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.”