Poisoned Dreams

by A. W. Gray

  “The hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Nancy said. She looked to her husband. “Oh, Richard …”

  Richard nervously cleared his throat. It occurred to the counselor that Nancy’s husband might be a problem. He didn’t seem supportive at all. The counselor leaned back and waited.

  Nancy wet her lips and regarded the carpet. “When we were teenagers, Bill and I.” She looked up. “When we were kids, you know?”

  “Something happened when you were children?” the counselor said.

  “For a while. A few years.” Nancy gently closed her eyes. “Physical things.”

  The counselor listened calmly, watching the husband more than the woman. Richard’s eyes widened slightly. This is trouble, the counselor thought, he doesn’t know anything about this. Incest among older brother and younger sister was a whole lot more common than most people realized, and nothing new in addiction counseling. The shock of bringing it out in the open was hard to deal with for those unaccustomed to such things. “How did you feel about that then?” the counselor said.

  “You mean, what was happening between Bill and me?”

  “Yes.”

  Nancy wrung her hands in her lap. “I’m not sure. Helpless, I suppose.”

  “You felt helpless?”

  “Helpless. Confused. I wasn’t sure if it was wrong or not. My … mother. She caught us at it.”

  The counselor didn’t want to get into the pain of discovery by the parents, not just yet. The acts themselves and the subject’s reaction were much more vital to recovery. “Tell about feeling helpless, Nancy,” the counselor said.

  Richard riveted his gaze on the scene outside the window and kept it there, his square jaw thrust slightly forward. His lips tightened into a rigid line.

  “Sometimes I’d …” Nancy paused, firmed her posture. “Sometimes I’d pretend it wasn’t happening. A few times I read a book while Bill was … at me.” Now she wouldn’t look at Richard at all; she kept her gaze on a point somewhere between the counselor’s chin and the top of the coffee table.

  The counselor blinked. “And when your mother found out … ?”

  “I was eleven and Bill was thirteen. She was horrified. They sent him away to school, up in New Hampshire.”

  “And how did you feel about that?”

  “About Bill going away?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I was glad at first. Then, as we grew older and he stayed away, all the time except for holidays, I started to feel guilty.”

  The counselor crossed one leg over the other. “And now?”

  “Angry. Angry that no one told me it was wrong for me to …” Nancy reached for Richard’s hand. He allowed her to pull his hand into her lap, but his fingers were rigid.

  It’s going to be very difficult for them unless the husband shows more understanding, the counselor thought.

  For Nancy, after the anguish of bringing up the issue at a private counseling session in front of an unsuspecting Richard, approaching the subject with the entire Dillard clan gathered in one room was a whole lot easier. Her convictions told her that until the whole family had dealt with the problem and brought it out in the open, Bill Jr. had no chance of recovery. Furthermore, her own feelings of inadequacy, her hesitancy in sex, all of these things she felt would never be over until the entire Dillard family faced up to the long-ago problem. In the group counseling session Nancy talked about the incest with her brother without a moment’s hesitation. She said that the Sierra Tucson psychologist had recommended that she go into private incest counseling.

  Sue Dillard’s jaw dropped in shock. Mary Helen looked as though she’d just been kicked between the eyes. Bill Jr. paled slightly and regarded the floor. Susan Hendrickson and her husband exchanged stunned looks.

  Big Daddy remained stoic. He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “Now, that wasn’t any big deal.”

  Nancy was devastated. “No big deal? Daddy, no big deal?”

  “You kids were playing doctor is all, it happens all the time. It doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re here for, Nancy.” Big Daddy would deny to the bitter end that the problem was all that serious.

  “It has everything to do with it.” Nancy swept her family with a determined gaze. “If what Bill’s going through here has any chance at all, we’ve all got to face up to it. It was incest, Daddy. We all need help.”

  The entire group fell silent. Richard seemed even more morose than the rest, fixing his gaze on the ceiling as if both shocked and embarrassed. Big Daddy folded his arms. “It wasn’t any big deal, Nancy,” he said more softly.

  She then dropped the subject. It was apparent that if the problem was going to come to a resolution, she and Bill Jr. would have to work it out between the two of them.

  Denial, psychologists say, is the absolute roadblock to cure. Whatever the contact between Nancy and her brother as youngsters—Bill Jr. was later to acknowledge in public that there was intimate touching between the two, though he would deny that there was intercourse; notes that expert witnesses and Big Daddy himself identified in court as being in Nancy’s handwriting, however, would tell a much different story—it is clear that her perception of what had transpired had an enormous effect on her overall outlook. Nancy had done a great deal of study on the matter, and she felt that bringing it up at the family session in Sierra Tucson was vital.

  Psychologists list a number of often contradictory traits as typical of adult incest survivors. Sexually, the female survivor might become totally promiscuous, or she might withdraw into herself and become frigid. Driving ambition is often observed, caused, psychologists say, by a burning desire to overcome what the victims perceive to be terrible shortcomings in themselves. Alcoholism and drug addiction are common, particularly among the aggressors in sibling incestuous relationships. Physicians believe that the addict has a physical craving as well, to go along with a deep-seated sense of guilt and inadequacy. In extreme cases incest victims have been known to mutilate themselves, usually with razors or knives.

  In the case of Nancy Dillard Lyon, one other trait common to adult incest survivors bears mention here. It is the single most dangerous symptom, the tendency psychologists strive hardest to combat during counseling. Incest survivors, it seems, have a propensity for suicide.

  On the way back to Dallas, Nancy and Richard didn’t get along at all. She’d just been through an experience that would have upset the most stoic of women, yet the one person in the world whose comfort and support she needed failed to offer any. The whole idea of the incestuous relationship disgusted Richard, and he told Nancy as much. How could she have done those things with her own brother? According to Richard there had to be something terribly wrong with Nancy, Bill Jr., and the entire Dillard family.

  Richard’s antagonism drove Nancy deeper and deeper into a shell from which she was never completely to emerge. Once back home she entered therapy, attending counseling sessions at night in addition to the twelve hours a day she put in at the office. That Richard refused to participate in the sessions—and even expressed disgust that she was in incest counseling at all—horrified her. The couple had many nasty fights over the matter, both over the dinner table and in the bedroom as well. Nancy became frigid, shrinking away at the slightest touch from her husband, and her resistance to sex drove Richard up the wall. More than once Nancy accused him of being a sex addict; Richard countered by openly questioning her sanity. The Lyons’ constant fighting affected the kids; with the sixth sense that makes children aware of rifts between their parents, Allison and Anna became quarrelsome and difficult to control.

  So distant did Richard and Nancy become in the following weeks and months that, whereas he’d previously hurried home from business trips in order to be with his family, he now made excuses to spend more nights on the road. To keep her mind off the widening chasm between herself and her husband, Nan
cy immersed herself in her counseling sessions and work.

  Left to its own devices, the problem between the two might have worked itself out. Time heals many things. Eventually Richard might well have gotten used to the idea that, regardless of what had happened to Nancy as a child, she was still his wife and needed his support and love. For her part, Nancy might have forgiven Richard’s lack of understanding, and the two might have grown close once again and gone on as before. But an unforeseen factor was about to enter in and become yet another ingredient in the deadly recipe that would end Nancy’s life. Very soon Richard was to begin an affair.

  15

  Trying to explain Debi Denise Woods’ appeal to men is very much like attempting to justify one’s fascination with a beautiful song. The melody haunts and the lyrics tantalize. There is no one portion of the tune that stands out, no single compelling line among the lyrics which will go down in eternity. Each note and word is a part of the whole, and the whole is unforgettable.

  The legs are good and supple, with a muscular tautness to calf and thigh, and work tirelessly even in the sitting position; the knees constantly cross, uncross, and recross again in perpetual fluid motion. The dainty suspended foot jiggles and twitches. A pair of NBA-sized hands would encircle the waist with thumbs overlapping, possibly to the first knuckles. Denise’s own hands are small and active; she speaks with many gestures. The chest is unremarkable and even boyish, the arms slender, the neck photogenically firm. The chin is determined. The mouth is enchanting, small and drawn, turning up at the corners only slightly when she smiles. The eyes are azure velvet. The hair is cornsilk blond, cut short, and flips efficiently as she tosses her head. The voice is soft, its tone comforting. The speech is both with-it and educated, a little gee-whiz combined with a large helping of chic. She sometimes wears small-lensed glasses. On entering a crowded room she draws no god-almighty-lookee-there glances, but men who have gotten to know her have traveled many miles to cherish her company.

  Denise is a bit of a chameleon. In her contracting business—at which she is very good—she is reserved and professional. At social functions she fits in well, both at formal charity fundraisers and more casual upper-class happenings, but neither would she be ill at ease guzzling longnecks in the back of a pickup with bare feet hanging out over the open tailgate. She has never wanted for escorts.

  She grew up as Debi in the upper-middle-class Dallas suburb of Richardson, and on attaining adulthood switched to her more literarily mature middle name. She’s bright and articulate; her grades at the University of Texas in Austin were good, but could have been better had she had a less active social life. She likes being in business on her own, and has no problem with being part of a minority group. Her status as a woman entitles her to preferred bidding on public contracts, and preferred assistance from the Small Business Administration. She takes advantage of both. Her father is himself a successful general contractor, and advises his daughter well.

  She has been in demand among the Dallas trust-fund crowd; her escorts and lovers have included Texas marquee names. She is little impressed by fame, only slightly more so by fortune. She is accustomed to life among the upper class, and expects the men in her life to treat her well. With very few exceptions, they do. When Richard Lyon met Denise she was twenty-six years old. Like many torrid relationships, it all began with a disagreement.

  “Look, none of those things people are saying—” Denise says, “I’m just not like that, a home wrecker or anything. I’ve been in therapy over this. Some days I think I know the truth, others I think it’s all a lie.”

  “You mean, whether he did it or not?” the interviewer says.

  “That, sometimes. Yeah, mainly. Sometimes it’s just, whether we really had anything. For someone not sure about that, I’ve really laid it all on the line, huh? I can’t even live in my hometown, with all the newspapers hounding me.”

  “Austin’s not that far away,” the interviewer says.

  She firmly shakes her head; the blond hair flips in emphasis, then settles down on her forehead. “In miles maybe. At least here my phone doesn’t ring off the wall, and when it does ring I’m not afraid to answer it.”

  It is just after dusk. The downtown Austin restaurant is Central Texas trendy, rustically carved wooden planks serving as pillars, an old wagon wheel on the wall. Hanging baskets around the perimeter of the room hold thorny ferns and upright cactus. The lights are dim, a single candle flickering in the center of the table. The waiters and waitresses are college kids mostly, some working part time after class, others having dropped out for a semester or so to save up a bankroll and have another go at getting a degree. Some will go back to school, others will not. Denise has salad and tender, succulent baked halibut. She drinks scotch and water in dainty sips. The interviewer pigs out on prime rib and has plain soda with a twist. He wants liquor, but after thirteen years without a drink knows he still can’t handle it.

  “You still see him, don’t you?” the interviewer says.

  “Richard?”

  “Yes.”

  Denise stares vacantly into flickering candlelight. “He calls. Yeah, I go down there some. It’s not the most pleasant trip.” She wears a plain tan dress with thigh-length skirt, and very little makeup. Her eyes appear tired, with worry lines at the corners beyond her years.

  “Not the best company, either.”

  Denise lays utensils aside. Her eyes are misty. “Man. All those poor women with little kids dressed in rags. Every time I leave there, I’m so down it takes days for me to recover.”

  “Not a pleasant subject for you, Denise,” the interviewer says. “I don’t guess I’ve got anything pleasant to ask you. You said earlier you were having doubts about whether he did it. Any particular reason? All during the trial you were tough on his side.”

  “Oh, I still am. It’s just … once a guy’s convicted, you know? I can’t imagine a guy that went to Harvard, if he was going to poison somebody, that he’d be that stupid.”

  “There was some testimony, about buying the poison.”

  “The mysterious blonde?” Denise takes on a slightly huffy tone. “That’s all a lot of bullshit. I’ll tell you it wasn’t me.”

  “And all the time you were … with him and all, you didn’t have any inkling that he was, might be, planning anything?”

  “Look. Once and for all, okay? He was devastated when she died, and I was with him a lot. The guy’s an engineer, not a drama major. He couldn’t have been faking it.”

  The interviewer studies the table. “Then you don’t have regrets?”

  “Regrets? Sure I have. I’m sorry she died. I’m sorry the whole thing between me and Richard started to begin with, in the long run. But I don’t feel to blame for it. I thought that Nancy was crazy all along, and that’s something I haven’t changed my opinion on.”

  “You knew her, then?”

  The brief head shake, the slight flip of the hair. “Only saw her one time in my life, and then she didn’t know who I was and we didn’t speak. But the whole time they were separated, anytime we were ready to go out and she found out about it, she’d call up Richard and say she was sick, and off he’d run to her.”

  “And it never bothered you that he was married?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course it bothered me. Look, haven’t you ever been attracted to someone? I mean, like, really attracted?”

  “Obsessed?”

  “Call it that if you want to,” Denise says. “But whatever, once Richard and I got together, neither one of us could have stopped what was happening any more than we could fly. And as for Nancy, Richard didn’t kill her. I’m sure of it.”

  “You think it was one of the other suspects?”

  “You mean, like Bill Jr.?” Denise says.

  “Or the other one. Bagwell,” the interviewer says.

  “No. That’s never been my theory. Nancy took that
poison herself, is what I’ve always thought. I told you I thought she was crazy, you know?”

  Richard was spoiling for a fight when he went to Houston the week following the Sierra Tucson trip, and there was more to his mood than his problems with Nancy. In addition to the troubles he was having at home, Richard’s employer was in serious financial straits, the result being that his own job was in jeopardy.

  It was now 1989, and the boom period of the seventies and early eighties was ancient history. High-flying Hughes Industries was now navigating on severely clipped wings, two of its primary lenders having failed and two more having shut off credit to the company due to delinquent loan payments. Dallas had glutted itself with high-rise office buildings, many of which had suffered foreclosure, and even if the interim financing had been available to Hughes to do the jobs, large construction projects in the company’s home base city were nil. Desperate for work, Hughes Industries along with other Dallas contracting firms began to look outside the Dallas territory.

  The renovation of Houston’s Pavilion Mall—with Saks Fifth Avenue as the cornerstone store—was a job at which, only a few years earlier, Hughes would have turned up his nose. Remodelings are specialist’s work and not really designed for a general building contractor, but the toughness of the times made taking the contract a necessity. Richard was the superintendent on the job, and during the project spent most of his weekdays in Houston. The remodeling was nearly complete, but he still had quite a bit to do. The mall’s owners, now that they had spiffy new corridors and overhead deco, needed someone to insure that the individual retail spaces were finished on time. Due to the lack of work in Dallas—and also because they were desperate for money—Hughes Industries put Richard on loan to the mall. The mall’s owners paid him directly, and for the duration of the project he reported directly to them.

  That the same motive—lack of work in Dallas—had caused Denise Woods and her partner to travel to Houston to work at the Pavilion Mall is somewhat ironic but true. Denise’s partner at the time was a man named George Sheban—the two shared living quarters as well as interest in the business—and the two of them had contracted to do interior preparation on Sam’s Cafe, one of the prime Pavilion Mall locations, whose owner was the actress Mariel Hemingway. So if there had been no economic crunch in Dallas at the time, Denise and Richard might never have met, and Nancy might still be alive. Fate moves in treacherous ways.