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save his grandson? Quite possibly. Paw had no further observations or
remembrances to offer on Carolyn, and the jury seemed oblivious to any
spicy connections his testimony might have evoked.
Weller seemed to think that the old man was fabricating. "Mr.
Allanson," he began on cross-examination. "You want to do everything
you can to help your grandson, don't you?"
"I want to be fair with the world."
"Yes, sir. You want to help him and do everything you can to help
him?"
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"If it takes anything to help him, the truth is what I'm telling.
"And really," the prosecutor asked, "it's pretty well your philosophy
that the dead are gone and the living are still here, isn't it?"
"Yeah.
Nothing further."
On redirect, Garland elicited Paw's opinion of Tom as far as violence
went.
"I've known him and he's a fair, square boy," he replied.
"Wait a minute. I'm asking you about his reputation for
peacefulness.
"Good." Paw did not waste words.
While questioning Paw, Bill Weller had, for the third time in the
trial, managed to get the information on the record that Tom Allanson
was a quick-draw expert. He had, the prosecution maintained, once shot
himself in the leg while practicing in college. Paw Allanson agreed
that Tom was a "pretty good quickdraw" shooter.
Nona Allanson, who could barely speak due to a stroke, entered the
courtroom in a wheelchair. She testified that she had heard her son
Walter threaten to kill her grandson.
"Did you tell your grandson that?"
"Yes, I told him."
Weller had no questions. Lawyers rarely make points with the jury by
cross-examining such a vulnerable witness.
The long week of testimony was over. Next would come the summations.
The members of the jury would hear neither Tom nor Pat Allanson
speak.
They had watched their interplay and wondered about them, seeing the
pretty woman whisper passionately to her husband and his attorneys,
seeing the man on trial gaze at her with such longing in his eyes. The
jury had not seen Tom and Pat kiss and hold each other as they did
during court recesses, but they had picked up on the sexual tension
between them. They had been curious, and undoubtedly wished they could
have heard Tom and Pat testify. There seemed to be so much about this
case that remained unexplained. But both sides had been represented by
extremely able attorneys, and now it was time for final arguments.
Bill Weller contended that Tom Allanson had killed his parents
deliberately. "Everything points to him. He has no reasonable
hypothesis.
The only reasonable hypothesis, the only reasonable circumstances-this
man murdered his mother and his daddy in cold blood. He's the only one
had a motive. No phantom involved in this."
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Weller came as close to naming Pat Allanson as an accomplice as he
dared under the law. She had not been formally charged with any crime
because the D.A."s office wasn't sure just where she fit in-if at
all.
Weller asked the questions the D.A."s staff had asked one another.
"What's she doing way up from Zebulon fifty or sixty miles away driving
around the Allansons' home-if not to let him off to do his little
deed?
Is she the fly in the ointment? Is she the rejected woman that the
parents would not accept because they had another daughter-in-law and
two children? And the constant needling-constant needling-crying .
.
. about somebody exposing himself and here she is a grown woman. . .
.
Every time you hear some witness, 'Yes, she was with him." This wife's
everywhere. She's here waiting for him. She's there. She's driving
around the house. He's walking to Zebulon. She's next door looking
for him at his grandmother's house thirty minutes before."
Weller reminded the jury that Tom had been seen on Norman Berry
Drive.
"Three eyewitnesses. . . . That policeman looked him flat in the face
three or four times. Mr. and Mrs. Duckett saw the police car running
down the road with him. They described him, jeans, boots, Tarzan hair,
tannish shirt-or brownish green , all the same color scheme." Weller [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]