Double

“Oh?” She looked surprised and motioned at a pair of easy chairs. “I had the impression you were good friends.”

I sat down, and she took the chair next to me. “From whom?”

“Elaine. She was very pleased you were here and said something about looking forward to having a long talk with you.”

That was odd, I thought. On Friday afternoon, Elaine had confined our conversation to a casual chat over drinks. But we’d always been able to talk easily and at considerable depth; maybe after that initial meeting she’d decided to confide in me about what was bothering her.

“I take it you didn’t have that talk, then?” Sugarman asked.

“No,” I said regretfully. Maybe if we had, I could have prevented Elaine’s death. If she’d wanted to talk to me, it was because I was also a professional investigator and could help her deal with a threatening situation.

Sugarman was watching me with keen, evaluative eyes. Her gaze reminded me she was a therapist and made me slightly edgy. “When I said I didn’t know Elaine all that well, I didn’t mean that we weren’t friends,” I said. “It’s just that I don’t have much idea of what her life was like these past years.”

Sugarman stretched her long legs and leaned back in her chair. It wasn’t the same catlike motion I’d seen her make yesterday morning in Elaine’s office, but more of an effort to ease some sort of discomfort. Her eyes were deeply shadowed, as if she’d had a bad night — and probably she had. Like June Paxton, she was taking Elaine’s death hard. “Well, Elaine’s life was pretty much like mine,” she said. “In fact, we had very similar interests.”

“And what were those?”

“Our work, the Women’s Forum.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table between us. “When you’re trying to build a career, it comes first. Many times it doesn’t even allow for personal relationships.”

I thought of Rich Woodall and Henry Nyland, then asked, “Do you have any idea what Elaine wanted to talk over with me?”

“I’m sorry, she didn’t confide in me.”

“Well, I do know something was bothering her. I keep hearing how she wasn’t herself lately, that she might have committed suicide. I thought you’d be a good person to discuss that with, on account of your work.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I wonder if you know the cause of her depression.”

“You mean, was I her therapist?”

“That wasn’t my specific question, but the thought has crossed my mind.”

Sugarman exhaled smoke, made a face, and crushed the cigarette out. “God, everything tastes terrible today. To answer your question — no, Elaine wasn’t one of my clients, although she’d seen different therapists from time to time. But my practice is mainly with lesbian or bisexual women. Elaine didn’t go either way.” She hesitated. “Perhaps that was part of her problem.”

She seemed to be saying this last more to herself than to me, but I asked, “What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s merely a personal evaluation and has no bearing on her suicide.”

“You believe it was suicide, then?”

“What else? One doesn’t trip and fall over a three-foot railing.”

I nodded, unwilling to bring up the possibility of murder yet. “Did Elaine say anything to you about a problem at the hotel?”

“Plenty. Lloyd Beddoes isn’t the easiest man to work for.”

“Maybe that was what she wanted to talk to me about. What exactly did she say about the situation there?”

“Oh, the usual on-the-job carping. Not that I blame her. Lloyd can be a petty bastard if there ever was one.”

“You know him well, then?”

She leaned forward and reached for another cigarette, her tawny hair falling forward across her cheek. “Only through Elaine, but that was enough.”

“What about Rich Woodall?”

She stopped, match halfway to the cigarette. “Rich Woodall? What about him?”

“Then you do know him.”

“Only slightly.” The match burned her fingers and she dropped it in the ashtray. “You’ll have to forgive me — bad nerves today. What about Woodall?”

“Apparently, Elaine was seeing him, or had been. There was an unpleasant scene in the bar at the Casa del Rey Friday afternoon. A friend of mine saw it. Woodall seemed to be threatening Elaine, and he grabbed her. Later he claimed to me that he hadn’t even spoken to her.”

“God! That disgusting little I.P.!” Sugarman finally got the cigarette lit and flung the match into the ashtray.

“I.P.?”

“It’s a psychological term. Stands for Inadequate Personality. They’re people without much inside; no interior sense of self. They don’t do well in relationships because they aren’t really capable of caring about another person beyond what that person can do for them, even though they appear very sincere. If they’re intelligent, they realize they’re lacking. To cover, they spend their lives running around acquiring things and indulging in a lot of frantic activity. Put on a lot of front. Often they’re quite successful in a worldly way — many of our richest men and most influential politicians are I.P.s, for instance.”

“And that’s your diagnosis of Rich Woodall?”