Poisoned Dreams

by A. W. Gray

  “We thought so at first,” Richard said, “but we’ve located other factors.”

  “In your … investigation?” Jerri stopped short of using the words smoke screen, but her inference was clear.

  “Yes. In our research.”

  Jerri dropped this line of questioning like a hot potato. Richard had clearly surprised her, and, good lawyer that she is, she wasn’t about to ask another question to which she didn’t already know the answer. Richard’s stint on the witness stand had damaged the prosecution considerably, and Jerri now tried to recoup what ground she could by, for want of a better description, slinging a little mud. “Mr. Lyon,” Jerri said, “you testified earlier that during your separation from Nancy, and after her death, you regarded Denise Woods as only a friend. Is that right?”

  “Mostly as a friend and confidant,” Richard corrected. He had said this during Guthrie’s direct examination; whether Richard was in fact not as enamored of Denise as she was with him, or whether he was merely downplaying their fervent relationship, isn’t known.

  “And,” Jerri said, “was it friendship which caused you to give Denise a watch priced at forty-five hundred dollars?”

  “I gave it to her … as a friend.”

  “And a necklace and a coat, each one priced at one thousand dollars?”

  “Yes. As a—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lyon,” Jerri said testily. “I pass this witness.” For the only time during the trial, she had blown her cool, her final remarks to Richard coming across as desperate and, yes, just a bit on the catty side.

  And, finally, Richard stepped down. He’d told his story and had met the prosecution’s major points head-on. The feeling in the courtroom was that Jerri had failed to lay a glove on him.

  The suicide theory having bumped all other defenses from the arena, Guthrie now put on his own version of the Albert Einstein show. His array of expert witnesses was every bit as impressive as the state’s, if not more so. He had, in fact, borrowed the forensics staff from down-south San Antonio, the seat of Bexar (pronounced Bayer, as in aspirin) County. For prosecution-oriented people from foreign counties to testify as experts for the defense in Texas is not unusual, and rumor has it that the side income derived from the practice equals the forensics people’s public salaries. The leaping from one side of the fence to the other seems to pose no integrity problem; at least no one has ever raised the issue. The victory in the battle of the experts generally hinges on the side with the most degrees and awards, and which scientists happen to be the most scholarly in appearance. Fresh-faced recent grads are limited to backstage roles.

  Dr. James C. Garriott’s position as head of Bexar County forensics does the impact of his testimony no harm at all, and the fact that he was formerly in the same capacity with Dallas County, and supervised the very people who’d testified as experts for the state in the Lyon trial, gave him a serious leg up in the jury’s eyes. Further, as a steady-eyed Dr. Garriott told one and all that he’d investigated over twenty poison deaths (the Dallas County experts, under rigid cross from Guthrie, had rather sheepishly admitted that they’d never seen an arsenic poisoning in their lives prior to Nancy’s), the entire courtroom sat up and took rigid notice.

  The doctor’s credentials took up more of the court’s time than did his testimony. The defense had furnished him Nancy’s hair and fingernail samples, and the fact that the level of arsenic in the nail clippings was five times that in the hair roots led the doctor to only one conclusion: Nancy had directly touched the poison with her hands. Had directly handled the arsenic and not merely held a glass or cup filled with lethal contents. Barring the possibility that someone had held a gun on Nancy and forced her to eat the poison, the inference was clear as a bell.

  Guthrie had promised proof when Jerri objected to Richard’s identification of Nancy’s notation on the fire ant diagram, and the defense lawyer was true to his word. The Bexar County handwriting man stated unequivocally that every piece of scripted evidence submitted by the defense had indeed been written by Nancy Lyon. Since no one had challenged the authorship of the incest counseling notes or the suddenly pertinent Chemical Engineering invoice up to that point, the handwriting evidence seemed perfunctory. Later, the origin of the writings attributed to Nancy would become a very big deal.

  For his psychology expert, Guthrie stole some of Dallas County’s own thunder. James Grigson, PhD, known better locally under the colorful nickname of “Doctor Death,” is personally responsible for sending hundreds to sit on the hot seat or, in more recent humane years, to lie on the gurney and receive their lethal injections. In fact, Grigson’s appearance caused several veteran courtroom observers to check their programs to be certain that the right team was on the playing field; Grigson on the witness stand normally meant that the state was fixin’ to fry another one. An eloquent speaker, Grigson informed the jury that he’d carefully examined Nancy’s writings in light of his knowledge of adult incest survivors, and that this was a troubled woman who, at the slightest provocation, could become bent on self-destruction. With Grigson, Jerri wasted little breath in cross-examination; the years had proven that challenging Dr. Death was a fatal mistake.

  As Guthrie brought on one expert after another, there was a distinct feeling of overkill, as every witness seemed to dally on the stand far longer than necessary. There was a reason for this filibustering. Out on the streets of Dallas there was a search in progress for the witness whom Guthrie believed would once and for all clear his client. Even as he waxed eloquent in the courtroom, Dan Guthrie was stalling for time.

  39

  Jim Bearden is a youthful man with thinning sandy hair and a thick, broad-shouldered body suited for beer joint crowd control. That he sees the world through a slightly jaundiced eye is hardly surprising. He’s made a career out of criminal investigations, both on the law enforcement side and, more recently, in his highly successful private detective business, and he assumes that most of the people he interviews are lying to him.

  “One in a hundred,” Bearden says, “are on the level. Their side lies, our side lies. Everybody lies. Out of the hundred, Richard Lyon was the one. That guy didn’t poison his wife. If anybody did, and I doubt that, it damn sure wasn’t him.”

  Guthrie had retained Bearden’s services for Richard’s defense from day one. After months of following homicide detectives’ tracks, and also digging up evidence apart from the police investigation, the detective had reached a conclusion. Bearden thought that although making a lot of noise regarding other suspects had created pretrial doubt, there wasn’t enough evidence linking either David Bagwell, Lynn Pease, or Bill Dillard Jr. to Nancy’s death to create reasonable doubt of Richard’s guilt in a jury’s mind. The other-suspect ship simply wasn’t going to sail.

  Long before Richard had come up with the invoice from Chemical Engineering, Bearden had suspected that Nancy, either accidentally or on purpose, had poisoned herself. Dan Guthrie considered the implications of the invoice—that Nancy had purchased arsenic on her own, completely apart from the suspicious shipments from Houston’s General Laboratory Supply—critical to Richard’s defense, and Bearden agreed with the lawyer, but unless there was testimony to verify that the invoice was legitimate, it was just Richard’s word against the state. Finding backup for his word was Bearden’s assignment, and giving Bearden time to locate corroborating evidence was Guthrie’s reason for conducting a series of witness filibusters in the courtroom.

  Early on, months before trial, in fact, Bearden had interviewed Charles Couch, the owner of Chemical Engineering Company. At that time Couch had been cooperative, and Bearden had thought him just the witness they were looking for. He’d included Couch’s name on his list of defense witnesses as a matter of course.

  As the trial date approached, however, Couch had suddenly become reluctant to testify; in fact, Bearden had been trying for weeks just to talk to the man. Couch didn’t return telepho
ne calls, and when Bearden dropped by Chemical Engineering’s office the owner was never around. Just what Couch’s reason for the abrupt one-eighty was, Bearden didn’t know, but the detective’s criminal investigation experience told him that either (a) the police had talked to Couch and scared him out of testifying or (b) Couch had personal problems that had caused him to hide from everyone, Bearden included. Since Bearden had learned that Couch was in financial trouble—including a $27,000 judgment in favor of Dixie Chemical of Houston for an unpaid bill—the detective assumed that it was the latter situation that had made the witness unavailable.

  Time had now run out. If Bearden couldn’t come up with Couch as a witness, he’d have to try the next best thing. As Guthrie racked his brain for additional questions to keep his experts on the witness stand, Bearden armed himself with two subpoenas: one for Couch individually and one for Chemical Engineering Company records of sales. Legal papers in hand, the detective drove out to the industrial district to Chemical Engineering’s offices.

  The area known as Trinity Industrial District sprawls to the northwest from downtown Dallas along Irving Boulevard, and consists of row upon row of warehouses, loading docks, and one-story glass-front office buildings. Bearden had been to Chemical Engineering so often he likely could have found his way with his eyes closed, and he pulled into the head-in parking in a curtain of icy rain just a few minutes before noon. He jammed the subpoenas into his inside breast pocket and, minus raincoat or umbrella, made a mad dash over the curb and through the swinging glass door.

  Chemical Engineering was a counter-front operation, a waist-high wooden partition separating a tiny lobby from the desks, tables, chairs, and copy machines in the work area. Bearden leaned on the counter and called out for assistance. An alert, rawboned fortyish man came from the rear of the office and approached the counter.

  Bearden identified himself and stated his business. “I’m looking for Charles Couch,” the burly detective said.

  “So are a lot of people,” the man said. “Charles isn’t here.”

  “Okay, then, who around here can get me sales records on Chemical Engineering?”

  “That would be either Charles or David Green,” the man said disinterestedly. “Who isn’t here, either.”

  Bearden fished in his pocket and produced the records subpoena. “When will one of them be here?”

  “David’s about to leave town. Charles …” The man snickered. “Well, Charles is sort of catch as catch can.”

  “I’ve got a subpoena here,” Bearden said, extending the folded legal paper, “for Chemical Engineering records, which I’ll now hand you. I need the records. Now.”

  The man, whose name is John Reamer, took the document, carefully read it over, then regarded Bearden through unfriendly slitted eyes. “This would be nice,” Reamer said, “only I don’t work for Chemical Engineering. I’ve got my own business here, and I don’t know from nothing about Chemical Engineering. Like I said. You need to talk to Charles. Or David. Who aren’t here. See you, huh?” He dropped the subpoena on the counter, turned his back, and retreated to the rear of the office.

  Bearden snatched up the subpoena and crumpled it in his fist. The detective was furious and by now more than a little desperate. Ignoring the driving rain, he ducked his head, sprinted to his car, and made a beeline downtown to the sheriff’s office. Bearden returned less than an hour later, only this time he was accompanied by a hard-eyed, very businesslike, gun-toting deputy. Bearden pounded the counter and once again called for service.

  Reamer came from the back, this time accompanied by a shorter, stockier individual. Both men wore work shirts and jeans. “I already told you,” Reamer said, “Charles isn’t—” He cut himself off and now stared at the badge thrust in front of his nose by the deputy sheriff. “Here,” he finally said.

  “You—” Bearden pointed first at one man, then the other. “—and you, are both under arrest. We’re going down to the courthouse, and you can tell the judge all about it.”

  Reamer raised a hand. “Now, wait a minute.”

  “I’ve got no minutes to wait,” Bearden said. The deputy sheriff stood by, hands on hips.

  Reamer laughed nervously. “Look, Charles is out of town, and David’s leaving town. I told you, I know nothing about Chemical Engineering’s business.”

  “Well, can we catch David,” Bearden said, “before he gets away?”

  The men exchanged glances, and then shrugs. “I guess we’d better try,” Reamer finally said.

  Just before two in the afternoon David Green, a tall, handsome, and intelligent thirty-year-old, stood in line at DFW Airport with his briefcase in hand and his boarding pass in his front shirt pocket. Unlike many businessmen, David doesn’t travel in a suit and tie; his customers are men who feel more comfortable in boots and jeans. Green had on a clean plaid shirt and smooth, unwrinkled jeans, and he smiled patiently as the flight attendant ahead took her time in examining each traveler’s boarding pass. Visible through the huge glass window, a fanjet stood ready at the end of the accordion walkway. Raindrops spattered the plane’s wings and fuselage.

  There was a commotion among the crowd behind Green, and he turned to look. His eyes widened in surprise. Elbowing their way through the waiting passengers in the boarding area were two men from Green’s own office, a uniformed cop with a holstered pistol at his hip, and a man with thinning sandy hair built like a strong-side tackle, wearing slacks and a plaid sports coat.

  The thick sandy-haired man approached and handed Green a folded legal-sized sheet of paper. “Mr. Green,” the man said, “I’m Jim Bearden. I’m afraid we’re going to have to cancel your travel plans.”

  Green frowned, looked past Bearden and the deputy at his two excited and frightened coworkers. “Who the hell’s minding the office?” Green said.

  “I’m afraid you’re closed until further notice,” Bearden said.

  All of which created the situation during the Lyon trial around three-thirty in the afternoon, the jury out for recess, Judge Creuzot still on the bench attending to other cases, Jerri Sims going over notes at the prosecution table, Dan Guthrie on the defense side discussing strategy with Leila Thomas and Richard Lyon. The rear courtroom door burst open and a strange procession entered, Jim Bearden in the lead, three nervous-looking jeans-wearing guys following timidly behind, a uniformed deputy bringing up the rear and keeping an eye on the jeans-wearing guys.

  Bearden came through the gate with the youngest of the three strangers in tow, while the deputy placed the two other men on the front row of the spectator section and sat beside them. Bearden approached the defense table and said to Guthrie, “This is David Green, one of the Chemical Engineering guys. These people needed some encouragement.”

  Within the space of less than a minute, Guthrie stood in front of the bench with David Green alongside. Jerri Sims watched from the prosecution table with raised eyebrows.

  Creuzot, though all business, was obviously getting a kick out of the entire affair. With a somewhat sardonic grin on his face, he said, “Mr. Green, you understand the meaning of this?” The judge indicated the subpoena, which lay unfolded before him.

  “I understand this is costing us a lot of business,” Green said. “Shutting down our office and bringing our whole crew down here.”

  “That’s unfortunate,” Creuzot said. “But Mr. Lyon over there has something more important than that going on. He’s on trial for murder.” The judge nodded toward Richard, who sat attentively at the defense table.

  “I’ve already told him,” Green said, pointing at Guthrie, “that we don’t know a thing about Charles Couch’s records.”

  “Wait a minute,” Creuzot said, examining the subpoena. “Are you with Chemical Engineering?”

  “Well,” Green said. “Yes, but—”

  “No buts.” Creuzot raised a hand. “Tell you what, Mr. Green. I’m going to let
youall go home, which means you won’t have to spend the night in jail. But tomorrow morning, by nine o’clock, you or somebody’s going to have to bring these records down here. I don’t want to have to send the sheriff after you again. You think you can produce those records for us?”

  Green looked over his shoulder at his cohorts sitting disconsolately beside the deputy in the spectators’ section. He faced the judge. “I suppose we’d better, huh?” David Green said.

  Chemical Engineering’s response to the subpoena actually came a bit in advance of the judge’s nine o’clock deadline. It was eight-thirty on the dot the following morning when a huge bear of a man shambled into court and headed down the aisle. Guthrie was in his usual seat at the defense table, papers spread before him. Leila sat two spaces down from her boss, her elegant neck bent as she made notes on a yellow legal pad. Richard hadn’t arrived in court as yet.

  The newcomer was well over six feet tall, with sloping shoulders and hamlike hands. He wore a sports shirt and slacks, and carried a bulging leather satchel. He had blondish hair parted on the left and wore glasses. He came through the gate, stood near the defense table, and said in a deep resonant voice, “Which one’s Guthrie?”

  The defense lawyer looked up. “I’m Guthrie.”

  “Well, I’m Charles Couch,” the newcomer said. “You’ve been looking for me?”

  Thus began one of the most unusual courtroom appearances in the annals of American law.

  40

  Charles Couch faced a packed house, a television camera mounted at the rear of the courtroom, a judge whose head was inquisitively cocked to one side, an apprehensive Richard Lyon, an attentive Leila Thomas, a suavely dressed Dan Guthrie, and a skeptical Jerri Sims. Couch seemed bored by the attention. He stated his full name at Guthrie’s request, then leaned back and waited for more.

  “What’s your occupation, Mr. Couch?” Guthrie said.