I wasn’t surprised by her response. The first rule of school administrators is to avoid any possibility of a lawsuit.
“Paul was an adult. Confidentiality laws shouldn’t factor in here.”
“His eighteenth birthday was less than three months ago. Most of the students at this school are under the age of eighteen, and some of our Beverly parents might not like you talking to their children. School records are much like juvenile criminal records: they’re supposed to remain sealed.”
“One of your own was murdered. Doesn’t that mean something to you?”
“Of course it does. I will try and work with you, Detective, but I must be mindful of that slippery slope.”
“Did you know Paul Klein?”
She nodded but didn’t elaborate.
“When I was in high school, the vice principal was the disciplinarian of the school. Is that your role?”
“That is just one of my duties.”
“But if students are written up, or if there is trouble, you’re the sheriff?”
“I would likely be involved in the process, yes.”
“Did you ever call Paul into your office?”
She hesitated and then said, “Not officially.”
“But unofficially you did?”
Weighing her words she said, “There was an instance where a student complained about his behavior.”
“What were the circumstances?”
“I was told that Paul was acting inappropriately toward one of our students.”
“I’ll need you to be more specific.”
“Paul and some of his friends were heard teasing a student. The complaint was secondhand, mind you. It didn’t come from the party being teased.”
“But you talked to the student that was teased?”
“I did. And it was that student’s wishes to not proceed with an investigation into the incident.”
“In that case, you wouldn’t mind me talking with this student?”
“I’ll have to consult with someone in administration and get back to you.”
I sighed, hoping my dramatic posturing would get me somewhere. When it didn’t I said, “I assume you also talked to Paul about this incident?”
She nodded. “It was his belief it was no big thing.”
“Was the student being teased foreign born?”
“Why do you ask?”
I pretended to flip through some old notes, looking for something. “Here it is,” I said. “One of Paul’s friends mentioned the incident. The young woman was Iranian, right?”
“She was
“Are many of your students native to other lands?” I asked.
“Almost a third,” Durand said. “At Beverly we pride ourselves on our diversity.”
“You haven’t found any racial or monetary divide among your students?”
“Beverly is a public school, and in real life it is nothing like how it’s portrayed in television and film. There are many apartments in Beverly Hills, and quite a few of our students come from families that are anything but affluent.”
I pretended to look through my notes again. “I didn’t get the name of the girl Paul was accused of teasing. What is it?”
“I prefer withholding her name until I get some directive from above.”
I thought about sighing again but didn’t. Every day, the assistant principal probably dealt with much more talented actors than me. “Over the years did you have any other dealings with Paul?”
Durand hesitated before speaking and then carefully said, “Last spring we talked after an incident in a lacrosse game. There was a formal complaint from another high school saying that one of our players head-butted a member of its team. The opposing coach suspected that Paul was the one that committed the offense, because earlier in the match he’d had a run-in with that player.”
“Was Paul guilty of the head butt?”
“He said he wasn’t involved, and that it was likely the other player was accidentally hit with a stick.”
“What happened with the complaint?”
“Our athletic director dealt with it, but as far as I know nothing came of it, since the victim couldn’t identify who hit him.”
“Were Paul’s teammates questioned?”
Durand nodded. “They all said the same thing, that it must have been an accidental stick.”
“Sticks and stones,” I mused aloud.
I didn’t continue with the rest of the nursery rhyme, because it’s bullshit and every kid knows it. Only a sociopath can declare, “Words will never hurt me.” Words do hurt, sometimes more than anything, which meant I would have to investigate the stick incident and the hurting words.
I met with Frank Rivera in his homeroom. The room didn’t have a chalkboard and I wondered if they were no longer fixtures in high schools. There was a whiteboard and on it were class reminders. At least I didn’t have to worry about tomorrow’s quiz. There was a large map of the world on one wall. Next to it was another map that was labeled: The Black Death Project. The poster detailed the spread of the bubonic plague.
Rivera was a history teacher and the lacrosse coach. He was a small, intense Hispanic male who liked to punctuate his points with an emphatic index finger. His favorite word was “heckuva.” According to him, Paul Klein was a heckuva leader, heckuva kid, heckuva player, and heckuva teammate. By the end of our talk, I was getting a heckuva headache.
“I heard there was a complaint registered against Paul by another team last year,” I said.
“It was dismissed,” Rivera said.
“Tell me what happened.”
“The whole thing was a case of sour grapes. Their team lost.”
“Did Paul head-butt their player?”
Instead of answering, Rivera said, “Earlier in the game their kid basically coldcocked Paul. That’s what happened.”
“And Paul avenged that?”
Rivera avoided my eyes. “I am not saying that. I am just saying the bad blood started with them.”
I left with the name of the other player, and the certainty that Klein had hit him when no one else was looking.
There was a special assembly scheduled to start the school day at Beverly-the name everyone seemed to call BHHS. The assembly was only open to Beverly students, teachers, staff, and the special counselors that had been brought in. Because I wasn’t being allowed to attend, Mrs. Durand promised to post my name and number as the LAPD contact.
With time before the assembly, I walked around Beverly’s grounds trying to spot Jason Davis. Emotional groups of students were clustered around the campus. One group was standing outside of the swim gym. Looming over it was a sign saying HOME OF THE NORMANS, with a painting of a knight atop a charger. I was tempted to take a look inside the swim gym to see if its interior had changed much since Frank Capra immortalized it in his movie
For the students of Beverly, there was only one topic of the day and that was the murder of Klein. Among the girls there was lots of sobbing, hugging, and comforting going on. The guys mostly shuffled their feet and looked
