The Cinco de Mayo Murder Read Online Free PDF

to look at them but feeling I had to. They were black and white. The young man lying in the scrub was the person I remembered. In one of the pictures I could see his glasses lying nearby. I had never seen his face without glasses. I tried to think whether he would have taken them off before jumping if he had taken his life. Although I knew there were similarities among suicides, no one could say that all of them were the same.
    “He's not wearing a backpack,” I said.
    “Do you know he had one?”
    “I would think he would. If he had water or food with him, he wouldn't hold them in his hand.”
    I kept looking at pictures. Finally I saw a few, not of the body, but of the trail Heinz had been walking before he fell. On the path were a shirt and a small backpack. “Look at this.”
    Jack took the picture. “He left them on the trail.”
    “Maybe he was going to eat something when he slipped and fell.”
    Jack didn't answer. The other possibility was just as likely: that he had put these things down before jumping to his death.
    “Nothing is conclusive,” I said.
    “In a case like this, nothing ever is.”
    “You have the name of that deputy?”
    “Right here.”
    “Maybe I'll talk to him.”
    “Here's the address and phone number of the sheriff's office.”
    I thought that maybe he would take Joseph and me up to the accident scene. “Thanks, honey.”
    He handed me the file. It was now officially my business.

Joseph and I flew to Phoenix together. I had told her a few weeks earlier of the death of Heinz Gruner, and she had said she would enjoy walking trails at Picacho Peak Park, whether we found any answers to my questions or not. We left on a cool Saturday morning in New York and arrived at Sky Harbor on a warm Saturday afternoon. A three-hour difference in time gave us a bonus of a few more hours of daylight.
    The car Joseph had reserved was waiting for us, and the car rental company provided a map to get us to our hotel. I had additional maps of Arizona, Phoenix, and Tucson, with routes marked to take us to a variety of destinations.
    I also had an appointment with Deputy Sheriff Warren Gonzales. We had spoken one afternoon a couple of weeks before, and he'd told me that the place where Heinz Gruner had died was just off the highway from Phoenix to Tucson. If I called him as we left Phoenix, he would know when to meet us at the park. The trail that Heinz had taken was neither a beginner's nor an experienced hiker's path, but something in between. If we were in reasonably good shape, we would have no trouble managing the climb. Just bring extra water and wear a hat, he said.
    “Water” was a word I heard often in the Southwest. Wewere constantly cautioned to drink before we became thirsty, something I'd never done before. I had brought summer clothes with me, but Joseph's habit was somewhat heavy for hot weather, and hot it was. When we awoke on Sunday morning for mass, the forecast was for ninety.
    We had lunch in a restaurant that served southwestern food, and I enjoyed the spicy tang. Jack would have loved it. Joseph was hesitant, but smiled as she ate. We walked around after lunch, stopping frequently to drink our water. Joseph's meeting was scheduled for late in the afternoon, so this was the last time we would be together for a few days.
    “I can see why everything is air-conditioned,” Joseph said. “It must be eighty out.”
    A few minutes later, we came across an outdoor thermometer. “Look at that,” I said, pointing.
    “Ninety! I can't believe it. At home I'm sweltering at ninety. There must be something to this dry weather after all.”
    We stopped at several shops and looked at Navajo and Zuni pottery and jewelry. The stones were colorful, the blue of the turquoise and the bright red of the coral. A pendant of green malachite caught my eye. One could wear fabulous jewelry and never even miss precious stones.
    “I think my niece may benefit from this trip,” Joseph said. “She's a lovely