Before Sam had a chance to reply the kids skated back onto the ice to warm up for the next period. “For the sake of argument, yes, let’s say there was phone activity at eight forty-seven,” Sam said. “I don’t want to talk about this during the game, so make it quick. I’m getting bored.”

After the news helicopter completed its shot of the Harts’ home, it had banked away for a wide shot of the neighborhood, which included, for about three seconds-Fox timed it at 2.8614, and who was I to argue with that-the Millers’ totally undecorated house on Twelfth Street. Two days after Mallory’s disappearance, an astute Fox producer realized what the station might possess in the additional neighborhood footage that had been shot on Christmas night, and Fox launched a huge advertising blitz to promote its “crucial new information in the Mallory Miller case. Tune in Tuesday. Exclusively on Fox News at Nine.”

“Mr. Miller and Reese got home around nine-twenty, right?”

“Give or take.”

“But close.”

“Close.”

“Mallory was gone by then.”

“Correct-o. We think. Nobody actually looked for her until the next morning. People forget that little detail. She had a big head start.”

“You think she was home at nine-twenty, Sam?”

“No, I think she’d already split. But I do like arguing with you. That part’s kind of fun.”

Fox had done digital magic to the Christmas night footage. The resulting images of the Miller home were grainy, and the shadows were darker in a few places than was ideal, but the video was clear enough that the conclusions Fox reached really weren’t controversial.

“The helicopter footage from Fox shows no footprints in the snow around the Millers’ house. Not on the walk, not on the driveway, not through the yard. And no tire tracks up the driveway into the garage.” I waited for him to disagree, but he seemed to be ignoring me. Finally, I added, “And lights were on in the house, right? Both floors.”

“So what? You know any kid who remembers to turn off lights?”

“All that’s at nine-sixteen?”

The buzzer sounded. Sam said, “It was actually nine-eighteen by then. But why quibble? We’re friends.” He pointed at the fresh sheet of ice down below. “Game’s starting.”

“So are you saying you think that Mallory just happened to hustle out the door between like nine-eighteen and nine-twenty?”

Sam smiled at me pleasantly and said, “Maybe she was watching the Christmas thing on Fox News and timed her exit perfectly to confound the helicopter. We hear she’s a bright kid.”

I made a face that expressed my displeasure at his condescension.

He kneed me gently. “Hey, Alan, so far I’ve just been agreeing with you about stuff you learned from somebody else. Maybe some of it’s right. Maybe it isn’t. But I can’t tell you what I think, you know that, not if it involves what I know as a cop. But you know what else? Intruder theory, runaway theory-it doesn’t make any difference. None. The lack of footprints in the snow on Christmas night is an anomaly no matter what theory you like. The kid got out of the house without leaving a trace. How? Microclimate? I don’t know. Come on, it looks like Simon’s on the ice for the start of the second period. Let’s give the kids some support.”

Simon was indeed on the ice, at left wing. Both teams were sloppier with the puck at the start of the second period than they had been in the first. I was about to ask Sam whether the kids might be having trouble with the fresh ice laid down by the Zamboni when he spoke first.

“Reese Miller’s a hockey player. Did you know that? I’ve seen him play a few times. He’s good.”

I hadn’t seen any mention of Mallory’s little brother’s hobbies in the paper. But then I’d been making a concerted effort not to read about the more gossipy aspects of the case. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“He’s had some trouble.”

I leaned forward so that Sam would know that I was looking at him. “And you know this as a cop or as a parent?”

“The latter.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“God, you’re nosy tonight. You heard that his dad sent him out of town for a while until the commotion dies down?”

“To visit family?” I asked. I hadn’t heard.

“I shouldn’t say, but yeah,” Sam said. “I’m not sure I would have done that. Seems like a time when you’d want your kid close by.” I opened my mouth to agree, but Sam was done with the conversation. “Let’s watch the game.”

Bob entered my office for his additional, day before New Year’s Eve appointment carrying a boom box.

Mallory Miller had been missing for five days.

He and I had met almost a hundred times by then and he had never walked in the door with a boom box, or any other prop, for that matter. Without preamble, but with an almost sinister smile that underscored the fact that he seemed to lack a chin, Bob set the stereo on the table between us and pressed the “play” button. I didn’t recognize the tune at first-maybe because I’d managed to make it through the years on both sides of the recent cusp of centuries deprived of any familiarity at all with boy bands-but I realized soon enough that I was listening to a disappointing cover of Del Shannon’s glorious “Runaway.”

A run run run run runaway.

Bob’s preferred, but dubious, choice of versions was a seriously overproduced adaptation of the classic featuring a harmony of voices obviously lacking in testosterone. I patiently adopted the role of audience, unsure why that day’s psychotherapy required musical accompaniment, and unsure why-if we required music at all, and that song in particular-we couldn’t be listening to the almost flawless original. At what appeared to be a predetermined moment Bob decided to turn the session from surreal soundtrack to painful karaoke. His voice, a strange mix of soprano and something else, added a decidedly creepy new layer to the sugary harmonies that were filling my office.

Bob had chimed into the song at the precise point that the lyrical progression had reached And I wonder / I wa wa wa wa wonder. But he didn’t stop there. He sang, “Why / why why why why she ran away / And I wonder where she will stay.”

He reached forward and hit the “stop” button.

I wondered if I was supposed to clap.

Bob could carry a tune. I had to give him that.

Once I was certain he was finished, at least for the moment, I tried to think of something intelligent to say. I failed.

Sitting back, Bob was quiet for most of a minute before he said, “I’m writing about it.”

“You are?” I asked, trying not to reveal the true level of stupefaction I was feeling at what was happening in my office. Was Bob writing songs?

“Yes.”

Bob played board games. His favorite was Scrabble, but he’d always maintained that he was a pretty decent chess player, too, and I had no reason to doubt him. And I knew that he’d once driven all the way to Laughlin, Nevada, in his Camaro for a big Monopoly tournament at one of the casinos. Ideally, Bob’s vision of ideal human interaction was that everyone should follow game protocols, that people should take turns, that everyone should know the rules, and that any and all disputes should be handled via consultation with a reference manual.

Needless to say, since most people acted as though life had no rules and as though there were no manual to consult, in real life Bob was frustrated more often than not by the manner that people behaved.

In Bob’s game-centered worldview-a perspective that he definitely applied to conversations-it was my turn to speak. His hollow yes had constituted the totality of his turn and started the clock on mine. Given the presence of the boom box on the table between us, and the revelation about the writing he was doing, that probably wasn’t a good time to reiterate a salient point I’d been trying to make for most of a year about the actual parameters of human communication. I took what I hoped was a safer road. I asked, “What kind of writing are you doing?”