Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

Nobody says anything. It’s like being back at school and nobody knows how to answer the teacher. We’re all back to looking at these really interesting desks and shoes, and that spot to the right of Stevens.

“Don’t be shy,” he says, then slowly shakes his head, disappointed in all of us. Then we make eye contact and I know it’s a mistake. “Tate?” he asks.

Everybody turns to look back at me and the world stops. I wasn’t expecting this and feel myself turning red. I do my best to meet all their eyes.

“Many of you will remember Detective Inspector Theodore Tate,” Stevens says. “He’s been assigned to help on account of his track record, the good part of it anyway, which, as we know, lately has been outweighed by the rest of it.”

Detective Kent is giving me a sympathetic smile, and perhaps it’s part relief too-if I wasn’t here she’d be the newest team member and the one facing the question.

“Many of you have worked with Tate before so you know what he’s capable of, and now you all have the chance to work with him again. He’s asked repeatedly to be a part of this force because over the last few years he’s believed he can do a better job than us, isn’t that right, Detective?”

“I just want to help,” I tell them, “and work with the best there is.”

The answer doesn’t win anybody over.

“Well, how about you take this opportunity you’ve been given, and prove how clever you are by offering something we’d all like to hear?”

Now I feel even more like I’m back at school, being screwed over by the teacher. I look at Schroder. He’s expressionless. I hope he had no idea Stevens was going to pull this on me. “So, any theories?” Stevens asks.

I have lots of theories. One of them is that Superintendent Dominic Stevens is an asshole even though five minutes ago he said he didn’t want to sound like one. I can’t share that because it’s not really a theory, it’s a fact, and he wants theories. I could theorize that my life would be better off if somebody had beaten the shit out of him in the parking lot before work. I could theorize life might feel a little better if it happened after work too.

“The stab wounds,” I tell him, my hand in my pocket sliding the two pieces of Jonas’s card against each other. It’s magic time.

“What about them?”

If Jonas can figure it out, so can I.

“The first two victims-what if they were stabbed the same amount of times?”

Stevens looks at Schroder, then back at me. “What are you saying?”

“We need to find out from the medical examiner exactly how many times victims two and four were stabbed.”

“Because?”

Because a psychic knew the first two had nineteen stab wounds, and guessed the last one had the same.

“Because at least a dozen times could also mean nineteen times, which would give three of our victims an identical amount of wounds.”

“But not the fourth,” he says.

“Which goes to what you were saying about victim number three falling outside of the pattern. Same killer, but different reason for killing. He’s not part of the pattern.”

“Carry on.”

“Well,” I say, everybody still staring at me and my mind racing, “well, if three of the victims have been stabbed nineteen times, then it must mean something.”

Nobody says anything. I can tell I have everybody’s interest now.

“What kind of something?” Stevens asks. “Like a year for example? Or a person? Is that what you’re saying?” he asks, working with me.

“Exactly. Whatever annoyed our killer may have happened nineteen years ago. Or it happened to him when he was nineteen.”

“There may be nineteen people on his list,” Schroder offers.

Most of the people in the room take a collective gasp at that thought. Some of us probably think we might be lucky if he stops at nineteen.

“Yes, yes,” Stevens says, nodding now. “Or it could be they hurt somebody he loves who is nineteen, or even killed them.”

“Or cost him nineteen years of his life,” I say, “or nineteen could even mean a monetary thing since we’re dealing with dead accountants and lawyers,” I say, not wanting to follow that up by saying dead lawyers and accountants are normally the best kind. “Could be they cost him nineteen thousand dollars, or a hundred and ninety thousand dollars, or nineteen years in jail.”

“Okay, it could be nothing or it could be something,” Stevens says. “Detective Schroder,” he says, turning toward Carl, “I want you to get hold of the ME as soon as this meeting is over and find out if Tate’s theory has any merit.”

Then Stevens turns back toward us, nods once in a gesture I don’t quite get, then steps off to the side of the room and hands the floor over to Schroder. Schroder coughs into his hand, focuses on me for a second, then on everybody else. The sun finally joins the rest of us in this early morning nightmare, it comes in through the window and hits Schroder just as he’s about to start talking. Another detective stands up and pulls one of the blinds.

Schroder breaks down what we’re doing. Patrol cars are out on the streets. They’re doing what they’ve been doing since the second body showed up, and that’s patrolling every neighborhood and looking for anything suspicious. It’s about all they can do until we can make a connection. So Schroder fills us in on these facts, and then he fills us in on what we know, which unfortunately isn’t much. He divides us up to work different crime scenes or different witnesses. Detectives are sent to work the lawyer angle, two of them looking through the case files of victim number one’s past, two of them through the case files of victim number four. It will involve getting warrants. Law firms don’t like to give up information. They’re also the hardest ones to present warrants to, because they argue everything. Details have to be exact. If the answers are in the files of clients these lawyers have dealt with, they’re going to be hard to get. Perhaps even impossible because of attorney-client privilege. It’s going to be a day full of interviews, of detectives digging into people’s pasts to find what connects them. Detectives are going to go through student files of Albert McFarlane and cross-reference them against criminal records. Everybody in the room is eager for a piece of the action. Schroder doesn’t give me an assignment. When it’s over, everybody stands up and heads for the door, but then pauses as Schroder starts back up.

“One more thing,” he says. “We’ve heard that tonight there’s going to be gatherings of boy-racers around town,” he says, and everybody groans. “It means the streets are going to be clogged. It means patrol responses may be slow, it means getting from A to B may end up taking longer. It’s estimated there are going to be over two thousand of them,” he says. “Two thousand vehicles deliberately being a pain in the ass, making some kind of point only adolescents are likely to get. For the love of God, don’t shoot them,” he says, and nobody is sure if he’s joking. “Just keep it in mind,” he says, “and allow for it.”

Then everybody is on the move again. Some of them pat me on the shoulder and the rest nod toward me as they head for the door. I stand up and approach the wall of death and look at the photos.

Stevens stares at me for a few seconds, then comes over. I’m expecting the warning, the don’t mess up warning, followed by the you shouldn’t be here warning.

“How’s it going, Theo?” he asks, and puts out his hand. I reach for it a little hesitantly, as if he’s going to pull it away and all the offers that have been made. I shake it. “Listen, I appreciate your help yesterday.”