Burning Man (16 page)

I found a spare desk and used my laptop to continue delving into the world of cyberbullying. I wondered if Klein and company had gone that route, and added it to my list of things to check out.

Of course Klein hadn’t been averse to the old-fashioned kind of bullying either. I made a call to Troy Vincent, the lacrosse player Klein had allegedly coldcocked. When I identified myself and the purpose for my call, Vincent sounded distinctly uncomfortable.

“You’re not supposed to say bad things about dead people, are you?” he said.

“That’s a saying,” I said, “but not a reality.”

Reluctantly, Vincent agreed to meet with me the following morning at his high school.

I thought about the need for people to speak ill of the dead. If not for Dinah Hakimi’s card, I might not have gotten a lead on Paul Klein’s bullying. These days, when people die their obituaries are available online, and friends and acquaintances are encouraged to leave testimonials. I had this feeling that sometimes it’s not only friends that feel the urge to write something. I looked up Paul Klein’s obit online and then went to the guest book where I could read the entries that had been left. Almost eight hundred
people had written notes for Paul, the kind of figure that’s usually only generated by professional athletes and actors. Klein’s unusual death had struck a nerve not only in LA but also in the country.

After looking through a few hundred entries, I began to suspect something wasn’t right. Each of the notes expressed sorrow. As far as I could determine, there were no undercurrents and not even a hint of discord. That didn’t seem possible to me. Even saints have their detractors. I was certain a censor’s hand was at work.

My suspicions were confirmed when I contacted the Dearly Departed website and was able to talk to its obituary editor, Mary Ann Wiggins. “About a third of our staff spends its days vetting comments on the guest book,” she said. “Nothing gets posted until we have checked through it carefully.”

Cyberbullying apparently didn’t only extend to the living. “People like to speak ill of the dead?”

“You wouldn’t believe what comes through here. It’s nastier than you could imagine.”

“I’m a cop.”

That meant I had seen and heard everything, but that didn’t stop Wiggins from telling me a few stories. I heard about sons and daughters trying to “set the record straight.” It was
Mommie Dearest
multiplied tenfold. She also told me about outsiders with axes to grind who weren’t placated by death; people wanted to expose supposed pillars of the community as drunks, pedophiles, adulterers, and whoremongers.

“Of course our readers don’t get to see those comments,” Wiggins said.

“Those are exactly the comments I want to see,” I said.

“I don’t know if that would be possible.”

“I am hoping you can make it possible. It’s important. Your assistance might help us nail a murderer.”

I second-guessed myself for using the word “nail,” but Wiggins didn’t seem to notice. She promised to see what she could do, and said she would get back to me. Wiggins sounded sincere.

Tom Sawyer got to watch his own funeral and hear what everyone had to say about him. Public bereavement is one thing, private thoughts are another. Someone had taken speaking ill of the dead to a new level by crucifying Paul Klein and putting him on display. If I was lucky, maybe even that kind of revenge wasn’t enough for the killer, and even now he was intent on inflicting more damage on his victim.

Before meeting with Dave Miller, I did a cursory background check on him. Miller was fifty years old and had been a successful jeweler, the owner of two mall jewelry stores in the Los Angeles area. He’d been divorced for ten years. Miller had never been arrested; he didn’t even have a recent moving violation. There were no court actions other than the divorce attached to his name. Many jewelers are registered handgun owners; Miller had never registered a gun in his name.

I arrived a few minutes early for our meet-up and parked in a parking lot a block from the hotel. The Culver Hotel has been around since before the Great Depression, and has managed to survive earthquakes, economic downturns, and redevelopment. When it was built in the Roaring Twenties, the six-story building had been described as a skyscraper. These days it’s a national historical landmark. Its main claim to fame, though, is that it housed the Munchkins.

When
The Wizard of Oz
was being filmed in 1938, 124 little people stayed at the Culver Hotel. If Judy Garland is to be believed, the occupants of the Culver Hotel were into nonstop partying. The hotel guests might have been little, but they partied big—there were stories of drunken escapades and wild sex parties. All of those supposed Munchkin antics inspired the 1981 movie
Under the Rainbow
.

Dorothy left a black-and-white Kansas for the color of Munchkinville and Oz. When I stepped into the lobby, it wasn’t
exactly like stepping into another world, but I did appreciate the high ceilings of the hotel as well as its old world charm.

There were only a few people in the lobby bar, and only one of them was sizing me up. I walked toward the man’s table, and he got to his feet. He was middle-aged, with droopy brown eyes, frown lines, and salt-and-pepper hair. Because I’ve worked with dogs for much of my adult life, I often categorize people as breeds. Happy, animated sorts are golden retrievers. Those that are nervous and hyper are Jack Russell terriers. Beautiful people are poodles. Those with OCD are border collies. Solid citizens are Airedales. Class clowns are Labradors. Sensitive sorts are basset hounds. Independent types are cairn terriers, a breed that came to mind because of my being in Munchkinville. Toto was a cairn terrier, but Dave Miller was no Toto. The man reminded me of a basset hound, probably because of his eyes.

We shook hands and confirmed our identities. A server came over. I ordered an iced tea; Miller went with a tonic water.

“So what made you flee LA?” I asked.

The question appeared to surprise him. “Flee?”

“Why did you move to Temecula?”

“I like to describe it as a
Field of Dreams
thing, but without the voices. I had this Kevin Costner midlife crisis I suppose. After twenty-five years of being a jeweler and having responsibility over two stores, I cashed in my chips and bought a forty-acre avocado farm.”

“So now you’re a farmer?”

“No, I’m a landowner pretending to be a farmer.”

“It’s just a hobby?”

“If it is, it’s an all-consuming hobby. Last year my avocado crop brought in more than sixty thousand dollars, but that doesn’t take into account all of my expenses. I figure with all the hours I put in I didn’t even make minimum wage.”

“It sounds as if you’ve embarked upon quite an adventure.”

“Is that a polite way of saying I’m crazy?”

“Maybe you just like guacamole more than most.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Was this ranch a lifetime dream of yours?”

Miller shook his head. “An opportunity presented itself and I acted.”

“It sounds like a big change. Most people would be scared to start a new life like that. Wasn’t it hard leaving behind friends and family in LA?”

“I don’t have any family in LA. I’m divorced. And now that I have a place in the country, all my LA friends have a good reason to come and visit me. It almost feels like I’ve opened a bed and breakfast.”

“How is it that you started volunteering at the help line?”

“My best friend committed suicide,” Miller said. “Afterward I wondered what I could have said or done that might have made a difference. It bothered me that I never really picked up on all the signs I should have seen. And then one day I heard a public service announcement asking for volunteers for the Community Crisis Line.”

“Are most of the help lines manned by volunteers?”

“Some are and some aren’t. Community Mental Health operates one help line, and the LA County Department of Mental Health has another. Cedars Sinai operates a line that has teens helping other teens. And then there are the national help numbers as well.”

“What kind of formal training did you have?”

“I went to classes for a month. There were sixty hours of lectures and a few tests I had to pass. Before doing the training, I had to make a four-hour-a-week commitment for a minimum of one year. More than anything, though, I think I needed to demonstrate that I had a sympathetic ear. That’s what I am there for—to listen.”

“But with Dinah Hakimi you did more than listen?”

Miller nodded. “I don’t offer this as an excuse, Detective, but more as an explanation. I didn’t want another death on my conscience. I never helped my friend like I should have, and I wasn’t about to make that mistake with Dinah. I must admit to being somewhat surprised, though.”

“Surprised about what?”

“That you sought me out for this talk. I know I shouldn’t have met with Dinah privately, but we didn’t do anything against the law, and I’m willing to take a polygraph to that effect.”

“I am not here about your private sessions with Dinah. I am here because the bully that was plaguing Dinah was murdered.”

“Oh,” Miller said. He nodded several times while taking in the news. His face didn’t reveal his take on the information.

I waited for him to break the silence. When he did, Miller said, “If Dinah is a suspect in any form or fashion, she shouldn’t be.”

“And why is that?”

“She could never commit murder. She is a gentle soul. She would hurt herself sooner than hurt someone else. That was the problem, you see. She turned her anger inward. Even though she was without blame, she started blaming herself, and that began a vicious cycle.”

“How do you feel knowing that her tormentor is dead?”

Miller didn’t answer right away. When he did he said, “For Dinah’s sake, I’m relieved.”

“Some mental health therapists go into the profession because they like to think of themselves as saviors.”

“I am not a mental health therapist.”

“But you’re a voice in the darkness.”

“I hope I am.”

“I think I became a cop to help others. It must have been hard to listen to the anguish of a young lady and yet not be able to do anything about it.”

“It was difficult, but I was doing something about it. I listened to Dinah, and I tried to make sure she didn’t fixate on the present but instead looked to the future.”

“Do you have any children?”

Miller shook his head.

“Did you begin to feel paternal with Dinah? When we talked on the phone, you said you broke the rules because you felt responsible for her.”

“I care about Dinah, but I have never thought of her as a daughter.”

“Did you ever consider confronting the bullies? It must have been hard just sitting back and having to hear about all their mind games.”

“I am sure everyone has fantasies about being a knight in shining armor, but I know it does no good in the long run to fight someone else’s battles. What I did was to try and teach Dinah coping mechanisms.”

“How did your friend kill himself?”

Miller took a deep breath, sighed, and said, “He shot himself.”

“Why did he do it?”

“I think the pain became too great for him to endure it any longer.”

I nodded. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I had been there. “I can understand why you wanted to help Dinah,” I said, “but I am still going to have to contact the director of the help line and tell him what transpired.”

Miller nodded. “I figured as much. That’s why I set up a meeting with him this afternoon. I don’t anticipate a good outcome.”

“For what it’s worth, Dinah thinks you saved her life.”

“It’s worth a lot.”

Miller dropped a Hamilton on the table, took a last sip of his tonic water, and said, “If you don’t have any more questions for me, it’s time for me to go and face the music.”

We both stood up and shook hands. And then I took a seat again, and watched him leave. Even now I thought of Miller as a basset hound. He carried his sensitivity—and sadness—with him.

I sipped my iced tea and looked around the open space. Years ago there had been a reunion of the Munchkins. They had returned to the Culver Hotel and reminisced about their time making the movie. The little people had said tales of their debauchery were exaggerated, and that they were too tired from working fourteen-hour days to party to excess.

Still, there were persistent stories of many of the Munchkins getting drunk night after night and belting out the tune “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” According to the stories, though, the little people preferred substituting the word “bitch.”

Right now my cases had me feeling like the Scarecrow. I wasn’t ready for my close-up, but I was ready for the refrain, “If I only had a brain.”

The witch wasn’t dead, but Paul Klein and baby Rose were.

Maybe Munchkinville wasn’t the idyllic place it was made out to be. There had been a Munchkin coroner in
The Wizard of Oz
, I remembered. His lines had always made me laugh, and I tried to remember them.

Finally they came to me and I said, “As coroner, I must aver, I thoroughly examined her. And she’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.”