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.”
Arden tugged on his hand, bringing him around to face her. “How did you make that connection? Injured spleen notwithstanding, it’s a giant leap to conclude that Rusty was involved.”
“I checked the county records. There was only one death over the three-day Easter weekend. Brian Foster’s. Rusty had one hell of a fight with someone, like someone who was fighting for his very life.”
“His body, enough of it, was retrieved from the animal for the medical examiner to rule it a death by drowning.”
“That was the cause of death,” Ledge said. “Foster could have drowned, or been drowned, before the gators got to him. They drag their prey down. He could’ve still been alive then, but not for long.”
Arden placed her fingertips against her lips. “Lord, that’s ghastly.”
“Yeah.” The horror of Foster’s death was worse than some of the things he’d witnessed or heard about during battles that often lasted for days. “His parents left disposing of his remains up to the county. Nice folks, huh?” he said. “However he died, the guy deserves for it to be explained.”
“I need it explained,” she said. “How did the two of them even know each other?”
“Rusty makes it his business to know everybody.”
“Yes. I sensed that today. He plays the role of hail-fellow-well-met.”
“Right.”
“Did you know Foster?”
“Not well. I’d met him. Couple of times.”
“At the store?”
On the edge of quicksand here, he made a motion with his shoulder that indicated a semi yes. “Welch’s was the kind of place where every time you’d go in, you’d bump into a dozen people you knew or recognized.”
“Why did it go out of business?”
“The kids and grandkids didn’t have the competitive spirit of old man Welch. When he died, so did the store. It happened while I was overseas.”
“My dad wouldn’t have had much of a future there even if circumstances had been different.”
“Guess not.”
“What was Brian Foster like?”
“He was a nerd. Timid. The anti-Rusty. Which I’m sure is why Rusty picked on him.” He soothed his conscience by asserting that none of what he’d told her was an outright lie. She was thinking it over. He hoped her frown was one of concentration, not doubt.
He continued. “I don’t how, or to what extent, Rusty was instrumental in Foster’s death. I can’t prove anything. But on the night Foster died a grisly death, Rusty, the walking wounded, showed up at Crystal’s house in more urgent need of an alibi than emergency medical treatment.”
“It’s broadly circumstantial, Ledge.”
“So is everything they had on your dad.”
“All right, but circling back to motive, I understand Rusty being a bully who picked on a nerd for fun. But what would have provoked Rusty to kill him?”
Damn it. She’d given him another perfect opening to tell her why. But if she had knowledge of the burglary, and Rusty’s motive to get rid of Foster, she would pose a real threat to Rusty. Bad things happened to people whom Rusty perceived as a threat. “Maybe Foster got sick of his bullying and fought back. Or, knowing Rusty as I do, he wouldn’t have needed a motive. He would kill somebody just to see if he could get away with it.”
“Based on the way he struck me today, I can almost believe that. Almost.” As she looked out across the watery landscape, she blindly reached for Ledge’s flashlight, and he relinquished it. She moved the beam across the panorama of the wetland. “The monotony of it has always frightened me. It all looks the same. How does one find his way? But Dad was never lost on the lake. He always knew exactly where he was.”
Ledge didn’t say anything.
“He had a boat. He also had a motive. Half a million of them, in fact.”
Her extended arm dropped to her side as though the flashlight had become weighted. Slowly, Ledge took it from her listless hand. She turned and started walking quickly back toward the truck, stumbling over natural obstacles.
“Arden.” He followed and reached for her, but she shook off his hand and kept walking.
He outdistanced her and arrived at the pickup first. He opened the passenger door. She reached for the handhold above the door, but he splayed his hand over her bottom