The Cinco de Mayo Murder

by Lee Harris

  “Were you still in the dorm when he left?”

  “I was the last man out of there. I had a lot of finals to take and one huge paper that I thought I'd never finish.” He laughed. “They started to threaten me that they would lock up the dorm with me in it if I didn't clear out.”

  “I hope you did well,” I said.

  “I did, but it was a struggle. Probably the best paper I ever wrote.”

  “When did your roommate leave?”

  “Let's see.”

  I knew it was a terrible question so many years later. I could not have answered it myself.

  “He left before me, that's for sure. I'd say I was alone on that corridor for two days, worrying that they'd shut off the water and electricity.” He laughed again. “I can't give you a date because I don't know what the dates of that last week were. It was May, that's all I know. I was sitting at my desk, trying to put together that paper, and Steve said he was leaving. I said good-bye hardly even looking up. It was such a relief to have that room to myself, even with all the trash he left.”

  “Do you have any recollection if he left around the same time as Heinz?”

  “None. I'm sorry.”

  “When did you find out he wasn't returning to Rimson in the fall?”

  “When I got to campus. We didn't keep in touch over the summer. I just realized one day I hadn't seen him and I asked someone, and was told he'd dropped out. Are you trying to tie that in with Heinz's accident?”

  “I'm just trying to see if there's a connection.”

  “Well, I have to say I didn't like Millman, but I don't think he had anything to do with Heinz's death.”

  “Any idea how I can find him?”

  “I gave Marty McHugh some phone numbers, but they may be dead ends. I haven't seen or heard from the guy since that morning at Rimson.”

  I asked him about K, and he came up blank. I wrote down the names he said he had given Marty McHugh. One of them was a girl whom Steve Millman had gone out with, a freshman that year. Arthur Howell had run into her at a convention he'd attended a couple of years back. She was married and working on Wall Street. I thought I might wait a few days to give Marty a head start. Now that I knew he was working on my behalf, I was sure I'd hear back from him.

  “You ever room with anyone again?” I asked when our conversation was winding down.

  “Not till I met my wife. She's a great roommate. I hope to keep her happy for the rest of our lives.”

  I smiled, wondering if he shared the compliment with his wife.

  “So how was lunch?” my husband asked as he came inside the house. He has a knack of getting to what's important in life.

  “It was much more than I expected, in every way. And my host, Martin McHugh, is a character. I have a feeling he may dig up the missing Mr. Millman.”

  “Well, I checked him out today,” Jack said, giving his son a hug and then commenting on the fingers that still showed signs of blue and red paint despite the cleanup. “If he ever broke a law, law enforcement doesn't know about it. I couldn't even locate a driver's license for him.”

  “Then he's changed his identity.”

  “Looks like it. He could be dead, you know.”

  That gave me a chill. “I don't think so. Herb Fallon talked to his mother. She said she didn't know if she could locate him. She didn't say he'd died.”

  “I found some Millmans around the country,” Jack said, pulling a sheet of paper out of his briefcase. “There's a Stephen with a P-H, but no one spelled like yours. He certainly doesn't drive a car in Arizona. Or own one.”

  I set the table as we were talking. I wasn't eating anything that night except a piece of melon. I felt as though I had just finished that huge lunch, even though it was hours before. I could still taste the fluffy texture of the whipped cream that came with the berries.

  We talked about it again after Eddie had gone to bed. I looked at Jack's list of Millmans, not sure I wanted to call people around the country. His mother had to know where he was, and by this time she had probably talked to him and told him Herb Fallon was looking for him. Maybe I should have called, I thought. Herb came across as intimidating. Mrs. Millman might have decided not to pass along the message.

  Two men on Dean Hershey's list had not yet been contacted. One lived in California and the other in Chicago, but I was too tired to make any more calls. It would have to wait till the next day.

  Herb Fallon called in the morning, anxious to hear about my lunch with Marty McHugh. When I started describing the food, he interrupted. “Not the lunch, Chris. The lunch. What did Marty say?”

  I switched to substance, embarrassed that I had thought he wanted to hear about the fare. I told him about my call to Arthur Howell, who had already heard from McHugh.

  “So he's really on the ball,” Herb said. “Sounds promising.”

  I told him that Jack hadn't found any trace of Millman.

  “Maybe you should call the mother. You know, womanto-woman. Maybe you can soften her up.”

  “I'll think about it. Right now I'd really like to see if I can patch things up with Mrs. Gruner.”

  “You may be able to make nice, but I bet she still won't tell you anything about Kafka. It sounds as though that's a real stumbling block.”

  “It is. I wish I could think of a way to approach her.”

  “You'll work something out. Who's left on that corridor that we haven't talked to?”

  I gave him the names.

  “Jereth and Eric. Yeah. I think Eric went into linguistics, teaches at the University of Chicago. Jereth I'm not so sure.”

  “Well, I'll try to reach them today. And I'll think about how to approach Mrs. Gruner. I don't think anyone else can tell me about Mr. Kafka.”

  “He may not be relevant, you know. By the by, I did some digging yesterday. Looked up all the visiting speakers, musicians, dancers, you name it from that year. There are a few K's in there, a guitarist named Tom Klapp, a speaker named Keith Gordon. He had a bookout on Japan as a leader of industry at the time he spoke. I'm pretty sure I went to his lecture. It put me to sleep. I looked over the speakers carefully. Considering who the Gruners were, they were more likely to pal around with intellectuals than guitarists.”

  “Anything interesting about this Keith Gordon?”

  “It didn't seem so to me. And there were no speakers with a last name beginning with K.”

  “Well, you tried,” I said.

  We talked for a few more minutes, then hung up. I now had two more sources to contact and then I would hit a wall, unless these men could tell me something new. The information I needed was Steve Millman's address or the name of the person who'd hiked with Heinz Gruner.

  What troubled me the most was the sense that one of the very nice men who had lived on Heinz's corridor that year had lied to me. They were all so kind and helpful on the telephone and in person, as in the case of Martin McHugh. Had an expensive lunch covered up the fact that he had killed Heinz Gruner, either accidentally or purposefully? Was it possible that Herb Fallon, who had helped me the most, had been the other man on the mountain? Or any of the other people who had denied going to Arizona?

  Andrew Franklin from Minneapolis claimed he had helped Heinz down the stairs with his suitcases to a taxi, then gone back up again. What if Franklin had hopped into the same taxi and taken off for Phoenix?

  I had listened to each man's story and believed it. But the truth was, any one of them could be a viable suspect.

  I looked at the last two names on my list and decided to call Eric Goode, the man in Chicago, which was one hour earlier than the East Coast.

  He answered his phone on the first ring. I gave him my standard introduction.

  “You're talking about something that happened almost twenty years ago.”

  “That's right.”

  “You really expect me to remember what day or date I left Rimson that spring?”

  “Anything that you remember will be helpful. Can you tell me
where you went when you left the college?”

  “Home. Where else?”

  “I thought you might have joined Heinz Gruner in Arizona.”

  “We weren't what you'd call friends. We lived on the same corridor, but that was it.”

  “Do you remember anyone going to Arizona with him?”

  “Honestly? I don't even remember Gruner going. The first I knew he'd gone was when I heard he'd died down there.”

  “When did you hear?”

  “I don't know. Maybe someone called me during the summer. I really don't remember.”

  This was going nowhere, and he sounded put upon. “Do you know if Heinz had a friend or acquaintance who visited him during the winter of that year? A man older than a student?”

  Eric Goode chuckled. “I told you already. I didn't really know the guy. I don't know who he was friends with.”

  “Did you know Steve Millman?”

  “Steve? Yes. He was next door to me that year. Had a roommate, Artie Howell, I think.”

  “Do you recall when Steve left for home?”

  “No.”

  “How about his roommate?”

  “No idea.”

  I wrapped it up, giving him my usual information in case he remembered anything, which I knew he wouldn't. This had been my least successful conversation thus far. He didn't know, he didn't remember, he didn't especially care.

  I tried to decide whether to call Mrs. Gruner, to drive over and knock on her door, or to wait to hear from her. I didn't want to arrive at her door only to be told to leave. That would signal the end of our relationship, if it hadn't already ended with our last meeting.

  Looking around for a diversion, I spied the three names Arthur Howell had given me, people who might know where to find Steve Millman. One of them was Liz Clark, né e Baldwin. I dialed her number in New York. I wanted to hear a woman's voice and a woman's point of view after all the men I had spoken to.

  “This is Liz,” a clear voice said.

  “Mrs. Clark, my name is Chris Bennett,” and I went on with my canned intro. “The person I'm trying to locate is Steve Millman. I believe you used to know him.”

  “Marty McHugh called and asked the same question yesterday. I take it you're the person he was referring to.”

  “Probably. What can you tell me?”

  “Well, I actually heard from Steve after he left Rimson.”

  “You did? When was that?”

  “Several times, actually. He had a thing for me and whenever he felt particularly happy or depressed, he'd reach for the phone and give me a call. That went on for several years.”

  She had ignited my waning enthusiasm. “Tell me about the calls. Where did they come from? What was he doing? Did you ever get together with him?”

  Liz Clark laughed. “Marty McHugh got pretty excited, too, when I told him. Steve didn't always tell me where he was and I never tried to call him back, but I don't think he was in Phoenix. No, I know he wasn't in Phoenix. He took a year off after he dropped out of Rimson.”

  “Do you know why he dropped out?”

  “Something happened. He never said what, but I assumed it was a family thing. His father's business may have suffered some problems. The money may have dried up. I'm just speculating.”

  “Go on. What did he do after that year?”

  “He got his degree somewhere else, maybe the University of Arizona, I'm not sure. He was never very clear about what he was doing.”

  “I assume he went to work somewhere?” I asked.

  “Yes, but he was vague about that, too. And I have to tell you something. I think he changed his name.”

  Not exactly a surprise. “To what?”

  “I have no idea. It was something he said, that I wouldn't be able to find him if I tried to call. Not that I ever called him. He initiated all the calls. I just talked. I think he wanted to lose himself.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Do you know that a student on his corridor that last year died in a mountain climb that summer?” I asked.

  “I heard about it when I got back to Rimson in the fall. They had a memorial service. I've forgotten the name but I know it was someone Steve knew. Do you think there's some connection between Steve leaving Rimson and that fellow getting killed?”

  “I don't know, but I'm trying to find out.”

  “Marty McHugh didn't say anything about that.”

  That meant he was a careful interrogator. “Did Steve have a lot of friends at Rimson?”

  She didn't answer for a moment. “That's a tough one. I'm not sure I can answer it. Steve was a guy who complained about people. Not about me; he really liked me. But he had gripes about lots of guys he knew. His roommate annoyed him. That's not unusual. This guy said something nasty, that guy didn't pay back the ten dollars Steve lent him. I never heard him say nice things about people. Maybe that's why I was hesitant to keep the relationship going.”

  “I don't suppose you remember the names of the people he complained about,” I said hopefully.

  “It's so long ago. These were tales about people I didn't know. I wish I could help you.”

  “Did he ever say anything about hiking in Arizona at the end of the semester, maybe with a friend?”

  “He could have,” Liz Clark said. “I remember we were out, maybe just having a coffee or a beer, and we got to talking about hitchhiking in Europe and mountain climbing in India, and he said something about not having to go far from home when you lived in Arizona. There were lots of places to hike and climb. I don't remember clearly where the conversation went from there, but he could have mentioned that he was going to do that.”

  Could have mentioned. “Did you tell Marty McHugh that?”

  “He didn't ask. He just wanted to find out where Steve was living or working.”

  “Mrs. Clark, if you recall any conversation about Steve hiking in Arizona at the end of that year, would you call me?”

  “Sure thing.”

  I gave her my info, thanked her for being helpful, and finished our conversation. I was on my way upstairs when I heard the phone ring. I dashed back and picked it up.

  “Mrs. Brooks?” It was a man.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Dr. Farley. I'm on staff at Hillside Village.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was talking to Mrs. Gruner a little while ago. She seemed quite distressed, and we had a talk. Apparently you and she had become friendly recently. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And something happened the last time you visited.”

  I admitted that this was so but said nothing more about it. “Whatever happened, Mrs. Gruner has been adversely affected by it. Are you aware of this?”

  “I am, and I'm very sorry. She told me to leave and it seemed quite final. I had hoped she might change her mind.”

  “She has, but she doesn't know how to tell you. Are you free this morning?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “If you'd like to run over to Hillside Village in the next hour, perhaps I can mediate an end to your dispute.”

  “I'll be very glad to come, Dr. Farley. This was not a dispute and I have no ill feelings for Mrs. Gruner. Quite the opposite.”

  “Come on over. The desk will call me when you arrive.”

  I straightened up the house and drove over to Hillside Village.

  The woman at the desk was expecting me. She made a quick phone call and told me to walk down the hall to room 107. The door was ajar, and I went in. It was a small room with comfortable furniture where a family could sit and talk without being overheard or interrupted. No one was there. Just as I sat in a chair, the door was pushed open and a man in a white medical coat walked in.

  “Mrs. Brooks?”

  I stood. “Yes.”

  “I'm Dr. Farley. We have a few minutes before Mrs. Gruner arrives. Would you like to tell me what happened last week?”

  I did it as briefly as I could
, explaining that I was researching Mrs. Gruner's son's death almost twenty years before, that she had given me the letters, and that I had asked her about K.

  “She became very upset,” I said. “She said she wouldn't talk about it and asked me to leave. I did. She was quite angry.”

  As I finished speaking, the door was pushed all the way open and Mrs. Gruner, in a wheelchair, was propelled into the room. The aide left, closing the door. I went to the wheelchair, offering Mrs. Gruner my hand and wishing her a good morning.

  She hesitated, but took my hand and nodded, her eyes averted. I returned to my chair. Dr. Farley sat on the sofa so that he faced both of us. He smiled warmly at Mrs. Gruner, and his “mediation” began. He encouraged me to say I was sorry I had upset her and she acknowledged that she had acted intemperately but had no desire to break off our friendship. Still, it was very important that I not bring up that painful topic again.

  I assured her I would not.

  There wasn't much more left to discuss. When Dr. Farley was satisfied that he had successfully mended our relationship, he assured us we could remain in the room as long as we wanted. Then he was on his way.

  When the door closed, I said. “It's very nice out, Mrs. Gruner. We could take a ride. Maybe you'd like to have lunch out.”

  “Not today,” she said. “I'm very tired. I didn't sleep well last night. Maybe another day. I think after my lunch, I will try to sleep this afternoon.”

  I could see the hollows under her eyes. Whether our unfortunate spat—or something worse—had been the cause of her sleeplessness, I could not determine. What I realized was that I could no longer talk to her about Heinz because it would remind her of K and her anger. I would have to keep our relationship on a more superficial and much less interesting level.

  “I hope that will help,” I said.

  “Everything makes me tired now. I remember when I was an energetic woman, when I worked and had interesting thoughts. Now …” Her voice faded.

  “You're just tired,” I assured her. I looked at my watch. It was nearly lunch hour. “Let me take you to the dining room.”

  “Thank you.”

  I pushed the chair into the hall and down to the dining room. People were already moving toward it. As we reached the door, Mrs. Gruner raised herself and stood, holding her cane.