Girl Most Likely

Twenty-Four

Krista found David Landry not only cooperative but eager to please, again maybe trying too hard. At any rate, the Lake View Lodge manager had the banquet hall set up as she’d instructed — at the far end where the band had played, four round tables were arranged with as much space left between them as possible. At the other end were two more tables, one at far left, the other far right.

Each table had plastic water glasses and a pitcher of ice water. No alcoholic beverages would be served this time around.

As Krista and her father stood facing their guests, Frank and Brittany Wunder were seated at the far left table; the Braggs at the next; then Landry and his wife, Dawn; and, at far right, Josh and Jessica Webster.

With dusk approaching, the tall windows onto the lake were letting in not streaming sunshine but the gloom of a dying overcast day, the skeletal vastness of trees blotting out the horizon.

Their guests wore the apparel of business or home — Frank in his Buick salesman mode, a sport coat and tie, Brittany in an oversize pink sweater and black leggings; the Braggs still in their coaching togs; David in a gray suit with darker gray tie, Dawn almost matching in a gray skirt with white blouse; Josh in his blue sweatshirt hawking his popcorn shop and Jessy in a navy suit and light blue silk blouse.

Krista and her father made a slightly off-key pair, she in her standard police chief uniform, Glock 21 on her hip, he in sweatshirt and jeans.

No need for many preliminaries. Krista had decided to call them personally, since these were all friends or friendly acquaintances. She’d again said they’d be recorded, but that this was voluntary, and informal. She would stop recording anytime they wished to go off-the-record. They could refuse now, or accept the invitation and leave at their own discretion.

Now, as she faced the group — each couple at their own table to discourage conversation — Krista felt she should repeat something she’d already made clear on the phone.

“You are not suspects,” she said, technically true. “You are not even what we would call persons of interest. Everyone here is aware of just how many people were in this room on reunion night, who will all have to be talked to several times, in increasing depth.”

Her father, looking from table to table, said, “We are only in day four of the Astrid Lund investigation. Consider this exercise part of our process of elimination.”

Jessy, not surprisingly, spoke up. “There was a second murder last night, wasn’t there?”

“Yes,” Krista said. “A young woman named Jasmine Peterson.”

No surprised reaction followed. The word had clearly gotten around.

Jessy asked, “Is the same person responsible?”

“It would appear so, but we are in very early stages of that inquiry.” Her eyes roved from face to face. “We are a small department — a dozen of us including myself and a civilian employee and our consultant here. That’s why your help and cooperation are so vital.”

Pop said, “We’re going to talk to you individually.” He gestured to the corner tables behind him. “We should be able to move quickly. We encourage you to be frank. And I’ll be frank with you — we have reason to believe several of you have withheld useful information, or have been self-serving in what you’ve told us so far.”

A murmur rose from the small group.

“Keep in mind,” Krista said above it, “that only the person responsible for Astrid Lund’s murder... and presumably Jasmine Peterson’s... has any reason to fabricate.”

Jessy, not hiding her irritation, said, “Isn’t that a nice way to say ‘lie’?”

“If you have secrets,” Pop said, “that pertain to Astrid, revealing them would be helpful... and do know that unless giving those secrets a public airing bears upon putting a killer away, we will protect your privacy.”

Everyone looked quietly alarmed. Krista didn’t mind — she wanted them to understand what was at stake, though they might feel they’d come here under slightly false pretenses. Things were ramping up, and the phone call summoning them with words like “voluntary” and “informal” might seem now to smack of bait-and-switch. Too bad.

Pop said, “Frank, would you join me?” He gestured behind him to the table at the other end, by the tall windows.

Krista said, “Brittany?”

And gestured to the other table at that end.

“In the meantime,” Pop added, as Frank Wunder rose and lumbered forward, “we’d like you all to reflect on anything involving Astrid that you may have seen at the reunion — any conversations you witnessed her having that may have looked at all... confrontational. Thank you.”

Keith said, “Frank, I believe you said you didn’t speak to Astrid reunion night.”

The roughly handsome onetime jock sat back hanging his head some. Those close-set, hooded green eyes and the several-times-broken nose gave him a rugged handsomeness but also made him look slightly stupid.

“I think I told you,” Frank said, “there were some hard feelings between her and me. Astrid.”

“Even after all these years?”

He was looking at the tabletop. “Some things hurt a long time.”

“Like what, Frank?”

Now the eyes came up, still hooded. “I will tell you something if you turn that damn thing off.”

The car salesman was indicating Keith’s phone on the table, where the field interview app had been utilized.

“Okay,” Keith said, and paused the recording.

“I went with her awhile. You know that. We used to make out. We were... it was prom. We, uh, wound up in the back seat. I’d had some beers. She hadn’t. We were parked out in the boonies. I got out and peed, and then we got in the back, like I said, and it was getting hot and heavy.”

“Okay.”

The eyes lowered again. “I had trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

The eyes came up. Not hooded. “Trouble.”

Oh.

“Couldn’t get it up, Frank?” Keith asked, deliberately needling him.

Frank sighed, looked away again. “Too much beer. Astrid, she... at first she, it was odd, but she took offense. I mean, let’s face it, she was a real nice-looking girl and I guess the idea somebody couldn’t... perform, she found insulting... Anyway, then she laughed at me. Made fun of me.”

“That must have hurt.”

“It did. I... I had some beers, remember? I lashed out at her.”

“Lashed out how?”

“I... I slapped her.” He was reddening with shame. “Keith, I swear I never hit a girl before, and never have since. That night when I went home? I went in the can and I threw up.”

“Well,” Keith said. “That’s understandable.”

“Yeah, right?”

“You’d had a lot of beer.”

Brittany, her arms folded, her brown eyes hard, her long blonde hair surrounding her face like a hundred angry spiders had spun it, had just told Krista much the same story. With the interview app again in pause.

“Frank was in college,” she said, “I was still at GHS. We started going together — to me, it was a big deal. He was one of the most popular seniors when I was a sophomore. Now I was a junior and... look, if I was to tell you Frank and I did it when I was just sixteen, could he get in trouble for statutory whatever? After all this time?”

“No,” Krista said.

“Anyway, I really loved him. To me he was everything. Understand, I still love him.” She leaned forward, whispered. “Maybe now he’s not so big a deal, but I love him.”

Krista nodded.

“Frank has an emotional side I didn’t know about till I really started going with him. One night, after he had a lot of beer, he really opened up and told me about how, prom night, he couldn’t satisfy Astrid... couldn’t get going, you know? And how he slapped her. It was like, over a year later, but he cried about it.”

“Has he ever been rough with you like that?”

“Not hardly. Next day, when he wasn’t drunk? I told him if he ever struck me, I’d be gone so fast he wouldn’t know I’d ever been around.”

“What about the other thing?”

“If you mean... as far as... you know, sexual performance? That was always fine till a couple of years ago. But that’s what little blue pills are for.”

Krista nodded to the phone between them. “I’m going to turn this back on, okay? Something I’d like on the record.”

“You mean, unless I don’t want to answer and tell you talk to my lawyer.”

“Right.”

Brittany nodded. “Go for it.”

“You said you and Frank were in town, the second week of August.”

“Yes.”

“Do you keep a calendar or appointment book of any kind? So you can demonstrate that you were in town? What you were doing and so forth? Specifically on Thursday and Friday of that week?”

She shrugged. “Well, I know exactly what we were doing the second Thursday of August.”

“You do?” That seemed unlikely, unless after Krista’s previous inquiry, Brittany and Frank had looked (or cooked) it up.

“Sure,” she said. “We were at Fried Green Tomatoes.”

A popular restaurant on Main.

“You remember that off the top of your head?”

“Sure. It was our wedding anniversary.”

Bill Bragg sat across from Keith, looking like the beefy man’s man you might expect from one of the state’s most respected and successful high school football coaches. He was smiling in a good-natured but serious way.

“Before you start,” Bragg said to Keith, “I should tell you that I heard from my friend Ed Clauson in Prairie du Chien. I know he talked to that Officer Cortez, so I figure you and your daughter have a pretty good picture of things.”

Keith nodded. “I would like to hear it directly from you. I can stop recording for now. If it needs to be official, that can happen later.”

Bragg said, “Please.”

Keith paused the recording.

The coach said, “You and I are about the same age.”

“I’m a little older.”

“Not much. But you understand that when I started teaching, almost thirty years ago, things were very different. ‘Coming out’ just wasn’t on the table.”

“I remember.”

“And I’m not sure that, even now, times have changed enough for a guy with my interests and skills to be openly gay and coach young men. To do that, I can envision riding out protests and having to go through lawsuits and... if I were younger, that might be an option. Mrs. Bragg is in the same boat where young girls are concerned.”

“You and Kelly met at GHS and discovered you shared a secret.”

Bragg nodded. “We did. And we hit it off. We became great friends. Still are. We travel together and, in some very real respects, we are husband and wife. I was very lucky finding her.”

“You live with Ed, and she lives with a woman from Dodgeville, I understand — in the summers.”

He nodded. “And there are weekend visits and school breaks and such.”

“Have you ever been involved with a student?”

The coach’s frown stopped just short of threatening. “Never. Do you consider yourself a professional, Keith?”

“I did. I’m retired now.”

“Funny kind of retirement. Tell me — did you ever compromise yourself with a woman in your custody? A runaway teen who was tricking perhaps? A woman of age who wanted a pass on some thing she did, shoplifting maybe?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s my answer to you. Of course I never compromised a teacher-student relationship for sexual gratification.” He shifted in the chair and his frown softened. “There is... I will mention something.”

“Do.”

“I briefly... briefly... had a moment with Chris Hope. A teacher not a student, of course. I was married to Kelly but had hit a rough patch with Ed. Chris and I were friendly and when it was about to get a little more than friendly, someone came in on us after school.”

“Who?”

Bragg sighed. “Astrid Lund.”

“Would you repeat that for the recording?”

“No. If it’s necessary to be more... forthcoming about all this, I will. But Astrid just smiled and laughed and ducked out. She never said a word about it. Not then. And not at the reunion.”

Krista and Kelly Bragg had been covering much the same ground.

“Call it living a lie, if you like,” the slender, attractive woman said, her chin up, “but Bill and I have had, and still do have, a lovely existence together. We are great friends and companions who enjoy each other’s company and interests.”

“I would never call it ‘living a lie,’” Krista said evenly. “I do wonder why you might not choose to go public at this stage? Things are very different now.”

She nodded. “Strides have been made, but hatred and prejudice die hard, if they ever die at all. But this is still a country where gay people wanting to order a wedding cake causes a court case. Do you really think a high school football coach coming out would be warmly received in this conservative town?”

“No,” Krista admitted.

“And Bill is one of the most admired and celebrated coaches of high school football in the state... in the nation! To risk his reputation?... No.”

Krista smiled. “You haven’t done so shabbily with the girls, either. Playing for GHS, with you as coach, is one of my fondest memories.”

Kelly swallowed. Her eyes were tearing up. “Thank you, Krista. Thank you very much for that.”

Krista leaned in. “But we do have to return to what we spoke about the other day... only in this new context.”

The gym teacher nodded. “Astrid and me in the shower.”

“Did you have a sexual relationship with her?”

The chin came up again. “Not with her or any of my girls. It was exactly as I told you. She’d had a terrible experience, something at least verging on date rape. She did not provide any details, not the boy’s name or... really anything more. But she needed comforting. Support. I see providing that as part of my role.”

“You have no idea who the boy was?”

She frowned in thought. “Well... she dated a lot of boys. Would go with them, steady, for a while, then move on. We were close. I was a mentor to her. So I remember who she was going with at the time.”

“Who would that be?”

“David Landry.”

“Thank you, Coach.”

The two women shook hands, and Krista got up and went over to her father, where Bill Bragg was getting up. She leaned in and whispered the new information.

The manager of Lake View Lodge sat across from Keith and offered up a businesslike smile. “I hope the way we’ve set everything up for you,” David Landry said, “is satisfactory.”

“We appreciate the cooperation,” Keith said, with his own businesslike smile. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you about — something I witnessed the night of the reunion.”

“Please.”

“I saw you and Astrid Lund having words. Seemed fairly heated. Considering she was butchered a few hours later, that strikes me as pertinent. Well?”

The blood had left his face, his host persona evaporating. “Astrid was... she could be a little bitch. I’m sorry. I know it’s rude and you’re not supposed to say such things. But she could be. A real bitch.”

“Not to speak ill of the dead or anything.”

Landry leaned forward. “She was a bitch to me in high school. When we broke up. We left it in a bad place. I felt... well, I knew she’d made something of herself. I know that people change. Mature and become... different people.”

“But she hadn’t, is that it?”

He shook his head, still frustrated. “I approached her, tried to congratulate her, said how we’d been kids then and made some bad decisions...”

“What kind of bad decisions?”

Dawn Landry, lovely as ever, utterly composed, said, “My husband has a drinking problem. He’s had it a long time. And he keeps it under control. Right now he’s doing well.”

“Okay,” Krista said. “Why do you mention it?”

“His drinking problem started young. His parents kept a lot of liquor around the house, and did not keep track of it. David was helping himself as early as junior high.”

“Okay,” Krista said again.

“David has always handled it well, by which I mean... he’s not a nasty drunk. If anything, he’s a charming one. But with enough in him, he can be... uninhibited. When he knew this reunion was coming up, and that Astrid Lund would be coming, he... he told me something, so that I wouldn’t hear it from her, particularly in an ‘unfair manner,’ as he put it.”

“Go on.”

Dawn brushed some golden-brown hair away from her face. “When he was dating Astrid, they were alone at her house one night. And my guess is she was one of those girls who would let the boys do everything but... you know... everything but. The kids all said she put out, at least according to David... only she was a virgin. When David... had her.”

“He forced her.”

“That’s not how he puts it, but... I think so. He was definitely freaked out, because she was a virgin. There was blood. She got hysterical. He was worried she’d tell, but she never did. They never spoke of it.”

“The first time you talked to Astrid,” Keith said to Landry, “after that bad experience, was here? At the reunion?”

David nodded. “She was cold. Nasty. She said, ‘You think I’m a bitch? I’ll tell you what’s a bitch — karma’s a bitch.’”

“Where were you and David,” Krista asked, “the second week of August last year?”

“I was home,” Dawn said. “Saw my mother several times in Dubuque. Had lunch with friends. I was around. Easily proven. But David’s story about being busy here at the lodge? No. He was away for much of August. Drying out. He’s not had a drink since, to his credit. But this is a fairly regular routine with David.”

“Where is the rehab facility?”

“It’s in Delray Beach. Addiction Solutions. South Florida.”

While her father was interviewing Josh, Krista sat opposite Jessy, her oldest and best friend in the world, who seemed to consider all this attention, re: the Astrid Lund killing, a kind of betrayal.

“What is the idea?” Jessy demanded. “Josh told me you had him come over and explain his whereabouts in August! I told you we were with my sister and her husband.”

“You didn’t tell me you were in Florida,” Krista said, not bothering to correct the impression Jessy’s husband had apparently given her about who initiated last night’s visit.

Jessy folded her arms. “I didn’t say we weren’t in Florida.”

“No, but you led me to believe you were at their cabin on Timber Lake.”

Now Jessy’s hands flew in the air. “I can’t help it if you got the wrong idea! Talk to Judy and Gary — they’ll be able to run down everything we did with them. We cram a lot into those vacations.”

“Somebody crammed a murder in, in Clearwater.”

Jessy bolted to her feet. “I’m not putting up with another second of this crap! You want to talk to me, you go through my brother, the lawyer.”

“Please...”

Jessy leaned in, her upper teeth showing and it wasn’t a smile. “Please explain why you’re all over me and Josh and everybody else here... but where is Ken Stock and his little Mary, whose best quality is looking the other way!”

Krista frowned at the mention of the school newspaper advisor. “What are you talking about?”

Jessy came around and leaned right in Krista’s face. “Everybody back then knew about Ken and Astrid, or anyway suspected those two were... you know!”

“I didn’t know...”

“Well ask around! Ken Stock is a notorious hound! He’s always taking a girl student under his wing, ‘mentoring’ her. I don’t know how he even had the nerve to come to the reunion!”