Licking the last drip of ice cream off my spoon, I wondered if it was just me, or do other people get all mixed up inside about junk like that, too.
The Dangling Woman
by William Bunce
Owen winked at Sam, the studio engineer, as the voice on his headphones droned on. “I don’t know why he would run around on me,” the voice was saying. “After twenty years, he tells me he’s been seeing another woman. I swear she’s young enough to be his daughter.”
The quiver in her voice told him she was about to burst into tears, but he headed her off. “Now, now, my dear,” he soothed. “It’s not uncommon for an older man to become involved with a woman half his age. It’s not the end of the world. Give him a little time and when he finally pulls out of his tailspin, your marriage will be stronger than ever.”
“He told me he wants to see a lawyer...” Her words dissolved into a torrent of sobs.
This woman wasn’t about to listen to reason, Owen decided. Her blubbering was starting to break up his sound quality. “Sorry,” he said brightly, “I have to give some time to the folks who pay the bills. Thanks for calling.” He punched line number three dead. “This is your personal marriage counselor, Dr. Owen Stanford, here to provide comfort and advice to those lonely voices in the night. We’ll be right back after a few words from Alpine Dog Food — your pooch would climb a mountain for it.”
After cuing in the dog food tape, he leaned back in the chair and stared at the lights blinking on his console, every one representing some small portion of human misery. Suffering sells, isn’t that what the station manager had said? Now his sponsors were fighting each other for air time, and a more lucrative contract was in the works. Owen had found his niche. As long as the faithful were willing to lap up his bland prescriptions for marital bliss, he was willing to dish them out.
Sam came into the booth with a freshly delivered pizza, still steaming in the box. “If you ask me, that last dame was the pits. With a voice like that, it’s no wonder hubby ran out on her.”
“Yeah, she was a whiner, wasn’t she?” That was the only trouble with this job, Owen thought. Rarely did a man call in to discuss a problem. He was forced to listen to a never-ending chorus of whining women. Then he had to go home to Marcia — the worst whiner of the lot. “Why don’t you set up practice like a professional? A bartender has better hours than you do. Only trash wash their dirty linen in public.” On and on it went. Unfortunately, he couldn’t silence his wife with the mere push of a button.
But there were other ways.
He threw his headset on just in time to catch the closing of the ad. “Alpine Dog Food,” he crooned. “Your pooch would climb a mountain for it.” Owen twirled his hand over the board like a magician about to produce a rabbit out of a hat and pressed the number three button. “Dr. Owen Stanford here, and what is your problem?”
There was no answer. Dead air — the worst thing that can happen in radio. Cursing under his breath, he reached for a slice of pizza. “Seems we have a teeny case of stage fright out there,” he said into the mike. “Don’t be shy, my dear. Pretend you’re talking to your oldest and dearest friend.” Nothing. Outside the booth, Sam drew a finger across his throat. Owen was just about to hit the next button when a sound came over the line. It was so low and hoarse and buried in static he couldn’t make it out at first. “You’ll have to speak up if you want to stay on the air,” he warned.
“My husband,” the voice said. It was still barely audible. For some reason, Owen was reminded of the times as a child when he had held a seashell up to his ear and listened to the throb of waves on a distant shore. He turned up the volume slightly.
“Your husband, madam? What about your husband?”
This time the voice was clearer. “What do you think of a man who does violence to his wife?”
Owen jolted upright in his seat, his face the color of the cardboard box in front of him. He yanked off the earphones and flung them down on the console. His eyes were pinned to the little red number three light.
“Something the matter, doc?” Sam raced into the booth just in time to catch him as he stumbled over some cables on the floor. Owen wiped the perspiration from his brow and tried to collect himself. “That voice. It sounded just like...”
“Just like who?”
He looked at the fat, good-natured face of his engineer. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s nothing, Sam. Look, would you mind cuing in some music while I splash some water on my face?”
“Sure, doc.” He helped him over to the door. “You go pull yourself together. Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
At three o’clock in the morning the station was deserted except for Sam and him, but he went down a darkened corridor to a pay phone and called a number he had written on a piece of paper.
He counted as the phone rang three times. On the fourth, someone picked up the receiver and a gruff voice said, “Hello?”
“This is Owen Stanford. What in blazes went wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing went wrong.” The man sounded offended. “I told you. I’m a professional at this business.”
“Marcia must’ve gotten out of it,” he hissed into the phone. “She just called me over the air.”
There was a pause at the other end. “Did she say she was your wife?”
“No, but...”
“Then how do you know it was her?” The voice was calm, analytic, and there was a certain contempt for Owen’s panicky thinking. “Look,” the man continued, “I did it just like I planned it. I went in through the bedroom window you left unlatched and let her have it while she was listening to your show. She must have sensed me in the room. Funny thing was she didn’t scream or anything. She just said, ‘Owen sent you, didn’t he?’ I said, ‘Yeah, and he paid me a bundle.’ Then I hit her. If you know the right spot, it only takes once. I checked her pulse just to make sure. Luckily, she was still dressed, so I took her car out to Indian Point and dropped her over the edge. It must be five hundred feet down to the highway. A few cars will probably run over her in the fog before they find the body. All the loose ends have been tied together neatly. Nothing to worry about, pal. Not many of my clients have a live radio show for an alibi.”
Owen leaned against the wall. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe my nerves are getting the best of me.”
“Sure, and one more thing, pal.”
“What’s that?”
“You come blabbing over the phone again and you’ll join your missus.”
“Sorry to bother you.” Owen slammed down the phone.
The hit man was right. It must be his imagination. How could a woman, bludgeoned to death, dumped over the side of a cliff, and run over by some passing cars, pick up a phone and badger him over the air? No, the whole idea was ridiculous. If he had only continued the conversation, he would have found the caller to be a total stranger, another poor slob looking for a mental massage, just like the rest.
He went into the men’s room and washed his face with cold water. It made him feel a lot better. He looked at his face in the mirror. Fifty years old and he still had his good looks. Too good to waste on some over-the-hill crone who didn’t appreciate his celebrity status. There were plenty of young women out there aching to hook up with a radio personality like himself. After an appropriate period of mourning, Dr. Owen Stanford was determined to accommodate them.
He ran through the next few hours in his mind. If he didn’t get a call from the cops first, he would go straight home from the studio and report Marcia’s disappearance. They would find her empty car at the top of Indian Point and her body hundreds of feet below on the highway. Of course he would mention her recent depression. The thought made him smile. Marcia was nothing if not depressing.