Free Everything She Ever Wanted by Ann Rule Page B

The man had been running toward the
    intersection of Cleveland and Norman Berry, and, incidentally, the King
    Building.
     
    Of course, that man had been hunched over and no one knew how tall he
    was.   Had it been Walter?   Or Tom?   There was no way Lynn could be
    sure.   Tom had last been seen in blue Levi's and Callahan had said
    Walter was wearing blue trousers when he talked to him earlier.
     
    Lynn, Jones, and Callahan had far too much to do to wait for Pat
    Allanson's parents.   They took Pat with them as they drove slowly
    around.   the neighborhood.   They stopped now and again to check garages
    where a shooter might be hiding.
     
    Pat heard the radio chatter constantly and tried to understand the
    police codes.   They had told her only that Tom's mother was dead.
     
    Shot.   They hadn't said anything about Tom's father.   Or Tom.   She bit
    her lip and stared nervously out the squad car's window.
     
    They turned from Cleveland onto Stewart Avenue and drove right past the
    very spot-Nalley's Chevrolet-where Pat's brother, Kent, had died eight
    years earlier.   Shot too.   Pat looked away, her thoughts known only to
    herself.
     
    After a while the police took Pat back to the King Building, where the
    colonel and her mother were waiting for her.   Her mother took her hand,
    and the colonel demanded to know just what was going on and why his
    daughter was being detained.
     
    The police retrieved Pat's pocketbook and sewing things from the jeep,
    and they instructed the Radcliffes to follow them to the East Point
    Police Department.   And there they waited, the three of them.   The
    police were too busy even to talk to them.
     
    Pat thought about sewing on her Fourth of July parade costume-just to
    keep her panic down-but there didn't seem much point.
     
    Probably she and Tom wouldn't be riding in the parade Saturday after
    all.   She didn't even know if Tom was alive.
     
    The blue jeep was towed into the city garage.   The detectives saw a
    container of take-out fried chicken in the front seat, and noted it
    along with their other observations.
     
    . . .
     
    Back at 1458 Norman Berry Drive, East Point officers had completed
    their search of the basement.   Milford Carolyn Allanson still sat on
    the basement steps, shot through the heart.   They had found another
    body there too.   Walter Allanson lay on the floor parallel to the
    steps; his body had been hidden by the stack of doors.   His new rifle
    was on the floor four feet from his body, and a few feet from the body
    of his wife.   There was no way of telling which of them had fired the
    rifle, or if, indeed, either had.   One round had been fired from it,
    and it was partially cocked with a live round half into the chamber.
     
    Walter Allanson had obvious gunshot wounds in his face, neck, and
    torso.   In all likelihood, it was his blood that had left trails of
    gore over half the basement-particularly near the hole in the base of
    the fireplace and then pooled beneath him as he bled out.
     
    After Detective Marlin Humphrey, Jr took photographs, Lambert, Vance,
    and Patrolman Bob Matthews removed the bodies of Walter and Carolyn
    Allanson, carrying the victims up the steps to be laid out on the wet
    grass of their side yard for more police photographs and to await
    transportation to South Fulton Hospital.
     
    They could not be declared legally dead without a physician; the bodies
    would then await postmortem examination.
     
    Bob Matthews, who worked as an identification officer, bagged the
    .45/70 carbine rifle and the .32 pistol, which had six empty
    chambers.
     
    The investigators could not hope to do a thorough crime scene
    investigation until daylight, which was still hours away.
     
    Lieutenant Thornhill ordered the property cordoned off and stationed
    patrolmen to guard it until morning.   They now knew what had
    happened.
     
    It would take them a long, long time before they knew how and why.
     
    Jean Boggs, Walter