19
202 tom farmer and marty foley “They said it was because my mother had life insurance,” Kirsten answered . “We can’t pay this bill. I don’t know what to do. I talked to the man at the funeral home, and he said we could pay on an installment, but I told him I would talk to you. Can you take care of this?” she asked, pushing the $5,408.85 bill at Belinda. Some of the bizarre events surrounding May’s funeral were explained by the Greineders’ penny-pinching attempt to have it paid by a public victims’ fund, but Belinda could still not overcome her bewilderment at the family ’s callous handling of May’s cremation. “How could you not have five thousand dollars?” she asked. “Didn’t your father think of paying this bill?” “We can’t do it. We just don’t have the money,” Kirsten replied curtly, avoiding Belinda’s question. Silently tucking the invoice in with her other paperwork, Belinda decided any further discussion would be fruitless. She hugged and kissed her cousins before getting in her car and heading back to New York. It would be her last visit to 56 Cleveland Road. 19 It was raw and raining on Tuesday, April 4, 2000, when Belinda Markel and Ilse Stark braced themselves and stepped onto the trail in the pine tree forest at Morses Pond. In Massachusetts for an appointment with District Attorney Bill Keating the next day, May Greineder’s niece and sister wanted to walk the recreation area she had loved so much, hoping it would somehow have an answer for the unexplainable. Flanked by Marty Foley and Rick Grundy, with a pack of Wellesley cops trailing behind, it was the first time Belinda or Ilse had been to Morses Pond since May’s death. “It was raining. It was miserable out,” Belinda said solemnly, the unpleasant weather bolstering the bad memory. Slowly making the circuit that Dr. Greineder claimed he and his wife had walked that day, Foley and Grundy respectfully explained the significance of each area, pointing out where the civilian witnesses in the case had a murder in wellesley 203 been positioned. When the grieving women were approached by a resident asking if they knew May or her family, Foley politely shooed the woman away. Why Dr. Greineder would perpetrate such an act was still mystifying to all, and they bounced ideas off each other at each stop on the sad tour. “As we were going, we were talking about what could have happened or why May maybe didn’t go one way or the other,” Belinda recalled. “We talked about the scream when we were on top of the sandpit. We were all asking questions and listening to each other, and in some ways we were answering their questions.” The group of Wellesley cops still respectfully trailing behind, Foley and Grundy stopped at the spot where May died on the tree-covered trail. Lowering his already softened voice, Foley described how May was ambushed with the hammer, furiously killed with the knife, and then dragged off the trail where her husband of thirty-one years continued his attack with knife thrusts to her head and lifeless body. The detective could see the emotional pain welling up in the two women with their understanding of each horrifying detail, but they had wanted to see for themselves. Foley completely understood why. “Belinda was a little upset but Ilse was really, really distraught,” he said soberly. “I think a lot came back. To really put the whole story into perspective, you have to be there. You have to see the sandpit. You have to see the traffic circle. You have to see, for this to happen, it could have only happened in this one area. To be at the spot where she was killed, to me it’s always emotional. I couldn’t imagine what the family members felt.” As the women privately reflected in the place where their adored May was taken from them, their obvious heartbreak inspired the investigators in their pursuit of justice. “Going through that scene again it was kind of an emotional thing for me as well,” Foley admitted. “For us it was the need to do a good job with this case. He’s hurt these people so much and they are true victims in this crime, and it was emotional to me and I’m sure to Rick as well to see what...
OR
Buy This Book in Print