Everything She Ever Wanted (10 page)

from their place in Zebulon.
 
Pat said she would call there.

Tom finished his horseshoeing that morning before they left for East

Point, and he made a decision.
 
The way to make peace with his father

would be to talk with his mother.
 
But that wouldn't be easy either.

He had tried to call her at the doctor's office where she worked and

she just got upset with him.
 
He couldn't call her at home because his

father was usually home when she was.
 
Tom would have to go to see her

before his father got home from work.
 
If he was lucky, he would have

perhaps an hour's window of time to try to talk some sense to her.

. . .

Exactly what happened on Norman Berry Drive on July 3, 1974, would be

the subject of conjecture for almost two decades.

Certain things were unarguable: Big Carolyn and Walter went, as usual,

to their jobs that Wednesday, she in her white nurse's uniform and he

in bluish gray striped trousers, a white business shirt, and a dark

gray tie.
 
They ate lunch together as always, promptly at noon.
 
Big

Carolyn got off work shortly after four, and Walter was supposed to

leave his office by six.

The only thing unusual on that day was that Walter had left his office

from 2:45 to 3:00 P.m. When he returned, he showed his secretary, Mary

McBride, what he had purchased.
 
It was a Marlin .45/70 lever-action

rifle with a box of ammunition to go with itthe largest caliber made.

He had paid Berryman's Sports Center in East Point $201.15 for the

gun.

In the space of just a few months, Walter had obtained two weapons-the

.32 pistol Jake Dailey had lent him and the new, powerful rifle.

It was an hour's drive or more from Zebulon to East Point and Pat and

Tom left Kentwood well before midafternoon, with Tom driving carefully

because the rain had brought up the oil slick on the roads; he didn't

want to risk any further injury to Pat."
 
Pat said goodbye to Tom at

Dr. Thompson's office on Cleveland Avenue about 3:30 P.m. and watched

him walk off toward his bank, where he had some business.

At about the same time, Horace Smith, a fire fighter with the East

Point Fire Department, was driving one of the department's fire rigs on

a test run down Norman Berry Drive.
 
He noticed the tall man striding

along the south side of the street, a man with long light brown hair

who wore Levi's and cowboy boots.
 
Suddenly, Smith recognized the man;

he was an old friend.

Smith yelled, "Hey, Tom!"

But the tall man didn't answer.

4

A second unusual event took place that afternoon, varying Walter

Allanson's heretofore precise schedule once more.
 
First he had bought

the rifle, and then he left for home early.
 
His staff recalled that he

had received a call at his office sometime around 5:30 from a woman who

didn't give her name.
 
She had been brusque.
 
"You'd better tell Mr.

Allanson to get home as fast as he can," she said.
 
"His son is headed

over there to cause trouble.

Allanson ran to his car and drove home.

Big Carolyn was already home with her grandchildren, Russ and Sherry,

whom she had picked up at the day-care center.
 
She carried in a case

of Cokes she had bought for the next day's picnic-and a blowup plastic

blue dinosaur for the kids' wading pool-and set them down on the dining

room table.
 
When Walter walked in, he unwrapped the new rifle and left

the box it came in beside the Cokes.

"Daddy," Big Carolyn told him, "it's the oddest thing.
 
It wasn't

lightning at all today, but the lights won't go on, and the

television's dead."

Walter ran down the basement steps and found that someone had pulled

the main switch.
 
He pushed the circuit breaker over and back and all

the lights came on and the refrigerator started to hum.

Within minutes, Little Carolyn-or as Walter called her,

Junior-arrived.

Suspecting that somebody had been in the basement, Big Carolyn stayed

upstairs in the kitchen with the youngsters while Walter and Junior

searched the house inside and out.
 
They checked all the windows and

doors to be sure they were locked, and looked to see if anything was

missing.

That was when they discovered that the phone line had been cut.

Walter said he also missed two items: an old leather suitcase and an

Excel 20-gauge shotgun he had had for years.
 
He went to Lee and Mary

Dorton's house, two doors down, and called the East Point police.
 
The

Dortons came back to his house with him, and while they were waiting

for the police, he showed them where the telephone line had been neatly

sliced in two.

According to the Dortons, Walter didn't seem anxious or even very

concerned.
 
He was more matter-of-fact about the situation.
 
After all,

it was daylight, early on a summer's evening.
 
And, Lord knows, it

wasn't as if he hadn't been expecting trouble.

Sergeant C. T. Callahan of the East Point police pulled up the long

driveway on Norman Berry at one minute after seven and Walter Allanson

met him outside.
 
He wanted to report a burglary.
 
"I can't tell where

he got in," he said, "but he took a suitcase and my twenty -gauge Excel

shotgun-" "He?"

"My son, Walter Thomas Allanson."

Callahan moved toward the house and said he would check it out, but

Allanson blocked his path.
 
"No need.
 
I did it myself.
 
I've checked

it once, and there's no one there."

Despite Callahan's concern about a citizen doing the job he was trained

for, Allanson was adamant.
 
He had once served as a reserve police

officer himself; he knew what to do.
 
There was no need for the police

to bother coming inside.
 
He only wanted official confirmation that the

phone line had been cut, and he led Callahan around to the east side of

the house and pointed out the dangling wire.
 
It had obviously been cut

deliberately; whoever did it would have had to wade through thick

rhododendron bushes to get to it.

Allanson went into the house and returned with the .45 rifle to show

Callahan.
 
"I got this rifle here," he said.
 
"I know who it is, and

I'm going to take care of it myself."

"Don't do anything drastic," Callahan warned.
 
"Call us first."

Shaking his head, Callahan backed down the drive.
 
You never could tell

about family beefs.
 
But you didn't argue with Walter O'Neal Allanson;

he was an outstanding citizen in East Point.
 
Probably half of the East

Point police force knew him.
 
Callahan couldn't force police protection

on him if he didn't want it.

Walter walked back in the house and put the new .45 in its box on the

dining room table.
 
Then, leaving Big Carolyn and the kids at the

house, Little Carolyn drove him over to her nearby apartment to be sure

that no one was waiting inside to attack her when she came home, and to

see if anything had been stolen.
 
The place was just as she had left it

that morning on her way to work.

They drove back to Norman Berry Drive.
 
On the way, Little Carolyn

spotted a blue jeep with a Pike County tag on it in front of them and

said, "Daddy, that's Pat!"

"Well, just follow her, Junior, and see where she goes."

They followed the jeep as it turned onto Norman Berry Drive and then

into the driveway right next door to the Allansons'.

That was Big Carolyn's mother's house.
 
Mae Mama Lawrence was getting

on in years, and they certainly didn't want her upset.

The jeep sat there for a moment, but as Walter leaped out of his car

and started toward it, Pat quickly backed down Mae Mama's driveway and

disappeared down the street.

"You go look for her!"
 
Walter called to Little Carolyn.
 
She did as he

said and drove slowly around adjacent streets, but the blue jeep had

vanished.
 
When she came back, Walter instructed her to stay in the

front yard and watch to see if Pat came back again.

She walked to the crest of the sloping lawn and scanned both sides of

the boulevard for Pat.

But then Sherry started crying and Little Carolyn hurried into the

kitchen to see what was wrong.
 
Later when she tried to reconstruct

what came next, Tom's ex-wife saw the scene in agonizing slow motion.

Big Carolyn had turned toward Mary Dorton, who was standing nervously

in the dining room.
 
"Well, where's Walter?"
 
she asked.

"He went to the basement," Mary answered.

"Whatever for?"

Mary shrugged.
 
"I don't know."

Although he had searched the basement before, "Daddy" Allanson,

carrying his borrowed pistol, had clomped downstairs again.
 
The three

women huddled together with the crying children and thought they heard

another man's voice-or maybe it was just Walter-muttering to himself in

the basement.

Suddenly, Carolyn heard her father-in-law yell up the stairs,

"Junior!

Get the kids out of the house!
 
I have him cornered in the

cubbyhole!"

Both Carolyns pushed the children toward Mary Dorton, who clutched them

in her arms and ran toward her own house.

Walter called up the stairs once more.
 
"Mother!
 
Bring me that new

gun!"
 
Still in slow motion-or so it seemed in retrospectBig Carolyn

took the .45-caliber rifle from the box on the dining room table and

headed toward the basement.
 
Little Carolyn begged her not to go