“Her new live-in boyfriend. He’s your basic lowlife, leech, and lecher. Put him away. My family will get her into treatment.”

She gave him their names and where they were shacked up. Rusty promised to sic the SO’s dope detail on the boyfriend. “Now, your turn. What have you got for me?”

“Ledge came in tonight.”

“That’s not exactly a news flash.”

“No, but he usually comes in alone. This evening he had a woman with him.”

“A woman not Crystal.”

“Not Crystal.”

Although Rusty figured he already knew, he asked what the woman looked like.

“Thirtyish. Blond. Bambi eyes. No muffin top. Pains me to say, I wanted to scratch her eyes out. It’s not like Ledge to cheat on Crystal, at least not out in the open.”

“You know this because you’ve tried.”

“Don’t be tacky. Anyway, knowing how it is with the three of y’all, I thought you’d enjoy hearing that he was tomcatting. He said it was a business meeting, but, you know. He had hungry eyes, and not for his tender T-bone.”

“PDAs?”

“No. A lot of talking, though, so maybe it was a business meeting. They had their heads together over an official-looking manila envelope. I didn’t see any markings on the outside, or what was in it.”

Rusty’s face turned hot. He knew what was in it. “Thanks, Angie.”

“My sister doesn’t get touched. Just the asshole.”

“Got it.” He hung up, dropped his phone onto the desk, then pivoted and kicked the hell out of the ottoman in front of his easy chair. The steel tip on the toe of his boot left a dent in the leather.

Ledge and the Maxwell girl had their heads together over those police reports.

Judy opened the door without knocking first. “Are you coming back to the table or not?”

“Not!”

She pulled the door closed with a slam.

Any other time, he would have gone after her and taught her a lesson in respect, but she could keep. He had to get Burnet’s attention without delay. Shock-and-awe style.

He went around his desk and opened the bottom drawer. Inside it was a small safe with a keypad lock. He opened it and took out one of several burner phones he used to make calls such as this one.

The number rang four times before a nasally voice answered with a surly, “Who’s this?”

“Your worst enemy or best buddy, depending.”

“Oh. You.”

“Yeah, me. How soon can you be ready?”

“If you’re waitin’ on me, you’re backin’ up. Say where.”

“Stand by. I’ll let you know.”

Chapter 29

Arden was looking at Ledge wide-eyed, but he wanted to make certain that she had understood him. “Rusty killed Brian Foster.”

She leaned away from him until her back was up against the passenger door. Her mouth opened, shut, opened again. Then, “There’s nothing in the investigation report to support that.”

“There’s nothing in it to support that Joe was the culprit, either.”

“But Rusty’s name doesn’t appear anywhere in those reports. Dad’s does numerous times. What caused you to suspect Rusty of all people? Is this payback for his getting you arrested that night? If he did.”

“He did.” The doubt in her expression made him angry. “Fuck it. Crystal wasn’t convinced, either.”

“You’ve talked to her about this?”

“Last night. She shared something I didn’t know that lends—”

“You saw Crystal last night?”

Her voice had gone a little thin, and he enjoyed the tinge of jealousy it conveyed. “Yeah. Straight from you, I went to her.” He relished her miffed expression for only a second or two, then pulled himself back on track. “She told me quite a story about the night Foster was killed.”

“The night he died. According to the report, it never was determined if it was intentional or an accident.”

“All right. The night Foster died, Rusty went to Crystal’s house.”

“A tryst?”

“You decide.” He related to her everything Crystal had told him about Rusty’s bizarre visit. He finished by saying, “At first, I was mad at her for keeping this from me for all these years. But I know how Rusty operates, how persuasive he can be. He convinced her that if she ever failed him, I would be the one to catch hell.”

Arden asked, “Had you beaten up her stepbrother?”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Why did you?”

“I had a reason. But we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about why Rusty needed an alibi that night.”

“You didn’t fight him?”

“No. But he couldn’t have faked his injuries.” He raised his hips in order to reach into his back pocket for the envelope Marty had hand-delivered.

“I wondered what that was about,” Arden said. “It seemed very secretive.”

“Rusty’s medical chart. She filched it from hospital records. I haven’t had a chance to look at it.”

“I want to see, too.”

He turned on the map light and spread the folded sheets open across the console. “Time of arrival in the ER, five fifty-two a.m. That’s consistent with the time Crystal estimated he left her house.”

He ran his index finger over the sheet. “X-ray on left arm showed a fractured ulna, fractured humerus. Contusions on face, neck, lower abdomen.”

“Lower abdomen?”

“Can’t figure that, either,” he said, frowning. “CT scan of torso. No organ rupture or internal bleeding, but blunt trauma to spleen.”

“What does that say?” Arden squinted at a notation. “Splinters?”

“Removed from palms of hands,” Ledge said, reading from the attending physician’s notes. “Treated for superficial scratches on arms and hands.” He looked at Arden. “Sounds like defense wounds.”

They went back to the notes. Rusty had been admitted. He wasn’t discharged until Tuesday morning and was sent home with instructions to continue bed rest for several days, take prescribed pain medication as directed, and apply antibiotic cream to the scratches four times a day.

“I wonder how he explained his injuries to the medical staff. His parents.”

“He’s fluent in lying,” Ledge said as he refolded the forms and returned them to his pocket. “Making up an excuse wouldn’t have been a problem for him.”

He glanced toward the lake, then reached across Arden’s knees, popped open the glove box, and took out a large flashlight. “You want to come, or stay here?”

“Where are you going?”

“After reading the investigation report the other day, I came out here in daylight to do some exploring. But this is how Brian Foster would have seen it. In the dark.”

“Maybe it was a full moon that night.”

“It wasn’t.”

She gave him an inquisitive look.

“I remember from when those deputies made me get out of my car. As I was being frisked, I looked up at the sky, like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ It was overcast. No moon to speak of. Drizzly off and on. Pretty much like tonight.”

She looked through the windshield at the eerie surroundings, then gamely opened the door and hopped down out of the truck. However, she got no farther than the grill before Ledge took her hand. Aiming the flashlight onto the ground, he said, “I don’t know if cottonmouths come out at night. Just in case, be careful where you step.”

She hesitated, but then fell into step beside him, close enough that their hips bumped as they walked. “Why would Foster or anyone venture out here alone?”

“I don’t think he did.”

“But the report said that his vehicle was discovered on the highway.”

“On the shoulder, near the turnoff.”

“His were the only fingerprints found inside or out of his car. No other footprints to indicate a passenger.”

“He came alone, but met someone here.”

“Inspectors were able to cast only one shoe impression near the water. They determined that it was Foster’s size shoe.”

“The water is shallow enough for someone to have waded here and ambushed him.”

“Defying water moccasins?”

“And alligators,” he added grimly. “Someone was determined to make that meeting.”

“My dad?”

“I saw in the report that you and Lisa were questioned about a boat.”

“It was older than he was. A tub. He had stopped taking it out after Mother died, so I’m not sure it was still floatable.”

“Did he know the lake well?”

She gave a soft laugh. “Like the back of his hand. He grew up on it. In his younger years, he was often called upon to help find people who’d gotten lost.” Looking troubled by the implications of that, she said, “But he was no longer young and robust. The drinking had taken a toll on his stamina. I can’t see him paddling a boat any distance, wading ashore, overpowering a much younger man, and then drowning him.”

“It doesn’t seem likely, does it? Rusty’s injuries indicate quite a struggle.” He shone the flashlight on the rough trunk of a nearby tree. “Splinters.”

They had gone as far as they could go without having to navigate through the viscous water and around cypress knees poking up through the surface. “A hard fall on one of those knobs could break your arm in two places and bruise your spleen. I think Rusty was here with Foster.”