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He spoke with them in the waiting room while he waited for Dr.
Jones.
The pair seemed very concerned about the old man.
Mrs. Radcliffe reconstructed the bizarre weekend for the young
detective. "Ma called us yesterday morning-Saturday," she began.
"She said that Paw was acting strange and wild, and begged us to come
over right away and help her."
She said that both she and Pat were on phone extensions and heard Nona
Allanson begging for help. They had thrown on their clothes and raced
over to the Washington Road house. When no one answered their pounding
knocks on the front door, they had gone to the back of the house.
Colonel Radcliffe had started prying a rear window open.
The colonel took up the story, remarking that it was fortunate that the
ladies hadn't seen Paw without warning. "He was naked except for a
T-shirt and an Ace bandage on his ankle."
He had shouted for Pat not to look-that Paw was headed toward the door
naked as a jaybird. Boppo nodded. "When he opened the door, he was
naked, all right, and he had a handful of pills."
All three of them had burst into the kitchen, but Paw had walked away
from them, they said, stuffing pills into his mouth and washing them
down with orange juice. "He was cramming so many in his mouth that
they were dropping out the sides and falling on the floor," the colonel
said. "I told him that Dr. Jones wouldn't want him to take all those
pills, trying to reason with him, you see. He replied, 'To hell with
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the doctor!" and just kept on taking pills."
The Radcliffes explained that their daughter Pat was basically the one
taking care of the old couple. "Is there any closer relative that I
could call about Mr. Allanson's overdose?"
Tedford asked.
"Yes. Well, I don't know-they have a daughter, Jean Boggs.
But they don't get along. Pat has been staying with them, running
errands, this type of thing, for the past several years," Margureitte
explained. Detective Tedford's impression was that these people were
the patient's family-or at least the closest thing to it.
After a tense hour and a half, Dr. Jones came out and said that Paw
Allanson's condition was stable and that he could say, albeit
cautiously, that the elderly man might survive. It was touchy, of
course, treating a man with a history of cardiac problems, but Paw
Allanson had always been a tremendously strong man.
Even now, although he was considerably weaker since his heart attack
five months before, he seemed to be fighting his way back to
consciousness.
"What have you prescribed for Mr. Allanson?" Tedford asked Dr.
Jones.
"Vistaril-that's a very mild sedative. Nembutal-a barbiturate-and
Librax for his stomach. But I suspect he's taken !something other than
what I prescribed. I found so many empty bottles in their home."
Paw's condition could have been an accident, and a fairly 'common one
at that. An old man, confused and perhaps a little wile, had had too
much alcohol and too many of the wrong 'Pills.
But Tedford was inclined to code it as a possible suicide attempt.
Elderly people were often depressed by their diminished capacities.
Dr. Jones called jean Boggs again. He explained that he had admitted
her father to the hospital, and that he was in a coma.
'From what?"
Dr. Jones explained that her father had apparently been 'drinking
again and taking pills. He also said that Paw had allegedly tried to
kill his wife.
jean was shocked almost speechless. "This doesn't make any 'Oense at
all!" she burst out. "There is something wrong."
Dr. Jones agreed with her. He told her he felt that whatever @,had
happened, it was a matter for the police. jean immediately called the
East Point police and asked for a complete investigation. "We already
have a detective on it," she was told.
By the time jean got to South Fulton Hospital, her father had been
taken to his room. He was still unconscious and he had tubes sprouting
from every body orifice. "Paw," she said. "Paw, it's Jean. Can you
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hear me?"
He gave no sign that he was with her at all.
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