Poisoned Dreams

by A. W. Gray

  Excluded from the courtroom during testimony due to their status as witnesses, the Dillard clan assembled in full force for closing arguments. Big Daddy occupied the aisle seat, second row, with Sue graciously beside him and the heirs strung out to Sue’s right: Bill Jr., Mary Helen, Billy Hendrickson, and Susan. When Jerri had finished, the Dillards patted shoulders and squeezed one another’s arms. Allan and Rosemary Lyon sat down front in lonely silence.

  And, finally, Judge Creuzot instructed the jury and sent them off for deliberations. To those present it seemed months since the trial had begun, but in fact it had been a mere twenty-two days. Down the hall, Charles Albright had long since been declared a prostitute butcherer and John Wiley Price had laughed in the DA’s face yet one more time. The corridor seemed deserted. In forty-eight hours it would be Christmas Eve.

  Two writers, strangers only weeks ago but now fast friends, left the courtroom together. One said, “Wonder how long the verdict will take.”

  “I’ll miss it,” the other writer said, “because I’m headed for home. Tell you what. I’ve got one stop to make, so the trip will take me a couple of hours. Bet you the jury’s in before I get to the house. Lay you odds, huh?”

  Deliberations, including time out for the jury’s county-furnished lunch, required one hour and thirty-eight minutes, most of which was taken up by the eating of the sandwiches. The one ballot required less than a quarter of an hour.

  Defense and prosecution assumed their places, and the courtroom filled for one last time. Judge Creuzot called for the verdict, glanced at the piece of paper without emotion, and returned the verdict via bailiff to the foreman. The foreman pronounced Richard Lyon guilty without batting an eye. At his seat in between Dan Guthrie and Leila Thomas, Richard dropped his head. He was the only person in the courtroom who seemed surprised.

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  Doubt lingers. Serious doubt among some, mere conversation grist for others, but doubt nonetheless.

  The life sentence that Judge Creuzot handed Richard during the third week in January 1992 was automatic in light of the enormity of the crime, but Big Daddy treated Richard’s sentencing as if the judge’s choice was a toss-up between probation and six months’ Peace Corps duty. Calling in markers from all corners of the nation, Big Daddy had letters delivered to the courthouse from upstate New York, Georgia, California, and points in between. There were over a hundred requests in all from Dillard supporters, and each letter begged the judge to hand Richard the maximum. Many of the letters, such as the one from Tramell Crow himself, reeked of political clout, but it’s doubtful that the upcoming elections influenced Creuzot’s decision one iota. A man convicted of poisoning his spouse is looking at extended time.

  Allan and Rosemary Lyon did what they could, but their efforts produced little of consequence. There were the standard requests for leniency from family, friends, and school acquaintances from the Mansfield-Willimantic area, but Connecticut residents could shed no light on a death that occurred so far from their homes. Denise Woods wrote, once again expressing her belief that Richard was innocent, and so did a few other Dallas residents, but requests for leniency amid the pile of damnations from Dillard supporters were like so much chaff in the wind.

  Jerri sat silently at the sentencing proper and let the defense put on the show. Guthrie preempted the hearing with a motion for a new trial, presenting evidence located among Richard’s files which purported to show that Nancy’s handwriting had occasionally borne the same characteristics which Hartford Kittle had attributed to Richard alone. The defense also produced a juror willing to testify that had she seen the new evidence beforehand, she never would have voted for conviction. Such motions are never granted. The system lends almost zero credence to recanting jurors. Furthermore, the “new” evidence had been in the defense’s possession all during the trial, and thus was not eligible to be called new. It is a kink in the American idea of justice that once a conviction is had, innocence has no bearing on appeals, and that only errors made at trial can come under scrutiny. Creuzot denied the motion with barely a moment’s hesitation.

  Those who stood up to speak in Richard’s behalf numbered four: Richard’s parents, who both entered tearful pleas, a contractor whom Richard had personally paid for work rather than have the man totally stiffed during the last days of Hughes Industries, and Denise Woods’ father, who was obviously there more for his little girl than he was for Richard. Dads are like that. Not one Park Citizen with whom Richard had worked, played, or labored beside at charity functions made an appearance. Park Cities, it would seem, is rife with fair-weather friends.

  Richard himself emerged from his county jail cell, where Creuzot had placed him on the day of his conviction, and read a prepared statement to the judge. He said for the thousandth time that he didn’t poison Nancy, that he was a man with no interest in profit, and that his main goals in life were to paint his paintings and strum his guitar. Richard was obviously overcome with emotion; his statement, in fact, came across to those present as just a bit on the corny side. Under the circumstances, the James Cagney, oh-you-dirty-rat posture would likely have served Richard just as well. If portraits and music are indeed Richard’s preference, Creuzot insured that he will have ample time for pursuit of such endeavors.

  The custody fight for Allison and Anna continues; in a hearing conducted in Dallas County as recently as March 1993, a judge once again refused to terminate Richard’s parental rights. The girls continue to live with Bill Jr. and Mary Helen, with Big Daddy and Sue serving as babysitters every time the opportunity arises. Only time will tell the effect of the trauma on Allison and Anna’s lives. Prayers may help. They often do.

  Richard filed a self-researched lawsuit against Presbyterian Hospital from his jail cell in early 1993, but those familiar with procedure in the civil courtroom consider Richard’s suit hopeless, regardless of the hospital’s role in Nancy’s death. Presbyterian’s lawyers merely answered the suit and then fell silent. Depositions are the next step, and under Texas law no one is required to appear to be deposed who is more than a hundred miles from the deposition site. Richard’s location on Wynne Unit, a prison near Huntsville, is outside the hundred-mile perimeter from Dallas, so unless he can persuade the doctors and nurses involved to waive the distance limitation and meet in the prison visiting room to give their depositions, the suit will likely die on the vine.

  The Richard and Dan Show has gone the way of Martin & Lewis, Simon & Garfunkel, and other such acts. Guthrie’s firing as Richard’s lawyer was quite predictable under the circumstances; most convicted men lay blame on their attorneys. To handle his appeal, Richard has chosen Mike DeGuerin of Houston, whose brother Dick was the prominent legal figure in the 1993 ATF siege at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, and who is ranked among the top appellate lawyers in the state. In the legal profession, alas, “top” also translates as “expensive.” Allan and Rosemary Lyon have totally depleted their finances in an attempt to free their son, and were only able to come up with about half of DeGuerin’s fee. As of today, Richard’s appeal brief remains unfiled. Parents go the limit for their kids, as Allan and Rosemary have certainly shown.

  The believers in Richard’s innocence are many, though not as numerous as those who believe him guilty, but there is one thing on which both sides agree. It was Charles Couch’s testimony that totally destroyed Richard’s credibility, and without Couch to say that the Chemical Engineering invoice was fraudulent, the evidence on both sides appeared nearly equal. Richard’s supporters point unwaveringly at Couch’s testimony as a falsehood, and their reasons for saying so bear close study.

  Rita Green is a well-kept mid-fifties, slim and efficient. For many years she has been a probate judge’s assistant, the current elected occupant of the bench that Rita serves being an equally energetic and youthful woman named Nikki DeShazo. Judge DeShazo and Rita Green make a lively pair. Rita examines estate inventories and annual accountings, and ke
eping on her good side is as important to Dallas County probate lawyers as is having stroke with the judge. Rita works in her own niche just outside the judge’s office and keeps busy most of the time; conversations with her are constantly interrupted by business calls. For the five years previous to the Lyon trial, Rita Green was Mrs. Charles Couch.

  “He lived in Plainview, out in West Texas, when I met him,” Rita says, “and made business trips to Dallas just about every week. He claimed to own apartments and houses in Plainview, and goodness knows, he spent money like a rich man. I’d known Charles for four or five months before I knew he was married.”

  “He never told you?” the interviewer said.

  “He said his wife had died,” Rita says. “All that time he took me on trips with him, even on weekends. Once we went to New Orleans on Thursday and stayed through until Tuesday. Things were pretty serious between us, so a friend of mine called out to Plainview and checked up, or I might never have known.”

  “And when you found out … ?”

  “I ditched him in a hurry. It’s the way I am. Married men just aren’t open season.”

  “But he didn’t stay ditched, right?” the interviewer says.

  “You’re right there. I didn’t see him for a year, and by that time he was really divorced. And, boy, had he ever lost his money—might have been his wife’s money all along, for all I know. By the time I saw him again, Charles was living alone in a one-bedroom apartment here in Dallas. We started dating again and six months later I married him. Live and learn, I suppose. He moved into my house with me, and five years and many thousands of dollars later, here I am.”

  “Rita, you said earlier,” the interviewer says, “that you believe Charles really did sell arsenic to Nancy Lyon. Why?”

  “I’ve got no proof of it,” Rita says matter-of-factly, “but that’s what I think. Charles makes up things. Like, the whole time I knew him he kept saying that he had two hundred hours of college. I came to find out that he went to Oklahoma Christian College for one year, flunked out, and that was the extent of his college.”

  “That doesn’t prove,” the interviewer says, “that he sold any poison. I mean, Charles had a business, and the total price on that invoice was, what, a couple of hundred bucks?”

  “Which Charles desperately needed at the time,” Rita says.

  “To keep up with the hairdresser he was fooling around with. I put up the money, eight thousand dollars, for Charles to buy Chemical Engineering to begin with, and if he’d taken any money out of the business the bookkeeper would have caught it. You know David Green?”

  “The guy they snatched off the airplane and hauled into court?”

  “Right. He’s my son. One of the reasons I gave Charles the money to buy that business was, he promised David a job. Now David’s running the business, and we don’t know for sure what Charles is doing.”

  An elderly lawyer comes in to file an accounting in a guardianship case. Rita perfunctorily checks the papers for content, thanks the lawyer, and he leaves. Rita faces the interviewer. “You’ve seen that invoice, the one Charles said in court was a phony?”

  The interviewer pats his own briefcase. “There’s a copy right in here.”

  “All those asterisks before and after the Prepaid notation? Those are typical of Charles’ work on a computer. It’s exactly the way he writes things. Didn’t you wonder how Nancy Lyon got to Charles to begin with? If I was looking for a fire ant poison, I certainly wouldn’t call a man in the industrial soap business.”

  “Charles said at the trial,” the interviewer says, “that he was well known in the industry as someone who would research a question until he found the answer.”

  “Bull,” Rita says. “The only thing Charles is known for anywhere is not telling the truth. He’d go to all these bars and sit around drinking, and any subject one of the customers wanted to talk about, let me tell you Charles Couch was an expert on it. If someone mentioned that they had fire ants in their yard, then Charles would suddenly be a world-renowned insect expert. He said in that trial that he didn’t even own a typewriter, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right, he did.”

  “My daughter,” Rita says, “worked for Charles, and her job was typing up letters and invoices for him. On his typewriter. One day, unbeknownst to me, Charles told my daughter that he needed five thousand dollars to keep the business afloat, just for a week or so until some contracts came in. She didn’t really have it, but she and her husband cleaned out their savings and loaned Charles the money. And you know what? Ten days after that, Charles fired her. He said he couldn’t afford to pay her any more.”

  “Sounds like Charles isn’t one of your favorite people, Rita,” the interviewer says.

  “Hmm. He borrowed money from my own daughter to finance his drinking and running around. That was during the time he was seeing the hairdresser.”

  “How’d you find out about that?”

  “Because it’s a small world. One of my friends who lives in Richardson happened to be one of her customers, and she was talking about this wealthy man she was dating. The wealthy man turned out to be Charles.”

  “Think, Rita. Do you have any information that could connect Charles to Nancy Lyon, anything at all that might indicate that he knew her?”

  “No proof. I never knew where Charles was from one day to the next, though. You know Arthur’s?”

  “Sure. It’s a swanky bar right on the edge of Park Cities.”

  “He made that his stomping ground. Hung around in there and talked to all those Highland Park people like he was just one of the crowd. If you wanted a connection between Charles and Mrs. Lyon, I’d start from there.”

  “And the bottom line is,” the interviewer says, “that you don’t think Charles was being truthful when he testified that he never sold any poison to Nancy Lyon.”

  “I’d bet my life on it,” Rita says.

  David Green and John Reamer, who worked with Charles Couch at Chemical Engineering state collectively, “We think it was Charles’ invoice. We told the judge that, but it doesn’t look like anybody was listening. It sure looked to us like one of his invoices.”

  “And the day he was out of town,” the interviewer says, “and they served that subpoena on youall and hauled you into court. You didn’t know what was happening?”

  “First of all,” they say almost in unison, “we don’t think he was out of town. We think he was hanging around someplace and hiding out from that subpoena. Early on, when the detectives started coming around asking about that invoice, Charles tried to accuse us of selling the woman the poison out the back door.”

  “The day the lady came in, Charles said on the witness stand she picked up a formula. He was on the phone and never saw her. Did any of you guys get a look at her?”

  “Not only did we not see her, none of us waited on any woman. And at no time was anyone else here other than the three of us and Charles. If it had happened the way he said, one of us would remember. Something else, too. She couldn’t have come in here without Charles seeing her, either.”

  “Oh?” the interviewer says. “How’s that?”

  “Charles’ desk” —pointing to the rear of the office—“was right back there. Do you see anything between where he sat and this counter?”

  “Well, no,” the interviewer says.

  “The point exactly. There was nothing to obstruct his view, and if she’d been here at all he would have seen her.”

  “Can you think of a reason,” the interviewer says, “that Nancy Lyon or anyone else would come to Charles Couch to develop a fire ant poison?”

  “Sure. They’d been listening to Charles.”

  The interviewer frowns. “How’s that?”

  “We got calls here all the time from people asking for ‘Doctor Couch.’ Doctor Couch, and the guy never even graduated from college. He�
�d run into people around all these bars where he was hanging out, and he’d tell them anything that would make himself sound like some kind of big deal.”

  “He said on the witness stand,” the interviewer says, “that he was well known in the industry as a researcher.”

  This remark produces snickers. “He’s well known in the industry, okay.”

  “What about now?” the interviewer says. “Charles has nothing to do with Chemical Engineering any longer?”

  “Not any more. If we can ever get these bills paid off, the business is ours.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with him?”

  “We’ve got a phone number. You’ll get an answering machine. The odds on him returning your call are about fifty-fifty. Even less than that, probably.”

  “I’ve talked to several people,” Charles Couch says. “One lady making a movie, she asked if I had a preference of which actor played me.”

  “She gave you a choice?” the interviewer says.

  “Sure did.”

  “Was the lady’s name Yvette Ferris?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s her.”

  “I see,” the interviewer says. “Mr. Couch, do you know why someone would contact you, a man in the industrial-soap and recycled-carpet businesses, about a formula for a fire ant poison?”

  “She said she looked us up in the Yellow Pages,” Couch says. “We were listed under Chemicals.”

  “My notes must be wrong,” the interviewer says. “I thought you said in court you were well known as a researcher. And on that subject, do you have a background, education or whatnot, in pesticides?”

  “Education is relative,” Couch says. “I have a hundred and eighty college hours, but I never got a degree because I’ve studied in so many different fields. They told me if I’d take thirty more hours, they’d give me a doctorate.”

  “You mean, a university told you that?”

  “That’s right.”