Everything She Ever Wanted (61 page)

Debbie Taylor Cole; and the Radcliffes'neighbor, Fanny K. Cash.
 
Nona

had lost all contact with her own blood relatives.

She had not fared well with her new "family."

George "Homer" Boggs stopped by the East Point police station that same

afternoon.
 
He had with him a check drawn on the Allansons' account at

First National Bank in the amount of a thousand dollars, signed by Pat

Allanson under her power of attorney and deposited immediately in her

own account.
 
She had no legal right to do that; the papers giving her

power of attorney over the elder Allansons' considerable assets

specifically designated that she was to use their money only to take

care of them, or with special permission.

When Tedford asked him later, Paw Allanson said that he had not given

his consent for this check.
 
He had gone with Pat to the C&S Bank in

late May or early June and arranged a thousand-dollar loan to Pat to

help Tommy.
 
That check had its purpose written right on it: "For Tom's

Life."
 
The second check for a thousand dollars, however, was news to

Paw.

Tom had needed that thousand-dollar loan; he had one last appeal left

to him, and Dunham McAllister was trying to see that he got it.
 
It had

been almost exactly two years since Walter and Carolyn Allanson were

shot to death.

For East Point detectives on this new case, it would be the second

Fourth of July they had spent investigating the Allanson family while

the rest of Atlanta was celebrating Independence Day.

A few days later, Lieutenant Jackson and Sergeant Tedford were poring

over the confession for the twentieth time.
 
Suddenly, they noticed

that on the last page of the statement, something had been x-ed out.

Reading carefully through the x's, they could make out the phrase

"Dixie Cup Morgan Classic, Stone Mountain."

The first seven lines on the last page appeared to have been typed at a

different time than the rest of the text.

They were indented more than the others and typed at a different margin

setting.

James H. Kelly, chief document examiner for the Georgia Bureau of

Investigation's crime laboratory, verified that the last page of the

confession had not been typed continuously with the :other text on the

page.
 
"After the first paragraph was typed," he wrote, "the paper was

adjusted by either taking it out of the carriage and reinserting it, or

it was] moved while in the carriage."

That would make sense; if the notary public had glanced over the page

she stamped, she would have seen only sentences about .
 
. . If Mama

dies before I do," and nothing at all about guns and murder.

Now the detectives had to find someone who was connected with Morgan

horses.
 
And they already knew who that was Both Paw and Nona Allanson

had them in some way that they could not detect.
 
The East Point police

and the Fulton County D.A."s investigators hoped to trace the source of

that arsenic.

They began by checking through the myriad prescription drugs that Dr.

Jones had gathered up at the Allansons' home.
 
There were over fifty

vials, packets, boxes, and bottles.
 
Some of them went back to August

1950, and there were also the drugs that Dr. Jones had prescribed

recently.
 
Apparently, the old couple never threw a container of

medicine out as long as there were a few pills left.

Eventually, they were all identified.
 
There were pain pills,

tranquilizers, diuretics, antivertigo pills, sleeping pills, allergy

pills, decongestants, antacids, and antibiotics.
 
Analyzed at the

Georgia Bureau of Investigation's crime lab, none of them contained

arsenic.

A police sweep of the house had also produced a brown bag containing

white powder, a 'ar with a green cap containing brown granular

material, a jar with a red cap containing the same, and a glass bottle

with a white cap containing white powder.

arsenic, given to None of these substances proved to contain arsenIC

.

The bottle that Paw had allegedly been drinking from on the morning Pat

and her parents broke in to "rescue" Nona did contain arsenic.
 
In

fact, according to toxicologists Drs.
 
Solomons and McGurdy, it still

contained so much arsenic that, if the old man had been drinking from

it, a swig or two would have surely killed him where he stood.

Dr. Jones, of course, had never actually seen Paw with that old-timey

bottle; Pat had handed it to him.

While arsenic is a poison much beloved by fictional mystery writers, by

1974 it was not nearly as available as it once was.

Nor is it a particularly good choice as a murder weapon.
 
Its residue

stays in the body for all time.
 
It is also an extremely painful

poison.
 
The investigators could not find a case on record where

arsenic had been used for suicide; it is just too agonizing and

protracted a way to die.
 
If Paw Allanson had planned to kill himself

and his ailing wife, there were so many other methods that would have

worked more rapidly, and with far less pain.

Bob Tedford began the tedious task of interviewing veterinartans in the

East Point area who might have treated the Allansons' or Radcliffes'

animals.
 
He finally located the vet who treated the Radcliffes'

horses.
 
Asked if he ever used arsenic on horses, the vet replied,

"No.

Old-timers used to use it to treat horses for worms, but I don't know

anybody who does these days.
 
I use a chemical that serves the same

purpose.
 
It takes longer, but it's easier on the animals."

The vet did mention a drug used to stimulate appetite in horses:

Appitone.
 
As far as he knew, it had been off the market for two

years.

"It contains arsenic, but I doubt if it has enough to kill anyone.
 
I

bought the last dose of it from another doctor because one of my

clients requested it."

"Mrs.
 
Allanson?"
 
Tedford asked quickly.

The vet shook his head.
 
"Nope.
 
Someone else.
 
I had to search awhile

before I located any Appitone."

Another drug, known as Caco Copper, was used to encourage bone marrow

in horses to produce red blood cells.
 
"People say it has arsenic in

it," the vet said, "but it doesn't."

"When was the last time you treated Mrs.
 
Allanson's horses?"

'Let's see."
 
The doctor consulted his records.
 
"It was January 29,

1974.
 
I treated one of the girls' horses for a vitamin deficiency.

never gave Pat-Mrs. Allanson-any me dici@es.
 
And the only medications

I use with arsenic in them are injectablesI never hand them out to

anyone else."

"You know of any doctor still using arsenic routinely?"
 
Tedford

asked.

"Nope.
 
It's really an obsolete treatment."

Asked how well he knew Pat Allanson, the veterinarian looked away.
 
"I

never dated her.
 
She made it clear that she was available, though.

She was trouble.
 
All the vets knew that.
 
A couple of years

back-before I was married and my present wife and I were just

dating-Pat called her up and caused some real problems with what she

said."

Tedford got the same information from a number of local doctors who

treated show horses.
 
One vet, who clearly disliked both Tom and Pat,

snorted, "She's a real come-on.
 
She throws herself at every man she

sees."
 
Another veterinarian looked nervous as he said he had never

heard of the name Allanson.
 
Tedford learned later from a confidential

informant that the doctor knew Pat very well indeed.
 
He had dated her

but he d been married at the time, and he was still married.
 
His

reluctance to discuss her with the investigators was understandable.

Don Birch of the Georgia State Drug Inspector's Office told a Fulton

County D.A."s investigator that he had checked all the drugstores in

Zebulon, Grantville, Griffin, and Barnesville for any arsenic sales to

either Pat or Tom Allanson in the prior two years and found no record

of such a sale.
 
"Very few of the pharmacies sell arsenic in any form

at all," Birch said.
 
"It's not sold in powder form anymore.
 
The only

thing anybody uses arsenic for is to kill rats, treat dog mange, and

heartworms in horses.

Rat poison came in liquid form-in six-ounce bottles.
 
There were no

dusty medicine bottles out in Paw Allanson's barn or o treat h' shed.

If he had ever used old-fashioned preparations t is animals, medicines

containing arsenic, they were no longer on his premises.

The news media had heard rumors about "poisonings" in East Point.
 
On

July 8, Detective Sergeant Tedford was closemouthed, hinting only that

"as many as four persons might be arrested."
 
He refused to name those

persons.
 
There were too many missing elements of the case yet to be

revealed.

One very large segment was added when the investigators learned from

Paw Allanson's attorneys, Fred Reeves and Bill Hamner, that there had

been no fewer than three codicils to the elder Allansons' wills in a

relatively short time.

The original wills, drawn on September 11, 1974-two months after Walter

and Carolyn were murdered-named Tom and his aunt jean BoeLys as

coexecutors of Paw and Nona's estates.
 
On March 4 of 1975, after Pat

had made herself indispensable to the old couple, the first codicils

added Pat as a coexecutor, in case Tom could not serve.
 
The attorneys

said they had gone to the Allansons' home and no one else was present