an
exposer. His father was much too controlled to do such a thing, or had
always seemed so to Tom.
Still, his dad had done about everything else he could to make their
lives miserable.
Tom called his father's law offices and no one answered. His life
seemed to be spinning out of control. It was one thing to have his
father angry with him. Lord knew he was used to it. But every day
brought some new shock.
Margureitte had told him his father didn't care if he lived or died and
wouldn't even spit on his grave if he did. His father had accused him
of putting poison in his own baby's milk and of stealing guns from
him.
And Pat believed his father had ruined him in the job market, and would
actually kill him if he got the chance. That was exactly what he had
told Mrs. Radcliffe.
Even Nona and Paw had warned Tom that he might be in danger.
But this. His father had done the unforgivable. Walter Allanson, an
attorney at law, candidate for judge, had exposed himself to his
wife.
Tom was enraged. Poor Pat was so sick she could barely move, her
collarbone hurt her all the time, and still she had been out there
trying to help by mowing the lawn. How dare his father frighten and
shock her that way?
It made Tom realize that Pat had been right; he couldn't let his father
get away with it. Neither of them could stand for such shabby
treatment. As much as he dreaded the prospect, Tom knew that he would
have to confront his father.
Walter O'Neal Allanson and his wife, Milford-but called Carolynwere
both fifty-one in late June of 1974. They had been married for
thirty-two years, more than half of their lives. They lived in East
Point, a gracious suburb adjacent to Atlanta's southwest border.
Theirs was by all accounts a comfortable marriage, although some said
that Walter had strayed a bit in his forties.
If he had, Carolyn had let it go. The woman involved was long dead.
In his fifties, Walter Allanson had grown almost puritan in his
opinions about the sanctity of marriage, as virtuous as a reformed
hooker. If there were children involved, he was inflexibly against
divorce-a sometimes difficult stance for an attorney whose practice was
general law.
Walter was a handsome man with iron gray hair and clear bluegray eyes,
a compactly trim man-save for a slight falling away of his chin line as
he moved through middle age. "Big Carolyn" was a plain woman who
rarely wore makeup. Her hair was brown and combed back from her face
into nondescript waves. She was neither slender nor fat; rather, her
figure was full breasted and solid.
The months ahead promised to be as challenging and exciting as any in
the Allansons' lives, ever since Walter had announced his candidacy for
a civil judgeship. He had a good reputation, and there was every
reason to think he would win in the fall elections. Carolyn truly
enjoyed her job as a nurse in a local doctor's office, but both she and
Walter came home for lunch every day. They were always together. If
the early fire had gone out of their relationship, they were
companionable.
Walter came from simple people, uneducated but with native
intelligence. His childhood had been hardscrabble, and. it was
important to him to have money against tomorrow's uncertainties.
He was shrewd when it came to real estate. He had bought the house at
1458 Norman Berry Drive in East Point for a good price.
The neighborhood was prime then, with Norriian Berry Drive a pleasant
boulevard divided by a green strip of young trees and shrubbery in its
center island. Russell High School, Walter's alma mater, was almost
directly across Norman Berry.
The house was built in the. forties of dun-colored brick and white
siding with peaked dormers. It was a solid house, set on a plateau so
high above Norman Berry Drive that a man