Sight Shot (Imogene Museum Mystery #3) (13 page)

CHAPTER
14

“Hello?”

“
Hey, Meredith. I have some info about the fake eye,” Dale said.

“
Hang on a second,” I huffed. “I’m running upstairs to my office.”

Breathing hard, I slid into my chair and grabbed a pencil.
“Okay.”

“
It’s not glass. Probably acrylic and in pretty good shape considering it was in a marsh for who knows how long. I scrubbed off the dried algae and found some numbers toward one edge. Ready?”

“
Shoot.”

“
Seven. Nineteen. Two thousand and one. It looks like a date.”

I scratched out what I
’d written and rewrote the numbers in date format. “July 19, 2001?”

“
Yeah. Nothing easy like a serial number.”

“
Well, you can’t get prosthetic eyes made just anywhere. I’ll start hunting.”

“
Appreciate it.” Dale hung up.

It took several minutes of different Internet searches to find out that the people who make artificial eyes are called ocularists. They practice an amazing combination of art and science. I became distracted by a few videos showing ocularists hand painting irises and laying frayed red thread to replicate veins in the sclera.

There are also very few ocularists — about 125 in the whole country. I whistled silently — 125 potential phone calls. Spence Snead would have had to visit an ocularist’s lab for a custom fitting. There were a few in the Seattle area and a couple more in Portland.

I held my breath and dialed the first office on the list, hoping they weren
’t taking an extended holiday weekend. I exhaled when a receptionist answered.

“
Hi. I found an artificial eye, and I’m trying to figure out who it might belong to,” I started.

“
Sure,” the receptionist said. “If you look closely, there will be a small mark at the top of the eye — we call it a tattoo. It could be a picture of just about anything — a sports team logo, a flower, the patient’s cat. Do you see it?”

“
Um, this one has a number, a date maybe? Seven, nineteen, two thousand and one.”

“
It’s not from our lab, then. Other labs use different ways of identifying their eyes. They might use dates or patient ID numbers.”

“
So there’s not a national registry?”

She laughed.
“Afraid not.”

“
Do you know of any labs in Washington or Oregon that use dates to identify their eyes?”

“
Let me check.” She set the phone down with a thud, and I heard voices murmuring in the background. Then she returned. “You could try Kennewick Eye Labs.”

“
Thanks.” I had the website open by the time she hung up.

Kennewick
— two and a half to three hours east, upriver on the Columbia. If Spence wanted to avoid traffic and big cities, that was the way to go. I dialed.

“
Kennewick Eye Labs. Jenny McRaven-Martin speaking.”

I reexplained and Jenny instructed me to look for a tattoo on the eye.

“No, it has numbers — looks like a date.”

“
What date?” Jenny asked.

“
July 19, 2001.”

“
That’s old. Doubtless whoever lost it has had a new eye made in the meantime, or a couple, actually. Artificial eyes have a life of about three to five years — the eye socket changes over time, and they need to be refitted. If it came from our lab, you’d have to talk to my dad. When I took over, I switched to tattoos for identification, but he used dates. He also used a file card system for patient records.” Jenny let out a ladylike snort. “So I can’t look up anything over six years old for you. Dad took all his records with him when he retired because it wasn’t worth manually entering them into our database.”

I heard what sounded like a door thudding closed and Jenny sighed.
“Frankly, he isn’t handling retirement too well,” she said in a low voice. “He comes in once a week, like clockwork, and drives my staff crazy. He’d absolutely love to talk shop with you and dig into his files. Would you mind calling him? He’d be thrilled.”

I chuckled.
“Of course.”

Jenny gave me Harlan McRaven
’s home phone number. Maybe the third time would be the charm.

The phone rang fifteen
— eighteen — twenty-two times, and I gave up hope of reaching an answering machine. My thumb was resting on the stop button when a man’s rushed voice answered. “’Lo? You there?”

“
Yes, I am. Mr. McRaven?”

“
I’m not interested,” he said gruffly.

“
In what?” I asked.

“
Whatever you’re selling, or polling or collecting for.”

“
How about a missing artificial eye?”

“
Who’re you?”

“
Meredith Morehouse, curator of the Imogene Museum.”

Mr. McRaven chortled.
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of exhibiting fake eyes.”

“
While that would be fascinating, no. I found an eye, and I’m trying to connect it with its owner.”

“
Ahhh. Did Jenny set you up to this?”

My eyebrows shot up
— touchy subject. “No. I spoke with her — that’s how I got your phone number. But she couldn’t help me because the identification mark on the eye appears to be a date.”

“
Huh.” Bumping and shuffling followed, and Mr. McRaven grunted. “You gonna give me the date or what?”

My mouth dropped open, then I snapped it shut, realizing I needed to jump at the chance if he was offering information.
“July 19, 2001.”

“
Humpf. Top shelf. Hang on.”

Horrible metal-on-metal screeching echoed through my phone, then a clang and thud, as though Mr. McRaven was prying open an ancient vault door hung on rusty hinges.

He was breathing hard when he returned to the phone. “Got the right box. Be patient with an old man while I haul it into the kitchen. Dang cold in this garage.”

“
Thank you, Mr. McRaven.”

“
Harlan. I’m not that old.”

“
Are you good-looking too?” I clapped a hand over my mouth and held my breath, hoping he’d take my cheekiness the right way.

“
Huh?” There was a pause, then he roared with laughter. “Well, Miss Smarty Pants, darn right I am. And I shoot my age on the golf course. Wanna date?”

“
I don’t know. Depends on what you tell me about a fake eye.”

“
Playing hard to get — hmmm.” Paper shuffled. “July 19? Two with that date. Spencer Snead and Jorge Oliver. What color’s the iris?”

“
Blue-gray.”

“
That’d be Spence Snead. Far as I know, he’s not been in to see my daughter for a new eye, and it’s past time. Wonder if he found an ocularist closer to home.”

I bit my lip, debating if I should tell him.

“Um, Harlan? Spence died about ten years ago.”

Harlan expelled a breath.
“That’s why I retired. Too many of my patients started dying. But Spence — he was young — younger than me. Too soon — too soon.” I heard him pull out a chair and drop into it with a sigh.

“
Did you know Spence well?”

“
You could say that. I knew all my patients to some degree because fitting a new eye takes a few days. They’d come and stay at a hotel if they were from out of town and spend time in the lab each day while I made the mold, then fine-tuned the fit and did a comfort and use check. But Spence—” Harlan sighed again. “We golfed together. I consider anyone who golfs with me a friend.”

“
Spence golfed with only one eye?”

Harlan chuckled.
“I didn’t say he played well. But in spite of his impaired depth perception, he had great directional accuracy. He’d been a sniper in the Marines. Those skills don’t go away just because you lose an eye.”

I pondered this new information
— Spence had been a sniper in Vietnam, a hunter at home, and had killed himself with a shotgun. Apparently his experience in the war hadn’t inhibited his use of firearms. Was that consistent with PTSD?

“
How did he die?” Harlan asked.

“
Oh, Harlan,” I murmured and dropped my head into my hand, “I don’t want to tell you.”

“
I’m an old man, remember? Nothing can surprise me now.”

“
He committed suicide.”

“
No, he didn’t.”

“
Harlan—”

“
Spence Snead was too tough for that. All his life, he’d been a fighter, not a quitter. Even when his brother didn’t come home—”

“
Harlan?”

“
I know, I know — guys aren’t supposed to share that touchy-feely stuff. But you can learn a lot on a golf course. Besides, he was my patient for almost thirty years. He didn’t kill himself, Meredith. I know it.”

I sighed.
“All the evidence—”

“
Wait. You said you found his eye. Why wasn’t he wearing it when he shot himself?”

“
That’s the million-dollar question. I found it in a marsh about half a mile from his cabin, and I found it a couple months ago — ten years after his death.”

“
Spence didn’t go anywhere without his eye. He was very particular about that — didn’t want to scare anyone with the sight of his empty socket. He worried about what affect his appearance would have on others.”

“
How easy is it for an artificial eye to fall out? A blow to the head, a sneeze? What would it take?”

“
Not much. The eye stays in place primarily based on the quality of the fit, which is why eyes need to be replaced as soon as they no longer fit perfectly. Over a lifetime, with age and wear-and-tear, an eye socket — when the eye is missing — will change somewhat in shape. New eyes are always custom-made. The lower lid also helps hold the eye in place, but it doesn’t have much muscle strength and can be stretched out of the way for inserting and removing the eye.” Harlan cleared his throat. “So, that’s my long-winded way of saying rather easily. Not when you sneeze, because you automatically close your eyes then, but otherwise — easily.”

“
Could Spence have had more than one artificial eye? Maybe he kept a spare on hand.”

“
I doubt it. I’m looking at my notes here. The eye we replaced in 2001 was irritating his socket and upper lid. That eye was made in 1996, and the fit had deteriorated significantly. It was extremely uncomfortable by the time he came to see me for a new one. In fact, he wore a patch between fittings while he was in the office those few days. He didn’t want to put his old eye back in. It was the only time I’d ever seen him wear a patch.”