Everything She Ever Wanted (70 page)

Even though Pat had been frantic to have her husband free, she had

thought first of his grandfather's health and allowed a confession to

murder-which would have saved Tom-to hang in the air, unsaid.
 
From

time to time during her testimony she had looked modestly down at her

lap.
 
Now, she lifted her green eyes to her attorney.

When Paw returned home, Pat said, he worried about the nurse giving

Nona medication.
 
Pat had gone over to help out and they had had

another conversation.
 
"He was very, very irate at Mr. and Mrs. Boggs

. . . he said [they] had been bothering Maw.
 
. . . He said, 'I want to

keep Jean and them away."
 
He said, 'If they don't stay away and leave

her alone, I'm going to blow her head off just like I did Walter's and

Carolyn's."
 
So that night, he went into everything.
 
He told me every

single thing he done."

Pat was very earnest, very definite as she described how torn she had

been between concern for Paw's health and her need to know the truth.

She had permitted him to give her details "only after he was released

from the doctor's care and I saw that he was all right then."

As she recalled, she had committed the old man's statement to paper

about three weeks before it was notarized.
 
"Mr. Allanson wanted me to

bring the typewriter over to the house and type it up.
 
And I am not a

typist in the first place.
 
The typewriter was too heavy for me to move

because I was still on crutches."
 
She said she had explained that to

the old man, and he had agreed she could just write down what he told

her.
 
"He still said, 'I'm not going to the police about it.
 
It will

upset Mama, make her have a heart attack."
 
He had been using this on

me a long time to keep me from going to the police after he told me.

And he said, 'I'll tell it to you now the way it really happened.

"And did he?"

Pat looked toward the ceiling, as if searching for guidance, and then

rolled her tongue again in the familiar gesture.
 
"Yes, sir," she said

with emphasis.
 
"He did.
 
. . . I don't know how to describe it unless

you could say that the more he told me, the more I wrote down what he

said, the more excited he became as he was telling it.
 
. . . I

questioned him numerous times throughout it .
 
. . you know, like, 'How

could you have done that, Paw?"
 
I wrote down verbatim every word that

he told me.
 
. . . He wanted me to type it up because he could not read

the handwriting.

"Was it typed?"

"Yes, sir, it was.
 
. . . My mother typed it, because I can't

type-except one finger."

"Now," McAllister continued, "between the time it was stipulated and

June 13 of last year, what was your contact with the Allanson home?"

"Between the time this was signed and the thirteenth?"

"Yes.

"Very few, because I was afraid to go back.
 
I would say probably four

or five times at the most.
 
Instead of going every day, I only went

those times when Ma called me and begged me to come.
 
I always went-but

I always took someone with me, from the very day that he told me

that.

From that date on, I never went back to that house alone."

Pat recalled the unsettling weekend of June 12-13, shuddering at the

memory.
 
Her facial expressions and gestures were very dramatic.
 
"Ma

had called us that morning.
 
She was hysterical.

She said Paw tried to kill her.
 
(That] he was drinking, that he had

gone crazy.
 
. . . She didn't know what to do and she was frightened.

Pat and her parents went to her rescue, of course, she said.

Once inside the house, someone had called Dr. Jones, and against my

wishes," Pat explained, the old man had remained out of the hospital.

She asked her good friend, Fanny K. Cash, to stay the night for

protection, as if a sixty-seven-year-old woman would be much protection

against the out-of-control admitted killer Pat had described.

On Sunday morning, Pat said, she had to call Dr.
 
Jones again.

"What were you doing when Dr.
 
Jones arrived?"

"When he arrived that Sunday morning?"

"Yes.

"Oh, I remember," Pat said suddenly.
 
"I was bathing Ma, and because I

knew I had left her only partially clothed in the bathroom and it was

cool, I had to hurry back to her.
 
So I just ran up real quick and

answered the door and Dr. Jones followed me back, and I showed him

which room Paw was in."

McAllister had a most important point he had to get across to the

jury.

He wanted to show, through Pat's testimony, that she had nothing to

gain, and much to lose, if Paw Allanson died.
 
If Paw had died, he

submitted, she might never have been able to use his confession to free

Tom.

Weathers would not let him ask that directly.
 
He maintained in

objection after objection that McAllister's questions on the matter

were all leading.
 
When the defense attorney tried through another

door, Weathers objected again.
 
At length, Judge Holt allowed

McAllister to get at the subject in a roundabout way.

"Did I give you certain legal advice concerning your husband's case?"

he asked Pat.

"Yes, sir.
 
You did."

"Would you tell the jury what that advice was?"

"Well, you told me that the worst thing that could possibly happen

would be for Mr. Allanson to die from his heart or anything else,

because it was very important that he be alive and that he be able to

testify to what he told me.........

"Do you know anything about how arsenic got into the body of Nona

Allanson or Walter Allanson?"

"No, sir."

Pat said she had heard nothing about anyone suffering from isoning

until June 28, when they had come with an arsenic po ambulance to take

Nona away.
 
"There was a lot of confusion going on.
 
And I don't know

whether I overheard it or whether it was said directly to me.
 
It seems

like Mr.
 
Tedford is the one who said it-it seems."

"Do you know anything about the presence of arsenic on or about the

premises of Walter Allanson s place?"

"No, sir.
 
He didn't let people ramble around his house."

"Who prepared the food?"

"Oh, Paw did all the cooking .
 
. . he wouldn't let anyone else.

"Was that true on every occasion?"

"Every one until he went to the hospital.
 
Then, of course, there were

different nurses who cooked and everything."

"Thank you."

Andy Weathers rose to cross-examine.
 
Questioning a defendant who was

attractive, intelligent, and frail-with her cane next to her chair-was

not going to be the easiest thing in the world.
 
He knew that even Bob

Tedford had initially felt sorry for Pat.

Weathers had studied her during this trial and watched emotions flicker

across her face.
 
Concern.
 
Boredom.
 
Pain.
 
Fear.

Confidence.
 
And sometimes a kind of supercilious annoyanceeven with

her own attorney.
 
Pat strove, it appeared, to come across as an almost

royal presence who, for God only knew what ily untenable and

distasteful reason, found herself in a temporar Weathers began without

preamble, "that Mr. McAllister gave you some legal advice as your

attorney.

I assume by this you mean he was already retained as your attorney at

this time, and gave you legal advice about this document not being any

good.
 
Is that correct?"

Pat blinked.
 
"Pardon, sir?
 
I couldn't hear."
 
situation.

"You just stated "You just stated to the jury, did you not, that Mr.

McAllister i gave you some legal advice concerning the validity .
 
.

.

of "Yes, sir.
 
. . . I don't quite understand the question-" Weathers

repeated his question, which emphasized that the confession was

worthless.
 
Pat explained that it had not existed when she first went

to McAllister in March.
 
At that point, Paw had only told her verbally

that he was the real killer of his son and daughter-in-law.

Answering Weathers's questions about her marriage, Pat agreed

cautiously that she and Tom were "very close .
 
. . very, very

close."

"You're stating to the jury that Tom Allanson never told you one word

about his innocence in this case."

"Yes, sir .
 
. . he told me he was innocent and I knew that if he said

he was innocent, he was innocent."

"In fact, you knew a lot more," Weathers said, moving closer.

"Isn't it a fact when Mr. and Mrs. Allanson were killed, the police

saw you directly outside the house when Tom Allanson ran outside the

house?"

"No, sir.
 
I was not."
 
Pat's face flushed, and she watched Weathers

warily.

"You were not in the car?"

"I was in a car not far from there.
 
Not a car, I'm sorry-in a jeep"Not

far from the murder scene?"

"Depends on what you call far."
 
Pat was slowly regaining her

composure.

"Okay.
 
You tell me how far."