I almost said, “I did, too,” recalling the day Dead Ed’s body had been found and I was waiting for Sam Purdy to finish up inside so we could go to the hockey game. I was also embarrassed to admit I thought the statues were artichokes.

“Robilio walked up, right on time. I said, ‘Hello, I’m John Trent, I’ve been trying to reach you at your office about my daughter, Chaney.’ What he did then was so cowardly.” Trent shook his head disdainfully and returned to his chair. “He turned around to make sure his path of escape wasn’t blocked. He had been carrying this bottle of water and it just slid out of his hands to the ground.

“I remember being so disappointed in his voice; it was like listening to a weasel. He said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t help. You shouldn’t be here. Call me at work. You need to go. I’m sorry.’ And then he took a step back, like he was afraid I was going to swing at him. God, that pissed me off.”

Trent tugged up his shirtsleeves. “You know, I’ve never hit anybody in my life. And all I wanted to do was slug him. But I didn’t. I picked up the water bottle and handed it back to him and-politely-I said, ‘No, Dr. Robilio, you’re wrong. You’re the only one who can help me. And you’re the only one who can help Chaney. And I’m not going to go away. I’m going to do whatever I need to do to save my daughter.’

“Then he squealed, ‘Don’t you dare threaten me. Our medical review process has given your family every consideration we’re required to give. And more. The director of the board has bent over backwards to let you plead your case. He has been more than fair.’

“‘Then overrule him,’ I said.

“He said, ‘I can’t do that. I’ve done everything I can.’ He was a self-satisfied, rationalizing little prick. Right then, I knew he believed it. He had already convinced himself he had no moral responsibility for Chaney’s well-being. He’d done exactly what the damn insurance policy said he had to do. And he’d washed his hands of her.”

John pulled a four-by-six piece of paper from inside his jacket. “I held up a photo of Chaney-this one.” He turned the piece of paper so I could see it. The photograph was of a vibrant, beautiful little girl on a tricycle with a sparkling Christmas tree behind her. Chaney’s wide smile could have illuminated Cleveland.

“He wouldn’t look at it. So I moved it where his eyes were pointing and he looked someplace else. I said, ‘Dr. Robilio, you’re killing my baby. This is my daughter, this is Chaney. This is who you’re killing. Take a good look. You can save her.’

“He walked past me, mumbled, ‘Leave me alone, don’t ever come here again or I’ll call the police,’ and he rushed in the front door of his damn mansion and he slammed it. He never looked at Chaney’s picture. Not even a damn glance.

“That’s when I could’ve killed him. Right then. I’m glad I wasn’t armed because I could have killed him.”

“And Merritt may have heard you say exactly that?”

“She may have.”

“Did she ever say anything to you?”

“No.”

“Did you ever go back to the Robilio house?”

“No.”

“Did you ever talk to him again?”

“No.”

“Did Brenda?”

“No.”

“Have you told the police or Mr. Maitlin any of this?”

“No.”

“I’m going to see Cozy later this morning. May I have your permission to fill him in?”

John Trent nodded. “I’m afraid I armed her and pointed her in his direction. I’m afraid Merritt was my guided missile.”

Twenty-five

I would have loved to spend the rest of the day riding my bike, but I’d promised to meet Cozier Maitlin at Dead Ed’s house. When I arrived, the crime scene tape was down and the front door was unlocked. Cozy walked in as if he knew what he was doing. I followed.

Singing drifted from somewhere deep in the big house, arriving at the front door winded by the long halls and bruised by the hard stone of the entry. Given my mood, and the circumstances, the music sounded almost profane.

“Hey Jude, don’t make it bad…”

The tenor’s voice was lush, rather rich for the lyrics, and he hugged the tune too tightly, as though it had been grafted to him. Every Beatles fan knew that this melody absolutely needed to float.

“Who is that, Cozy?” I asked.

Cozier Maitlin, at whose invitation and insistence I was about to witness, for the second time, the precise spot where one of his clients, my patient, had allegedly murdered a man, whispered his reply. “I could make a guess. Don’t you hear the edge? He sings like a prosecutor.”

I knew it was a dig. I bit anyway. “My wife is a prosecutor, Cozy. She sings quite sweetly.” It actually wasn’t true; Lauren couldn’t carry a tune in a suitcase. “Who were you expecting to meet us here? The detectives? Who?”

He shook his head, put his finger to his lips, and slid out of his loafers, which were large enough to sail refugee families from Cuba to Florida. He looked every bit of his six feet eight inches. I removed my own shoes and followed him up toward the bedroom wing of the house.

“Hey Jude, don’t let me…”

A canary-like whistle, in perfect pitch, replaced the lyrics, and I thought I heard the shuffle of footsteps searching to find the beat.

In front of me, Cozier Maitlin looked like a giraffe on the prowl. He tiptoed up the carpeted stairs.

The bedroom hallway was wide and bright, lit by a high clerestory, but the bedroom and bathroom doors had been placed unimaginatively, lining the hall as though it were a corridor in a dormitory. At the far end, a lithe figure in a business suit, his back to us, crossed from one open doorway and disappeared into another. He held his arms out as though he were cradling an imaginary partner. His feet were lively and he hovered lightly, as though he might have really been made of meringue.

“Who’s Gene Kelly?” I whispered.

With a devious smile, Cozy whispered, “You don’t know your old movies-or your dancers. That’s a Fred Astaire wannabe, not a Gene Kelly.” He shushed me before I had a chance to respond and preceded me down the hall. He stood in the doorway where the Fred Astaire impersonator had disappeared, and seemed to puff himself up like a prizefighter at weigh-in. I could barely see around him.

After a five-second wait, Cozy barked, “What the hell are you doing in here?”

I started at the sound.

Mitchell Crest, the chief trial deputy of the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office, started too. He came running from an adjacent bathroom, tripped over the base of a wooden valet, and fell on his face in the center of what appeared to be the master bedroom.

Cozy leaned against the doorframe and with supreme casualness said, “Oh, hello, Mitch, how are you doing? You’re a little early, aren’t you? I thought you said eleven-forty-five. And it didn’t cross my mind for a single second that it would be you snooping around in dead people’s bedrooms. Shame, shame on you.”

“Maitlin,” Crest said as he tried to lift himself up from the floor with some dignity, “if I didn’t get to beat you in court occasionally, I swear I’d have to kill you just to retain my mental health.”

“Careful, I have a witness with me, Mitch.”

I poked my head around Cozy and said, “Hello, Mitchell. It’s me.”

“Hi, Alan. Cozy, I could take out a billboard with a death threat against you and it wouldn’t make any difference. There isn’t a jury in the county that would consider your murder by a prosecutor anything other than justifiable homicide. So why are we here today? Why on earth am I doing you this courtesy? What do you want to see?”

“You’re taking requests? I think ‘Singing in the Rain’ would be a nice encore. Or, if you insist on staying with the Beatles, how about ‘I Am the Walrus’? Tough melody, though, for a dancer. Alan?”

Cozy was having more fun than Mitch was. I didn’t think playing along any longer was going to accomplish much. “Whatever you have to show us, Mitch. I would just like to see what you and the police think happened here.”