MYRICK
After spending ten hours hacking up Rochelle’s body, I grabbed four black plastic construction bags from the basement, tossing in legs, arms, head, hands and torso. All except the feet and fingers, which I bagged separately to burn later. I doubled the bags so they wouldn’t leak in the back of the Suburban, and bound them with duct tape. I laid some tarp down still, just in case. You never know where blood is going to end up. Rochelle’s heart was the only thing I kept. I thought to dispose of her in the Dumpster behind a movie theater that was a few miles from where I lived, but I didn’t want to take the chance of being seen by anyone. So I went with the twenty-four-hour city dump instead where there were no cameras and there wouldn’t be any people at 3 a.m. I was too tired to drive all night trying to find a space to get rid of the body. The dump was about thirty minutes across town, but it was worth the drive. I drove until asphalt turned to gravel and dirt. I pushed my SUV around corners and bends. I dimmed my lights as I approached the fenced entrance. “Good. I’m the only one here.” I had to make it quick. I pulled up alongside one of the large containers. The minute I stepped out of my car, the putrid stench of garbage slapped me in the face. I let the back door up and dragged the two heavy construction bags out. I threw one over my right shoulder and hurled it into the Dumpster. I did the same with the other and hauled ass out of there.
When I got home, I could still smell Rochelle’s blood on me. I switched on the TV in the bedroom. Sound coming from something other than the cicadas outside made me feel at ease. I emptied the wineglasses in the sink to wash later before I went to the bathroom and filled the tub with hot water and bleach. I threw my clothes in a ball on the floor. I sat in the tub, took a Brillo pad and scrubbed my legs, arms and hands raw. I kept my fingernails trimmed so they wouldn’t act as trappings for blood and skin. I scrubbed until my skin burned, until the only traces of blood left were mine from the bleach bath. I stepped out of the tub of bleach and bloody bathwater and grabbed a towel. As I dried off, that’s when I heard the news report on the TV in Mama’s room about Shariece being arrested for murder. “No, that’s not right. It can’t be.” I watched and sure enough, it was my baby’s face plastered all over the news. She had been taken into custody for the murder of some loser by the name of Deandre Jackson. “That’s not him. That’s not the boyfriend. Fuck, that’s not the fucking boyfriend! Who the fuck is Deandre Jackson?” Bail is set at 100 hundred thousand dollars, the anchor said. “No, that’s not him? That’s not the guy.” The thought of Shariece being pinched for something I had done made me sick to my stomach. “I can fix this.” I pulled open the doors of the closet and reached behind boxes and clothes for a small shoebox. Inside was some money I had stashed away. It was two- hundred thousand damn near, more than enough to bail Shariece out of the shithole they had thrown my baby in. This was money Mama had given me for school.
After everything that had happened with the trial and her testifying against me, I had forgiven her. Being locked up made me do a lot of thinking about what had gone down that night, and hell, I would have called the cops on my ass, too. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing Shariece. I would write her every day, apologizing in each letter. I had told her that I’d bared no ill will against her. I had told her that I’d forgiven her and that I understood. Every one of my letters was returned to sender.
I didn’t sleep all night for thinking about Shariece. “Can’t imagine what she must be going through.” I got dressed and grabbed the shoebox of money. “It all ends today. I have plans for you, Shariece, baby.”
It didn’t take me long to get to the police station. My palms were sweating and my heart was thumping crazy in my chest as I sat in an attempt to pull my shit together. I hadn’t seen anything on the news about the trail of bodies I had left behind, so I figured they weren’t on to me yet. Most of these Barney Fife pigs don’t know which way is up half the time. Tallahassee’s finest, my dick. I knew the chance I was taking, that the cops would pounce on me the minute I walked through those doors, but for the sake of Shariece, it was a chance I was willing to take.
With the shoebox of cash tucked under my armpit, I walked into the police station where a uniformed cop was sitting behind a plate of glass. He had coffee bean-brown skin, speckles of white in his hair and wore glasses, looking like somebody’s granddaddy. I was surprised that the force still kept old-timers like him on the job. He zeroed in on me like a heat-seeking missile the minute I walked through the door. He probably thought I was carrying a bomb. It’s not every day someone walks into a police station with a shoebox of money. “How you doing?” he asked. “What’s up? Do you all have an inmate here by the name of Shariece Mills?”
“Let me check.” Slade, his chrome-plated name tag read. He ran his fat fingers across the keyboard in search of Shariece’s name. I took the lid off the shoebox, unveiling the contents inside, putting this desk jockey pig at ease. “We have a Shariece Mills here who was brought in two weeks ago.”
“Great. I’m here to post bail for her if that’s possible.”
He gawked at me curiously. “Are you a family member?”
“No, I’m a good friend.” What difference did it make if I was family, a friend or Bobo the damn clown? “So is a cash bond okay?”
“We don’t normally take cash at this hour, but that’s fine.” Officer Slade took the lid off the box of cash, and began counting. He pushed a form under the glass for me to fill out.
“Would you like a receipt for this?”
Was this brother serious? “No, just make sure that it gets posted.” I realized that it was time to stop hiding. It was time for me to get my woman back.