Everything She Ever Wanted (55 page)

East Point police and asked for a complete investigation.
 
"We already

have a detective on it," she was told.

By the time jean got to South Fulton Hospital, her father had been

taken to his room.
 
He was still unconscious and he had tubes sprouting

from every body orifice.
 
"Paw," she said.
 
"Paw, it's Jean.
 
Can you

hear me?"

He gave no sign that he was with her at all.

jean noticed that the Radcliffes seemed to be everywhere she went.
 
She

wondered where Pat was-probably home with her another.

That thought gave her a sudden chill.

When she was distraught and frustrated, jean Boggs could be abrasive

and demanding.
 
She had been shut off from her parents for months, and

her father might be dying.
 
She approached the detective, who was

making notes, and demanded that he investigate thoroughly.
 
A bit

ruffled, Tedford assured her he was doing just that.
 
She also

suggested that he familiarize himself with her brother's and

sister-in-law's murders.
 
Jean minced no words; she flat out accused

Pat Allanson of having something to do with her father's coma.
 
"He

does not drink, and he does not take pills," she insisted.
 
"If he's in

a coma, she did something to him.

She's practically moved in with them, and I think she's after what they

have."

Tedford had seen his share of family beefs and rivalries, and he had

heard wild accusations tossed around.
 
But there was something about

Jean Boggs's words that made the hairs stand up on the back of his

neck.
 
After assuring her that,he would keep at it until he found out

what had caused her father's coma, he hurried back to the ER to ask

that the contents of Paw Allanson's stomach be retained for

examination.

It was too late.
 
The emesis had already been disposed of.

By Monday morning, June 14, Paw seemed to be out of danger but he

remained a miserably sick man.
 
Bob Tedford and Detective H. R. Turner

drove out to 4137 Washington Road to talk with Nona Allanson.
 
They

were not prepared to find the lady as incapacitated as she was.
 
Debbie

Cole, Pat's younger daughter, answered their knock and invited them

into the living room.
 
From somewhere in the rear of the little house

they could hear a woman sobbing and wailing; she sounded as if she were

in desperate distress.

"That's Mrs. Allanson," Debbie explained.
 
"She's really upset about

everything.
 
If you'll wait here, I'll try to get her out here to talk

with you.
 
My mother's with her."

A few minutes later, a lushly pretty woman who appeared to be in her

mid-thirties approached.
 
Although she limped noticeably herself, she

was pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair.
 
She introduced herself

as Mrs.
 
Tom Allanson, the "granddaughter" of the senior Allansons.

Tedford quickly realized how compromised Nona Allanson's speech was.

He couldn't understand a word she said.

"I'll translate," Pat said.
 
"I can understand her."

It was a good thing she could, Tedford thought, because he sure

couldn't.
 
Pat repeated what she said the older woman had said.
 
"She

said that Paw's been taking pills-too many pills.
 
No, she hasn't seen

him, but she says he's been drinking more than usual, and she hasn't

seen him eat for several days.
 
She called us Saturday morning and told

us that Big Allanson-that's what she calls Paw-was trying to kill her,

so of course we rushed right over."

It was apparent that the old woman was growing more and more upset and

Tedford stopped the interview.
 
Pat ushered the detectives out onto the

front porch, where they could talk privately.
 
She repeated, almost

verbatim, the story that Tedford had heard from the Radcliffes the day

before.
 
He noticed that her eyes brimmed with tears as she recalled

how Paw had gone downhill with the drinking and the pills.
 
She seemed

about to break into sobs.

"He tried to run me off the road, you know," Pat said quietly.

"What?"

"He did.
 
He tried to run me off the road."

Tedford recalled the elderly shell of a man he had seen in the R. He

scarcely looked capable of driving a car, much less aimit at another

vehicle and forcing it off the road.

"Why would he try to run you off the road?"
 
he asked.

Pat cast her green eyes down and sighed.
 
"When Paw was in the hospital

during his last heart attack, he felt he was going to die.
 
He had me

send for his attorneys-Mr.
 
Hamner and Mr.
 
Reeves.

He told them about a killing in 1974.
 
He admitted to 'them that he did

it-not my husband.
 
Personally, I was never so shocked in my life.
 
It

just took me by surprise that he would -sell that to his attorneys.
 
I

sat in the corner, and I started taking notes .

. . and he realizes that I know about this.
 
His attitude toward me

completely changed."
 
Tedford had read the case file on the Allanson

murders.
 
He wondered if Pat was telling him that old Walter had killed

his dwn son and daughter-in-law.
 
If she was, it was a startling-an

almost unbelievable-revelation, but she seemed incapable of uying it in

so many words.

"I hate .
 
she began, her eyes still bright with unshed tears, "I hate

to know something that will get someone out of tmuble but will get

somebody else into a lot of trouble."

She looked so forlorn that Tedford felt sorry for her; she was

itruggling with supressed secrets that she didn't want to tell him.

And yet at the same time, he knew, she did want to.

Finally she blurted it out.
 
"When Paw got out of the hospital -after

his heart attack-I was finally able to set him down one day, and I just

outright asked him would he tell me again what he to .
 
Id his

lawyers.

I guess I needed it down on paper-in case .
 
. . in case anything

happened to Paw."

The detectives leaned forward, fascinated to hear what had happened

next.
 
What was it that old Mr. Allanson had confessed to?
 
But that

was all Pat was going to tell them.
 
She wiped her eyes with her little

lace handkerchief and forced a bright smile.

"Oh, never mind," she said.
 
"I guess I was just thinking out loud.

I'm just so concerned about Paw coming back to this house.

I'm sorry to say I don't want him back here with Ma.
 
I'm scared to

death he really will hurt her next time .
 
. . ...

Pat Allanson was certainly a handsome woman; the cane made her seem

frail, but she had a perfect, full-breasted figure, and she dressed to

show it off.
 
Her thick auburn hair was coiled and twisted in what

women called a French roll.
 
The detectives knew that her husband was

down in Jackson Prison for murder.
 
No wonder she teared up so

easily.

She must have been through hell.

It was easier-in the beginning, at least-to talk with Pat Allanson,

with her sweet, sad manner, than it was to deal with Jean Boggs.
 
Jean

was an attractive woman too, slender and tall with silky black hair.

She was immaculately groomed right down to her long scarlet

fingernails.
 
But she was an angry, bitter woman in a hurry, and she

seemed to have little faith in the justice system.
 
She knew the brass

in the East Point Police Department, and she wasn't averse to going

over the detectives' heads to demand a quicker resolution to her

suspicions about her father's illness.

jean was incensed that the contents of her father's stomach had been

thrown out.
 
How were they ever going to prove now what she

suspected-that Pat had given him' something to make him so sick?
 
She

had seen the old-fashioned whiskey bottle that Paw was supposed to have

been drinking out of.
 
There was just no way.

Years ago, her father had made blackberry wine from the wild berries on

his farm, but he hardly even tasted it himself -he gave it away.
 
He

was almost eighty years old.
 
Why would he start drinking at this

age?

On Sunday afternoon after leaving the hospital, Jean and her neighbor,

Sherry Allen, had dropped by the Washington Road house to check on Nona

Allanson.
 
They found Pat there, feeding the old lady lunch and fussing

over her.
 
Pat asked Jean how Paw was, and Jean said he was still

unconscious but unless he got pneumonia or another heart attack or

something, he was going to pull through.

Pat shook her head, disagreeing.
 
"It doesn't look like he'll make

it."

"Well, we really don't know yet," Jean answered slowly.

Pat had fixed her green eyes on Jean and told her that Jean had no idea

in the whole wide world what a dirty old man Paw really was.
 
"You

don't know that old man," she said.

"He's done things you wouldn't believe.
 
He's not good and kind like

you think."
 
jean started to shake her head in warning as she glanced

at l'i-*er mother, but Nona just sat there and let Pat rave on about

btr husband.

Although she couldn't speak, Nona was sharp enough.
 
It seemed to Jean

that her mother had heard accusations this before.
 
Nona made no move

to correct Pat; she apparantly believed what Pat was saying.