Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

He’s covered in blood. He doesn’t have spare clothes with him but he’ll get them soon.

The doctor lives in an expensive neighborhood that every morning is full of maids and gardeners and children being driven to school by soccer moms in cars way too big. There aren’t any lights on in any of the windows. It’s after three o’clock already and he’s tired, so beat that he just wants to crawl into a hole somewhere and take a nap, so tired that what he wanted to do in one night might just take two, but doing everything in one night gives the police no time to figure out what’s going on. One night was the goal. Only he made a mistake following that asshole home earlier. That used up time and energy and he could have been caught. It was stupid.

He parks right out front. There’s a bunch of different ways he can make his way inside, but there is one simpler than any other. He keeps ringing the bell until a light comes on in the hallway.

“Who is it?” A man’s voice, sounding tired.

Caleb hopes the wife has remained in bed. “Dr. Stanton?”

“Yes.”

“It’s me, James, from further up the road,” Caleb says, trying to sound frantic. “It’s my daughter, we’ve had an accident. Please, please, you have to help me,” he says, and before he even finishes his sentence he can hear the locks being twisted open.

The door swings open.

He’s never met Dr. Stanton, but he’s seen pictures from the trial seventeen years ago, when Stanton got up on his soapbox and said not everybody can be held accountable for their actions. He was wrong. He’s put on weight and his hair has gone completely gray and receded a few inches since then, and for some reason it makes Caleb happy to see that.

Stanton looks him up and down, sees the blood, and looks shocked. “Where is she?” he asks.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” Caleb asks.

Stanton is halfway out the door and comes to a stop. He can tell the doctor senses something, his psychiatrist radar starts pinging at the danger only a few feet away, only it’s pinging way too late.

“Recognize you? No, no I don’t,” he answers, hesitant now. “Do you. . do you have a daughter?” he asks, his follow-up question proof he knows that something is wrong.

“Yes.”

“Where is she?”

“She died.”

Stanton pauses. He takes a small step backward. He reaches out to put a hand on the door. “What did you say your name is again?”

“I said it was James,” he says, “but it isn’t.”

“Listen, James,” Stanton says, missing the point while taking another step back, “I don’t know what kind of game you’re. .”

The sentence ends, the following word taking a different shape as Caleb’s fist connects with Stanton’s nose. Then he falls inside, cupping his face with his hands.

Caleb follows the good doctor inside and shuts the door behind him. He tries to shake the pain out of his hand. He’s used his right when he should have used his left, instinct taking over, and now he has to pay for it. His hand is locked in a fist and it’s going to take a few moments to straighten. He puts his foot into the doctor’s stomach. He uses his good hand to reach into the waistband of his pants and pulls out his knife just as the doctor hits the floor. He looks around, they are in a foyer that leads through to a lounge to the left and what might be a living room ahead. To the right is a staircase. There is nobody around.

“You see this?”

“You roke I ose,” Stanton says, looking out from behind his cupped hands.

“I’m going to break the rest of you if you don’t stop complaining. Where is your wife?”

“What?”

“Your wife. Is she in bed?”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“Ooh are you?”

“Roll over,” Caleb says, annoyed at how complicated this is becoming. “If you don’t I’m going to bury this knife right into your chest. Then I’m going to do the same thing to your kids.”

“Dote urt I chil-den.”

Shit. He doesn’t have time for this. The wife could already be on the phone to the police. He brings the knife down as hard as he can, the doctor flinches but can’t escape what happens next-the handle crashes into his head and makes him go quiet for what should be quite some time.

“Daddy?”

The voice comes from upstairs. He tucks the knife into the back of his pants and makes his way to the stairs. There’s a girl standing at the top, a little girl with messy brown hair hanging to her shoulders. She’s wearing pink pajamas and there’s a teddy bear tucked under one arm, the finger of her other hand in her mouth as she bites down on it. Her eyes are wide and her face is pale. He makes his way toward her.

“Who are you?” she asks.

He glances at Stanton in the hall and decides the girl can’t see her father from there.

“It’s okay,” he says, using his calm voice now, but he can tell she doesn’t think so. He can tell she’s about to scream. “Really, it’s okay,” he says, and sure enough her mouth opens but when she tries to scream, she sobs instead and the scream gets caught. He closes the distance between them. He crouches in front of her so he can look her in the face, one hand on her mouth, one hand on her chest, pushing her against the wall, the bear being crushed in the process. She’s struggling to sob around his hand and he’s careful not to cut her. He feels confused as he looks at her. He needs to feel nothing, otherwise none of this would work, but he’s feeling something.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’m an old friend of your dad’s. Where is your mother?”

The little girl shakes her head.

“I need you to help me out, because I’m trying to help your parents,” he says. “If I take my hand away from your mouth do you promise not to scream and talk to me like a grown-up?”

She nods. He takes his hand away from her mouth, ready to replace it in a second if she screams, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything either. Doesn’t shake her head or nod.

“Your name is Katy, isn’t it?”

“With a y ,” she says.

“And how old are you, Katy?”

“I’m nine years old next week.”

“Wow, so you’re going to be a big girl.”

“That’s right,” she says. “Who are you?”

“My name is Caleb,” he says. “I know your dad.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s downstairs waiting for us. Where is your mommy? Is she in bed?”

She nods.

“Is she asleep?”

“I don’t know. She doesn’t live here anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mommy and daddy don’t love each other anymore, and mommy moved out to live with somebody she does love.”

“But you said she was in bed.”

“It’s late,” she says. “Everybody is in bed when it’s late.”

“Do you live here all the time?” he asks.

She nods.

“You don’t live with your mom?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay, okay, right. Listen to me. I’m going to go on a trip with your dad,” he says, “and it wouldn’t be very responsible of us to leave you here with your sister, so we’re going to take you both with us. Now how about you show me where she is, huh? Good girls don’t get hurt if they do good things,” he tells her, but of course nothing could be further from the truth. “You don’t want to get hurt, do you?”

She slowly shakes her head.

“Okay, Katy with a y, why don’t you take me to your sister?”

“Which one?”

“What you mean which one?”

“Which sister?”

“Melanie, of course,” he says, but her question worries him. “Katy, how many sisters do you have?”

“If you were friends with my dad, wouldn’t you know?”