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head like that.” He ran his right hand along his temple, pushing his carefully styled hair back. Elkins noted the early hints of a receding hairline.
    “Let me return to Professor Bensen,” pressed Ray, locking his eyes on Father Bob’s. “Is there anything else you can tell me about her?”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “Your relationship with her, how did you get along?”
    “If truth be told, when it came to Sheila, I was of two minds. Here in the church she was wonderful. She was pleasant, helpful, and almost too willing to please. But when I would meet her in other settings she was a completely different person. Sheila was schizoid.” He stopped again and waited, letting the word hang.
    “How so?”
    “Let me give you an example,” his elbows now resting on the desk, he brought his hands together, interlacing his fingers in a prayer-like pose. “Earlier this year I was part of a panel discussing the role of women in the clergy—it was one of those colloquies put on by the Inter-faith Council—and Sheila, representing a women’s group, was also on the panel. It was dreadful. I don’t think that I, personally, have ever been so bitterly attacked.” He stopped and waited again for Elkins to pursue. Elkins was feeling annoyed by the game.
    “Yes?”
    “Her attack was really against the Catholic Church, but it was directed at me, and she expected me to answer for the Church.” Father Bob’s face reddened, and his voice rose in pitch. “Sheila was vicious, holding me accountable for two thousand years of history. It was all about the oppression of women by the Church, a church controlled by, to paraphrase her, a bunch of old white men committed to the subservience of women. And that was just her opening gambit. She got into the Church’s position on birth control as another weapon of oppression. The most difficult thing wasn’t her arguments, it was her anger. I’ve never confronted that kind of hostility. Talk about cognitive dissonance. Here,” he opened his hands, fingers forward, palms up, “she was the overly deferential helper, but on the outside she referred to us as a bunch of oppressive bastards.”
    “Did you think she was capable of a violent act?”
    “No. Well, I shouldn’t say that. After that confrontation it crossed my mind. In a society with so many guns floating around, there’s always that possibility.” He brought his hands together again.
    “Do you know anything about her private life, who her friends were, was she in any relationships?”
    “No, not really. All I know about her is hearsay,” Father Bob responded, his tone calming. “I don’t think she liked men, or at least had relationships with men. And I don’t know about her relationships with women.”
    “Are you suggesting…?”
    “I’m not suggesting anything. I know so little of Sheila beyond our relationship here. Anything I might say about her sexual orientation would only be conjecture on my part.” He gently rapped the knuckles of his right hand on the desk.
    “Given your training and experience in counseling, would you speculate on why Professor Bensen might have taken her own life?”
    As I’ve told you several times,” he offered in an irritated tone. “I didn’t really know her. Her death is a tragedy. If I thought that she was suicidal, I would have made every effort to reach out to her. In the past I’ve attempted to build a relationship with her, but she was inaccessible. Now I feel guilty that I didn’t do more, didn’t try harder, but I don’t think I could have ever reached her. Her problems were deeper than I had suspected.”
    “Let me go over some old ground again. You don’t remember seeing her leave on Monday?”
    “Everything sort of blends together.” He paused, looking at his fingertips as he bounced them together, his wrists now resting on the edge of the desk. “I think I was talking to a couple of worshipers after the Mass. I don’t remember seeing her go. This