Everything She Ever Wanted (54 page)

room, gurgling with secretions like that, it seemed a bit inappropriate

that the other household functions would be carried on in what seemed

to be such a day-to-day fashion.

Paw was critically ill.
 
As Dr. Jones was examining him and getting an

airway open, Pat wandered into the room and said, "You know, he tried

to murder Ma a couple of nights ago.
 
He tried to smother her with a

pillow."

Dr.
 
Jones looked up at her, aghast.

"See, see there?"
 
Pat said with amazing calm.
 
"See those scratches on

his elbows?
 
That's from where she fought him off."

Dr. Jones felt goose bumps rise along his arms.
 
There was no way that

Nona Allanson could have fought her husband offnot with one completely

paralyzed arm and the other severely compromised by her strokes.
 
It

would have been like a butterfly batting its wings against a buffalo.

But more than that, he knew these old people too well to believe that

Paw would ever, ever hurt his wife.
 
He loved her, and he had cared for

her so gently for years.

The abrasions on the old man's elbows weren't scratches; they were the

kind of extremely minor abrasions that mark aged skin that has rubbed

against sheets.
 
Dr. Jones felt that something was wrong.
 
He didn't

have much time to think about it as he fought to stabilize his patient,

but the shock of Pat Allanson's accusations against Paw stayed with

him.

Maybe there was a problem with overdosage.
 
With a patient in a coma,

Dr. Jones couldn't overlook that.
 
"Do you have any of his pill

bottles?"
 
he asked Pat.

She led him into a little breakfast nook and pointed to dozens of pill

bottles lined up.
 
He quickly sorted out those that were sedatives and

slipped them into a paper bag to take to the hospital.
 
It would give

them a place to start when they screened for a drug overdose in Paw's

system.

Pat handed him a single yellow capsule.
 
"I found it on the kitchen

floor.

When we got in Saturday morning, he was just gobbling pills by the

handful.
 
I think this is one of them."

Dr.
 
Jones studied it.
 
It looked like Nembutal, a hypnotic sedative.

Paw?
 
No, that warred with everything the doctor had learned about the

old man in ten years.
 
Paw Allanson wouldn't have taken a sleeping

pill, not when he had to look after Nona-and turn her several times

during the night.
 
But then, the Paw Allanson he knew wouldn't have

touched white lightning either.

There were so many things that could go wrong-suddenly-' in a man

almost eighty years old.
 
A massive stroke, perhaps.
 
Another heart

attack.
 
Things that could affect thought processes too.

Dr.
 
Jones's sense that something was not right grew even stronger.

Why would Paw try to kill Nona?
 
And why on earth had Pat Allanson left

the old man all alone, unconscious and gurgling, and calmly wheeled

Nona into the bathroom for a sponge bath?
 
Those ablutions were not

necessary, and taking care of Paw was vital.

"I was a suspicious doctor," he later commented succinctly.

They heard the wall of an approaching ambulance.
 
Dr. Jones walked

from the breakfast nook toward the front door.
 
In the hall, Pat handed

him what looked like an old-fashioned whiskey bottle, although it had

no label.
 
By tilting it toward the light, he could see a small amount

of clear liquid in the bottom.

"This is the bottle Paw was drinking from yesterday," she said.
 
"I

found it hidden away out in the garage."

Dr. Jones slipped the bottle into his medical bag.
 
He had already

made up his mind to call the police when he got his patient to the

hospital.
 
He wasn't even sure what he might be reporting; he would let

them sort out the information.

With sirens blaring, the ambulance crew got Paw Allanson to South

Fulton Hospital by ten-thirty.
 
Dr. Jones began treating him at once

for an overdose of a "sedative nature."
 
He didn't know what Paw had

overdosed on-perhaps the Nembutal that Pat had pointed out, perhaps

something else.
 
The most important thing was to use nasal gastric

suction to pump his stomach, and to keep his blood pressure, pulse,

respiration, fluids in-andout, and body chemistry within normal

boundaries.
 
Paw was in extremely critical condition, unable to tell

Dr. Jones what he had taken.
 
It was quite possible that he would die

without speaking.

Back at Washington Road, Pat soothed Nona, telling her that Paw would

be home soon and that she would stay right there with her.
 
Boppo and

the colonel had rushed to the hospital to be sure that Paw was getting

the proper care.

Almost exactly two years after the double murder of Walter and Carolyn

Allanson, the East Point police received another call to respond to a

case involving a Walter Allanson.
 
It was jarring for a moment-until

the dispatcher realized that this was Walter Allanson, the elder.
 
He

dispatched Officer G. W. Pirkle to the emergency room from of South

Fulton Hospital.
 
When he learned that the patient had apparently taken

a massive overdose of sedatives, Pirkle called Detective Sergeant

William R. Tedford for investigative backup.

Bob Ted ford was introduced to Colonel and Mrs.
 
Clifford Radcliffe.

He spoke with them in the waiting room while he waited for Dr.

Jones.

The pair seemed very concerned about the old man.

Mrs. Radcliffe reconstructed the bizarre weekend for the young

detective.
 
"Ma called us yesterday morning-Saturday," she began.

"She said that Paw was acting strange and wild, and begged us to come

over right away and help her."

She said that both she and Pat were on phone extensions and heard Nona

Allanson begging for help.
 
They had thrown on their clothes and raced

over to the Washington Road house.
 
When no one answered their pounding

knocks on the front door, they had gone to the back of the house.

Colonel Radcliffe had started prying a rear window open.

The colonel took up the story, remarking that it was fortunate that the

ladies hadn't seen Paw without warning.
 
"He was naked except for a

T-shirt and an Ace bandage on his ankle."

He had shouted for Pat not to look-that Paw was headed toward the door

naked as a jaybird.
 
Boppo nodded.
 
"When he opened the door, he was

naked, all right, and he had a handful of pills."

All three of them had burst into the kitchen, but Paw had walked away

from them, they said, stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them

down with orange juice.
 
"He was cramming so many in his mouth that

they were dropping out the sides and falling on the floor," the colonel

said.
 
"I told him that Dr. Jones wouldn't want him to take all those

pills, trying to reason with him, you see.
 
He replied, 'To hell with

the doctor!"
 
and just kept on taking pills."

The Radcliffes explained that their daughter Pat was basically the one

taking care of the old couple.
 
"Is there any closer relative that I

could call about Mr.
 
Allanson's overdose?"

Tedford asked.

"Yes.
 
Well, I don't know-they have a daughter, Jean Boggs.

But they don't get along.
 
Pat has been staying with them, running

errands, this type of thing, for the past several years," Margureitte

explained.
 
Detective Tedford's impression was that these people were

the patient's family-or at least the closest thing to it.

After a tense hour and a half, Dr. Jones came out and said that Paw

Allanson's condition was stable and that he could say, albeit

cautiously, that the elderly man might survive.
 
It was touchy, of

course, treating a man with a history of cardiac problems, but Paw

Allanson had always been a tremendously strong man.

Even now, although he was considerably weaker since his heart attack

five months before, he seemed to be fighting his way back to

consciousness.

"What have you prescribed for Mr. Allanson?"
 
Tedford asked Dr.

Jones.

"Vistaril-that's a very mild sedative.
 
Nembutal-a barbiturate-and

Librax for his stomach.
 
But I suspect he's taken !something other than

what I prescribed.
 
I found so many empty bottles in their home."

Paw's condition could have been an accident, and a fairly 'common one

at that.
 
An old man, confused and perhaps a little wile, had had too

much alcohol and too many of the wrong 'Pills.

But Tedford was inclined to code it as a possible suicide attempt.

Elderly people were often depressed by their diminished capacities.

Dr. Jones called jean Boggs again.
 
He explained that he had admitted

her father to the hospital, and that he was in a coma.

'From what?"

Dr. Jones explained that her father had apparently been 'drinking

again and taking pills.
 
He also said that Paw had allegedly tried to

kill his wife.

jean was shocked almost speechless.
 
"This doesn't make any 'Oense at

all!"
 
she burst out.
 
"There is something wrong."

Dr. Jones agreed with her.
 
He told her he felt that whatever @,had

happened, it was a matter for the police.
 
jean immediately called the