Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

He told her not to feel bad. She told him she did. She was going to go to the police. He told her turning herself in wasn’t going to help Victoria. He told her she had done a good thing by stopping somebody making money from defending child rapists, that her incarceration wasn’t going to make Victoria wake up from her coma. He told her she would be throwing away her life, and she said it didn’t matter. He believed her, but he also knew from experience that she didn’t really understand what throwing away her life really meant.

“Back then. .” he says, and for the moment he is back in jail with its cold walls. She had sat opposite him and said nothing and he had matched her word for word. The silence wasn’t weird. She smiled and her face changed, it was a sad smile but in the movement of flesh and skin her scar disappeared and she was beautiful, there was no doubt she was beautiful, then she said something that made him, for the first time, feel less alone. “You thanked me for what I had done,” he says. “You thanked me for killing James Whitby. If he were still alive, would you want me to kill him?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“My parents were strong. They looked after me and got me the help I needed. Now I return that help to others. I wish you’d been strong for your family.”

“I was strong. I did what nobody else was prepared to do. And that strength helped you and your family move on.”

“That wasn’t strength. Look at where it got you. You could have moved on with your family.”

“Moved on? My daughter was murdered. People don’t move on from that.”

“That’s not how I meant it,” she says. “But some deal with it. Some better than others. You don’t forget what happened, but after time you can still have a normal life.”

“A normal life,” he says, and it’s all he ever wanted. Normal changes when you get the call that your daughter has gone missing.

“A, b, d, b, d, f, c,” Katy says, staring at them from the hallway, half of her face poking around the edge of the doorway. When she sees them notice her, she steps into the room. “This is a nice house,” she says, “but smaller than mine. Do you have any cookies?”

“We have some,” Tabitha says.

“Chocolate ones?”

“Yes.”

“I like chocolate ones, but Daddy doesn’t let us eat them much.”

“Your daddy’s a wise man,” Tabitha says.

“Not that wise,” Caleb says.

Tabitha throws him another angry glance and he realizes unless she paces herself she’s going to run out of them. She picks up the plastic bag with the diaper, then takes Katy’s hand and leads her into the kitchen. She tosses the bag into the trash, washes her hands, then takes a packet of cookies from the pantry and tears it open. She offers one to Katy, then one to Caleb. He waves them away.

“Are there any toys here?” Katy asks.

“There are some stuffed toys in my bedroom. Why don’t you go in there and play with them?”

Katy disappears, and Caleb and Tabitha move into the dining room. He leans against the wall and she leans against the table.

“You have a girlfriend?” he asks, looking at one of the photos next to him.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Is she here?”

“No, but she’ll be back soon. What are you planning on doing to the girls?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you going to kill their father?”

“No.”

“No?” she says, her forehead forming a row of half a dozen creases. He doesn’t think he has heard anybody ever sound as disbelieving.

“I’ve killed four people in the last two days,” he says, and she flinches. “I have no reason to lie.”

“Four?”

“There was another one last night.”

“Who?”

“Nobody important.”

“I’m sure they were important to somebody.”

“Not to me,” he says.

“They must have been important enough for you to kill.”

She has a point.

“If you’re not going to kill the doctor, why do you need him?”

He shrugs. “I want Stanton to walk in my shoes for a little while. I want him to know how it feels to lose a daughter.”

“So you are going to hurt his children.”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s only going to think I’ve hurt them.”

“So the girl you left at the slaughterhouse, he thinks you hurt her?”

“Yes.”

Her frown gets deeper. “He thinks she’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God, Caleb! That’s awful. Is that part of walking in your shoes?”

“Yes,” he says, “and it’s sure as hell better than what happened to Jessica.”

“And you need Katy and Octavia because you want to keep making your point, but you’re planning on letting them go, and you’re planning on letting him go too?”

“Yes.”

She sits down at the dining table. “This is insane, you know that, right?”

“It’s what needed to be done.”

“You’ve killed four people.”

“They were bad people.”

“They were good people doing what they thought was right,” she says. “We need people like that to bring balance to this world.”

“If you believed that you never would have put Victoria Brown into a coma.”

She hangs her head and directs her words at the table. “I’ve changed since then.”

He moves toward her, puts his palms on the opposite side of the table, and leans forward. “You help people now, that’s admirable. Now it’s time for you to help me.”

“With what?”

“You can start by remembering some of that hatred toward Mrs. Whitby. I want you to help me get to her,” he says, knowing she’ll never agree, but that isn’t why he’s come here. He’s come here because he needs somewhere to stay. But right now he just wants her to be on his side. And one thing he’s learned in life is that sometimes if you ask for something more than what you want, you may just get what it is you’re after.

“You what?”

“She’s being watched by the police. I can’t go anywhere near her. But you can.”

“You want me to attack Mrs. Whitby? To try and kill her? Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” he says, fully aware of how that sounds.

“And for that I’ll spend ten or twenty years in jail.”

“No you won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“Because you’ll tell them I made you do it.”

“And how are you going to make me do it?”

“Easy. You just tell them I was threatening the children.”

She stares at him so hard that he takes his hands off the table and straightens up. “Are you. . are you threatening these children?”

“No, of course not.”

“I’m not going to help you, Caleb,” she says.

He nods. “Then I want you to let us all stay here. It might take a day or two, but the investigation will slow down and the police will lower their guard, and when they do I’ll be able to get to her. But tonight and tomorrow I’ll have no chance, and I don’t have anywhere else to go. Please, Tabitha, I’m desperate.”

“You can’t stay here. Anyway, Wendy will be home soon and what am I going to tell her?”

“Tell her the truth. Tell her it’s something you need to do, that you owe me for not telling the police it was you who put Victoria Brown into a coma.”

“I should have told them myself.”

“But you didn’t. It would be awful if they found out.”

She looks at him, getting the implied threat, and suddenly he feels bad for saying it. He holds up his hand. “I didn’t mean I’m going to tell them,” he says.

“As long as I help you.”

“No, no matter what happens, I’ll never tell them. You’re the only other person who stood up for what was right.”