And all roads led to Birmingham.

Backtracking, following Alan and Terra’s footsteps, Birmingham was the ideal location to begin that end of the investigation. Seeing that it had been confirmed that Alan walked out of a deposition downtown somewhere near 3:30 P.M. the previous day and hadn’t been seen or heard from since, Birmingham was the start of the GBI’s timeline—or, more like it, deathline. The other arm of the investigation was going to be the hardest to go forward with right now: questioning Alan’s family. Searching for those important details and clues without letting them know what, exactly, was going on. The GBI couldn’t come out and say they had found Alan and Terra in the trunk. They needed positive identification before that could be done. It was a catch-22: because for positive identification to be made, they needed dental records and DNA from those same people.

“Vance,” Williams called out to MCSO investigator Sheron Vance, who partnered up with Williams almost immediately, “can you come with me?”

Williams and Vance left the Rutledge scene for Pelham, Alabama—this, while a second GBI agent, Sherri Rhodes, took off for Marietta, Georgia, to interview members of the Bates family. They could discuss developments via radio and receive updates about the crime scene from the road. Best thing to do was to spread out and begin putting the pieces together.

Jessica McCord’s second husband, Jeff, was a Pelham, Alabama, police officer. Cops helped each other. That clichéd code of blue silence and brotherly love they all lived by might come into play here. The brotherhood of law enforcement. Jeff would be the best person to start with. Williams and Vance decided that the Pelham PD was as good a place as any to begin. From talking to Jeff, they could track down Jessica and find out if and when she saw or heard from Alan last—that is, if everything went as planned, and Jeff was willing to help.

“Primarily,” Williams told me, “[we selected an interview with Jeff McCord first] because we knew where he was supposed to be, which was at work.” Jeff had swapped shifts, GBI found out, with another officer earlier that week; he was scheduled to be working that Saturday, covering for the cop. After speaking with the chief of the PPD, Williams understood the best way to approach Officer Jeff McCord was to arrive at Pelham before Jeff’s 3:00 P.M. shift started. The chief assured Williams that no one would tell him the GBI and MCSO were on the way.

The focus in talking to Jeff McCord would be on what time Alan and Terra showed up at the McCord home. That was going to be very important. Once Vance and Williams had that information, they could continue to backtrack—and maybe find out who had last seen Terra and Alan alive.

7

Jessica and Jeff McCord arrived home early on the morning of February 16, 2002, a Saturday. They had been out all night. To the movies, Jessica later said. Dinner. Then a long drive. Some sort of romantic jaunt to one of Jessica’s old hangout spots (they were celebrating Valentine’s Day a little late) from her teen years. Then a stop at Home Depot—the first in line at the door before the place was even open. There to pick up supplies so Jessica’s stepfather, Albert Bailey, could work on the house that day.

Both of them were tired. After putting her keys down on the kitchen table, Jessica scrolled through her caller ID to see who had phoned the house in their absence.

Philip and Joan’s number popped up several times from the previous night and that morning.

Must be Alan, Jessica said she thought at that moment. Alan had not shown up at the house as planned to pick up the kids, Jessica claimed. Maybe that was him, calling to give his excuse.

She dialed the Bates household in Georgia.

“Hello,” Philip said. He sounded frazzled. Anxious. There were voices in the background Jessica could hear. Although she didn’t know it, the GBI had sent two investigators to the Bateses’ home in Marietta. They were there to begin recording information and getting to know a little bit more about Alan and Terra’s schedules and lives. They had just arrived and were getting settled. Alan’s brothers, Kevin and Robert, had just recently shown up, too.

“Is Alan there? Can I speak to him?” Jessica asked.

“I wish I could let you,” Philip said, a note of discomfort and confusion in his cracking voice. “But I don’t know where he is.”

“What do you mean?”

“I cannot find him.”

“Oh,” Jessica said. “Oh, my gosh.” She later said this information Philip gave her was startling. It was unlike Alan to simply up and disappear. Alan was responsible. The do-gooder. The A student. The kid who never let anyone down. Jessica said she could never see Alan not alerting his parents to a new plan or his not showing up. When it came to her, she said that was a different story entirely. There were many times, Jessica later said, when Alan claimed he’d pick up the kids, but had never shown up.

Still, something was terribly wrong with this picture.

“I’m on the other end with someone important, Jessica,” Philip said at one point during the conversation. “I’ll have Joan call you back.”

Jessica hung up. Stared at the phone.

Five minutes later, Joan called.

“Alan and Terra are both missing,” Alan’s mother said matter-of-factly. “They have not come to Georgia as planned. Where are the children?” Joan was stressed and impatient. She knew how Jessica could be. She’d slept very little the previous night. She did not need her ex-daughter-in-law’s nonsense now.

“My mom’s house.”

“They haven’t shown up. They’re not here. . . .”

Jessica said she didn’t know how to react to Joan’s accusatory tone. Almost immediately, Jessica felt, Joan was condemning her. Poking a finger in her chest. She was only calling to threaten. Make the implication that Jessica had something to do with Alan and Terra’s disappearance. ( “It got ugly real quick,” Jessica recalled.)

“You’ve harmed them,” Jessica said Joan snapped at her. Joan was, obviously, upset. Uptight. On edge. Distraught. Crying. Saying things she would not remember later on. “They’re missing. Where are they?”

“Please let me know, Joan, what’s going on when you find out. I would need to tell the kids something.” The kids were expecting Alan and Terra to pick them up. They had anticipated their arrival. But Alan and Terra never came, Jessica said. As she spoke, apparently trying to explain this to Joan, she could hear Philip in the background. He was giving someone her address and phone number. Jessica could hear him clearly, as if she were in the same room. She asked Joan, “Why is he giving out my address? What’s going on? Why is he giving out my mom’s address? Tell me, Joan!”

Joan wouldn’t answer.

“Please, Joan. Please let me know, when you do, what’s going on.”

They hung up.

According to Jessica, the phone call upset her. She was bewildered and didn’t know what to make of it. She went to Jeff.

“What should we do?”

“Well,” Jeff said in his stoic Southern drawl, “let’s just go about our business here. There’s nothing that we can do. Sitting here, being upset, that isn’t going to solve anything.”

Jessica was unable to do chores around the house, she said. She was totally preoccupied with the situation. Pacing, waiting for Joan, Philip or anyone to call with some information. A bit of news. Some sort of word as to what in the heck was happening.

“Look,” Jeff said, watching his wife fuss about, “it’s not going to make them call any faster.”

Jessica needed to know. She’d have to tell the kids something sooner or later.

After a time, Jessica recalled, she and Jeff went back to cleaning up the house so her stepfather could come in later on that morning, as planned, to put in a new kitchen floor. In fact, according to Jessica, there was all sorts of work going on inside the house. Wall plastering. Carpeting. Wallpapering. Furniture and toys being tossed out. Cleaning. Trips to the dump. Also part of the anxious nature in fixing up the house and getting things thrown away was the fact that the state was coming to look things over as part of the child custody matter Jessica and Alan were involved in. Jessica admitted she was no Suzie Homemaker, but she didn’t want to give the state the wrong impression.