The Laughterhouse: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  “You what? Where?”

  “At Tabitha Jenkins’s house.”

  “What? You . . . what? What are you doing there? Is the girl okay? What about the others? What about Cole?”

  I update him, telling him I wanted to speak to Tabitha on the chance that Cole had approached her, not mentioning the real reason, and Schroder is happy to believe it.

  “So it was a lucky break,” I tell him, “nothing more.”

  “You have a thing with lucky breaks, Theo. That’s great you’ve found her, it really is,” he says, and I get the sense he’s shaking his head or nodding, or maybe even fist-pumping the air. “Two girls safe and sound,” he says. “We’re doing this,” he adds. “We’re going to nail this guy and we’re going to get everybody back. I can feel it. I’ll get some backup sent right away.”

  “Wait,” I tell him. “Don’t send backup.”

  “What?”

  “Just come here with a couple of other people, and that’s all,” I tell him, “and make sure one of them is a paramedic to check Tabitha out—she was drugged. She doesn’t know if Cole is coming back, and if he is we can use this place to ambush him. And if he isn’t coming back, he’s already long gone, so there’s no point in sending every available officer.”

  “Yeah, yeah, good thinking. There’s no way you’re not going to be one of the team again, Tate. This is great stuff. Great stuff! Okay. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  I hang up. Tabitha has reached up and turned off the shower. She gets to her feet and leans against the shower walls.

  “You said you were a policeman?” she asks.

  I pass her a towel and then show her my badge. She doesn’t look at the badge and buries her face in the towel.

  “I’m looking for Cole,” I tell her.

  “What?” she asks, pulling the towel away.

  “Caleb Cole. I’m looking for him.”

  “Give me a minute,” she says.

  I leave her in the bathroom and head into the kitchen. I switch on the kettle but flick it off before boiling point, then make a strong coffee. It’s ready and sitting on the coffee table on a coaster when Tabitha comes into the lounge. She’s dried off and changed into dry clothes: a pair of jeans and a fleece jacket into the pockets of which she has her hands buried deep.

  “Drink this,” I say, and I hand the coffee over to her. “It’s not too hot.”

  Tabitha drinks half of it in one gulp, then hands me back the cup. “I feel sick,” she says, and she moves quickly into the kitchen and throws up into the sink. She turns on the faucet hard enough for the water to splash back at her. She rinses the sink, then eases the pressure and lowers her face beneath the tap. She takes in a mouthful of water and spits it out, then another and another. When she’s finished, she turns around and leans against the wall, the front of her fleece sprinkled with beads of water.

  “That has to be the worst review I’ve ever had for coffee I’ve made,” I tell her.

  She smiles. “I hate coffee. I’m a tea drinker.”

  I smile back. “You’re feeling okay? You don’t need to sit down?”

  “I’m fine,” she says. “Just light-headed is all.”

  “How long ago did Caleb Cole leave?”

  She picks up a tea towel and wipes her face with it. In the process she moves her hair behind her ear, revealing a scar pale against her tan.

  “What’s the time now?” she asks.

  “Ten thirty.”

  “Then an hour ago.”

  “He tell you where he was going?”

  She balls up the tea towel and tosses it into the sink. “No.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “No.”

  I put the half-drunken coffee down on the bench. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you before the police get here.”

  Her face changes at the change of tone in my voice. “What kind of something?”

  “I know about Victoria Brown.”

  “What?”

  “I know it was you that hurt her.”

  “Oh Jesus,” she says, and looks down.

  “Listen to me,” I say, and I put a hand on her forearm. “Nobody else needs to know. It’s going to be okay, but you need to trust me. I want to find Caleb Cole before he hurts anybody else, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her that badly. I wasn’t even thinking about hurting her at all. I just came out of the stall and there she was, just standing in front of me. I don’t even remember thinking about it.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s going to be okay.”

  “It . . . it just happened,” she says, and she reaches back for the tea towel and dabs it at the bottom of her eyes. “I ran. I left her there and I ran and maybe if I had gone for help the doctors could have done more for her.”

  “I know you feel bad about it,” I tell her, “and I’m glad you do. You should feel bad, and that’s what makes you a good person. But your life will be ruined if the police find out.”

  “That’s what he said,” she says, “Caleb, back when I went to see him in jail.”

  “And he was right. Tabitha, why did Caleb come here? Why did he tie you up? Why did he leave Octavia here? Did he hurt you?”

  Before she can answer any of my questions, there’s a soft knocking from the back door.

  “Your visit with Caleb, you told him about Victoria Brown,” I tell her.

  “Oh,” she says.

  “Don’t let it get any further, because you’ll end up in jail,” I add, and I open up the door and let Schroder and the others inside. He has a phone to his ear, and a stunned look on his face. He comes inside, nods a few times, says okay a few times, then hangs up.

  “Jesus,” he says, “you’re not going to believe this. But I’m off the case. I’ve just been suspended.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The paramedic looks over Tabitha and gives her the all clear. He suggests a visit to the hospital for observation, a suggestion that Tabitha disagrees with.

  “What would I know,” the paramedic says, “I’m only the expert,” he says, then walks off to the living room and sits down, putting his feet up on the coffee table. He pulls out a cell phone and starts playing on it.

  Me and Schroder sit in the living room with the TV on while Tabitha volunteers to change Octavia’s diaper in the bedroom. Detectives Hutton and Kent have shown up, along with two officers, one of whom was the guy who first approached me at the retirement home when we went to visit the late Herbert Poole. The other is a guy I haven’t seen before. The four of them hang out in the kitchen. There are other officers in unmarked cars sitting at various points in a four-block radius. On the TV is footage from Lakeview Homes. It’s shaky but clear, shot from somebody’s camera, either by one of the residents or by a family member who was there at the time. There is footage of a windowsill, a curtain, then the lens focuses past the window and to the first of the minivan cabs. It comes to a stop, the door slides open, and detective after detective steps out of it. It’s like watching clowns at a circus climbing out of a small car, only these clowns are drunk, racing off into the fields and watering the trees before trying to figure out who killed the ringmaster.

  I look at Schroder whose face is blank as my car pulls up behind the first minivan and as we both step out of it. He walks off to take a leak and I walk toward the unit with the dead body. The camera operator follows neither of us, but instead focuses on the next van, more circus performers, and then a few close-ups of some of the detectives I’ve worked with over the last twenty-four hours, including a tight close-up of Detective Kent who never leaves the proximity of the minivan.

  Schroder flicks off the TV and hangs his head in his hands.

  “It may not be as bad as you think it’s going to be,” I tell him, but of course that’s not true—it’s going to be bad. The media is going to make sure of that.

  “I should have listened to you.”

  “I . . . ,” I say, but don’t kno
w what exactly it is I want to say. What is there? I wait a few beats, then ask the question I’ve avoided for the last few minutes. “You’ve been suspended?”

  He shrugs and looks over at me. “At the least,” he says, “but after seeing that I don’t see how I can keep my job,” he says. “That was Stevens on the phone earlier. He said he has no option but to suspend me. He said any further action isn’t up to him, but yeah, somebody has to fall on their sword, right? And it’s going to be me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, well, you don’t need to be. You’re the one who told me at the time I was fucking up. I just didn’t listen.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “What have you learned from Tabitha?”

  “Carl . . .”

  “What am I supposed to do? Go home and do nothing?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe you’re right, and tomorrow we’ll know for sure, but right now we still have one missing girl and her father and no way to find them. Then tomorrow—yeah, tomorrow is a new day, huh? Remember this morning at the morgue? Remember what I said about maybe it being time to move on? Hell, could be this is for the best.”

  He stands up and steps past me. I follow him to the bedroom where Tabitha is finishing up with the diaper change. Cole left behind the diaper bag.

  “Tell us what happened tonight,” Schroder says.

  She hands Octavia a small teddy bear, and Octavia throws it away from her and then crawls after it. Tabitha sits on the edge of the bed and starts telling us. Octavia picks up the bear, brings it back, and hands it to Tabitha. Tabitha hands it back to Octavia, who throws it again, then crawls off after it.

  Tabitha tells us she was reading a book when there was a knock at the door. She answered it. Caleb Cole wanted somewhere he could stay for a day or two. She told him he couldn’t stay there.

  “Did he say why he came to you for help?” Schroder asks.

  “My guess is he’s desperate, and he thought Tabitha would be on his side,” I say.

  Tabitha is looking at me carefully. We both know Cole came to her because of what she did to Victoria Brown. Schroder sees the look, then gives me a similar one.

  “I told him to leave the girls and their dad with me, and he said no,” Tabitha says, drawing our attention back to her. She’s a confident talker, no pauses, no backtracking. “He asked if I would call the police, and I said yes. In the end we came up with a deal. He said if I took some sleeping pills, he would leave one of the children with me. He knew my girlfriend would be home tomorrow. I took the deal. It was either that, or he walked out with both children.”

  “You saw him the once in jail,” Schroder says. “Why?”

  She looks surprised, and I feel surprised. Sometime in the last few hours Schroder must have checked Cole’s visitation records.

  “Why? It’s hard to say,” she says, “and, well,” and now the pauses are there, her comfortable way of talking a lot less comfortable. “I felt bad for him. Of course I did. He killed the man that hurt me, and I . . .” she pauses and her pause backs up what she said about it being hard to say.

  “You thanked him?” Schroder asks.

  “Umm . . . no . . . not really,” she says, shaking her head. Schroder raises his eyebrows at her. She carries on. “Well, okay, maybe I did. He’s suffered more than you’ll ever know,” she says.

  “Tell us about his plans for Dr. Stanton,” I say. “Did he mention him much?”

  She pauses, her eyes shift up and to the left, and she’s remembering something that happened. I look at Schroder and he looks at me and we both wait. It takes her a few seconds, but she gets there. “This is weird,” she says, “but the thing is, he said he isn’t planning on hurting Dr. Stanton.”

  I move forward, and Schroder does the same thing. Octavia picks up the teddy bear and throws it further, then chases after it. “What makes you say that?” I ask.

  She slowly starts to nod. “He said he was going to let him go. He promised he wasn’t going to hurt any of them.”

  “Did he tell you what he meant by that?” Schroder asks.

  She shakes her head. “I believe him too. He’s got no reason to lie. I mean, why would he? And he held up the promises he made me tonight.”

  Schroder is shaking his head now too. “Doesn’t make sense,” he says.

  I start nodding. We all have our heads moving, just not in the same direction or at the same speed. “I agree. There’s just no way he’s going to let Stanton go.”

  “He’s going to,” she says, and she really believes it, nodding firmly now. “Also, he said something else. He said he wanted Dr. Stanton to walk in his shoes for a while.”

  “That’s why he’s pretending to kill the children,” I say.

  “But when he lets him go,” Schroder says, “Stanton is going to find out he’s been lied to. It doesn’t make sense. It’s a lot of effort to go to to make the doctor think his kids are dead for only a matter of hours.”

  Before now, it made sense because we thought Cole was putting Stanton through this in order to kill him. But if he lets him go . . . Schroder is right, it doesn’t line up.

  I realize I’m still shaking my head. So is Schroder.

  “He’s going to let him go,” Tabitha says, and she says it so calmly and so positively that it’s hard not to believe she’s right.

  “And then what?” Schroder asks.

  “And then, well, then I think he’s going to kill himself.”

  I look at Schroder and he’s giving me the same look back.

  “He told you that?” I ask.

  “He said all he has to live for is justice, and once he has it, there’s nothing left. I asked him if he was going to kill himself and he said no, but he also said he won’t go back to jail.”

  “And you didn’t believe him,” I say, setting up the next question for Schroder.

  “No. I could tell he was lying.”

  “Then what makes you so sure he’s been honest about everything else?” Schroder asks.

  She looks back down at her hands. “I could just tell,” she says.

  “Because in your life you’ve spent two hours with him,” Schroder says.

  “I just don’t know what else to tell you,” she says, sounding frustrated.

  We step back out into the hallway and Tabitha goes back to playing with Octavia. Detective Kent wanders down to join us.

  “Anything useful?” she asks.

  “Not much,” Schroder says, and fills her in.

  “What do you think?” I ask, directing the question at both of them. “He wants to die?”

  Kent shrugs. “It wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.”

  “I don’t know,” Schroder says. “Let’s call Barlow and get his take on it.”

  I lean against one hallway wall and Schroder leans against the other one, and suddenly I’m aware that I’ve hardly slept in two days. I feel like sinking down into the floor.

  Barlow answers on the third ring. He’s still at the station, still talking to Melanie and her mother, trying to mend fences that I can’t imagine ever being mended.

  “First things first, Detectives,” he says. “Good job on getting the girl back.”

  “It’s not over,” I tell him.

  “I know it’s not over, but you have to acknowledge a victory when you have one.”

  “I’d rather celebrate when . . .”

  “Yes, yes, of course, when everybody is back safe. But let yourself be proud of what has just happened here, Theo. You’ve gotten another of the girls back. Take heart in that. You need to let these moments drive you more than the dark ones.”

  We update Barlow. He says nothing as we talk, just absorbing the information until we’re finished.

  “Makes sense,” he says. “Whatever he has in mind, he probably figures once it’s done he has nothing left to live for. I’ve been thinking about what we spoke about earlier, about trying to use the media against him. Perhaps, if th
e media hasn’t reported you’ve found Octavia, we can use this situation somehow. I should know more once I read those letters.”

  “Can we set up a story to lead him back to this house?” Kent asks.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Barlow asks. “But I’m not sure how.”

  “I might know how,” I say. “We know he doesn’t want to hurt the kids, right?” I say.

  Now Schroder is nodding faster. So is Kent and so am I. Kent was right—we should hire a masseuse to follow us around. We’re all going to have sore necks in the morning.

  “Yes, yes, exactly,” Barlow says, and I can imagine him caressing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, his other hand supporting his elbow as he’s deep in thought. “I see where you’re going with this, and yes, yes, I think that if Cole believed Octavia was in danger he would either return to the house or he would call the police and tell them where she is.”

  “We make something up,” I say, excited now.

  “What could we say the baby could be in danger from?” Barlow asks. “Another person?”

  Detective Kent shakes her head. “It’s simpler than that,” she says. “We’re gonna need Stevens to help us out, but I think I have the perfect angle.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  What was supposed to take one night or possibly two now has the potential to take three. Or even longer.

  The doctor is asleep again with the help of more pills, and Caleb is envious. He wishes he could just lie down and get some sleep. His body is exhausted but his mind is buzzing and it’s all, he realizes, just becoming too much for him. He could take pills too, but he needs to stay sharp. His fingers are aching and his right shoulder is hurting like a bitch after all the lifting he’s been doing. He paces the house. It doesn’t feel like a home, it feels like a show house. It’s a shame the nice fridge in the freshly painted kitchen hasn’t been filled with fresh food. He’s not sure why, but he starts thinking about how Octavia felt in his arms. He liked the way she would rest her head on his shoulder, the way her breath would tickle his ear. He’s not sure why he misses her, all he knows is that he does. He doesn’t miss the way she smelled, and that only would have gotten worse unless he bathed her, but it was nice the way she would look at him with eyes that didn’t judge. His own daughter used to look at him the same way.