mia baran is a devout catholic schoolteacher at a boys' school outside pittsburgh where her husband, guy, is schoolmaster. guy is abusive to the weak mia, a former nun who suffers from cardiomyopathy; his mistress, nicole horner, a fellow teacher at the school, is protective of mia. when both women grow tired of his abuses, they collaborate to murder him in an apartment owned by a family friend of nicole's. the women lure him there, and mia drugs him before they successfully drown him in a bathtub. they wrap his body in a shower curtain and place it in a wicker box.