by Lauren Rico
For a brief time, they appear to be intertwined – so enmeshed that I cannot tell where one begins and the other ends. But then, by the grace of God, I see Julia’s frail, bruised arm snake out and grab hold of a wooden spindle on her way down the stairs. It’s enough to stop her violent descent and peel Jeremy’s weight from hers. Gravity is not on Jeremy’s side as it draws him down the stairs with increasing velocity to his inevitable collision with the immovable flagstone floor.
I gasp as Julia loses her grip a few seconds later and continues to slide down the staircase until she, too, is a heap at my feet. She is to my left, he is to my right and they are both perfectly still. I fall to my knees next to Julia, my fingers searching for a pulse in her neck. Yes, she’s alive, though barely.
Her face is so swollen that I’m not sure I’d have recognized her had I not known it was she. And one of her arms is bent back at an unnatural angle. There’s a large gash in her forehead that I think she may have gotten on the way down, judging from the freshness of the blood there versus the dried and caked smears around her nose and mouth.
I continue my downward inventory and redness and swelling from her ribcage to her toes. My eyes pass quickly over her thighs, which are wet and slick with red warmth. I allow myself the small luxury of not speculating on what else my son has done to her.
Getting to my feet, I run quickly from room to room, looking for something to cover her. Finally, I find a large, soft throw and bring it back to where Julia is lying so I can drape the blanket over her naked, battered body and lift her head just enough to slip the pillow under her neck for support. I don’t have much time, so I turn my attention to Jeremy.
He is in considerably better condition, with no blood to speak of. Though, he could easily have internal injuries that I can’t see. His left leg is clearly broken. I feel for his pulse, and find it to be strong. Of course it is. It takes more than a fall down the stairs to kill Satan.
Julia 44
Trudy has a bat. A baseball bat. And she is saying something to Jeremy, who is lying a few feet away from me on the flagstone entryway at the foot of the staircase. I can’t seem to speak or move, but I can just see the two of them in my line of sight. I notice that his leg is twisted at an unnatural angle. He is awake and looking at her as she speaks, but I am floating in and out of consciousness, only catching bits and pieces of the conversation.
“Matthew thought this was the safest place for David to be. Of course, no one had any idea that this is where you’d taken her …”
Is that why Trudy is here? Matthew had her bring David here? Oh, God. Please don’t let my baby see me like this. I don’t want him to remember me like this, sprawled out dead on the floor of his home.
“Please, Mom, please. It hurts so much. Help me, Mom …” Jeremy begs quietly.
Even in my haze, I’m struck by how different he sounds – almost human. Somehow, I know that I should try to stay awake. That the longer I lapse into the abyss, the less likely I am to ever wake up, so I force myself to focus on what is happening around me. Trudy is kneeling down beside Jeremy now, brushing the hair back from his forehead.
“What a disappointment you’ve been to us all. Your Grandma Ruth saw it when you were just a boy, but I didn’t want to believe it. Eventually though, there came a time when even I could not deny that fact that Satan was living under my very own roof.”
I can hear his breathing as it becomes more labored. Or is that my own breathing I’m hearing? I can’t even tell anymore.
Blackness again, I’m not sure for how long this time. When my eyes open, she’s standing again, now with the bat in her hand.
“Please, Mom, don’t …” he rasps.
“I’m sorry, Jeremy, but I stopped being your mother a long time ago. The only parent you have now is Satan,” Trudy laments. “Well, I don’t have the time to wait for you to die on your own. I’ve already called the ambulance for Julia and I need to get in touch with Matthew and, well, for all we know, the doctors may still be able to save your life. I can’t have that.”
She sighs.
“We tried to tell you all those years ago,” she recalls wistfully. “They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. I am the one who brought you into this world, so now it is my job to deliver you to the whirlwind.”
Trudy Corrigan raises the bat high over her head. I close my eyes so I won’t see, but, unfortunately, I cannot close my ears.
“You have a good trip to hell, Son,” she hisses.
Jeremy and I are engulfed in blackness at exactly the same moment.
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.
Matthew 46
We’re less than a half hour away when Brett’s phone rings, breaking the silence that has filled the car in the last hour. He looks at the screen.
“Who the hell is this now?” he mutters and puts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
He listens for a long moment, his brows drawing together.
“Where are you?”
Another long pause.
“What?” I ask impatiently. “What is it?”
He holds up one of the fingers on the hand that’s steering the car, telling me to wait.
&
nbsp; “Yes, of course.”
Pause.
“Yes, I understand.”
With a quick tap, the caller is gone, and Brett is looking at me. He flips on the turn signal, and pulls into a deserted supermarket parking lot.
“What? Why are we stopping?”
“That was Tony …” he begins.
“Tony? Why was he calling you? Why didn’t he call me …”
The answer to my own question knocks the wind from my lungs. There’s only one reason he would want to talk to Brett first. I frantically fumble with the lock on my door and manage to get it open just in time to hang my head out of the car and vomit onto the asphalt.
“Matthew! Matthew, she’s not dead,” he’s explaining, but I can hardly hear him above my own retching.
“Matthew,” he tries again, when I’ve dragged myself back into the car. “Listen to me. I need you to show me how to get to Mather Hospital. That’s where Julia will be.”
“Oh, God. Is she … is she alright?”
“Matthew, I can’t lie to you, I don’t know. All he’d say is that she’s in pretty bad shape and that I should get you to the hospital. Maggie’s on her way out to your house on the train. As soon as she gets there, he’ll come right to the hospital to tell you everything. He doesn’t want to leave my mother there alone with the police.”
“The police?” I think I’m going to be sick again. Then I realize, there’s someone not accounted for. “What about …”
I don’t finish the sentence, but he knows what I’m asking.
“Dead,” he says simply. “My brother is dead.”
Brett looks away from me and out the car window.
“I’ll stay with you at the hospital until Tony comes, then I’ll go back to the house, too. The three of us will take care of things there and look after David until … well, until we know what’s going on with Julia.”
“I think … I think that’s a good plan, Brett,” I say.
It’s clear that he’s feeling conflicted. For, as much as Jeremy is – was – a monster, he was still Brett’s flesh and blood. This is still a loss for him, and his mother.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur so softly, that I’m not even certain he has heard me. But then, he turns to face me again.
“I’m not.”
Maggie 47
They don’t tell you about the mess. That’s the thing about a crime scene, or a suicide, or any other violent act that happens to take place in your home. After the police have gathered their evidence and taken their photos, after the coroner has carted off the body and the last detective has left the scene, you are left alone. With the mess. No fairies come to clean the brain matter from the walls. No special cleaning unit arrives to mop up the pool of blood in your kitchen. They don’t even take the yards of yellow tape with them when they leave. I know this, because I’ve seen it too many times in my line of work. And because I see it now as I walk from room to room of Julia and Matthew’s beautiful home. We – Brett and Trudy and I – will be the last ones to see the house like this. I’m going to make damn sure of that.
Trudy is resting upstairs in the nursery with David and I’ve sent Brett to the hospital with coffee and bagels for Matthew and Tony. I have a big job ahead of me, and not a lot of time to do it. The clock on the wall of the kitchen tells me it’s nearly six in the morning as I start gathering cleaning supplies in the kitchen.
“Alright then, let’s get down to it, shall we?” I mutter to myself, grabbing rolls of paper towels, trash bags, bleach, a mop, broom and sponges.
I take my time as I walk down the hall to the front corridor. When I get to the flagstone floor, I stop. I haven’t really allowed myself to take this in, but I have to now. I’m the only who can do this. It’s bad enough, the memories that will be tied to this house for Julia. I’m not going to let Matthew walk into his childhood home and see it like this. Nor am I going to allow Brett or Trudy to mop up Jeremy’s blood. Or his victim’s for that matter.
I start at the bottom of the stairs, where they landed, using the mountains of paper towels to soak up the blood on the floor. Once that’s done, I mop it all with a bleach solution until the water turns a rust color. Then, I work my way up the steps, scouring each riser for drips and drops and smears, until they, too are clear of all biological material. When I get to the top of the stairs, I see a long trail of blood, presumably where Julia used the wall to support herself as she made her way toward Jeremy.
There are also some droplets on the hardwood floor. A little spray bleach and a sponge take care of these, too. And that just leaves me with the master bedroom, it’s door slightly ajar, looming at the end of the hallway. I walk toward it slowly, and give the door a reluctant push with my index finger. It swings the rest of the way open, silently revealing to me the gruesome scene within.
I know that she was beaten, but I hadn’t expected there’d be this much blood. Not without a stab wound or a gunshot. There is smeared blood on every wall and areas of the bed sheets are soaked with it. There are small puddles and drops all over the floor, some intact, others smudged by foot- and handprints. I shake my head. Surely she has miscarried. With the amount of blood in the bedroom, the hallway, the stairs … At this point, I’m not even sure if she’s alive. Or brain dead or …
“Come, we’ll do the bed together.”
I jump at the sound of Trudy’s voice right behind me. She’s taking in the room from over my shoulder.
I start to object, but she pushes past me and waits till I join her. Without speaking, we pull it apart in layers. Pillows and cases, sheets, blanket and mattress pad. No blood has seeped through to the mattress, thankfully.
“Alright, you go ahead and bring these downstairs, and put them in the washer to soak in hot water with bleach.”
I nod and start to gather the sheets when I feel her hand on my shoulder. When I look up at her, she is staring intently at me.
“The hottest water you can run, Maggie. And a lot of bleach.”
I do as she asks. By the time I return, she has somehow managed to scrub every last drip and drop, splatter and stain from every surface. There are crisp, clean sheets on the neatly made bed, and she’s opened the windows so the brisk, early morning air can displace some of the stench left behind from the events of the last twelve hours. She stands, silently, with her back to me, looking out through the sheer panels as the first light of dawn begins to crawls across the sky.
And so, it is done. We can all breathe a tremendous sigh of relief that Jeremy Corrigan has, at long last, left this world. The pity of it is, of course, that he could have had it all on his talent alone. But something deep within him wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of wining anything on merit alone. For Jeremy, it wasn’t worth having if it wasn’t worth taking. Part of me feels guilty. It’s not quite right to celebrate the death of another human being, no matter how evil he was. And yet, I know that I won’t be the only one sleeping easier tonight. Or at least I would be, if I were going to sleep at all.
Matthew 48
My wife is almost unrecognizable as I hold her limp hand in mine. It reminds me of a night, not so long ago, when I sat by the side of her hospital bed. The night we found out she was carrying Jeremy’s baby. Now, she is unconscious. There are tubes and monitors everywhere. It is nearly five in the morning when, from somewhere in my dozing brain, I sense that she’s awake. I sit up, startled to find her watching me through the eye that isn’t swollen shut.
“Oh, thank Jesus,” I murmur, pulling her hand to my face so I can feel it against my cheek. “I’ve been so, so scared, Julia. You’ve been unconscious for hours. They didn’t know if …” my voice breaks off and I start to cry.
“David?” she whispers.
I look up and wipe the tears from my face. I need to get myself together. This is not the time to fall apart.
“He’s fine, Julia. He’s at home, asleep in his own bed. Trudy is there with him. She insisted on staying on the couch in the nursery.”
> I see her battered face loosen with relief.
She mouths the next word, “Nat?”
I nod.
“She’s going to be fine. She feels incredibly guilty, but she’s okay,” I assure her.
Julia closes the one eye and frowns for a moment, gathering the strength to ask the next question. I squeeze her hand. “The baby is fine, Julia.”
She looks at me again, a look of total bewilderment crossing her battered face.
“She has a strong heartbeat.”
“She?” she croaks.
I nod and she tries to smile, but stops, wincing with the pain of the effort.
“Yes, our daughter is going to be fine. They don’t know how, but she’s fine. I told the doctors that she’s obviously a fighter, just like her mother.”
I give her a moment to let this miracle soak in before I tell her the rest.
“Jeremy is dead, Julia,” I say at last. If she’s surprised by this news, she doesn’t show it. “He smashed his head in when the two of you fell down the stairs. Thank God Trudy came in when she did, or you would have died there, too.”
It’s clear that the IV drugs are kicking in again as Julia fights to keep her focus on me and what I’m telling her.
“He was begging her to help him,” she mumbles.
“Who? Trudy? No, baby. You were unconscious. Jeremy was already dead when Trudy got to the house with David. She called the police.”
Julia is shaking her head as if she doesn't agree with this version of events.
“Sweetheart, you had been beaten so badly by the time you went down the stairs, I doubt you ever regained consciousness after you hit the floor.”