Free An Act Of Murder by Linda Rosencrance Page B

“But I said, ‘No, she didn’t, Mike. You’re Steve’s best friend and she’s his widow, and you need to operate like this is a terrible accident—you’re just trying to make sense out of a bad situation.’”
    Maureen, however, wasn’t sure she believed her own words.
    â€œI never told Mike about what Kim told me about the fact that she told Rachel that she wanted to kill Steve,” Maureen said. “But I felt so uncomfortable about it that I called another friend and told her the situation with Rachel was making me really nervous and I didn’t know what to do. I asked her if I should tell Mike and she said no, all it was going to do was add fuel to the fire that she did something, and right now we all had to just get through the funeral.”
    Knowing her friend was right, Maureen decided to wait before she talked to Mike about the whole Rachel issue.

Chapter 5
    Michael Miller and Stephen Hricko first met when they were about ten years old. Their fathers were in the same bowling league in State College, Pennsylvania.
    â€œI went there one night with my dad and Steve was there with his dad, who was a doctor at the Pennsylvania State College Infirmary,” Mike recalled. “We had to be in fifth grade, but we went to different elementary schools. I didn’t really talk to him. We said hello to each other and that was it.”
    Mike and Steve really got to know each other in seventh grade, when they attended the same junior high school, Wesley Parkway Junior High School, in State College.
    â€œWe kind of formed a bond in seventh grade, where we became best friends,” Mike said. “In seventh, eighth, and ninth grade we played basketball and football. Steve was very bright.”
    To prove his point, Mike recalled the day when Steve, who was probably around fourteen years old, started spouting off some complex medical terms.
    â€œWe were sitting around with a couple of other guys and talking about whether one guy’s mom had a certain condition, I don’t remember exactly what condition,” Mike said. “And Steve rattled off the condition. We wanted to know how he knew it and he said he read his dad’s medical books.”
    Stephen Hricko was as big as he was bright, and he could be intimidating, according to Mike. But, on the other hand, he was a big softy who’d do anything for his friends.
    â€œHe was [about] six feet two inches tall, but if you knew him, you knew he was pretty softhearted,” Mike said. “He’d do anything for you. But don’t try to BS him—he’d see through you. He didn’t care for that too much. If you were genuine, then Steve would have something to do with you—he’d want to be friends with you.”
    Mike and Steve shared a very special bond—maybe it was their love of sports or maybe it was because each of them had three sisters and no brothers. Whatever the attraction, Mike and Steve remained best friends until the day Steve died. They even followed the same career path. They graduated from State College Area High School in 1981. While they were in high school, they both worked at the Pennsylvania State University golf courses. Mike got a job there because his great-grandfather and grandfather were involved in Penn State golf. Then Mike got Steve a job at the golf courses.
    â€œSo we basically worked there during the summers,” Mike said. “We maintained the golf course, cutting greens, weed eating, raking bunkers, pretty much anything that needed to be done. We worked there all through high school and part of college.”
    After high school the friends parted ways for a while. Mike went to Allegheny College in Reedville, Pennsylvania, for about two years, then transferred to Penn State in 1985. He graduated in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in photography and graphic arts. He met Maureen O’Toole, his future wife, while he was at Penn