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involved with her, dated her, or anything like that . . . I think my
father and I probably could have worked out our differences. . . . I
just wish I'd never met her. I'd be a lot better Off.
Tom still wasn't ready to talk about the shooting. The investigators
could sense that. After all these years, it remained a source of
intense pain, and why wouldn't it be? He did, however, reveal a bit of
information that was highly intriguing.
Pat had always insisted that she had never seen Tom on July 3, 1974
-not after he said goodbye to her at her doctor's office.
In his panicked state after the shootings, Tom told Stoop and Berry, he
had run toward the freeway, toward the King Building.
"Pat had parked in the parking lot of the King Building," Tom said,
unaware of the surprised looks on his interviewers' faces. "I told her
what had happened, and I said, 'I've got to go home." And she said,
'My parents are coming." She called them or something, and I don't
know what she had called them for."
"Okay," Stoop said, struggling to keep the excitement out of his
voice.
"This is important. Let me back up. You are telling us now that once
you ran, you did, in fact, find her parked at the King Building?"
"Yeah."
"How did you happen to find her at the King Building?"
"I went right by it." tiyou just went by it. And you looked up and
you sawer.
What was she doing when you went up to her?"
"Sitting in the jeep."
"What did she say to you.
"I was telling her what had happened. I said, 'I got to go.
I don't know what to do. I'm scared and I'm going home." And she just
said, 'Well, I called my parents." I don't know why she called her
parents. She said they were on the way, and I said, 'I ain't
waiting.
I'm gone." . . . I don't know what reason she had to call them. Far
as I knew, she already knew about it [the murders] when I got there.
From the way it sounded. And so I left and hitchhiked home and I did
not go down Cleveland Avenue.
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I went home and my grandfather called me and told me that these four
police had come over and had a warrant for my arrest. I said, 'Well,
call them and tell them where I'm at." And I didn't give them any
problems and Sheriff Riggins called me-Mr. Riggins and I was good
friends-and he said, 'I don't want any problems,' and I said, 'I will
not cause you no problems. Come over here." I just more or less gave
myself UP."
There was an electricity in the room. Perhaps Tom had never before
allowed himself to recognize all the careful planning that must have
gone into the apparently spontaneous shoot-out. He had done a lot of
thinking in prison. Fifteen and a half years of thinking. And that,
combined with Stoop's and Berry's questions, had sifted stark truths
out of all of Pat's lies and diversionary techniques.
Slowly, Stoop began to list the "coincidences" involved in Tom's
burgeoning troubles. First, there had been the formaldehyde in Tom's
baby's milk. Pat hated Little Carolyn and anything that connected her
to Tom. "We know that Pat works with horses, like you," the detective
pointed out to Tom. "We know she had access to formaldehyde because
you had it to treat your horses.
"Then," Stoop continued, "she tells you your father I drove all the way
down there [to Zebulon] and exposed himself. . . . Whether you liked
your father or disliked him, you know he would never do anything like
that anyway.
Eventually it was proven he was still working in his office. You were
going to go resolve this with your mother because you knew your father
was working, so you felt that was the best time. But Pat didn't want
you to resolve anything.
Correct?"
"I assume so."
"You both parked at the doctor's office. You go one way. She goes the
other. You show up at your parents' house . . . the basement is
unlocked.
Correct?"
Tom nodded.
"Little Carolyn with the kids comes home. Your mother comes home.
You're stuck in the basement, and suddenly your father shows up.
Testimony shows that some woman called your father. . . . All of a
sudden, the shooting occurs. You run by the King Building. Pat is
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