Paul Cleave - The Laughterhouse

“And her?” I ask, nodding toward Katy. “You’ll hurt her for revenge?”

“If I have to. But if you help me out that won’t have to happen.”

“Help you how?”

“Did you kill the man who killed your daughter?”

“He fled the country.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe.”

“You’ve killed three people,” he tells me. “I’ve killed five. They were all bad.”

“I’ve killed one,” I tell him, though technically it’s four. “You’ve killed six. One of them was a police officer. He was a good man.”

“I know,” he says, “and I regret that. I really do, and I’ve paid for it. We’re not that different, you know. People who do bad things, we make them pay.”

“Lower the knife,” I tell him. “We’re sitting at opposite ends of the table.”

He lowers the knife.

“We are different,” I tell him, not liking the comparison. “Very different.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” he says. “If it’d been your daughter, you’d have done the same thing to James Whitby.”

I don’t give him any indication either way, but yeah, of course I would have. Only I’d have found a different way of doing it. Nobody else would have suffered. Nobody would ever know what had happened.

“It wasn’t just James Whitby who killed Jessica,” he says. “It was all of them.”

“So what do you want from me?” I ask, knowing there’s no point in arguing.

“You know what was done to James Whitby as a child? It’s all in the transcripts from his court case after Tabitha Jenkins.”

“I know his mother fucked him up,” I say. “I know James Whitby never had a chance in life because of her. I know she’s a candidate for worst mother of the century and that you want to kill her.”

“Not anymore.”

It’s not the answer I’m expecting. “No?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t want to kill her. I want you to do it for me.”

I almost laugh at the suggestion, but of course he’s being serious. “Come on, Caleb, there’s nothing in your file to say you’re nuts. Why would you think I would do that?” I ask, and I look at Katy as I ask the question, and at the knife, and I have a pretty good idea about what’s coming up, and it’s bad.

“You want to do it because Mrs. Whitby’s as responsible as anybody,” he says. “You can’t tell me with all that’s happened that she deserves to be walking around free? That she gets a get-out-of-jail-free card? That’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair!” he says, and he slams his hand down on the table. Katy doesn’t move. “I was hoping you’d see it from my point of view. I was hoping it wasn’t going to come to this,” he says, and he puts the knife back against Katy’s throat.

“Caleb-”

“Phones these days, they are amazing things,” he says, confusing me with his change in direction. “You can do so much with them. Here,” he says, and he slides a phone across the table toward me. “It belongs to the doctor. I want you to have it.”

“I already have a phone.”

“Is it like that one?” Cole asks.

I look at the phone. No, mine is nothing like it. “Mine makes calls,” I tell him, “not much more.”

“Does it make video calls?”

I shake my head.

“Then take the phone,” he says. “You have thirty minutes. That gives you time to drive to Mrs. Whitby’s house and kill her, and when you do it,” he says, “I want to see it happen. I’ll call you in thirty minutes and you can show me on that phone what you’ve done, and it better be real, because if it isn’t, if I think she’s really still alive, I’m going to kill this little girl.”

“No, you’re not,” I tell him. “She’s just like your daughter.”

He puts Katy’s hand onto the table and holds the knife above it. He touches the blade against her finger.

“Don’t,” I tell him.

“You don’t believe I’m going to hurt her,” he says, frowning in disbelief as he shakes his head. “I can’t blame you, because this morning I’d have agreed with you,” he says, “but things are different now.” He starts to push down on the knife.

“I believe you,” I tell him, standing up, my legs no longer heavy and tired.

He points the knife at me. “Don’t move,” he says loudly, “don’t you fucking move. Sit back down.”

I sit back down. My legs are tight, ready to pounce, but they’re shaking too. “You don’t need to prove anything,” I tell him.

“You’re wrong. I’m alone in all of this. Tabitha wouldn’t help and she was a victim. You’ve gone through something similar and even you don’t want to help.”

He pushes the knife back against Katy’s finger.

“Wait, wait damn it. You’ve got it all wrong,” I tell him. “You’re hurting the wrong people-that’s why nobody wants to help you, and if you hurt her you’re. .” He starts to press harder on the knife. “Damn it! Listen to me! Don’t do this,” I say, starting to move again.

He looks up at me. “I’m telling you, if you fucking move I’ll kill her right now.”

I don’t sit back down, but I stay where I am, my legs against the chair. “Caleb-”

“I’m not fucking around here. Fuck, what is it with you people? You push and push and people don’t want to help, they don’t want to believe, so what else do I have?” he asks, his voice becoming high. “Huh? What else?” And before I can answer, he gives the answer he wants to hear. “Nothing. There’s nothing else. So this, this right now is your fault!”

He pushes down hard on the knife.

“Caleb, you don’t need to. .”

There is resistance.

“. . do this.”

There is a thud as the blade goes through her little finger.

“Jesus, Caleb!” I shout, banging my hip into the table as I start toward him. Blood is squirting up from Katy’s hand. She doesn’t wake up, she doesn’t even flinch. She isn’t just asleep-she’s been drugged, just like Melanie was this afternoon.

He puts the knife against her throat, and when he moves Katy moves too, and her finger goes with her. It’s still attached by some threads of skin that didn’t break at the bottom. “Don’t you fucking move,” he seethes, and I stop a few feet short of him, my hip sore and my blood boiling.

“You. .” I say, but don’t know what to add. There isn’t an expletive strong enough.

“Sit back down, sit back down or you’ll see what else I’m capable of.”

I move backward toward the chair, keeping my eyes on him, my hands hanging down by my sides. My legs hit the chair and I more fall into it than sit, the impact jarring into my head and almost waking the beast who has his hand on the headache button. I rest my arms on the table.

“Caleb. .”

He sees her finger is dangling, so he puts her hand back on the table and slides the knife across the remaining skin. I can’t look, instead I stare at my own hands with all my fingers intact. Stick a gun in those fingers and this would all be over. It’s an effort for me to stay still. An effort to do nothing while listening to the blade dragging across the table. But what can I do? Make a move? No. A guy willing to cut off the finger of a tiny girl, well, a guy like that is capable of anything. That’s his whole point.

“It’s done,” he says, and the finger has come free.

I don’t have the strength to say anything. I just stare at him. Everything I thought I knew has just changed. Earlier I was sure we were getting all the girls back safely. Now. . now I don’t know what to think.

He stands up and points the knife at me. Blood is dripping from Katy’s hand over the front of his shirt. There’s a gouge mark in the table and blood staining it.