The Laughterhouse A Thriller

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Before we can say anything, Benson Barlow puts his hand up the same way a publicist will to a news crew before running off a statement about why their client was caught naked outside a restaurant in town. He moves toward us and we take a few steps back so Melanie’s mother and her boyfriend can slip into the office behind him. We can hear Erin gushing over Melanie, while the boyfriend doesn’t seem to know what to say. We can almost hear the mother’s tight hugs being thrown around her. We don’t hear anything coming from Melanie.

“She’s struggling,” Barlow tells us, “I’ve got her talking but, well, things for her are going to be tough moving forward.”

“What—” I start, but he interrupts me.

“I believe I can give you the answers to your questions. You want to know what Cole said to the girls, and you want to know if they went anywhere else, or if she knew where else they were going.”

“And?” Schroder asks.

“She says he told them a story about a little girl named Tabitha. She says Caleb told them a bad man named James hurt her, and that her dad told the world James was okay and wouldn’t hurt anybody else. Evidently, Caleb explained a great deal to her. She understands that Tabitha was attacked, and she understands the man who did that went free because of her father, though she isn’t sure exactly how. She knows that man went on to kill Jessica Cole. She said Caleb made both her and Katy drink some cola and that it tasted funny, that he was really insistent they drink it, and then they fell asleep.”

“Why leave Melanie behind?” I ask.

“This is where it gets tough,” Barlow says, and his voice has a small waver to it. “You both have children,” he says, then looks at me and shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t think.”

“It’s okay,” I tell him.

He pauses for a few seconds, what I’m thinking he thinks must be an appropriate time, then carries on. “Melanie said,” he says, then pauses again, this time to compose himself. He smiles, one of those trying smiles people give when something is just too tough to mention. “Melanie said Cole told her father this morning that he was going to kill her and her sisters.”

Barlow plays with the collar of his shirt and isn’t looking either of us in the eye.

“She said it was going to happen tonight, out at the slaughterhouse. She said Caleb was keeping his voice down low so they couldn’t hear him, but she still heard bits of it anyway. She said he was going out for the day, but then he came rushing back in the afternoon and he seemed panicked. That’s when he gave them the drink.”

“He drugged them,” Schroder says.

Barlow nods. “Melanie could feel herself getting sleepy, so she knew she had been drugged, so she pretended to fall asleep. She heard part of the conversation Cole had with her dad before she actually did fall asleep. He told Stanton that they were going to leave one of the daughters behind, and the one left behind was going to have to die. It was up to Stanton to decide which one.”

We all take a moment with that idea. All three of us put ourselves into that impossible situation of having to choose who lives and who dies. My stomach and chest suddenly feel very empty. The back of my neck breaks out in a cold sweat. What would you make the decision on? How could you make it? You couldn’t—only it seems as though Caleb would have threatened violence or death to all of the children until Stanton made a decision. Even then an impossible decision. How do you choose?

You can’t.

You just can’t.

And yet somehow Stanton made it. He was strong enough to pick a name to save the others. Stronger than I could ever have been, perhaps stronger than anybody in this room. He chose a name to save the other two girls.

Nicholas Stanton is a man breaking down.

“Melanie cried out when she heard that, but continued to pretend to sleep. Cole said if one of them was pretending he would punish them, but she kept pretending anyway. She said she doesn’t remember much after that, just that she was really scared, then next thing she knew she was waking up in a hospital.”

“Poor bastard,” Schroder says.

Barlow nods. “You’re seeing it from his point of view, and of course you would since you’re a father. But look at it from Melanie’s point of view. She’s connected all the dots. The fake blood. The drugging. She knows Cole faked her death. Which means she knows she was the one her father chose to be left behind. She survived, but her world has fallen apart. She’s the one her father chose to die.”

“Bloody hell,” Schroder says. “Will she be okay?”

“Would you?”

“I guess not.”

“You think Cole is going to hurt the other daughters?” I ask.

Barlow stares at me for a few seconds while thinking about it. His head bobs up and down from left to right and back again. “Unlikely. He wrote I’m sorry across Melanie’s forehead. She said he was mean to her father, but kept trying to be friendly to her and her sisters, and he would only snap at them when he was really stressed. I think he genuinely feels bad for those children. But he’ll use them to get what he wants.”

“Which is?” I ask.

Barlow shrugs. “If it were just about killing Stanton, he’d have done it already. If it were just about making him think all three girls were dead, he’d have done that already too. He has an endgame, I don’t doubt that—I just don’t have any idea what it’s going to be, other than making Stanton suffer for as much of it as he can. Maybe he wants Dr. Stanton to get a little taste of what he went through all those years ago when he lost his daughter.”

“To what end?” Schroder asks.

Just then Melanie comes out of the office. She slams the door behind her and looks up at Barlow and Schroder and me. She’s crying. “I want to go home,” she says.

“You should—” Barlow says, then he’s interrupted by Erin Stanton coming out of the office.

“Melanie—” Erin says.

“You’re not my mother,” Melanie says, looking back, then to us she repeats “I want to go home. Only I don’t even know what home is anymore.”

“Melanie,” Erin says, lowering herself down to hug her daughter.

Melanie turns her back on her mother, and her mother sobs into her hands and stands back up. The boyfriend stands a few feet into Schroder’s office watching uncomfortably. He’s holding on to his helmet, probably thinking that this is all just too much for him.

“I want to go home.”

“Soon,” Barlow says, taking her hand. “I promise. But for now you need to wait with your mother.”

“She walked out on us.”

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Erin says.

“I don’t like her.”

“Don’t say that, baby,” Erin says.

“I don’t like my dad either,” she says. “He wanted me dead.”

“It wasn’t like that, Melanie,” Barlow says, trying to sound soothing.

“I know what it was like,” she says. “He was trying to do the best he could. He didn’t want any of us to die, but he did choose somebody and that somebody was me. I’m the one worth the least.”

“Come home with me,” Erin says.

“No,” Melanie says. “You’re even worse.”

Erin tries to embrace her daughter, but Melanie pulls away. “Come with us, Melanie,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Barlow says. “Listen, why don’t you go and wait back in the office,” he says to Erin, “and I’ll come in soon with Melanie and we’ll talk about things. Okay?”

“We don’t need some psychic telling us how to fix our kids,” the boyfriend says.

“It’s psychiatrist, you moron,” Melanie says.

Even Erin rolls her eyes at her boyfriend’s comments before disagreeing with Barlow. “She’s my daughter,” she says. “I think I know what’s best for her. She needs to be around family.”

“Right now she needs to be around somebody who hasn’t abandoned her,” Barlow says.

“F*ck you,” she says.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Barlow says, “but the fact remains she’s feeling vulnerable and abandoned and right now—”

“That’s why she needs to come home with us.”

“Give me some more time with her,” Barlow says. “It’s why I’m here. Let me help.”

Erin gives an exaggerated sigh, but then she and the boyfriend disappear into the office, and Barlow hands Melanie a ten-dollar note. “Go and get us something from the vending machine,” he tells her. “I’m starving.”

“What do you want?”

“I’ll have the same as what you’re having.”

She disappears. Barlow doesn’t suggest we all hide before she comes back.

“Sweet reunion,” Schroder says.

“I had tears in my eyes,” I say. “You think you can help?”

“You mean do you think I can explain to an eleven-year-old girl what a bitch her mother is for walking out on them? At the same time I have to explain why her dad chose her over the others.” He shakes his head. “All I’d be doing is justifying Melanie’s feelings. Still, I’ll see what I can do.”

“She’s opened up a lot since you’ve been here,” Schroder says, nodding toward the vending machine. “Did she give any idea what panicked Cole into changing his plans?”

“Nothing. Just that this morning his plan was to kill them tonight in the slaughterhouse, and this afternoon he came rushing back and had changed his mind.”

“When we found the car it was surrounded by reporters,” I say. “It would have made the news. It’s possible that did it.”

“He’s probably addicted to the news,” Barlow says. “He’ll be trying to learn what he can in an attempt to stay ahead. He must know it can only be a matter of time before he’s caught.”

“If he’s addicted to the news, can we use that somehow?” I ask. “Can we leak some information, true or false, that might make him make a mistake or reveal himself?”

“I’m not sure,” Barlow says. “Maybe. Let’s think about how.”

Detective Hutton comes over and interrupts us. “We just got a witness hit on Cole,” he says, then looks down at his notepad. “Guy by the name of Derek Templeton. He was a neighbor of Caleb Cole’s years ago. Says he just saw him hanging around outside his old house a few minutes ago. He thought he was talking to something in the trunk of his car before taking off again. Says Cole looks different, but it was definitely him.”

“Get a patrol car out there to take a look around, then have them sit on the house,” Schroder says.

“Also, since we released Cole’s picture and details to the media, we’ve had a few psychics leaving messages.”

“Jones?”

“Among others. They’re all saying the same thing—that they have information.”

“They say what that info is?”

“No. But they did say they wanted to talk to somebody higher up the food chain, and would want to be recognized for their help. A few of them said you wouldn’t regret calling them back. You want to call them?”

“What do you think?”

Hutton nods and wanders off, digging into his pockets looking for something on the way, something edible I imagine.

“This is the house he used to own?” Barlow asks. “I assume he doesn’t own it anymore?”

“It was sold when he went to jail,” Schroder says.

“Unlikely the people inside it are posed any threat,” Barlow says, “but it’s interesting. Since his plans have changed, it’s quite possible right now he has nowhere to go. He can’t go back anywhere that we know he’s been. He wants access to the people on the rest of his list,” Barlow continues.

“So where do we look?” Schroder asks.

“Locations from his past, from his daughter’s life. The crime scenes, somewhere to do with Whitby. The answer may be in your case files. He used to be a teacher? Then try his school. Try the cemetery where his family is. Try his childhood home. His childhood school. He play sport? Then try a park somewhere, or a clubhouse. Jessica was murdered in the slaughterhouse, but what about the place she was abducted from? Try there. And of course James Whitby’s mother.”

Barlow looks at both of us, giving us both the most serious look a man with a comb-over can muster before carrying on. “It’s going to come down to how badly Cole wants to make these people pay,” he says, then pauses, “and at what point he’s ready to cut his losses and end things with Dr. Stanton. If I were a betting man, I would say he isn’t going to be satisfied unless he can get to the mother. After all, behind any serial killer you’ll usually find a domineering mother or mother figure, and you certainly had that in James Whitby’s case. Look at what that woman did to her son, look at what she made him. This woman—this woman,” he says, and doesn’t seem to know how to finish.

“And Ariel Chancellor?” I ask.

“He’s probably trying to reach out to her. If you find her, you might find him.”

“We’re not having any luck finding her. We’ve had patrol cars looking for her for the last three hours,” Schroder says.

“You tried her parents?” Barlow asks.

Schroder looks at me, and I shrug. “Worth a shot,” I say.

“It’s worth more than that,” Barlow says. “If Ariel and Jessica were best friends, then Ariel’s parents would have known Jessica’s parents too. Maybe they can offer some perspective. Maybe they’ll have a location in mind.”

“Let’s go back a few steps,” Schroder says. “It still doesn’t add up. Even if Cole pretends to kill the other girls, he won’t be doing what was done to him because Stanton will find out he’s been lied to. It’s not the same.”

“He won’t know,” Barlow says, “because when Cole is done with the girls I have no doubt Nicholas Stanton is going to die. And I have no doubt that after going through what he believes to be happening, Nicholas will be begging for death. I mean, who wouldn’t be after seeing that?”

“So why hasn’t he done it already? If he knows we have everybody from fifteen years ago under guard, why not finish it now?” I ask.

Barlow shrugs. “Who’s to say he hasn’t already?”

It’s a chilling thought.

“Which means if he hasn’t done it already, he has something else in mind,” I say.

Barlow nods. “And Caleb is the only one who knows what that is.”