Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

“Jesus, Tate, you couldn’t find something better than this?”

“You want to tell me what all this is about?”

“You already know,” he says. “It’s why so many of us got the call.”

He’s right, I do know. “Who’s the victim?”

“Guy by the name of Herbert Poole. Apparently he’s been all cut to hell.”

Traffic has thinned since the drive to Popular Consensus, but it’s still moving slow because of the recent rain. The intersection ahead has lost power to the traffic lights, half the drivers treating it like a traffic circle, the other half in too much of a hurry to care much about giving way. The gutters are flooding out into the streets. It’s another twenty minutes to Lakeview Homes, a good chunk of that time Schroder sits with his head back against the seat and one hand covering his face, the only sign that he’s still awake are his random patches of hiccupping. The rain disappears again. Still no stars.

Lakeview Homes overlooks some meadows and forestry on one side, all of it trailing out of sight into the darkness. Beyond it, and empty at this time of night, is a golf course that costs two hundred dollars a round. On this side of the forest it looks over suburbia with a long driveway heading out to the main road. Despite its name, the retirement home manages to be situated nowhere near any lake. The nearest body of water is a gymnasium with a pool six blocks away. There are already half a dozen patrol cars at the scene and one cab. There’s a line of detectives heading toward the field, they’re moving behind the big trees and emptying their bladders, the headlight beams helping them find their way.

“Jesus,” I say, and Schroder sits up and takes a look. “Every detective on the force is here and drunk.”

“It’s not our fault. How were we to know this was going to happen today?”

“Statistically, it was always going to happen. You didn’t keep anybody in reserve?”

“Jesus, Tate, you may not have liked Landry, but the rest of us did.”

“Carl. .”

“Don’t worry,” he says, slapping me on the shoulder. “I’m the boss here, and I’m telling you, looking at a dead body has a way of sobering people up.”

“And so does losing your job. Best thing for your colleagues right now is to get back into those cabs and get the hell out of here.”

“And I’m sure between us we’ll all figure that out.”

At the moment the detectives do seem to be figuring it out. They’re coming back from behind the trees and leaning against the minivan cabs, none of which have left yet. Detective Kent is among them. They’re figuring out there’s a line here that if they cross will see them reprimanded, or worse, fired. There are old people standing at windows backlit by TVs and dining room lights, they’re staring out at the show, all of them hoping they’re about to get visitors.

“Jesus, that’s disgusting,” Schroder says, watching another detective race off behind a tree. “But better than pissing on the front lawn,” he adds, and chases off after him to do the same. The uniformed officers don’t know what to do. They’re caught between telling their superiors to go home and letting them contaminate a crime scene. The residents and staff are just as unimpressed, and it can only be a matter of minutes before the reporters arrive. This is going to end badly for Schroder and for every drunk cop here. In a sober condition, any of them would know being here was a mistake, but that’s the problem with drunk people-they make bad decisions. Sober, everybody knows they shouldn’t drink and drive, but when you’re drunk it never seems such a bad idea. That’s what landed me in jail last year.

The retirement community is full of units that are almost small houses but not quite, the roofs all black, the walls painted the same color as Bambi. The creative imagination behind the whole complex could have been shaped by Lego. There are millions of flowers everywhere just the way old people like them, only the flowers are in their final days before the cold weather robs them of life. There’s a connection between plants and the elderly-as soon as you turn sixty it must be compulsory to like roses and rhododendrons. The only thing I can see to stop burglars breaking in on a daily basis is the fact there isn’t much to steal except record collections and memories and clothes swinging in and out of fashion.

“Sir?” one of the officers asks, walking over to me. He’s young looking and nervous and this may or may not be his first crime scene, but it’s definitely one he wishes he wasn’t here for. “You look to be about the only detective here who’s not half-wasted.”

I don’t even have to think about it. I start nodding. “Tell me what we’ve got,” I tell him.

I follow him to a unit where two other officers are standing outside. There’s a front porch and a swing chair and the whole thing is soaking wet. On a nice day maybe the old folks sit out here and sip lemonade and talk about the war, talk about how far Christchurch has slipped, talk about the good ol’ days. The officers are talking to a guy in his eighties who looks pale, who has probably sat on this porch countless times in the sun but what he discovered half an hour ago drained the tan right out of him. A second guy, this one thirty years younger, has to keep wiping at the rain dripping from his fringe. He’s shorter and rounder and doesn’t need a name badge to tell me he’s in some administration role here at the home, probably the manager. He’s seen dead bodies before-you don’t get to work in this kind of place without witnessing your fair share of death-but no doubt what’s behind door number one is death of a different variety, death of the sort that requires crime scene tape and latex gloves and people looking for clues. Death like that often comes with the need for a mop and bucket. Best anybody can hope for is it comes with answers.

I follow the officer and duck under the tape and step onto the porch, the wooden decking slightly soft under my feet. Schroder calls out to me but I don’t wait. I can hear all the detectives talking back by the cabs, all of them trying to figure out just who should be working, their voices becoming louder as they talk over each other deciding who should stay and who should go, Schroder having the final say over all of them.

“This is exactly how we found it,” the officer tells me. He keeps wiping at the back of his neck at an itch that won’t leave. “Doors were closed. TV and lights were on.”

“You touch anything?”

“Just the door handle,” he says. “But the guy who found the body probably touched a whole lot more.”

“Somebody needs to get a cordon set up,” I tell him. “Nothing coming in from the street, and get some manpower into the fields out there to make sure nobody comes that way either, but tell them to be careful-for all we know the killer may have gone that way and left something behind. Biggest problem right now is the media. If they come here and see that,” I say, nodding toward the rowdy mob by the vans as another cab pulls up, “the unemployment rate in this city is going to rise tonight.”

“Yes sir.”

I step inside. The house is small enough that it doesn’t mess around with having a foyer or hallway entrance. Instead the door opens directly into the living room. A man and a woman are on the TV arguing over some food that one of them has accused the other of eating. There’s a cutaway shot, the woman sitting in front of a camera now, telling the audience that Derek is a jerk and just because she slept with him doesn’t mean he can eat her cornflakes. Derek comes on to tell us all how lazy the cornflake owner was in bed.

To get to the TV to turn it off, I have to walk around what made the old man outside turn pale. I’m guessing the dead man on the couch was one of his friends. The dead man’s clothes are sliced up and stained in blood, and he’s stained in blood too, like most of the surfaces in the room. It’s hard to tell how many times he’s been stabbed. Anything over one is bad, and in his case I’d say bad happened at least a dozen times. There are lines of blood on the ceiling, cast off from the knife-the blade slinging it onto the walls and ceilings the way an artist might sling paint from his brush onto canvas. There’s blood on the TV, on the coffee table, there’s blood over the guy’s dinner. From the amount of blood on view and pooled into the base of the couch it’s looking like the guy could be hung up from his feet and we’d be lucky to fill a cup. Something has been written on his forehead with a marker.