The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Chapter 4

I was trying to make some time between the freelance projects I'd committed to. I wanted to look into the circumstances described in the letters Dad found, but I was frustrated. The one thing he asked me to do for him would have to take a back seat to paying the bills. I had just crossed my forearms on top of the table. I laid my forehead on top of them in exasperation, and then the phone rang. The call was from the probate attorney's office manager. She needed to set up the meeting tomorrow to discuss the final distribution of Dad's estate.

Maybe it was because I hadn't been in the best of moods anyway. 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. Would a sympathetic conversation with an old friend help normalize my sense of disquiet?

I've known Lindsay Barnes since junior high, and we've always been close. It doesn't seem to matter how much time has passed since we last saw one another. We've always been able to pick up from where we left off.

We'd made different career choices. When I went off to USC, she went to cosmetology school. That actually helps, because in talking with her I can escape my own world for a while. She'd build up a nice clientele in a chic La Jolla salon, and I was one of her most loyal customers.

I'd gotten Lindsay to find room on her appointment calendar with little notice. I looked forward to playing off our relationship as a way to re-center and stabilize my world view. That didn't work out quite the way I planned. Still, she definitely gave me something else to think about.

"Did you hear the awful news about Coach Cantor?" Lindsay asked as I settled into her chair.

"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? I hope he's okay..."

"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. She didn't want to disturbing the other girls' patrons.

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

Julius Cantor was our beloved Torrey Pines High School Falcons girls' basketball coach. He'd taken us 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 him 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? In his living room?!?" I asked. "Did they say how he died?"

"The news reports say there were no signs of a struggle. Nothing taken, none of the neighbors saw anything suspicious. Coach was by himself in the house. The stroke took Celia, and the kids and grandkids were 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."

"Jesus... I don't get it," I said, still trying to absorb the news. "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 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?"