Chapter 3
After completing her dirty work, Vera realizes that she must now get rid of the evidence, in particularly, the body. She sits down at the table and ponders at how she shall rid herself of the body. Joy Mercer's body. After a while she glances over at the clock on the wall and notices that it's almost 4 o'clock. Deciding she better start making supper, she gets up and walks over to the stove. Then she remembers that she forgot to take the meat out of the freezer. She's supposed to be making beef stew.
She starts to curse mildly under her breath but then she has an idea. She'll just make a different kind of meat tonight. Something no one's ever eaten before. And if no one questions the origin of the meat, she'll have solved another major problem also.
Vera walks over to the girl lying motionless on the floor, picks her up, puts her on the counter, and begins cutting big chunks of meat away from the bone. Once she has started to get it cooking, she drags the remainder of the body out the back door and onto the compost pile. Then she lights the pile of garbage, which now includes Joy's lifeless body, on fire. Keeping a careful watch on the fire, she walks back to the house and continues to cook supper.
After a while, the fire dies down quite a bit and Vera can see that the body has fully disintegrated and is now no more than ashes. Just in time too. Soon all the students plus Victor begin arriving at the house. Most of the students go their separate ways to do their homework. Patricia, however, goes looking for her friend, Joy, because she hasn't seen her since that morning. This is when Vera realizes she might not be in the clear just yet.