Alex was a top defense lawyer who got lots of media.
“Mostly it’s the Galena crowd, of course,” Jessy said. “Ol’ Fearless Frank, another of Astrid’s conquests.”
Frank Wunder managed a Buick dealership owned by his father-in-law, whose daughter, Brittany, was another Galena graduate, though two years behind Krista. Like Jessy, Mrs. Wunder had been a cheerleader.
“In fairness,” Krista said, and touched a napkin to her lips, “I don’t think Astrid made conquests in the way you might think.”
“Oh, you mean she didn’t put out? Maybe not, but she had enough on offer to have any boy she wanted. And she really got a kick out of taking a guy away from somebody else — particularly if it was somebody popular, like her.”
Krista shook her head, chuckled. “Listen to us. We sound like we’re still a couple of kids, talking trash in the cafeteria.”
Jessy used her napkin and tossed it on the counter. “Nonsense. Like you, I’m a successful professional woman... and I can’t wait to throw that in as many faces as I can!”
They both laughed. Like a couple of high school girls.
The blonde waitress, perhaps mildly amused at seeing the police chief and well-known Realtor behave this way, came over to see about dessert. The two successful professional women declined, but Krista had another cup of coffee while Jessy worked on her wine — she still had a little left.
Something passed across Jessy’s face as she looked into the wineglass, swirling the liquid, as if she were trying to read her fortune in it.
“Terrible about Sue,” she said quietly.
“Sue? Sue Logan? What about her? Isn’t she a manager at Best Buy somewhere?”
Jessy sighed and faced Krista with an expression turned suddenly grave. “You don’t know? You of all people...”
“Know what?”
Now Jessy glanced around, as if someone might be eavesdropping and, if so, that would be disastrous.
“Sue,” Jessy said very softly, and somewhat melodramatically (this was her second glass of wine), “got killed.”
“You’re kidding! When was this...?”
Jessy’s eyebrows went up. “Some time ago, actually. Her mother wrote the reunion committee, several months ago. I looked it up online. Her mother said only that Sue had been killed last August. We thought it might have been a car accident or something, but no. She was murdered.”
Krista reared back. “Murdered? Sue?”
“I know. She’s not the type.”
As a police officer, Krista knew that there was no “type” when it came to homicide victims; but she let that pass.
Instead she asked, “What did you learn online?”
Jessy leaned close. Disturbingly, this felt even more like two silly girls talking in the cafeteria or maybe study hall. “It was terrible. Somebody stabbed her, a bunch of times. Left her bleeding on her own doorstep.”
“Who did it? Did they catch him?”
Wrong to assume it had been a man, she knew, but that was what came to her lips.
Jessy shrugged. “No one knows. No neighbors saw anything. It’s terrible. Horrible! And none of us knew till way later. No one could go down to the funeral...”
“Down?”
Jessy nodded. “She was in Florida. Clearwater. She did work at Best Buy, and also at some big theater down there. Not movies — plays and concerts.”
Krista nodded, too. “She was into that. Always into that. Liked working backstage, remember?”
Jessy’s chin trembled. “And we didn’t even send flowers or anything.”
Krista shrugged a shoulder. “We didn’t know to.”
But she also realized that none of them would have gone to Florida for the funeral, even if they had known. Maybe the class would have sent flowers — the reunion committee, that is.
Or maybe not. Life goes on. Death, too. More than life.
“I’ll make a few calls,” Krista said, like that would do any good.
“The police down there think it’s some maniac.”
You think?
Krista, straightening, asked, “Have we lost any of our other classmates?”
Jessy nodded. “Two in Iraq. One in that car crash, remember?”
Krista remembered, all right. She’d worked the scene.
“Well,” Krista said, “we need to do a memorial for Sue and all the rest of them, Saturday night. Say a prayer or something.”
“The reunion committee’s doing that,” Jessy said, just a little defensive. “We’ll be releasing balloons with each name. We were going to do floating luminaries. You know, sky lanterns? But the fire marshal nixed it. Lot of trees out at Lake View.”
The two women, their giddy girlishness turned glum, paid their checks and went out together. At Jessy’s car, Krista asked, “Are you okay to drive? Do I need to have you walk a straight line or something?”
“No, really. I only had the two. I’m not lying. I have no wish for you to take me in a back room at the station and work me over or anything.”
They smiled, laughed. Neither meant it. The discussion of death was lingering.
Still, Krista watched Jessy drive off, noting that her friend seemed to be driving quite normally. Then she got in her own car — she didn’t make use of department vehicles on personal business — and within five minutes was across the bridge over the trickle of river and onto Main. Two minutes or so later she was pulling into the PD lot.
She got out of the car, locking it with her key fob, and took the steps up to the Bench Street sidewalk. Leaning against the gray rock wall near the front door, in the shadow of the overhang, his arms folded, his weight on one leg, was Jerry.
He was in a navy field jacket, light blue polo, jeans, and running shoes. He gave her an embarrassed grin, held his hands up in surrender.
“I’m not stalking you,” he said, “I promise.”
Now she was the one with folded arms, though she had her weight evenly distributed on her two feet. She said nothing.
“And I’m not going to make a habit,” he said, “of ambushing you at the station.”
“... Good.”
“I think maybe I’ve been kind of a dick.”
“Maybe?”
“I’ve been kind of a dick. You’re just trying to do right by your dad. That’s a good thing. That’s the right thing. So I’m sorry.”
“Okay.”
“I wondered... you haven’t been returning my calls. Is why I came here like this.”
“I didn’t feel like talking to you,” she said. No emotion in her voice.
His smile tried too hard; he gestured awkwardly. “Reunion starts tonight. Casual get-together... Will probably be more fun than the more formal thing tomorrow.”
“Probably.”
“How would you feel about still going tonight?”
“Well, I am going tonight.”
He winced. “I mean, with me. I’ll pick you up at seven, if you’re up for it. Are you? Up for it?”
She nodded, and went in, leaving him there.
Five
After almost a week back home with his daughter, Keith Larson was already settling into a routine.
And “back home” was how he thought of it. He and his late wife had lived here for many more years than in the Marion Street ranch-style across the river. This was where he and Karen had raised Krista, and when the couple turned the house over to their daughter — what, seven years ago now? — they had left many of their things behind.
The big house was furnished mostly with Karen’s hard-fought collection of mission-style furniture, particularly vintage Stickley things — chairs and a sofa and tables and cabinets with that distinctive stained oak finish, the metal fittings, the leather coverings, the boxy designs. To this she’d added touches — lamps with stained-glass shades, beaten-copper candlesticks, and hand-turned earthenware. Karen often said the contents were more valuable than the house.