almost okay

Sleep didn't come easily that first night. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling while I planned my next move.

Getting rid of what was left of Jackie's body would require some risk and I wasn't looking forward to it. It had to be done, though; no body, no evidence, no crime. By four o'clock I had made a decision and I could feel some calm ease into me. Between that calm and the fatigue brought on from dismembering Jackie I had reason enough to sleep, and I did. Luckily, I didn't dream.

When I woke up I made a pot of coffee, filled a travel mug and drove to the suburbs. I scoped out the bottle returns at several grocery stores, finding a half-dozen likely candidates with automated counters that were in the lobby and away from easy view of the cashiers. My plan was to hide Jackie's remains amongst my beer cans and then toss them in the trash bit by bit as I cashed in a portion of the returnables at each store, spreading what was left of Jackie from West Bloomfield to Sterling Heights.

The garbage man would take care of the rest.

With any luck at all, the bones would be compacted and buried in a landfill before the cops even discovered she was missing.

I drove back home, dumped all my empties into several large trash bags and loaded them, along with the smaller bags containing Jackie's remains, into the back of the Ranger.

By the time I got to the first store, there was a line at the Kan-Smacker and the light on top was flashing to indicate one of the bins was full. A disinterested bagger dressed in a red smock with the store's logo on the pocket came out and emptied the bin, reset the machine. The guy in front of me continued feeding his empties while I started to sweat.

When it was my turn, I rolled my shopping cart up to the machine and started pushing the cans in. In the bottom of the trash bag I'd put roughly one-fifth of the smaller bags containing Jackie's bones, and once I'd fed the last can in, I punched the button for my receipt, wadded up the bag and pushed it into the trash right next to the machine. In case somebody was watching, I did my best to make it look as though the bag had no weight by gathering it up in both arms before stuffing it into the can. If anybody did notice that something was inside, I figured they'd just think it was bottles that the machine wouldn't take.

Somewhat relieved that I'd got off to a good start, I went inside and picked up a few things.

Everything went according to plan at each location until I got to the last store. As I'd done at the four previous stops, I patiently waited my turn and carefully ran my empties through the machine, but this time once I'd finished I realized that the trash can was nearly overflowing and I didn't want to put my bag right on top. I couldn't take the chance that whoever emptied it wouldn't reach in and pull some of the trash off the top or push down on it and discover that my bag had something besides non-returnable bottles inside.

Even though I knew it might look suspicious, I'd have to dump the bag somewhere else, so I wheeled the cart around and headed out towards the parking lot.

“Hey, don't forget your receipt.” I turned back towards the machine and saw an elderly woman pointing an arthritic finger at the curl of paper hanging from the Kan-Smacker. I went back and grabbed the receipt, then turned towards the parking lot again. “Aren't you going to cash it in?” she asked.

“I just remembered I have some more cans in the car,” I told her. My heart was racing by the time I got back to the Ranger. I tossed the bag into the back, jumped inside and sat down.

Once I'd calmed down, I fished around under and behind the seats until I found a handful of pop bottles, gathered them up and put them in the trash bag. By the time I had rolled back up to the machine, a worker wearing plastic gloves was emptying the trash and the old woman was gone.

I took a deep breath, fed my pop bottles in, listened as they dropped and broke. Then I thumbed the button for the receipt and dumped the last of Jackie's remains into the newly-emptied trash can.

I took my receipts inside the store and bought some pistachios, a case of Blue and a fifth of Jim Beam.

It was going to be a long night and after what I'd been through the past two days, I figured I deserved a drink. Or three.


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