“I assume you kept the letters in case something happened to Lilah,” I said.
I addressed the latter remark to Guy, because I got the distinct feeling that Pam couldn’t have cared less whether anything happened to Lilah. As long as it didn’t make Pam look bad.
“I’ll get them,” Guy replied. He left the room, casting a bitter look over his shoulder at his wife.
Pam turned back to inspecting her cuticles, and we sat in uncomfortable silence while we waited for him to return. Thankfully, a minute later he was back, a sheaf of envelopes in his hand.
“Here,” he said, giving them to me.
There was no postage or return address.
“He put these in your mailbox?” I asked.
Guy nodded.
“Did you read them?” Bailey asked.
“They were all the same. Telling her she’d go to hell for what she’d done. That he knew she was guilty and he’d find a way to prove it.” Guy stopped and shook his head. “She didn’t do it. But he wouldn’t accept that, had to keep haranguing her. Just couldn’t let her be. It wasn’t fair-a jury acquitted her, and they even said they thought she was innocent.” His hands shook and his features were dark with anger.
His behavior seemed a bit much, but maybe he was just the overprotective type.
“Which one was the last?” Bailey asked.
“I don’t have it,” Guy replied.
“He gave it to Lilah,” Pam added.
Guy glanced at Pam, and I saw a flash of anger cross his face. So they were still in contact with Lilah. And he hadn’t wanted us to know. “Did she come here, or did you go to her?” I asked.
Guy looked at the floor. In a barely audible voice, he said, “She came here.”
“Why did you give her that one in particular?” I asked, though I was fairly sure I knew the answer.
“Because it was different,” he replied. “Before, he only wrote about Zack’s trial and how he was going to find a way to make her pay for his murder. You’ll see,” he said, gesturing to the letters he’d given me. “But the last one, he said something about having evidence.” Guy paused, squinting with effort. “It was a lot of gibberish, most of it made no sense at all, so it’s hard to remember exactly. But he was more threatening, more immediate.”
Now we knew what set the wheels in motion that put Simon at the end of the killer’s knife.
“Did it say anything about a meeting place? Or how Lilah could contact him?” I asked.
Guy closed his eyes briefly, picturing the letter. “Not that I can recall,” he said, shaking his head.
Not that he was willing to recall. It was exactly why we’d waited this long to see these two. I had nothing to hang over his head to force him to tell the truth if he wasn’t so inclined. He didn’t mind sharing Simon’s letters, because they made Lilah out to be a victim. All except for that last one. The incriminating one. I could’ve had their house searched, but I knew it’d be a waste of time. Because I believed he did give Lilah the letter. What I didn’t believe was that he couldn’t remember what it said. But since I couldn’t force that issue, I got down to the bottom line.
“How did you reach Lilah to tell her about it?” I asked.
Guy pressed his lips together, his expression stony.
“Mr. Rossmoyne, this is a police investigation,” I said sternly. “If you don’t turn over that number, I’ll file a charge against you for obstruction of justice.”
He inhaled, and I could see that he wanted to tell me to go file my charges.
But Pam pointedly cleared her throat, having reached her limit of disgust and exasperation with this whole mess. “Guy, enough.”
His body momentarily went rigid. But then he slowly reached for the pad and pencil on the side table next to the telephone and wrote down the number. He handed it to me, then left the room without another word.
We thanked Pam for their time and said we were sorry to have intruded on their day. We told her to contact us immediately if they heard from their daughter. She promised they would. We were all lying.
The moment we’d driven fifty feet from the house, Bailey checked the number Guy’d given us. She got a busy signal.
“Daddy called her,” I said.
Bailey nodded.
We were in play. This visit was an open declaration of war, and now Lilah would know it.
“Game on,” Bailey said.
75
It was late afternoon when we headed back downtown. The time of day when I always wanted to curl up and nap. And the time of day when I was invariably stuck in the office or in court. With Bailey driving, and the monotony of the sluggish traffic, the pull of sleep dragged on my eyelids and I had to struggle to stay awake. My head had just fallen forward for the third time when Bailey spoke.
“You know, we’re on the Westside,” she observed. “Didn’t you say you wanted someone to check out the Venice free clinics, see if Tran used one of those doctors for his glasses prescription?”
I had. I knew that if we did find a stash of evidence that included a pair of glasses, it’d be important to be able to prove that they’d belonged to Tran. I didn’t expect to get lucky enough to find Tran’s fingerprints on the glasses after all they’d been through. But if I could match the strength of the lenses to a prescription in his name, it would be a big help. Now I jerked myself awake and tried not to sound foggy. “You think anyone will still be around?”
“It’s only four o’clock,” Bailey replied. “They’re usually open until five.”
“I’ll call and confirm,” I offered.
It’d give me something to do so I wouldn’t drop off and start drooling on myself. “You have a copy of his ID card on you?” I asked.
Bailey patted her jacket pocket. “Yep.”
I typed in “Venice clinics” and hit search. “Venice Family Clinic,” I said. “A few locations. But the one on Rose Avenue helps the homeless-”
“I’d be willing to bet Tran found himself in that condition a time or two,” Bailey said. “Do they provide eye care?”
“Yep.”
Bailey got off the freeway, but at this hour, the surface streets were even worse. It would ordinarily take us ten minutes to cover the distance, but now we crawled along for half an hour before the clinic, a small, white, low-roofed building, came into view. It didn’t look like much, but the people who worked in places like this were about as close to angels as you could get.
The receptionist, a young Latina with long, shiny brown hair that was held back with a stretchy headband, said, “Do you have an appointment?”
I knew I didn’t look my best, but I hadn’t thought I looked homeless. I was going to have to take a little more time getting my act together in the morning.
Bailey introduced us and explained why we were there. The girl motioned to hard-looking plastic seats lining the wall and picked up her phone. Ten minutes later, a nurse beckoned us inside. We followed her to a tiny office that barely allowed room for a desk piled high with files and an aging computer.
“Vera,” she said, putting out her hand.
We both took turns shaking with Nurse Vera, then, without further discussion, she sat down behind her desk and began to type. After a few seconds, she asked, “Do you have his name and date of birth?”
We did. Nurse Vera typed some more.
“Tran Lee…yes,” she said. “He’s been here.”
I told myself we deserved to have something be this easy as I crossed my fingers and asked the critical question. “Did he ever have an appointment with the optometrist here?”
Vera tapped a few more keys, then squinted at the screen. “He did,” she said. “Dr. Scarmoon. But he’s not in today, I’m sorry.”
“That’s totally fine,” I said. I didn’t need to talk to him today anyway. I needed just one piece of information. “Did he give Tran a prescription for glasses?”