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.