Everything She Ever Wanted (76 page)

something.
 
Maybe tries to feed her liquor that's got arsenic in it.

That's just one possibility."

McAllister was an excellent criminal defense attorney, reminding the

jury again and again that they had to be sure.

"Twelve people have got to cut everyone off and say the on@v thing that

could be in this case is the guilt of that lady over there.

You have got to decide whether they have cut those things off or

not."

He submitted that the state had failed to prove Pat Allanson guilty to

a moral certainty.
 
If the jury agreed with him, Pat would walk free.

It was almost over.
 
Andy Weathers rose to speak for the final time.

It was patently ridiculous, he maintained, to consider old Walter

Allanson a killer-by shotgun or by poison.

Pat Allanson was the guilty party, a woman who had first tried to foist

off a phony confession to free her husband from prison and then

attempted murder so that she could inherit a fortune.
 
And a fortune it

was.
 
In the best light, the Boggs children would receive a small

portion of the trust portion of the Allansons'estate.
 
"She has the

power of attorney.
 
She has to make no accounting.
 
If she depletes the

trust estate, this paragraph number two here only comes into effect if

there is anything remaining in the trust estate.
 
. . .

"The motive she had is right here," Weathers concluded.
 
"She inherits

the whole thing.
 
. . . Pat Allanson is guilty of what she's charged

with doing.
 
She's guilty now.
 
She was one block away band was in that

basement doing that killing.
 
And when her husband you have this

is]....

You will note in here that confession [Paw Tom Allanson .
 
. . is

caught right close by.
 
It says he's there while his grandfather does

the killing.
 
Now ladies and gentlemen, if Tom Allanson was there and

could refute this, and his wife is on trial, why in the name of God

didn't they put him up?"

Why indeed?
 
It was likely that Tom had not been put on the witness

stand because he had refused to lie about his grandfather.

Yes, he wanted out of prison terribly.
 
He would hate to we his wife

convicted and sent to prison.
 
But he loved old Paw, and he would not

get up and lie and say his grandfather was a killer-not even to save

his own skin and Pat's.

Perhaps the woman on trial had underestimated her husband.

Weathers's final statement Dunham McAllister was outraged by dn't

testiment.
 
He asked that the question about why Tom had lied be

stricken from the record and that the jury be instructed to disregard

it.

Once again, the two attorneys turned to the law books.

Andy Weathers won.

"I am going to let the Supreme Court say it," judge Holt barked.
 
"I'm

not going to say.
 
I overrule your objection."

"For the record," McAllister asked, "might I also make a motion for a

mistrial?"

"Yes, sir-and I overrule your motion for a mistrial."

The jury went to lunch.
 
They would begin deliberating at 2:4S on

Friday afternoon, May 6, 1977.

Susan Alford was terrified that they were going to send her mot her to

prison; she was angry with Dunham McA lister for not pursuing a defense

of mental illness.
 
She believed that her mother was addicted to drugs

and should be in a hospital, not in prison.
 
But it was too late now.

The young Eastern Airlines flight attendant, her friend, Sonja Salo-who

was also an Eastern flight attendant, but who was saving to go to law

schooland her sister, Debbie, waited with Pat, Boppo, and Papa for the

jury's decision.
 
Mr. McAllister had warned them that it might take a

long time, and if it did, that would be good.
 
If a jury came back

quickly, it usually found the defendant guilty.
 
The longer the

better.

Susan had a presentiment of doom.

Pat, Sonja, and Susan went over to the Underground to have something to

at.
 
Pat ordered lunch and iced tea, but Susan and Sonja, unable to

choke down food, ordered drinks.
 
"We were scared shitless," Susan

recalled, "terrified of what was about to happen.

I felt in my bones that this was going to be the last time -maybe

ever-that we would be together like that.
 
I kept thinking that my

mother might be sleeping in jail that night.
 
I didn't see how she

could survive if they found her guilty.

As for Pat, she seemed oblivious of the fact that her fate was being

decided across the street and eight floors up.

They hurried back to the corridor outside courtroom 808.
 
Two hours

into deliberation, Judge Holt called the jury in and asked them if they

were making any reasonable progress toward a verdict.

They felt that they were.
 
He offered them a choice about supper.

If they went out to eat, they would have to go together on a bus; it

would take almost two ours.
 
Or they could order food in.

The jury voted to have Varsity hot dogs sent in.

Susan winced.
 
Her mother loved Varsity chili dogs.
 
at was so

childlike in her food preferences, and so picky too.
 
My Lord, Susan

thought, if her mother went to prison, there probably wouldn't be

anything she could stomach.
 
Sonja Salo agreed.
 
She thought Pat was

one of the nicest and the most fragile people she had ever met.
 
She

had seen only bright fragments of Pat's personality; when she visited

Pat in the hospital, she had found her very brave.
 
Sonja idolized

Pat.

Although Sonja herself had very little money, she had eaten peanut

butter sandwiches so that she could buy a dinner of steak, baked

potato, and salad to carry into the hospital for Pat.
 
She was as

worried as Susan was.
 
It seemed incredible that the woman who was so

near death a year and a half before was even well enough to go on

trial.

They waited.
 
Outside, it was Friday evening, the beginning of the

weekend.
 
Inside, time took forever.
 
Boppo smoked steadily and so did

Debbie, lighting each cigarette from the one before it.

But then, Boppo always smoked a lot; it was part of her.

Television crews waited with them, poised and ready.

It had been a little more than seven hours since the jury was charged,

but they had taken time out for lunch and supper.
 
They had deliberated

for only about four hours.
 
At five minutes to nine, judge Holt called

them into his courtroom to see if they could reach a decision that

evening.
 
If not, he would dismiss them until morning.

Robert Hassler had been elected foreman.
 
He said that they were just

about to ask a question.
 
They needed some explication of the terms

"circumstantial evidence" and "hypothesis" as listed in the fifth

instruction to the jury: "To warrant a conviction on circumstantial

evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent with the

hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable

hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused."

Judge Holt reread the instruction and explained it to them.

Susan felt icy sweat trickle down her back.
 
She knew.
 
Maybe it was

the expression on the jurors' faces.
 
Maybe it was the question.
 
They

were asking about how they could be sure someone was guilty.

Boppo lit another cigarette and Papa paced.

At 9:08, the jury buzzed for the bailiff.
 
At 9: 10, they returned to

the courtroom.
 
They had their verdicts.
 
Mr. Hassler passed the

handwritten ballot to the bailiff, who in turn handed it to Judge

Holt.

The jurist's face was empty of expression as he glanced over the piece

of paper.
 
Then he said, "These haven't been dated."
 
The spectators in

the gallery let their breath out slowly as the vital document went back

to the jury.
 
Robert Hassler dated it, "May 6, 1977.

It was passed through two hands again, and then to Andy Weathers.
 
Pat

Allanson stood, her back rigid, her eyes straight ahead as the

prosecutor prepared to read the verdicts.
 
Only a I pulse in her neck

gave her away, her heart beating so violently that the precious cameo

on the gold chain around her neck bounced delicately.

Weathers cleared his throat.
 
"As to Count I: We the jury find the

defendant guilty."

Pat showed no expression at all.
 
She didn't sway.
 
She didn't faint.

"As to Count II: We the jury find the defendant guilty."

Debbie broke into loud sobs and shouted, "No!"
 
Boppo, as she always

had, pushed back her own emotions and hugged her granddaughter in a

vain attempt to comfort her.
 
Susan cried more softly and Sonja Salo

turned to help her.
 
Colonel Radcliffe looked thunderstruck.
 
Courtroom

808 was full of sobbing and anguished cries, but the convicted woman

seemed to be in shock.

Pat, who had always crumpled to the ground at the slightest emotional

pressure, stood like a tree, unmoving.

Judge Holt issued a stern warning.
 
"Anyone who cannot control himself

or herself must leave the courtroom now."
 
No one i % left, but the

crying was muffled.
 
Judge Holt was ready to sentence Pat

immediately.