Richard Doss and Eldon Mate

Richard Doss and Eldon Mate are linked by Joanne Doss’s death and by Richard’s eventual attempt to have Mate killed. Their antagonism develops at a distance: Richard says he tried several times to contact Mate after Joanne died, but Mate never answered. The unanswered calls become part of a larger grievance, one shaped by Richard’s possessiveness, Mate’s public notoriety, and the unresolved meaning of his role in Joanne’s assisted death. Richard ultimately admits paying Quentin Goad to murder Mate, turning that grievance into a crime.

The Grievance Begins with Joanne’s Death

Nearly a year before the news coverage of Richard’s questioning, Eldon Mate assisted Joanne Doss in ending her life. The report identifies Richard as her former husband and describes the assisted suicide as the connection between the two men. It does not establish what Richard knew at the time, or how much he understood about the circumstances of Joanne’s death; instead, it places Mate’s involvement at the center of the public account of Richard’s later suspicion in the murder.

Richard later confirms that he tried to reach Mate after Joanne died, not once but several times. He says Mate did not return his calls or offer him the courtesy of a reply. The efforts suggest that Richard sought some form of response or engagement, but the text does not specify what he wanted to ask or whether contact would have changed his view of Mate. The refusal—or simple absence—of an answer becomes a defining feature of their relationship: Richard is left with a grievance, while Mate remains inaccessible to him.

Publicity, Possession, and Resentment

In a conversation about why Richard might hate Mate, Alex Delaware asks what could have made the hostility so intense. His interlocutor proposes that Richard may have seen Mate as taking something that belonged to him, and describes Richard as someone who likes his possessions. This is offered as a possible explanation, not as a confirmed account of Richard’s thoughts. It frames the conflict in possessive terms: Mate’s involvement in Joanne’s death may have seemed to Richard like an intrusion into a relationship and a decision over which he believed he should have had control.

Richard’s own remarks emphasize a different grievance. He complains that Mate did not hold a press conference about Joanne, then agrees that publicity appeared to be a motive in Mate’s activities. He calls Mate a publicity-seeker, but also says Mate was only a name in the papers to him. Those claims sit uneasily together. Richard condemns Mate’s public profile while describing him as someone personally remote, a figure known through news coverage rather than direct acquaintance. The tension matters because the conflict is not presented as a feud built through sustained face-to-face dealings; it grows around Joanne, failed attempts at contact, and the public image Richard assigns to Mate.

From Failed Contact to Murder-for-Hire

When Alex raises the possibility that Richard paid Quentin Goad, the question is initially hypothetical: why would Richard hate Mate so much? Later, Richard admits that he did pay Goad to murder the doctor. That admission changes the status of the earlier complaints. The unanswered calls and hostility toward Mate’s publicity are no longer merely evidence of resentment; they sit beside a confirmed attempt to turn resentment into violence.

The novel connects the planned murder to Richard’s need for control and to the way he understood Joanne’s conduct. Alex’s later reflection links Richard’s sense of control with rejection and retribution, and considers the attempt to kill Mate as a possible form of closure. But that interpretation remains an analysis of the circumstances, not a full confession of motive. The evidence establishes Richard’s payment to Goad and his anger toward Mate; it does not reduce the act to one certain psychological cause. The possibility that Richard believed Mate had intervened in something that belonged to him remains suggestive rather than proven.

The public consequences arrive before the admission is known. Alex hears a television report identifying Richard Theodore Doss, a forty-six-year-old Pacific Palisades businessman and Joanne’s former husband, as the man being questioned in Mate’s murder. The report says that a possible murder-for-hire scheme has not been confirmed and that Richard’s attorney has arrived at the West Los Angeles police station. Alex recognizes the building he has just left in the background of the broadcast; the news crew appears to have arrived moments after his departure. A private conflict is thus rapidly converted into a public story, with Mate’s assisted death supplying the reported connection and the suspected contract killing drawing fresh attention.

Aftermath and the Rivalry over Mate’s Legacy

Richard’s attempt to kill Mate does not remain the only act associated with the doctor’s name. Later, Alex proposes that Michael Burke may have killed Alice Zoghbie and Roy Haiselden both to obtain incriminating records and to claim attention for himself. In Alex’s interpretation, Richard’s arrest may have accelerated Burke’s plans: Burke would not want someone else credited with the murder of a figure associated with death and notoriety, and would seek to present himself as the new Dr. Death. This is Alex’s theory about Burke, not evidence that Richard and Burke collaborated or shared a motive.

That later parallel enlarges the meaning of Richard and Mate’s antagonism without erasing its personal roots. Richard’s act arises from his connection to Joanne and his hostility toward the man who assisted her death; Burke’s alleged actions are framed as a bid for records, attention, and succession. In both cases, however, Mate’s public identity becomes something another man tries to control. The relationship ends in violence against Mate, but its consequences continue through competing accounts of who had a claim to his story and who would inherit the notoriety attached to the name.