What did Sally Loribet plan to do about Randy? He might overreact any evening the roast beef didn’t meet his approval, or he may hatch his plot to murder her without provocation. But a wife couldn’t ask her husband when he intended to kill her, could she?
At the dinner table, Sally closed her eyes long enough to picture him snagging the carving knife with the imitation white plastic ivory handles from the white platter in front of his thrift shop plate. His face wrinkled and darkened in that furious manner so familiar in their marriage and so frightening that she expected to hear him roar like a savage beast.
Back in reality, Randy shoveled mashed potatoes into his mouth. Relieved, Sally’s thin lips parted to expel a deep breath as her heart returned to a normal rhythm. Arising from her seat, she heard the words she dreaded most: “Where do you think you’re going?”
Nothing Sally could say prevented another verbal assault followed by the usual thrashing focused on places that don’t show in public. This would be accompanied by the “accidental” smack to the face hard enough to cause her nose and mouth to bleed. By the next morning, he’d forget he beat her and ask her what happened. When she glared back, he’d accuse her of being a stupid klutz.
These days while he pummeled her with his fists, Sally pictured him digging a grave in the basement or among the flowers along the side of the house. Even in death, Randy wouldn’t allow her out of her prison. Instead of escaping, she drifted from room to room like a wraith in search of a peace that no longer existed.
Sally’s bedtime routine, in addition to the usual bathroom preparations, included fiddling with the white metal front door lock, testing the handle and chain lock on the patio door in the family room, and fingering the chains and metal rods that prevented opening the windows. Circling the house a second time assured her the windows and doors barred entry as if the threat waited outside instead of upstairs in the master bedroom.
What could Sally do about a monstrous husband? The thought haunted her. There had to be more than a nightly lock inspection. Besides, Randy considered locks and chains a means of keeping her in rather than keeping people out.
Sally fought the feeling that she caused Randy to beat her, that he’d be kinder if only she obeyed him. She was dissuaded from such thoughts on the Saturday he returned home from a golf outing carrying a brand-new shovel.
“Why a shovel?” she asked.
After a quick rap to the mouth, Randy said, “I want to kill the rat in the house.”
Sally shuddered. “You plan to whack him with a shovel?”
“Nope. I’ll dig her grave with this.”
Sally trembled while Randy took the shovel down to the basement.
Sally could think of no way to escape the growing menace. Randy would locate her no matter how deep into the abyss she vanished. He must never be able to find her, but how could she make that happen in short order? Randy obviously was about to set in motion a plan that ended with her buried in the garden. He’d have to do that late at night out of sight of the neighbors. One more thing for her to worry about at dinner.
One way to escape, at least for a few hours, involved sneaking away on daytime adventures. But he locked her in whenever he went out, so she had to reattach a wire connection to the garage door motor. Randy had underestimated her electrical skills when he disconnected it. He also failed to notice she had ordered a duplicate car key on one of the rare days he had allowed her to shop on her own. He left the garage door opener in her Honda because he thought he had the only key. After each of her little escapades, she disconnected the wire.
On one daytime outing, Sally rode the commuter train into Chicago from her suburban home. In the Loop, she found the tattoo parlor near Ogilvie transportation center that she had discovered with an online search using a computer at her local public library. A strip joint visit in a not-so-good neighborhood followed. If a girl escaped her husband, a new source of income became necessary, didn’t it?
Sally cried when she could think of no way to take on a brute the size of Randy without being killed. Poison, guns, and knives crossed her mind. But the police would trace any of these back to her. Same with a bow and arrow. What would be the point of escaping one prison only to land in another? She considered hiring a hitman. He’d do the job for her and be well-paid, within reason, of course.
The irony of a female hit person taking Randy’s life intrigued Sally. Certain elements living in Chicago’s crime-infested neighborhoods might guide her to one. But could a gangbanger be trusted to do the job in time?
Randy would act soon, so striking first became Sally’s highest priority. Wasn’t hiring a hitman or woman a simple business transaction? Besides, she had to trust someone, no matter how nefarious.
Sally knew that survival required money, something Randy never let her near. She covered her daytime adventures and other expenses by withdrawals from the interest earned from her inheritance from Grandma. Not telling Randy about her grandmother’s death was her first act of serious rebellion against him. This was before she planned to end Randy’s violent ways, but she still worried he’d act first and quickly.
Sally’s secret source of money and daytime getaways emboldened greater action. That Randy wanted her dead increased the sense of urgency in her escape planning. And she had such little time remaining because he obviously planned to act sooner rather than later. This struck a nerve the day Randy brought home a small package. On his way to the bathroom, he placed the plain brown box on a side table in the living room. “It’s for work, so keep your freaking fingers off,” he ordered. While he was indisposed, she checked to see if it was part of Randy’s plan.
When Randy returned, Sally asked, “What do you want with bullets?” She pushed the package across the side table despite knowing the answer involved physical and verbal violence. Maybe he’d act tonight.
“I mentioned before that I plan to kill a large rat that roams this house. Remember, that’s why I purchased the shovel?” Randy walked into the kitchen without harming her. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.
On a happy note, she had a roast in the oven. “You read my mind,” he smiled. Sally could think of one reason for the unusual smile, and it wasn’t roast beef. Randy had set his plan in motion with the bullets one more way to instill sheer terror as part of the setup. But she knew a gun would alert the neighbors as did Randy. His plan must include a knife attack once he figured out how to deal with the splashed blood. Later that evening, she hid the knives in the attic and buried the bullets in the basement using Randy’s new shovel.
***
When Randy burst through the backdoor several evenings later, whiskey-laced as usual, he shouted Sally’s name and pounded a few more holes in the plasterboard with his fists. “Where the hell are you? Hurry down here in two seconds with my dinner, or you know what will happen.”
Sally watched the dance of blood as it dripped from the knife wound. How many minutes before her life changed forever? Or was the question How many seconds? Does it count as a life change if she dies? Would a pint do the job? Or would it take more? Her head went dizzy.
Before he called the police, Randy checked the rest of the house. In the garage off the kitchen, he spotted Sally’s Honda in its usual place, so she couldn’t have run off. When he ventured into the living room, he noticed blood on the carpet. Back in the kitchen, he realized he had not paid attention to the little pool of blood on the tile floor or the blood splashed on the table and the countertop by the sink. He became confused because the house was in shipshape order when he left for work that morning.
“Something must be horribly wrong if a woman vanishes but leaves her purse behind,” said Officer Sorkum.
“Let me see that,” ordered County Detective Aimes. He opened the purse. “What woman leaves the house without her cash, feminine products, house keys, car key, and vaccine card?”
“Check the blood on the outside of the purse, Detective Aimes. Adds to the mystery, don’t you think?”
“Helps clear up the mystery. Book it for evidence.”
Randy concluded that his clumsy wife must have had an accident during the day. He never caused her to bleed. He loved his darling, Sally, even if she required strict discipline from time-to-time. That more than one possible explanation for blood on the floor existed evaded him.
Betty Griver rode a bus to New York City, paying cash for the ticket. A paper trail of plane tickets and car rentals wouldn’t do. For the umpteenth time that day, she moved the backpack filled with cash off her lap to check her long sleeve white blouse and blue jeans for blood stains. While her clothes were clean, the bloody mess left behind in that house this morning worried her. It was the first time she had to use a knife that way, and the truth might come out.
Randy stood quizzical at first but smiled when he realized a bloody shoe print on the living room carpet virtually eliminated deniability for anyone who may have harmed his beloved. It’s not like there would be any witnesses to the crime, so the police needed all the circumstantial evidence they could muster. He dialed 9-1-1.
From New York City, Betty traveled by bus to Scranton to buy a used car for cash, then wound her way to the Poconos, where she purchased a new home in Palmerton. Trust didn’t come easy to a person who did the things Betty did, but escaping the bloody chaos back in that Chicago suburb pumped her up. But what about the damage that resulted? She inhaled and exhaled before a smile crept across her lips.
On the night he found the scattered blood stains, Randy was too drunk to realize the police always placed the husband at the top of their list of suspects. In Sally’s murder case, that list contained one name. The police didn’t find Sally’s body, but the dirt and blood on a new shovel convinced the jury that somewhere in the vast stretches of Chicagoland’s forest preserves, her body lay beneath the soil. The jury spent two hours to find Randy guilty. The judge sentenced him to life without parole.
***
Five years went by when Randy received an interview request. The reporter wrote that she investigated miscarriages of justice. That garnered Randy’s attention because he knew he hadn’t murdered Sally.
When Randy appeared in the gray-walled visitor’s room with that bulletproof plexiglass window where you jabber on an old-fashioned black phone, he blabbed on and on about his innocence as soon as his butt hit the seat. His big chance had arrived at last.
When the reporter heard enough, she lifted her head, removed her sunglasses and wide-brim hat, but kept her old-fashion white gloves on. A smile crossed her lips while he jumped out of his chair and raised his voice. “You!”
Now living in Pennsylvania under the name Betty Griver, Sally Loribet’s moist brown eyes sparkled in response to Randy’s shocked face. She delighted in how a trip into Chicago to visit a nefarious strip club owner recommended by a tattoo parlor manager led to the purchase of a new identity. She giggled at the memory of slitting her wrist that morning long ago to fill a mason jar with more than enough blood to splash around the house. The memory of sewing her own stitches to close the wound like a pioneer ancestor made her wince. The wound healed but left a scar so ugly she always wore long sleeves.
Sally/Betty didn’t bother to respond to Randy when he banged away on the plexiglass partition too thick to break barehanded. What would be the point? Instead, she waved one last time and left as the guards dragged him away. She only visited so Randy would know who had taken his life.
[Image Credit : Photo by Clark Gu on Unsplash ]
by 
Paul R. Lloyd
Latest posts by Paul R. Lloyd (see all)
- How to Take a Life - November 27, 2023
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