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By 2:30 a.m., I was driving south on Interstate 5 in my rental car, heading to the Hyatt hotel in Burbank. I had to be there by 7:00 a.m. for my perfect alibi. I checked the clock on my console, calculating the time and distance ahead. I had four hours to race down I-5, which slices through the dry Central Valley, where towns are scarce, the road is as straight as a ruler, and the seventy miles per hour speed limit is a joke: eighty miles per hour is standard for eighteen-wheelers, SUVs, cars, buses, and produce trucks carrying tomatoes, onions, artichokes, and spinach from the irrigated industrial farms. Speeding down I-5 was critical for carrying out my time-sensitive plan; if I was five minutes late, my alibi could blow up like Lyle’s love nest.
First-degree double murder charges in California meant I’d rot on death row at San Quentin for a couple of decades. Sometime in my sixties, I’d get the needle when I should have been playing golf, bridge, and going to the spa in Palm Springs. Needless to say, that retirement scenario was a strong motivator to get to Burbank by 7:00 a.m. I couldn’t fathom sharing a death row cell with losers like Scott Peterson and Richard Allen Davis. Was Charles Manson at San Quentin? Wait a minute—did convicted women murderers even go to San Quentin? I didn’t know. It would be irrelevant as long as I made it to Burbank by 7:00 a.m.
I had plotted my round trip with my engineer’s precision: Leave Burbank at 7:00, drive north on I-5 until 11:30, take I-580 to the Bay Area, cross the San Rafael Bridge into Marin County, and drive south on Highway 101 to the Marin Headlands turnoff, a mile north of the Golden Gate Bridge. I had calculated the trip like a general plans a beach landing. An hour at the hideaway and back-tracking to Burbank. Total distance: seven hundred and fifty miles. Time of travel: twelve hours if I drove fast.
My dastardly deed plan had been brewing since I had confirmed my suspicion that Lyle had a new bimbo on the side. For three months, he and his cookie were enjoying trysts when I was on business trips in San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, and Los Angeles as my company prepared a major software release for the fall. Most business trips were for three days, two nights, Tuesday through Thursday.
My first suspicions of Lyle’s infidelity came by accident through his cell phone patterns. When I’d call his cell phone from business trips, I’d reach him at home the first night, Tuesday, after I’d returned from the normal business dinner. On Wednesday nights, I’d call, reach his voice mail, and leave a rambling message about my busy day. He’d return my call Thursday morning when I was getting dressed in my hotel room. After this happened twice, my gut told me something was going on. He had something going on Wednesday nights. I was going to catch him and make him pay.
I changed my calling pattern. I would call the creep on Wednesday nights but not leave a message. I’d let him sweat, wondering if I had called or not. Thursday morning, he’d call with elaborate alibis for not talking the previous night.
“I was at the gym and left my cell phone at home,” was his first lie. What a phony. He went to the gym at lunchtime. He never worked out at night.
“My battery was dead,” was his next lie. I saw through that; the guy was so tech-addicted that he was always hooked up to his pager, PDA, cell phone, and iPad.
“I was having beers with the guys.” How lame; he hardly drank during the week, and most of his friends were married and at home with the wife and kids.
But I didn’t question his alibis; I didn’t want him to suspect I was on to his games.
After I was convinced he was fooling around, I fantasized about hauling his sorry ass into divorce court. But I made more money than Lyle—a lot more. The last thing I wanted was to pay alimony for his recreational boinking. Courtesy of California’s community property laws, he’d get half of the expensive San Francisco home that we’d bought largely with a down payment I’d been stashing away since I was twenty and working my way through the university. He had put down ten grand; my contribution had been $150,000.
The more I thought about it, the only fair way to deal with Lyle’s carousing was to murder him. But doing it without getting caught could be tricky. I’m a decent engineer with an analytical mind. Using my problem-solving skills to whack my husband became a challenge. A fun challenge, in fact. I wanted to put him away so I wouldn’t have to pay the price for murdering him. What an exciting challenge for an engineer! Spousal murder as a work project. My juices started flowing.
I had identified his love slave at the weekend barbecue. In that happy little group was a sexy blonde—the type that Lyle normally couldn’t have taken his eyes off. He always had a thing for Madonna-like sexpots. His wandering eye never stopped roaming at dinner parties, the theater, or shopping. A sex grenade would come into view, and he’d stop mid-sentence until she had passed. A stunning redhead would stroll by our table, and his wolf eyes would follow her rear end like a puppy chasing a ball. It was embarrassing and shameless, and it really pissed me off.
But at Alex’s party, Lyle had avoided sexy blonde like she was HIV-positive. A wife notices these things. Guys are open books; wives can read them without breaking a sweat. They’re just little boys who love being bad. All that afternoon at Alex’s—over cocktails, on the patio, at dinner—Lyle had avoided talking to sexy blonde but stole furtive glances at her and turned away, thinking I wouldn’t notice. She was the only woman at the gathering that we didn’t talk to, other than saying hello when our paths crossed on the patio.
“Honey, this is Louise, a friend of Alex’s.” And then he had taken my arm and rushed me inside so fast I thought I would snap my neck.
The clincher had come at dusk as steaks and salmon were grilling on the deck. I was passing by the kitchen on the way to the bathroom when I overheard Alex tell Lyle, “Thanks for that bottle of Chateau Margaux. It was delicious. Anytime you need this place, just let me know.” They cackled like hyenas, and Alex slapped Lyle on the shoulder. As I passed by the kitchen, they changed the subject abruptly to inane comments about getting tickets to the Giants series with the Mets the next weekend.
Two and two equal four. Lyle had left the expensive wine as a thank-you gift after his latest tryst with Louise. You didn’t need to be Sherlock to draw that conclusion.
My plan had hatched on the drive back to our Twin Peaks home in San Francisco that night. Lyle had been quiet, either feeling guilty about having Louise and me at the same party or fantasizing about their next shack job. The following Monday, I let Lyle know that my next business trip would be to Burbank at the end of July, giving him time to set up his tryst.
My plan was simple in design but complicated in execution. I would fly down to Burbank on Tuesday morning and return Thursday afternoon. Two nights away. Wednesdays were the days Lyle had his trysts. Louise must have something scheduled on Tuesday nights. Maybe her shrink appointment, or a date with her other boyfriend.
I knew my way around Burbank from past business trips. I always rented a car at the airport and drove to the hotel, passing strip malls, used car dealerships, retail shops, and odd little businesses. I had spotted an independent car rental a mile from the hotel, not one of the national chains you see at airports.
After I checked into my hotel Tuesday morning, I walked to the independent dealership and rented a second car. I used a fake name, paid in cash, left a $1,000 deposit, and drove to the shopping center next to my hotel, where a metroplex was featuring a dozen popular movies.
I kicked off my plan at the end of drinks after Wednesday’s trade show.
“I’m going to catch this new movie at the metroplex,” I told my colleagues in the bar while they debated which restaurant they would head to for dinner.
“Have fun. I read the reviews,” my boss said. “See you at breakfast tomorrow.”
I did a finger wave, grabbed my purse, and headed upstairs to my room. I slipped out of my pantsuit; changed into jeans, sweatshirt, and baseball hat; and grabbed a black traveling bag packed with tricks for my evening adventure.
I bought a ticket at the metroplex and gr
eeted the ticket seller, who looked about nineteen and more interested in his iPod than in talking with customers. At the concession stand, I bought popcorn and a Coke from a fifty-year-old woman who looked uncomfortable in her brown and tan uniform.
“Hi, Helen,” I said, reading her name tag. “You like the feature movie?”
She looked at me as if I were from the IRS. “What movie? All they play is silly teen comedies and slasher movies. They’re gross.”
I told her the movie I was going to see, a winner at the Sundance Festival that I’d seen the previous week in San Francisco.
“Wasitabout?” she asked, screwing up her eyes and letting my Coke spill out over the tall cup.
“Oh, shit,” she said, “Damn, I did it again. They’re going to fire me if I keep screwing up.”
She took my money, and I moved a dollar tip across the glass counter. Helen looked as if she had stuck her finger in a light socket.
“Thanks for your service, Helen. Have a nice evening.”
I got in line as the bored ticket taker tore tickets and told patrons which theater to go to. When I got to him, I put down my popcorn and soda and reached into pockets before pulling out my ticket and handing it to him.
“Sorry,” I said, smiling at the overweight attendant. I had put a chink in his routine, just enough that he would remember the dizzy broad who couldn’t find her ticket. I wanted him to remember me. And the ticket seller. And Helen. They would be questioned one day.
In the darkened theater I watched previews and the first ten minutes of the movie, munching popcorn and sneaking glances at the patrons whose eyes were glued to the screen. At 6:50, I put down my popcorn and slipped out to the restroom. I hurried through the crowds and left via a darkened exit. I hurried across the parking lot to my second rental car and drove to I-5, ten minutes away.
I had my canvas bag with my wig on the seat next to me. When I stopped for gas later that night, I’d don the wig and put on the baseball cap.
In my bag were bottled water, fruit, snack bars, a sandwich, and amphetamines to keep me alert for the next twelve hours. I had popped pills with work projects and thought I could make it with two or three; one on my return from Marin and the other around 3:00 a.m., when the boredom of speeding down I-5 could make me drowsy. Mother’s little helpers would keep me alert.
In twenty minutes I was speeding at seventy-five miles per hour on I-5, heading north to my rendezvous at the Marin Headlands. On the seat was my project book with schedule, mileage, gas station stops, and time calculations. I checked off the first notation for departure time; I was five minutes ahead of schedule.