Free Angel Interrupted by Chaz McGee

a few people like that myself.”
    “There was one other thing. The old lady knew the nurse. She says Calvano interviewed her about it.”
    “Yes?” Maggie asked, trying to pull it out of him.
    “She says the nurse would never have killed herself, that she was a Catholic.”
    “We know she didn’t kill herself,” Maggie assured him. “Thank you. I’ll let the commander know.”
    Denny scurried away and Peggy, who had been watching Maggie from a spot against the wall, spoke. “What is it? You look troubled.”
    “Just one Catholic girl looking after another,” Maggie said. “That could have been me, you know. Seriously.”
    “Except you’re the best shot in the department,” Peggy offered. “It wouldn’t have been you lying on that carpet.”
    Maggie looked at her friend. “Peggy, when I was in the house, I felt . . .” She hesitated.
    “What?” Peggy asked. “Go with it.”
    “I felt this sense of betrayal,” Maggie said. “It sounds silly, I know.”
    Yes, I exulted. She had picked up on it, too. Or maybe she had picked up on me. Maybe I had helped.
    “It’s not silly,” Peggy said firmly. “I felt it, too.”
    “Like someone she loved had betrayed her?”
    “Exactly,” Peggy said.
    “Like someone who loved her had killed her,” Maggie said sadly.
    “Ah, Maggie.” Peggy was her senior by three decades.
    “When you get as old as I am, you will know one thing for sure: people kill the people they love all the time.”
    “You’re right,” Maggie acknowledged. “And, god knows, I know that.”
    Peggy was staring at her oddly.
    “What?” Maggie said. “Spit it out.”
    “Hypnosis,” Peggy said firmly.
    “Hypnosis?”
    “If that poor schmuck in there actually saw something, I’d put him under and get it out of him quickly, before Calvano buries everything under a mountain of fear.”
    “You really think that will work?”
    “We used it a lot during the eighties when there was a spate of carjackings around here. We got better descriptions and a few license plates. It helped with a murder in ’97 and a couple of rapes the same year. A few other times, too.”
    “Why not recently?” Maggie asked.
    “Gonzales thinks of it as hocus-pocus, and evidence gathered through hypnosis is not necessarily admissible in court. But the woman we worked with still lives in town. She’s good. She has a private therapy practice and is a certified forensic hypnosis specialist. Plus, she helped me quit smoking.” Peggy smiled and there it was again: her signature smear of orange lipstick on her teeth. I had come to love that smear.
    Maggie shrugged. “I can give it a try.”
    “I’d do it before the feds get here if I was you,” Peggy suggested. “You won’t have a say in it after that.”
    “How did this place ever run without you?” Maggie asked.
    “It’s never had to,” Peggy admitted with a laugh.
    Maggie stared at the green dinosaur in Peggy’s hands. “Do you really think you’ll get something off it?”
    “I have to,” Peggy said simply. “Calvano’s getting nowhere.”
    And with that, she left Maggie to clean up Calvano’s mess, disappearing down the hall toward her lab, where evidence was orderly and answers were logical and whole new worlds awaited her beneath the lens of her beloved microscope.
    Maggie reached Gonzales at the exact same time that Martin’s lawyer finally made it to the interrogation room. She reentered the observation area just in time to see the lawyer say to Calvano, “This interrogation is over.”
    Gonzales sighed.
    “He wasn’t getting anywhere anyway, sir,” Maggie offered in consolation.
    Gonzales looked at her intently. “Give me good news.” “I think this guy is legit,” Maggie said, nodding toward Martin. The poor slob had started to sweat like a seal in a sauna, but he also looked completely dumbfounded at his good fortune: he had a lawyer, a real one, who had rescued him just as he realized he had truly screwed the pooch by not