The Suspense Project: 1947-01-02 Tree of Life - Free Audiobook

Tree of Life concerns two husbands who have a single thought: to do away with their wives. They live next door and they barely know each other. Neither is aware of the other’s plans, but this is the kind of gruesome desire that one would keep secret anyway. Mark Stevens’ character tires of his wife’s expectations for them to achieve a level of “gracious living.” He decides he’s had enough and decides to do away with her. The husband next door, Mr. Roxborough, is tired of his wife, too, except he hires experts (a/k/a “hit men”) to take care of the problem. Uh-oh. It can’t end well.

A similar “tree of life” decoration on each of their homes causes contract killers to go into the wrong home to commit their crime. They have broken into the home of Mark Stevens’ character by mistake and have murdered his wife. He innocently walks home and enters the scene. They start referring to him as “Roxborough” and make all sorts of threats against him. He has to go along with it all, and even dictate a confession letter to blackmail him and keep quiet about their “work.” It’s clear they’ll kill him if he doesn’t cooperate or tells them of their mistake. He doesn’t know how to sign it because he doesn’t know his neighbor’s first name! A few more twists and turns from there, including an “it just so happens” chance encounter with Roxborough add to the mystery and the conclusion.

The title “Tree of Life” is a contradiction with the storyline because death and deception play key parts in it. The symbol of a tree is Celtic in origin and represents the connection between earth and heaven, past and present earthly life and heavenly afterlife. There is not one specific design for the symbol, but all share a very old and established tree with a wide trunk, and many long and high branches. It is often inside a round border and can be found in jewelry, paintings, and other art forms.

The scriptwriter is announced as “J. Douglas Ware.” But the author was actually his sister, Joan Ware. She worked at the CBS script department. Joan and her brother would talk about stories and their conversations would often result in some curious plotlines, like this one. Douglas was called to serve in the Pacific as a pilot, and was killed in action. She had the script attributed to him as a memorial.

Only one recording of this episode has survived. It is not known to which coast that network recording was broadcast. The closing announcements go directly to network ID (“dirID”).

This was the only appearance of Mark Stevens on Suspense.

The cast:

MARK STEVENS (James Dawson), Cathy Lewis (Helen), Wally Maher (Max), Elliott Lewis (Rico), Hans Conried (Roxborough), Joe Kearns (Signature Voice), Jerry Hausner (Harvey), Sandra Gould / Bea Benaderet? (Lillian)