SLENDER THREAD, THE

Abstract

Psychology student Alan Newell, a black volunteer worker at Seattle's Crisis Clinic, receives a phone call from Inga Dyson, a housewife and mother who has taken an overdose of sleeping pills but will not reveal where she can be reached. Through a series of flashbacks, Mrs. Dyson explains that she wants to kill herself to solve marital problems precipitated when her husband, Mark, a fishing captain, discovered that their son is the product of a premarital affair. Newell and Dr. Coburn, a psychologist, arrange for the police to put an emergency trace on the call while Mrs. Dyson continues to talk about her feelings. Under the guidance of Sgt. Harry Ward, Patrolmen Steve Peters and Bert Enyard search for the woman while Mrs. Dyson recounts to Newell the coldness of her husband and a previous suicide attempt that resulted in her hospitalization. The police notify Mark of his wife's circumstances, search her home, and call the Coast Guard to transport her husband from his fleet to Seattle. Sergeant Ward enters the motel room where he has traced Mrs. Dyson just as she drops into a coma. A doctor notifies Newell that Mrs. Dyson can be saved, and, accompanied by her husband, she is placed in an ambulance.