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through the drugstore to the parking lot. It was really funny, except that he took it so seriously. He was so pale and intense in his white coat, he looked like some kind of medieval fanatic. Laurel told me that after that he called her every day—he had her name and address from the prescription—and they were married just a few months later.”
    “Are you certain that was the first time they met?”
    “Of course. Laurel didn’t know him at all. And she told me she’d never been in that drugstore before. It was the Save-More in Westwood.”
    “What was the prescription she got filled?”
    “I think it was sleeping pills—some kind of barbiturates.”
    “Does she use a lot of them?”
    “Yes, I’m afraid she does. Just last week we had a bit of an argument about it. She was eating Seconals as if they were salted peanuts. And then she’d sleep like the dead.”
    “Is she self-destructive, would you say?”
    The woman considered the question, her face inert in thought. “I’d say she is, in a way. But I don’t know exactly what you’re getting at.”
    “I’ll be specific, since you’re a good friend of hers—”
    “I try to be. Sometimes it’s hard. I’m not too happy about some of the things I just told you.”
    “I’d say you were doing her a favor. Earlier tonight, Laureltook a tube of Nembutal capsules from the medicine cabinet in my apartment. I don’t know where she went with them or what she’s likely to do with them.”
    The woman’s eyes darkened and enlarged. “Did something happen to upset her?”
    “A couple of things. One was the oil spill off Pacific Point. She seemed to take it personally—probably because her family’s involved. She was trying to rescue an oiled bird, and it died on her. She asked me to bring her here—”
    “To me?” Joyce said in pleased surprise.
    “To her husband. But when she phoned him from my apartment, he wouldn’t pick her up. Apparently he had to go to work, but she took it as a major rebuff. Right after that, she grabbed my pills and took off. And I’m afraid.”
    “So am I afraid,” she said quietly.
    “Has she ever attempted suicide?”
    “No. I don’t think so. She’s talked about it, though.”
    “As something she might do?”
    “Yes. I believe so.”
    “Did she say how?”
    “She mentioned pills, I think, but that was some time ago, before she was married. She told me more than once that it would be nice to go to sleep and never wake up again.”
    “Did she say why?”
    “The way Laurel’s mind worked, she didn’t have to have a good reason. She wasn’t a happy girl.” The woman’s voice deepened. “There was a part of her that always wanted to die.”
    “That almost sounds like an epitaph.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way.” She clenched her fists and made an exaggerated shivering movement as if she was shedding the cold thought. “I’m sure she’s alive. I’m sure she took your sleeping pills just to get a good night’s sleep.”
    “They’d give her a very good night’s sleep. Where should I look for her, Joyce?”
    “I really don’t know. Does she have much money with her?”
    “I doubt it. I thought of trying her uncle’s place in Bel-Air. What’s his name—Somerville?”
    “Captain Benjamin Somerville. He’s a retired Navy captain who married her father’s sister. His phone number is unlisted, but I can give you his address.”
    She copied it out of an address book and followed me to the door. “Have you known Laurel long?”
    “We met on the beach this afternoon.”
    She didn’t ask me how, which was just as well. I might have had to tell her that I had followed Laurel, just as Tom Russo had followed her out of the drugstore in his white coat.

chapter
8
    The darkness in Bel-Air was almost thick enough to lean on. I drove around in it for a while and eventually found a mailbox with “Capt. Benjamin Somerville USN (ret.)” printed on it in white. There were several bullet holes in the