46

Terra had a major paper due on Friday, February 15, 2002. It was part of the master’s program she had been working on at Goucher. So she got up early.

While Alan was getting ready, Terra faxed the paper over to Dr. Victoria Young’s office.

“Terra had hope in her voice,” Dr. Young said later. Young had spoken to Terra the previous afternoon about the paper. Terra mentioned the deposition. She said she was traveling to Alabama with Alan. She sounded upbeat. Positive. She felt good about how the case had progressed. It was, Young said, as if Alan and Terra had finally gotten the court to listen to them. The system was finally functioning the way it should have been from day one. Terra was comfortable with saying she felt the outcome would be in their favor.

Terra’s father, Tom Klugh, left his house early in the morning to go out and get his seasonal potato and onion seedlings at the local feed store in Georgia, near his home. He wanted to set them in the ground that day. He planned on buying a cell phone later on that afternoon, his first. He even promised to call Terra after the purchase.

Alan and Terra’s flight went as scheduled. They landed in Birmingham on time. Then they made it to the deposition downtown without a hitch. As Jessica had thought, they didn’t arrive the night before.

It was going to take all day, Frank Head told Alan. Prepare for a full day’s worth of, well, answering uncomfortable questions about the past seven years.

In Hoover, the mother of one of the girls’ friends stopped by to pick up Sam and McKenna and cart them off to school. The girls were scheduled to go from school (late that afternoon) to Jessica’s mother’s house. Brian and Sara would head to day care until Jessica’s mother got out of work and could pick them up. With the day (and night) off, Jeff was at home when the girls’ ride to school showed up.

The plan Jessica and Jeff had finalized included Jessica and Jeff saying that Alan, “as usual,” had not picked up the kids per a scheduled visitation pickup time at 6:00 P.M. So the children had to be dropped off at Jessica’s mother’s house. Jessica said she was even going to tell her mother that Alan didn’t show up. Ask her to watch the kids that night so she and Jeff could celebrate a belated Valentine’s Day. She would pick them up in the morning.

This would open up that window of opportunity to commit murder.

The plan appeared infallible.

 

 

David Dorn had advised Jessica to settle her case out of court if she could. He didn’t like to see his clients go to trial. Trials never turned out the way either party wanted. It was always better to come to some sort of amicable agreement pretrial.

Jessica said no way. She wanted to see this to the end.

The depositions started at 9:42 A.M., according to the court reporter hired to record what was said.

Jessica went first. She sat. Frank Head asked questions. Standard divorce stuff that lawyers go through all the time.

There was a break late in the morning, somewhere near ten-thirty. Jessica called Jeff. There was a slight, little problem with their plan, she whispered into the phone.

“What’s wrong?” Jeff asked.

“Just for your information,” Jessica reported, “Terra’s here.”

Jeff went silent. Even though they had discussed what to do if Terra showed up with Alan, they thought for certain she was staying in Maryland.

“We’ll just have to do them both,” Jeff recalled Jessica telling him a few nights earlier as this contingency arose during a conversation.

“Okay,” Jeff said over the phone that morning, “that’s a complication.”

They didn’t discuss it on the telephone specifically, Jeff said later, but there was an agreement clearly implicit between the two of them: Terra Bates was not going to stand in the way of their plans.

“We’re going to have to kill her, too,” Jeff explained later, going back to that telephone conversation, describing what he was thinking after getting the news Terra was there, too. “I guess it was just assumed. It wasn’t mentioned. I don’t recall it being mentioned. . . . Basically, if you’re going to do one, you’ve got to do the other one if they’re there together.”

Collateral damage.

Most interesting, there was never a moment after their murder strategy had been outlined where Jessica or Jeff backed down and considered abandoning the plan. It would have to be adjusted. Certainly. Any good plan would be. But they were going through with what was now double murder, come hell or high water, and no one was going to stand in their way.

For Jeff, the only deal breaker, he admitted later, was if Alan’s parents showed up with him. Jeff said he would have never gone through with it if that had happened.

“I don’t know what Jessica would have done.”

During a lunch break, at 12:06 P.M., Frank Head and David Dorn took off together to eat and talk things through. They went right around the corner to a local place. Tony’s Terrific Hot Dogs. It was a familiar hot spot that Alan and Terra had actually eaten at routinely when they worked at the nearby Alabama Theatre.

As the group began to separate for lunch, Alan told Head, “I’m going to get Terra”—she was in the office waiting room—“and go get some lunch.”

“Be back by one,” Head said.

Alan smiled.

Jessica ate alone upstairs in Dorn’s office. There was a long conference table where the depositions were held. Jessica sat and began eating her lunch there.

Kelly McCloskey, the court reporter Dorn had hired to type the deposition, planned on using the lunch break to get a jump on proofing the record. “Can I work on these transcripts over lunch, Mr. Dorn?” McCloskey asked the attorney before he left.

“Sure.”

As McCloskey went through her work, Jessica stepped out to go to the restroom. She looked calm. Confident. Like things were going her way.

When Jessica returned, McCloskey was on the phone with her firm, finding out what her next assignment was. There were some conflicts, McCloskey said later in court, and she was in contact with her office to try to work things out.

Jessica looked on, watching McCloskey talk on the phone, waiting for the opportunity to say something. It was obvious Jessica wanted to talk. McCloskey had work to do, however. She didn’t have time for idle conversation.

“My husband’s a police officer in Pelham,” Jessica said after McCloskey hung up with her boss.

“Really?”

“He’s been a cop for some time. . . . We live in Hoover.”

Jessica carried on. Did not stop talking. McCloskey was getting a bit impatient with her, when, McCloskey said later, “Jessica just blurted it out.”

“It wouldn’t take much for [my husband] to shoot somebody,” Jessica explained to the court reporter.

How strange it was for Jessica to say such a thing. McCloskey was startled by this, adding later, “And I just automatically took it to be justifiable homicide that she was speaking of.”

McCloskey didn’t answer. She gave Jessica a quick roll-your-eyes stare, then continued with her work.

Jessica, though, did not stop. “I don’t understand why Alan is fighting so hard for [Samantha, the oldest daughter]—she’s not even his child. But, of course, he doesn’t actually know that yet.” There was a sarcastic tone to her voice. She was making fun of Alan, even though he wasn’t around. To a stranger, no less.

Jessica then talked about how Alan used to hit her when they were married.

“She did mention an incident where he had her arrested, and said that he had—she had attempted to hit him or assault him in some way,” but that it was actually Alan who had hit her.

McCloskey wanted off the subject of Jessica and Alan’s life. She was a court reporter, not a therapist.

It was 1:00 P.M.

Finally lunch was over.