Poisoned Dreams

by A. W. Gray

  The letter, copy to my lawyer, et cetera, was one Nancy had sent to Richard. In it she told of the emotional pain that his affair had caused his wife and children, and further told how his comings and goings during the year when he lived in the Springbrook duplex had torn Nancy apart inside. In the final paragraph, Nancy gave Richard his freedom. Insisted on Richard’s leaving, in fact, and said that it was the only choice she could make in order to keep her sanity and secure the little girls’ futures.

  No one could possibly have read that letter more effectively than did Mary Henrich. She was obviously deeply involved with the case emotionally, and during the more heartrending portions of the letter, she had to stop several times to compose herself and wipe away her tears. By the time she had finished, several of the jurors were crying, and there were sniffles here and there in the spectator section. Judge Creuzot himself had to clear his throat a couple of times before offering Guthrie a chance to cross-examine.

  Guthrie seemed overcome with emotion in his own right, but his failure to offer much in the way of cross-examination had nothing to do with the defense lawyer’s being somewhat weepy-eyed. As an attorney, Mary Henrich would also be a skilled and experienced witness. Unlike unwary civilians thrust on the stand, she would understand that, while on direct examination witnesses are limited to yes and no answers, under cross-examination one may wander in answering questions as much as one likes, and may say pretty much what one wishes to say. The prospect of cross-examining an attorney being akin to grabbing a rattler by the tail, Guthrie asked a couple of perfunctory questions and let Ms. Henrich go. She had damaged his case and he knew it.

  The wine and pills left on Nancy’s doorstep having been discussed at length in front of the jury, Jerri got the items themselves into evidence through Lynn Pease. Lynn (now married, nearing her first anniversary, and answering on the witness stand to the name of Lynn Pease Woods) identified the large plastic container and fifth of white wine as the same ones that Nancy had given her to hide in the trunk of her car, and the same ones she and Bill Jr. had brought to the hospital. In retrospect, the inclusion of Lynn in the gathering party that had left the hospital to retrieve the suspect items turned out to be a fortunate move for the prosecution; Lynn’s ID of the wine and pills kept Bill Jr. off the stand. At the time of Nancy’s death no one could predict that Richard would eventually point the finger at his brother-in-law, and the fact that Bill Jr. never had to suffer a lengthy cross-examination from Dan Guthrie was a boon to Jerri’s case as a whole.

  Although Lynn further described finding Nancy in bed, too sick to move, and went into great detail regarding Nancy’s change of insurance beneficiaries, her physical presence did as much for Jerri’s case as did her testimony. Lynn is a not-unattractive young woman with an innocent, roundish face, and there is a slight but apparent hitch in her gait due to her suffering from multiple sclerosis. During her direct examination, Lynn mentioned that she suffered from MS four different times. She spoke in a clear voice with a heavy Maine accent, and her descriptions of her relationship to the Lyon children—her walks with Allison and Anna, the children’s love of her old car, the Zoomobile—absolutely charmed the pants off of everyone in the courtroom. The message to the jury was apparent: This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the suspects that the defendant has claimed may have murdered his wife. By the time Lynn was finished, no one present believed that this enchanting creature could be guilty of so much as an unpaid parking ticket.

  Just as with all witnesses, there is one portion of Lynn’s testimony worth a double take. She was the first to mention the fire ant problem at the Lyon duplex, and—coached or on her own, as the case may be—was also the only one to downplay the insect situation. According to Lynn, if there was a problem with the ants at all, it was a small one, and the children were never in danger from the little red critters. Her statement here is in direct contrast to the remembrances of several other witnesses, including the Lyons’ tenant in the duplex, who all recalled that the backyard was near overrun with the dangerous varmints. Lynn’s testimony about the ants didn’t get far with either jurors or spectators; as anyone who has lived in Texas knows, there is no such thing as a “small” fire ant problem.

  At the tail end of Lynn’s testimony, Jerri scored her first extra-base hit of the trial. When Guthrie, acting as if walking on eggs, had failed in his attempt to shake Lynn’s story during cross-examination, and had passed the witness, Jerri stood. “I have redirect, Your Honor.” With each witness, redirect and recross are optional, and normally are waived.

  Creuzot told Jerri to proceed.

  “Lynn,” Jerri said gently, “during your time as the Lyons’ nanny, did you come to regard them as your own family?”

  Lynn smiled brightly and wrung her hands. “Oh, yes.”

  “And did you have a favorite between Mr. and Mrs. Lyon?”

  “Weh-ell.” Lynn’s smile broadened. “I knew which one liked me the most.”

  “Oh?” Jerri said. “And who was that?”

  “Nancy talked down to me some,” Lynn said.

  “Then your favorite was Richard?”

  “Oh, yes. I was crazy about them all, but I loved Richard dearly. I thought he was the finest man I’d ever worked for.” She looked straight at the defendant, her eyes glistening with adoration. At that moment any doubt among jurors or spectators that Lynn had told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth went flying out of the courtroom.

  With the wine and pills now sitting innocently among the evidence exhibits, Jerri brought on the county forensics boys. For the next two days a series of scholarly types—one, complete with German accent, brought back memories of World War II A-bomb research—paraded to the stand to fondle the wine, shake the container of pills, and give clinical evidence regarding Nancy’s autopsy, all the while glaring knowingly in the direction of the jury box. During this portion of the trial the audience thinned considerably. One teenage boy accompanied a chemist’s description of the suspect capsules with a series of loud snores, thus earning a dressing-down from Judge Creuzot, and some of the well-dressed Park Citizens developed sudden interest in the racial tension and whore slashings down the corridor.

  For those who remained awake during the Albert Einstein show, however, there were several points of note. While the wine and pills revealed not the barest trace of arsenic, a lone capsule in the container was packed with a toxic substance called barium carbonate. Though no one ever connected Richard to the gifts-on-the-porch incident—and the defense pointed vigorously, first in Bill Jr.’s and then in David Bagwell’s direction—it was clear that whoever had left the items for Nancy had poison in mind. Here, score one for the prosecution.

  Guthrie’s intrusion amid the scientific testimony, however, showed an even more significant fact on the defense’s side. Hair and fingernail samples from Nancy, it seemed, showed five times the level of arsenic in her hands as in her head, though the forensics people acknowledged that the levels should have been roughly the same. As Guthrie stalked among the county folk during cross-examination, only one explanation for the difference seemed possible: Nancy herself had handled the poison. It was the first evidence in the trial suggesting the possibility of suicide.

  As though fearing the loss of customers through defection to the adjacent courtrooms, the prosecution picked up fan interest a bit as Detective Ortega played to a half-filled house. His testimony was somewhat droll and quite professional, and totally concerned his interview with Richard at police headquarters. Referring continuously to the suspect by both first and last names, as in, “Richard Lyon said” this, or “Richard Lyon said” that, Ortega detailed the process by which he’d discovered that Richard had indeed ordered arsenic trioxide from General Laboratory Supply. Though Guthrie was successful throughout the trial in thwarting all attempts to show that his client had ever received the shipment, the mere fact that Richard ordered the stuff at all planted ample su
spicion in the jury’s mind. Ortega, in fact, did more damage to Richard than any other prosecution witness, his testimony bolstering the theory that had Richard never talked to the cops, he likely never would have been under indictment to begin with.

  Guthrie made few inroads on cross other than to elicit Ortega’s admission that he’d never considered any suspect other than Richard. If Richard was indeed guilty of the crime, however, that the police hadn’t searched every nook and cranny for other suspects seemed, overall, insignificant. When Ortega stepped down, the general courtroom feeling was that the detective had done his job, and done it well.

  The police and the forensics people now out of the way, Jerri made an announcement guaranteed to bring them running from competing courtrooms down the hall, and indeed from even the streets and boulevards in all corners of the city. She was putting Denise Woods on.

  37

  Though Denise’s testimony didn’t begin until mid-afternoon, she arrived at the Crowley Building shortly after lunch and upstaged the proceedings in the courtroom by occupying a bench outside in the corridor. Her lawyer was with her—Denise was appearing under protest, as a result of Jerri Sims’ subpoena—as was her sister, a stunning blonde in her own right, shorter than her sibling, with showpiece layered hair trimmed to reveal delicate ears; as Sis bent her head to brush her skirt, diamonds twinkled on perfect lobes.

  Rumor at the courthouse being the prairie fire that it is, Denise hadn’t been seated on the bench for over five minutes before someone had alerted all the writers of her presence, the result being that the testimony preceding hers received somewhat less than perfunctory coverage. Authors and reporters alike gathered around the hallway TV monitor, some fifty feet down the corridor from where she was seated, and pretended to watch the trial on the screen while shooting glances in her direction. Every writer had a question in mind for Denise. Up to the moment when she took the stand, none had gotten up the nerve to approach her. She was dressed in a conservative blue business suit and wore rose-tinted glasses. Her hair was brushed down straight in a serious manner. She seemed demure and somewhat frightened. Her demeanor would soon change.

  There was a recess just prior to Denise’s taking the stand, and as word of her pending testimony spread, what had been a half-filled courtroom suddenly became a jam-packed madhouse. It was brother against brother and husband against wife as the public fought for seating space and exercised its right to know. Once every pew was filled to overflowing, those excluded from the courtroom proper then jockeyed for standing space before the TV monitor. When the bailiff came into the hallway to escort Denise inside, humanity parted like the Red Sea to permit her access to the courtroom.

  Once inside, she moved hesitantly down the aisle. She went through the gate and toward the stand in proper finishing-school strides, raised her hand for swearing-in, then sat in the witness chair and crossed her legs. She locked gazes with Richard and smiled at him. He briefly returned her smile, then concentrated on his own folded hands.

  Now it was just Denise and Jerri. The most important women in Richard Lyon’s life at the moment faced each other from twenty steps apart: the city-raised contractor’s daughter and the trim and athletic Future Farmers of America sweetheart, claws bared and ready for combat. Denise favored Jerri with a look of stone. Jerri slightly tossed her head; the awesome blond hair swished challengingly from side to side. The column of air between the strong-willed young women sizzled with pent-up lightning.

  “Please state your full name for the record,” Jerri said.

  “Debi Denise Woods. As you already know.”

  “That’s right,” Jerri said. “I do.”

  From there the relationship went straight downhill.

  Firmly, unyieldingly, with Denise fighting her every step of the way, Jerri led the witness through her early meetings with Richard, their first sexual encounters, their secret affair before Richard’s separation, their more open romance when he lived at the Springbrook duplex. Those panting for lurid bedroom details—and there were a number of those persons in the courtroom—were to be disappointed; Jerri Sims was there to convict and not to arouse. Her questions were pointed and precise, Denise’s answers as brief as possible, her resentment clear.

  They approached the weeks preceding Nancy’s death. “Did Richard seem upset during that time?” Jerri said.

  “He was upset during the entire separation.”

  “But was he more so in December?”

  “I didn’t see him that much then. After the divorce hearing, where I had to testify, I didn’t see him that much at all,” Denise said.

  “What about the week before Christmas? Did you see him then?”

  A slight shift in Denise’s gaze. “Yes.”

  “And when was that?”

  “He came by my apartment when I was having a party. We spent the night together then.” Calm now, steady-eyed, not a hint of hesitation.

  “He left his wife and children at home?” Jerri said.

  “I wouldn’t know that,” Denise snapped. “You’re putting words in my mouth.”

  “He didn’t tell you where his wife was?”

  “I assumed it wasn’t my business,” Denise said.

  Jerri paused. Her whole purpose in having Denise as a prosecution witness hinged on the next few questions. Ask them incorrectly, and Denise would slip away.

  “After that,” Jerri said, “did you see him again that week?”

  Denise blinked. “Once.”

  “And was that on the day after Christmas?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the afternoon?”

  “It was.”

  “And where was that meeting?” Jerri said.

  “At my apartment. He came by.”

  “Did he give you something then? A present?”

  “A coat.”

  “A thousand-dollar leather coat?” Jerri said.

  “I didn’t ask him for a receipt. Come on.”

  “But it was a leather coat.”

  Denise rolled her eyes. “Yes.” Exasperated.

  “Did he tell you that he was leaving town that evening?”

  “He did.” Short, irritated words snipped off as if cut with scissors.

  “Where was he going, Miss Woods?”

  “To New York. With Nancy.”

  “Just to New York?”

  Denise rested her elbow on her armrest and massaged her forehead with a thumb and forefinger. “That’s where he told me he was going.”

  “Did you later learn that wasn’t true?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “You later learned that they also went to Connecticut, to visit Richard’s parents?”

  “That’s right,” Denise said.

  “Miss Woods, what was the reason Richard told you he was taking Nancy to New York?”

  Denise squirmed. “He was only …”

  “Please answer. More to the point, did he tell you he was taking Nancy to the hospital at Mount Sinai?”

  Denise looked at Richard, then quickly away. “He did.”

  “Why did he tell you he was taking her there?”

  “Because … she was sick.”

  “Because she was sick. Miss Woods, didn’t Richard Lyon tell you that Nancy in fact had a fatal disease? That she might die?”

  “That’s not …” Denise looked desperately around the courtroom. “It’s the only time,” she said. “The only time he ever lied to me.”

  “But on that occasion,” Jerri said, “you found that what he said was a lie.”

  “I did.”

  Jerri searched her file in a blanket of heavy silence. She seemed in thought. “Pass the witness,” she said.

  At the defense table, Richard looked to his mother in the audience. At that moment the defendant seemed ready to cry.

  As an adverse witnes
s to the prosecution, Denise naturally did everything she could to help the defense during cross-examination, and Guthrie pumped the well for all he was worth. Richard, she said, was the gentlest man she’d ever known, was sensitive and caring, and certainly wasn’t capable of committing murder. He’d cared deeply about his wife and family, Denise said, and the prospect of getting divorced had torn him apart. It was Nancy’s frigidity, Denise thought, after the Sierra Tucson incident when the incest had come out into the open, which had driven the couple apart, and Denise had merely come along when Richard needed someone. She spoke these words in a straightforward and convincing manner, and no one in the courtroom doubted her sincerity, but the damage done to the defense’s position by Richard’s outright lie about the New York trip was irreversible.

  Realistically, Denise regretted telling about Richard’s falsehood, but under the circumstances she had no choice. She’d already spilled the beans at the police station, and had she changed her story on the witness stand she would have risked a perjury charge. As she left the courtroom she didn’t look at Richard, and he seemed busy with some papers before him on the table. It is important that, while Denise had done harm to Richard’s cause, she’d helped herself no end. Up until the time she took the witness stand, there had been innuendos, both at trial and in the newspapers, that the police believed Denise might have helped Richard kill his wife; after she’d delivered her testimony, however, it was apparent that she knew nothing whatsoever about the murder. Whatever the public’s opinion of her affair with a married man might be, Denise was, simply, an innocent woman in love.