Bandoni’s face remained blank. “Why don’t you tell us about them?”
“Noah’s friends from the seduction community.” Todd thumbed the corner of the photocopy. “This photo was taken in mid-December. Right around my birthday. I’d stopped by to have a drink with Noah, but he and his pals were getting ready to hit the clubs.”
“A seduction community?” Bandoni said.
“It’s a kind of secret society,” Todd scoffed, dropping the photo back on the table. “Usually, guys pay a fee and join a local club to get the inside secret on how to seduce—” His eyes flicked to his mother. “On how to date women. Their theory is that if you say the right thing, do the right thing, women will fall over themselves to sleep—to hang out with you.”
I thought of Dana Gills at the comics store. “Pickup artists.”
Todd’s gaze moved to me. “Right.”
“And Noah joined one of these clubs?” Bandoni asked.
“Lairs,” Todd said. “That’s what the clubs are called.”
“Lairs . . .” Bandoni let his voice trail off.
“Lame, right? But they think it sounds cool. Like they’re hunters or something, when really, they’re just sad guys who can’t get a date. Noah and another guy formed their own.”
“The Superior Gentlemen.”
“Right.” Todd looked down at the photo. Frowned. “All Noah ever told me was that he and some dude were starting a self-improvement group so they could meet women. I don’t know the other guy’s name, or even if he’s one of the men in that photo. But the two of them formed the lair, brought in a few other guys, and I guess it was a kick for a while. But the last time I brought it up, Noah said he’d dropped out.”
“He tell you why?”
“He grew up. Figured out life is about relationships, not sex.”
“Very mature of him,” Bandoni said.
Todd scowled. “That’s right.”
I snuck a glance at Noah’s parents. Julia’s chin was up. Hal looked confused.
Bandoni drummed his fingers along his thigh. “When did he drop out of the group?”
“About a month after this picture was taken, he told me the group wasn’t really working for him,” Todd said. “I don’t know if he’d actually quit by then or not.”
“Around mid-January, then?”
“Right.”
Around the time that Noah had gotten into his social justice work, according to Dana Gills. Had he angered members of the group by leaving?
Betray me with a kiss.
“This guy he started the group with,” Bandoni said. “Where’d they meet?”
“I have no idea. Just that it was in November.” Todd clenched and unclenched his hands. “The only guy I know personally from the group is Riley Lynch.” He pointed. “He’s the short guy there on the right. With the bleached hair.”
“Riley,” Hal said. “I’ll be damned.”
Julia pulled the picture closer. “That’s Riley?”
“Riley Lynch.” Bandoni smoothed his tie with a gesture like a cat licking cream. “Tell me about him.”
“Noah and Riley were friends in high school,” Julia said. “Best friends. But Noah hadn’t mentioned him much lately.”
“They have a fight?”
Todd tilted his head against the wall. “I don’t think so. Just that Riley was still into the pickup scene, and Noah wasn’t. They still hung out sometimes.”
Bandoni looked at Julia, who was shaking her head over the picture.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Just how much Riley has changed. Look at that suit! Back in high school, he was a hippie. Long, dirty hair. Scruffy clothes.”
A smile touched Hal’s lips. “But it wasn’t like a statement. It was like he just couldn’t find the energy to clean himself up.”
“That was his statement, Dad,” Todd said. “A riff against the slick and sanitized mainstream.”
“Punk,” I said, thinking of Damn Fox and Street Cred, guys who were all about being antiestablishment.
“Horror punk. Deathrock.” Todd’s pale eyes flicked with scorn. “Riley wasn’t laid-back. He was subversive.”
“A subversive high schooler?” Bandoni asked.
“Petty stuff. Graffiti. Dealt a little Molly. And pot before it was legal. Raised the black-power fist even though I don’t think he had a single black friend. He just wanted to mess with the establishment.”
Bandoni’s voice was dry. “I take it the two of you didn’t get along.”
“What can I say?” Todd opened his arms. “I’m part of the slick mainstream.”
I said, “Were Noah’s students part of his lair? Rivero and Markey?”
“I doubt it,” Todd said. “He wouldn’t have wanted them to know he was into the pickup scene. A sad guy who can’t get a date doesn’t fit with his artist persona.”
I tapped the image of the angry man in the dark jeans. “And this man? Did you meet him that night?”
Todd’s expression narrowed with disgust. “Craze.”
“Craze his first name or his last?” Bandoni asked, straight faced.
Todd’s eyes flashed for just a second. “That’s what they called him.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“Just . . . he was intense. He didn’t say a lot, but the other guys hung on to every word. Like . . . disciples. He’d only been in the group a few weeks when I met him, but it seemed like he’d put himself in charge.” Todd shrugged. “That might have been another reason Noah got out. The group didn’t really belong to him anymore.”
“What about the photographer?” Bandoni asked. “Who took the picture?”
“Another friend of Noah’s. Or maybe it was a neighbor. I didn’t catch his name.”
“Okay,” Bandoni said. “So this seduction thing is only about women?”
A crease appeared in Todd’s smooth forehead. “What else would it be?”
Bandoni cleared his throat. “Any chance Noah was gay? Or maybe trans?”
Hal had looked bewildered during the talk about the Superior Gentlemen. But now heat flashed in his eyes. “No.”
Bandoni saw it, too. “Mr. Asher, this is not the time for you to worry about your son’s sexual preferences. Anything you share might lead us to his murderer.”
A flush erupted above the collar of Hal’s shirt and flamed into his cheeks. He opened his mouth in a snarl, but before he could speak, Julia laid a hand on his arm.
“Noah was seeing someone. But it was a woman.”
Hal’s snarl turned into surprise as he turned and gaped at his
