The Laughterhouse

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

First thing I do is go into the bedroom and grab my cell phone. I get Schroder’s number up on the display but I don’t make the call. Can I kill Mrs. Whitby to save the life of a five-year-old girl? It’s a simple question. Yes or no.

If yes, how am I going to do it?

If no, can I live with myself if Cole kills the girl?

I sit down in the same seat I occupied earlier in the dining room and I stare across the table at the finger no longer attached to Katy Stanton. Cole is gone and my headache is gone and I think about the lesser of two evils because that’s what Cole is forcing me to do. I think about taking the life of Mrs. Whitby to save the life of Katy Stanton. In a logical world, the equation is simple. You sacrifice the older evil woman to save the innocent little girl. Mrs. Whitby beat her son within an inch of his life. She scarred his chest and legs with an iron. She used to put out cigarettes on his arms and lock him in closets for days at a time. She created a killer. So it should be a simple equation, and on paper it is.

But this isn’t on paper. This is real life, you can’t exchange one life for another, and even if you could, the person making that exchange is going to go to jail.

I load Schroder back up on my phone.

I set the phone on the table and don’t make the call. Then I walk into the kitchen where there are still crumbs on the bench and I turn on the tap and cup my hands with water and splash my face. My eyes get a little wider but my mind stays just as foggy. Tired or awake or high on adrenaline, the solution wouldn’t be any clearer.

In thirty minutes’ time if Mrs. Whitby is still alive, will Cole kill Katy? All I know is that five minutes ago I didn’t think he would cut her finger off. Any understanding I had for him disappeared when he pushed down that blade. So did any profile of the man that we’d built up. Cole is desperate. A desperate man can do anything. I splash more water on my face, grip the bench hard, tightening my grip until my fingers and thumbs throb, then push myself away, my reflection in the kitchen window doing the same thing.

I put on my shoes and put the two cell phones into my pockets, grab a jacket and my keys. I’m making my way to the front door when I hear the cat flap swing open in the dining room.

I back down the hall in time to see the neighbor’s cat jumping up onto the table.

“Hey,” I yell at it.

It jumps down and races back toward the cat flap, a look of utter panic on its face, the finger hanging from its mouth. I move to intercept it and it changes direction and goes back toward the dining room, then into the lounge. I go after it and it hides behind the couch. Jesus, I just don’t have the time for this. The clock is ticking. I flip the couch over and the cat rushes past me back toward the door. I reach for it and miss, it looks back at me and runs into the wall, the finger falls from its mouth. It reaches for it again but I’ve halved the distance, so instead it hisses at me, then starts to growl. I clap loudly, it turns away and gets outside.

I pick up the finger. It’s lighter than I’d have imagined, but I guess I’d never really imagined how much one would weigh before. I wrap it in a plastic bag and put it into the fridge. I figure it needs to stay cold if there’s any chance of it being reattached and maybe the freezer will cause too much damage. I think the cells can crystallize or something-or maybe I’m just making that up. I don’t know, but I figure the fridge is at least better than it getting munched on by the damn cat.

I get out to the car and put on the sirens, lights only. I don’t know what in the hell to do. Call Schroder? Risk a girl’s life? I don’t know. I just don’t know. All I know is that the car eats up the distance between my house and the Whitby house. I can still see that knife pressing down and cutting through Katy’s finger, and the look on Cole’s face, and it wasn’t the face of a man who liked what he was doing. He was proving a point. Would he kill her to keep on proving it?

I don’t know. If I call for backup, will Cole kill her?

If he does, can I live with that?

If I kill Mrs. Whitby, can I live with that?

Can I handle going back to jail?

Selfishly, that’s what it comes down to. No, no I can’t. Not with Bridget coming back to me.

I carry on driving, getting my cell phone out of my pocket. I hit the outskirts of town, and I hit them fast, coming out onto one of the main avenues where there have to be at least two hundred boy-racers all parked up on the road, blocking traffic. Fuck. I drive up over the medium strip and down into the oncoming lanes, which are empty. Up ahead I can see the lights of a fire truck and the orange glow of flames. I call Schroder. It rings a few times. He picks it up.

“Theo,” he says, and I can hear his wife in the background and a crying baby. I can tell by the tone of his voice he’s expecting bad news. He’s expecting me to tell him that Bridget has died.

“I need your help,” I tell him.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know whether I’m calling you as a friend or as a cop.”

“It’s as a friend, Theo. I’m not a cop, not tonight. Maybe not ever again.”

“Then it’s as my friend.”

“Okay, Theo, you definitely have my attention. What’s happened?”

“Caleb Cole came to see me.”

“He what?”

“Just now.”

“And he’s still there?”

“No. He left.”

“You let him leave?”

I tell him what happened. It takes up three of the thirty minutes Cole gave me. In those three minutes I pass two burning cars, one group of people watching a fist fight, and a purple car driving very slowly also in the wrong direction, with two flat tires and sparks flying up from the rims where they are shredding away and flapping at the neon lights below.

When I’m done Schroder is silent, but I can hear him popping open his packet of Wake-E, and a moment later he starts munching on a tablet.

“Well?”

“Well, you should ring Detective Kent, or ring Stevens directly. And of course you can’t kill her,” he says. “How long ago did he leave?”

“Eighteen minutes ago,” I tell him, “and of course I know I can’t do it.”

“If you knew that, you’d have called me eighteen minutes ago.”

“Listen, Carl, I don’t know why I didn’t call right away, okay? But that’s not the point here-the point is what do we do now?”

“Well, you can’t kill her.”

“I know, you said that already, and I’ve already told you I know that.”

“We have to fake something. It’s the only thing we can do. Make Cole think we’ve killed her.”

“He’s not going to fall for that. And when he calls, he’ll get me to prove it. He’s going to ask me to do something that we can’t fake.”

“Fuck, Theo! You should have called straightaway.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Well, you can’t kill her.”

“Jesus, Carl, stop saying it as if I’m considering it!”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

“But if I don’t, he’s going to kill Katy. When he cut her finger off-shit, I just couldn’t believe it.”

“See, you are considering it,” he says.

“Just tell me what to do.”

“Where are you now?”

“About two minutes away from her house.”

“Okay. I’m in the car now. I’m on my way.”

“That’s still not telling me what to do.”

“I don’t know. Shit, we need more time.”

“I have to at least go there, right? Even if we’re going to fake something, I have to go there.”

“Okay. Listen, I’ll call the officers at the scene and let them know you’re coming. I’m ten minutes away.”

“They won’t listen to you, remember?”

“I’ll make them listen. Goddamn it, Theo, you should have called sooner! I’ll call you back,” he says, and he hangs up.

Mrs. Whitby lives in a neighborhood full of nice homes, nice cars-nothing really expensive, but everything is tidy and well kept. It’s the same kind of neighborhood my parents live in and where I grew up. Nobody rich, nobody poor, just people with families going through the daily grind of life, doing better than some, some not doing as good as others, but everything averaging out. There are no patrol cars in sight, and that’s because the house is still being used as bait. There is no point in hiding the fact anymore that the police are here-Cole knows Whitby is under guard.

I park in the driveway. There are eight minutes left. You can do a lot in eight minutes, or you can do nothing. I knock on the front door. An officer opens it and lets me in.

“She’s in the bedroom,” he says.

“I need to talk to her.”

“Detective Schroder said not to leave you alone with her.”

“Detective Schroder isn’t a detective at the moment,” I tell him.

“Doesn’t change the fact he told us not to leave you alone with her.”

“Okay.”

“And she’s drunk,” he says.

“Okay.”

“Real drunk,” he says. “Told my partner that for ten bucks she’d-”

“I get the idea,” I tell him.

“I don’t think you do,” he says, shaking his head. “This way,” he says, and he leads me down the hallway, the same hallway James Whitby used to walk up and down before he was violently attacked by his mother, before he violently attacked Tabitha Jenkins. We pass the officer’s partner, who’s sitting in the living room talking on his cell phone. There are no paintings on the walls, no photographs, just wallpaper that’s coming away at the edges near the top. The décor through the house looks like it’s been tired for about thirty years. The carpet is frayed up around the doors, the result of a cat living here at some point or still living here now.

My phone rings. It’s Schroder. “I’ve made some calls,” he says.

“And?”

“And I spoke to Barlow,” he says, and he sounds panicked. “I told him what happened. He said he couldn’t believe it. He said it’s outside of the box for what he thought Cole was capable of. He says cutting Katy’s finger off throws everything we’ve come up with into chaos.”

“What does he suggest?”

“He doesn’t have a suggestion. I mean, why would he? He’d be putting his career on the line. I rang Stevens.”

“And?”

“Stevens said you can’t hurt Mrs. Whitby. That’s all. He didn’t come up with an alternative, probably for the same reason. Best to come up with nothing because coming up with something might lose him his job. He told me others are on their way to meet you. Told me not to show up.”

“It’s almost time,” I tell him.

“I know. I know.”

“He’s going to kill her,” I say. “He’s going to cut off her fingers, and then he’s going to put a knife into her chest.”

“I know.”

“We can’t let that happen.”

“Damn it, Tate, don’t go in that room alone. That’s an order.”

“From a friend?”

“Just. . just wait for me, okay? I’m almost there. Just a few more minutes.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious, Tate. Wait for me.”

“I will.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Hand the phone to the officer.”

I hand over the phone to the officer. He takes it and listens, says “okay,” while he nods, then nothing more before handing it back. “I’ve been dismissed,” he says.

“What?”

“Cole isn’t coming here. There’s no reason for us to stay.”

He gives me a relieved look. He has no idea what’s going on, but he knows it’s something bad, and he’s just learned he and his partner don’t have to be a part of it. He walks up the hallway and leans into the living room. I listen to him tell his partner the same thing, then he shrugs, and I can’t make out what his partner says. A moment later they’re both stepping outside. They close the front door just as another car pulls up outside.

I look at the bedroom door, then at my watch. There are three minutes left. The front door opens. Schroder comes in. I can see my car out on the curb. I have his, and he must have ended up getting a lift back to the station and taking mine. He’s wearing shorts and his pajama top and he’s in bare feet. He’s puffing. Both his hands are shaking, but not like he’s scared or cold, but like an electrical charge is going through him. He’s chewing another tablet. He’s also carrying a gun.

“We’re alone?” he asks, his eyes darting left and right.

“Except for Mrs. Whitby. What’s the gun for, Carl? Cole isn’t here.”

“She’s in there?” he asks, nodding toward the bedroom door.

“Yep. The gun?”

“The girl,” he says, still ignoring my question. “Is Cole really going to kill her?”

“I don’t know. At the very least he’ll take her fingers. I really believe that.”

“So do I,” he says. “If he can cut off one he can probably cut off ten. She’s a bitch,” he says, nodding toward the bedroom door again. “Mrs. Whitby. I remember her. I remember talking to her. She’s as bad as they get,” he says. “You saw the case file.”

“She’s a monster,” I say.

“One of the worst,” he says, and he’s staring at me and I can almost feel the charge coming off him. The hairs are standing on his arms and he’s still chewing at the tablet. His eyes are wide and jittery.

“She put her son into a coma,” I say.

“She hit him with an iron.”

“Could have killed him,” I say.

“I wish she had.”

I nod. I wish she had too.

“You know she only did a few months in jail, right?” he asks.

“I know,” I tell him.

“Not much of a punishment,” he says.

“Not much at all.”

“More should have happened to her.”

“She should never have been let out,” I say.

“All of this, it all began with her. Doesn’t seem right she should get away with it.”

“Not right at all,” I agree.

“The world needs balancing, Theo.” A cell phone rings. I look down at it. It’s the doctor’s. “This job,” he says, “we see the shittiest things.”

“I know.”

“Jesus,” he says, and he tilts his head up and stares at the ceiling for a few seconds, and when he looks back at me I think he’s trying hard not to cry. “I don’t. .” he says, then shakes his head, “I can’t. I can’t deal with any more children dying. Last Christmas I promised myself no more kids were going to die on my watch,” he says, and I can tell he’s back in that moment where he last had to deal with the horror of a child being killed. “That day in the bathtub, drowning like that, I should have left the force then. I should have left.”

“Carl. .”

“No more dead children,” he says. “No more.”

The phone is still ringing. I look at my watch. It’s been thirty minutes. I’m shaking my head and Schroder is nodding his. He smiles. A sad, sad smile, and now the tears are there, just a few of them. “No more on my watch,” he says, and his smile grows. “Give me the phone,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because the world is about balance, Theo. That’s why. Give me the phone.”

I hand it over. He looks at it for a few seconds as if he’s forgotten how to use one. The display is lit up with the number the call is coming from. “Four minutes I was dead,” he says. “Four minutes and nothing, just nothing. These kids, when they die they’re not moving on to a better place. We want to think so, but they’re not. The only thing waiting for us is a whole lot of nothing.” He presses the answer button. “This is Detective Inspector Carl Schroder,” he says, talking into the phone, straightening himself up and wiping at his eyes. He changes his grip on the gun so he can spare a few fingers to tug at his pajama top and get it sitting right, as if he were about to go into a meeting.

I can hear Cole’s voice coming through the speaker. “Where’s Theodore Tate?”

“He’s right next to me.”

“Put him on,” Cole says.

“No. You’re dealing with me now.”

“If you don’t put him on I’m going to-”

“Shut up, Caleb. Just shut up and watch,” Schroder says, and he fiddles with the functions on the phone and puts it on mute, and a moment later the display shows what the phone is pointing at. It shows my feet, then Schroder’s, then the door frame. It shows Schroder’s hand reaching out to the handle. It’s blurry and dizzying. People must throw up watching his home movies.

“Carl,” I say.

He shakes his head, the smile still there, and then he shrugs. “Sometimes good men have to do bad things.”

“Carl-”

“Theo, shut up. This isn’t your decision. This isn’t for you to live with,” he says, and I don’t try to stop him, I just stand back and watch as he opens the bedroom door and steps through. The light is on inside. I can see Mrs. Whitby sitting up in bed, an empty vodka bottle on the nightstand next to her, her mouth hanging open and her eyes shut. The room smells of alcohol and cigarettes and cat piss. She’s wearing a robe, the front of it patchy with old stains.

He turns back toward me. “It was me,” he says.

“What?”

“The prison records. I was the one who skipped past Cole’s. I mean, I looked at it, but. . but fuck, I was still balancing a line between being drunk and being hungover, and of course the baby comes with a whole lot of sleep deprivation. You were right-I should never have been part of this case. I looked at that case file and I was too fucked to even notice it meant anything, and now. . well, now I have to do what it takes to save that little girl.”

“Carl. .”

“It’s true, and you know it. If I’d made that connection, most of this could have been avoided. We could have caught him when he was going for Victoria Brown, or when he took the doctor.”

“You don’t know that.”

He sighs. “Yeah, yeah I do. We both do,” he says.

“Carl. .”

“I’m tired, Theo. Tired and I just want this to be over,” he says, and he takes the phone off mute and closes the door.

I stand in the corridor and I close my eyes and I wait for the gunshot.

It doesn’t take long. Five seconds. It echoes and rolls around inside my head like a bowling ball for much longer.