The Laughterhouse

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Caleb watches the display on the phone and says nothing as he looks at the dead woman on the bed, just the one gunshot, right through the heart. Her eyes opened when it happened, she looked right at the phone, her mouth seemed to cave in on itself, and she didn’t even have the time to raise an arm to her chest. Instead her head dropped back down to where it was when she was sleeping, her neck slumped against her massive breasts. She’s in pretty much the same position she was a minute ago. He doesn’t doubt she’s dead. Still-he knows they can be faked.

“There’s an empty bottle on the nightstand,” he says.

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“I said there’s an empty bottle on the nightstand.”

“I still can’t hear you,” Schroder says. “You’ll have to give me a minute.”

“You’re kidding.”

“What?”

“I said you’re kidding,” he says, almost shouting it at the phone.

“Missing? What’s missing?”

Cole doesn’t answer. He keeps watching the dead woman on the screen, and then there is fast movement as the phone is lifted higher. He watches the wall swaying up and down, and he realizes the detective has his finger in his ear, twisting it back and forth. It’s the gunshot. It must be. The gunshot has deafened the detective so he can’t hear him. He has to wait a minute. It’s a long minute, but he’s excited. He’s missed out on the judge. He could try the same trick and convince somebody to kill the judge for him, but he doesn’t see it working, not again, not against a man who the world thinks is good.

Finally the phone moves again, and he can see the side of Schroder’s face before his ear fills the screen. Obviously he’s forgotten he’s on speakerphone as well as video.

“What were you saying?”

“There’s a bottle on the nightstand.”

“So?”

“So I want you to pick it up and smash her over the head with it.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“You have to.”

“No. I don’t have to. She’s dead.”

“Then she’s not going to feel it, and she’s not going to mind.”

“No.”

“I need to know she’s dead.”

“Yeah? Then why don’t you come down here yourself and take a Goddamn look at her. I’m not hitting her with the bottle.”

Caleb thinks about it. Nods. Thinks about it a little more. Nods to himself again. He believes the detective. “Do you have a marker?”

“What?”

“A pen. Find a pen.”

“I have a pen.”

“I want you to write on her forehead.”

“I’m not going to do that either.”

“You’re going to do it, Detective, and here’s why-I’m going to tell you where I am.”

A grunt comes down the phone line. “Yeah, sure you are.”

“I am,” he says, looking down at the little girl that he won’t have to ever cut again. “I promise you, you write on her forehead, then you and Theodore Tate can come and take me away. I give you my word. You can save Katy Stanton.”

“What about her father?” Schroder asks.

“I’m still undecided about that.”

“Don’t hurt him, and you have a deal.”

“You write what I want you to write, and I won’t harm either of them. Deal?”

“What do you want me to write?”

“I want you to write I’m an evil bitch.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what she was. You know it. We all know it.”

“Then why bother writing it?” the detective asks.

“You going to write it or not? Or does our deal not stand?”

“Hang on.” The footage changes again. He sees Schroder’s shirt and then the bed, and the screen stays on the bed for thirty seconds. Then the phone is on the move again. It’s pointed at Mrs. Whitby’s face. It’s all blurry and out of focus for a few seconds, but then it becomes sharp. The words are on her forehead. The handwriting is neater than his own, nice blocky lettering, but he hasn’t gotten the spacing right and the last few letters have to curve up over her left eye where they get smaller.

“Good,” he says.

“Now where are you?”

“Will you come alone if I tell you? Just you and Tate?” he asks, because that’s what Schroder will be expecting him to ask. He doesn’t care whether Schroder and Tate come alone, or whether they bring a hundred cops with them.

“Yes.”

“How do I know if I can believe you?”

“Enough games, Caleb. Just tell me where you are.”

“Fair enough,” he says. He gives Schroder the address of the house that’s for sale, hangs up, then calls the journalist he was going to call before. He tells him who he is, and he knows the man doubts him, so he takes a photograph of Katy on the phone and sends it to him. Then he makes a few more calls, a radio station, a TV station, and he gives them all the address too. Then he walks back through to Dr. Stanton. He has five minutes, he guesses. Five minutes and then everything will be over.