Silent Witness. Leona Karr
Scotty looked at Marian as if seeking reassurance. She nodded and repeated, “What did you do then, Scotty?”
“I went into the other room.”
“The one with the front door and large window?” Ryan prompted.
Scotty nodded. “And he was there.”
“Who, Scotty?”
“The dead guy! On the floor! In front of the fireplace!” he yelled as if it was Ryan who was hard of hearing.
For the first time, Ryan believed Scotty was telling the truth. No pretense. No hint of lying. Nothing false about the boy’s behavior. His eyes were rounded with honest fear.
“All right. Stay here. I’ll check it out.”
As Ryan quickly headed down the wooded slope to the log structure, his detective expertise immediately dictated his actions. He needed to verify if he was dealing with a crime scene and if so protect it from contamination. He slipped on his gloves as he approached the front door, which Scotty said had been locked.
He tried the doorknob in a way so as not to disturb any fingerprints. It was still locked.
Carefully making his way around to the back door, he searched for any signs of shoe prints on the deck but couldn’t see any with the naked eye. Jagged shards of broken glass and an open window verified Scotty’s entrance into the house, but when Ryan tried the back door it swung open easily.
The kitchen looked trashed, all right. Ryan tried not to touch anything as he carefully stepped past the clutter. He was treating everything about the cabin as a crime scene and drew his revolver when he reached the doorway of the living room, ready for any unexpected confrontation.
As his eyes surveyed the pleasant room filled with knotty-pine furniture, the only sound was the creaking of old timber settling in the log walls.
He slowly moved forward to a position in the room where he could see the fireplace. Since he was expecting to see a body lying there, he stared at the bare planked floor for a long minute in disbelief.
There wasn’t any body! There wasn’t any blood. There wasn’t any sign that there had ever been a dead man lying there.
Chapter Three
When Marian saw Ryan coming up the slope toward them, she hurried forward to meet him. The glower on the detective’s face wasn’t reassuring.
“Did you find anything?”
“No,” Ryan answered shortly. “I checked the whole cabin. No sign of a struggle. Nothing out of place except for a mess in the kitchen.”
“Scotty told you he did that,” she reminded him quickly.
“No sign of a body.” He looked directly at Scotty. “Either there never was one or it has disappeared somehow.”
Marian could tell from his tone which one of the two possibilities he believed. Remembering how terrified Scotty had been when she found him hiding, she was convinced the boy wasn’t making up the story.
“Scotty’s telling the truth,” she said firmly. “He saw something or someone. And he felt vibrations of someone walking on the wooden deck.”
“All right, we’ll go with that for the moment. I’ll take you two back to the mansion and alert our forensic crime-scene investigator to take a look. He’ll tell us in quick order if there’s any evidence in the cabin to support Scotty’s story.”
On the return trip to the mansion, Marian’s thoughts were a mixture of frustration, apprehension and impatience. As she stared at the back of Ryan’s handsome dark head, she wished she could be privy to the thoughts whirling there. Obviously, the detective had deep reservations about accepting Scotty’s story at face value.
If she hadn’t witnessed the boy’s panicked fear herself, she might have suspected he was making up the story to divert attention from himself. She could handle a boyish prank, but what frightened her was the impact all this was going to have on her summer program if his terror was real.
“Will it be possible to keep this low-key? I mean, until your investigator takes a look at the cabin and knows something for sure?” she asked when they reached the mansion.
“Let’s not cross any bridges yet. Toby Bower is one of the best and if he says we have a crime scene, it’s out of my hands.” He softened his tone. “He’ll collect as much evidence as he can and take his findings back to the crime lab. Maybe he’ll come up with something and maybe he won’t. Until we know for sure, I’d advise you and Scotty to remain mum about what is going on.”
She nodded in agreement, trying to keep the anxiety building inside from showing.
“I’m going back to the cabin now to wait for Toby.”
“And you’ll come back and tell me what he finds?” She knew her tone was more of a statement than a request, but she couldn’t help it.
His mouth curved in a slight smile. “Yes, ma’am. I certainly will.”
The way his dark blue eyes briefly locked with hers brought an unexpected warmth to her face. She quickly turned away, impatient with herself for reacting to his practiced charm. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that the good-looking detective could wind women around his little finger whenever it pleased him.
She watched him drive away and then turned to Scotty. Putting her hands on his thin shoulders, she faced him squarely. “Don’t tell anyone where we’ve been. Nobody. Understand?”
“I won’t say nothing.”
“Good.”
As they came in the front door, the children were just trooping upstairs for a rest period. After telling Scotty to go upstairs with the others, she motioned to Rob, who was monitoring the group.
“Make sure Scotty stays resting on his bunk, Rob.”
“What’s the matter?” the teacher asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow. “Where’d you find him?”
“I’ll tell you later,” she lied and turned away before he could say anything more. She certainly was going to take the detective’s advice and not share the unbelievable events of the afternoon with anyone. Just imagining what the fallout might be sent a nervous prickling up her spine.
She turned in a different direction and entered a small room next to the library that she’d chosen for her office. She groaned when she saw the telephone on her desk blinking, a stack of invoices still waiting on her desk for attention and information the Denver lawyer had requested ASAP still unanswered.
As disciplined as she usually was, she struggled to concentrate on catching up with her work. She couldn’t help wondering what was happening at the cabin. What would the forensic detective find? Her stomach tightened with apprehension. How had a wonderful career opportunity suddenly become a threatening nightmare?
Could she trust the handsome Ryan Darnell? Even though he was obviously dedicated to doing everything by the book, he’d displayed a genuine concern for handling the situation as sensitively as possible. She appreciated that he hadn’t put Scotty through an intense grilling. No doubt that would come later if the forensic investigation found anything relevant to the boy’s story.
Marian knew that she was at a disadvantage not knowing how small-town police enforcement worked. She certainly hadn’t expected to meet a well-built, nicely tanned man who looked like a handsome movie star assigned to play the part of a policeman. The way his cobalt-blue eyes could soften as he looked at her was totally unnerving. And what was worse, the gentle way he put his hands on Scotty made her own skin prickle.
She gave herself a mental shake. She was through with such foolishness. Her last romantic liaison had been several years ago and had ended with a pathetic whimper. Her total relief at being free again had been a warning that she didn’t need a man to fulfill