“About a half mile downstream.” He’d even spent a night or two there on occasion in high school with some other guys when Alva’s grandson, Stanley, had been living with his grandmother.
“Did Scotty break in? Is that what this is about?” Ryan suspected the boy swiped something out of the cabin and made up a story to cover his tracks.
“I didn’t bring you way out here because of a little pilfering,” she answered shortly. “I called you because Scotty said he saw a dead man lying on the floor in the front room.”
“And you believe him?”
Her brown eyes snapped with impatience. “Yes, I do. Scotty was frightened because somebody else was there, too.”
“Who?”
“He didn’t see them but he felt the vibration of footsteps on the deck and ran.” Her flashing eyes dared him to make light of the boy’s story.
“All right. Let’s take a look.” He knew nothing more would be gained by questioning either of them further. “We’ll drive around to the cabin. It’ll be quicker than hiking.”
“I didn’t know there was a road to the cabin.”
“It goes a little ways past the mansion and then drops down to the cabin and the creek.”
“Does Scotty have to go?” she asked, showing resistance to the idea. “I hate putting him through any more trauma.”
“Finding out the real situation is the first priority, Miss Richards,” Ryan countered flatly. He wasn’t indifferent to the boy’s feelings, but it couldn’t be helped. If Scotty was making up the whole tale, he’d give himself away and put an end to this whole charade.
“You don’t believe him about the body, do you?” she asked, fixing accusing honey-brown eyes on him.
“It’s not my job to believe anything until I have evidence to support it,” he replied evenly. “We need to verify how much, if any, of Scotty’s story is true. But you don’t have to go—”
“Yes, I do,” she corrected curtly. “At the moment, I have to give this first priority.” Turning to Scotty, she slowly mouthed the words telling him they were going for a ride in the car.
Swallowing hard, he asked in a wavering voice, “Am I going to jail?”
She shook her head and gave him a reassuring smile. “No. We just want to find out…who frightened you.”
She put her arm around his shoulders, and they followed Ryan to the car. After guiding Scotty into the backseat, she quickly took her place beside him. Ryan closed the door behind them and there was a heavy silence in the car as he drove away from the mansion.
When he glanced in the rearview mirror, he could see worried lines on her forehead and he wondered what she was thinking. Marian Richards seemed too young and vulnerable to have the responsibility that went with a job like this one.
The nervous smile she gave Scotty seemed forced, and he’d bet anything she was really worried about being away from the mansion for any length of time. Hers must be a heavy responsibility. He hoped for her sake that this incident wasn’t going to throw her job into any kind of crisis.
As the road mounted a slight incline, he could see the cabin below nestled in a drift of aspen trees near the stream. The place looked deserted, but it was evident that some of the encroaching undergrowth and overhanging trees had been trimmed in order to keep the narrow road passable. Ryan decided to stop a short distance above the cabin so there wouldn’t be any chance of disturbing any crime-scene evidence around it. He took out his shoulder holster and gun and put it on before getting out of the car.
“I want you two to stay here while I have a look around.” Then he spoke slowly and directly to the boy. “How did you get in, Scotty?”
“I—I broke a window…in the back.”
“And then?”
“I climbed in.” The boy clenched his small fists as if ready to defend himself. “Then I got mad and trashed the kitchen.”
“What do you mean trashed?”
“Knocked a bunch of stuff onto the floor.”
“So you made a lot of noise?”
“I guess so.”
“And nobody came?”
He shook his head.
“What did you do then?”
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.
