A man is plotting to kill his wife. He and she have not been married very long, and, except for a brief period of sexual infatuation after they first met, he has never really cared for her. Believably enough, given that she is mean and selfish and treats him with contempt, the man has come to hate her. Misogyny has always run deep in this man, partly thanks to a mother who enjoyed beating him when he was small. It seems he has never had sex with any woman—from the town prostitute he frequents to his lawful wedded wife—without experiencing intense shame. Beginning in childhood, with his own mother, he has often fantasized about murdering this or that particular woman. In his mind he dubs these women “candidates.” For strangulation, that is.

The man has arranged to take his wife on a second honeymoon to the Caribbean resort where they’d spent their first one. He chooses the resort hotel for the scene of the crime because he figures it will be quite easy to fake a break-in from the balcony of their room. The “burglar” will find his wife alone and end up strangling her. The man plans every detail with scrupulous care, then sits back to wait for the day of their departure, set for some months away. In the meantime, though, he detects certain changes in his wife’s behavior that he is unsure how to interpret. He becomes convinced that she is hiding something, something that might foil his plan. As it turns out, the wife’s secret is that she’d become pregnant. The man learns this at the same time that he learns that she has just had an abortion. A Catholic—albeit a lapsed one—the wife becomes obsessed with the idea that she is going to Hell.

The man can hardly believe his luck. No need to travel all the way to Aruba. No need to fake breaking and entering. Best of all, no need to wait. His wife has just handed him a wholly believable reason for her to take her own life. He has even overheard her crying to her best friend about her fear that, in the eyes of the Church, she is guilty of murder. And so the man begins to work out details of a new plan.