Poisoned Dreams Read online

  Nancy filled her prescription on her way home, and began to take the Zovirax religiously. She’d had so much medicine of late. One more pill to swallow, she supposed, wouldn’t matter. After her death the bottle containing the Zovirax capsules would never be found.

  The following afternoon, the eighth of January, Allison and Anna played as quietly as possible. Their father had gone to Houston that morning—as far as the children knew, Houston might be on the moon—and Mother was in charge. Around one, Mother had gone to bed and had never gotten up again. Occasionally the girls would creep to the door of her room and look in on her; for the entire afternoon Nancy coughed and moaned in pain. What, oh, what, the children thought, could be wrong with Mommy? Allison and Anna decided that they would both be quiet as church mice. If they weren’t too noisy, Mommy would surely get well.

  23

  After his meeting with Detective Ortega two days after Nancy died, Big Daddy didn’t feel really confident that he’d taken a positive step. His impression was that the policeman had paid only lip service and was sticking by the hospital report that Nancy had died from septic shock. That afternoon Big Daddy expressed his concern to Bill Jr. Father and son agreed to be patient for the time being, but also agreed that if nothing was done in the foreseeable future, the authorities hadn’t heard the last of the matter. Not by a long shot.

  The Dillard family did take Ortega’s advice to heart not to alert Richard that he was under suspicion. During the following two months, the Dillards bent over backward to make him believe that, as the bereaved widower, he had Nancy’s family’s utmost sympathy. Richard sat beside Sue at Nancy’s funeral, and at the conclusion of the service mother and husband hugged each other and shed tears together. For Sue Dillard, with the turmoil brewing inside her, clasping the man she believed to be Nancy’s murderer to her bosom must have been a terrible ordeal.

  The funeral brought a packed house, and a two-column story in Park Cities People, the town crier of the upper-class community. Nancy’s friends from college days came from coast to coast, and former Dillard neighbors flew in from New York. The procession to the burial site closed off intersections for blocks on end, and consisted mainly of Caddys and Mercedes bearing business tycoons, society matrons, and ladies from the Junior League. Rena Henderson of St. Simons Island, Georgia, Nancy’s classmate at Hollins, penned the following memorial read tearfully at Nancy’s graveside: “Let it be of comfort to all of us that Nancy was a giver by choice. We are the recipients of her giving. We are assured through Christ that Nancy lives on, now without suffering. It is we who suffer now, without her earthly presence.” Richard stood near the casket, head bowed, flanked by Allan and Rosemary, with the Dillard clan on both sides of and behind the trio. As Richard shed tears, the Dillards exchanged furtive glances.

  Detective Don Ortega’s personal opinion regarding the cause of Nancy’s death didn’t really matter; without a medical examiner’s finding of foul play, the police were powerless to launch an investigation. In Dallas County, Texas, the medical examiner’s office is notorious for taking its time.

  The responsibility thrust on the ME by Texas law is awesome indeed; not only are forensics personnel to determine the cause of death, they are charged with the decision as to whether death came about from natural or accidental causes, was self-inflicted, or the result of foul play. In most instances this determination isn’t difficult; if Jose is dead in an alley with a bullet through his head, there are no close-range powder burns around the wound, and Jose isn’t clutching a pistol, then somebody shot the guy. In a case such as Nancy Lyon’s, however, the gray area in the decision-making process is as wide as the Mississippi, and then some.

  The building that houses Dallas County’s Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences—an uptown moniker for the medical examiner, crime lab, and toxology staff, either individually or any combination thereof, and often referred to by prosecutors in questioning expert witnesses merely as “swifs,” thus confusing jurors as to whether “swifs” is the expert witness’ name, some sort of buzz word known only to insiders, or possibly even a derogatory term applied to the defendant—is located on a horseshoe-shaped street directly behind Parkland Hospital by design. Parkland is the county hospital, and as such becomes the first stop-off for the carloads of murder victims trucked in from indigent parts of the city; once the Parkland staff determines that the person without a head is deceased, it is a hop, skip, and jump over to SWIFS for autopsy. For the remains of Nancy Dillard Lyon, the distance traveled from Presbyterian Hospital to SWIFS on the day before the funeral was about eighteen miles. Though she’d lived in Dallas County for most of her life, it was quite possibly her first visit to the neighborhood.

  The esteem in which the deceased was held was obvious from the outset; Dr. Jeffrey J. Barnard, the county’s chief medical examiner, personally conducted the autopsy at ten-thirty on the morning of January 15. Dr. Barnard dutifully weighed the body—the swelling caused by the catheter’s puncturing of the vena cava had ballooned Nancy to 142 pounds—then removed her various organs and weighed them as well. He then inspected Nancy’s insides piece by piece; he found her overall condition unremarkable and roughly normal. Her liver was covered by a smooth, glistening capsule; if Dr. Barnard found the condition of the liver unusual, he made no comment.

  Analysis of internal fluids, fingernail clippings, hair (trimmed by Bill Jr. at the hospital), and toenails showed that arsenic had penetrated all parts of Nancy’s body. The poison was in her liver, kidneys, urine, and blood. That the concentration in her hair and toenail roots was much higher than in the mid and distal areas indicated that she had received quantities of arsenic at earlier times, and one large jolt just days before she died. That there was five times the concentration of arsenic in her fingernails than in her hair and toes was somewhat of a mystery, and was also a revelation that Richard’s defense would make much of.

  Given Nancy’s symptoms—the nausea, diarrhea, and uncontrolled projectile vomiting—the determination that she died from arsenic poisoning was relatively simple. Further given, however, that the ME’s office had access to no evidence other than the arsenic in Nancy’s system, it would appear just as reasonable that she took the poison herself, either accidentally or on purpose, as did the eventual ME’s finding, eleven weeks later, that someone slipped her a Mickey. When questioned as to the process used in determining that Nancy was murdered, the medical examiner’s staff is rather vague, giving answers ranging from “Well, it seemed likely,” to “We had family telling us that someone hated her.” Just how much outside pressure, either from the police, the district attorney’s office, or the Dillards themselves, had to do with the finding of murder is a deep, dark secret. There was pressure applied, though, pressure aplenty. Whatever the justification, the medical examiner’s opinion in Case No. 0158-91-0072JB, Lyon, Nancy, gives a ruling of Homicide. As far as the police were concerned, not until the opinion was signed and delivered did Richard become fair game.

  24

  During the weeks immediately following Nancy’s death, Richard did little to endear himself to his dead wife’s family and friends. On the day after the funeral, Alice Eiseman decided to pay him a visit at the Shenandoah duplex. Ms. Eiseman, a Highland Park native, had been Nancy’s roommate at Harvard, and still lives in the Boston area. She’d flown in for the funeral and wanted to express her personal condolences to Richard before leaving town. What she found on arriving at the duplex troubled her greatly.

  When Alice dropped in, Richard was in the process of moving every scrap of Nancy’s belongings out of the upstairs bedroom. Allison and Anna were in the nursery across the hall, and during Alice’s visit the little girls cried constantly for their mother. Richard ignored the children except for a single outburst. When the girls’ wailing became so loud that it interfered with his conversation with Alice, he shouted across the hall, “She’s not coming back and you may as well get used to it.”

 
To further rub salt into the Dillard wounds, Richard wasted no time in taking up where he’d left off with Denise Woods and wasn’t particularly discreet about it. In fact, he called her on the very day Nancy died to say his wife was dead. Two days later he came by a construction site where Denise’s crew was doing work, and the two hugged and held each other for all to see. Within a week after Nancy’s death, Denise was Richard’s constant companion.

  Nine days after Nancy’s funeral, Richard packed Denise onto a jetliner, and the couple flew to the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. There they checked into the very private and quite exclusive Garza Blanca Beach Club, a rambling elegant structure nestled between rugged mountainside and snow-white beach, and overlooking crystal blue Banderas Bay. They lingered for several days, enjoying tennis, natural waterfalls, tropical flowers, native palms, and spectacular views, all at a daily on-season rate of two hundred seventy-five dollars. If it is true, as Denise has often stated, that Richard was “the least materialistic dude I’ve ever run across,” one must wonder to what sort of free-spending Good-time Charleys she had previously been accustomed.

  Richard’s open carrying on with Denise heaped coals on the fire, and Big Daddy grew more and more impatient with the Dallas Police Department’s investigation—or lack of same—with each passing day. With his daughter not yet cold in her grave, and the man he believed to be her killer dressing in new mod clothes, wheeling around town in a sports car, and appearing in public places and high-profile resorts with a flashy blonde on his arm, Big Daddy simply couldn’t rest. He called Detective Ortega on an almost daily basis, and when Ortega either failed to return calls or, when Big Daddy was able to get the detective on the line, simply said there were no new developments in the case, he switched his attention to another jurisdiction. If the Dallas police weren’t interested in Nancy, then the University Park cops damn well ought to be.

  Like Dallas’ main police headquarters, the University Park station sits in the same location as it has for many decades, but there the similarity ends. University Park law enforcement works out of a red brick colonial-style building on University Boulevard set in among homes the size of small English castles, and standing directly across the street from four glistening city tennis courts. Perfectly clipped and trimmed St. Augustine lawns front the police building, and with the pristine surroundings goes a certain responsibility to the community. Unlike overworked Dallas detectives, when Park Citizens speak, University Park cops hop to.

  Dillard pressure on the University Park force came to rest on the broad shoulders of Captain Mike Brock, and Brock had a problem. He knew that the Dallas police were working on Nancy’s case and was reluctant to step on any interdepartmental toes, but at the same time he had a responsibility to keep the citizenry off his back. He contacted Detective Ortega and discussed the case, then, with Ortega’s approval, called Richard on the phone and had the decedent’s husband in for an interview. The meeting in Brock’s office was the first law enforcement contact with Richard Lyon.

  The meeting was less than informative. Richard was polite and cordial, and seemed genuinely willing to help, but added nothing that law enforcement didn’t already know. The suspect simply repeated the same story he had told at the hospital; he was out of town on the day Nancy got sick, did everything he could to help her, and didn’t have the foggiest idea what had killed her. He did ask Captain Brock if the police had any idea what had caused Nancy’s death, and minus the still forthcoming medical examiner’s report, Brock was restricted to the hospital’s version. Officially, Nancy had died from septic shock, and for the time being at least, that was that.

  After Richard had left, Brock made the proper notes and dutifully notified Big Daddy of the results of the meeting. From Big Daddy’s point of view, the University Park cops hadn’t accomplished a thing, and Richard was still laughing heartily in justice’s face. Big Daddy wasn’t through, though. He had many other rats to kill.

  Big Daddy wasn’t the only Dillard turning every stone to put the authorities on Richard’s trail; if Big Daddy was incensed, Bill Jr. was even more so. Nancy’s death had been a terrible blow to him. Just as he’d been getting his life together and could see the end of the tunnel in his battle with drugs and alcohol, and just as Nancy was coming to grips with the long-ago problem involving brother and sister, she had to die. The situation was terribly unfair. Bill Jr.’s chance to help his baby sister live down childhood mistakes, mistakes that had turned both of their lives upside down, was gone forever. Bill Jr. was more determined than anyone to bring the man whom he believed to be her killer to justice.

  Once the family had made their suspicions known to the police, from a legal standpoint there was nothing to do but wait, but Bill Jr. wasn’t willing to let things go at that. He made it a point to let everyone in earshot know the family belief that Richard had poisoned Nancy.

  For example, it was only a day after the funeral when Denise Woods received a call from a man she knew, Jim Lozare, an officer with Chicago Title Company. (Her connections within the same circles in which the Dillards move are phenomenal; she seems to know everyone who either is or has been connected to Bill Jr.) Lozare point-blank asked Denise if she was “laying low” for fear of the investigation into Richard’s poisoning of Nancy. She knew that Lozare was involved in some real estate ventures with Bill Jr., and knew exactly from whence his suspicions had come. Only three days after Nancy’s death, Bill Jr. was spreading the word.

  It would take several weeks of inactivity on the part of the police for Bill Jr. to decide that merely spreading the word wasn’t sufficient. By this time Captain Brock had interviewed Richard, all to no avail, and the police’s apparent lack of interest in the case had convinced Bill Jr. and his father that additional steps were necessary. Frustrated by the police’s failure to act, the Dillards now decided to go directly to the district attorney. In the DA’s office Bill Jr. felt that he had connections.

  Actually, the connection to the DA wasn’t directly Bill Jr.’s; if he’d learned nothing else through his association with his father, Bill Jr. knew how to operate through channels. The connection was through a business associate, a University Park man named Hank Judin. Judin lived next door to Reed Prospere, a slender, slow-talking Mississippi transplant who is himself a defense attorney, and who got his start practicing law by prosecuting cases for the Dallas County DA. Bill Jr. met with Prospere one evening, and Prospere agreed to go with Bill Jr. to the district attorney, or, more specifically, to Prospere’s old buddy from his own days as a prosecutor, a superchief assistant DA named Mike Gillette. Less than twenty-four hours after Bill Jr. first talked to Prospere, he found himself seated across from Mike Gillette at his office in the Crowley Courts Building. For a time the Dillard contact with the DA’s office was every bit as frustrating as the talks with the police had been.

  The Dallas County district attorney’s office has had an image problem over the past few years, and for its troubles has only itself to blame. Things certainly weren’t always like this. The district attorney’s staff was once the darling of the community.

  For most of the four decades preceding the eighties, a legendary maverick named Henry Wade ruled the Dallas County justice system with a free and heavy hand. A skillful politician with a knack for pushing just the right button at just the right time, Wade rode into office in the forties on a wave of public indignation over mobster rule. Unlike the prior regime—which included a sheriff, Smoot Schmidt, who spent as much time in illegal gambling houses as he did in running the sheriff’s department—Wade lived up to his campaign promises; in short order he ridded the county of a series of murderous characters, and sent the most high-profile of the shady-siders, a high-stakes gambler named Benny Binnion, packing off to the more relaxed climate of Las Vegas. Binnion’s Horseshoe survives today as one of the more visible casinos of downtown Vegas, and Benny swore until the day he died that he had Henry Wade to thank for the Binnion move t
o Nevada, and for making Benny an honest and wealthy man.

  Wade served a total of eight terms as district attorney, and in the entire thirty-two years received next to no criticism from the media. A splendid orator and a square-shouldered, jut-jawed presence, Henry Wade knew exactly how to please the populace. Election year was sure to bring a crackdown on hot-check artists along with a high-profile indictment or two, and the romance between Dallas and its district attorney seemed never-ending. Wade was even immune to the ugly mark placed on Dallas by the Kennedy assassination; the DA put his old friend Jack Ruby on the hot seat and asked for the death penalty without batting an eye. It is a tribute to Wade’s influence with the media that, while the results of the Ruby trial itself are known far and wide, the fact that the conviction was later reversed by the appellate courts is knowledge shared by only a few.

  Wade lived by the theory that the public perception of law enforcement was of much greater importance politically than the reality of same, so while Dallas prosecutors cut backroom deals with murderers, rapists, and whatnot, which in effect placed a revolving door on the entrance to the penitentiary, woe be it to the lawbreaker who opted for public trial. During the sixties, for example, Wade declared open warfare on marijuana-smoking hippies, all to the background chorus of “Go, Henry, go,” heard from the fundamentalist pulpits of the area, and long-haired love children of the time caught in the act of flushing joints down the toilet found themselves facing prison terms of as high as 1,500 years. The staggering sentences were somewhat of a sham against the public—Texas law at the time permitted unlimited consecutive sentencing, so that each joint in the hippy’s possession became a separate sentence in itself, yet statutes governing parole dictated that any sentence over sixty years was the same in respect to time actually served—but the whopping number of years handed out made for great headlines and public acclaim for the district attorney.