a gunshot wound to the eye, and I had to assume Miller was still armed.
When Miller didn’t come to the door, I retraced my steps to the front window and again looked inside. He hadn’t moved, so I once more waved and knocked to get his attention, but he ignored me. I was forced to again return to the front door. I expected it to be locked, but the handle turned and I swung the door open.
I shouted so as to be heard over the wind: “Mr. Miller? I’m Detective Gideon. We talked the other day.”
He didn’t respond. A heavy scent of paint fumes pervaded the house, and I wondered if those fumes had gone to Miller’s head.
“May I come in, Mr. Miller? We need to talk.”
Miller still didn’t answer. I entered the house, doing the kind of peek-a-boo with my head and gun that you see fake cops do on television, but without their panache. Miller wasn’t waiting for me with a gun. In fact, when I stepped into his sight, he barely gave me a glance.
By that time my eyes were watering. It wasn’t only paint fumes in the air. There were multiple scents of varnish, solvents, and cleaners. There was just enough light that I could make out several drop cloths in the living room. A ladder was in the middle of the room and next to it was a work bench with paint.
Miller broke his silence. “You and your dog need to leave,” he said. His words were slow and slightly slurred. An opened vodka bottle sitting at the table might have had something to do with that.
“We’ll do that, but we’ll need you to come with us. There are some questions I have to ask you.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I didn’t like the vibe I was getting. I didn’t like the fumes in the air.
“I am not asking. Mr. Miller, you are under arrest.”
He interrupted me before I could finish and read him his Miranda rights. His hand was poised near the candle. “There’s furniture stripper on the table. You really don’t want this candle to fall over.”
I could see-and smell-the puddle of furniture stripper on the table. Miller’s eyes were glassy, but his hand was uncomfortably close to the candle. There was no way I could get to him without his knocking the candle over first.
“I don’t want to have to use force, Mr. Miller.”
“If you shoot me,” he said, slurring his words, “you’ll set off the fumes. You shoot me, you shoot yourself.”
I edged forward as I continued talking. “I’m putting away my gun. See? Why don’t you let me open a window and then we can talk.”
“No,” he said, running his finger just above the flickering candle. “You and your dog get out.”
“Is it all right if I sit down? All I want to do is talk to you.”
I moved toward the table, not waiting for his answer. Even though he was impaired, Miller was still watchful.
“That’s close enough,” he said. “And keep your dog back.”
I made a hand gesture to Sirius, and he backed off several steps while I took a seat at the far end of the table.
Through blurry eyes, Miller regarded me. “Why couldn’t you have waited for just a few more minutes?”
“What happens then?”
“You have eyes, don’t you?”
He motioned with his head to the window behind him. The fire was no longer hiding from me. A long line of flames was now lighting the sky. My heart started pounding and I had to control my voice.
“We all need to get out of here,” I said. “With the way the wind’s blowing, that fire will be on us any minute now.”
“I’m here for the show.”
My eyes went from Miller to what was coming our way. My throat tightened. The fire was still a ways off, but it wasn’t far enough away. The flames were being pushed by gusting winds. The inferno was growing.
“Fire isn’t something you want to mess with,” I said. “Believe me, I know.”
“That’s why you and Fido should take off.”
“That’s why we all should. My dog and I were caught in a fire a few years ago. We got burned up, and it was as bad as anything I ever want to experience. You don’t want that.”
The window behind Miller was now a vivid orange. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought the sun was rising. I wiped my suddenly wet brow. My body seemed to have forgotten that I don’t sweat as much as normal people.
Miller took note of the growing fireball behind him. “The flames were hot on my feet when I took off. It took longer to get here than I thought it would.”
“You started the fire?”
“I drove my ATV to the end of my property line and then walked into the canyon. I knew once the fire started the winds would drive it over the crest and move it in this direction. I wouldn’t have gone to all that effort if I’d known you were going to show up. I just would have set the damn house on fire.”
“Maybe I was meant to show up. Maybe you should take it as a sign that you weren’t meant to die.”
Miller didn’t seem to be listening to what I was saying. “I had to get the fire going good,” he said. “Avocado and citrus are more fire resistant than most trees. But I made sure to put a lot of dry mulch in my groves. It’s making for good tinder.”
His eyes strayed to the fire, and he nodded, but then his head swung back toward me. Despite the booze and whatever else he might have taken, Miller was still very much aware.
“You don’t want to die in a fire. I can’t think of a worse way to die.”
“I can,” he said, “lethal injection.”
“Once a jury hears how your son was bullied, they’ll be sympathetic to your position. They’ll understand you were in pain.”
“My son wasn’t just bullied. He was murdered. He couldn’t take the suffering anymore. I only saw him weekends, you know. My wife and I divorced ten years ago. I knew my son was unhappy, but I didn’t know why. I learned too late how they killed him.”
Orange light now filled the dining room. The fire was announcing itself.
“What do you mean when you say they killed him?”
“Dinah opened my eyes. When she first called the crisis line everything she said had this terrible deja vu quality. So I did a little digging, and I found out about my son and his friend. Someone saw them hugging one another. That really brought out Klein and his jackals. They never gave him any peace after that.”
“Was his friend Jeremy Levitt?”
Miller sighed and nodded. “I don’t know if my son was gay, but I do know how special he was, and how sensitive. Those animals played on his sensitivity.”
“He died of a drug overdose,” I said.
“That’s what he wanted it to look like. It was an accident, just like this fire was an accident. Like son, like father.”
An orange light was now reaching out for my body; I was in its light and heat. The fire was descending on the house. There was no time for stories, but I continued to listen.
“My son didn’t want my ex-wife and me to feel responsible for his death, so he made it look like he was taking drugs and had an overdose.”
“Jeremy told you this?”
“Jeremy told me he never saw my son take drugs and never heard him mention using them.”
“There was a report that your son went to raves, and that he was seen taking drugs.”
“He went to one rave. That’s where he bought the drugs that he used two weeks later to kill himself. That’s why he made a show of taking them at the rave.”
“Let’s say you’re right about all of this. In the end, it was Danny that took his own life. Why did you murder Paul Klein?”
“‘Suicide Is Painless.’”
“I don’t agree.”
“I’m talking about the title to a song. You’ve probably heard it a million times but don’t even know it. It’s the opening music to the show
