The Cinco de Mayo Murder (3 page)

The elevator stopped and we marched down the corridor. Ernie was a fast walker and although I walk pretty fast myself, I had to hurry to keep up. He stopped abruptly in front of a closed door. I had noticed as we scampered down the hall that most of the doors were open.

He knocked and called, “Mrs. Gruner, you have a visitor. Can we come in?” When a sound reached us, he opened the door. “Hi, Mrs. Gruner. This is Christine Bennett. She's come to see you.”

The woman sitting in the chair by the window observed us with sharp eyes. “I know you,” she said, her English heavily accented. “The face is familiar but I don't remember the name.”

“Chris Bennett. I went to high school with Heinz.”

“Yes, of course. You knew my son.”

“Well,” Ernie said, “I'll leave you two together.” He closed the door behind him.

I sat on the bottom edge of the bed, which was covered with a spread. “We met a few times when we both helped out at school events,” I said. “And I knew Heinz. I went to his high school for about two years.”

“Yes, I remember now. We talked while we set the tables. What brings you here after all this time?”

“I thought about Heinz yesterday and I asked an old friend where his parents were. I just thought I'd like to drop in and say hello.” As I spoke, I had the sense that perhaps I shouldn't have come. It had been impulsive of me to drive here without first asking Mrs. Gruner if she wanted company. Her life of solitude might be a personal choice.

“You thought about Heinz? What did you think?”

“His name came up in conversation,” I said. “I remember him very well. Is there anything I can get you, Mrs. Gruner? Some tea?”

“Tea. Yes, I like a cup of tea. You will get it?”

“I'll be right back.” I looked around, hoping to find a nurse or an aide who could help me. I retraced my steps to the elevator, continued beyond it, and found a nurse's station. I explained my mission, and one of the nurses said she would have two cups of tea sent to Mrs. Gruner's room. I thanked her and found my way back. “They'll send up some tea.”

The woman smiled and nodded. I wondered if she ever asked for anything or if she just sat and accepted what was given to her. She had a plain face, marked with lines that did not come from laughter. Her hair was straight and coarse, fading black mixed with colorless gray. She wore no makeup. Her skin was sallow. She was wearing a black wool skirt and a gray cotton blouse with a black sweater over it.

“I like tea,” she said again. “Do you like tea?”

“Very much. Especially on a gray afternoon.”

“I have not gone out.” She turned and looked out the window. “Yes, it is gray.” She turned back to look at me. “Tell me your name again?”

“Chris Bennett. I went to school with Heinz for a couple of years. Then I left the area.”

“You know my son is dead.”

“Yes, I heard about it. My aunt sent me the article from the paper. I should have written you a letter. I'm sorry I didn't.”

“He's buried next to my husband. I have not been to the cemetery for many years.”

“Are you able to walk?”

She pointed to a cane with three prongs on the bottom. “I need a little help, but I can walk. I used to walk every morning before my stroke. How did you know Heinz?”

“We were in a couple of classes together. I liked him very much.”

“He was a good son, a good person. When he died, he killed both of us.”

“It must have been terrible.”

“Terrible? Terrible is a war or an avalanche or an epidemic. When your son dies, it is the end of the world.”

“Yes,” I said, humbled by her description. “You're right.”

“He was our only child, the one who would carry something of us forward into future generations as he made himself a life. I'm sorry. I should talk of other things. We are not friends, only acquaintances. The German language makes a difference between friends and acquaintances. Did you know that?”

“I don't know German. But it sounds like a useful distinction.”

“That is what it is. I had friends, good friends, in Germany. One or two of them have come to visit. My husband and I went to visit several times, but I cannot travel alone. So those friends are gone. We had friends here, too, but most have left for other places. Some have died. I sound like a dreary old woman.”

“You sound as though you've thought a lot about life and its consequences.”

“Consequences, yes.”

As she started to elaborate, there was a knock on the door and a girl came in with a tray. She set it on top of the dresser, asked if there was anything else she could do, and left.

The tea was in a ceramic pot with two cups and saucers and a dish of cookies on a white paper doily. I poured for both of us. Mrs. Gruner took lemon, as I did, and declined sugar. She took two cookies and set them on her lap. The tea was hot and aromatic. I was glad I'd ordered it.

“We gave him the money to take the trip,” she said, continuing her last thought. “He enjoyed hiking. At college he had friends who spent the weekends walking and hiking. It was our birthday present to him, the ticket to Arizona so he could see the desert and all the mountains out there. They said he fell from the trail. He had many injuries.”

“That's what I heard.”

She nibbled at a cookie. “My husband went out to see the place,” she said. “He walked the same trail where Heinz walked. He said Heinz was too sure—” She stopped, searching for a word.

“Sure-footed,” I supplied.

“Yes, sure on his feet. He should not have fallen.”

“Accidents happen, Mrs. Gruner. Maybe the sun was hot and he felt light-headed. He could have run out of water and not felt steady on his feet.”

“This is all possible.” She set her cup and saucer down on a small table beside her.

I brought the pot over and refilled the cup, then warmed up my own.

“Thankyou,” she said. “I enjoy a cup of tea in the afternoon but I forget to askfor it. And you know what I do when I'm finished?” Her eyes lit up. “I eat the lemon.” She smiled. “My husband could never understand it. He needed sugar in everything. I like the tart taste of lemons and limes and grapefruits.”

“So do I,” I admitted. “Maybe we come from the same family.”

She nodded and smiled. “It's good to talkto someone who isn't complaining about the food or her daughter-in-law.”

I laughed. “Not very stimulating conversation.”

“But better than thinking over and over about what happened twenty years ago. If we could only go back and do it again.”

“Are you able to go out for a drive?” I asked, trying to divert her to a different topic of conversation.

“I cannot drive.”

“But you could sit next to me.”

“I can sit next to anyone.”

“Suppose I come back and we'll go out for a ride.”

“Why do you do this?” she asked. “We are only acquaintances.”

“Because I want to,” I said. “Would you like to go?”

“Very much. Very, very much.”

“I'll call and arrange a date. It's been a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Gruner.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bennett.”

“Chris. Call me Chris.”

She pronounced my name. Her R's were very German but she spoke English well. She held out her hand for me to shake. Then I left.

*    *    *

Jack listened to my story that evening. “How did you find her?” he asked.

“Maddie found her. She doesn't get many visitors. She probably sits inside in the winter and outside in the summer and goes nowhere. That's no way to live. I'm going to take her for a ride next week, let her look around and breathe some fresh air.”

“From what you said, it sounds like she thinks her son committed suicide.”

“She didn't say that. She just said it was unlikely that someone with his hiking skills would fall. I told her it was very possible that he did. He could have been dehydrated; it gets pretty hot down there. Or maybe the sun made him disoriented. People shouldn't hike alone in unknown territory.”

“Agreed. So don't you do that when you're there.” He gave me a look.

“I'll be as good as I can. If I wander off on a trail, I'll have Joseph with me.”

“Great,” he said with sarcasm. “So you're going to try to prove that this guy fell, that he didn't jump off the trail.”

“I'm not trying to prove anything. I just want to make a sad old woman happy.”

He leaned over and kissed me. “Let's go upstairs and make your ever-lovin' husband happy.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I have been teaching a course at a local college for several years. Most of what we read is mysteries by American women. Occasionally, by popular request, we read a book by a man. I vary the list of books each semester, partly to keep myself from becoming bored and partly to keep my students honest. Looking at last year's final won't help to answer all the questions I ask this year.

I teach one long class every Monday morning, and then I'm free for the rest of the week. I like to have lunch at the college after I teach, as the food is made by students in the food service program and it's unusually good for institutional fare. Also, they sell fresh hot pies, and that will keep me teaching forever if Jack has his way. He's a sucker for fruit pies. Not that Eddie and I aren't.

I checked with Mrs. Gruner on Sunday afternoon to see whether she was up for a drive on Monday. Then I called Elsie Rivers, my mother's closest friend and my ace babysitter. She would pick Eddie up from school and take him to her house until I arrived.

After lunch at the college, I bought a fresh, warm apple pie, and stopped at Prince's, our upscale supermarket, on the way home to get some ice cream. Then I went home to put the food away before driving to Hillside Village. I decided
to stay in my teaching clothes, which are somewhat less casual than my at-home clothes. Mrs. Gruner was an Old World woman and would probably appreciate a bit of formality.

She was in the large lobby talking to a woman sitting in a wheelchair when I arrived. Her face lit up as she saw me, and she struggled to her feet as I approached. I had not seen her stand or walk the previous week. Obviously, her stroke had left her with a disability, but she asked for no assistance. She introduced me to the woman next to her and we shook hands. Then Mrs. Gruner and I walked slowly to the door.

“Where would you like to go?” I asked when we had left Hillside Village behind.

“I would like to go to the cemetery.”

“Can you direct me?”

“Yes. But we should buy some flowers first.”

“I have them in the backseat,” I told her. When I saw her startled face, I added, “I thought you'd like to go. You said it was a long time since you'd been there.”

“You are a remarkable woman, Chris.”

“Just someone who listens. Tell me where to go.”

We were there in twenty minutes. Once inside the gate, we needed directions, which turned out to be easy to follow. Mrs. Gruner held the map in her hand with the route marked in red. Two minutes later I parked the car and helped her out.

The two stones were side by side with room for a third. From the two dates of death, I could see that Heinz's father hadn't lived very long after his son's death—about a year. We divided the flowers between the graves and I stepped back, not wanting to intrude on this profoundly sad experience. I walked among the graves, taking note of the names and the length of the lives, the capsule descriptions:
HUSBAND AND FATHER; BELOVED MOTHER; DEAREST CHILD. I glanced back and saw Mrs. Gruner leaning over one of the stones, the cane firmly in one hand, the other on the stone.

A few minutes later when I turned around, she was facing me, and I went back to walk her to the car.

“Thank you,” she said. “I feel better now. If you still have time—”

“I have lots of time.”

“Perhaps we could drive to the sound. I like to look at the water.”

The house my family lives in is quite close to the Long Island Sound. In fact, many of the homeowners, including us, own the rights to a cove within walking distance of our house. A sandy beach runs along the edge and the water washes in in gentle waves. It's a place that I love, a place where one can walk in solitude in summer and winter—and of course where one can swim.

I drove Mrs. Gruner there and we got out and walked on the sand. She held my arm and planted the three-pronged cane firmly with every step.

“This is a wonderful place,” she said. “I can smell the salt in the air.”

“I have a folding chair in the trunk. Would you like to sit?”

“I have been sitting my life away. Today I like to walk.”

We walked to the edge where the water lapped at the sand. She seemed transfixed, taking deep breaths as though she could hoard the air for the future.

“My husband was a swimmer,” she said. “He would have loved this place. My son was a hiker.”

“And you?”

“I was the wife and mother. In Germany I taught school,
but here my English was never good enough. When my husband died, I had nothing.”

“You had yourself,” I said.

“What was left of me.”

A large wave crested and flowed toward the shore. We moved backward as the water covered the spot where we had stood. To my surprise, Mrs. Gruner laughed.

She turned to me, her face happy for the first time since we had met. “How nice that is. When I was a child, we vacationed on the Nordsee, the North Sea. We would stand just like this, without our shoes, and feel the water on our feet. A nice memory.”