The Cinco de Mayo Murder

by Lee Harris

  “You're starting to sound like me.”

  “You mean, Trust no one?”

  “That sounds good. You know someone in that gang was with Heinz on the mountain. They're all telling you the same story: I wasn't there. The guy who's lying just blends in with the ones who're telling the truth. Somehow you've got to see what's different about his story, what points to him as a liar.”

  It was Steve whose story was different. The introduction of the rental car just didn't fit. I simply didn't believe it. And I didn't believe his father had made a firm commitment that Steve would appear at a job interview on the day of the scheduled hike. Both of those things sounded to me like rationalizations that had been worked out to explain away a painful truth.

  “There's one person I believe in all this,” I said. “Michael Borden. He didn't live on the corridor but he was Heinz's friend. Heinz told him he was going hiking with Steve Millman.”

  “And Millman confirms that Heinz came to the Millman house.”

  “Yes. But from that point, the stories diverge.”

  “Even so, you've got agreement now on where Heinz went after the semester was over and where Millman went, and you've put them together in the same house.”

  “And then the sun came up the next morning, on Cinco de Mayo,” I said. “And nobody agrees on what happened after that.”

  I arranged for Elsie to pick up Eddie after school on Tuesday. I was going to the funeral and wasn't sure how long I would be away from home. When I reached Hillside Village, Dr. Farley took me aside.

  “Would you be able to say a few words about Mrs. Gruner? It's a short service, and I'd like some friends to speak.”

  “Of course.” I made a few notes in my notebook before I took my seat.

  Before I entered the large room where the service was taking place, I noticed a man standing by himself against the wall in the corridor. He seemed to be watching the people who walked or rolled past him. I had the sense that he was aching for a cigarette.

  Just on a chance, I walked over to him and said, “Mr. Koch?”

  He looked startled. “Yes. Who are you?”

  “Chris Bennett. We spoke on the phone yesterday. I'm glad you came. I hope we can talk.”

  “I'm busy this afternoon. I won't be going to the cemetery, but I can find some time, perhaps tomorrow.” He pulled a small agenda out of his inside jacket pocket and flipped it open. “I have a free hour from eleven to twelve.” He said it in a take-it-or-leave-it tone.

  “I can be there. Give me the address.”

  He handed me a card, adding something in ink.

  “I'll see you tomorrow.” I went inside and sat down.

  I was the third person called to speak. The other two were Dr. Farley and a woman who had known Mrs. Gruner for many years, having lived near her before she came to Hillside Village. I took my place at the lectern and talked about my long-ago acquaintanceship with Heinz Gruner and my new friendship with his mother. Ten minutes after I finished, the funeral was over.

  I joined the residents who were riding to the cemetery in the bus. When the graveside service was over, I took the rose I had been given and laid it on top of the casket. This had been a brief and unexpected friendship for both of us, but one that each of us appreciated. I felt very sad that the life and the friendship had ended.

  As the group moved back toward the bus, I stopped at Heinz's stone and said a prayer. Then I left a bunch of spring flowers I'd brought with me.

  During lunch at Hillside Village, Dr. Farley asked if I was free to go to the bank with him. I said I was.

  We left before most of the residents had finished eating and walked out to his car. He drove several miles and turned into a parking lot next to a bank. We went in, and he identified himself satisfactorily. I gave him the key and the clerk presented him with the box. Together we went to a small room with a dim light, a shelf, and one chair. He opened the box and started removing one paper after another. The top sheet was an inventory; as he came upon each item, he checked it off.

  “This is her will,” he said, extracting a thick envelope with a lawyer's return address. “I have a copy.”

  “Did she designate beneficiaries?”

  “Most of it is going to the Rimson College Library. She and her late husband established an endowment to buy books in memory of their son. This will increase the principal so the college can buy more books each year.”

  “That's a good thing to do with the money,” I said.

  There was an insurance policy that dated from decades back. The beneficiary had become the Rimson College Library. A few government bonds were there, a mortgage application for a house she had not lived in for almost twenty years, some small family photographs, a few pieces of jewelry. A woman's diamond watch, a man's wedding ring, a bracelet in three colors of gold, and a couple of rings were wrapped in soft cotton cloth.

  I found myself feeling sadder looking at the contents of the box than I had at the funeral and later at the cemetery.

  “Are you all right?” Dr. Farley asked.

  I shook my head.

  He pulled out the chair and told me to sit. I followed his suggestion, taking a tissue from my bag and drying my eyes.

  “I understand,” he said. “A life in a small box.” He picked up the bracelet and looked at it, then the rings, which were gold and appeared to be quite old. “I'd like you to take one of these for yourself, Mrs. Brooks. I think Hilda would have been pleased to know you were wearing something from her family.”

  “What are you supposed to do with it?” I asked.

  “Sell it and turn the proceeds over to the Rimson Library. There are no descendants, no immediate family.”

  “I think it should all go to the library.”

  He rewrapped the jewelry and put everything in the slim leather zipper case he was carrying. I pushed the chair back and stood, aware of the tightness of the space. Dr. Farley opened the door and settled with the clerk, closing the account on the box. When we opened the door to the bank, I was surprised by the brilliance of the sunshine.

  I drove into New York the next morning and up to the Columbia University campus, the center of which is at West 116th Street. It's an impossible place to park at the best of times, but I drove around the streets for ten or fifteen minutes, hoping someone would abandon a meter or a legal spot on Riverside Drive where it costs nothing to park. No luck. I then drove to the only garage I knew of nearby and dropped off the car. Parking fees in New York are enough to cow the most sophisticated drivers, but Jack keeps telling me that when there's no alternative, swallow hard and pay the bill.

  I walked back to the campus and found the building where Alfred Koch had his office. It was on the second floor; I walked up rather than wait for a creaky elevator. The building must have dated back to the days before World War II. Offices had wooden doors with large frosted-glass panes on the top half with numbers and professors’ names painted in black, or no names at all.

  Almost no one was about, the semester having just ended. But an occasional young person scooted by me, a cell phone at his ear. We have become a society that cannot stop talking. I knocked at Professor Koch's door and a voice called, “Enter.”

  It was a one-man office, two walls of books, one wall with a window overlooking the campus, and on the fourth wall books piled everywhere but the door.

  “Please come in,” Koch said, rising from behind a stacked desk. He held out his hand and we shook. “I have till noon. What did you want to talk about?”

  “Your name came up in a letter Heinz Gruner wrote to his parents during the last semester he was at Rimson College. And I found a letter from you among the papers in Mrs. Gruner's room at Hillside Village. When I asked her about you, she became very upset.”

  He nodded sagely. “Yes, I can believe that. I was both welcome and unwelcome to the Gruner family. Ultimately, I was more of the former.”

  I waited for an explanation, but he was silent. “What was your role, Professor Koch
?”

  “I'm not sure I should disclose it to you. With the Gruners gone, that's a closed chapter. I see no reason to reopen it.”

  “That's what I'm here for, sir, to find out what was going on.”

  He contemplated a stack of files on his desk. “Let's just say I was instrumental in getting Heinz into Rimson College.”

  That surprised me. “Heinz was very bright. I wouldn't think he needed help.”

  “You're correct that he was very bright. And he tested well. There were extenuating circumstances in his case, and I was able to mediate a solution.”

  It sounded like gobbledygook to me. “You used to teach at Rimson,” I said.

  “That's right.”

  “Were you still teaching there at the time Heinz applied?”

  He looked at the ceiling. “I believe I was negotiating with Columbia around that time, getting ready to leave Rimson and come to New York.”

  “Were you and the Gruners friends?”

  “From a long time ago. We emigrated to the United States at different times, but we remained in touch.”

  “I'd like to know what the extenuating circumstances you referred to were.”

  “They had nothing to do with Heinz's death. I believe that's what you're looking into.”

  “It is, and the facts of his death have developed into a much more complicated situation than anyone believed at first.”

  “Would you like to tell me how?”

  I hated to give up what I knew with nothing promised in return, but I thought I might learn something if I did. “He wasn't alone when he died on that mountain.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” he said, sounding almost angry.

  “I was in Arizona a few weeks ago, and I met the people who found his body and reported it to the police.”

  “And?”

  I had the feeling I would not like to be a student in one of his classes. If I responded incompletely or incorrectly, he might pounce on me, at least verbally. “And I have uncovered information that strongly indicates someone was with him.”

  “I can't see how you could determine that after so many years.”

  “Are you aware that one of Heinz's suitcases was sent to the Gruners weeks after he died?”

  “I would assume the police did that.”

  “The police never found any suitcase belonging to Heinz. I spoke to the officer who was first on the scene after the report of a body being sighted. Heinz had two suitcases. Only one was sent to the Gruners; the other disappeared. He took both of them to Phoenix. There was no return name or address on the suitcase the Gruners received. Someone assumed possession of both suitcases, took what he wanted from them, and sent only one back.” I heard my voice almost mimicking his, becoming sterner in response to his scorn.

  “What motivated you to investigate this tragedy so many years after it happened?”

  “I knew him in high school. He was a nice person. I was invited to Arizona and my friend and I visited Picacho Peak. I have learned a great deal about what happened that day and I'm determined to continue. Someone was with Heinz, almost certainly a young man from Rimson, someone who lived on his corridor that semester. I've spoken to all of them, by the way.”

  “All of them?” he asked, sounding so skeptical it led me to believe that he knew that one of those young men had engineered a successful disappearance. But how could he possibly know that?

  “Yes,” I said innocently. “I've spoken to all of them. And Dean Hershey besides. He put me in touch with most of them.”

  He looked at me with piercing brown eyes. “Could you give me their names?”

  “I don't have them with me.” I was starting to enjoy his discomfort. Somehow he knew that Steve Millman could not be traced, but he didn't want to admit that to me. “Of course, none of them will say he was with Heinz at the time of the accident.”

  “Because Heinz was alone,” Koch said, as though dismissing the whole topic.

  “Heinz was not alone. One of those students on his corridor was with him. I've been paring down the list. I'll have the right man soon.”

  “Well,” he said with a smile, “let me know when you find out.”

  “I'd still like to know what part you played in Heinz's life.”

  “And I still consider that privileged.” He looked at his watch. “Are we through here?”

  “Yes, sir.” I laid a piece of paper with my full name, address, and phone number on his desk. “If you change your mind and decide to cooperate, I'd like to hear from you.”

  “Mrs. Brooks, I have not been uncooperative. What I know cannot possibly help you. And I thinkthere are reasonable explanations for your information that do not include putting another person from Rimson on that mountain. Thinkabout it.”

  At that moment, his phone rang. He picked it up, listened, and said, “Robert, yes, I've been waiting to hear from you.” He looked in my direction and waved.

  I left.

  I thought about our conversation as I drove home to Oakwood. I didn't like this man, but I was convinced he knew something relevant. His obvious surprise that I had spoken to everyone had set off an alarm. He knew that one member of that corridor could not be found using ordinary methods. Koch was too clever to give away the name of the missing man, and I wasn't going to unless I could get something important in return.

  What I could not figure out was what part Koch had played in getting Heinz into Rimson. I had left high school halfway through the four-year curriculum, so I had no memory of junior and senior years. Had Heinz become ill and missed enough school that his finals were poor? Perhaps Maddie would remember. She would be my next call.

  Late in the afternoon I called Maddie and we arranged to have lunch the next day about halfway between her town and mine. She knew a good restaurant and said she would make a reservation for noon.

  It was evening when I realized that I had not heard from Herb Fallon for a few days. Nor had I thought to call him. He had been so eager to hear news last week that I wondered what had made his enthusiasm wane. After Jack and I had had our coffee in the evening, I called him at home.

  “Chris, how's it going?” He sounded his usual ebullient self.

  “Better than I expected. I talked to Steve Millman yesterday afternoon.” Silence. “Herb?”

  “Did you say what I think you said?”

  “Steve Millman. We talked on the phone.”

  “How in hell did you manage that? His mother said she didn't know where he was.”

  “I expect his mother was protecting him. Marty McHugh found him.”

  “Amazing. So where is he?”

  “I have no idea.” I explained how we had been conferenced on Marty's phone.

  “So Marty knows where he is.”

  “I guess so. He found him.”

  “This is—this is amazing. Nobody's seen the guy for twenty years and in a couple of days you found him.”

  “I think Marty knew where to look, Herb. I know he made a lot of calls.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He admitted that Heinz went to Arizona with him, that he stayed at the Millmans', but Steve insists he never went hiking with Heinz.”

  “Did he say who did go?”

  “He claims not to know. He said Heinz rented a car to get to Picacho Peak. I don't believe it. I believe Steve was there and that they drove together in Steve's car, but I couldn't get Steve to change his story, and I don't know where he is or how to reach him. For all I know, after that phone call he may have picked himself up and moved again.”

  “Not likely,” Herb said. “He's got to have a job now. You can't just walk out of a job and hope to land another good one. And he might have a family, kids in school. Marty must be a good friend, a trusted friend. He probably had a long talk with Steve before your conversation with a lot of promises made.”

  I had thought as much myself. “Well, I did the best I could. I've established that he's alive, and if he can be believed, he went to Arizo
na on the same plane as Heinz. Which makes Andrew Franklin's story somewhat specious.”

  “It's a long time ago. Memories fade. I wouldn't hold it against Andy.”

  I smiled. The old friendships were still in place. “Well, I wanted to update you. And I don't think you know that Heinz's mother died over the weekend.”

  He said some appropriate words, and we concluded our conversation. It left me with a few uncomfortable questions that I hoped I would find answers to. Something made me think I had turned a corner in this case. I just didn't recognize the street I was now on.

  In the morning I sat down with my lists again. The information I had was full of contradictions. Heinz was the only one in the taxi. Steve Millman rode to the airport in the some taxi as Heinz. Heinz rented a car to drive from Phoenix to Picacho Peak, but there was no record of any car having been found. Heinz was alone on his hike; someone was with Heinz on the trail. Heinz had two suitcases; only one suitcase was returned to the Gruners. The small backpack was not on the trail when the Towers went up the trail; the small backpack was at the side of the trail when the Towers came down.

  I picked up the phone and called Andrew Franklin in Minneapolis. He had told me that Heinz was the only passenger in the taxi. When he answered, I reminded him who I was and told him I was rechecking information.

  “OK,” he said graciously. “What can I tell you today?”

  “You said you helped Heinz Gruner down the dorm stairs to a taxi.”

  “That's right. He had two suitcases. I took one.”

  “Where did those suitcases go in the taxi?”

  “Into the trunk.”

  “Were there any other suitcases in that trunk?”

  “No. Just his.”

  “What happened after the trunk was closed and Heinz was in the car?”

  “They took off.”

  “And you think Heinz was alone in that taxi.”

  “I know he was. What's the problem?”

  “I've been told that Steve Millman was in the taxi with Heinz.”

  “Steve Millman? I would remember that.”