Richard Doss—Eldon Mate

Richard Doss’s relationship with Eldon Mate is defined by hatred, but its immediate source is not simply Mate’s death: Joanne Doss chose to go to Mate without telling her husband, leaving Richard to learn of her decision from the police after she disappeared and was found in Lancaster. Richard later made no secret of his loathing for Mate, even as his willingness to be questioned complicated Alex Delaware’s first suspicion that Richard might have acted against him.

The conflict’s origin

Joanne’s choice belonged to her, not Richard. When Alex asked who had decided to go to Mate, Richard’s account was unequivocal: Joanne had made the decision herself and had not told her husband. She disappeared one night and was found the next morning in Lancaster. Richard learned what had happened when the police contacted him. The sequence matters to the relationship: Mate became bound to Richard not only as the person Joanne had sought, but as someone whose role in her fate had been concealed from him until after the fact.

Richard tried to contact Mate, but Mate never returned his calls. That failed attempt at contact left the two men without a reported conversation in which Richard could challenge Mate or hear his explanation. Alex suggests that being left out may help account for Richard’s hatred. It remains a qualified reading rather than a settled motive: Richard’s resentment is clear, but the account does not establish everything he felt about Joanne’s decision or Mate’s part in it.

Hatred in the aftermath

When Richard later spoke with Alex, he dismissed the police interest in him as likely part of a routine list, placing himself near its bottom. He then emphasized the reason he believed the case should not be reduced to his possible involvement: Mate had murdered two other women after Joanne. Richard’s language made his moral judgment unmistakable. He described Mate as a contemptible man and treated the additional killings as proof of the harm Mate had done. His hostility was not concealed or softened for Alex’s benefit.

Richard also said he had an alibi and invited the police to speak with him. He was willing for them to hear how strongly he hated Mate, and said he would welcome the chance to expose damaging facts about Mate’s life. He urged Alex to continue consulting with the police rather than withdraw from the case, even though the consultation could bring Richard’s own connection to Alex’s attention. His position was therefore double-edged: he had a reason to resent Mate, but he did not respond to scrutiny by asking Alex to protect him or keep the relationship secret.

Suspicion and competing readings

Alex’s initial reaction to the news of Mate’s murder was that Richard might have gone after him. Richard had made his contempt plain from the outset, giving Alex a readily available motive to consider. After learning how brutal the killing had been, however, Alex felt less certain that it matched Richard’s style. That impression did not clear Richard: Alex recognized that he could not know how much of Richard’s character had been disclosed to him. He regarded Richard as controlled and forceful, a man who seemed to crowd every room, yet also as someone who revealed only what he chose.

Milo Sturgis tests the apparent contradiction in a later conversation with Alex. He asks whether Richard is like the others who admire Mate; Alex leaves Richard to express his own view. Milo reads Alex’s smile as confirmation that Richard disliked Mate. Alex does not claim otherwise, but points out that he has not said so. The exchange keeps the distinction between evidence and inference alive: Richard’s animosity is firmly supported, while what that animosity means for his possible role in the murder remains a question.

What the relationship leaves unresolved

Richard’s openness about his hatred does not resolve the suspicion it creates. His account presents a man excluded from Joanne’s decision, unable to reach Mate afterward, and convinced that Mate was responsible for grievous harm. His later invitation to investigate Mate can be read as a genuine demand to expose him; in the murder inquiry, it also sits alongside the fact that Richard had an obvious grievance. The narrative preserves both readings without turning either into proof.

For Alex, this relationship is shaped as much by the limits of his knowledge as by Richard’s declared feelings. Richard’s controlled manner encourages suspicion, while his straightforward disclosure of the hatred and his acceptance of police attention resist a simple portrait of concealment. The central fracture remains Joanne’s private choice and Richard’s exclusion from it. Mate’s death brings that old grievance into the present, but neither Richard’s anger nor his cooperation alone settles what he did.