Free The Cinco de Mayo Murder by Lee Harris Page A

website, the beautiful pictures, and the fine curriculum.
    “You check out the tuition?” my practical husband asked.
    “I was afraid to. Whatever it is now, it'll be a lot more when Eddie's ready for college. But it would be nice for him to go to such a beautiful place.”
    “Looks like I better study for the captain's exam or think about private practice.” He had gone to law school and passed the bar since I met him.
    “Do what you enjoy doing,” I said. “When the time comes, we'll find the money.”
    “Said by a real optimist.”
    “You bet.” I kissed his cheek. He had given me the same advice many times.
    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 inthe 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.