Poisoned Dreams

by A. W. Gray

  “Owner. Chemical Engineering.”

  “And in what business is Chemical Engineering engaged?”

  “Industrial cleaning compounds. I’ve got a carpet-recycling business, too, but that’s under another name.” Couch placed his elbows on his armrests and touched his fingertips together.

  “Do you also deal in insecticides?” Guthrie said.

  “No way.”

  Guthrie frowned. Jerri sat up a little straighter.

  “Do you ever have anything to do with poisons at all?” Guthrie said.

  “Not if I can help it,” Couch said.

  Guthrie scratched his forehead, obviously in trouble. “Mr. Couch, are you appearing here today under subpoena?”

  “I suppose so. If you call arresting my men and interfering with my business a subpoena—”

  “Mr. Couch,” Guthrie said.

  “—then I guess you’re right. I got called in from out of town to straighten this out.”

  Judge Creuzot interrupted. “Mr. Couch, just answer the questions. I’m so instructing you.”

  Couch shifted his position in the chair. He was obviously irritated.

  “I’ll ask you now,” Guthrie said, “if sometime during the summer of 1990 you ever had anything to do with any poisons.”

  “It was in August,” Couch said, “if you’re talking about the ant deal.”

  Guthrie now relaxed somewhat. Jerri slumped in disappointment.

  “I got a call from a woman,” Couch said.

  “And what was her name?” Guthrie now seemed in complete control.

  Couch shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, I don’t know her name.”

  Guthrie was walking a tightrope with this witness. Other than Bearden’s brief interview several months earlier, no one with the defense had spoken to Couch. Guthrie thought he knew the answers to his questions, but Couch was giving the lawyer plenty of doubt. “You don’t know her name, but you remember the call,” Guthrie said.

  “I remember the time because the Cowboys were in training camp,” Couch said.

  Thus enlightened, Guthrie said, “And what did this woman want?”

  “She said she lived over by SMU, and that she had fire ants in her yard.”

  “Mr. Couch,” Guthrie said, “are you listed in the Yellow Pages under Pesticides? Insect control?”

  “Nope. I’m known far and wide in the industry, though.”

  “As what?” Guthrie couldn’t keep the puzzlement out of his tone. At the prosecution table, Jerri laid down her pen and folded her arms.

  “I’m known,” Couch said, “as someone who does a lot of research on things. I get calls all the time.”

  “Out of the blue? Are you a chemist?” Guthrie said.

  “I’ve been to four colleges. Don’t have a degree, but I do a lot of research.”

  “And you don’t know who referred this woman to you?”

  “Someone who’d heard of me, I guess,” Couch said.

  “If you could tell us,” Guthrie said, “what did this woman want?”

  “She asked me for a formula for fire ant poison. Fire ants are tough. Roaches and whatnot, they have a soft underbody that’s easy to penetrate, but fire ants are hardshells. You need something really strong.”

  Guthrie looked at Richard. He shrugged. Guthrie now said to the witness, “And as a result of the call, did you then do anything?”

  “I told her I’d look up some things at the SMU library and let her know. I do research out there all the time, so it wasn’t any problem.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Well, did you?”

  “Yes,” Couch said. “I’m familiar with SMU because they recruited my son heavily for football. Those coaches never made any sense to me.”

  Jerri covered her mouth as if repressing a grin.

  Guthrie ignored the football talk. “So you did the research. Did you come up with anything?”

  “Yes sir,” Couch said. “A formula.”

  “And did the,” Guthrie said, almost hopefully, “formula include arsenic trioxide as one of its ingredients?”

  “Sure did,” Couch said. “Like I said, you need something strong.”

  “It included arsenic.” Guthrie was practically smiling. “Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”

  “Go ahead,” Judge Creuzot said.

  Guthrie went to the front, searched among the exhibits, picked up a piece of paper, showed it to Jerri. As if everyone in the courtroom didn’t already know, Guthrie was holding the Chemical Engineering invoice.

  “Mr. Couch,” Guthrie said, approaching the box, “I show you this piece of admitted evidence, and ask if you can identify it.” He laid the invoice on the rail before the witness, stood aside, and folded his arms over his coat lapels.

  Couch picked the invoice up, tilted his head back to look through the bottom half of his bifocals, held the invoice at arm’s length. He turned the page upside-down, then right-side up. He looked at the back side of the page. He dropped the invoice on the railing before him. “Never saw it before in my life,” Couch said.

  Guthrie’s jaw dropped. At the defense table, Richard buried his head between his crossed forearms. Jerri Sims didn’t move a muscle, but likely wanted to jump up in the air and clap her hands.

  Guthrie said quickly, “But you did make up the formula.”

  “That’s right,” Couch said. “But I never sold her anything. She came by my office and picked up the formula.”

  “You mean,” Guthrie said, “you did all that work and didn’t make any money?”

  “Not a cent,” Couch said. “Do it all the time. I don’t mind helping people.”

  “And you’re sure that isn’t your invoice,” Guthrie said weakly.

  “Not only is it not mine,” Couch said, “it’s not even on my company form. That invoice, sir, is a total counterfeit.”

  Jerri Sims, standing near the witness box, was doing her best not to show a look of triumph. “Tell the jury, please, Mr. Couch. How can you be sure that the invoice isn’t yours?” Two minutes earlier, Guthrie had given up the ghost and turned the witness over for Jerri to finish the slaughter.

  Couch glanced at the evidence, which still lay before him on the rail. “Well, it’s typed, for one thing,” Couch said. Judge Creuzot leaned sideways and craned his neck to peer at the invoice over the witness” shoulder.

  “You don’t type your invoices, Mr. Couch?” Jerri said.

  “Nah. Don’t even own a typewriter. I handwrite everything.”

  Jerri picked the invoice up, held it between herself and the witness. “Would you please read what’s written down there?” It was the first indication that she knew more about the invoice than she’d been letting on.

  Couch leaned forward and squinted. “‘Contact Keith or Charles for pickup at 617-2913 and’ … there’s another phone number down here,” Couch said.

  “And what is that?”

  “‘438-1363,’” Couch read.

  “And,” Jerri said, “do those phone numbers mean anything to you?”

  Couch folded his arms. “Sure do.”

  “And what are they?”

  “It’ll take some explaining,” Couch said.

  “Take your time, sir.” Jerri folded her own arms and walked back a few paces so as not to obstruct the jury’s view of the witness.

  “When the lady came by,” Couch said, “I was at my desk on the phone. I didn’t see her myself, but one of my men came back and said she was up front, by the counter, and wanted her fire ant poison formula. There was a scratch pad at my elbow, so I dashed the ingredients off, tore the top sheet from the pad, and gave it to my man. He carried it back to the front.

  “Anyway,” Couch said, pointing, “these phone numbers are ones I’
d jotted down myself while I was on the phone, talking to one of my suppliers.”

  “And those names down there, Keith or Charles,” Jerri said. “Those aren’t people who work for you?”

  “Nah. They work for my supplier, and I was supposed to call them up when my order was ready. I’d jotted the numbers down, and inadvertently left them on the pad I tore off to give to the lady.”

  “So you’re saying,” Jerri said, “that whoever prepared that invoice did it using the notations you’d made on the scratch pad.”

  Guthrie rose quickly. “Objection. Calls for a conclusion.”

  Creuzot sustained, but everyone in the courtroom had already reached the same conclusion that Jerri was calling for the witness to make.

  “What about your letterhead? The one on the invoice,” Jerri said.

  “That’s easy,” Couch said, looking at Richard for the first time. “This is a blowup of the same letterhead engraved on the scratch pad I was using.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Couch,” Jerri said after a pause. “No further—oh, one more thing. This woman. You didn’t see her?”

  “No, ma’am,” Couch said. “From my desk I can’t see up to the counter.”

  “So you can’t give a description?”

  Couch answered quickly. “My man said that she was a blonde.”

  Jerri paused for a long moment in order to give the jury time to picture Denise Woods impersonating Nancy and picking up the formula. Denise had exonerated herself when she’d testified, but now the cloud of doubt returned.

  “Thank you, Mr. Couch,” Jerri said, returning to her seat. “Pass the witness.”

  Guthrie declined to ask more questions, and Couch climbed down the step to walk away. He’d been on the witness stand for less than a half hour and had given the briefest testimony of the entire trial. As he disappeared through the exit, an acrid odor lingered. It was the smell of cooked goose. Richard’s.

  41

  Much was to be made later on of some expert testimony that drove the final nails into Richard’s coffin—and the last bit of handwriting evidence produced by the state was devastating, to be sure—but it was Couch who torpedoed a huge hole in the defense ship’s side from which the boat couldn’t possibly recover. Expert witnesses are, after all, paid advocates, and for every such expert who shouts “’Tis” for one side, there will be an equally impressive individual on the other team who will holler, “’Tain’t,” just as forcefully. Couch, though, was an individual with no apparent stake in the outcome, and, furthermore, he was Guthrie’s own witness! After Charles Couch testified that Richard’s invoice was a fake, the jury simply wasn’t going to believe anything that the defense had to say.

  The grim reaper of an expert whom the state produced was named Hartford Kittle, and he testified during the state’s rebuttal. Rebuttal is the third phase of testimony, after the prosecution’s case-in-chief and the defense portion, and is optional. Re-rebuttal is also an option for the defense, but after Kittle had taken the stand, Guthrie seemed to have had enough. The handsome defense lawyer, in fact, likely began to think of arguments for mitigation of Richard’s punishment from the moment that Charles Couch stepped down.

  Hartford Kittle was the Vaunted Expert from the East, flown in all the way from Washington to take dead aim on Richard and score the final bull’s-eye. Kittle is an earnest-looking man whose appearance belies his age; that he was old enough to have retired from the FBI surprised most who heard his testimony. He’d been a questioned-document examiner for the feds for nigh onto three decades. Once Jerri had established his credentials, she wasted little time in cutting directly to the chase.

  “Mr. Kittle,” Jerri said, “have you had occasion to examine documents furnished you purporting to be in the handwriting of Nancy Dillard Lyon?”

  “I have.” Professional witnesses are easy to spot; Kittle spoke directly to the jury and ignored the audience at large.

  “And what did those documents consist of?”

  “Notes, mostly, apparently taken in classes of some sort.”

  “In counseling?” Jerri said.

  “I wasn’t furnished that information.” The inference was clear: Hartford Kittle doesn’t concern himself with who was supposed to have written what where; he merely calls ’em as he sees ’em.

  “Thank you. What other documents did you examine?”

  “An invoice from a company, Chemical Engineering, purportedly receipted by Mrs. Lyon.”

  “And what did you use for comparison, Mr. Kittle?” Jerri said evenly.

  “Exemplars furnished by Mrs. Lyon’s family. Letters she’d written over the years.”

  “Was that all?”

  “No.” Kittle’s demeanor was serious and confident.

  “And with what else did you compare the documents?”

  “Known writings,” Kittle said, “also furnished by Mrs. Lyon’s family. Known writings of Mrs. Lyon’s husband, Richard Lyon.” At this point, anyone in the courtroom who didn’t know what was coming had spent the previous weeks in a coma.

  “And were you able,” Jerri said, “to reach any conclusions?”

  “I was.”

  “And what were those conclusions, Mr. Kittle?”

  Kittle now took dead aim on the jury, swiveling around so that the spectators’ section viewed only his profile. “Well, as respects the invoice, the results were inconclusive.”

  “Could you restate that in layman’s terms?” Jerri said.

  “I meant,” Kittle said, now favoring the jury with an apologetic smile, “that I was unable to determine whether Mrs. Lyon signed the invoice or if it was her husband.”

  “And is such a finding unusual?”

  “Quite. I’ve never seen two handwritings as similar as those of Mr. and Mrs. Lyon.” Which wasn’t an accident, the jury already knew, since Richard and Nancy had tried in college to make their handwriting identical.

  “I see,” Jerri said. “Were you able to reach any conclusion regarding Nancy’s notes taken during her incest counseling?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Kittle said. This exchange was somewhat thespian; he had already stated that he didn’t know the origin of the notes, but Jerri wanted to be certain that the jury knew of which notes her expert was speaking.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Kittle,” Jerri said. “The notes of Mrs. Lyon which were furnished you.”

  “Yes, I reached some conclusions on those.”

  “And what were your conclusions?”

  “For the most part,” Kittle said, “the notes were written by Mrs. Nancy Lyon.”

  “For the most part?” Jerri didn’t bat an eye; this exchange between the prosecution and its expert was obviously well rehearsed.

  “There was a portion at the end,” Kittle said, now swiveling to look toward Richard at the defense table, “which was written by Richard Lyon.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Jerri said.

  “It is my unqualified opinion.”

  “And if you would,” Jerri said, “please read the jury the portion of the notes which, in your opinion, were written by Richard.”

  She had earlier laid the already admitted evidence on the rail in front of her handwriting expert, and Kittle now picked up the piece of paper to read, “‘Fear of Bill and what his desires are … sex … sick sex … incest issues with me? … my girls?’” The words were, of course, familiar. It was the same portion of Nancy’s notes that Guthrie had had Big Daddy read during the most emotional part of the trial.

  “If you would, Mr. Kittle,” Jerri said, “please explain what characteristics of the writings led you to believe that the handwriting is Richard’s.”

  “Certainly.” Kittle was in his own ballpark now, speaking with the confidence of a man intimately familiar with his subject matter. “The s’s, for the most part. Mrs. Lyon consistently writes a printed le
tter s, while Mr. Lyon alternates his s’s, sometimes printing them and sometimes writing them in cursive.”

  “And is there any other characteristic of the writing which leads you to believe it is Richard’s?”

  “There is.”

  “And what is that?” Jerri said.

  “With the capital S’s,” Kittle said, “though both Mr. and Mrs. Lyon consistently printed them, Mr. Lyon’s capital S ends with a curl at the bottom, which is missing in all of Mrs. Lyon’s known writings. Also, Mr. Lyon’s lowercase f’s are noticeably different.”

  Jerri paused briefly for the testimony to sink in, then said, “And are you certain, Mr. Kittle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Absolutely?” Jerri said.

  “Absolutely,” Hartford Kittle said.

  Closing arguments seemed more of a wrap-up than anything else, but to Guthrie’s credit he did his best. He was quite brief and concentrated only on the possibility of suicide. That Nancy might have killed herself was the only avenue left to him, and even that route seemed one of desperation. At this point there simply was no reasonable doubt. The jury listened to Guthrie’s closing statement with looks of stone.

  Though obviously already victorious, Jerri couldn’t resist a few additional punches at a staggering defense. Richard’s motive, she said, was profit, plain and simple. When Nancy wouldn’t accept the financial settlement proposed by Richard’s mediator during divorce proceedings, Jerri said, and when Nancy began to fight for what was rightfully hers, Richard had decided to murder her.

  Jerri did provide an instant of comic relief during her close. Standing in a defiant posture midway between the jury box and the defense table, she once again showed the jury the incest-counseling notes and indicated the “sick sex” portion that Kittle had identified as being in Richard’s handwriting. Holding the notes in one hand and pointing at Richard with the other, Jerri said, “If Richard Lyon didn’t write this, folks, I’ll shave my head when this trial’s over.” Titters rolled through the audience, and the same Park Cities lady who’d made the “kingdom for a pair of scissors” remark on the opening day of the trial now looked at her companion, raised a hand, and made a cutting motion with her index and middle fingers.