"Oh yeah. That case is hers? I didn't know. Can Maitlin handle something like Lucy's situation by himself?"

"Sure."

"Should he?"

"Different question."

I listened to him breathe. "I want to go talk with him before he hears about Lucy's involvement in all this from somebody else. Will you come with me?"

I immediately wondered why he wanted me to accompany him to see Cozy Maitlin. "Lauren and I are going to visit Susan Peterson at the hospital at ten o'clock. We have a babysitter coming then."

"Good," he said, totally missing my point. "If we go now, we'll both be back home by the time she gets there. We had better be-I have to get some sleep soon or I'll be no good to Lucy or Royal or anybody else."

I stared at the clock by the bed. "You want to go to Maitlin's house at four-twenty in the morning?"

"Nah, I wouldn't do that. That would be inconsiderate. The way I'm figuring, by the time we get there it will be almost five. You know where he lives?"

I almost laughed. "Yes. Last year he bought a renovated Victorian on Maxwell, a block or two west of Broadway. Lauren and I were invited there for a housewarming. There were women in tuxedos carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres and champagne. That kind of party."

"Girls in tuxedos? Sounds fun." Sam's sarcasm was way too thick for the predawn darkness. "For some reason I'll never understand, I don't get invited to parties like that. Cross-street?"

"Near Eighth."

"You can find the house?"

"Sure."

"Then I'll see you at Maxwell and Eighth at ten to five." I thought I heard him chuckle as he hung up the phone.

I took a quick shower, shaved with an electric razor, threw on some jeans and a cotton sweater, and still I didn't make it downtown until a couple of minutes before five. The air was cool. Sam was standing on the curb leaning against his old Cherokee, three doors down from Cozier Maitlin's house. I found a spot by the curb in front of Cozy's painted-lady Victorian. Sam headed my way carrying a cardboard tray with three cups of 7-Eleven coffee.

"Thanks for doing this," he said. "How's little Grace?"

"She's great, Sam. I can't believe I waited this long to become a father. Simon?"

"Feels like I haven't seen the kid in a week. Actually had to give up our Avs playoff tickets a few days ago, if you can believe it. We did go snowboarding over spring break. Kid's a maniac, I'll tell you. Boards goofy-footed. Perfect for the kid of an Iron Ranger, don't you think?"

"You boarded, too?"

He shook his head. "You don't want to know." He gestured toward the coffee he was holding. "This is nice of you-I know you aren't that tight with Lucy. I appreciate you agreeing to help me out."

I shrugged. I'd lost count of the number of times Sam had sacrificed to assist Lauren and me. "It's what friends do," I said, and pointed at Cozy's pretty house. "Cozy may not think it's so nice of me."

Sam snorted a short, derisive blast of air through his nose. "Way I look at it, you make over two hundred bucks an hour, you should expect to get rousted out of bed occasionally. A necessary part of staying humble."

"Criminal defense attorneys shouldn't be humble, Sam. You want the same traits in defense attorneys that you want in surgeons and airline pilots. You want confidence bordering on arrogance."

Sam grunted. He couldn't comprehend the concept of admirable traits in members of the defense bar.

I said, "Lucy has family money, right?"

He shifted his weight before he responded. I knew he wasn't comfortable talking about money. "She seems to. We've never talked about it much. She doesn't live like a cop. Nice apartment. Nice clothes. Nice vacations. I'd say she has money. Once said something about her father's mother leaving her something. I'd suspect she has enough to pay Cozy, if that's where you're going."

"That's where I was going."

"Don't worry about money. Maitlin's going to be drooling over this case. A Boulder police detective about to be accused of killing Colorado's best-known and most controversial district attorney? He'd pay me for the chance to take this case, if I put the screws to him." Sam paused for a moment. "Which I'm not planning on doing, by the way."

We reached Cozy's front door. Sam pounded five times with the flat side of his fist, waited ten seconds, and then did it again. He explained, "First time, the noise wakes you up but you're not really sure what the heck it was, so you're tempted to go back to sleep. Second time is like an instant replay to help overcome the short-term cognitive impairment." Sam pounded five more times. "Third time is to make sure his pulse stays high. That's what I like to see when they answer the door-I want them awake, with a little bit of adrenaline flowing."

Less than a minute later I watched lights flick on inside the house and then heard the concussion of heavy steps on the stairs. The door flung open and Cozier Maitlin filled the entire entryway.

I thought that, at that moment, he looked like the apocryphal Rasputin on the Russian's fateful night at the Yusopov Palace.

Cozy stood six feet eight inches tall in his bare feet. And right then, he was, indeed, barefoot. Not to mention bare-chested. The lower half of his body was adorned with pajamas covered with art deco fire trucks. The drawstring was so loose that the pajama bottoms were in danger of falling to the hardwood floor.

I prayed that wouldn't happen.

Cozy's hair looked like a failed do from a punk hair-care training clinic. His mouth hung open like a third eye and the expression in his gaze was as close to homicidal as I hoped it would ever get. A full day's whiskers completed the picture and left me with a graphic representation of what might have driven his ex-wife, first, to divorce him and, second, to become a lesbian.

If I had been alone, I think Cozy would have killed me right there on his front porch. But the fact that a homicide detective accompanied me caused Cozy to pause. He closed his gaping mouth and raised his chin a couple of centimeters. With one hand he tried to tame his unruly hair, with the other hand he, thankfully, grabbed the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

He said, "Gentlemen."

I fought a grin.

"Good morning, Counselor," Sam replied. "May we come in?"

Cozy stepped back. "Of course. Where are my manners? I assume you are here at this … hour"-he spoke the word as though the very sound of it caused him significant pain-"because we're about to be dealing with a matter of some gravity and some… urgency. Would it be appropriate for me to steal a moment or two and pull on a robe? Would that be acceptable under the circumstances?"

Cozy had a knack of communicating condescension and sarcasm without revealing too much malice. I'd always admired that trait in him.

Sam nodded. He raised his cardboard tray full of 7-Eleven cups. "I brought coffee. Didn't think you'd have made any yet. Maybe should have got doughnuts, too, but I wasn't thinking clearly."

"That's quite apparent," Cozy replied. He actually tried to smile before he retreated back up the stairs to his bedroom to find a robe.

After the defense lawyer disappeared up the stairs, Sam said, "That went better than I expected."

Cozy was down about five minutes later. He'd taken a quick shower and was wearing sweats.

"Alan, Sam. I must let you know that the two of you make an odd pair standing at my door in the dark hours before dawn. My initial guess when I saw you, Detective, was that this was about Royal Peterson. But Alan? I don't figure your part. So, please, Detective-is this about Royal Peterson's murder? You've been working that, haven't you? Is that a fair assumption on my part?"

Sam said, "Yes, Mr. Maitlin. That's a fair assumption." Sam rubbed the back of his hand across the stubble on his chin. The grating sound was audible, and kind of creepy. "Earlier this morning I picked someone up for questioning in Royal's murder. We're here to talk with you about whether or not you'd be interested in representing that person."