Millions today have lost a political icon, a man who worked tirelessly to right wrongs. Teddy Kennedy, Senator Edward Kennedy, was so much to so many, and one of the many things the Kennedys represented was the ascendancy of Irish Catholics in America, via politics.

Dominick Dunne, also shone with that ascendancy and desire for justice, but through film, television and most importantly his writings, first covering the trial of his daughter’s murderer, and then with his continued work for Vanity Fair as a crime reporter–the Menendez brothers, William Kennedy Smith and Phil Spector were all on his beat–as well as covering the foibles of the rich in his witty and poignant romans a clef. He also hosted "Dominick Dunne’s Power, Privilege & Justice" on Court TV.

The first book I read of his was The Winners, a sequel to Joyce Haber’s The Users, which Dunne tossed off as a work-for-hire while recovering from his brutal cocaine addiction and the end of his career as a film producer. After that, I devoured anything of his I could get my hands on. I will always regret seeing him in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont circa 1997 and not screwing up the courage to tell him what an influence he was on me.

Dunne’s writing focused on high society and its crimes; and, despite the fear they would appear in one of his books, the wealthy embraced and lionized him–whispering secrets at dinner parties, slipping him their phone numbers so they could spill the tea on their "friends." The murder of Alfred Bloomingdale’s mistress, Vicky Morgan, was transformed into the bestseller An Inconvenient Woman; the Ivan Boesky scandal became People Like Us; the same with his other novels, where the foibles and crimes of the rich were laid bare with grace and cutting charm. Based on the murder of teenager Martha Moxely, the novel Murder in Greenwich led to the conviction of Michael Skakel, a Kennedy cousin. Robert Kennedy, Jr. felt that Dunne had a personal vendetta against his family; so it is ironic, or perhaps fitting, that Dunne and Teddy Kennedy died just hours apart. I am sure Heaven’s waiting room will be quite lively as they meet in line.

The murder of his daughter, actress Dominique Dunne, brought Dunne to the forefront of both journalism and victims’ rights as he covered the 1984 trial for Vanity Fair. Dominique’s boyfriend-turned-murderer chef John Sweeney–who worked at then-trendy Ma Maison (the economy and infamy around the crime killed off the restaurant’s business)–was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, and was freed after serving less than four years of his six-year sentence.

And that’s where my life intersected with Dunne’s in a far creepier way than just saying "You are one of my heroes" to a total stranger in a hotel lobby. In the mid-1980s, I was best friends with Sylvia Juncosa, a rising star in the Los Angeles music scene who lived in a bungalow complex in West Hollywood, each unit with its own address, some in absurd fractions (2/5, 4/5). One day in the summer of 1986, Syl called me freaked out. While on a stroll through the neighborhood, she saw fliers posted up on a few lamp posts saying

Beware! A strangler of young women has moved into your neighborhood.

A few nights later we drove to her place after a gig. Spray painted on the retaining wall at the front of the bungalow complex was the word:

KILLER!

and an arrow pointing to the courtyard, with Sylvia’s fractional address underneath. Weird, but hey, it was also the height of gang activity in Los Angeles, with tagging everywhere, so we didn’t think too much about it. The landlord painted it over the next day.

A new couple had recently moved into complex; they, like several others who lived in the building, were members of the Buddhist sect which chanted "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" and every dusk it was like listening to locusts humming away. Sylvia said the girl had told her that her boyfriend was a chef.

The couple moved out after a few months, and a new girl took their apartment. One day while we were drinking coffee and plotting Sylvia’s next career move, the new neighbor knocked on the door, ashen and shaken. She was holding an envelope and a razor blade.

This was addressed to resident, so I opened it. This was in it, with a note.

She showed the note to us.

Why don’t you do us all a favor and kill yourself.

it read.

WTF? we both asked. The new neighbor said:

I thought it was maybe like someone I knew, but then I remembered, when I moved into the apartment, the landlord said the former tenant had been in prison for being in a gang and that his old gang members were chasing him down, so they had to move. But he was like a chef, what kind of chef is in a gang? They didn’t even leave a forwarding address and so I keep getting his mail.

Something clicked and I asked what the old tenant’s name was. She replied:

John Sweeney.

Decades later, in Another City, Not My Own, his 1998 roman à clef about the O.J. Simpson trial, where Dunne had been a fixture; Dunne’s alter ego Gus stalks and shoots his daughter’s killer. Later, in real life, Dunne admitted he had hired notorious Hollywood private detective Anthony Pellicano to track down Sweeney, and that at the time he’d wanted Pellicano to put a hit on Sweeney. In 2007, with Pellicano in jail on 78 federal counts, including firearms and wiretapping, Dunne told reporter Kim Masters:

He understood my feelings. He said something to the effect of, ‘Dominick, you don’t want to do this.’ He was so kind to me. … I was willing to be talked out of it.

Sort of. After his release from prison while living in West Hollywood, John Sweeney worked at the Chronicle, a restaurant in Santa Monica. It was later revealed that Dominique’s friends and family regularly passed out fliers that read:

The hands that prepared your food strangled Dominique Dunne on October 30, 1982.

Sweeney lost his job, moved to Seattle and changed his name. Having "killer" spray painted on your apartment building wall will do that.

Dominick Dunne is a still a hero of mine, and I really have no way of knowing if he, his friends, or Pellicano was behind the (understandable but super creepy) actions I witnessed, or if the author even knew about the spray painting, the threatening notes, the razor blade. It doesn’t really matter–though given Pellicano’s history, I figure the dodgy PI was doing his client a "favor."

Dunne’s facility with words, his ability to get people to reveal themselves, to confide in him–from Adanan Khashoggi to Elizabeth Taylor, socialites and their household help–made him a consummate reporter — as did his vision, intuition, and insight.

Yes, he made some huge errors because of his single-minded–some would say narrow minded–pro-victim, pro-prosecution ideology (Gary Condit sued Dunne over his writings on the death of intern Chandra Levy), but he chronicled the rich, their crimes, and their victims with verve, passion and lyricism in his articles. And in his novels he demonstrated you can tell a lot more truth with fiction–and not get sued.

Goodbye, Dom. I will so miss never having said thank you for your inspiration and revelations, though your fondness for Nancy Reagan always baffled me. And thank you now for being at the epicenter of a very strange story in my own life, where as in your novels, people and events susurrus then spark and perhaps erupt.