The Cinco de Mayo Murder (2 page)

“So how's my family?” he said as he hugged first me and then Eddie.

“I'm doing my homework,” Eddie said. “We went to Mel's house and she gave me cookies.”

“She gave us cookies, young man,” I corrected. “I'll bet she said they were for
me
,” Jack said.

I smiled. “She did, actually. And we've even managed to save you a few.”

“
I
saved them for you,” Eddie declared. “Because I know you like them.”

“Good man. So what's new?” He went to the refrigerator and poured himself some juice, then opened the cookie drawer and took a handful of pretzels.

“There is something new,” I said, setting melon on the table and turning the fire off under our dinner.

“Don't tell me.” Jack gave me a look.

“Nothing like that,” I said, knowing he suspected I'd gotten hooked into solving a murder once again. They seem to fall in my lap, no matter where I am.

“Whew.”

I poured Eddie's milk and sat at my place. Then I told him about Joseph's invitation.

“Do it,” he said without giving it any critical thought. “I bet Mom would love to come out and take over while you're gone.”

“I was kind of thinking that.”

“I'll give her a call tonight. Think you'd like Grandma out here for a few days, Eddie?”

“Where's Mommy going?”

I explained. He knows all the nuns at St. Stephen's; we've visited there often since he was born.

“That's OK. Grandma cooks good food, too.”

I wasn't sure whether he was referring to me, to Jack, or to Mel, and I didn't ask. “And I bet she'd have fun helping you with your homework.”

“I don't need help. But she could read to me at night.”

It sounded as though my trip was practically a sure thing. After Eddie was in bed, Jack called his parents. His mother was jubilant. It didn't matter what the dates were: she would arrange to be free. I took the phone and we talked for a while. You would have thought I was doing her a special favor instead of the reverse.

After the call, we talked about the trip over coffee and rescued cookies. Jack slipped a couple over to me almost surreptitiously, as though Eddie might be sneaking a peek.

Then we returned to our respective reading with occasional comments to each other. The phone rang and Jack got up and answered. I listened, hoping nothing was happening at the station house that required his driving backin to Manhattan. Happily, it was just a follow-up report, and he rejoined me in the family room, telling me who had called. I had become familiar with many of the precinct names over the last year and felt as though I knew some of
them personally, although I had met very few of the cops in his command.

After he resumed his reading, something fluttered to the surface of my mind. Arizona. Mountains. Someone I once knew.

“You look as if you're far away,” Jack said as I peered into the distance.

“I am. Twenty years or so back. Someone I once knew went to Arizona. It was a boy I went to high school with before I went to St. Stephen's to live.”

“What's the significance?”

“I don't know yet. I can't even remember his name.”

“Is this ominous? Should I check my weapon?”

I gave him a grin. “Not yet. I think I'll go upstairs and find my high school yearbooks. Maybe it'll light a fire in my memory.”

As it happened, it didn't. I turned pages, looked at pictures, read names that I hadn't thought of for a couple of decades. I was closer to forty now than thirty and although many of the names and photos were familiar, only one really meant anything to me—that of my friend Madeleine. We had spoken about six months before but hadn't managed to get together. I had been best friends with her before I left high school for St. Stephen's. Not long before I was married, Maddie had invited me to the baptism of her first child. It took place in a wonderful old church in central New York State in Studsburg, a town that didn't exist anymore. Thirty years earlier, the small village had been emptied and the Army Corps of Engineers had made a lake out of the area, which had the natural shape of a basin. The purpose was to avoid floods in the farm region around Studsburg. At the time that Maddie called, a persistent drought had dried up the lake and revealed the foundations of houses as well as the perfectly preserved Catholic
church, where the christening took place after a thorough cleaning.

I reached for the phone on my office desk and dialed Maddie's number. She was elated to hear my voice, and we spent several minutes catching up on family news. Finally I told her about my impending trip to Arizona.

“Maddie,” I said, “something happened in Arizona a long time ago. It had to do with a boy in our high school class, but I can't remember the name. Am I ringing any bells?”

“Absolutely. It was Heinz Gruner.”

“Yes! Of course. I remember now. Hold on a second.” I leafed through the open yearbook and found a picture of him, a somber, round-faced boy who looked as though he had not yet learned to smile. “Here he is. What a sad kid he was.”

“That's the one. He was a nice enough guy, but he was so introverted. I don't think he had many friends.”

“What's the story? What's the connection to Arizona?”

“It was very sad, Chris. He traveled out there one summer when he was in college to walk in the mountains, and he disappeared. Some hikers found his body several days later. It looked as if he had fallen off a narrow trail. He probably died in the fall or soon after.”

“I remember now. It was in the paper. Aunt Meg sent me the clipping. There wasn't any evidence of foul play, was there?”

“Not at all. The question they raised was whether he had slipped and fallen or whether—” She stopped, and I knew what she was thinking.

“Whether he committed suicide?”

“Yes. It's terrible to thinkof a kid of nineteen or twenty doing something like that. Traveling all that way by himself, finding a lonely trail. Even now it's hard for me to say it.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“You remember him, Chris. Smart, quiet, almost no friends. I don't think he ever went out on a date or got invited to a party. He spent all his time in the library or at home with his parents. His father was very stiff. I met him once, maybe at high school graduation. Mrs. Gruner was there, too, kind of a mousy woman. Maybe I'm being unfair, but I swear she walked two steps behind him.”

“I remember her,” I said. “We met a couple of times, at school functions, I think. She was very sweet.”

“Yes, she used to help out at concerts and plays.”

I hadn't graduated from Maddie's high school, having gone to live at St. Stephen's when I was about halfway through. From then on, I attended high school in the town adjacent to the convent. “Where did he go to college?” I asked.

“I don't remember, some small, elite place in Ohio or Indiana or one of those states. I never saw him after graduation. No, that's wrong—I did, just once. I was out on a date, I think, and we stopped at Blackie's Diner for ice cream after a movie. Doesn't that sound sweet and innocent?” She laughed.

Never having dated in my life till I was released from my vows at age thirty, I was hardly the judge of sweetness and innocence. But I agreed with her that it did. “And you saw him?”

“He was in a booth with a girl I'd never seen and they were eating huge sundaes. Funny that I remember that. When my date and I left the diner, we walked past the table and I said hi. It took him a couple of seconds to place me, but I got a smile from him. That was the last time I saw him. He probably died the next summer.”

I felt a chill. We were talking about a real person whom we had known, someone who had figured in our lives.
“I don't suppose you remember where in Arizona he died.”

“Oh gosh no. It wasn't the Grand Canyon. I'd remember that. It was a mountain somewhere. Tucson sticks in my mind.”

“Mine, too. Are his parents alive?”

“I'm not sure. I think I read an obituary for his father a long time ago. They weren't young. I think Heinz was born when his parents were already close to middle age. They came over from Germany or Austria after the war and they spoke with an accent, but their English was excellent. I think Heinz was born here.”

“So his mother might be alive,” I said.

“Could be. Hold on, I'll check the phone book.” She put the phone down and I sat and waited. Maddie still lived in the town where we'd grown up, several miles from the house where I'd been raised. Her mention of Blackie's Diner had triggered a host of memories, all pleasant. I could almost taste the hot fudge they were famous for, which we ate by the gallon.

“There's no Gruner in the book,” Maddie's voice said in my ear. “And this is for several towns around. So either Mrs. Gruner moved or died or—”

“Or remarried,” I said.

“Why are you so interested, Chris?”

I told her about my upcoming trip to Arizona and how it had brought back memories. “In any case, I think I'll try to locate Mrs. Gruner and have a chat with her before I go. I haven't thought of Heinz since the time I read about his death. I'm sure she'd like to hear from someone who thought her son was a nice person.”

“Sounds like you're describing a mother.”

“I am indeed. Let's get together, Maddie, when you and I have a free day or at least a couple of hours.”

“After Easter,” she said. “Things should calm down. Give my love to Jack.”

“I will.” I asked to be remembered to her family as well, including her parents. Then I hung up and thought about the boy who died so far from home so many years too soon.

I didn't mention my interest in Heinz Gruner to Jack. Since I was unlikely to find his mother and even more unlikely to learn anything further about his untimely death, it didn't merit a discussion. Besides Maddie, I knew almost no one else from high school. My short time there had not been happy. My mother was ill and she died when I was fifteen, my father having died of a heart attack a number of years earlier. I'd gone to live with Aunt Meg and Uncle Willy but their home was also a place of illness, notably my cousin Gene's. That I emerged as a whole person was due to the efforts of the nuns at St. Stephen's, with the help of my aunt and uncle. Despite all the trouble in their lives, they remained a constant support.

I called Joseph the next morning to tell her that I was happy to accept her invitation, and that all the arrangements for my family would be taken care of. She said she would let me know soon what her dates were, what hotel we would stay at in Phoenix, and other details. I checked my wardrobe and found that last year's bathing suits were still in good shape and my summer clothes were just waiting to be packed.

While I was reading the Times after lunch, the phone rang. It was Maddie.

“I made a couple of phone calls this morning,” she said. “Believe it or not, I located Mrs. Gruner.”

“Maddie, that's wonderful. I think I'll enlist you if I ever have another homicide to solve. Where is she?”

“In a care facility. There's a home not far from here: one of those places that's split between older people who need almost no care and go about their business, and people who need assistance. Mrs. Gruner had a stroke several years ago and she's been there ever since. Here's the number of the home.”

I grabbed an envelope and wrote it down. “Maybe I'll drive over this afternoon. Eddie is taken care of after school, and my teaching work is done.”

“You're too much,” Maddie said, laughing. “You think you're going to find a murder in that poor boy's death?”

“Not at all. I think I'm going to keep a lonesome mother company for an hour and listen to whatever she wants to talk about.”

“Keep me informed.”

I promised to do that.

I called the home and was told Mrs. Gruner was able to have visitors and this afternoon would be a fine time to come. I didn't need an explicit invitation. I took off.

Hillside Village sat on a large, beautiful piece of property that would be green in a few weeks. It wasn't exactly a “village,” but several buildings formed the complex, most of them small, one-story affairs. That was where the independent residents lived, I learned later. The large central structure housed those people who needed assistance or nursing care. Lawn furniture dotted the area in front of that building, but it was too cool for sitting outside. I parked in the visitors' section around the side and found my way inside to the front desk where it was warm, and
people walked or were pushed in wheelchairs along the hallway.

“I'm Chris Bennett,” I announced to the young woman at the desk. “I called awhile ago. I'd like to visit Mrs. Gruner.”

“Yes, I took your call. I'll tell her you're coming.” She tried the number, but no one answered. “She may be sleeping or at an activity. Let me get someone to show you the way.”

It took several minutes before a young man appeared wearing a name tag that said ERNIE, and he accompanied me to an elevator and up to the third floor.

“You a relative?” he asked.

“I'm Christine Bennett, an old friend of her son.”

“Her son. Yeah. She talks about him. He died, didn't he?”

“Many years ago. We went to the same high school.”

“I bet she'll be glad to see you. She doesn't get many visitors.”