The Devil's Interval Read Free Page B

developed a sense of happy endings as Maggie does. Otherwise…”
    â€œOtherwise?” prompted Dr. McQuist.
    â€œOtherwise we wouldn’t be here, spending time and money we don’t really have to spare,” Michael snapped. The ice man was back. I glanced over at Michael, but he stared resolutely ahead. The warm, relaxed man I had married kept disappearing into someone aloof and detached. Some days I felt as if our marriage had turned into a businesslike partnership of convenience. I wanted to wave my hand, asking Teach for permission to speak, but she was refusing to catch my eye.
    â€œMichael,” she began again, “you mentioned that things keep coming back up from those issues last year. Why don’t you tell Maggie what those things are? Just forget I’m here.”
    I could see Michael sizing up Dr. McQuist and the situation. This seemed gimmicky to him, I was willing to bet. On the other hand, this therapy had been his idea, he had scrupulously researched Dr. McQuist, and she had a number of very happy, unexpectedly effusive references among our own extended circle of pals. Straight, gay, happy, miserable, in transition, new relationships or old ones, everyone loved Dr. McQuist. That alone made me suspicious. But Michael was a careful consumer and he liked consensus. Plus, we were paying for the hour, so not giving her a chance felt like getting the plumber out to the house and then not inviting him to unclog the sink.
    â€œOkay,” he said. “Just tell her ?”
    â€œRight,” said Dr. McQuist. “Talk to Maggie.”
    He settled back into the arm of the couch and faced me.
    â€œAfter your shenanigans last year, I thought we had an agreement.”
    â€œWe did,” I said. “We do.”
    â€œNo interruptions,” said Dr. McQuist. “Listen to what Michael is saying.”
    â€œOkay, okay,” I said meekly. “Sorry.”
    Michael turned to look at Dr. McQuist with something like wonder and admiration.
    â€œThank you,” he said politely.
    â€œOur agreement was, first….” He raised a finger. “No more affairs. Not ever, ever. Ever. Second, you’ve taken on a full-time job, and you’re still—unless I missed something—a wife and mom, so no more investigating, no more poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Just—oh, Christ—cut us some slack. Enjoy what you’ve got.”
    He sat back.
    â€œMay I speak?” I asked Dr. McQuist.
    â€œPlease.”
    â€œMichael, I don’t know how many ways to say it. The affair was a dumb, dumb, stupid mistake. You don’t have to worry it will ever happen again. Second, you’re jumping to conclusions about this Death Row story. You’re right, I’ve got a day job. And I like that job. I’m willing to go listen to the death-appeal mommies because I’ve done a story on them once, and maybe there’s a follow-up.”
    â€œLiar, liar, liar,” said Michael.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Dr. McQuist said, “we have to end now.”

CHAPTER 2
    A side from a childhood fascination with Susan Hayward’s over-the-top performance in I Want to Live! , I’d never given much thought to the people who occupy Death Row. At the office, before I left to meet Eleanor and her Gasworks pal with the “innocent” client, I Googled up a little info.
    The condemned make up quite a crowd in our country. There are 3,565 of them in the United States: 3,517 men and forty-eight women. Many are mentally ill; some have IQs that would make great golf scores but are lousy intellectual equipment for life. Some are just plain wicked. Most are guilty—of one thing or another. But not every single one. Or at least that’s what the movies would have you believe—and according to Eleanor, one of the innocent was represented by a Gasworks member.
    I rang the doorbell at Eleanor’s just before noon. The spring