Angel Interrupted (13 page)

I thought then of all the days I had missed with my own boys, of all the afternoons I could have been home with them but sat, instead, in some lousy dive bar, drinking in bitterness and inhaling the boozy stench of everyone else’s disappointments as a way to mask my own. How many hours had I squandered that I could have spent listening to the high, pure joy of my sons and seeing them fiercely alive on a sunny day?

I felt a flash of regret so acute, my mind reeled with longing.
I had had so much and experienced so little.
But the pealing laughter of the little boy on the swing rescued me from my memories and brought me back to where I was. I couldn’t undo the past and I could do very little to affect the future. But the present? At least I was here, enjoying the end of a sunshine-soaked afternoon. I looked around, making the most of it, and noticed the uniformed officer on guard in the doorway of the cottage where the nurse had died. He was staring across the street at us, a puzzled look on his face. I realized what he was seeing: a deserted playground, a windless afternoon—yet there it was, an empty swing distinctly soaring first one way and then the other, without a trace of anyone in sight.

I began to laugh at what he must be thinking, and my laughter mingled with that of the boy’s. We made a fine pair, he and I, and for just a moment I felt the exultation of feeling that I belonged.

I left my young friend hanging by the tips of his toes from the monkey bars, out-tricking even the most agile of living children. He did not see me go, nor did he care. He was done with me. He, too, lived in a solitary world and I was but a visitor to it.

The air smelled of twilight. Another day had passed. Lives had been shattered, fortunes made, and love found, all on one ordinary day. I don’t know how people can ever find life boring. It’s one big soap opera that never ends. And I knew exactly where the next episode would take place. I headed to department headquarters, where Robert Michael Martin was being polygraphed and hypnotized. It was my first chance to experience the human mind as it was probed by other humans, and I did not want to miss it.

I was not the only one. Martin had been seated in the largest interrogation room, one adjoined by a spacious observation room concealed behind an entire wall of one-way glass. In all my years on the force, I had never rated the use of this room. But despite its size, I felt eerily as if I were part of a crowd witnessing an execution. It did not help that Martin was connected to various wires leading to a polygraph machine.

Because he was undergoing the test voluntarily, his lawyer had negotiated the right to sit beside him; he was the only other person allowed in the room besides the dark-haired polygraph specialist with intense energy, who was asking Martin control questions about his name, age, and address. Innocuous as these questions were, Martin had already started to sweat. The white dress shirt he had so carefully donned was soaked, and perspiration covered his doughy face. When the operator asked him to confirm his occupation, I thought the poor bastard was going to pass out. This was not a man used to being around other people, I decided. His worry over what others thought of him created a level of anxiousness that was sending his baselines through the roof.

Noni Bates looked concerned. She had been allowed to observe and had worn a straw hat for the occasion. She had also, I noticed, sat directly in front of Calvano and completely blocked his view, forcing him to move to a seat in the corner. The chairs in the observation room had been set up in front of the one-way mirror as if we were watching a special preview of a new movie. I thought popcorn would have enhanced the mood, but everyone looked way too businesslike for that. Maggie was staring intently though the glass, while Gonzales sat, immobile and taut, as Martin was led through a series of innocuous questions and, finally, queries about the man in the park.

“That dude sweats like a pig,” Calvano observed.

“What astute powers of observation you have,” Noni Bates said sweetly. “You must be a detective.”

Sarcasm, from that lovely old lady?
Oh, I liked that. So did Maggie, who clamped her lips shut tightly and avoided Calvano’s eyes. Gonzales had not even heard.

Calvano stared at Noni and once again failed to recognize her. In this case, it worked in her favor. He had made a few comments to Gonzales about “people going over his head” but had not yet figured out it was Noni who had sent the patrolmen to let Gonzales know what Martin had originally tried to tell Calvano about the man in the park. Calvano seemed under the impression that Noni was Martin’s mother and, I suppose, in a way he was right. She was there to watch over him, and we all need that at times like this, no matter our age.

Despite his anxiousness, in the end, Martin passed the polygraph handily, as the operator explained to Gonzales after the session was over.

I did not need this news to know Martin had passed. I had discovered that no mere polygraph machine could hold a candle to me. I had followed the changes in Martin’s heart rate and blood pressure through every question, and then had gone a step beyond, absorbing the flood of memories each question triggered in Martin’s mind. I knew with certainty now that he was who he said he was, and that he might be of real help if he could only remember more.

A rare feeling overtook me when I realized Martin could help, one I had seldom experienced when I was alive: the hunt was on, there was hope, we were on the trail and moving forward—and I was in the lead.

Gonzales took the news of Martin’s test results calmly, listening politely while the polygraph operator explained what he had already figured out for himself. “He shows a high level of concern over the missing boy,” the operator said. “But he knows nothing about where the boy is or who took him, in my opinion. The man he says he saw in the park is absolutely real, at least to the subject, and I see no signs of deception on the subject’s part. There was some reaction when I asked him control questions about his name, address, residency, and living situation, but I attribute that to the recent death of his mother, who apparently shared his living arrangements. Otherwise, this is a truthful subject. However, he is compliant and very eager to please. I would be wary of disinformation caused primarily by his overwhelming desire to be of help.”

“I want a drug test,” Calvano said loudly.

We all stared at him.

“It’s easy to beat the test,” Calvano explained defensively. “I want the guy tested to see if he took anything to help him beat the test.”

Before anyone else could speak—and they all looked like they wanted to—Gonzales nipped that thought in the bud. “We’re the ones who suggested a polygraph and put it forth as an acceptable screen. We’re not changing our minds now.”

“I would have detected the signs of drug use,” the operator said coldly. “It’s part of what I am trained to do.”

Calvano looked like he was about to say something else, but a look from Gonzales inspired him to sit back and shut up instead. Few people got that look from Gonzales. Those who did remembered it.

“Thank you,” Gonzales told the polygraph operator. “We can stop here. This was background only.”

The man nodded and returned to the interrogation room to collect his equipment. His job was over, and he was happy to turn the more complicated task of sorting out which truths mattered to others. Martin had been waiting anxiously, as if he had just endured a particularly grueling job interview and now wanted to know if he had gotten the job. But the polygraph operator evaded his questions and left so quickly that it was all his lawyer could do to inquire after him, “What were the results?”

When the operator answered by leaving the room, the lawyer stared at the wall of one-way glass and announced, “My client will not agree to the hypnosis session until we are informed of the results of the polygraph test.”

“He always was a smart boy,” Noni told the room before anyone else could react. “Wanted to be a lawyer all the way back in sixth grade. I knew he would go far.”

Gonzales looked at his watch. Time was ticking away. The feds would be taking over in an hour and a half. “Handle it,” he told Maggie while Calvano stifled his outrage at being overlooked.

Maggie left the room to confer with Martin’s lawyer.

“She’s quite a competent detective, isn’t she?” Noni asked after she had left, winning a weak smile from Gonzales and a lingering glare from Calvano.

When Maggie told Martin he had passed the polygraph, the poor bastard turned into a different man. He visibly relaxed, let out a long sigh, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt.

“Look at that. He’s hiding something,” Calvano announced in the adjoining room. “See how relieved he is that he got away with it?”

This did not sit well with Noni. She lit into Calvano. “Young man, you remind me of a bully I taught back in 1978. He was a smart young man who could have gone far, but he was so busy trying to cut others down that he missed the attempts at friendship that came his way. My guess is that his insecurity ensured he would be a bully his entire life. Last I heard, he was a tow truck operator, despite the fact that he had an IQ of one hundred and forty. I suggest if you intend to remain a detective that you learn to listen more to what others are saying and point fingers a little bit less.”

She turned back around, having said her piece, and left a stunned Calvano to stare at the back of her head. I could feel him beginning to wonder who the hell she was and if they had met before. But then his self-preservation kicked in and he glanced at Gonzales, seeking his reaction. Gonzales was too smart for that. The moment the tirade began he had pulled out a cell phone and feigned a call. I knew he was faking it but admired his restraint. A cornered dog is a dangerous one—he would let Calvano save face and delude himself that no one had overheard the upbraiding.

He would not, however, let Calvano embarrass the department in front of the FBI. Maggie had accepted a piece of paper from Martin’s lawyer after confirming his client had passed the polygraph, and she was looking it over intently. Gonzales knew what it was.

“Calvano,” he barked. “Gunn’s got the list of the license plate numbers Martin took down over the past couple days. These are cars that were parked near the playground. I want you to run them. Look for patterns, check out the owners, you know the drill—who doesn’t belong near a park on a weekday? I want the list narrowed down by the time the feds get here. We need something solid to show them.”

“Yes, sir,” Calvano said smartly, as if he had just been handed a vital undercover assignment instead of grunt work that any clerk could do. Noni made him nervous and, like all bullies, he was anxious to leave the battlefield when others started fighting back.

Calvano made the most of taking the list of license plate numbers from Maggie, emphasizing that Gonzales had asked him to handle it personally. She couldn’t have cared less. The specialist trained in the forensic application of hypnosis had arrived to conduct her session with Martin, and that was what Maggie was most interested in—not just because she wanted to find the little boy, but because she hoped Martin might have seen something that would help solve Fiona Harker’s murder.

The specialist was also a certified therapist, a fortunate skill considering Martin’s mental state. She did not look at all like what I had expected. She was in her forties, small and blonde, with the lithe body and turned-out feet of a dancer. She also had kind eyes, a reassuring smile, and such a sweet voice that Martin was relaxed enough to start the session within moments. Although she had a PhD, she insisted Martin call her Miranda and asked if she might call him Robert. The poor guy was so unused to female attention, I suspect he would have consented to anything she asked, but then again, I would have, too.

When the therapist began to make small talk in preparation for relaxing Martin and putting him under, Maggie returned to the observation room. She nodded politely to Noni, who was still there as a condition of Robert Michael Martin’s cooperation, then sat beside Gonzales. “You sure you want to stay for this?” she asked him.