A very young woman wearing only a red-and-yellow tie-dyed T-shirt opened the front door of the mansion/commune; a white girl with thick, tousled black hair. She was about to ask me what I wanted but instead yawned, then stretched. The hem of the shirt rose to the top of her thighs. If she knew what she was revealing she didn’t care.

“Yeah? Can I help you?”

In my sports coat and slacks she identified me as someone who was either lost or a threat. But Terry told his guests that they had to be polite to everyone.

“I’m Easy Rawlins. Terry’s expecting me.” I wanted to push that child aside and rush to my daughter but I had been raised on southern manners, so I stood still waiting for her to process what I’d said.

“Oh,” she said. “I know about you. You’re that detective guy.” She said this and then stared.

“Can I come in?”

“Um. Sure. I guess.”

When she stood aside I hurried across the foyer into the living room. I was headed for the kitchen but that took some fancy footwork. There were at least a dozen sleeping and partially conscious hippies spread out across the floor in sleeping bags, under blankets, and propped up on piles of clothing and knapsacks.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” I said, using my hips as well as my knees to take steps forward and to the side, between arms and legs, hands and feet.

“Ow!” one big man shouted, though I was pretty sure I hadn’t stepped on him.

Bounding to his feet, the long-haired, bearded man confronted me. He was in his middle twenties, big-bellied, and wild-eyed. His black T-shirt read CRAZY HOGG in bone-white letters.

“What the fuck?!” Crazy said.

I held my hands out to the side—palms up; an invitation anywhere on Earth.

Mr. Hogg looked at me and his first name shifted to Sensible.

“Excuse me if I stepped on you,” I said. “That was not my intention.”

The kitchen was empty so I went straight through the side door leading to the backyard.

There I came upon active hippies. Two lean-muscled, long-haired young men were stripped to the waist playing badminton for an audience of three naked reclining girls sunning their skins. My daughter and her uncle Milo were sitting in half lotus with another young woman under a huge avocado tree, heavy with fruit. The young woman was wearing an iridescent gold halter and bright red pants. She was in the middle of taking an epic hit off of a fat joint. This she handed to my little girl.

I held my breath.

Feather took the hand-rolled cigarette and passed it to Milo without pause.

I hadn’t realized that there was murder in my heart until it evaporated. Just then Feather looked up and saw me.

“Daddy!”

I took a moment to breathe and then smiled.