Walking past the naked and semi-naked hippies, I was so relieved that nothing about the case I was chasing bothered me.

Love is a powerful balm.

The woman sitting with my daughter and her uncle rolled up onto her feet with such ease that you had to appreciate her strength. She was blond-haired with a big toothy smile, almost as tall as I, with eyes like gray diamonds. She wasn’t so much beautiful as handsome in the extreme.

Feather hugged me and said, “This is Dagmar, Daddy. She’s from Boulder, Colorado. She says that the college there is one of the best.”

I held out a hand and the Coloradan shook it.

“Hi,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. It felt as if she saw all the way to the soul. “You have a really great energy.”

“You some kinda athlete?”

“Rock climber.”

“Glad to meet you,” I said. And that was the truth.

I greeted my daughter’s uncle and suggested that the three of us go to lunch down at the Hamburger Hamlet.

“. . . I was surprised myself that she came to Terry’s,” Milo was saying.

He’d ordered a burger with avocados, Muenster cheese, raw onions, and thick slices of beefsteak tomato. Feather got a salad and I had water.

“You know,” Milo went on, “when she called and said she was coming down I thought that you’d be with her. It’s some heavy shit comes down at Terry’s. Not a place you’d want a kid alone.”

“If you don’t mind, watch your language around my daughter,” I said.

That got a look from Milo. Hippies were rarely asked to watch what they said, and me claiming Feather as mine might have bothered him too.

“I’m almost grown, Daddy.”

“Almost being the operant word.”

Feather harrumphed but she couldn’t repress her smile. She was happy to be with Milo and me. It felt to her like family.

After lunch I thanked Milo for taking care of my daughter. He had assured me that he’d never let her do dope until she was out of the house. He went back to Terry’s and I drove Feather home to Brighthope.

“So what were you thinking when Dagmar handed you that marijuana cigarette?” I asked as we cruised down Sunset.

“What happened to your Rolls-Royce, Daddy?”

“I lent it to John.”

“John Malcolm?”

“John the bartender. Are you gonna answer my question?”

“I don’t know. I know you don’t want me to smoke. But I really wanted to talk to Uncle Milo. And Dagmar had been playing badminton and came over to talk. She had the joint and shared it with him.”

“I don’t want you going down to that house anymore. It’s too much for a young girl like you.”

“Okay.”