The other person in my waiting room was my friend, Sam Purdy. He was dressed in his work clothes-in winter that meant a pair of aging wool trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, a tie that was loose at the collar, and a sport coat that Goodwill would have tossed into a rag pile had he tried to donate it. The jackets he wore were usually ill-fitting, but with his recent weight loss this coat was to his body what a bad slipcover was to a couch. That day, Sam’s trousers were of recent vintage, as was his tie. For years Sam had owned so few neckties that I actually recognized them by their stains, but this one was new, and tasteful, and most surprising, appeared to be made of silk.

I suspected that Sam’s new girlfriend had taken him shopping over New Year’s. I also bet that he had a pair of silk boxers at home he didn’t quite know what to do with.

Sam was reading the New Yorker, chuckling at a cartoon. When he looked up at me I made a querulous face at him. He shook his head just a little, flattened his mouth so that his lips disappeared under the umbrella of his mustache, and made a little “everything’s cool” gesture with his hand. The gesture closely resembled an insincere “safe” call by a baseball umpire.

I made another querulous face.

He tapped his wristwatch.

I shrugged my shoulders and led the woman back to my office.

Forty-five minutes later my patient departed and I retraced my steps to the waiting room. Sam was asleep on his chair. A half-dozen magazines were in a heap at his feet.

“Hey, Sam,” I said.

He didn’t reply.

“Sam,” I tried, a little louder.

He still didn’t say anything.

An image of Hannah Grant’s dead body splayed over the leather cube flashed into my mind with Technicolor brilliance. I said, “Oh shit,” and rushed across the room.

“Got you,” he said with a sudden smile. The stubble of his beard told me it had been many hours since he’d scraped his face with a razor. He was probably as tired as I was.

“You ass,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“I come by sometimes just to catch up on my magazine reading. You guys have good stuff. Not like my dentist’s office. You should see the crap he keeps around.”

I made a skeptical face.

He stood up. “I’m buying you dinner,” he said. “Come on.”

“Sam, Lauren’s expecting me to-”

“No, she’s not. I already cleared it with her. You have a free go-out-with-the-boys pass for the evening.”

“Yeah?” I was suspicious.

“Yeah.”

“We walking or driving?”

“We be walking.”

Although it was a cold night for a stroll, we hiked to the far side of the Pearl Street Mall toward the Sunflower Restaurant. Before Sam’s heart attack I doubted that he’d ever set foot inside the organic oasis that was the Sunflower, and I was more than a little suspicious that he’d chosen it for a meal for the two of us, but I kept my apprehension to myself. Things definitely weren’t what they seemed, so an out-of-the-ordinary restaurant fit right in. We spent the few-block hike catching up on kid talk. Sam was moaning that Simon was making both his parents nuts trying to juggle his hockey and snowboarding schedules, but I could tell that Sam was actually pretty happy about the logistical craziness his son’s activities were precipitating.

He declined the hostess’s first offer of a table, which was prime territory smack in the middle of the dining room, and instead asked for a booth in the distant corner. Once we were led to his preferred suburban outpost, he took the bench that was facing the big room; I was left with a view of a brick wall that was adorned with a large, quasi-erotic photograph of young eggplants and ripe figs. For some reason I found myself thinking of D. H. Lawrence and Alan Bates.

Then I got it: My association was to the cinematic version of Women in Love. I smiled at the memory, and stole another gratuitous glance at the figs. “What is this, really?” I asked.

“Sherry has Simon. I wanted to spend some quality time with you.”

“Yeah? At the Sunflower? You really expect me to believe that?”

“I’m hurt,” he said, investing all of his energy in the menu. “Can’t even do a nice gesture for a friend. What are you hungry for? Look”-he pointed at the entrée list-“everything here’s free range and wild and shit. Has to make you happy.”

“How’s Carmen?” I asked, temporarily giving up on my quest to discover the purpose of the meeting. I wasn’t in a hurry; I knew we’d get there eventually. “She buy you that tie?”

Sam looked up and flicked a quick glance at the dining room. I thought I saw him nod his head just the smallest amount.

I had to resist turning and taking a look for myself. Suddenly, Darrell Olson was at my side. Two seconds later, Jaris Slocum was standing right behind him.

“Hi, guys,” Sam said to the two detectives. He didn’t feign surprise. I had to give him credit for that.

I glared at Sam. He made the same little hey-everything’s-copacetic face and did the same hey-everything’s-cool hand gesture that he’d thrown at me back in my waiting room while I was trying to figure out why he was camping out reading magazines.

“Make some room,” he said to me.

I slid over and was immediately pinned against the wall, with no chance of escape, by Darrell Olson.

Sam and Jaris Slocum-their chests and shoulders were much broader than mine and Darrell’s-totally filled the space on the other side of the table. A waitress came by and took our drink order. Apparently sensing the tension at the table, she skipped any flirtation and kept her smile under wraps. We all ordered beer. Four different brands. Just another way of shouting out that we weren’t a bunch of buddies sharing a pitcher.

“You guys hungry?” Sam asked.

“You bet,” Darrell said. “I love this place.”

One mystery solved: Darrell had chosen the restaurant. I slid my menu toward him. My own appetite was wavering. While glaring at Sam, I asked, “What’s this about? You should check with my attorney if you want another interview, Detective Slocum. We shouldn’t even-”

He snapped back. “I know exactly what-”

Sam interrupted Slocum’s interruption. He said, “Call him Jaris, Alan. We’re all friends here.”

What?

Slocum tried again. “I’m perfectly aware that I need to go through your attorney to discuss… that other matter. I’m always eager for a chance to chat with Mr. Maitlin. But Darrell and I aren’t here to talk about Hannah Grant.”

I might have been offended by the gratuitous sarcasm about Cozy if I wasn’t still stuck on Sam’s announcement that “We’re all friends here.” Since when? And if we’re not here to talk about Hannah, what the hell are we here to talk about? At that moment I thought of Bob Brandt, and to no one in particular said, “It’s your move.”

“Hey, allow me,” Sam said. “This little party was my idea.”

I thought my narrowed eyes and tight brow aptly communicated to Sam that I didn’t approve of any of the choreography he’d put into his soiree so far.

“A little background to start,” he said, sticking to the charade that we were all just friends having a beer and sharing some crispy tofu triangles. “Jaris and Darrell had a piece of the Mallory Miller investigation. Lucy and I were doing time line. They were assigned to follow up a couple of potentially promising leads: one being the empty house next door-the one that’s for sale-and two being the possibility that the girl somehow ended up with her mother.”

“This is all about Mallory, then?” I asked. Despite my skepticism, I knew my question was evidence of capitulation on my part. I should have been throwing money on the table for my beer and walking full speed away from the three Boulder cops.