The Mourning Mail (FINAL)

Chapter 5

I tried to clear some time between the freelance projects I'd committed to. I wanted to look into the circumstances described in the letters as Dad had asked, but that would have to take a back seat to paying the bills. I crossed my forearms on top of the table and laid my forehead on top of them in exasperation.

Just then, the phone rang. The call was from the probate attorney's office manager. She wanted a meeting tomorrow to discuss the final distribution of Dad's estate.

Maybe because I wasn't in the best of moods already, but after I'd hung up the phone and given it some thought, I found the forthcoming stamp of finality on everything unsettling. Dad had passed almost eight months ago. While I was long over the initial grieving, I hadn't entirely accepted that he was gone. That wouldn't come from talking to an estate manager. Might a sympathetic conversation with an old friend help?

I had known Lindsay Barnes since junior high, and we'd always been close. No matter how much time had passed since we'd last seen one another, we always picked up where we left off, no problem.

Lindsay and I had made different career choices. When I went off to USC, she went to cosmetology school. That strengthened our friendship, because talking with her meant escaping my own world for a while. She'd built up a nice clientele in a chic La Jolla salon, and I was one of her most loyal customers.

Lindsay found room for me on her appointment calendar with little notice. "Did you hear the awful news about Coach Cantor?" she asked as I settled into her salon chair in front of the mirror. She threw a smock around me and fastened it in the back.

"No, I haven't heard anything bad. I just saw a picture of him on the church's website. He was ladling chili at the homeless outreach," I replied. "He wrote such a nice comment on Dad's memorial page. What happened?"

"It was Thursday night. I heard about it on the evening news. He was killed in the middle of his own living room," Lindsay said, keeping her voice low and guiding me to the shampoo bowl in the corner. She didn't want to disturb the other stylists' patrons.

"Oh, my God, no! Coach? Are you sure, Lindsay? Oh, no...," I said, shocked. I searched the mirror and saw the confirmation in Lindsay's tragic expression.

Julius Cantor was our beloved girls' basketball coach at Torrey Pines High School. He'd taken us Falcons to the state finals in our senior year. I'd ridden the bench, but Lindsay was one of our stars. Coach knew how to get the best out of all of us. That was as true on the basketball court as it was in our Sunday school classes at Torrey Pines Church. There, he'd been an elder and our teacher.

Once we'd grown up, we'd kid Coach that he had Danny Glover's face stuck on Usain Bolt's body. Even as he grew older and eventually retired, he never seemed to gain an ounce. He was the kind of person you could tell anything to and count on for help. There was a price he'd make you pay—if there was something you needed to do, he'd keep on you until you did it. But I didn't know of anyone who didn't love the man. For him to have been murdered was unthinkable.

"How could that happen?" I asked. "In his living room! Did they say how he died?"

"News reported no signs of struggle. Nothing taken, none of the neighbors saw anything suspicious. Coach was by himself in the house. You remember when the stroke took Celia, and the kids and grandkids scattered to the four winds. You'd hear him talking about rattling around that old house alone. Just Celia's cats for company. Some of us in the church were trying to find him a girlfriend.

"Anyway, it seemed like he let somebody in that night. Whoever they were, they just shot him cold for no reason and left."

I could feel Lindsay's reassuring touch as she massaged shampoo into my scalp, as though trying to help the news sink in. "Jesus... I don't get it," I said, still trying to make sense of the circumstances. "Coach wouldn't hurt a fly. Doesn't sound like he was dating yet. He doesn't gamble or do drugs. I'm not even sure if Coach drinks. He's got some houses he rents out, but he's not rich. Maybe he got some money from Celia's insurance. But Coach is ... was ... a careful guy. It would have gone straight into the bank, maybe some in an investment account. Why the hell would anyone want to hurt Coach, much less kill him?"