Black Dahlia
January 9, 2008 | 10:11
am

This letter showed up on my desk last week. Note the postmark: August
2007. Apparently "Black Dahlia" and "Los Angeles Times" is almost all it takes to
get a letter to me--eventually--although I don't recommend it. For the record, Elizabeth Short wasn't even in Los Angeles in 1945.
(In case you're wondering: The blurry background is an old New Yorker cover I use to "outsmart" my HP scanner, which insists on cropping pictures for me and usually does a terrible job of guessing what I want. The little green seal shows that my mail was X-rayed and checked for anthrax, a precaution imposed at The Times since 9/11).