And, from several of the River Oaks women who stood in a black-garbed group after Joan’s casket was dropped into the earth: “We were all saying how terrible it was the way John neglected Joan when she got sick. It really was a crime, Pa. Negligence!”
Ash hired himself a private eye, Clyde Wilson, the same supervirile detective who had been employed by his daughter to fetch John’s clothes from under the nose of Ann Kurth. Wilson owned property near Chatsworth Farm, and he was an “over the fence” friend and neighbor of the Hills.
His mission was to obtain statements from Diane Settegast and Eunice Woolen, the two Dallas women who had been house guests in the last week of Joan’s life. “We need to get these girls down on paper before their memories get stale,” ordered Ash. Wilson drove immediately to Chatsworth Farm where Diane and Eunice were staying, woke them up, and asked if they would write down every single detail they could remember about the events of the week leading up to Joan Hill’s fatal illness.
Both women agreed, enthusiastically. They stayed up the rest of the night typing out individual statements which they signed and let in Wilson’s mailbox the next morning. Thus was the highly inflammatory “chocolate éclair theory” committed to paper. Diane had whispered it in Ash Robinson’s ear the second night of Joan’s wake. And she had told it to others, enough so that the Case of the Poisoned Pastries was whipping through River Oaks like a plague. Now the story was on paper, Xeroxed, and beginning to make the rounds of those whom Ash wanted on his side, as allies in a deepening war against his son-in-law.
Next Ash sat down with Effie Green and her husband, Archie, the aged servants who had worked at the Hill home. Both were frightened, both were anxious to co-operate with the demanding white man in the tradition of subservient Southern retainers. Neither had come into contact with the law or with any authority save the Social Security people in their long lives, and both were anxious to be done with whatever Mr. Ash wanted. Graciously Ash sat them down at his table and had his own maid, Carolyn, prepare them coffee. Already Carolyn had been up the street talking to the old people and encouraging them to co-operate with her cantankerous employer.
Ash spoke with the Greens for a few minutes, then wrote down the following document, typing it himself:
EFFIE AND ARCHIE GREEN ARE SERVANTS IN JOAN’S HOUSE
EFFIE GREEN’S STATEMENT
Effie came to my home voluntarily in the afternoon of March 26, 1969.
“Mr. Robinson, I am a good Christian woman and I can’t stand to see a good woman murdered and not say something. Mrs. Hill was murdered right in front of my own eyes, and Archie will say the same thing.
“Mrs. Hill was in good health and laughing all last week and Saturday when I left. Then early Monday morning Dr. Hill told me, ‘Mrs. Hill is sick. Do not go into her room or disturb her all day under any conditions.’ Late in the day Archie said, ‘Something is wrong up there. Mrs. Hill has not called or moved out all day—no water—no food—nothing. You had better go up and listen at the door.’ I went up and listened and heard nothing. I opened the door and looked in. Mrs. Hill was just lying there, but she saw me. She said, ‘Effie, I am so sick. I don’t want to die.’
“I closed the door real quick and ran down and told Archie. He said for me to stay away or I would be in real trouble; that I should not have opened the door in the first place.
“Archie and I talked all that nite. No one else was there; she was all alone. Dr. Hill came in about 4 in the morning. He called me about 7 A.M. (Tuesday) to come up to Mrs. Hill’s room. I went up and he was sitting on her bed holding her face away from me—I could not see her face, it was under his arm.
“He said, ‘Effie clean her up and give her all of the liquids that she wants all day.’ … Dr. Hill left. That was about 7:30 A.M. or earlier. Mrs. Hill did not drink her coffee and seemed to be in a stupor. She didn’t seem real. She said, ‘Effie, get me all the ice you can. I am burning up inside.” I turned the cover back and it smelled like garbage. The whole bed was covered with watery action and blood. It was not her period—it was POO-POO. It had been there for a long time—it was dry around the corner. He had put towels under her to take up a lot of the wetness. I tried to clean her up and she said, ‘Effie, see if you can get me to the bathroom.’ I lifted her up and green water and blood just poured out of her. She fell back on the bed and her eyes rolled back in her head and I could see that she was ‘Passing.’
“I called Dr. Hill until I got him and told him that he had better come home at once; that his wife was passing. He got there about 9:30 or 10 and went upstairs. In about one-half hour Mrs. Robinson came and they called me up to help carry her down to the car. Mrs. Robinson was crying and asked what had happened to her daughter. Mrs. Hill had told her mother, ‘I am blind, I can’t see you.’
“We all took her down stairs. (I had the impression that Archie helped, but did not so record.) All the time Dr. Hill was rubbing the back of her hand trying to rub out needle marks between her fingers. He was trying to rub these needle marks out.
“I put pillows in the car and we laid her down in the car.”
Abruptly, the document then switched to Ash’s point of view.
I asked Effie if she would write all this down in her own hand writing. She said that she certainly would and that Archie would also. “We both saw murder done.” As Effie was leaving, she pulled out a small bottle of pills. “See these pills. Dr. Hill gave them to me when I said that I had a headache. I wouldn’t take one of them for anything. I know too much and he might try to murder me. When he handed them to me, Boot said, ‘Effie don’t take those pills. You will go to sleep like my mother did and never wake up.’ Dr. Hill grabbed Boot and took him upstairs and whipped him.”
At this point the statement seemed to end—unsigned and unsworn—so Ash tacked on an addendum: “Effie did not write all this and I asked my maid to go see her. Carolyn, my maid, has heard most of what Effie said.”
And then, in an addendum to the addendum, Ash elaborated on why the document was unsigned. “Effie said that Archie told her they would both be in deep trouble and would not write anything. Archie won’t let Effie come back over, but Effie is a good Christian woman and really wants to tell her story. Her conscience seems to be bothering her.”
Now this document began to make the rounds (“Read this!” Ash commanded Assistant District Attorney McMaster). But one fact seemed curious to those close to the case. Both Effie and Archie continued to work for Dr. John Hill, odd, certainly, if the old woman was afraid for her life. This statement and the circumstances under which it was written would come under close scrutiny.
Dr. Jachimczyk’s report was delivered to Assistant District Attorney McMaster at the end of March 1969, and it was a reeling disappointment to Ash Robinson. Having gone over the original findings by Dr. Morse, the Sharpstown pathologist, and having done his own examination of the tissue specimens that Dr. Morse snipped from Joan’s embalmed organs, Dr. Jachimczyk came to a surprising conclusion:
“The cause of death is attributable to acute focal hepatitis.” The coroner went on to slap down the favorite “perhaps” being expounded in Ash’s living room by the armchair detectives, that being “perhaps John put some sort of exotic poison either into the pastries or into the medicine he gave her during her illness.”
When Joan was admitted to Sharpstown Hospital, a blood culture was obtained. “The negative blood culture obtained during life excludes a bacterial infection,” said the coroner. Moreover, “the negative toxicologic results” from stomach contents taken after embalming “exclude the exogenous poisonous substances.” This would rule out arsenics and the like.
“Therefore,” wrote the coroner, “it is my opinion based upon a reasonable probability that the cause of death is due to acute focal hepatitis, probably viral in origin.”
That very morning Assistant District Attorney McMaster received the report and bowed out of the affair. “The Harris County coroner says your daughter died of he
patitis,” he told Ash Robinson, “and that is hard to make a murder case out of.”
Ash assembled his medical experts for another session of armchair detection. All were skeptical of the coroner’s ruling.
Grady Hallman, once John’s closest friend, rejected the notion of hepatitis. He pointed out that Joan’s hospital chart did not show jaundice, or an elevation in bilirubin, the standard measure for hepatitis. Moreover, he pointed out, even the most acute viral hepatitis is rarely fatal within two or three days. It had to be remembered that the woman was vibrantly alive and dancing at a ball Friday night before she died on Tuesday.
Dr. Dwight Nichols and Dr. Ed Gouldin concurred. Gouldin even said, “I will stake my reputation that she did not have hepatitis.”
The doctors and the old man chewed on the report until well past midnight, developing dozens of possible scenarios.
Ash Robinson was now inspired to do something canny. Had it been possible, he would probably have hired the district attorney himself to prosecute his son-in-law. This being illegal, even in Houston, Ash did the next best thing. He engaged the former district attorney, a lawyer named Frank Briscoe, freshly out of public office and into private practice. Here was a man who knew his way around the courthouse, and grand juries, and investigations. No bones were made about the reason for his employment. He was to mastermind a meticulous examination of the death of Joan Robinson Hill and produce sufficient evidence and witnesses to persuade a grand jury to indict Dr. John Hill for premeditated murder.
Briscoe was a handsome, prematurely gray-haired man with an especially kind face. Old women and Little Leaguers would have put their trust in him on first meeting. When he was a prosecutor, jurors often found it difficult to believe that this sweet-looking man would demand with vengeance the death penalty. And usually get it. Briscoe was not opposed to taking old Ash Robinson’s money, but he did have one bit of bother. How would a murder charge be possible in light of the coroner’s official decision that the poor woman died of hepatitis?
Go out and ask Dr. Joe about that, demanded Ash. His face wore an expression that seemed to say: I know more about this than I am at liberty to say.
On April 9, 1969, Frank Briscoe went to the Harris County morgue and caught up with Dr. Jachimczyk between autopsies. The two men were old friends and could speak easily with one another. Frankly, said the pathologist, he did not believe there was a murder case here. The care that John Hill gave his wife at home was questionable, and his choice of hospitals was unusual, but beyond that?
Is it possible to give somebody hepatitis by injection? wondered Briscoe.
“Sure, it’s possible,” said the coroner. “But not probable.” Dr. Jachimczyk had heard that Joan ate shellfish on a brief trip to Mexico City a few weeks before she died, and she also ate snails at a dinner party in Houston one week before her hospitalization. Possibly hepatitis could have been brought on by one of those ingestions.
Briscoe pressed him. Can a doctor inject a patient with a hepatitis-carrying bug of some sort and bring on death?
“Anything is possible,” repeated the coroner. “It’s probably possible to give somebody hepatitis by giving them poison.”
But quickly the coroner shook his head to puncture that balloon. Joan’s kidney and liver had both tested negatively for heavy metals (arsenic) and strychnine. “You must remember that the toxological evaluation was negative,” said Dr. Jachimczyk. “In other words, we didn’t find any traces of poison.”
Ma Robinson opened her front door one evening in early April and discovered both her son-in-law and her grandson standing unexpectedly on her front porch. Both pleased and flustered, she ushered them in and went to find a cola for Boot.
John Hill was well aware of the troublesome pot his father-in-law was stirring. Ash, after all, lived but a few blocks away on the same street, and several times in recent weeks John had driven by and noted the automobiles of his friends and colleagues parked in the Robinsons’ circular driveway. He had also felt bad vibrations in his profession. A nurse would suddenly stop talking to another one when John Hill appeared in a coffee lounge, or two interns would look at him a little strangely as he nodded good morning on the way to surgery. Even some of the neighbors had been behaving curiously as they came by to pay hurried condolences.
On this night, John came on a mission of peacemaking. Ma took Boot to another part of the house and left the two men together. Ash stared at John Hill coldly.
The plastic surgeon extended his hand in kinship, but the old man studiedly ignored it, letting the proffer fall, unaccepted. Awkwardly John sat down, uninvited. Ash took his favorite chair, under photographs of Joan, throwing one beefy leg over its arm as was his custom. For a time there was nothing but silence.
“I came to see if you and Ma were all right,” John began. Maybe they could all go out to dinner together one night soon.
Pa answered in stony non sequitur: “I am not satisfied with either autopsy. I want her body exhumed, so it can be done properly.”
John quickly refused the notion. He did not want his wife’s grave disturbed.
“Then we have nothing to say to each other,” answered Ash. He rose and moved toward the door.
“I’m sorry you feel this way,” said John. “I was hoping we could resume our family life together.” He called for his son and Ma delivered the child, unwilling to part with him so quickly, knowing, somehow, that she would not be seeing him very often again. Across her face was written the sadness of a lost life. Later, when the two people were together, readying for bed, he in his fading red silk pajamas, she in her worn pink nylon robe, Pa said gruffly, “I sent the son of a bitch packing.”
Ma nodded. She, too, had a salty tongue. “The bastard had on dark glasses, did you notice? And it was nighttime. I think he didn’t want us to see his eyes. A man’s eyes always give him away.”
Ash did not answer, so Ma prattled on. “Didn’t Boot look good? He’s such a fine boy. I just wanted to hold him and keep him.”
The old man agreed and got into bed. His own eyes would have given him away at this moment, for they were repositories of loss and anger. Joan had been taken from him, now he would probably forfeit his grandson. His golden years were turning into lead.
Hardly two months later, another surprise event took place, stunning enough to pump new blood into Ash Robinson’s faltering efforts to avenge his daughter. In fact, when the old man heard of it, he smiled and said, “Well, well, imagine that.” And he actually rubbed his hands together in glee. It was June and his bones were warming.
FIFTEEN
When John telephoned, a very long ten days after the funeral, Ann Kurth feigned coolness. Well, how nice to hear from you. Warm, isn’t it? Sorry about Joan. How is the boy? What’s new in your life?
“I have to talk to you,” he said.
“Do you know what I’ve been going through for all this time?” Ann shot back huffily. “Not knowing what in hell is happening?”
John issued terse instructions. Meet him in the parking lot of the Meyerland Shopping Center. He was dropping his son off at a movie. They would have two hours to talk.
It was a dreary afternoon with rain building toward the east; black clouds were moving in, streaked with lightning. The two lovers sat in Ann’s car, the windows rolled up, the air conditioning belching out cold sheets of moisture. Yet John Hill was perspiring.
“You look awful,” said Ann in greeting. “Do you have hepatitis?” The news of the coroner’s new decision was freshly in the papers. John shook his head negatively.
“Am I going to get hepatitis?” asked Ann. “Should the boys and I get gamma globulin shots?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not going to get it, and neither are you.”
“You don’t look well,” she said. “And you’re not going to look any better unless you take care of yourself. Is Robert all right?” Ann had never been able to call the boy “Boot.” In fact, after Joan Hill’s death, the nickname that Ash gave th
e boy was never used again. From the moment his mother died, he was called only Robert.
The boy was fine. John’s mother, Myra, had come from the Rio Grande Valley. She had taken over the household and it was running by her efficient standards. Ann nodded. She knew what that meant. John had told her how his mother walked around the house with an open Bible, reading verses out loud to whoever might be in the room.
John said he wanted to talk about his dead wife.
“No,” said Ann. “It’s over. It’s a situation that doesn’t ever have to be mentioned to me.”
“I only wanted to say that she was prettier in her coffin than I ever saw her.”
What about Ash and his midnight meetings? she asked. John shrugged, pleading ignorance. So far, Ann gathered, the mischief down Kirby Drive did not worry him. The most vivid memory of that afternoon was John Hill throwing his arms around her and saying very softly, very tenderly, “I just wanna hold you, baby. God, I need somebody to hold onto.”
On May 26, less than two and a half months after his first wife was buried, John Hill obtained a license to marry Ann Kurth. They drove to the neighboring Fort Bend County courthouse, hoping to avoid publicity. Then, a week later, while their respective children were touring the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park between Fort Worth and Dallas, the surgeon and his mistress slipped away to a Church of Christ and were wed. They spent their honeymoon night in a motel at the amusement park, with children bouncing happily on their bed and quarreling over domain of the television program.
Hardly had the license been obtained before Ash knew, his source being a gossip columnist who received a tip. And when word came from a private detective shadowing the couple that they had actually gotten married, Ash was outwardly possessed with indignation. But blended in was no small amount of excitement. He hurried first to his lawyer, Briscoe, the former district attorney, and urged him to use this new and damaging information as valuably as possible. Briscoe was growing weary of the old man, as was most everyone connected with the situation. But this was indeed an interesting turn of events. Now the motive comes out, insisted Ash. John promised last December, in writing, to give up his paramour, but he never did. And when Joan wouldn’t give him a divorce, he got rid of her.
Blood and Money Page 18