The Mourning Mail (FINAL)

Chapter 10

I got back out to Coach's neighborhood to begin my canvassing around ten a.m. I didn't fare well with the first three neighbors I visited. James Seaver, the neighbor Marci mentioned as a possible suspect in the disappearance of his wife, curtly told me he wasn't home at the time. The next two closest neighbors said they'd been watching the game. They hadn't heard or seen anything unusual, and what they knew of the homicide came from newscasts and the local rumor mill.

Then I hit paydirt with Jess Nessbaum, the Neighborhood Watch captain. She was very friendly, a retired schoolteacher who'd once worked with Coach. She liked to gossip and felt it was her duty to keep a vigilant eye on the neighborhood.

Much of what she told me in the early going was a repeat of what she'd said to the police. When we got to the part about the first visitor that night leaving, I almost missed it.

"It was only ten or fifteen minutes, and then the man left," Jess said.

"Was there anything different about the man from when he first arrived?" I asked.

"I don't think so, but I really couldn't tell because Coach had turned out the porch light," she replied.

"What about as he was headed out the door?" I asked, thinking she meant as the man was walking further down the street from Coach's house.

"That's what I said—the light was out, and I couldn't see very well," Jess repeated, believing I hadn't heard her.

"Wait—the porch light was turned out before the man left and walked down the front steps?" I asked, wanting to make sure I hadn't misunderstood.

"Yes, like I told you ... is that important?"

"Let's just say it could be helpful, and I appreciate your attention to detail." I smiled.

Coach might have been diligent about saving electricity, but he was far too considerate to make a visitor step out into darkness upon leaving. That told me Coach was either incapacitated or already dead when the first visitor left the premises. That person was likely directly involved in the murder. If this was a planned meeting between two people who had communicated with one another beforehand, as it appeared, then Coach being mistaken for someone else was ruled out. It followed, then, that the van's occupants were the cleanup crew.

Marci had mentioned several of the investigators' questions. In my mind, I now had answers for three of those.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" I asked, ready to wrap up the interview.

"When the guy walked in front of my house, it seemed like he was walking kind of gingerly. Like maybe he had blisters on his heels," Jess added.

She'd just said she couldn't see him well, so I had to wonder how she picked up on a nuance in his walk.

Catching the look of confusion on my face, she quickly explained. "There's a streetlamp in front of my house—he had to walk right under it. I wasn't paying much attention when he came, but I was looking when he left and passed by."

"Ah, I see. Thanks, makes perfect sense. So, he had some kind of problem with his feet?" I asked.

"He was definitely limping, that's for sure."

An otherwise well-dressed professional killer goes to commit a murder with ill-fitting shoes? That didn't wash unless he had some kind of physical impairment. Maybe he was injured while in the house? The scene didn't suggest any struggle, though with a crew cleaning up, it would be hard to tell. I knew of another possibility from having dated a short man once who had a complex about his height. If you place lifts in standard men's dress shoes, it changes where the back seam around the top of the shoe opening rides the heel. Walking any distance that way can cause blisters very quickly. Was our killer trying to disguise his height, or perhaps intentionally altering his gait?

I would need to add some new possibilities to our killer's description.

"One final question, Jess, and I promise, I'll leave you be," I said with a smile. "What made you call Coach to see if he was okay after that van arrived?"

"I wasn't going to, originally," the neighbor replied. "It wasn't all that late yet, and it wasn't like they broke in. But as they were entering that house, the second man turned back and looked around, like he was trying to see if anyone was watching.

"And then I thought: why didn't Coach turn on the light for them if they were supposed to be there?"