Everything She Ever Wanted (17 page)

His tongue and larynx had been virtually obliterated.

Carolyn Allanson, Dr. Stivers recorded, had been five feet five inches

tall and weighed 130 pounds.
 
She wore a white nurse's uniform, blouse

and pants.

"There are perforations of the clothing of the left upper and anterior

panel of the blouse.
 
. . . Upon examination .
 
. . there are multiple

perforating wounds of the left upper chest within a four-inch-diameter

circle with fourteen entrance wounds .
 
. . [that] include the left

breast of the decedent.
 
. . . There are multiple missile tracts of

destruction which pass through the tissue of the left breast, the

sternum, the upper heart, and the right lung.
 
. . . Death is

determined to have been caused by a shotgun wound to the chest."

Carolyn Allanson had died almost instantly.
 
"The'upper portion of the

heart is totally destroyed, as well as a portion of the right lung.

.

. . There may have been a moment or so of consciousness until the lack

of oxygen to the brain cells would take place, but for all practical

purposes, she died immediately.
 
The top of the heart is essentially

missing."

Dr. Stivers speculated that Carolyn Allanson might have had some

spasmodic muscular movement for a short period of time.

Could she have cocked a rifle?
 
Possibly.
 
Could she have pulled the

trigger?
 
Possibly.

Pat went to the East Point J'all and insisted on seeing her husband.

She was led into a visiting area and was disappointed because she had

intended to give him a big hug to show him that everything was all

right.
 
Instead, the officers pointed to a chal in front of a glass

panel.
 
She would not be allowed to touch Tom; she could only talk to

him on the phone that hung on the cubicle wall.

Tom looked terrible.
 
He had stubbly whiskers and she could tell he

hadn't slept.

"I have everything taken care of, Shug," she began.
 
"Now you just

remember that I'm handling this.
 
Don't say anything.
 
I've got you a

good lawyer.
 
You just trust me and you don't talk to anyone else, you

hear me, Sugar?"

He nodded.
 
She was so brave.
 
When he began to ask her something, she

glanced sideways at the cops and put her finger to her lips, shushing

him.

"Shug, just you hush.
 
I'll be back."

Still reeling from shock, Jean Boggs struggled to hold what was left of

her family together.
 
She was an attractive, slender brunette, but her

face was drawn with tension now.
 
She went to the East Point city jail

a little later in the day on July 4. The police were not eager to let

her see Tom, but finally George Zellner told her she could do so-if he

was allowed to be in attendance.

Jean had not seen her nephew Tommy in a year or two-an indication of

how alienated this family had become.
 
She offered to get him an

attorney, and Tom replied, "Well, you will have to get in touch with

Pat.
 
She'll be handling all that.
 
She probably already has someone

picked out."

"Pat?
 
Pat who?"
 
Jean asked, mystified.
 
My wife."

"Aren't you married to Carolyn?"

"No.
 
We got divorced, and I married Pat Taylor."

For the moment, Jean was dumbfounded.
 
Just as Mary McBride, Walter's

secretary, hadn't known Tom was remarried, neither had his own aunt.

Tears rolled down Tom's cheeks as he assured his aunt he had not killed

his parents.
 
"You know how it was.
 
I was frightened to death of

Daddy, but I would have no reason to shoot and kill Mother.

Tom explained to his aunt-as he had to the three detectives on the long

ride back from Zebulon the night before-that he had walked away from

his new wife because he felt he only brought her unhappiness.
 
"I made

up my mind that I was leaving her, so I hitchhiked."
 
He didn't know

how many rides he had gotten or how many miles he had walked as he

headed south to Zebulon.
 
Later in their conversation, Tom was adamant

that he didn't want to take a lie detector test.
 
He didn't trust their

results.

Jean Boggs was deeply troubled, but she believed in Tommy.

She loved him; he had grown up with her own children.
 
She could not

fathom that he would hurt his parents.
 
She wondered what kind of

person Pat was, this new wife whom she had never heard of.

The rest of Jean Boggs's day was taken up with arranging for her

brother and sister-in-law's funeral.
 
They would be buried out of

Hemperley's Funeral Parlor, just as Kent had been, and just as almost

everyone who lived in East Point was.
 
Mae Mama inexplicably demanded

that her daughter be buried in a blue dress in long sleeves.

"I won't look at her otherwise," the old lady said.

A solemn party went to Walter and Carolyn's house: Jean Boggs, Nona (in

a wheelchair), Paw, their preacher, and their doctor.
 
The house was

locked, but Jean steeled herself and went down the outside steps into

the basement, averted her eyes from the profusion of bloodstains, and

climbed to the kitchen up the stairs where her sister-in-law had

died.

All those doors were unlocked.

The house still reeked of tear gas.
 
Choking, she saw that all the

storm windows were in place, trapping the ga despite the fire

department's fans.
 
Frantically, she kicked out two storm windows to

get air, cutting her heel.
 
Then she let her parents in.
 
jean

maneuvered her mother's wheelchair to the open front door, where she

could breathe, and then carried Walter's suits to Nona and let her

choose which one to bury him in.
 
jean couldn't find anything blue for

her late sister-in-law to wear; she would have to buy a new dress in a

color Big Carolyn apparently had never worn.

It was nightmarish.
 
It wasn't happening.
 
Carolyn's woven straw purse

still sat open on the dining room table.
 
The case of Coca-Cola was

there too.
 
The inflatable blue dinosaur shivered and bounced as they

walked near it.

But it was real enough.
 
Reporters from the Atlanta papers ushed to get

in and take pictures, and perfect strangers walked up the driveway,

trying to peek in the windows to see what they could see.
 
They acted

as if they had every right to be there.
 
Didn't people have any

consideration at all?
 
Jean and the preacher got Paw and Nona out of

there as soon as they could.

Al Roberts, Walter's law partner and his friend since high school,

called at the elder Allansons' home on Washington Road to offer his

condolences.
 
After speaking with Paw and Nona, he and his wife and

daughter moved on to the den.
 
The doorbell rang and Roberts saw two

women walk in.
 
The younger woman immediately began to sob and

scream.

Paw!
 
" she cried, clutching at the old man."
 
He didn't do it!

Roberts's daughter, Martha, spoke to the newest visitors, calling them

by name.
 
"Hey, Miz Taylor-er, Allanson.
 
Hey, Miz Radcliffe."
 
She

explained to her father that this was Tom's new wife and her mother.

Margureitte and Pat walked back to Nona's bedroom, and Pat's hysterical

sobbing could be heard all over the house.

Roberts knew Walter's mother couldn't stand much more, and he hurried

back to urge Pat Taylor Allanson to leave Nona's room.
 
After his

second, more urgent request, Pat walked to the kitchen, where the table

was laden with pies, cakes, and covereddish casseroles from the

Allansons' friends and fellow church members.

Pat answered the kitchen phone, spoke briefly, and then, apparently

recovered from her hysterics, dialed a number herself Roberts, who sat

a few feet away, was astounded as he heard pat's conversation with

Calhoun Long, apparent y Tom's attorney.

Oblivious of her surroundings, Pat said in a loud voice, "He did not do

it-he went to the doctor with me.
 
When I came out of the doctor's

office, he was gone.
 
He walked to Zebulon."

And then, right in front of the late Walter Allanson's law partner, Pat

told her husband's legal counsel about the incident of the previous

Friday.
 
As Paw sat at the kitchen table trying to eat some soup, Pat

rattled on about how his dead son had exposed himself to her only six

days earlier, on June 28.
 
She recalled her terror to Calhoun Long, and

then proceeded to give alibis for Tom for the ambush incident at Lake

Lanier the next day.
 
"My mother, Mrs. Radcliffe, is on the extension

in the bedroom, and she will tell you the very same things I have."

Tommy's new wife certainly had no sense of time and place, and Al

Roberts wondered how she could even imagine that Walter had exposed

himself to her.
 
Roberts knew Walter Allanson would be incapable of

such an act, and furthermore he knew exactly where Walter had been on

the day she was talking about -right there in their law offices with

him.

Walter had arrived for work at 9:10 on that morning and had stayed

there all day long-with the exception of the fifteen minutes around

3:00 P.m. when he went to pick up the deer rifle.
 
If Tom Allanson had

shot his own father because he was outraged that Walter had exposed

himself to Pat, it was all for naught.
 
There was no way he could have

been showing his penis to his daughter-in-law Zebulon, sixty miles

away, in the hedgerow at the plantation in on June 28.
 
No way at