River Running Backwards by Susan Clayton-Goldner

Author:Susan Clayton-Goldner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: psychiatric facility hospital mental health, police investigation detective inspector, infanticide baby child toddler, death murder homicide, death bed confession truth revelation vindication, grief torment sorrow misery torture, dark family secrets skeletons in the closet
Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Dr. Quinton Bartley’s medical practice occupied a beautifully-restored Queen Anne cottage in old town Buckeye. It was a one-story frame house, painted pale yellow with its shutters, turned posts, and spindle work done in blue.

Radhauser stepped onto the wraparound porch. Could this be the man who’d murdered his sister? Maybe the good doctor decided a mistress and her illegitimate baby weren’t good for business. If anyone had known Hope was his daughter and Anna his mistress, surely Bartley would have been the prime suspect. But from the case files, no one in the Buckeye Police Department suspected Bartley. Why not?

The door, also painted blue, held a brass plate that read Quinton R. Bartley, General Practice, Office Hours Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Before Radhauser had turned the knob, the door thrust open and a woman and a little boy exited. Radhauser stumbled back for a moment before regaining his balance.

“Oh, excuse me,” the woman said, then laughed. “I told Dr. Bartley he needs to install a traffic light.”

Radhauser tipped his Stetson and entered a sunlit room with wide-planked, original oak floors and raised-panel wainscoting—the walls above it painted sky blue. Alternating blue and yellow upholstered chairs lined three walls. Patients filled two of the chairs. One held a teenaged boy in a black baseball cap. He sat with his elbows on his knees, and his hands steepled in front of his face. The other was a young, blonde woman, her head bent toward the magazine in her lap.

Good, he thought. Maybe he wouldn’t have to wait too long.

They’d set one corner of the room up as a play area for children, with child-sized furniture and three bookshelves filled with puzzles, baskets of toys and books. A little girl of about three, with blonde pigtails, sat coloring at one of the small tables—probably the daughter of the woman with the magazine.

Radhauser stepped up to the desk, just as the telephone rang and the cheerful, dark-haired receptionist answered. “Dr. Bartley’s office. Linda speaking. Can you hang on for just a minute?” She put the caller on hold and looked up at Radhauser.

“Good afternoon.” She wore a smock printed with ABC blocks like the ones that had spelled out HOPE in his mother’s room. Her name tag read Linda Sudbury.

He tipped the brim of his Stetson. “Hi, Ms. Sudbury. My name is Winston Radhauser. I’m visiting from Oregon. Dr. Bartley delivered my sister and I guess he was my doctor too, back then. He was a good friend of my mother, Anna Radhauser. I don’t have an appointment, but I wondered if he might spare a few minutes for me. I can wait.”

She gave him a radiant smile. “Call me Linda. We’re pretty informal around here. It’s so great that you came by. I’m sure he’d be happy to see you. He loves it when old patients come to visit. Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll tell him you’re here?”

If Dr. Bartley knew his visitor had come to

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