Everything She Ever Wanted: A True Story of Obsessive Love, Murder, and Betrayal by Rule Ann

Author:Rule, Ann [Rule, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Planet Ann Rule, LLC
Published: 2013-12-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 31

***

Jean Boggs was a determined woman. She didn’t know yet about the confession, but she did not believe for a moment that her father had tried to kill her mother, nor did she believe he was suicidal. Paw was too bullheaded to give up on life, and he had taken exquisite care of her mother for a decade. He would never leave her behind willingly, and he would never hurt one hair on her head.

Paw seemed as puzzled as Jean was by his condition. He had been truly amazed to find that he had not had a stroke. He shook his head in bewilderment at the thought that he had “overdosed.” He wanted to find out what was wrong with him as much as Jean did.

Two specialists—neurologists—were called in on a consulting basis. Neither could isolate the cause of Paw’s coma. They suggested that he have CAT scans of the brain and his upper gastrointestinal tract. The scanning lab was just across the street from South Fulton Hospital. Jean and her son, David, wheeled Paw there. The tests took thirty minutes and the results were inconclusive.

A horror was growing in Jean Boggs. She already suspected that Pat Allanson wanted to inherit her parents’ assets. But now Jean wondered if Pat might actually have attempted to hasten her father’s demise. Was Pat dosing her daddy with something that made him sick? Jean had heard that two years ago someone had snuck into Little Carolyn’s apartment and put something in Tommy’s baby’s milk. She had been told—mistakenly—that the substance used was arsenic. In fact, the milk had been contaminated with formaldehyde.

Jean was about to become an expert in poison—at least one poison: arsenic. Paw had used it on the farm years back with the animals, not as a poison but as a cure. It was really the only poison she had ever heard about. Jean called the Georgia State Crime Lab and asked to speak to someone about the symptoms of poison. She got lucky; one of the top experts in the South happened to be in the lab that day. Dr. Everett Solomons, with an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry, knew as much about poisons as anybody in the state of Georgia.

“Could you tell me what the symptoms of arsenic poisoning are?” Jean began without preamble. “I really need to know.”

There was something about her voice. This woman meant it when she said she had to know.

“Well, it could show up a number of ways,” Solomons began. “Gastrointestinal upset, vomiting, or flulike symptoms, aching in the extremities—the feet, legs, hands, arms.”

“My daddy has three of those symptoms. Is there any way that you can check for arsenic poisoning after the person’s system has been flushed out with intravenous feeding—I mean, after time has gone by?”

Solomons paused and cleared his throat. “Is this gentleman—is he still, ah, alive?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, then your answer is yes. I can check for you. I want you to do some things for me.

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