Leona Karr - Silent Witness

Bertha Higgins was a large, motherly-looking woman in her fifties who was not only a registered nurse but also a certified teacher, trained in speech, auditory development, sign language and lip-reading. Marian had hired her because she was qualified to take turns relieving Nancy and Rob with the students so the two teachers might have some free time. When Bertha wasn’t tending to medical needs or handling a class, she took it upon herself to instruct individual students about specific health habits they were ignoring.

Marian knew Bertha had playfully threatened to wash Scotty’s ears and neck for him. Much to everyone’s surprise the boy had given her a big grin as if he wasn’t used to anyone paying that much attention to him.

Maybe he was just faking the stomachache so he could get Bertha’s attention again, Marian thought as she politely knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

The nurse had her back to the door, putting some medical supplies in a cabinet. When she turned around, she gave Marian a cheery smile as she said, “What can I do you for?”

“I’m looking for Scotty.”

“I haven’t seen him. Was he supposed to check in with me?”

“Well, Rob excused him and told him to see you because Scotty said he had a stomachache.”

Bertha chuckled. “The oldest ploy in the world. Better than a headache. I bet he knows every trick in the book, that one. He’s probably stretched out on his bunk waiting for dinnertime. I bet the kid’s been starved a lot of his life. He’ll put on a pound or two while he’s here.”

“Well, if he’s hiding out, I just might find a job or two that will help his appetite.” As she turned to leave, she said, “If he shows up, hold on to him.”

“Will do.”

Heading down the hall, Marian intended to go up to the second floor where the boys had assigned beds, but another youngster, Peter, came bounding down the center staircase just as she reached it.

Putting out her hand, she stopped him. Knowing the ten-year-old was a good lip-reader, she looked straight at him and carefully mouthed her words, slowly and evenly. “Peter, did you see Scotty upstairs?”

He shook his head. “Nobody up there. I went to get this,” he told her in a flat but understandable tone as he held out a small electronic game. “You want to play?”

“Not now, Peter. Maybe later,” she answered.

He nodded to show he understood and then bounded down the hall toward the activity room.

Marian decided to check the kitchen, since Scotty had already been caught stealing food between meals. The cook, Elsie Mullens, had threatened him with a week’s dish-washing detail if he did it again and Marian had approved the promised punishment.

She liked the hefty, gray-haired cook who had been hired to prepare the meals. Once, Marian had heard Elsie on the phone arguing with a Denver dietician about the menus they had sent her to prepare. Elsie had spent most of her life cooking for ranchers and was used to preparing meals for hardworking men with healthy appetites and not finicky youngsters.

“Yeah, he was here,” Elsie replied when Marian asked her if she’d seen Scotty. “Hanging around, he was, waiting for me to turn my back. He’s got sticky fingers, that one. Lordy, he’s snitched more than one pastry right out from under my nose.” As she talked she vigorously patted flour on a bread board and wheeled a rolling pin over fresh dough. “I shooed him out of here fast like.”

“Do you know where he went?”

Elsie shrugged her solid shoulders. “He left by the back door.”

Marian mentally groaned. She knew it wasn’t Elsie’s duty to supervise the kids, but she wished the cook had stopped him. It wasn’t an easy job to supervise all the activities inside the house. One kid like Scotty could create a crisis in spite of their best efforts. Making certain none of the children wandered off was a number-one priority. She’d have to talk to Rob about not letting any of the children run around unsupervised, even for a few minutes.

“If the kid shows up again, I’ll sit him down till you come after him,” Elsie promised as if she’d read Marian’s mind.

“Yes, please do.” Marian thanked her and left quickly by the back door.

As she stood on the top step of the wide back porch and surveyed the surrounding foothills carpeted with thick drifts of evergreen trees, her chest tightened. She’d had enough experience in her hiking club to know how treacherous climbing slopes like those could be. A small city boy scrambling up the side of the rock-strewn slopes could easily lose his footing. Steep cliffs fell away to a swift-flowing mountain stream bordering one edge of the property, and in her mind’s eye, Marian unwittingly pictured Scotty tumbling into the current. He’d be swept downstream and—

Stop it!

Taking a deep breath, she stilled her rising apprehension and vivid imagination.

I can handle this!

She’d been telling herself that every time a crisis arose that demanded her attention and decision. The heavy responsibility of being in charge had come home to her the minute the busload of children had unloaded at the front door. Her intense week of preparation at the house to get ready seemed inadequate for the instant demands put upon her with their arrival.

Almost immediately, a myriad of unexpected problems challenged her on every level, none of which resembled those she’d experienced in her former administrative position at the day school. Scotty Tanner was one of those challenges. It was imperative that she get the belligerent boy under control without delay.

She left the porch and quickly made a circle walking around the stone mansion. No sign of him standing on the flagstone terrace nor on the wide-veranda front porch.

A large garage stood at the end of the driveway. She peeked in and saw a couple of cars and one pickup truck. Some old bicycles and garden equipment were stored there. No sign of Scotty.

Maybe the caretaker, Henry Ziller, had seen the boy snooping around. The older, rugged, sharp-tongued man lived in the apartment above the garage and it was clear he was less than pleased about having a dozen kids running all over the place.

She knew Henry had been with the Wentworth family since his youth and was very possessive about the property. Already there had been problems about letting the children play in certain places on the grounds and he’d raised a fuss about having any play equipment scattered about.

She quickly climbed the outside stairs to the small apartment and knocked on the door.

No response. A knot in her chest began to tighten. What now? There were a hundred places in the mansion alone where a small boy could hide and enjoy the uproar of people looking for him. She wanted to do her best to make sure Scotty wasn’t somewhere on the grounds or in the mansion before she organized an official search party. The uproar that would cause was something she couldn’t even bear to think about.

The only places left to look on the immediate property were a small barn and stable built a short distance from the back of the house and almost hidden by stands of cedar and pine trees. She knew horses had not been stabled there for several years but maybe Scotty was scouting these empty buildings like a hopeful pack rat.

As she headed across a green meadow in the direction of the buildings, she brushed back a strand of reddish-blond hair and shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight. At first she thought her eyes were betraying her when she glimpsed a shadowy movement in the trees. She stopped and shaded her eyes with her hands. A moment later, she glimpsed a small figure running into the stable.

Scotty! Thank heavens!

Was he trying to hide from her? At the moment, she didn’t know what kind of discipline was appropriate, but she was determined to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen again. Even as she cautioned herself not to lose her temper, she knew she was way too uptight for any game of hide-and-seek.