Burke disposes of Hauck Exman's body

Burke Devore’s disposal of Hauck Exman’s body is both a continuation of the murder and a display of the methodical concealment Burke has learned to perform. He brings the body home in the Voyager, hides it in the family garage overnight, and carries it to a recycling center the following day. The sequence gives ordinary domestic spaces and routines a second, criminal use: the garage becomes a temporary hiding place, a family outing supplies cover, and the town’s waste system offers Burke a destination for what he wants gone.

Return to the House

After leaving the scene, Burke joins the traffic heading toward the exit and drives up Route 9 toward Kingston, the bridge, and home. It is a little after eleven when he arrives. The house is quiet but not entirely dark: a table lamp glows in the living room, a reading light is on in Billy’s bedroom, and a light marks the head of the stairs. Marjorie has gone to bed, as Burke hoped; Billy is awake but stays in his room. The details matter because Burke is not returning to an empty location. He must move through a family home whose occupants are near enough to interrupt him, and he understands that their presence makes privacy a condition to be managed.

Burke considers home safer than stopping somewhere along the road to deal with the body. A place that seems deserted might suddenly become exposed by passing people, lights, or police. At home, he can wait behind the closed garage door. His decision makes the familiar setting serve as cover: the house that holds his ordinary life also protects the evidence of a killing, at least for the night. The Voyager’s engine works normally when he starts it, allowing him to complete the drive without another disruption.

The Garage as Temporary Storage

Burke uses the garage as a concealed workspace and keeps the body there until he can move it. He has brought plastic bags and other supplies from the mall, and he uses the garage’s ordinary clutter to make the resulting packages less conspicuous. The narration records his attention to the body’s condition and to the materials that have been in contact with it, presenting concealment as a problem he tries to solve through separation and control. He is relieved that the visible bleeding is slight and understands this as evidence that Hauck died immediately when struck.

His care is not evidence of remorse. Burke’s attention is directed toward avoiding discovery and preventing the body from being connected to his vehicle. He gathers the materials associated with the transport separately and attempts to remove identifying traces. Once he has finished, the two bulky bags sit among birdseed, paint cans, winter boots, and the miscellaneous accumulation of the garage. Their concealment depends partly on their resemblance to the space’s existing disorder: they are present, but visually absorbed by the things already stored there.

The later sight of the bags in daylight confirms the effectiveness Burke believes he has achieved. When he takes Marjorie to her Saturday job at the New Variety, he backs the Voyager out and finds that even he cannot readily distinguish anything changed in the garage. The bags remain out of the light, leaning amid the usual household and seasonal clutter. The scene contrasts their hidden contents with the banal setting that shelters them, making domestic disorder an accomplice to Burke’s plan without changing its outward appearance.

Cover Story and Removal

Burke also manages what Marjorie knows. Before falling asleep the previous night, he has devised a story about a friend’s business proposal; the next day, on the way to the movie house, he presents it as the reason he had been away for several hours after dinner. The invented scheme involves turning shredded government paper money into green paper bags called Money Bags. Burke describes the idea as requiring political access and marketing rather than his own expertise in making paper. Marjorie is unconvinced, and her dismissal of the proposal does not lead Burke to abandon the lie. Instead, it gives the story the ordinary, unremarkable shape of a dubious business idea discussed between spouses.

After dropping Marjorie at the movie house, Burke returns to the garage. Betsy is at a college rehearsal of Arsenic and Old Lace, and Billy is at a friend’s house using new computer software. With the household elsewhere, Burke loads the bags into the Voyager and drives to the recycling center. The timing links his cover story to the disposal: he has already supplied Marjorie with a false account of his earlier absence, then waits until the family’s routines leave him free to move the concealed burden.

The center is a practical destination because residents can sort their own waste there for less than private collection costs. Glass, tin, paper, and cardboard are accepted without charge, while garbage costs fifty cents per large plastic bag. Burke knows that refuse from the center is compacted and ultimately sent to a landfill operation on Long Island Sound. He frames the destination with grim humor as a sea voyage for Hauck, a Marine. The levity does not soften the act; it exposes how completely Burke can convert a person’s death into a logistical problem and a private joke.

Growing Competence and Its Irony

Burke measures this episode against his first killing, Herbert Everly’s. He acknowledges that he is not perfect, but believes he has climbed a long way up a learning curve. The comparison makes the disposal part of a wider progression: each act of concealment adds to his confidence and to his practical knowledge. His handling of the aftermath is therefore not an isolated improvisation but evidence that he has begun to treat murder as a skill that can be improved.

That progress carries its own irony. Burke hopes he will never need to use the skill again, yet admits that it is useful to possess. He imagines his competence reaching its highest point just as the need for it ends. But the immediate circumstances point in another direction: once Hauck is out of the way, Burke turns his attention to Upton “Ralph” Fallon, the last obstacle between him and a new job. The supposed finality of this disposal is thus unstable. Burke speaks of the knowledge as something he will not use again while the narrative shows him already preparing for another target.