The Laughterhouse: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  “He’s not moving anywhere. Now he’s turning a full circle, looking at the other houses. Now he’s coming forward,” he says, his voice getting quicker with excitement. “He’s coming this way, walking slowly. Jesus, my grandmother can walk faster than this guy.”

  “Is it him?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m going out there,” I say to Schroder.

  “Just wait,” he says. “Stick with the plan, Tate. Let him come to us,” he says, and he’s right but that doesn’t dull the desire to rush out there. “We have to be careful. If Stanton and his daughter aren’t in the car, then they’re somewhere else, and we need Cole to give up their location. If Tabitha is right about Cole wanting to die and we go running out there, for all we know he might jam a knife into his own throat.”

  I nod. I get his point.

  “He’s coming straight for us,” the officer says.

  “You and you,” Schroder says, pointing to the other officer and Detective Kent, “circle out the back door and around the side of the yard but don’t approach the suspect. Just be ready to cut off his escape route. Tate, get ready, the moment he reaches the doorstep we’re on him, okay? Not before then. Let’s—”

  “We’ve got another vehicle,” the officer says. “The guy is still coming toward us. The other car isn’t worrying him. Shit, we’ve got two more vehicles. They’re both slowing down. Our suspect is pausing, he’s looking back but not going anywhere. They’re not cars, they’re vans.”

  “What the hell is going on?” Schroder asks.

  “They’re parking right outside. Shit, our suspect is heading back to his car.”

  “We have to go,” I say.

  “Go, go, go,” Schroder shouts, and we all rush toward the door while the two who went out the back rush around the side of the yard. All we can hear is footsteps as our feet pound into the floor. The door is already unlocked and I’m the first one through it.

  We all converge on the man at the same time. People are getting out of their vans. They’re holding lights and cameras. Shit. Schroder is the first to reach Caleb Cole, who is now looking at us without an ounce of surprise on his face and, who, it turns out, isn’t Caleb Cole at all.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Schroder asks, grabbing him by the collar.

  “I saw the news, Detectives,” Jonas Jones says, looking from Schroder to me, all of it caught under the harsh glare of the camera lights. Schroder glances at the cameras and lets go of the front of Jonas’s shirt.

  Jonas takes a step back, then straightens it, then runs a hand over his hair, making sure it’s all in place. “I know how much Octavia Stanton needs her medication,” he says. “I knew it before it was even on the news. The thing is, Detectives,” he says, adjusting his shirt one more time, “this is where Jessica Cole told me I would find her.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  The camera lights wake up the thing living inside my head, it rolls over and taps at the walls briefly before falling back asleep.

  “You need to get the hell out of here!” Schroder yells, directing the words at everybody on the street. He pulls out his handcuffs and seems to realize two very important things. The first is that there is nothing he can arrest Jonas for except being a weasel. It’s a public street and Jones hasn’t broken any laws, and the same goes for the reporters sending out a live feed to the rest of the country and a warning to Caleb Cole.

  The second thing Schroder seems to realize is that he has no authority. He’s on suspension, he can’t make an arrest, and the question is whether or not anybody else here knows that.

  It’s a question that isn’t posed for long.

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve been suspended, mate,” Jonas says, “and therefore I don’t have to answer to you.”

  “Is this true?” one of the reporters yells, and upon hearing it the others all follow suit.

  “Detective, can you comment on the actions of a department who would continue to have a drunk detective run a very important—” “Are you drunk now, Detective?” “How long has this drinking problem been—” “Is everybody drunk?”

  Jonas holds his hands up and all the reporters go silent, staring at him as though he is about to do a magic trick, or receive a message from God. “Please, everybody, we’re here to save the girl,” he says, bringing the attention back to him, which is where he likes it the best. “This is where she is, isn’t it?”

  “This is bullshit,” Schroder says. “You’re here to sell your books. If you thought she was here you’d have called it in.”

  “First of all you never take my calls,” Jonas says, “and second of all if you’re already here, then the girl must be here too. Although . . . now I’m here, I’m sensing that like your job, she’s gone.”

  “Is that correct, Detectives?” a reporter asks. “Was Jonas’s vision accurate? Did you find Octavia Stanton here? What is her condition?”

  Then the questions start coming again. “Is she still alive?” “Was she molested?” “Was Melanie molested too?” “Is there any hope of finding Caleb Cole before he kills again?” “Is Octavia Stanton dead?”

  “I sense she’s alive,” Jonas says.

  “Is that true, Detectives? Did you find her alive?”

  I sense by the end of the night Jonas isn’t going to be able to use his legs anymore.

  “Is her father here too?” “Just what did you find here at the scene?”

  Schroder is looking mad and uncomfortable. His face is turning red and there’s a vein near the middle of his forehead that’s standing out like a worm buried just beneath the skin. He looks like he’s about to have a stroke. If he holds the handcuffs any tighter he may actually bend them. I want to reach over, punch Jones in the mouth, get into the nearest car, and speed to see my wife.

  “You need to clear out of here,” Schroder says, keeping his voice low, unable to hide the anger in it. “All of you,” he says. He sounds like he’s wondering if he has enough bullets to put an end to their questions. “This is an ongoing police investigation, you need to leave,” he says, but it’s too late. He knows it. Somehow I think Jonas knows it too. The camera crew keep filming. Large microphones fill our vision.

  “We don’t have to do any such thing.” “The public has the right to know if Octavia Stanton is safe.” “Are you saying you’re still part of this police investigation?”

  “She was here, though, wasn’t she,” Jonas says. “That much we know for sure, thanks to Jessica Cole. She told me.”

  “Then why doesn’t she tell you where her father is?” I ask.

  “She doesn’t want him caught, that’s why,” Jonas says. “She just wants the girls returned safely.”

  “Then where is Katy?” I ask.

  “Only Katy? Not Octavia too?” Jonas asks, and I realize my mistake, and it confirms to everybody that we have another of the girls back.

  “Fuck this,” Schroder says, and he reclaims the step between him and Jonas. I head toward the cameras, ready to put my hands in front of the lenses in case Schroder wants to take a swing, but there are so many lenses I’d need hands the size of a couch. Kent is by my side, figuring out the same thing.

  “You slimy son of a bitch,” Schroder says, leaning in toward Jonas. “How did you know? Who told you?”

  “Jessica Cole told me,” he says. “I talk to the dead.”

  “Turn around,” Schroder says.

  “What?”

  “Turn around. You’re under arrest.”

  “What for?”

  “Yes, Detective, what are you arresting him for?” one of the reporters asks. “And can you arrest him? You have no power.”

  “I said turn around, Jones,” Schroder says, ignoring everybody.

  “No. You have no authority to arrest me.”

  “Turn around, dipshit,” Detective Kent says, pulling out her own set of handcuffs. Jones stares blankly at her, then a small grin touches the sides of his lips. He could never buy this publi
city. Kent sticks the handcuffs on him, and as they click into place I think she realizes the same moment that I do that this is exactly what Jonas wanted.

  “You have no right,” Jonas says, looking at the cameras when he says it and flashing a whole lot of white teeth. “No right at all.”

  “We have every right,” Schroder says, “and nobody here is buying the act. You’re loving every second of this.”

  “What grounds are you taking him into custody on?” “What is the condition of Octavia Stanton?” “How many of you have been suspended?”

  “Only somebody working with the killer could have known where Octavia was being kept,” Schroder says. “That gives us the right to take him into custody.”

  “So you don’t believe in Jonas’s psychic abilities?” “Is that the police department’s official stand on psychics?” “Are you charging Jonas Jones as a suspect?” “Where is Katy Stanton?” “Where is Octavia?”

  “I believe it wasn’t hard for him to predict you would all show up to give him everything he’s after,” Schroder says to them all.

  I want to put my hand on Schroder’s shoulder and lead him away. I want him to shut up.

  “Jessica told me,” Jonas says, looking into the camera. He sounds calm. “She told me that Octavia would be fine.”

  “Is she fine, Detective?”

  “No comment,” I say for Schroder as his mouth starts to open, and he knows it’s time to accept defeat. We turn Jonas away from the cameras. Kent and Schroder walk on each side of him, marching him toward the house. I follow a few steps behind. The cameras follow us right up to the door.

  “You’re on TV,” Hutton says as we step inside, the TV switched on in the lounge showing the live broadcast of the house, zooming in on the windows of the living room and on the now shut front door. The officers who were here are still out there, trying to push everybody back.

  Kent throws Jonas onto the couch.

  Schroder stares at him. “You piece of shit,” he says. “You blew it, you blew our chance to get him.”

  Jonas lands on his side, his arms pinned behind him. He looks unsure of himself. He’s noticing for the first time that he’s in a room with four extremely pissed off people and nobody to verify he didn’t walk into a door fifteen times. “Get who? Cole? He’s already been here. He’s been and gone.”

  “Yeah? How do you know that?” Schroder asks.

  “Jessica told me,” he says.

  “I hear your new book is doing badly,” Schroder says. “It seems people don’t believe in you, Jonas, and I’m one of those people. Coming here tonight, this was just a stunt for you, wasn’t it? You’re just trying to drum up business. This is fantastic publicity for you, isn’t it? Only a real bottom-feeder would use kidnapped girls to sell his books.”

  “You knew we were here,” I say. “There was no surprise on your face at all. You wanted to get arrested.”

  “You selfish bastard,” Schroder says. “You fucked our best chance of saving these people.”

  “If we don’t get them back alive, that’s on you,” Kent tells him.

  “No it’s not. I’m trying to help,” Jonas says.

  “How’d you know we were here?” Schroder asks.

  “I told you already.”

  “Are you paying somebody for information?” Schroder asks, and it has to be—it’s also how he knew Schroder had been suspended and not fired, though anybody who saw the news probably would have drawn the same conclusion.

  “I’m psychic,” Jonas says. “It’s a gift.”

  Schroder curls his right hand into a fist. Jonas sees him do it, so Schroder curls his left one into a fist too.

  “Go ahead,” Jonas says, looking at Schroder. “Let me walk out of here with bruises on my face. See what the media says about that,” he says, only he doesn’t sound that sure.

  “Don’t think I’m not willing to try,” Schroder tells him. “You deliberately interfered with a police investigation. When we prove you’ve either been following us or paying somebody for information, you’ll be charged. If Stanton dies, you’ll be an accessory to that.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Jonas says, “and even if it weren’t bullshit, you can’t prove anything. Jessica told me to come here. I asked her, and this is where she led me.”

  “Oh, we can prove it,” Schroder says. “It’s an online world, Jones. We’re going to track where your cell phone has been today, we’re going to check traffic cameras, we’re going to talk to witnesses—we’re going to dig up all of your dirty little secrets.”

  Jonas is shaking his head. “No way, that’s not what happened. I talk to the dead. That’s what happened. You just have to open your mind.”

  “And you know what?” Schroder asks. “I’m looking forward to doing it. Hell, even if I don’t have a job to go back to, I’m going to make it my mission to prove what an asshole you are. I might even write a book about it. What do you think, Theo?”

  “I think you’d have to market it as a comedy, because this guy is a joke.”

  “Very funny,” Jonas says.

  “You phoned the media,” I tell him.

  “The whole country is worried about Octavia,” he says. “I was trying to put them at ease.”

  “With your gift,” I tell him.

  “Exactly! I was right about the stab wounds too, wasn’t I?” he asks me.

  “Definitely have to write it as a comedy,” Schroder says. “Or perhaps even a tragedy, because the main character doesn’t see how fucked up he really is.”

  “Don’t people die in the end of tragedies?” Detective Kent asks.

  “They do,” Schroder says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his Wake-E pills. “Isn’t that right, Jonas?”

  “Fuck you,” Jonas says.

  “You might have a fan base who believe that shit you’re sprouting,” Schroder says, “but unless they’re on the jury, you’re going to jail for what you’ve done here.”

  “You’ve got nothing you can prove, and no real reason to arrest me,” he says. “I’m a real psychic,” he says.

  “Good,” Schroder says, tossing a tablet into his mouth, “because then the shit that happens in jail to you won’t come as a surprise.”

  “I want my lawyer,” he says. “Until then, I’m not saying anything else.”

  The two officers come inside, beaten back by the media. We leave them to watch Jonas and I head into the kitchen with Schroder and Kent and Hutton.

  “What was he talking about?” Schroder asks me, “when he mentioned the stab wounds?”

  “He figured out the victims had nineteen stab wounds. He told me just before the briefing. He figured it out before the rest of us.”

  “And you didn’t tell us?”

  “I didn’t think it made him a suspect. If anything, it made him either a great detective or very lucky.”

  “So that was his idea,” Kent says, “about the stab wounds. Not yours.”

  I feel myself turning red. “According to Jones, it wasn’t even his—a dead person told him.”

  “Maybe he really is psychic?” Hutton suggests, proving that with questions like that his body-fat index is higher than his IQ. We all stare at him. “I mean, he did know the girl had been here,” Hutton says. “Come on, a million psychics in the world, a few of them have to be genuine, and that’d explain how he knew about the stab wounds. Some of the stuff they come up with, it’s way too accurate just to be a guess. My sister, she went to a psychic a month ago and he told her—”

  “Jesus, Hutton, we get it, okay? You believe in psychics,” Detective Kent says.

  “I’m just saying, is all,” he says, and shrugs.

  “So what the hell do we do now? It’s already over the news,” Schroder says. “Caleb isn’t coming here. No chance of it.”

  He looks at me to agree with him, and I slowly nod. He’s right. And that’s not good for Katy, her father, or for Schroder’s career and future children and victims he could have helped. He’s
been caught working a case while suspended, and I’ve been caught lying to Stevens that Schroder wasn’t here. Jonas Jones has fucked us all.

  But right now none of that matters.

  “I need a car,” I tell him. My car has been driven back to the station, well away from the area since Caleb knew what it looked like.

  He hands me his car keys. “It’ll be here in two minutes,” he says, then reaches for his phone to call for it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Caleb was halfway to the house when it unfolded. It was breaking news. The media and the police had shown up at the house where he had left Octavia. He had pulled over and listened to the report come in, then he had done a U-turn and come back.

  In the bedroom now with the TV going, he’s in time to see two cars pull up outside Tabitha’s house. Seven people step out the front door and climb into them. At first he doesn’t realize what has taken them so long, but then he figures out that it’s a replay. All of this happened twenty minutes earlier.

  So, the police had lied after all. But he had never thought of the possibility of a trap. Somehow they had found Octavia. They were using her to draw Caleb back to the scene. They were using children to try and get to him, and he understood that because he too was using the kids as tools.

  He’s relived that Octavia is fine. And just as equally, he’s concerned. How did the police find her? Is he leaving a trail? If so, will the police come here? Or did Tabitha manage to escape? Should he move to a new location? Where would he go? What difference would it make?

  He stares at the TV, studying the man he recognizes from his earlier fight and from the cemetery last night. There’s another detective he’s seen on the news over the last few days, and then there’s Jonas Jones, the psychic he’s seen on morning breakfast shows, the psychic he’s wanted to see more than any of the others. When he started seeing them, Caleb contacted Jones only to learn the man was backlogged with clients and also charged more than Caleb could afford.

  He sits on the edge of the bed with the knife back in his hand. He watches the news as it goes back in time, showing men running out of the house and approaching Jonas Jones. He is fascinated with Jones—is it possible he is looking at a true psychic? There is a confrontation. Jones starts explaining why he’s there.