, I wondered if Todd had been the one to request this suite. I got the impression that such things mattered to him. My first clue was the fifty-pound watch on his golden-haired wrist.
Bandoni placed his pocket recorder on the large coffee table while I pulled out my notebook and a pen. Clyde stretched out with a small sigh.
“Let’s start with Noah’s friends and coworkers,” Bandoni said. “Who’d he hang out with?”
Hal looked relieved to have a focus. “Um, sure. You probably know he was a contractor with Water Resources, so he mostly worked from home. He’d go in for meetings, but I don’t think he socialized much with his coworkers.”
“That’s what he told you?”
A nod. “Friendly, Noah said. But not friends.” He picked at the label on the water bottle with thick fingers. “His coworkers were into the outdoors. Rock climbing. Kayaking. They all did that race in Boulder. What’s it called?”
“The Bolder Boulder,” Todd said.
“Right.” Hal tore off a piece of the label. “That wasn’t Noah’s scene.”
“He talk about work much? Tell you what he was doing?”
A light shone in Hal’s eyes. Pride. “He was building a database for a hydrology firm. I did a bit of hydrology back in the day. Dams. Noah and I compared notes over a beer now and again.”
“You’re an engineer?”
“Civil.” He abandoned the water bottle.
“So you and Noah talked about his work. Did he ever express any concern about the work he was doing for Water Resources?”
“Concern?” Hal rubbed his jaw, his fingers rasping against the stubble. “No.”
Bandoni’s gaze took in Julia and Todd. “What about the two of you? You ever hear Noah complain about work?”
Todd shook his head.
Julia said, “I remember when they got a new project and had to hire more staff. Noah found them a bigger office downtown for a better deal. His boss was really happy. He got a bonus for that.”
“Okay,” Bandoni said. “He ever tell you he was afraid about anything? Ever mention payback?”
Julia’s eyes widened. “He never brought up anything like that.”
The men nodded.
“Okay,” Bandoni said again. “Who else did he hang with?”
“He was big into comic books,” Hal said. “Strange thing for a grown man, you ask me. His age, I was into girls and rugby. Like Todd here.”
“I play tennis, Dad.” Todd pushed up from the couch and went to stand near the window.
“Same difference,” Hal said. “But, of course, I supported Noah in all his interests.”
“Supported him how?”
Hal waved a hand. His long fingers looked like they could span a river. “Oh, I mean I never asked him why he cared about all that. Ray guns. Men in tights. But I asked him questions. Showed him I cared even if I didn’t understand. For his birthday, Julia and I got him tickets to Comic-Con in San Diego. That cost a pretty penny.”
Bandoni shifted his bulk. “Comic-Con?”
“Where all the comic book nerds get together.” Hal couldn’t keep the sigh out of his voice. So much wasted talent, he must have been thinking. Could have been building dams. “You know, booths and panels. They show movies. There’s a costume contest. Total—what do kids say now—total . . .” He looked at Todd.
“Geek out,” Todd said.
Julia spoke up. “Graphic novels are about more than superheroes. Sometimes much more.” Her voice was weary but also needled with electric current. As if she and Hal had trod this path a thousand times and this was the last time she planned to smack her head against her husband’s narrow-mindedness. “A lot of the books look at social issues. Just like any good literature.”
“Literature.” Hal folded his arms. “Come on, Julia.”
But this was exactly what the comics-store owner Dana Gills had said. Social justice warriors. I leaned forward. “Was Noah writing about social issues?”
“Yes,” Julia said. “Recently he’d become interested in—”
Hal jumped in. “Things that millennials care about, I think. Climate change. And a lot of stuff about women, right, Julia? Women’s issues. Gender stuff. I love my son, but he was a touch on
