#!/usr/bin/perl -wl
use strict;
use POSIX;

my $pid = fork;
if ( $pid ) {
    kill TERM => $pid;
    # wait for kill TERM to take effect
    select undef, undef, undef, 0.01;  
    my $reaped = waitpid $pid => WNOHANG;
    if ($reaped == $pid) {
        print "already gone.";         # <---
    } else {
        print "trying harder...";
        kill 9 => $pid;
    }
} else {
    sleep 3;
}