Just facts, one after the next.

Jeff reached down and checked Terra’s and Alan’s carotid artery—neck—pulses, as he coldly put it later, to “make sure.”

Confident they were both dead, Jeff went around the room, knelt down and picked up all the shell casings. In his head he kept repeating how many shots he had fired—six rounds . . . six . . . six—and he knew he needed to find that number of casings.

After pocketing the casing shells, Jeff broke the gun apart. Then he began to think about what else needed to be done.

Yet in all of it, Jeff was wrong. The coroner later reported finding eight wounds.

49

Late that same afternoon, Tom Klugh was in Georgia, getting ready to head out to the local mall and purchase his first cell phone. He finished placing the onions and potatoes into the ground. Showered. Then he headed out the door. Tom had fought the temptation to upgrade to the technical side of life long enough. Terra was gadget-savvy and connected electronically, like most everyone else Tom knew. So he figured the best way to communicate with his only daughter was to give in and buy a cell phone.

When Tom got home, one of his friends called the house. The guy wanted to go out and get something to eat and have a few beers. They’d meet up with additional friends at the bar.

“Why not?” Tom said.

He arrived back home, somewhere near 6:30 P.M., and started fussing with his new phone. Terra was going to be happy about the purchase, Tom knew. The first person he wanted to call on the new phone was the one person he had, essentially, bought it for.

Terra’s number rang several times. Then her voice mail picked up.

By now, it was near seven o’clock. “Hey, sweetie,” Tom said into Terra’s voice mail, “just want to let you know I got a cell phone today with a plan that allows me to call you anytime I want to. I love you!”

Tom would often tell Terra, “You know, you’re my favorite daughter.”

She’d sass back: “But, Dad, I’m your only daughter.”

They’d share the perfect laugh.

When Tom didn’t hear from Terra that night, he went to bed believing that she and Alan had picked up the girls and driven to Marietta. They were probably dog tired. They could all connect the following morning. Maybe even get together.

50

The scramble was on in Hoover to clean up the Myrtlewood Drive crime scene. There wasn’t a lot of time. Maybe six hours. Seven, tops. People were expecting Alan, Terra and the kids. Maybe Jessica and Jeff had the night and early morning. But by tomorrow afternoon law enforcement was going to no doubt be calling, asking questions. Trying to locate Mr. and Mrs. Alan Bates.

Alan’s rental car was pulled up to the gate in back of the house. Jeff found two old blankets and a set of outdated drapes they were going to toss in the garage.

“Help me,” he said.

Together they wrapped both bodies.

Terra was the lightest. They picked her up first. Jeff grabbed her shoulders, Jessica her feet, as if carrying a stretcher.

They did the same with Alan’s body.

Jessica next went into the kitchen. She picked up the telephone. They had already heard Terra’s phone ring as they were cleaning up, but, of course, they didn’t answer it. That was Tom calling his daughter.

In the kitchen Jessica dialed Alan’s cell phone number. Voice mail picked up. “Hey,” Jessica said, “where are you guys? We’re waiting for you. The girls are here.” It was a lie, obviously. “We’re all waiting for you. Where are you?” Then, with a sarcastic, cynical tone, “It’s real nice of you not to call.”

Jessica and Jeff grabbed some glass cleaner from underneath the sink and a roll of paper towels. They needed to wipe down the rental car after ditching it and setting it on fire.

“Lighter fluid,” one of them suggested.

Jeff went out to the garage. They didn’t have any. He picked up a gas can.

“No,” Jessica said.

Right. It’d be better to stop somewhere along the way and get a few gallons of gas. Buy a new can. Ditch it somewhere along the way.

There was a lot left to be done inside the house. They needed to get rid of the bodies first. Then they could head back to the house to begin the cleanup.

Jeff said he’d drive Alan’s rental. He got behind the wheel. Jessica jumped inside the family van after locking the house.

They looked at each other.

Time to move.

Jessica had the Bateses’ cell phones with her. She planned on making a few calls along the way to set up a ruse that Alan and Terra had been using their phones, communicating with each other.

The plan was to hit the road and drive “somewhere over the Georgia border.” First, though, they’d have to drive into town and purchase those movie tickets.

Jessica suggested stopping at a local strip mall. She had a problem, according to what Jeff later said. She had been fidgeting with Terra’s cell phone to see if she could get into the voice mail to hear that message someone had left. In doing that, Jessica thought she had somehow recorded “incriminating evidence” against them as she randomly pushed buttons. She had panicked. She wanted to stop at the Galleria, a local cell phone kiosk, she told Jeff, to ask for help.

“Okay.”

Jessica asked the guy behind the counter, “How do I erase voice mail on this thing? Can you help me? How do I listen to it?”

The guy didn’t know.

Jessica turned to Jeff, who was standing there with her, looking around. “Let’s go,” she said.

From there, still in Hoover, they drove to a pay phone in the CVS parking lot nearby. Jessica needed to call her mother and set that part of their alibi in motion.

“Do it,” Jeff said.

Her stepfather answered. Jessica said, “Is it okay if the kids are left with you for the rest of the night?” She said something about Alan blowing them off and they wanted to make a night of it alone, without the kids.

The kids were already there. “Sure,” Albert said.

It had not occurred to Jessica, however, that she had just called Alan’s cell phone and left a message saying that the kids were with her.

After the call Jessica led the way. They hopped onto the I-459, heading up to the I-20 and into Georgia.

After about ninety minutes of driving, Jessica signaled Jeff to pull over.

They were heading into Anniston, Alabama, directly east of Hoover, approximately twenty-five miles from the Georgia border. “We made the stop in Anniston,” Jeff explained later, “and got something to eat at the SUBWAY.”

After a quick bite they cut up Alan and Terra’s credit cards, along with “whatever else from . . . both their wallets or purses.”

“Atlanta?” Jeff queried to his now-manic wife.

She shrugged yes. “I made some phone calls.”

Jeff was confused.

Phone calls? What did she mean by “phone calls”?

“From their phones to make it appear as if they had car trouble.”

Jeff tossed several pieces of the gun along the side of the road as they headed out of Anniston back onto the main road.

Outside Atlanta they stopped to purchase a gallon of gasoline and a new gas can. After passing through Atlanta, still heading east on I-20, Jessica pulled over at a rest stop.

“We need to wipe the car down.”

“Right,” Jeff said.

They went to work, Jeff explained. They both wiped the “interior of the car. . . . Wiped down the door handles, wiped down anything anybody might have touched.” Before leaving, Jeff walked into the information center at the rest area and bought some lighter fluid and a cigarette lighter.

“[We] got back on the road and started driving,” Jeff said later. “For whatever reason, she finds Rutledge, Georgia.”

Jeff never mentioned why, if they had planned on torching the vehicle, they were so concerned about wiping it down.