Everything She Ever Wanted (47 page)

There were no dedications from Pat to Tom.

But, as always after each phone call, Tom sat down and wrote another

letter to his grandparents, pleading for them to love Pat, to help

her-and to do that, they would have to help him get out of jail.
 
He

was worried more about her than about what would happen with his

appeal.

Pat had developed some kind of an infection on her hip and was using a

crutch to take the weight off her right leg.
 
She told Tom she had a

continual fever, and now he had something else to worry about.

"How do you feel?"
 
he asked during one phone call.

"Now that you called," she said, "I feel much better.
 
. . .

Well, I've still got a fever .
 
. . and I had a bad night."

'When are you going to the doctor?"

"Monday.

"For sure?"

"For sure, honey."

"I've been living on dreams ever since I met you," he began, trying to

cheer her up.

But Pat could not be consoled.
 
"We can't be like normal people and

think about any kind of future," she said.
 
"We can't even plan other

than today.
 
When things got bad, [at least] we could reach out and

touch each other."

"We still can," Tom argued.

9hI can't touch you, Tom.
 
You are healthy and you know, in all

probability, you've got a number of years ahead of you.
 
So therefore,

you can hold up if it took ten or twelve years.
 
You will live through

that.
 
But let's be realistic.
 
It's wonderful to dream and wonderful

for me to say, 'Tom, I'll wait for you forever,' because you know in

your heart if I were strong, and if I were well, I could wait for you

forever, Tom."

"You're not going to die anytime soon.
 
. . .

"The reason I would, would be just from heartbreak and being lonely.

.

. . I have no one to help me now."

"You've still got me.
 
If you don't think I'm right there with you,

look around you .
 
. . look at the letters."

"I know that, Tom," she said softly.
 
The letters, the flowers, the

cards, the statues, the pictures I'm looking at-all of those things

cannot hold me when I'm sick.
 
They can't support me when I have to be

supported.
 
They can't pay the bills.
 
They can't reach out for me.

They cannot protect me.
 
They cannot keep me secure.
 
They can't get me

any support or protection at all."

There was a silence.
 
What could he answer?
 
"Pat," he groaned.
 
"You

know it's hard for me to be here."

"What you don't understand, Tom, is that before-when I had just

accepted the fact that I wasn't going to live very longI did what I

wanted to do and that was it because I didn't worry about it.
 
Then,

when you came, I had a desire because you were there, and each time

that I felt like death was going to come and grab hold of me, you were

there for me to take hold of, but you aren't here anymore.

Tom pleaded with Pat to let him give her the will to live.

For what?"

"For me.
 
For us!"

"There is no me-or us-not now, Tom.
 
. . . There is meor us-in the fact

that we love each other, but we're not together.

The conversation stretched on for twenty minutes more, and when it was

over, Tom was convinced his wife was dying.
 
He believed every word she

said.
 
He was losing her and he felt completely helpless as she slipped

away from him.

Pat was ill.
 
She had painful sores on her thigh, and ' a larger lesion

on her right buttock that had abscessed.
 
They had appeared suddenly

and her doctors were baffled about what caused them.
 
And she seemed to

be edging once again toward hysteria.
 
She wanted her mother around all

the time and that wasn't possible.
 
Boppo had to work, her job more

important now than ever as the Radcliffes' finances were strained to

the limit.
 
She was an excellent receptionist and popular with both the

dentists she worked for and their staffs.
 
But over the years she had

lost too many jobs; it was hard for her to concentrate at work because

her family had so many emergencies and called her continually.

Pat was thirty-seven and her problems were still the focal point for

everyone in the family, the star they danced around, the burden they

bore even as their own strength waned.
 
Boppo and Papa, Ronnie, Susan,

Debbie, Tom, and all the aunts were the ponies in a merry-go-round

endlessly circling the brightly painted mirrors in the center.
 
And all

the mirrors reflected Pat.

It was as if floodlights played over her always.
 
She called the shots,

alternately preening, sobbing, arguing, and smiling beatifically.

Boppo and the colonel were so involved in saving her from the

disappointments of life that they had no time to evaluate what they

themselves had lost in the struggle.
 
If they had, it probably wouldn't

have mattered.

Everything had gone to rescue Pat-houses, horses, money, credit

ratings, furniture, antiques, and, if it came down to it, human

beings.

They had come so far, all the while dedicating their lives to her, that

they never thought of shifting the balance.

Tom had always believed his wife was delicate, but in truth Pat was

very strong physically.
 
She could lift heavy saddles, and her hand

around a wrist was like a vise.
 
Boppo was the only one who dared

confront Pat when she started acting out physically.
 
She scared the

rest of her family half to death.
 
But Paw and Nona never saw that side

of Pat.
 
Her bearing with them was so loving and refined, so caring and

helpful that they had come to think of her as a daughter, just as Tom

was like a son to them.

Tom's grandparents had each drawn up a will on September 11, 1974, two

months after the murders.
 
Utilizing the "marital deduction," which in

Georgia divides the estate into two parts for tax purposes, each left

his estate to the other.
 
In the event, @,'however.
 
that both should

die, their assets were to be divided equally between Tom and Jean

Boggs's two children-that is, Tom would get half and his cousins each

half of the remaining half.
 
Tom and his aunt jean were to be

coexecutors of that estate.

On March 4, 1975, the elder Allansons added a codicil to their wills.

With Pat's help, Paw Allanson contacted his attorney and arranged for

Pat to be added as an executor to serve in Tom's place if he was not

able to do so.
 
Jean Boggs remained the coexecutor.

They all waited that spring of 1975 for word of Tom's new trial.
 
Tom

was touched that Pat would attempt the long uphill climb to the

visitors' area on crutches when she was in so much pain.
 
On March 10,

when the hearing for Tom's appeal was delayed again, Pat was

desolate.

Both her mental and physical condition went downhill; she didn't seem

to take care of herself and Margureitte worried.

On the night of April 9, Wednesday-a visiting night-Pat discovered that

Tom had talked to one of his attorneys without her.
 
She was enraged

and lit into her husband.
 
How'could he even consider doing such a

thing?
 
Apparently, Tom had told Ed Garland one thing and she had told

him another, and questions had come up that she did not care to

answer.

"He is a lying son of a bitch," she exploded, referring to Garland.

"Okay, Pat," Tom said, trying to gentle her.
 
"You don't feel any

better about the whole case, do you?
 
I'm not in the habit of somebody

telling me something and then turning it around."

"You're not in the habit of a lot of things, Tom."

Tom explained to Pat that he was unable to call anyone a liar to his

face.
 
He was not about to do that to Ed Garland.
 
He didn't believe it

was true, anyway.

"You,don't have to say they are a liar," she explained, as if to a

dolt.
 
"All you have to do is say, 'I'm sorry; I can't see you.
 
We

have a rule.
 
That's it.
 
The whole law firm knows about it.

Look, we are sitting up here arguing about something we wouldn't be

arguing over if you hadn't talked to him .
 
'cause you've got one

story, and I've got another."

And that was the problem.
 
Tom could not tell his lawyers anything

about the murders-she had insisted on that often enough.

She felt she had to censor her husband's every word.
 
She lived in fear

of what he might say, of the areas he mi lit venture into with his

attorneys when he discussed the shooting of his parents.
 
Tom trusted

too many people.
 
He had no sense of self-protection at all, and no

sense of how to protect her either.

After Pat had railed at him for half of their visit, she made Tom

promise that he would never "do anything like this again."

"I promise.
 
I promise."

Then, to make things worse, Pat had left some contraband reading

material in a visitors'waiting room, meaning to go back and hide it in

a letter to Tom.
 
It wasn't there when she went back, and jail

authorities abruptly cut short her visit.
 
She turned white with

fury.