In the Dark of the Night

Once more climbing up onto the hull, Kent grabbed the anchor line and slowly brought it up while Eric did his best to keep the overturned boat from rolling so far that both Kent and Tad would be thrown back into the water.

Slowly, so slowly that Eric wasn’t sure it was happening at all, the anchor began to come loose from the mud at the bottom of the lake. Then, at last, he felt the boat lighten, and as Kent kept pulling up the anchor line, he once again kicked hard.

The boat inched toward shore.

After a few minutes that seemed like much longer, Tad regained enough consciousness to cling to the rope while Kent slid back into the water to help Eric move the ruined skiff through the water. They swam in silence, kicking hard, gripping the stern of the boat even as their fingers, then their hands, and finally their arms, went numb.

As darkness was falling and Eric was about to give up hope that they would make it, he felt something beneath his feet.

“We did it!” he croaked as he stood up, the water now only chest-deep.

Moving around to the prow of the boat, he took the anchor line from Tad and pulled the boat far enough in so its gunwale stuck in the mud. Then, as Kent helped Tad get to shore, Eric hauled the anchor out of the now shallow water.

But it wasn’t just the anchor that came up. An ancient crawfish trap, its float — and the rope that tethered the float — stuffed inside the trap itself, appeared.

When they’d dropped the anchor, one of its tines had caught the trap. Even with the whole mess on shore, it still took Eric nearly a full minute to extract the anchor from the rusting trap. Meanwhile, Tad regained his strength, and Kent came over to help Eric.

Then he saw that the anchor, the float, and its plastic line weren’t the only things that were in the trap.

There was something else as well.

As Kent picked up the old float and started scraping the slime away, Eric gazed silently at the other object that had fallen from the trap.

A moment later Kent had scraped enough of the slime from the float to read the single faded word that had been put on the float to identify the trap’s owner.

“Jesus,” Kent whispered. “Look at this.” He held it out for Eric and Tad to see. DARBY.

All three of them gazed at the float for a long time, then, though no one had said anything, they turned to the other object that had been in the trap.

It was covered with rust and missing its handle, but there was no mistaking what it was.

The blade of an axe.

ADAM MOSLER AND Chris McIvens sat silently in Sheriff Ruston’s office, their heads down, their gazes fixed on the floor. “Tad Sparks had to have eleven stitches in the back of his head,” Ruston began. “You two should both be on your knees thanking your lucky stars that none of them were killed.”

“I–I’m sorry,” Adam stammered, but Ruston didn’t hear anything that sounded like genuine penitence in his voice.

“You’re going to be a lot sorrier when those parents decide what charges to press.” Ruston got up from his chair and walked around to the front of his desk. “Criminal mischief. Destruction of property. Reckless endangerment.” He leaned back against the desk and crossed his arms. “Attempted murder, three counts.” He let that sink in for a moment, then went on. “You’re in serious trouble, Adam. Eric Brewster’s father is a lawyer. A damned good lawyer.”

Adam sucked in a ragged breath. “It was an accident,” he whispered.

“‘Accident’ my ass!” Ruston snapped, his words lashing like the tip of a whip. “Fortunately for you, those same three parents have cool heads, and seem to think maybe at least some of what you two did could have been accidental. So here’s what’s going to happen. They’re going to talk things over tomorrow, after all of them have had a chance to sleep on it, and see how the Sparks boy is doing. Wednesday is the Fourth, so they’re not going to tell me what they’ve decided until Thursday morning. Which gives you two days to think about things, deal with your own parents, and hire yourselves an attorney.” His eyes fixed on Chris McIvens. “And don’t think for even one minute that just because you weren’t driving the boat that you’re off the hook. You’re not.” He wheeled back to Adam Mosler. “As for you, at the very least you’ll be buying Pinecrest a brand new boat.”

Mosler glowered up at Ruston. “That boat was a piece of shit.”

“Well, the new boat you buy for them won’t be.”

Adam’s features hardened into a sullen mask. “Those assholes killed Ellis.”

“I don’t think so,” Ruston said.

“Why?” Mosler sneered. “Because they’re rich?”

Ruston’s eyes narrowed to a dangerous squint. “If I were you, I’d start watching my mouth,” he said softly, “otherwise Dan Brewster might just add a slander count to the rest of your offenses.”

Ruston’s phone rang once, and then the fax machine on the credenza behind his desk came alive. He glanced at the clock — almost nine-thirty. Frowning, he reached back and pulled the cover sheet out of the machine the second it finished printing, glanced at it, then peered once more at the two boys he’d been doing his best to scare some sense into for the last hour. “Out of here,” he barked. “Both of you. And I don’t even want to hear any rumors about you two, understand?” He held Adam Mosler’s gaze until the boy finally broke, nodding his agreement to the sheriff’s words. Ruston tipped his head toward the door and both boys bolted before he could change his mind.

As the door closed behind them, he reached out and picked up the next few pages of the report the coroner’s office was faxing, knowing from the lateness of the hour that the news was not going to be good.

He scanned the pages, searching for the cause of death, and when he found it his stomach knotted.

Blunt force, trauma to the head, resulting in cranial fracture.

The details were even worse. Pieces of pine bark had been found embedded in the skin, the skull, and brain, indicating that Ellis Langstrom had been clubbed so hard that it crushed his skull.

His arm had been severed inexpertly by a saw, right through the bone.

The pages clutched in his hand, Rusty sank deep into his chair. How the hell was he going to tell Carol Langstrom how her son had died?

And how was Mayor Ray Richmond going to keep it from Gerald Hofstetter? He couldn’t, any more than he could stop Hofstetter from printing the story.

Which, he was certain, would be the end of the lucrative summer season.

It wasn’t just Carol Langstrom who was going to be battered by this report.

It was the whole town.

Beyond that, there was his own personal problem: finding out who had killed Ellis Langstrom, why whoever it was had done it, and how he was going to prove it.

Adam Mosler’s accusation rose unbidden in his mind: Those assholes killed Ellis.

He remembered all three of them being at the funeral.

The perpetrator always revisits the scene of the crime.

He remembered thinking that those boys knew more than they were saying.

From the depths of his memory he recalled a book he’d read a long time ago, about two other boys from Chicago. What were their names?

Leopold. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

Best friends who had killed someone just to see if they could do it.

Just for the fun of it.

Was it possible that the same thing had happened here, only this time there were three boys involved?

Why had the fathers of two of those boys come into his office the next day? Had they been just taking the temperature of the local officials, or was there something they knew?

Maybe he’d been a little too hasty in giving those three boys the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe he ought to talk to them again.

Maybe he ought to ask them to come into his office, instead of going out to Pinecrest.

He unconsciously tapped the end of his pen on the report as he turned it over in his mind.