Blood and Money

by Thomas Thompson

  Briscoe did not see it as crystal clear. A decade in the district attorney’s office had taught him that murder was rarely a package wrapped neatly in ribbons. More often it was a collection of loose threads that, when pulled, either formed a snare trap or fell apart and revealed nothing but a wide, empty gap.

  But the revelation of John’s marriage was enough for him to get in contact with I. D. McMaster, his former junior colleague at the DA’s office.

  McMaster was a politically ambitious prosecutor who had recognized from the first moment Ash Robinson walked into his office that there was enormous publicity potential to the matter. Now McMaster was beginning to feel that this was one of those events that might be the turning point in a man’s career. It was heady company out there in River Oaks, sipping whiskey with fat cat lawyers and society doctors.

  “Just how do you feel about it?” McMaster asked his former boss.

  Frank Briscoe believed only that a few points seemed “a little out of focus,” particularly that John Hill had behaved “like an old hound dog” while still married to Joan, and then rewed after an indecently brief period of mourning.

  McMaster revealed that he had been spending time researching hepatitis. From a gastroenterologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital the prosecutor had learned that it was possible to give someone hepatitis through an injection, but that it would not usually kill that quickly. Traditionally, hepatitis takes months or years to destroy a liver and cause death.

  What about the famous French pastries? asked Briscoe.

  McMaster had no answer. All he knew officially was that the coroner’s report ruled out poisons, on the basis of studying embalmed tissue. If the lady’s blood hadn’t washed down the undertaker’s sink so quickly, more might be known.

  McMaster thus decided—with Briscoe’s concurrence—that the best way to satisfy the old man, the community, his own professional curiosity—and ambition—was to proceed with a grand jury investigation. It became over the early summer of 1969 a loose, almost informal affair, rather like a coroner’s inquest, with doctors dropping by the courthouse to testify. Lanza, Bertinot, and Morse, the three Sharpstown physicians who were brushed by the case, went before the jury and none had any damaging news that would support “foul play.” Others like Hallman and Gouldin—those doctors who convened in Ash’s living room to play at Sherlock Holmes—questioned John Hill’s choice of hospitals and the length of time it took him to get his wife there. Nathan Roth, the first employer of John Hill, laid spicy testimony before the panel, suggesting that his former junior partner was a philanderer and a would-be seducer of women patients. One witness friendly to John Hill snapped sourly at a newspaper reporter, “I’m here because a rich old fool has influence enough to try and buy an indictment.”

  John Hill was understandably uneasy about what was going on at the courthouse. Resolutely he had avoided engaging a criminal lawyer to represent his interests, for he feared that such would be an admission of guilt. Rather he went about his practice as ever, secretly desperate because his referrals were dropping sharply. Ash Robinson had written a letter to the Harris County Medical Society saying he had “grave charges” to make against his son-in-law, “who should not be allowed to practice medicine in this city,” and a committee granted the old man an appointment before a disciplinary group. But Ash failed to show. Moreover, John was getting reports from friends, each of whom had an ominous Ash Robinson story to pass on. As he made hospital rounds one afternoon, a nurse whispered John into a stair well and said she had heard that Ash was trying to solicit the testimony of a lab technician at the VA Hospital. The gossip was that the old man was offering $25,000 if she would go before the grand jury and testify that she smuggled some sort of poison out of a VA laboratory and gave it to John.

  A radiologist called and said Ash was spreading a story around that John kept a secret apartment where he operated on the faces of escaped criminals, altering their features so that they could elude capture. And a third informed John that Ash was waving around a list of at least ten women with whom the plastic surgeon was supposedly carrying on simultaneous love affairs. It also grieved him that many old friends, particularly Grady Hallman, were in league with Ash.

  All of this John bore stoically. To each of the informants he paid polite gratitude, but to none of them did he show outrage. Then word came that Ash was even suggesting he was somehow involved in the tragic suicide of his brother Julian six years earlier, and finally John Hill took action. But rather than hire an attorney, he rang up—of all people—Clyde Wilson, the private detective who had first been engaged by Ash Robinson. Wilson seemed to be a man for all seasons.

  “If I were you,” suggested Wilson, “I would volunteer to take a lie detector test.”

  “Why?” asked John Hill.

  “There are clouds of suspicion hanging over your wife’s death,” said Wilson. “A lot of bad talk in this town. Best way to put the whole thing to rest, and make peace with your former father-in-law, the best thing would be to take a lie test.”

  Hill’s voice grew tense: “But I’m not guilty of anything. My wife died. I’m sorry she died. But my taking a lie detector examination can’t bring her back.”

  “Agreed,” said Wilson quickly. But the water was so muddy at this point that the only way to clear it was through some sort of action. The surgeon might consider going down to the grand jury and giving them a statement.

  At this Hill began to protest. That would be tantamount to admitting something was irregular about Joan’s death. If he went before the grand jury, the press would have a field day. He wouldn’t get another patient for six months. His practice was already falling off.

  All the more reason to take a lie test, said Wilson. And don’t worry. Such a test would never be admissible in court.

  What court? asked John.

  Just ruminating, said Wilson. But a properly administered test, with I. D. McMaster sitting there watching, could persuade the district attorney’s office that there is nothing to the case save the protestations of a lonely and spiteful old man.

  After several days Hill called the private detective and said he had decided to offer himself for examination—but under specific conditions. One, he would not take the standard polygraph test, for he had no faith in its merits. Instead he would agree to a Sodium Pentothal injection, the so-called “truth serum.” Secondly, it must be done at a hospital, under clinical conditions, not in the courthouse or police station. Three, it must be tape-recorded so that any arguable answer could be listened to at a later date. And lastly, both sides must swear to keep the examination secret from the media.

  Wilson took the offer to I. D. McMaster and a bargain was struck. Thus on an afternoon in early June, three months after the death of his first wife and a few days after his marriage to a second, John Hill appeared in a small diagnostic room at Sharpstown Hospital. He selected this institution, he said, because he wished to show his faith in it. Ash Robinson, to be sure, immediately began grumbling that the test would be rigged, as further part of a “conspiracy.” He had learned that John Hill owned one per cent interest in the hospital and this was proof enough for the old man that all at Sharpstown—from the administrator down to the mop maids—were clustered around John Hill to shield him.

  A young, neutral, and respected Houston anesthesiologist, Dr. Richard Smith, was selected by both parties—John and the DA’s office—to administer the drug, although he had never done so for the purpose of examining veracity. Dr. Smith had, however, administered Sodium Pentothal for surgery at least ten thousand times during his career, and was thoroughly familiar with its capacities—and dangers. When he arrived at the room, he professed immediate annoyance at the arrangements. Nothing was available in case of emergency!

  “This is a life-threatening procedure,” he said. “You don’t just give a guy a shot of this and stand back and watch.” He would not give the drug unless several things were brought to the room. Quickly he ticked off his req
uirements: a defibrillator and cardiac arrest equipment in case of heart irregularities, a laryngoscope to look down the windpipe, a drug called atropine ready in a syringe to speed up the heart in case it slowed (the drug also halts production of saliva to keep such from slipping into the lungs), a supply of succinylcholine, a muscle relaxer to facilitate placing a tube in the trachea if needed for emergency breathing (sometimes patients choke during anesthesia as if they were choking on a piece of steak), and—most importantly—an anesthetic machine with positive pressure oxygen and anesthetic gases.

  While the equipment was being readied, McMaster watched both the anesthesiologist and the subject closely. It had occurred to him that since Dr. Smith worked chiefly at St. Luke’s Hospital, and since John Hill occasionally performed plastic surgery there, then perhaps they had the bond of colleagues, if not more. When asked to conduct the lie test, Dr. Smith volunteered immediately that he not only knew John Hill, he had served as anesthesiologist for the man’s surgery on “maybe ten or fifteen operations … but none in the past two years.” McMaster placed a few discreet phone calls and felt reasonably sure that Smith was an ethical man, and not in league with anybody.

  Now, in the blunt, tough way he had people cracking at Sharpstown, McMaster was satisfied that Smith was not on anybody’s side. This was also the first moment that McMaster had the opportunity to observe John Hill in the flesh, and he seemed pleasant enough, not outwardly ruffled by the ordeal that lay ahead. Certainly he was not McMaster’s kind of man, not the kind to sit next to at a football game, or wait with for ducks in a blind on a still East Texas lake. “What we have here,” mused I.D. to himself, “is a rich, spoiled, pretty-faced mama’s boy. Little lacy-britched, too, I’d expect.”

  The test began with Dr. Smith inserting an IV tube in the surgeon’s arm, starting a drip of water and glucose. Next he gave John a dose of two per cent Sodium Pentothal, dripping it with the solution. Sodium Pentothal, he had explained to the prosecutor, is a fast and pleasant way of going to sleep. The drug also has the ability to remove any inhibitions a person has about speaking freely. “A guy will speak his subconscious,” said Dr. Smith. And there, hopefully, reposes the truth. “In theory, the varnish of lies is removed by this drug.”

  The anesthesiologist was asked how much Sodium Pentothal it took to accomplish this phenomenon. “Each patient is different,” he answered. “A dose that would kill one man dead might make another lie there and say, ‘What time are we gonna get started, Doc?’ It is an up-and-down thing, a cyclical situation. It’s sort of like a boat moving through a heavy sea. You might be in deep water some of the time, in shallow water at other times. Let’s put it this way: a patient may be way down at one minute, then closer up toward consciousness a few minutes later.”

  McMaster watched with fascination. An assistant, T. C. Jones, was ready with a list of prepared questions. Clyde Wilson, the private detective, snapped on his tape recorder and blew into the microphone to make sure it was working. Everything was set and Dr. Smith began the questioning.

  Q. How old are you, sir?

  A. Thirty-eight years old.

  Q. Do you have children?

  A. Yes, sir, I have one child.

  Q. What is his name, please?

  A. His name is Robert.

  Q. The district attorney, Mr. McMaster, will begin to talk now.

  Smith thus threw the interrogational ball to McMaster, who began uneasily, not quite comfortable with the power given him. On the examining table was stretched out one of the city’s most famous young doctors, now, apparently, totally helpless, with no defenses, compelled to speak the truth. But there was no feeling of science fiction about it, only a pinprick of bother about invading a man’s most private regions. McMaster shook off this worry and began his interrogation. John Hill responded readily, easily, almost casually. Almost too casually, McMaster began to feel. It was as if they were in a café, idling over coffee.

  Q. When did you marry Joan Hill?

  A. In 1957.

  Q. And when did she die?

  A. Nineteen sixty-nine.

  Q. Do you recall the date?

  A. March 19.

  Q. And the time?

  A. I think it was around four-thirty in the morning, or four forty-five.

  At this answer, McMaster made note. The death had been an hour earlier. Surely John Hill knew this; why would he alter the time? Dr. Smith increased the dosage slightly, putting his patient in a deeper state.

  Q. When did she first become ill, Doctor?

  A. She spent the preceding Friday and Saturday laying around, or at least the preceding Saturday laying around mostly in bed.

  Here McMaster made a second note to himself. On the last Friday of her life, Joan Hill was radiantly alive. She had drawn a compliment from Mrs. Dotty Oates on how attractive she looked, and she was a vivacious ornament at the wild game dinner. She did not spend that day “laying around.”

  John Hill breathed heavily for a moment or two, then plunged into an amplification.

  “… I don’t know if that was necessarily part of the illness, but I did think it was somewhat unusual … but two or three days prior to that she had complained of not feeling well while on a furniture-buying tour for our music room, but I couldn’t have called that exactly an illness. Saturday night, prior to her passing, she had quite a bit to drink and went to bed not feeling too well. Saturday, I mean Sunday morning, she didn’t seem to feel too well and spent quite a bit of the day in bed, and Sunday afternoon she had some episodes of vomiting and felt like she was going to have a loose bowel movement. Should I go on?”

  “Yes.”

  “… Felt like she was going to have some loose bowel movements and she vomited so hard it felt like she was going to continue vomiting. She said she felt like everything she put in her mouth she was going to vomit, so I gave her a shot of Compazine. It is a drug to relieve vomiting.

  Q. Was this given with a hypodermic?

  A. Yes, sir, it was, and I never thought much more about it; it seemed to relieve her of upset stomach, and she did not have any more vomiting until—wait, she complained of some discomfort from chills later in the afternoon Sunday. Sunday evening again, she complained of vomiting and diarrhea … and didn’t feel she could keep anything on her stomach or take a suppository, so I again gave her another shot of Compazine. It seemed to help her some although she had several more episodes of vomiting and several episodes of diarrhea; she even had one real large diarrhea stool in the bed.”

  McMaster made a note to the effect that Dr. Hill admitted giving his wife at least two shots of what he claimed was Compazine.

  Furthermore, it concerned the assistant DA that the answers coming from Hill were more of a recitative, a story spun by a narrator, not the terse responses normally given. Sometimes a patient rambles on and on, in and out of fantasies, while under the drug—McMaster learned this in his brief research. But from what he had been led to believe, patients did not lie there coldly and dispassionately and throw off rather well composed speeches. Dr. Smith felt that his subject was too close to the surface of consciousness, so he increased the drip of Sodium Pentothal, and, in the doctor’s metaphor of ocean waves, put him once again in deep water.

  Q. Did you ever check her fever, Doctor?

  A. No, I didn’t have a thermometer, but I felt like she had a temperature elevation. I believe, but I cannot say for sure … [McMaster to himself: “Would a man under Sodium Pentothal say, ‘I cannot say for sure’?”] I believe we got a thermometer the next morning, Monday, and checked her temperature and I think her father came over and checked her temperature. I don’t remember exactly how much temperature elevation she had, but it was a degree or two.

  Q. All right. Monday morning, what was her condition?

  A. Monday morning she did not seem to feel well at all. She had a number of diarrhea stools during the night and vomited several times, and she had fever the next morning, and I didn’t think she was particularly ill.
But I thought perhaps she might have an infection of some sort and that it would probably blow over in a day or two.

  Q. Did you leave instructions with the servants at the house that she was not to be disturbed on Monday?

  A. I indicated that they should keep a look after her and take care of her and I felt enough concern about her that I ordered some medication from the Avalon pharmacy … some [unintelligible] which is an antibiotic. In capsule form. I ordered something for the diarrhea and I instructed the maid to make sure she took the capsules and I asked one of the ladies who was staying in the house at the time, a weekend guest, you might say, although they stayed longer than that, I asked her if she could possibly stay with her, because I was kind of concerned about her, before I went to the office.

  Q. This is Monday still are we talking about?

  A. Yes, sir, Monday.

  Q. Who was that house guest?

  A. Miss Diane Settegast.

  Q. And did she stay or did she leave?

  A. To my best recollection she did leave.

  McMaster considered this in contradiction to the statements of Settegast and Woolen, both of whom said they offered to stay and look after Joan on Monday, but that John shooed them off.

  Q. Getting back to the time of your wife’s illness, Doctor, where did you administer the two shots of Compazine? On what portion of the anatomy?

  A. I gave them intravenously because Compazine is very uncomfortable when administered intramuscularly, and I felt that since she hated shots so badly that it would be more comfortable if they were administered intravenously. So I diluted the Compazine and administered it intravenously.