What Lies Beneath Stillwater by Susan Clayton-Goldner

Author:Susan Clayton-Goldner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ashland oregon, police investigation detective inspector, bully bullying torment torture intimidate, depression emotional despair anguish, death murder homicide killing infanticide, kidnapping adoption babies baby, unwed mothers teen pregnancy
Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing

Chapter Twenty

Most people’s workdays were long over by the time Radhauser reached Glenda Levingston’s house in Talent, a small town about five miles north of Ashland. Her dwelling was lit up—spotlights were aimed at the house, which looked like a cottage lifted from the pages of a child’s fairytale. It was painted lavender with yellow trim. Four purple pots of yellow flowers hung between the stone columns on her porch. The cane-seated rockers on either side of the yellow door swayed slightly in the breeze. And though it was only 8 p.m., the woods on the north side of the little cottage on Church Street were alive with shadows.

He rang the bell. It played the Westminster Chimes.

A moment later, the door was opened.

From her voice over the phone, Radhauser had expected Glenda Levingston to be a feeble old lady, but the woman who answered was early to mid-sixties, as small, vibrant, and flexible as Roosevelt had been big, introverted, and cumbersome. Her hair was a rust and gray color. It curled in little spirals around her rosy, plump cheeks. She wore teal-blue sweats with clumps of mud drying on the knees, along with a pair of blue plaid socks, wireless glasses, and gardening gloves. He could easily picture her wearing a straw hat in an English garden, tending her wildflowers.

He took off his Stetson, introduced himself and showed her his badge. “You must be Glenda Levingston.”

She slipped off her gloves and placed them on a small table in the entry. “I am. But I still don’t understand why you wanted to see me. Has something happened to my brother?” She offered her hand.

He shook it. Her skin felt warm and slightly damp from the gloves.

Radhauser didn’t want to break this news standing on the porch. He’d learned at the academy he should always deliver news like this to a person who was safely seated. And he wanted to ask her some questions about her brother before he broke the terrible news Roosevelt was dead. “Would it be okay if I came in?”

With a worried look on her face, she stepped aside so he could enter. “What’s this all about, Detective?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you.”

She gave him a suspicious look. “We can sit in my office.”

He followed her down a short hallway, its hardwood floors gleaming, past several closed doors he assumed were bedrooms and into a room about fifteen feet by twenty at the back of the house. It looked like a working office. Along one wall, built-in oak shelves were lined with law books. Along the opposite wall, a bank of six matching file cabinets stood. Two upholstered chairs sat facing the wide oak desk. Behind the desk, a big leather chair was turned toward the window. The wall space on either side of the window was filled with family photographs.

Radhauser recognized Roosevelt in many of them. He was a head taller than all of his many siblings. He also recognized the sage-green house with its manicured flower gardens and wide porch.

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