“Meaning what, exactly?”
“Just . . .” Hal tightened the fold of his arms and shrugged.
Todd made a noise. Bandoni caught it. “You got anything to add to this?”
Todd had propped himself against a wall, feet spread, hands loose at his sides, graceful as a big cat.
He said, “Noah wanted to change the world.”
Slanting sunlight planed the younger man’s face into a Picasso-like mosaic of light and shadow. He caught me staring at the pain simmering in his eyes and held my gaze until I looked away, swamped by his glittering grief.
Bandoni said, “Change the world how?”
A shrug. “I didn’t pay much attention to Noah’s pet projects. Make your fortune first, I told him. After that you can think about philanthropy.” The painful simmer rose to a boil. “Noah said I was being selfish.”
“It’s just smart,” Hal said. “Idealism is great. But you’ve got to make your mark on the world first. I went on from dams to build my first skyscraper before I turned forty. Noah was good enough for that.”
“Hal.” Julia flapped a hand in the direction of her husband like she was shooing a fly.
“Will you tell me something, Detectives?” Todd asked.
Bandoni turned an expressionless face to the younger man. “If we can.”
“What this . . . person did to Noah. Crushing his skull like that.”
Julia turned her face into her husband’s shoulder. Hal looked daggers at his son.
But Bandoni nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“Are they—do they think they have a reason to do that to another human being? Do they think in the dark little core of their nuclear brains that they are justified?”
Bandoni’s expression was one of sympathy. “Sometimes, yeah. People can lash out if they figure someone has something that should be theirs. Or if they think someone has gotten in their way. Kinda like road rage on steroids. I’m not saying that’s what happened with Noah. We don’t know what happened, you understand? I’m just talking in general terms.”
Outside, clouds wafted over the sun. The room turned gray, cool with sudden shadows. Clyde lifted his head.
From the gloom Todd said, “And if someone is capable of that kind of violence, are they also capable of remorse?”
“Real remorse?” Bandoni stretched out his legs, knocking his knees against the coffee table. “I’m an old cop. I’ve seen a lot. And my answer is, I doubt it. Not in any real way.”
The room was silent save for Julia’s soft sobs.
“And forgiveness . . . ,” Todd went on. “Are they worthy of forgiveness?”
“Son,” Bandoni said. “Is there something you want to tell us?”
“Todd?” That was Julia. “You want to forgive whoever did this?”
Sunlight whisked back in, scattering gems of light from the brilliant glass of the Tiffany shades. Todd shook himself. “No. Of course not.”
“Todd’s become devout,” Hal said. “Redeemed Life Church. My son has a good heart.”
“You and Noah were twins?” Bandoni asked.
“Brothers,” Todd said. “But not biologically.”
Bandoni scratched behind his ear. “How’s that?”
“We’d given up on being able to have a child of our own,” Julia said. “So we started adoption procedures for Noah. We knew his mother—”
“An unwed teen,” Hal threw in.
“—and followed along with her through the pregnancy. We were very surprised when I got pregnant during the same time. The boys are just seven weeks apart.”
“Of course, we weren’t going to change our minds about Noah,” Hal said. “And we raised the boys as if they were both ours.”
“They are both ours,” Julia said, her voice a knife finding its edge.
I wanted to hand her a whetting stone.
Bandoni paused until the tension damped down to a cold war. “You talk about Noah wanting to change the world. Any chance he could have offended someone?”
A strangled laugh from Hal. “Like who? He was on the side of the crazies.” His eyes moved back and forth between Bandoni and me. There was a hint of challenge in his gaze.
“He ever talk about gutter punks?” I asked.
“Gutter what?”
“Kids who ride trains. He ever talk about them?”
“He drew pictures of trains . . . ,” Julia offered. The men were silent.
Bandoni took off his suit coat. Rings of sweat showed under his arms despite the chilled air. “You mentioned gender stuff. Can you talk about that?”
Hal’s mouth puckered in distaste before he smoothed it out again. He glanced at Julia.
“Noah was a feminist,” she said. Her laugh was small and embarrassed, as if a man supporting feminism was a bad thing. Maybe it was, to her husband.
“So women’s rights, things like that?”
“Noah believed every person has a masculine and a feminine side,” she said. “And he believed in the feminine in everyone.”
“It’s from Carl Jung,” Todd added. “Eros and logos.”
Bandoni stared at him as if he was trying to get a finger on the guy. “He date much? Maybe have a girlfriend?”
“He spent too much time on those damn comics for that.” Hal’s voice held real anger. “Hung out in his basement with other loser geeks.”
“Hal,” Julia said.
Hal buried his face in his hands.
“What loser geeks were those?” Bandoni asked.
“They weren’t losers,” Julia said. “They were his friends. But—” She glanced at her husband. “We never met them.”
“Names?”
She shook her head. “Noah got resentful if we asked him about his friends. He’d just say the names wouldn’t mean anything since we didn’t know them.”
Todd spoke up. “I think they were mostly friends from the comics world. I don’t know their names, either. Except his students. Noah used to talk about them. Two guys he taught drawing and writing to. Rivero Martinez and a guy named Byron. Like the poet. I can’t remember his first name.”
“Markey,” I said. “We’ve talked to them.”
Three sets of eyes swiveled in my direction.
“You learn anything?” Todd asked.
I kept my face blank. “Anyone else you can think of?”
Three headshakes.
Bandoni nodded at me, and I pulled out the picture of the Superior Gentlemen and set it on the coffee table.
Bandoni tapped the image. “Todd, that’s you. Who are the other men?”
Todd reached over and picked up the photo. “Wow. I’d forgotten about these guys. The Superior Gentlemen.”
My
