The Laughterhouse A Thriller

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The city is full of good and bad things, and this morning is a classic example. Good thing—the rain has completely gone, the sky looks pretty clear, and when the sun comes up we might just have blue skies in every direction. The temperature is around forty degrees but should go up to almost sixty by the afternoon. The icy wind from yesterday is now somewhere over the South Pacific, blown there by a wind that is still cool, but nowhere near as chilling. Bad thing—the air feels damp. I’m tired again and my tongue got burned drinking the coffee, so it feels numb. My car looks worse the lighter the morning gets, and there are already reporters hanging about outside the main entrance to the police station. They’re floating around like bottom-feeders, desperate to snack on any little piece of information, and the worst of them is a local psychic with slicked-back black hair and ultra-white teeth by the name of Jonas Jones. He’s wearing a pin-striped suit with a silk tie that makes him look like a well-paid lawyer. The reporters fire questions at me and I don’t answer them, and Jonas follows me into the foyer and I put a hand into my pocket to make sure my wallet doesn’t disappear. Schroder is ten minutes ahead of me, wanting to change into his third shirt for the day and tidy up a bit before the briefing.

Good thing—Jonas starts with a joke. “I sensed you were going to help,” he tells me.

Bad thing—just when I start to laugh, I realize he’s not joking.

Jones used to be a used-car salesman before going bankrupt and figuring out a new way to screw people. He’s been successful at it too, appearing on reality psychic shows and writing books about his communiqués with the dead. So far he’s been instrumental in solving the case of who’s the most annoying psychic living in the country, and I bet he loses his keys around the house just as much as the rest of us. Over the years he’s been a pain in the ass to the department. Yet his books sell and people watch his show, suggesting the book and TV industries make about as much sense as the rest of the world.

I ignore him and keep on walking.

“I can help,” he says, flashing me the same smile he used to flash his customers back before he ran his business into the ground.

I’m only two inches taller than Jones, but I use them both to look down at him. “Listen, Jones, just get lost, okay?”

“He’s going to kill again.”

“You think?”

Jonas’s psychic abilities are way off because he doesn’t sense that I don’t want him to follow. He doesn’t sense that I’m getting close to breaking his legs.

“He stabs them nineteen times,” he says, “and I know why.”

I stop walking and look back at him. “Who told you that?” I ask.

“So it’s true,” he says.

“No comment,” I say.

“Ah, I see, you really don’t know. Well, you will soon. I just happen to know already.”

“Because of your psychic link?”

“It’s a gift,” he tells me.

“One that keeps on paying.” I push the button for the elevator. I press it a couple of times hoping it’s just an urban legend that pushing it repeatedly doesn’t really speed it up. “So why nineteen times?”

“It’s easy,” he says, “but if I tell you, I want to be kept in the loop. You’re not a cop, but you must be a consultant because you were at all the scenes yesterday and you’re here now and I know you need the money,” he says, keeping his voice low. The officer behind the desk is watching us. “I don’t need to be psychic to see that,” he says, but if he were psychic he’d know that I am a cop and not just a consultant. “I give you the info, you keep me updated, and this can be the start of a useful partnership.”

I go with what didn’t work before, but will hopefully work now. “Like I said, Jones, just get lost, okay?”

“I want to help people,” he says. “And you want to help people. There’s no reason we can’t help each other.”

I push the button again. The elevator doesn’t speed up. “And no reason you can’t profit from it.”

“A man needs to eat,” he says. “And none of you are different,” he says. “Everybody in this building profits from people being hurt, Tate, or is everybody in this department doing this job for free?” He hands me his card. “Call me when you need help.”

The elevator doors open and he walks away, leaving me pissed off that he’s made a good point. I look down at his card—Jonas Jones is written in silver letters raised against an ivory background, beneath his name in bold letters is Psychic. It’s a typo—the ic should have been an o. With no garbage bin in the elevator, I tear the card in two and store it in my pocket. If the two halves of the card rejoin by the time I reach the fourth floor, then I’ll admit that Jones does have some magical abilities. I wonder if he really does know why the victims were stabbed nineteen times. I should have grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him upstairs and questioned him. The thing is, psychics may be full of bullshit, but they can have a unique way of seeing things, and they can offer a theory that, though inaccurate, can branch off a new train of thought that can lead somewhere.

I’ll call him after the briefing.

The doors open at the fourth floor and it’s a different world from downstairs. Dozens of people all looking hungover and tired. The floor smells like cheap bourbon. Things aren’t as clean around the station anymore on account of their main janitor going to jail last year after it turned out he had a taste for killing people. Schroder is wearing a new shirt and he’s back in his original shoes, which have dried out, but he’s still wearing the same pants. He smells like he’s had a beer and followed it with a toothpaste chaser.

The briefing room is much bigger than the last time I was here. It used to be a conference room that could sit a dozen people with perhaps standing room for another ten, but now the wall has been knocked down and rebuilt further out to double the size of the room, the Christchurch crime rate demanding the modification. There used to be potted plants in the corner and a couple of prints on the wall of landscapes, but that’s all gone now. There’s a large aerial shot of the city taken last year, and in that moment when the camera shutter flicked open, it would have caught a hundred crimes going on, each of them too small to see.

The window overlooks a city that at the moment has a glow far out to the east, where the sun is breaking the surface. I can see the Avon River snaking its way alongside Durham Street, the banks still green and lit up by the streetlights. A few people are jogging by it, their heavy breath forming clouds in the air. The morning is still, not many other signs of life, not even any birds.

On the main wall of the room is a map with pins locating the crime scenes. There are photographs of the victims on the wall. Photographs of the crime scenes. Within twenty-four hours that wall has almost run out of space. Tomorrow more builders might need to come along and double the size of the room again, maybe even put on an extension that goes out over the side of the building. There are seats set out in a chessboard formation, all of them facing the front. I take one near the back and Schroder takes one near the front. More people file into the room. Many of them are yawning. Many are carrying coffees that weren’t made in the station. Most of them recognize me and do a double take.

Seven o’clock passes and the briefing doesn’t start. Most of us stay in our seats, knowing it’ll just be a matter of minutes. The sky gets lighter outside, the glow of the city becomes stronger. At quarter past seven Superintendent Dominic Stevens walks in. He’s the least tired looking person in the room. Everybody goes quiet and we all watch him take his place at the front. Stevens is barely on the good side of sixty and, according to Schroder, these days on the bad side of irritable since giving up smoking. His head is neatly shaved and his face is stained with old acne scars. His voice is grave and he’s decked out in his well-pressed uniform.

“Four victims,” he says, in way of a good morning, “and I don’t need to tell each and every one of you that you need to be giving one hundred percent,” he says. “And if any of you ever show up to a crime scene again stinking of booze I swear it’ll be your last day with a badge,” he says, his words even and calm and the threat sounds very real. “If I could spare the manpower,” he says, “I’d fire a few of you now just to prove how pissed off I am at you all. That goes for everybody in the room,” he says, focusing his gaze on Schroder for a few seconds before casting a general gaze over the rest of us.

“Now, I don’t want to sound like an a*shole by storming in here and busting your balls, but it’s for your own good because obviously you need it. I mean, I sure as hell never thought I’d have to explain to a group of such competent people that showing up drunk at work is a bad idea, but maybe it’s my fault for overestimating you all.”

Nobody in the room is holding his gaze. For some, the desks are the most interesting desks they’ve ever seen; for others, so are their shoes, or the window, or a spot about six feet to Stevens’s right.

“Okay, I can see I’ve made my point,” he says. “Now, I know you’re all tired. Nobody here has ever been through something like this, but some sick f*ck is out there killing our citizens, and today we’re going to nail this son of a bitch,” he says, “and when we do then you can all go home and get some sleep. Now, I didn’t want to have to come in here and give you all a pep talk, but you need it,” he says, and then does it, breaking down the routine, stressing the importance of us not messing up, and going over every detail in detail. He looks at me during his final part of the speech, where he says none of us can afford to let the department down, and more than ever this city needs us. I couldn’t agree more.

“I know emotions are running high,” he says. “We buried one of our own yesterday and we’re hurting,” he says, and he looks at an empty chair near the front of the room that I’m guessing Landry usually sat at. We all look at it, and I wonder if last night Stevens watched the latest cop drama to get tips on what to say. “We’re low on numbers and help and for all we know we could have another four dead bodies by this time tomorrow.”

There’s a murmur across the room and I contribute to it. Four more bodies today, maybe a few more tomorrow. It’s hard to be optimistic when there’s a pattern forming and you don’t know the shape of it.

“The results are in on our two oldest, and first victims,” he says. “Multiple stab wounds each,” he says, the number echoing in my head in Jonas’s voice. “Victim number one has nineteen,” he says, “victim number two we’ll know later on. Victim number three has the one stab wound, no defensive wounds, and we have a preliminary report for victim number four, which also states at least a dozen wounds and no defensive wounds. Victim number three falls outside of the scope in what appears to be a disorganized attack compared to the others. Our killer was able to sneak into two retirement communities and one nursing home without being seen, yet he chose to stab victim number three in his home while his wife and kids were inside. One stab wound and no message and two possibilities—Brad Hayward isn’t part of the pattern, or he is part of it and the killer wasn’t able to follow through. We have a dead accountant, a dead teacher, and two dead lawyers—one a criminal lawyer, one a family lawyer—and so far no connection. Somebody must have seen something, somebody must know something. People don’t just start killing people without a reason,” he says, and it’s true. People kill people for money, for love, for revenge. They kill people because they like the way it feels or because they’re hearing voices from God. Those are all reasons. So is killing somebody for their watch. They’re just not always reasons we understand.

He turns toward the board and points at an enlargement of the first victim’s forehead with the note written across it. The marker isn’t fluid across the skin—it’s broken up by the wrinkles, an occasional hairline or two of ink missing. There is blood on the forehead, streaks on one side where it’s been wiped off with a sleeve or a rag to make a cleaner writing slate.

“ ‘You didn’t care enough,’” he says. “Somebody was angry at our victim, he felt let down by him, he felt like something in his past could have not turned out the way it did because of Herbert Poole.”

He points to a similar photo, this one of victim number two’s forehead. Same handwriting, same tiny patches of missing ink where the felt has bounced over a wrinkle, same streaks of cleared away blood. “ ‘Was it worth it?’” he asks. “Complete with question mark. Was what worth it? The same thing that let him down with Herbert Poole?” Then on to victim number four, similar photo, same handwriting, less wrinkles in Victoria Brown’s skin so the handwriting is neater. “ ‘You were complicit.’ Whatever victims numbers one and two did to our killer, he felt victim number four allowed them to do it.” He turns back toward us. “Listen up, people. There’s pressure from the media, from the citizens, and from the victims’ families, and I’ve promised them all we’re going to provide them some answers, and I’m sure as hell going to keep that promise, and you’re all sure as hell going to work your damn hardest to make that happen. We’re drawing the line. No more of this shit anymore in this city. You’re all familiar with the case, I want to hear some feedback. Questions? Theories?”

Nobody says anything. It’s like being back at school and nobody knows how to answer the teacher. We’re all back to looking at these really interesting desks and shoes, and that spot to the right of Stevens.

“Don’t be shy,” he says, then slowly shakes his head, disappointed in all of us. Then we make eye contact and I know it’s a mistake. “Tate?” he asks.

Everybody turns to look back at me and the world stops. I wasn’t expecting this and feel myself turning red. I do my best to meet all their eyes.

“Many of you will remember Detective Inspector Theodore Tate,” Stevens says. “He’s been assigned to help on account of his track record, the good part of it anyway, which, as we know, lately has been outweighed by the rest of it.”

Detective Kent is giving me a sympathetic smile, and perhaps it’s part relief too—if I wasn’t here she’d be the newest team member and the one facing the question.

“Many of you have worked with Tate before so you know what he’s capable of, and now you all have the chance to work with him again. He’s asked repeatedly to be a part of this force because over the last few years he’s believed he can do a better job than us, isn’t that right, Detective?”

“I just want to help,” I tell them, “and work with the best there is.”

The answer doesn’t win anybody over.

“Well, how about you take this opportunity you’ve been given, and prove how clever you are by offering something we’d all like to hear?”

Now I feel even more like I’m back at school, being screwed over by the teacher. I look at Schroder. He’s expressionless. I hope he had no idea Stevens was going to pull this on me. “So, any theories?” Stevens asks.

I have lots of theories. One of them is that Superintendent Dominic Stevens is an a*shole even though five minutes ago he said he didn’t want to sound like one. I can’t share that because it’s not really a theory, it’s a fact, and he wants theories. I could theorize that my life would be better off if somebody had beaten the shit out of him in the parking lot before work. I could theorize life might feel a little better if it happened after work too.

“The stab wounds,” I tell him, my hand in my pocket sliding the two pieces of Jonas’s card against each other. It’s magic time.

“What about them?”

If Jonas can figure it out, so can I.

“The first two victims—what if they were stabbed the same amount of times?”

Stevens looks at Schroder, then back at me. “What are you saying?”

“We need to find out from the medical examiner exactly how many times victims two and four were stabbed.”

“Because?”

Because a psychic knew the first two had nineteen stab wounds, and guessed the last one had the same.

“Because at least a dozen times could also mean nineteen times, which would give three of our victims an identical amount of wounds.”

“But not the fourth,” he says.

“Which goes to what you were saying about victim number three falling outside of the pattern. Same killer, but different reason for killing. He’s not part of the pattern.”

“Carry on.”

“Well,” I say, everybody still staring at me and my mind racing, “well, if three of the victims have been stabbed nineteen times, then it must mean something.”

Nobody says anything. I can tell I have everybody’s interest now.

“What kind of something?” Stevens asks. “Like a year for example? Or a person? Is that what you’re saying?” he asks, working with me.

“Exactly. Whatever annoyed our killer may have happened nineteen years ago. Or it happened to him when he was nineteen.”

“There may be nineteen people on his list,” Schroder offers.

Most of the people in the room take a collective gasp at that thought. Some of us probably think we might be lucky if he stops at nineteen.

“Yes, yes,” Stevens says, nodding now. “Or it could be they hurt somebody he loves who is nineteen, or even killed them.”

“Or cost him nineteen years of his life,” I say, “or nineteen could even mean a monetary thing since we’re dealing with dead accountants and lawyers,” I say, not wanting to follow that up by saying dead lawyers and accountants are normally the best kind. “Could be they cost him nineteen thousand dollars, or a hundred and ninety thousand dollars, or nineteen years in jail.”

“Okay, it could be nothing or it could be something,” Stevens says. “Detective Schroder,” he says, turning toward Carl, “I want you to get hold of the ME as soon as this meeting is over and find out if Tate’s theory has any merit.”

Then Stevens turns back toward us, nods once in a gesture I don’t quite get, then steps off to the side of the room and hands the floor over to Schroder. Schroder coughs into his hand, focuses on me for a second, then on everybody else. The sun finally joins the rest of us in this early morning nightmare, it comes in through the window and hits Schroder just as he’s about to start talking. Another detective stands up and pulls one of the blinds.

Schroder breaks down what we’re doing. Patrol cars are out on the streets. They’re doing what they’ve been doing since the second body showed up, and that’s patrolling every neighborhood and looking for anything suspicious. It’s about all they can do until we can make a connection. So Schroder fills us in on these facts, and then he fills us in on what we know, which unfortunately isn’t much. He divides us up to work different crime scenes or different witnesses. Detectives are sent to work the lawyer angle, two of them looking through the case files of victim number one’s past, two of them through the case files of victim number four. It will involve getting warrants. Law firms don’t like to give up information. They’re also the hardest ones to present warrants to, because they argue everything. Details have to be exact. If the answers are in the files of clients these lawyers have dealt with, they’re going to be hard to get. Perhaps even impossible because of attorney-client privilege. It’s going to be a day full of interviews, of detectives digging into people’s pasts to find what connects them. Detectives are going to go through student files of Albert McFarlane and cross-reference them against criminal records. Everybody in the room is eager for a piece of the action. Schroder doesn’t give me an assignment. When it’s over, everybody stands up and heads for the door, but then pauses as Schroder starts back up.

“One more thing,” he says. “We’ve heard that tonight there’s going to be gatherings of boy-racers around town,” he says, and everybody groans. “It means the streets are going to be clogged. It means patrol responses may be slow, it means getting from A to B may end up taking longer. It’s estimated there are going to be over two thousand of them,” he says. “Two thousand vehicles deliberately being a pain in the ass, making some kind of point only adolescents are likely to get. For the love of God, don’t shoot them,” he says, and nobody is sure if he’s joking. “Just keep it in mind,” he says, “and allow for it.”

Then everybody is on the move again. Some of them pat me on the shoulder and the rest nod toward me as they head for the door. I stand up and approach the wall of death and look at the photos.

Stevens stares at me for a few seconds, then comes over. I’m expecting the warning, the don’t mess up warning, followed by the you shouldn’t be here warning.

“How’s it going, Theo?” he asks, and puts out his hand. I reach for it a little hesitantly, as if he’s going to pull it away and all the offers that have been made. I shake it. “Listen, I appreciate your help yesterday.”

“Thanks,” I tell him.

“You were the only sane one out there, and I’ve heard if you hadn’t taken some control all of my detectives might have made the front-page news and be scouring the back pages for new jobs. That’s why you’re getting this chance. You earned it. But it’s a short leash. A very short one. Listen, I know I acted like a bastard ten minutes ago, but at least everybody is on your side now. If I’d stood up there and said what a privilege it was to have you back, they’d all have hated you because it’d have made it sound like they needed your help. This way they feel bad about how I treated you, and it’ll help them warm up to you.”

I’m not so sure it’s worked the way he thought it would, but I get his point.

“Plus what you came up with, if you’re right, it could be a good lead. Carl really thinks you can help,” he says, then nods at Carl who has come over to stand next to me. “People keep telling me you’re a loose cannon, but my way of thinking suggests maybe that’s exactly what we need, huh?” he says, and claps his hands together. “I mean, Jesus, this nutcase is a loose cannon, right? Time we fight fire with fire.”

“I appreciate the . . . compliment, I guess.”

“Well we’re not paying you to waste time doing that,” he says, still smiling, “we’re paying you to help catch this son of a bitch. Good luck,” he adds, leaving me confused about what he really thinks of me. Then he turns toward Schroder. “A word?” he says, and Schroder follows him out of the room. I walk over to the window and stare out at the view, shielding my eyes from the sun. Still blue skies in every direction, but the south can’t be seen from this angle. At ground level people are walking about, some with purpose, some aimlessly, some heading to the parks that make up the Garden City. They’re pushing strollers and throwing Frisbees in what are the dying sunny days before winter.

I move over to the wall when Schroder comes back in.

“Was it bad?”

“Was what bad?” he asks.

“The warning Stevens gave you about me.”

“Like he said, you’re on a short leash.”

“Yeah? What else did he say?”

“He said nobody would file a complaint if I had to shoot you.”

I’m not sure if he’s joking and don’t ask in case he’s not. “So what’s my assignment? You want me to follow up with the stab wounds?”

“I’m on it. I want you to run with this,” he says, and he hands me a folder.

I open it up. Inside is a rap sheet belonging to a woman named Ariel Chancellor—a photograph of a twenty-two-year-old woman—who is now twenty-five according to the date of birth—stares back at me. She looks like she hasn’t eaten anything thicker than a potato chip since her teens. Her face is hollow and pale, her blond hair straight and lifeless, the ends of it frayed. She’s frowning at the photographer, the sense that if you could see her hand maybe she’d be giving the finger too. There are pictures of her fingerprints and a brief bio. She’s been arrested on drug possession and shoplifting. I look from the photo up to Schroder who, aside from the makeup and long hair, has a similar look on his face as the girl.

“Looks like a friendly girl,” I say. “She’s who was in Hayward’s car last night?”

“According to the fingerprints on his belt and in the car, yes. It’s your lead, Tate.”

There is no mention of prostitution in the file because the only crime in prostitution is the failure to declare your income. Whether you’re being shot in the line of duty or faking an orgasm for cash, Inland Revenue wants their share. There’s a last known address, which hopefully is still current.

“Jesus,” I say, “if she was in the car with him and she’s a prostitute, then Brad Hayward picking her up may have nothing to do with his death. It’s not like the other victims were picking up prostitutes.”

“It’s a lead,” Schroder reminds me, “likely a dead end, but it’s yours to follow.”

“And the stab wounds?” I ask.

“Look, I’m meeting the medical examiner down in the morgue in . . .” he glances at his watch, “just over an hour. You’re welcome to meet me down there if you’re done in time. Until then, go and talk to this woman. Get her statement. Every line of inquiry needs to be wrapped up, Tate. That part of the job hasn’t changed.”