Everything She Ever Wanted (100 page)

the doctor?"
 
he asked.

"I guess she did."

Stoop urged Tom to re-create the rest of that day to the best of his

recollection, to take his time.

"Okay.
 
I went over there.
 
My mother and father were very systematic

type people.
 
. . . You knew when they were going to get off from work,

when they came home.
 
. . . So I went over there late that afternoon to

talk to Mother, and I thought she would be home round about then.
 
So I

didn't drive over there cause I dropped Pat off and she had the car.

.

. . I walked maybe half a block or a block-something like that-I was

going to try to get her to talk to him, to get him to calm down a

little bit, and I couldn 't talk to her at the office.
 
. . . I

definitely couldn't talk to her on the phone, since he wouldn't let her

talk.
 
. . . He was very hard at the house.
 
He ran the place.
 
. . .

And so the only way of trying to get anything done was to talk to my

mother without him being there."

Tom said he sometimes suspected Pat didn't really want his relationship

with his parents resolved.
 
"She was doing everything she could to get

them turned against me."

"Did Pat know you were going to talk to your parents?"
 
Stoop asked.

"Yes."

'She did know that?"
 
Michelle Berry echoed.

" I believe that I was set up on this."
 
Tom leaned forward.

"I really believe that .
 
. . under normal circumstances, I could have

been there and talked to my mother.
 
But my mother was a little late.

The back door was locked, but the basement door was open, so I just

went in the basement door and said, 'Well, I'll just wait down here."

I wasn't going to sit on the doorstep in case my daddy came home.
 
.

.

. My ex-wife and my children came over at the same time, and that kind

of messed things up a little bit .
 
. . so I just got more or less

trapped.
 
They said the basement door was broke into.
 
I did not break

in the basement door; it was open."

Tom was indeed trapped.
 
His ex-wife, whom he described as a "not very

rational woman," was upstairs, his father was due home soon, and he was

down in the cellar of a house he had been banned from.

And then, to make matters worse, his father came home early, something

he never did.

"What about the lights and the fuse box?"
 
Don Stoop asked.

"I don't know anything about that."

"What about the telephone wires?"

"They said [during the trial] that was cut.
 
. . . I didn't cut no

wires either."

"Okay.
 
You stated this was a complete setup.
 
You thought you were set

up?"

"That's what I was getting to.
 
My ather don't usually come home early,

and during the trial it said he got a phone call.
 
. .

. I believe to this day that she called him from the doctor's office

and told him I was over there.
 
I have no proof of that.

That's my opinion.
 
lp "When you're in the basement, you can hear

people upstairs talk.
 
Correct?"

"No."

"So your father didn't come in yelling, 'Is Tom here?"
 
or anything

like that?"

"No.
 
He came down in the basement, looked around, and went back

upstairs.
 
I was hidden behind some stuff back there, trying to figure

a way to get out.
 
Then he called the police.........

"How did he call the police if the telephone wires were cut?"

"Well, we got neighbors.
 
. . . [When the police came] he went out and

talked to .
 
. . I think it was Sergeant Callahanright there-and I

heard the conversation then because he wasn't more than ten yards

away.

That was the time I was planning on leaving, right then-with the police

there.
 
I thought, Well, this would be a good time, until he [Tom's

father] pulled the rifle and the pistol out of his car."

Tom said he had hunkered down in the basement and heard his father

refuse to let the police search his house.
 
He would have been relieved

to have the police find him.
 
Instead he heard I his father tell the

officer, "I got this rifle here.
 
I know who it is, and I'm going to

take care of it myself."

Tom sighed.
 
"I don't think Pat cared whether I got killed or not, to

be honest with you.
 
'Cause she had the car and it was almost paid

for.

. . . When [my daddy] pulled this gun, I felt like if I run out that

door, he was going to shoot me right there.

I was in a state of complete panic at the time."

Stoop planned to wait until Tom was more at ease to discuss the actual

shootings.
 
He shifted the focus of the interview.

"I'm getting at Pat's direct involvement, okay?
 
.
 
. . Were y you

aware that Pat had been driving around the neighborhood waiting for

you.

' 'No.

"She never told you anything?"

"No."

"You know anything about her going to a liquor store where you stated

that you wanted to make a phone call?"

"During the time that I was locked up .
 
. . [in the] East Point jail,

I was scared slapped to death.
 
I had no idea what I was going to do.

. . . I always depended on my parents, and I had never been in trouble

before anyway.
 
. . . So she comes to the jail and tells me, 'I'm

taking care of this.
 
I got everything taken care of.
 
Don't worry

about it.
 
You don't tell them."
 
What she had done is fabricated a

string of people up and down Cleveland Avenue that was supposed to have

seen me.
 
. . . She convinced Ed Garland to go on the fact that I was

never there because there was no eyewitness.
 
I wished I had gone on

selfdefense and I wouldn't have spent fifteen years in prison for it.

. . . She came up with these people at the liquor store, said they saw

me there, and I didn't go that way.
 
Once you start telling a lie to a

lawyer that's trying to help you, it seems like it snowballs into a

mess.
 
. . . Then he'll quit-which he did quit later."

Stoop asked Tom whether he had expected to go back and M" M, meet Pat

at her doctor's office or whether she was supposed to pick him up.

"I was going to stay long enough to talk to my mother.
 
Then I was

going to come back to the doctor's office.
 
Th is was not even

scheduled to take more than fifteen or twenty minutes .
 
. .

and it ended up a lot longer than that .
 
. . but as far as her coming

to pick me up?
 
Absolutely not."

After Tom was locked up, he had no information except what Pat told

him.
 
"Pat told all my friends that I was not allowed .
 
.

. to receive mail from anybody but immediate family.
 
And that's a

lie.

'Cause she didn't want anybody telling me anything except her.

"So she controlled what information you got about everything?"

"She controlled everything.
 
The money.
 
I was fool enough to give her

power of attorney.
 
She controlled the money.
 
She controlled the

lawyers.
 
She controlled the farm.
 
She controlled everything that was

stolen and done away with.
 
I had no idea about anything."

Tom allowed that he had had his doubts when the house and barns in

Zebulon burned down.
 
He had no idea there was insurance on them.
 
He

didn't know until Stoop told him that Pat had cashed a check meant for

the mortgage holder.

"While you were in 'all," Stoop asked, "was anything mentioned about

a'suicide pact' between you and Pat?"

Tom nodded.
 
"You know, she even tried to bring some stuff into

Jackson, and she wanted me to commit suicide with her right there.
 
And

I said, 'No way."

"What did she bring into the prison?"

"I don't know.
 
She didn't show me, But it was supposed to be some sort

of pills or something, but I told her, 'I ain't ready to die yet.
 
.

.

. ' She told me that she was going to do it the next week, and when she

came to visit that next day, I said no.
 
. . .

If I had done it, I don't believe that she would have took an

aspirin.

See, she had too much to win and I had too muc to lose.

A nd if I was gone, s e a the arm again an two acres.

's eyes.
 
It was obThe scales had fallen from Tom Allanson vious that

he had been seeing his ex-wife clearly for a long time, but he still

saw Boppo as a paragon.

"Mrs.
 
Radcliffe-to me-was always a real sweet lady and everything .

.

. Pat could do anything and she wouldn't find any fault with it, but I

always thought Mrs. Radcliffe was a super person as far as a human

being goes.
 
. . . I didn't have any idea what was going on with the

family because I was only told one thing, and Pat could walk ten miles