River of Mercy

By Susan Clayton-Goldner

Detective Winston Radhauser is called in the middle of the night to Ashland Hospital. Ten days ago, Justin Patterson, a local pediatrician, suffered a devastating brain bleed that left him paralyzed and begging for release.

When Patterson is found dead in his hospital bed, the staff assumes it was a natural death. But the victim’s son, Robbie, accuses his stepmother, Santina, of murder. Everything inside Radhauser believes she’s innocent, but when DNA supports Robbie’s claim, Radhauser is forced to arrest the woman he found lying in her husband’s hospital bed, curled around his dead body.

Phillip Mitchell, world-renowned criminal defense attorney, hears of Santina’s arrest and rushes from Tucson to Oregon. He’s driven by a love that never waned, and a belief there is no way Santina could murder anyone.

National news has the country divided. Was it a mercy killing? Or was it murder? How do we put down our suffering animals with more dignity than our fellow humans? Or is God the only one who decides when life ends?

Against a ticking clock and an unyielding DA, Radhauser and Mitchell race to expose hidden truths that could save Santina from a lethal injection.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
• Release date: Jun 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224752188

Book preview

Chapter One

Monday, November 10, 2003

Ashland, Oregon

For Detective Winston Radhauser, there was something melancholy about a full moon on autumn nights in southern Oregon. Unable to sleep, he slipped into a pair of old jeans and a western shirt, and, as usual, pulled three carrots from the mudroom refrigerator and stuck them in his back pocket. It was 1:30 a.m. On nights like this, he often exhausted himself with an after-midnight ride on his stallion, Ameer.

The moon hung like a silver wafer, casting its eerie, gray light over everything. It was the type of night when strange things happened and he understood the need to be careful. Horses, especially Arabians, often spooked during a full moon when even their shadows grew longer.

This melancholy feeling always found him during the second week of November when the last remnants of the big leaf maples hung, golden and precarious, on mostly barren limbs. A time when migrating raptors no longer littered the afternoon sky, and summer birdsong had transitioned into silence.

As he walked down the gravel driveway towards the barn, he sucked in a deep breath of crisp air and the delicate, yet fermented, fragrance the ground exuded. Dried leaves crunched beneath his cowboy boots. With a deep sigh, he pushed open the barn doors and inhaled the sweet scents of molasses, alfalfa, and the cedar shavings they used as bedding for their stalls. These were the smells of the life he’d made with Gracie and their four children.

His cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and hurried out of the barn, not wanting to wake Katelyn, the 19-year-old they’d hired to live with them and help Gracie with both the children and the horses.

Damn. It was Hazel from Dispatch. At 1:30 a.m., this could only be bad news. Radhauser, he answered. What’s up?

I just got a call from the 911 operator, she said. A nurse at Ashland Hospital phoned it in. The son of an ICU patient is claiming someone murdered his father.

He took a step back. Murder in the ICU. How likely was that? It sounded like an Agatha Christie mystery. You mean someone pulled the plug on an already brain-dead patient?

It could be as simple or complicated as that. But I have no more details, Hazel said. Only that the son is causing quite the scene. I wanted to call Perkins or Sullivan to check things out first, but Chief Murphy was here when the call came in. He wants you on it.

Oh great. Felix Murphy—one of the biggest pains in the ass in the world. The one time in over a decade the boss appears at the station in the middle of the night and it had to be this one. I’m on my way.

Radhauser returned to the barn, left a note on the chalkboard for Gracie, jerked the carrots from his back pocket and gave them to Ameer. I’m sorry, boy. Maybe we’ll get that ride in later. He stroked the stallion’s long neck, then closed the barn doors as quietly as he could, got into his Crown Vic, and headed towards Ashland Hospital.

As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, his hands began shaking. He slammed his palms against the steering wheel. Don’t go there.

But it was too late, and, once again, caught him off guard. Fourteen years had passed since the car accident killed his first wife and their thirteen-year-old son.

In some ways he had formed a scar. His life was good. He loved Gracie and their children. But losing a child went against all the laws of nature. If he’d learned one thing in the last decade, it was that kind of grief had a mind of its own. He was pretty sure anyone who’d never had such a horrific experience in one night could understand the way entering hospitals always brought the memory back.

Radhauser parked his car, grabbed his backpack, got out, then ran across the asphalt parking lot, through the glass doors, and up to the information desk. He introduced himself. I’m here to investigate a case involving an ICU patient.

The pink-smocked and aged volunteer with a blue tint to her white curls gave him a big smile and pointed. How exciting. End of the hallway, turn left. You can’t miss it. There’s a buzzer by the double doors. Ring it and someone will admit you.

Radhauser tipped his Stetson, then hurried down the hallway, his boots tapping a brisk beat on the polished floor. He rang the buzzer, showed his badge and ID to the nurse, and didn’t stop until he’d reached the nurses’ station.

A young woman inputting information into a computer stopped typing and looked up at him. She had long blonde hair and her eyes were as clear and turquoise as the Caribbean. Her name tag identified her as Pamela Taft. Visiting hours, except for immediate family, end at 8 p.m.

I’m not here to visit. Again, he introduced himself and showed his badge.

Thank God you’ve come, she said, her features softening with relief. Dr. Patterson’s son, Robbie, is insisting his father’s death was not from natural causes. I tried to get him to settle down, suggested he was in shock and should go home and get some sleep, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Dr. Patterson was pronounced dead over an hour ago.

Radhauser jotted names and times in his notebook. Did Dr. Patterson have a terminal illness? Was his death expected?

He suffered a brain bleed. She paused and picked up a chart from the rack beside her desk, then flipped through the pages. Let’s see, it was ten days ago. The bleed triggered a stroke, leaving him paralyzed on his left side. He has been bedridden since his admission.

That didn’t answer my question. Was his death expected?

It’s hard to say with brain bleeds. He’s been in a lot of pain, but according to his charted notes, he was definitely conscious, and his vitals were stable when he was given his nighttime meds.

I’d like to talk to the nurse who took care of him.

Pamela glanced at her watch. That would be Betty Montgomery. She’s taking a break, but goes off duty soon. I’ll page her for you.

I’ll need a list of everyone who was on duty tonight. Including nurses, doctors, aides, janitors, people visiting other patients. Anyone who had access to Dr. Patterson.

I can do that, she said. In the ICU, we generally allow only one family member at a time to visit. We also keep a visitors’ log. She picked up the phone and paged Betty Montgomery.

A few moments later, a dark-haired nurse responded. She was at least two decades older than Pamela, short, slightly overweight, and spoke in a soft southern accent. Her open face was guileless, with silky gray eyes and a kind smile. Just the type of woman you’d want for your nurse.

Pamela introduced Betty to Radhauser.

When she held out her hand, Radhauser shook it. Her hand was small, fleshy and soft. Everyone calls me Bets.

Great, Bets. Is there some place private we can talk about Dr. Patterson?

Sure thing. She picked up Dr. Patterson’s chart, then led Radhauser into a windowless room the size of a closet and closed the door. They sat across from each other at a circular wooden table.

What can you tell me about the patient? What brought him into the hospital? Was it a car accident?

No. He had a spontaneous brain bleed on his way home from a board meeting at a health clinic for the homeless. He became disoriented and got lost, but didn’t get in an accident. A man found him by the side of an isolated country road about three miles away from their home and called an ambulance. Someone in the ER phoned his wife, Santina. They didn’t think he’d survive the night. But he did. And when he woke up, the blood in his brain had caused paralysis on his left side.

Did you know him personally?

Yes. He was a good man, a local pediatrician. His office is in the medical complex next to the hospital. I swear everyone loved him. We don’t allow flowers in the ICU, but that didn’t keep people from ordering them. Or his young patients sending cards they made. Mrs. Patterson covered the walls in his room with them. Bless her heart, she left a little notebook at the nurses’ station and asked us to record the names of everyone who sent flowers so she could send a thank-you note. She requested we deliver them to the children in our pediatric unit.

What was Dr. Patterson’s condition when you last examined him?

She picked up his chart and read from it. All his vital signs were good. Temperature 98.6 and blood pressure 130/78. Oxygen level 95. Heart rate was a little low at 58, but that’s not uncommon with patients on bed rest and morphine.

So, are you saying with vital signs like that, no one would have expected him to die so suddenly?

Yes. It was a surprise. But deaths in the ICU are not uncommon.

Do you think his son’s complaint someone murdered his father has validity?

He’s a bitter young man.

You didn’t answer my question. Do you believe Dr. Patterson was murdered?

Bets cocked her head and stared at him. I’m not a physician. I can’t determine the cause of death. She thumbed further into the chart. It was a massive bleed, but the last MRI showed the blood in his brain had subsided a little. We’d planned to start physical therapy tomorrow.

He was well enough to take part in PT?

Not really take part. But we like to get stroke victims out of bed each day—even if we confine them to a special chair designed to keep them upright and stable. It helps with bedsores and morale. Two therapists work together on either side of the patient. They wrap a belt around his waist to help him stand, but Dr. Patterson could not ambulate on his own.

What were the chances he could have regained the use of his left side? Perhaps had a full recovery?

She raised her right eyebrow and gave him a sad, closed-mouth smile. With intracranial hemorrhaging, anything is possible. I’m not qualified to make a prediction like that either, but in my twenty years of experience with stroke victims, I’d say a full recovery in Dr. Patterson’s case was pretty unlikely.

What about his wife? Has she been supportive? Did you get any sense of their relationship?

Santina Patterson has been a rock for her husband. I looked up her name because I’d never heard it before. It means saintly, holy or blessed. And let me tell you, Detective Radhauser, God should bless everyone with a love like they had. She came in before dawn every morning and rarely left until after ten. She bathed him, brushed his teeth, shaved his face every couple of days, read to him, and attempted to feed him. We had to restrain his right hand, part of the time, because he kept trying to rip out the catheter. When he claimed he couldn’t even pick his own nose, Santina did it for him. Now that’s love. When he wouldn’t eat hospital food, she brought his favorite foods from home, but Dr. Patterson wasn’t interested in eating, no matter how much she coaxed. The first few nights he was here she slept in a chair beside his bed.

Was he being force fed?

His neurologist, Dr. Norton, suggested putting in a feeding tube, but he had an advanced medical directive stating he wanted no extraordinary measures taken to keep him alive, which included forced feeding. We kept him hydrated with IV fluids.

How about the son? Did he visit his father?

He came after work every day, usually arriving about the same time I did. I work the 6 p.m. until 2 a.m. shift this month. But I sensed things weren’t great between him and his father.

How so?

There was always tension in the room when his son visited. Dr. Patterson’s heart rate elevated, and he seemed more agitated. Robbie’s presence was anything but calming, especially if Santina was around. It got to the point where I gave him the name of our social worker and suggested he talk to her about his issues with his father and Santina.

Did he?

I believe so.

May I have her name?

Adrianna Duncan. She’s really a great resource.

Any chance she’d be in the hospital now?

I doubt it. She works days, and has a small office on the main floor, near Hospital Administration. But I can give you her phone number.

Radhauser jotted her name and number into his notebook. She probably wouldn’t tell him much without a subpoena. But it was worth a try. Did Mr. Patterson agree with his father’s wishes for no extraordinary measures?

He was adamant we insert the stomach tube. He said his father was hallucinating and not clear-headed enough to decide for himself.

Was that true?

Dr. Patterson had times when he was screaming in pain, times when he seemed confused and disoriented, other times when he appeared quite lucid. But when Santina said no to the stomach tube, Robbie Patterson demanded proof this was his father’s wish.

Did Mrs. Patterson provide proof?

Again, Bets delved through the medical file, pulled out a document, and handed it to Radhauser. This is Dr. Patterson’s living will. It specifically states with a life-threatening trauma, he does not wish to be kept alive by any mechanical means, including respirators and stomach tubes. Mrs. Patterson also brought her power of attorney for all medical and financial decisions.

Was the son in agreement after he saw the documents?

No. He claimed Santina coerced his father into signing those documents. He said awful things to her and caused a terrible scene. I had to call Security to remove him from the room.

Did you get any sense of Robbie’s long-term relationship with Mrs. Patterson? I understand times like this can put a strain on family relationships. I’m assuming she is not his birth mother.

"Stepmother. Their relationship was antagonistic—at least on Robbie’s part. Santina told me Robbie was ten when she and Dr. Patterson married and Robbie despised her from their first meeting. She couldn’t do anything right, no matter how hard she tried. At one point, Robbie actually forbade his father to mention her name in his presence. That must have hurt. But she and Dr. Patterson found a way to laugh about it. He referred to Santina as she who must remain nameless in the presence of my son. I never saw Robbie and Santina engaged in any conversation until the argument about the stomach tube. Santina usually took a dinner break when Robbie arrived so he could have time alone with his father. Robbie has a wife at home so he rarely stayed more than an hour."

Where is he now?

She nodded toward the hallway. He’s in the ICU waiting room at the other end of the corridor.

And Mrs. Patterson?

Poor thing. I was worried about her. She’d been with Dr. Patterson all day. After she had a horrendous nosebleed, I finally suggested she go home, and she did. But then he died and I had to call her back. She’s with her husband now in room 107. You’ll walk past it on your way to the waiting room. The door is closed because we like to give family members some privacy to sit with their loved ones after they pass.

Radhauser remembered the night he’d spent in a Tucson morgue, seated between the steel gurneys that held his wife and son. He’d experienced firsthand one of the terrible moments he’d delivered to so many families. Those late night and early morning calls that changed and often ruined lives—calls he despised making, but his job required. A young mother discovered with her face blown off and a love note to her children clutched in her hand. Two intoxicated teenage boys hurled from a speeding car; a grandmother with Alzheimer’s found in a ditch. Making those calls was by far the worst part of his job.

He turned his attention back to Bets. I realize your shift is almost over and I really appreciate your taking the extra time to talk with me. You’ve been very helpful.

I consider myself an excellent judge of people, Detective Radhauser, and even if she’d been around when the death occurred, Santina isn’t capable of doing what Robbie is accusing her of. I’m sure of it.

What exactly is he accusing her of?

Bets grimaced as if it hurt to say the word. Murder.

You mean because she wouldn’t approve the stomach tube?

Bets shrugged. Who knows?

What time did Mrs. Patterson leave the hospital?

Around eleven.

Who found Dr. Patterson?

I did. It was about 12:30 a.m. I was a little late with my rounds because of a cardiac emergency with one of my other patients.

At night, the ICU was an eerie but noisy place. All around them were the sounds of mechanical ventilation, heart monitors, and beeping alarms. Even now, the hallway lights were bright as nurses hustled from room to room, their rubber-soled shoes whispering against the polished linoleum as they made their rounds. Did an alarm go off? Was there some reason you checked on him then?

His vitals were all stable, and he’d complained the heart monitor kept him awake, so, with his physician’s approval, we disconnected it. My checking on him was routine. Something I do every hour or so with all my ICU patients.

And he was fine when you checked him at 11?

Yes, he was sleeping, and that’s when I told Santina to go home, take a shower, and get some rest.

And you saw her leave?

Yes. She always stops by the nurses’ station to say goodnight and to thank us for everything we were doing for the man she loved. I watched her get on the elevator.

Getting on the elevator didn’t necessarily mean she’d left the hospital. Did anything appear suspicious in the room when you discovered the body?

Not really. Death is pretty common in the ICU. I checked for a pulse and when there was none, I notified the on-call physician, and he declared Dr. Patterson dead at 12:40 a.m. Twenty minutes or so after that, I called Mrs. Patterson and Robbie.

Again, Radhauser thanked her for her time and cooperation. He walked down the corridor, past room 107, then changed his mind and turned back. Maybe he should speak with Mrs. Patterson before talking to the son. Just as Bets had said, the door was closed. He knocked.

No response.

He tapped harder. Still no response.

He slowly opened the door and peeked inside the private room where a woman, fully clothed, appeared to be sleeping beside a man who was curled into a fetal position and wearing a pale-green hospital gown printed with a darker green fleur-de-lis pattern. Just as Bets had said, someone had taped cards to all the available wall space, many of them crayon drawings handmade by children.

The woman in the bed had turned her body slightly toward the man, who was far too still, his mouth slack and his eyes closed as if he were sleeping. At least two days-worth of dark stubble on his cheeks told Radhauser no one had shaved Patterson recently. But the pale-blue stain on his lips and the bluish-gray color of his skin shouted the truth. Dr. Patterson was dead.

Needing to be cautious and not disturb anything that might become evidence, Radhauser took a pair of latex gloves from his backpack, slipped them on, and moved closer to the bed. He touched the man’s cheek. There was no sign of rigor mortis—something that generally set in about two hours after death—putting the approximate time of death between 10:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m., but Bets had checked the victim around 11 and all his vitals were fine—putting the death between 11 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. when she found him. Rigor usually started in the muscles of the face then worked its way throughout the body.

The woman beside the body didn’t stir. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, wore a pair of denim jeans and a long-sleeved, light-blue oxford shirt. Her dark hair fanned out over the single pillow they shared. Fuzzy blue socks covered her feet, which were small and curled inward like a pigeon-toed child. He swallowed. There was something so vulnerable about her feet.

With no warning, the sight whisked him back a year to the yellow clapboard farmhouse where he’d grown up. He’d returned last autumn because Uncle Roger, the man who raised him, was under hospice care. When Radhauser came downstairs the morning after his arrival, he found his Aunt Sarah curled up in bed beside the man she’d loved for over fifty years. Radhauser could still hear her voice as she’d rubbed his skeletal arms. He’s so cold. Why is he so cold?

Still thinking of Aunt Sarah, he gently touched Mrs. Patterson’s shoulder and turned on the overhead light.

Her eyes popped open.

Mrs. Patterson, I’m Detective Winston Radhauser from Ashland Police Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions.

She looked at him, but didn’t appear to see him.

There was a ghost-like sense of detachment in her stare. A look that said Santina Patterson had retreated to a place deep inside herself and was no longer present. She was in a different space and a different time, far from the sterile hospital room where she lay beside her dead husband. Her eyes closed again. The poor woman was likely in shock. She wasn’t about to move from her husband’s side. His questioning would have to wait.

I’ll be back in a few minutes. In the meantime, I need you to stay where you are. Don’t touch anything. He turned to leave, but not before he spotted the raised and bloody scratch mark on her left cheek. For a split second, he tried to come up with a reason for it—perhaps she’d gotten herself tangled in the blackberry bushes so prevalent in southern Oregon. Or maybe clawed by a neighbor’s cat. Radhauser made a note to ask her about it.

For now, he needed to view the scene as an impartial homicide detective and not Aunt Sarah’s nephew. After removing his camera from his backpack, he photographed the entire hospital room with his wide-angle lens, then took close ups of the trash can and its contents—discarded tissues, Q-tips, and cotton balls, most of them bloody. Nothing unusual in a hospital room where blood was drawn regularly. He took shots of the hospital bed, the victim from every angle and finally a close-up of the long scratch mark on Santina Patterson’s left cheek. She seemed unaware he was photographing her, made no sign—neither opened her eyes nor moved.

Still wearing latex gloves, Radhauser picked up Patterson’s right hand and looked closely at his fingernails. There was definitely something beneath the middle and index ones. He gently laid the right hand back on the mattress, then examined the left. Those fingernails were clean. There were strange little marks around his eyes, like red and purple pinpricks.

If Santina Patterson had stood over her partially paralyzed husband and smothered him, even in a weakened state, he would have instinctually fought to breathe, clawing at her face and arms with his good hand to get the pillow away from his mouth and nose. But, according to Bets, Mrs. Patterson had left the hospital at 11 and didn’t return until after 1:30 a.m. He wondered if anyone saw her leave the parking lot.

Could Robbie Patterson be right in his accusations?

Had Santina Patterson murdered her husband?

Chapter Two

In the corridor outside Dr. Patterson’s room, Radhauser stood with his back against the wall, thinking about what he’d just witnessed and all the conflicting feelings it dredged up inside him. Oregon believed in death with dignity and had even passed a law to this effect in 1994. But that law did not give a family member, a doctor, or a nurse the right to murder. The law required that two physicians concur the patient had less than six months to live, fifteen days after the initial one the patient make a second request to die, and ultimately administer the lethal dose himself.

He put in a call to Stephen Heron, the medical examiner for Jackson and Josephine counties. Radhauser explained the situation.

I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, Heron said. Tape off the room and don’t let anyone inside.

What about his wife? I left her lying on the bed beside him. She opened her eyes for a moment, but didn’t appear to see me. No response when I spoke to her. She may be in shock.

I suspect she has already contaminated the scene. No harm in letting her be until we get there.

I’m going to speak with the son now. Radhauser disconnected the call, grabbed his yellow crime scene tape from his backpack and taped off the door to room 107, then alerted the nurses’ station to allow no one to enter.

The ICU waiting room was empty except for a tall, lean man Radhauser assumed was Robbie Patterson, pacing in front of the coffee machine. He looked like an earnest graduate student, his dark, curly hair disheveled. He wore a pair of khaki slacks and a navy-blue blazer, his tie loosened and his shirt collar open. His tortoiseshell glasses cantilevered to one side.

Are you Mr. Patterson?

My father is… was… Dr. Patterson. I’m Robbie. Despite the cool temperature in the room, beads of sweat dampened the hair at his temples. Why is he so nervous?

"I’m