Everything She Ever Wanted (60 page)

her, predicting all manner of disasters if Nona let them take her in

the ambulance.

Finally Tedford had had enough.
 
He pulled Pat aside and spoke through

gritted teeth.
 
"I've heard all I want to hear from you.
 
If you keep

this up, I'm going to ask you to leave."

Jean Boggs was the blood relative; she had the law on her side, Tedford

told Pat, and she would decide whether her mother would go to the

hospital or not.
 
Pat was seething.
 
The hatred in the room rose around

them like an almost palpable raiasma.

Colonel Radcliffe got his attorney on the phone and handed the receiver

to Tedford.
 
The attorney threatened Tedford with a lawsuit, and the

detective replied that that would be just fine.
 
The real defendant

would be the Fulton County district attorney, Lewis Slaton-officially,

it was Slaton who had ordered that Mrs. Walter Allanson be removed

from her home for tests.

Nobody in his right mind sued Lewis Slaton.

"Colonel Radcliffe," Tedford continued easily, "since you're here,

would you mind showing me where it was that you saw Mr. Allanson

taking all those pills on that Saturday?"

The two men now stood in the hallway near the kitchen.
 
"I don't

remember any pills," Radcliffe said.

Tedford jerked his head around as if he'd been struck.

'I"at?"

"I don't remember any pills."

"Well, Colonel Radcliffe," Tedford began quietly.
 
"This is how the

whole case of the overdose got started.
 
It was all based upon your

statement to me, Pat Allanson's statement to me, and your wife was

there at the hospital too when you told me.
 
All three of u were a

reein at the tim you didn't see him take any pills?"

"That is correct."

"But you told me about the pills.
 
You described the way he was tossing

them down."

"You're confused, Sergeant.
 
You're lying."

"Fine, then," Tedford said grimly.
 
He knew what he had heard the first

time, and he found it interesting that Pat's stepfather had had such a

sudden loss of memory.

Mercifully, the ambulance finally arrived, and a stillprotesting Nona

Allanson was carried out on a stretcher.
 
Pat hopped on the jump seat

in the back beside her, and Jean sat next to the driver.
 
The old lady

was the object of a tug-of-war between them, and neither of them had

done much to calm her down.

Nona didn't believe what Jean had told her, that Paw had been

poisoned.

Sadly, she no longer trusted her own daughter.
 
Pat had convinced her

that she was going off for some terrible tests, that her insurance

wouldn't cover the cost, and that she would be barred from seeing

anyone she trusted and loved.

Bob Tedford was completely exasperated with Pat.
 
"I can't stop you

from going with her," he stated flatly, "but I don't want you talking

to her on the way to the hospital.
 
Do you understand that?"
 
Pat

looked back at him defiantly.
 
No one had ever shut her up when she had

something to say, and she wasn't about to obey commands now.
 
By this

time, Nona Allanson believed everything Pat told her.

Everything.

Over Pat's objections, Jean asked Lieutenant Thornhill to padlock her

parents' home the moment the Radcliffes vacated it.

Pat insisted that it was he.r duty to live there, that that would make

Nona feel more secure, but Jean just pursed her lips and shook her

head.
 
She didn't know what it was about Pat that had Mesmerized her

parents, but she was going to find out.
 
In the meantime, she would try

to protect whatever assets they had left.

"Padlock those doors, Gus," she pleaded.
 
"And don't let anybody in

unless I say so."

Pat talked continually to Nona on the short ride to the hospital, but

once there, the old woman was whisked off to the emergency room, where

no one could see her but hospital personnel.

If someone had adulterated Nona's food or beverages with arsenic, it

would show up in tests.
 
As doctors worked over Nona, Jean hurried to

her father's room to let him know that his cherished wife was now safe

in the hospital, only a few doors away from his own room.
 
His

attorney, Bill Hamner, was visiting him.

jean demanded that Pat's power of attorney over Nona and Paw's affairs

be terminated at once.
 
"She's still using it."

Hamner agreed to see that Pat's control over the elderly Allansons'

estate was stopped.
 
Just like Dr. Jones, Hamner and his partner, Fred

Reeves, had been impressed with Pat, finding her almost martyrlike in

her steadfast care of the old couple.
 
Whenever she had approached

their offices, it had always been on matters seemingly instigated by

Paw Allanson.
 
She appeared so ill herself, but she never complained,

spending her slight energy in caring for the Allansons.
 
Even now, a

moment or two after jean had warned Hamner about Pat, she limped into

Paw's room and motioned the lawyer over for a private consultation.

At first Bill Hamner found himself between a rock and a hard place.

jean watched with crossed arms and a baleful glare as he talked to

Pat.

She thought Pat was an evil, manipulative force in her parents'

lives.

Pat considered Jean a money-grabbing, ungrateful daughter.
 
In the end,

the choice was simple for the attorneys.
 
Hamner and Reeves represented

the elder Allansons, and they would do what seemed best for them.

On June 29, Paw Allanson gave Bob Tedford a written Consent to Search

waiver for his home and property.
 
Accompanied by W. L.

Jackson and Jean Boggs, Tedford searched the padlocked house.

They removed six liquor and wine bottles, some empty and some full and

still sealed.
 
jean identified some expensive whiskey as longago

Christmas gifts, and the blackberry wines Paw had made decades

before.

"Spirits" had always been kept out in the shed, but these were found in

the kitchen and the bedroom areas.
 
They also cleaned out the

refrigerator of liquids: tea, ice water, prune juice.
 
A syringe was

removed from the bathroom and labeled.

None of the items taken proved positive for arsenic.

On July 1, Colonel Radcliffe appeared at the East Point police

headquarters at Bob Tedford's request.
 
Tedford said calmly, "You are a

suspect in an attempted murder," and advised Radcliffe of his rights

under Miranda.

The ramrod-straight ex-colonel's face blanched, reflecting shock,

denial, and perhaps just a trace of apprehension.
 
Tedford didn't yet

know enough about Pat Allanson to be aware of the blanket of protection

that had been spread tenderly over her by her family from the moment

she was born.
 
He didn't realize that Colonel Radcliffe and his wife,

Margureitte, had spent much of their married life saving Pat from the

pickles, messes, and downright catastrophes she had managed to

provoke.

Tedford had seen Pat as a tearful, helpless, beautiful woman who made a

man want to protect her-then had watched her change in an instant into

a strident harridan.
 
She had been outrageous as she frightened the old

lady to keep her out of the hospital, but she had been completely

convincing when he and Turner talked to her and she sobbed out her

fears and losses.
 
Tedford wasn't sure which woman Pat really was.
 
The

more he knew about her, the more elusive she became.

Colonel Radcliffe offered no more information on Pat.
 
He stared

glacially at Tedford when the detective said he wanted to talk more

about the Saturday morning of June 12, the day Pat and the Radcliffes

had rushed to,save Nona from her "berserk" husband.

Radcliffe's memory of that day was not nearly as precise as it once had

been.

"Let me ask you, Colonel Radcliffe," Tedford said.
 
"Have you ever gone

with your daughter and Nona Allanson to see an attorney, or been

present when either of the senior Allansons signed papers?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Does Pat have powers of attorney from Paw and Nona Allanson?

"Yes, I believe she does.
 
You would have to ask Pat about that.
 
I

don't get involved."

"Have you seen Pat lately?"

The colonel looked vague.
 
"Not for a couple of days."

"Where is she?"

"You would, of course, have to ask her attorney.
 
Look, Sergeant, I

have to go back to work."
 
Colonel Radcliffe had taken a civil service

desk job at Fort Mac to help stem the burgeoning financial costs of

Pat's "problems."

"Am I under arrest or not?"

"No, you can go."

The next day, July 2, the results were in on the tests done on Nona

Allanson.
 
Her urine samples proved positive for arsenic, although the

concentration was only one-sixth the amount found in her husband's

system.
 
Her hair samples also showed the presence of the deadly

poison.
 
Her urine had 100 micrograms of arsenic per milligram, and her

hair tested 3.5 micrograms per milligrams of arsenic.

Nona had been bedridden, unable to prepare food for herself, certainly

unable to go outside her tiny home.
 
Everything she ingested had been

given to her by Pat, or by the nurse hired by Pat.
 
Her other regular

visitors were Margureitte and Clifford Radcliffe; Pat's daughter,