“Like Charlie Chan?” she asked.
“Just like Charlie Chan.”
She shrugged. “Okay, Pop,” she said, and started in on the rest of her soup.
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.”