Or perhaps it was even earlier than that. Perhaps it was the evening I returned to our midtown apartment, wearied from my labors in the advertising vineyard, and learned that in my absence Janice had managed somehow to buy a house in Connecticut. No more were we to be pallid Manhattanites. It was the invigorating air of the ranch-style developments for us. Besides, it would improve my health — if not my disposition — for me to arise an hour earlier each morning and sprint for the railroad train.
Or perhaps it was much later, after the move from the city and after die lost mink coat and after Lord knows what else. Perhaps it was the evening when, while poring over our financial records, I discovered that in the last year we had spent more in bank fines than for electricity. When I pointed this out to Janice she replied that the fault was clearly mine, since I didn’t put enough money into the account to cover the money she wanted to take out.
Or perhaps it wasn’t really Janice at all, not finally. Perhaps the catalyst was Karen.
What shall I say of Karen? I had finally received the promotion which made it at least possible for me to feel optimistic about catching up with Janice’s spending, and with this promotion had come my own office and my own secretary, and that secretary was Karen.
It was the old story. At home, a wife who was a constant source of frustration and annoyance. At the office, a charming and intelligent not to say lovely — secretary, with whom one felt one could talk, with whom one could relax. I took to spending evenings in town, telling Janice I had to work late at the office while actually I was with Karen, and the inevitable happened. We fell in love.
But ours could not be a dark and furtive office romance. Karen was too honest, too gentle, too good for such a relationship. I knew I had to free myself of Janice and marry Karen, for the sake of everyone’s happiness.
I did consider divorce, at first. There was no doubt in my mind that Janice would grant me one, since divorce is quite fashionable in our circle and Janice would wish always to be in fashion, but as I thought about it I saw that there was a problem, and the name of the problem was alimony.
I might legally disencumber myself of Janice as a wife, but it seemed clear to me that I would continue to be responsible for her support. And I understood only too well Janice’s insatiable need for money. Statisticians claim that eighty-five per cent of American expenditures are made by women, but Janice beat those statistics cold. Over the course of our marriage I would venture to say that she had, month by month, never permitted her spending of my salary to fall much below one hundred and ten per cent.
It was practically impossible already for me to support both Janice and myself. Add Karen to my responsibilities, and I would be in debtor’s prison within six months.
No, divorce was out, and for a while the problem seemed insoluble. But then Janice bought a speedy little foreign car — one of her few purchases I had no objection to — and I waited hopefully for her to demolish the auto and herself on the Merritt Parkway, but nothing ever came of it. Those cars are mawkishly ugly, but they are also exasperatingly safe.
Still, my mind had been turned to a perhaps more productive area of speculation. Could Janice expire? Nothing but grim Death itself, obviously, would ever stop her spending, but where were she and grim D. likely to meet?
Nowhere. Our home was brick outside, plaster and linoleum and plastic inside; not too much likelihood of a good flash fire. The trains to and from the city had their derailments and so on from time to time, but the accidents were almost invariably minor and never on Ladies’ Day. The possibility of a jetliner falling out of the sky and landing on Janice was a bit too remote to be counted on. As for disease, Janice was so healthy that most doctors suspected we were Socialists.
At long last I had to accept the truth: it was up to me. If you want a thing done right — or at all — you must do it yourself.
This conviction grew in me, becoming stronger and stronger, until at last I dared broach the subject to Karen. She was, at first, shocked and appalled, but as I talked on, reasoning with her, explaining why it would never be possible for us to wed while Janice still lived, she too began to accept the inevitable.
Once accepted, the only questions left to answer were when and how. I had four types of murder from which to choose:
a) murder made to look like an accident
b) murder made to look like suicide
c) murder made to look like natural death
d) murder made to look like murder
I ruled out a) accident at once. I had daydreamed for months of possible accidents which might befall Janice, and had finally come to realize that they were all unlikely. And if they were unlikely even to me, who passionately desired that Janice should have herself an accident, how much more unlikely would they seem to the police?
As for b) suicide, there were far too many of Janice’s suburban friends who would be delighted to volunteer the information that Janice was happy as a lark — and about as bright — and that she had absolutely no reason in the world to want to kill herself.
As for c) natural death, I knew far too little about medicine to want to try and outwit the coroner at his own game.
Which left d) murder. Murder, that is, made to look like murder. I planned accordingly.
My opportunity came, after a number of false starts, on a Wednesday in late March. On the Thursday and Friday of that week there was to be an important meeting in Chicago, concerning a new ad campaign for one of our most important accounts, and I was scheduled to attend. All I had to do was arrange for Karen to accompany me — an easy matter to justify — and the stage was set.
Here was the plan: I had two tickets on the three P.M. train Wednesday for Chicago, due to arrive in that city at eight-forty the following morning. (Our explanation for traveling by train rather than by plane, should we need an explanation, was that I could get some preliminary paperwork done on the train, which would have been impossible in the tubular movie houses which airplanes have lately become.) At any rate, Karen was to take this train, carrying both our tickets. We would leave the ad agency together at noon, ostensibly headed for Grand Central, lunch, and the train. But while Karen went to Grand Central, I would hurry uptown to the 125th Street station, where there was a twelve fifty-five train for my portion of Connecticut. I would arrive at my town at two-ten, wearing false mustache, horn-rimmed glasses, and the kind of hat and topcoat I never wear.
Our mortgaged paradise was a good twenty blocks from the station. I would walk this distance, shoot Janice with the .32 revolver I had picked up second-hand on the lower East Side two weeks before, ransack the house, take the five-oh-two back to the city, go to a movie, take the twelve forty-five plane for Chicago, arrive at three-forty A.M., and be at the railroad station when Karen’s train pulled in at eighty-forty. We would both turn in our return-trip tickets, claiming we had decided to go back to New York by plane. This would necessitate my filling out and signing a railroad company form; an extra little bit of evidence.
It was foolproof. And after a decent period of mourning, I would marry my Karen and live happily and solvently — ever after.
The day arrived. After breakfast I told Janice I would see her on the following Monday, and I took my suitcase with me to the office. Karen and I left at twelve, and the plan went promptly into effect. Karen took both our suitcases with her to Grand Central and I headed immediately uptown, stopping off only to buy a hat and topcoat. I caught the train at 125th Street and, in its swaying men’s room, I donned the horn-rimmed glasses and the mustache.
The train arrived barely five minutes late, and I found the station virtually deserted at this time of day; even the newsstand was shut down. I saw no one I knew in the twenty-block walk to the house, striding along with the pistol an unaccustomed weight in my pocket. I arrived at the house, saw the little foreign car in the driveway, which meant Janice was at home, and let myself in the front door with my key.