Day 68 - Compost Story

Compost Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Roger began learning about composting a year earlier.  His wife Susan thought he was a bit obsessive with it, but figured it was a mostly harmless hobby so she didn’t do much to discourage it.  They had a large estate and if Roger wanted to do something environmental she was okay with that.  He gathered their vegetable and fruit waste and mixed it with the leaves from the trees that autumn.  Roger started with one compost bin, but soon added a variety of additional bins.  They came in various shapes and sizes.  It was clear that he was intent on creating a lot of compost.  The reasoning was less clear.

“How many bins do you need?” she would ask him.

Roger wasn’t sure.

“Are you going to start a garden?”

Roger had no plans for a garden.  He told her he didn’t have any plans at all.  He was just collecting waste and thought it was better to return it to nature than to let it pile up in some landfill somewhere.

Susan thought it was strange not to do something specific with all his time and effort, so that spring she began planting a flower garden herself.  Roger liked that.  He thought it looked very pretty and added a bit of serenity to their yard.  She didn’t know about that, but she was glad her husband was glad.

While Susan worked the land outside and planted her plants, Roger collected.  He took paper from the shredder, old newspapers and coffee grounds from his morning brew.  He raked the surrounding woods, collecting sticks and twigs.  He bought biodegradable bags and containers so even their compost bins would return to the earth.

One day Roger brought home several dwarf evergreens and a sapling walnut tree.  Susan was very excited by this.  Even though they lived near the woods, they had very few trees near their house.  Susan was very pleased by Roger’s hobby and this new interest in plants and landscaping possibilities.

The next morning Roger began digging holes in yard.  He added manure and fertilizer along with some of the compost.  He added a mixture of earthworms, maggots and a secondary screwworm he had read about on a website.  Susan wasn’t outside to witness any of this.

That night, shortly after diner, Roger poured Susan wine and they adjourned to their living room to watch the fire in the fireplace.  It was then that Roger took a hammer to Susan and abruptly ended her life.

Roger was not the world’s most clever criminal, but he had watched plenty of crime television shows and knew he had to have a plan for disposing of the body and getting rid of the evidence. 

Roger wrapped Susan in several trash bags to keep as much blood as possible off the rug.  He liked their carpeting, but knew that would have to go.  He knew he needed to contain any blood splatter.  He couldn’t leave a trace of that.  He also didn’t want the blood soaking through the rug and into the wood floor below.  If it did, he could chop up the floor or burn it, but thought that would immediately raise far too many questions.

Roger slipped Susan wrapped in plastic into a canvas army bag.  He tried to lift her, but found this to be a tougher task than he had imagined it would be.  He had carried her weight before, but now she was nothing but dead weight.  She did nothing, could do nothing, to help shoulder the load.  With grunts and slower than desirable effort he drug the bag out into the back yard.

Outside Roger took the hammer and swung ten times to try and obliterate Susan’s teeth.  He knew teeth were important for dental records and had always seen and heard that dental records were used to identify dead bodies.  Roger didn’t expect anyone to be finding Susan’s body any time soon, but he didn’t want to take any chances.  Even with her teeth knocked out, he was worried that someone could fit them all back together and figure out who she was.  He should have figured out how to grind the teeth up, but there was no time for that now.

Roger dumped Susan’s body into one of the holes he had dug earlier that day.  He poured compost on top of her and added a fresh helping of the flesh eating worms and maggots.  He crammed a handful down her throat for good measure. The tree would hide the grave and the roots would eventually work their way into the bones, but he wanted her flesh gone and eaten as soon as possible.  Roger topped off the compost with some fertilizer and then planted the sapling on top of her remains.

Roger picked up his tools and the canvas bag.  He took those in the house and added them to the fire.  He used a pair of garden shears to cut the rug apart into smaller pieces and added those to the fire as well.  Then he burnt the garden shears.  He wasn’t sure what to do with the metal from the hammer or the shovel or the shears.  He would take those with him and ditch them somewhere along the way, he supposed.  That should be good enough.

Upstairs Roger packed.  He had slowly been transferring his savings out of the bank and into cash and gold.  Recent economic instability had made it easy to convince Susan that banks were not to be trusted.  Susan’s father had been rich.  Roger had waited a long time for her father’s money to become hers.  Susan’s first husband had been rich.  Roger had worked diligently to make sure she received as much money as possible from him and made sure that money went into joint accounts with Roger’s name on them.

Roger worked all through the night, fixing the back yard, cleaning the living room, and packing his bags.  It would be dawn soon.  He would be on the road within the hour.  They didn’t have many friends or family left.  No one would miss them for a very long time.  By the time anyone thought to look for him or her it would just look like the house had been abandoned.  And that there was a very nice tree in the backyard that had been more than properly fertilized along with a lovely flower garden.  Susan had done a lovely job and it was a nice touch, Roger thought.  Unsuspectingly, she had provided the flowers for her very own grave.