gave me permission to take it out whenever I want.” He was still holding the paddle and motioned with it for Foster to get in. “I know what I’m doing. Don’t be scared. Climb into the bow there.”
Foster didn’t move. He just stood there, then blurted, “I called Mr. Maxwell and told him everything.”
Rusty’s blood surged from normal temperature to an instant boil. “Come again?”
“You heard me. I don’t need to repeat it. Mr. Maxwell knows you intend to set him up as our scapegoat.”
Rusty didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to think about it, just reacted with a burst of uncontrollable rage. He cut a horizontal arc with the paddle. Had it been a blade, it would have decapitated Foster. As it was, it struck him in the neck with such force, Rusty was sure it had crushed his windpipe. He dropped the flashlight, grabbed his throat with both hands, and attempted to make a sound. What issued from him was painful to hear.
Rusty watched calmly as Foster staggered forward a few steps before toppling facedown into the murky water amid an intricate, knobby sculpture of cypress knees, then lay still. Perfectly still.
The flashlight had landed in a few inches of water. It was still on, creating an unnatural underwater glow that was downright eerie. It even spooked Rusty a little, but he didn’t retrieve the flashlight. Better to leave it.
It had been his plan all along to kill Brian Foster. No way in hell would he have lived through the night. However, Rusty hadn’t planned to do it here, where his body could be so easily discovered by someone on an Easter outing.
Upon reflection, though, this unexpected turn of events wasn’t all that unfortunate. In fact, it was better than what he had originally planned to do, which was to canoe to one of the deepest parts of the lake, whack Foster in the head with the paddle, and dump him.
He realized now the flaws in that plan. Once the body gassed up and resurfaced, a medical examiner would have determined that it had been a homicide. Of course nobody would ever suspect the sheriff’s son of committing murder, but it would have created a hubbub that Rusty would rather do without.
This way, it would appear to have been a fatal accident. That would be an easy sell. Foster was new to the area. He was from up north someplace, had never experienced swampy terrain. He’d stupidly left his car on the road and walked—in wingtip shoes, for crissake—into the forest at night, completely unaware of the hazards it and the wetlands represented. The dumb schmuck had stumbled, crushed his windpipe when he fell, knocked himself unconscious, and drowned, his flashlight still on.
No relocating or disposing of his body was necessary. Leaving him where he’d died was much more efficient and less strenuous. He could simply paddle away. Which also saved time. Because now he had the additional complication of Joe Maxwell to deal with.
Addressing Foster’s still form, he said, “Fuck you for that.”
He used the paddle against a tree root to push the canoe away from the copse, then executed a one-eighty and headed for the dock with the shed where he would return the canoe.
He’d barely registered the splashing sound before Foster surged up out of the water and clouted him in the side of his head with a length of a fallen tree branch. It struck him in his jawbone, just in front of his ear. It stunned him. It also hurt like fucking hell.
Instinctively, he bellowed in pain and reached out for the jagged limb before Foster could wield it again. But Rusty missed, succeeding only in scraping the palms of his hands on the rough bark.
Foster, teeth bared and clenched, took another swipe with the natural club and caught Rusty just beneath his rib cage. Yowling, he bent double in an instinctual effort to protect the soft tissue from further assault. Taking advantage of Rusty’s position, Foster grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him out of the canoe and into the water.
Rusty tried to catch hold of the side of the rocking canoe, but Foster kicked it out of his reach and sent it gliding across the surface, then relaunched his attack on Rusty.
They thrashed and splashed, kicked and clawed, each trying to gain solid footing amid the network of gnarled roots both above the surface and below. The soles of Rusty’s boots couldn’t gain traction on the slimy lake bottom, and he