Page 114 of Requiem

Tony 45

When I throw the door open, my gun is drawn and I’m prepared to shoot at the first sign of the sick bastard, Jeremy. As it turns out, he’s the first thing I see when I open the door, but there’s no need to shoot him because he’s dead already. Good and dead. A pool of blood is spreading from underneath his head, which appears to have been crushed by a blunt object. Like the bloody baseball bat lying on the ground next to him. A few feet away is Julia.

Holy Mother of God.

Departed or not, looking at what he’s done to her, I feel like emptying a round into his skull anyway. I return my Glock to its holster so I won’t be tempted. And, it’s a good thing I do, because the woman who walks in from the hallway startles me so badly that I could have easily shot her on instinct alone. She’s carrying a bottle of bleach and roll of paper towels and she stops suddenly, just as shocked to see me, as I am to see her.

“Are you …Trudy?” I ask slowly, quietly, so as not to spook her.

She nods. I hold up my hands to show her I’m not carrying the weapon I would have been had she come in twenty seconds sooner.

“My name is Tony Ruggiero. I’m a friend of Matthew’s. He and your son are on their way here, but I was closer …”

“Are you a police officer, Mr. Ruggiero?” she asks flatly.

I shake my head. “No, Ma’am. I’m a private investigator, but not any kind of law enforcement.”

She looks at me quizzically, as if trying to decide if she should trust me or not. “Mr. Ruggiero, did you come here to kill Jeremy?”

“I … I – I,” I start and stutter. “Yes,” I affirm finally. “Yes, I was prepared to do that.”

She nods. “Well, clearly, that’s not necessary at this point,” she informs me, nodding her chin in the direction of her dead son.

“Clearly,” I repeat. I look at the bloody bat again, and then at the bottle of bleach in her hands. “Because you did it already …” I murmur, more to myself, than to her.

“Yes.”

“And … Julia?”

“I didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re asking,” she replies with some irritation.

I shake my head quickly.

“No, no, Ma’am. I just wasn’t sure … how all of this transpired.”

“She wasn’t strong enough to push him down the stairs, so she hurled herself at him and they both came down.”

“And … he was dead when he hit the ground?” I ask, hopefully.

Her eyebrows go up. “What do you think, Mr. Ruggiero?”

Again, I look at her, at him, and at the bat. “I think you could use some help here, because when you call an ambulance for her, the police won’t be far behind.”

“Exactly,” she agrees. “Now, what do you know about destroying evidence, Mr. Ruggiero?”

As it turns out, quite a bit.