Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

“So it was a lucky break,” I tell him, “nothing more.”

“You have a thing with lucky breaks, Theo. That’s great you’ve found her, it really is,” he says, and I get the sense he’s shaking his head or nodding, or maybe even fist-pumping the air. “Two girls safe and sound,” he says. “We’re doing this,” he adds. “We’re going to nail this guy and we’re going to get everybody back. I can feel it. I’ll get some backup sent right away.”

“Wait,” I tell him. “Don’t send backup.”

“What?”

“Just come here with a couple of other people, and that’s all,” I tell him, “and make sure one of them is a paramedic to check Tabitha out-she was drugged. She doesn’t know if Cole is coming back, and if he is we can use this place to ambush him. And if he isn’t coming back, he’s already long gone, so there’s no point in sending every available officer.”

“Yeah, yeah, good thinking. There’s no way you’re not going to be one of the team again, Tate. This is great stuff. Great stuff! Okay. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

I hang up. Tabitha has reached up and turned off the shower. She gets to her feet and leans against the shower walls.

“You said you were a policeman?” she asks.

I pass her a towel and then show her my badge. She doesn’t look at the badge and buries her face in the towel.

“I’m looking for Cole,” I tell her.

“What?” she asks, pulling the towel away.

“Caleb Cole. I’m looking for him.”

“Give me a minute,” she says.

I leave her in the bathroom and head into the kitchen. I switch on the kettle but flick it off before boiling point, then make a strong coffee. It’s ready and sitting on the coffee table on a coaster when Tabitha comes into the lounge. She’s dried off and changed into dry clothes: a pair of jeans and a fleece jacket into the pockets of which she has her hands buried deep.

“Drink this,” I say, and I hand the coffee over to her. “It’s not too hot.”

Tabitha drinks half of it in one gulp, then hands me back the cup. “I feel sick,” she says, and she moves quickly into the kitchen and throws up into the sink. She turns on the faucet hard enough for the water to splash back at her. She rinses the sink, then eases the pressure and lowers her face beneath the tap. She takes in a mouthful of water and spits it out, then another and another. When she’s finished, she turns around and leans against the wall, the front of her fleece sprinkled with beads of water.

“That has to be the worst review I’ve ever had for coffee I’ve made,” I tell her.

She smiles. “I hate coffee. I’m a tea drinker.”

I smile back. “You’re feeling okay? You don’t need to sit down?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “Just light-headed is all.”

“How long ago did Caleb Cole leave?”

She picks up a tea towel and wipes her face with it. In the process she moves her hair behind her ear, revealing a scar pale against her tan.

“What’s the time now?” she asks.

“Ten thirty.”

“Then an hour ago.”

“He tell you where he was going?”

She balls up the tea towel and tosses it into the sink. “No.”

“Is he coming back?”

“No.”

I put the half-drunken coffee down on the bench. “Listen, there’s something I need to tell you before the police get here.”

Her face changes at the change of tone in my voice. “What kind of something?”

“I know about Victoria Brown.”

“What?”

“I know it was you that hurt her.”

“Oh Jesus,” she says, and looks down.

“Listen to me,” I say, and I put a hand on her forearm. “Nobody else needs to know. It’s going to be okay, but you need to trust me. I want to find Caleb Cole before he hurts anybody else, that’s all.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt her that badly. I wasn’t even thinking about hurting her at all. I just came out of the stall and there she was, just standing in front of me. I don’t even remember thinking about it.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “It’s going to be okay.”

“It. . it just happened,” she says, and she reaches back for the tea towel and dabs it at the bottom of her eyes. “I ran. I left her there and I ran and maybe if I had gone for help the doctors could have done more for her.”

“I know you feel bad about it,” I tell her, “and I’m glad you do. You should feel bad, and that’s what makes you a good person. But your life will be ruined if the police find out.”

“That’s what he said,” she says, “Caleb, back when I went to see him in jail.”

“And he was right. Tabitha, why did Caleb come here? Why did he tie you up? Why did he leave Octavia here? Did he hurt you?”

Before she can answer any of my questions, there’s a soft knocking from the back door.

“Your visit with Caleb, you told him about Victoria Brown,” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says.

“Don’t let it get any further, because you’ll end up in jail,” I add, and I open up the door and let Schroder and the others inside. He has a phone to his ear, and a stunned look on his face. He comes inside, nods a few times, says okay a few times, then hangs up.

“Jesus,” he says, “you’re not going to believe this. But I’m off the case. I’ve just been suspended.”

The paramedic looks over Tabitha and gives her the all clear. He suggests a visit to the hospital for observation, a suggestion that Tabitha disagrees with.

“What would I know,” the paramedic says, “I’m only the expert,” he says, then walks off to the living room and sits down, putting his feet up on the coffee table. He pulls out a cell phone and starts playing on it.

Me and Schroder sit in the living room with the TV on while Tabitha volunteers to change Octavia’s diaper in the bedroom. Detectives Hutton and Kent have shown up, along with two officers, one of whom was the guy who first approached me at the retirement home when we went to visit the late Herbert Poole. The other is a guy I haven’t seen before. The four of them hang out in the kitchen. There are other officers in unmarked cars sitting at various points in a four-block radius. On the TV is footage from Lakeview Homes. It’s shaky but clear, shot from somebody’s camera, either by one of the residents or by a family member who was there at the time. There is footage of a windowsill, a curtain, then the lens focuses past the window and to the first of the minivan cabs. It comes to a stop, the door slides open, and detective after detective steps out of it. It’s like watching clowns at a circus climbing out of a small car, only these clowns are drunk, racing off into the fields and watering the trees before trying to figure out who killed the ringmaster.

I look at Schroder whose face is blank as my car pulls up behind the first minivan and as we both step out of it. He walks off to take a leak and I walk toward the unit with the dead body. The camera operator follows neither of us, but instead focuses on the next van, more circus performers, and then a few close-ups of some of the detectives I’ve worked with over the last twenty-four hours, including a tight close-up of Detective Kent who never leaves the proximity of the minivan.

Schroder flicks off the TV and hangs his head in his hands.

“It may not be as bad as you think it’s going to be,” I tell him, but of course that’s not true-it’s going to be bad. The media is going to make sure of that.

“I should have listened to you.”

“I. .,” I say, but don’t know what exactly it is I want to say. What is there? I wait a few beats, then ask the question I’ve avoided for the last few minutes. “You’ve been suspended?”