The Cinco de Mayo Murder (9 page)

The package from Dean Hershey arrived at eleven. I had waited nervously for the doorbell since breakfast. I brought it in and sat down at the dining room table, which we used far more for spreading out work than for eating. I slit the envelope and pulled out a stack of paper topped with a formal letter from the dean. Then I started turning pages.

Near the top of the pile was the dormitory information, a sketch of a corridor with numbered rooms on each side.

The page after that listed the occupants of each room with a name, address, phone number, and e-mail address if the college had it. A third page showed an entering picture or a graduation picture for each boy. The picture of Heinz was exactly as I remembered him. I laid the sketch, the list, and the photos on the table side by side and began to go down the list of names. One of them sounded familiar: Herbert Fallon. Where had I heard it before?

I pulled over the notes I had made in Arizona, but his name wasn't there. Then I grabbed the ones I had made the previous afternoon when I looked at the website. Herbert Fallon was the history professor who had graduated the year Heinz would have if he'd lived. I felt elated. They'd known each other as undergraduates.

As I went down the list I found that, except for Professor Fallon, the men on the corridor had scattered across the country. Of the nine undergraduates, two had gone into academic life, both in Illinois. One boy had disappeared. There was no address after his parents’ home. Of the six who were left, one was a lawyer in New York City, another a lawyer in Minneapolis. One was unclear, but I had a phone number. Another worked in California. The eighth seemed to have no business connection and no work address, or at least none that he wanted known. And the ninth, of course, was Heinz.

I decided to call the man who had returned to Rimson to teach history first and then the ones on either side of Heinz's room, the one living in Phoenix, his roommate, and the New York lawyer. The Phoenix address had leaped out at me. If the man was living in Phoenix as an undergraduate, he might well have been Heinz's companion on the mountain. No one else on the list lived anywhere near Tucson.

By the time I had finished looking through the material in
the package and setting my priorities, it was lunchtime. On the chance that the professor would be in his office, I dialed the college and asked for Herbert Fallon. A moment later a man's voice said, “Fallon.”

“Professor Fallon,” I began, “my name is Christine Bennett and—”

“Do I know you?” he interrupted sharply.

“No, sir. I'm calling from New York State. I went to high school with someone you knew as an undergraduate at Rimson and I wanted to ask you some questions about him. His name was Heinz Gruner.”

“Who?”

“Heinz Gruner. He—”

“Yes, yes, I knew him. We were friends. Who did you say you were?”

I explained again.

“You're looking into his death, is that it?” “Yes, sir.” He sounded so intimidating, I was reduced to sounding like a scared student.

“That's very interesting, very interesting indeed. Heinz Gruner. I must tell you, Miss Bennett, I've been waiting for this call for twenty years.”

I was hardly able to respond. “I'm so glad to hear it,” I said lamely. “I was hoping to find someone who knew him. Do you have time now to discuss some questions about Heinz's death?”

“No, I don't. But I definitely want to talk to you. Give me your number and I'll call you back. Shall we say two hours from now?”

“That will be fine.” I gave him my number, made sure he had my name, and hung up. My heart was banging. However our conversation developed, I had hit the jackpot on my first try. I wanted to call Jack and tell him, but I knew his days were very busy and I didn't want to bother him until I had something definitive to say.

Instead, I took my notebook into the kitchen so that I could workwhile eating, and fixed some egg salad from an egg I had hard-boiled that morning. I added some salad greens and poured a glass of tomato juice. Ordinarily, I eat sandwiches, but Joseph and I had feasted almost every day in Arizona; foregoing the bread for a few weeks could only help the situation.

As I ate, I wrote down questions to ask Professor Fallon. I wanted to know how close their friendship was, what he
knew of Heinz's trip to Arizona, who had accompanied him or might have accompanied him. Had Fallon ever met Heinz's parents? The questions filled the page as I ate and wrote. After lunch, I went back to my dining room notes. Perhaps Fallon knew the student whose whereabouts were unknown to the college. Perhaps he knew the man who had no apparent job. Teaching at the college, Fallon would be able to see his classmates every five or ten years when they came to reunions. He might be a gold mine of information. I could hardly believe my good luck.

By the time Fallon called me at a little after two, I was ready for him. “All right,” he said, taking the lead, “what has happened that prompted you to call me?”

I went through my story. He interrupted several times, but allowed me to finish. Apparently, his curiosity was stronger than his desire to control the conversation.

“Then it was just a coincidence that you looked into his death, is that right?”

“That's exactly right. I was going to Tucson and I remembered that that was where Heinz had died. The day after my friend and I walked up the trail he took, I met with the Towers, the people who—”

“Not so fast. How did you find this trail? How do you know you went to the right place?”

I told him about Deputy Warren Gonzales.

“I see. And he was the man on the scene when they found Heinz?”

“Yes, he was. And I was able to locate the couple who first spotted the body.”

“Who were they?”

“A young married couple at the time.” I described our meeting and the crucial new piece of information about the backpack.

“Amazing. And no one knew this for twenty years? What kind of police work was that?”

“Professor Fallon, it looked like an accident, a fall off the trail and down a very steep slope. The Towers said only that they had spotted the backpack and the body without mentioning in which direction they were walking. They didn't even realize until we spoke about it that they hadn't seen the backpack on the way up.”

“And no one asked. No one thought to ask.” He sounded angry and discouraged. “A young man dies and no one considers it anything except an accident.”

“Was there any reason that you know of that they should have considered foul play?” I asked, finally inserting a question of my own into the dialogue.

I could hear him exhale a thousand miles away. “No, I suppose there wasn't, at least nothing obvious.”

“Then what makes you think they should have considered something other than an accident?”

“Because everyone has a surface life and another life below the surface. When something as huge as a sudden fatality happens, investigators shouldn't go for the neat and obvious and close the books. Heinz was a quiet guy. I liked him. I'm a bully; you can tell that by listening to me. Just verbally; I don't hit people. But I'm another person under the argumentative exterior. Heinz was the opposite. He was this quiet guy who hit the books, listened to classical music, enjoyed his own company. But there was something underneath that was explosive.”

“Can you be more specific?” I asked.

“He kept most of his life secret. He had a mother and father. I met them when they came out for a parents’ weekend once. Quiet, scholarly people. You could see he was their son. But I believe there was more to Heinz's life than
those two people and the study of history.” He paused. “I think he had friends or acquaintances that no one knew about.”

“If no one knew about them, what makes you think they existed?”

“Partly intuition. Partly—” He stopped again. “Professor Fallon,” I said, “if you know something, I would like you to tell me about it. I have reason to believe that Heinz was not alone on that mountain when he fell to his death.”

Now the silence was complete. I half expected him to hang up. “Are you there?” I asked.

“I'm here, yes.” His voice was subdued, as though the bully had been replaced by the calm inner man. “I saw him once on campus, walking with a man. I only saw them from the rear so I have no idea who his companion was, but I sensed he was older than a student. They were engrossed in whatever their conversation was. I slowed down so I wouldn't catch up with them. I didn't want to disturb them. They reached the library, which is where I was heading myself, and they stopped, shook hands, and the other man walked away, at a much quicker pace. I know this sounds vague and insubstantial—I would never accept such a story from a student trying to prove a point—but we're talking about an event that took place two decades ago and all the parties concerned are dispersed or dead. Had there been an investigation when Heinz died, had someone called me for information, I would have contributed what I knew. The images would have been sharper, the recollections stronger. The first I heard of Heinz's death was when I called him late that summer to find out how the trip was and when he was arriving on campus. His mother answered and broke into tears. I'm not sure she even got my name.”

“So you think he had some kind of relationship that he kept secret.”

“Let me be clear. I'm not talking about sex, OK? I'm talking about a business relationship, maybe a friendship based on some political or moral affiliation.”

“Could it have been drugs?” I asked.

“I doubt it. I never saw Heinz under the influence of anything stronger than music.”

I smiled. “You've had twenty years to think about this, Professor. What are your conclusions?”

“I wish I had some. All I have is unanswered questions. But I'm sure there was a part of his life that he kept to himself.”

“And that part of his life took him to Arizona?”

“I didn't say that, but it's possible.”

“Did you know he was making that trip to Arizona?”

“He talked about it. I knew he was going.”

“Was he going alone or with someone?”

“I'm not sure. I think the idea of going was his, and he may have planned originally to go alone. But I don't know how it turned out. Why do you ask?”

“Because there's evidence that he traveled to the mountain with someone who had a car.”

“But that's not the person who reported finding the body.”

“No. If someone was with him, he disappeared after the accident. Or whatever it was. And Heinz had no luggage with him.”

“Hikers don't carry suitcases. They usually have backpacks.”

“The backpack that was found on the trail was too small to carry anything except water and incidentals. There wasn't even a change of socks in it.”

“So you think he had a larger backpack somewhere.”

“With a toothbrush and some clothes. He could have left it in a hotel room, but then the hotel would have notified his home. But if it was in a car—”

“Then his traveling companion drove away with it.”

“Exactly.”

“After killing him.”

“That's only a possibility,” I said. “The companion may have been overcome when he saw Heinz fall to his death and just run away. It wouldn't be the first time someone's courage deserted him at the wrong moment. But yes, whoever this person was, he could have pushed Heinz off the trail at a dangerous place.”

“This is all very interesting. I seem to remember that someone on our corridor that year was from Arizona.”

I looked down at my notes. “Steven Millman was from Phoenix.”

“Steve. That's the guy. I haven't seen him since…You know what? I think he dropped out that year.”

“Really? You're sure it was that year, the year that Heinz died?”

“I'm positive. There were rumors and gossip that he might have flunked a couple of courses, but I never heard the real story. I'll tell you what. I think I could find his records if you give me a day or two.”

“That would be very helpful. What do you remember about him?”

“Smart guy who didn't apply himself. I have a dozen students just like him this semester. If they take the time to study before the final next week, half of them'll pass. The others—good riddance. They've been warned. I'm not a hand-holder. I give them what they need to pass. The rest is up to them.”

“Was this Steve Millman on drugs? Alcohol?”

“He drank, but only on weekends. As for drugs, I couldn't tell you. I'm sure he smoked a little hash now and then; everyone did. Did he deal? I don't know.”

“I ask because maybe he wanted the contents of Heinz's suitcase. Maybe there was money in there.”

“How much money would a kid like that carry? It was probably all in traveler's checks, nice and neat and secure. Did they find his wallet on him?”

“In his pocket. Not much else. I've seen the police file. There was less than a hundred dollars in the wallet and I think he was at the beginning of his trip. He had just finished his exams. The date of his fall was May fifth, Cinco de Mayo in Arizona.”

“Ah yes, Cinco de Mayo. So he left right after exams. You're right. He must have had early exams and been at the beginning of his trip. It's even possible his grades were good enough that he was excused from some exams. They used to do that here. They've gotten a little stuffy about that recently.”