seventeen

Aliso Viejo is located in the San Joaquin Hills about thirty miles south from where I live. Before leaving the house, I’d quickly looked up Doris Hoffman’s address on Google maps. It was a two- story home in a housing development of nice homes on tiny lots, built side by side up and down the street like houses lined up on a Monopoly board. Each house was different but still the same. The Hoffman home was painted a cream color with dark taupe trim and had a three-car garage. I was pleased to see it was not located in a gated community.

Although I’d told Zee the trip to Aliso Viejo could wait until tomorrow, the more I stared at Doris’s name on the tabletop, the more it yelled yoooo-hoooo at me, begging for my attention. I figured if the trip was a bust, all I’d be losing was time and a bit of gas. These days I had a lot of time on my hands. And if it was a bust, I would be back home in time for Zee to pick me up at four thirty. If it proved fruitful, I could call Zee and tell her to go home and I’d pick her up, since Newport Beach was just north of Aliso Viejo and on my way back. Easy peasy.

I wasn’t sure yet what I was going to say if I did manage to catch Doris Hoffman at home. I wasn’t even sure of my plan of attack. On the way there, I weighed the option of going up and ringing her doorbell over the option of sitting in my car and watching for signs of life first. It wasn’t as hot today as it had been, but it was warm enough that sitting in a car was not an appeasing thought, especially if I wasn’t sure if the woman had a job and would be working. By the time I pulled up in front of the address on the Marigold report, I had decided on the direct approach.

Ringing the doorbell triggered the barking of dogs. Not big dogs like Wainwright but the yipping of a couple small dogs. In short order they were directly on the other side of the door, scrabbling and barking like they wanted to tear my face off. Then I heard footsteps and a woman ordering the dogs to quiet down. They did. Good. They were small and well trained. There was a peephole in the door. From the delay in answering the bell, I figured whoever had quieted the dogs was on the other side checking me out. I tried to position myself so that she could see me and hoped I looked presentable and nonthreatening in my navy capris and white summer top.

I must have because the door finally opened, revealing a woman in her early sixties in black yoga pants and a bright yellow tank top. She was slender and fit, with a long, narrow face with fine lines around her mouth and eyes, where I could see a bit of Jordon in her. Her hair was pale gold and clipped at the nape of her neck, which she dabbed with a small towel. She looked like she’d just finished a workout or I had disturbed her in the middle of one. At her feet were two tiny white terriers. One watched me with alert brown button eyes while the other was lying down, bored with the stranger at the door.

“Can I help you?” she asked with mild annoyance.

“Are you Doris Hoffman?” I asked back.

“Yes, what do you want?”

“My name is Odelia Grey,” I told her. “I want to talk to you about your son.”

“My son? Is George okay?” Now she looked alarmed.

George? Then I remembered that the Marigold report listed three children for Doris: Marissa, George, and Jordon. Jordon had been the eldest.

“No, sorry,” I said quickly. “I meant your son Jordon, the one involved in that tragic accident nearly thirty years ago. Alcohol-related, wasn’t it?”

She’d gone from annoyance to alarm and was now rounding the corner back to annoyance. “If you’re with Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I already give to you annually.” She started to close the door.

“I’m not with MADD,” I told her. “I want to talk to you about him.”

“Why?” she asked, her body tensed. “Jordon is dead.”

“Really? Because I spoke to him yesterday, and he sure didn’t seem dead to me. In fact, in spite of his injuries, he appeared to be thriving.”

At this point I expected the door to be slammed in my face, but instead it stayed partially open while Doris weighed my words. Finally, she said, “Who are you, and what do you want?” This time her question held menace.

“I’m Odelia Grey,” I repeated. “I’m checking into a strange turn of events that happened to my husband and me this past weekend. During that checking, I came across two women named Holly West and Jane Newell, a mother and a daughter, which in turn led me to your son Jordon.”

“That’s impossible,” she hissed. “You have the wrong Jordon West. My son has been a vegetable since the accident, and if you really did see him, you know that.”

“I admit,” I said, keeping my eyes locked onto hers, “that his injuries are extensive and tragic, but he’s not a vegetable at all. He’s charming and well-read and pretty happy, and even communicative in his own way. But you’d know that if you ever bothered to visit him.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “So that’s what this is. You’re some kind of social worker who tracked me down to plea on behalf of my crippled son. Did that home he’s in send you? Well, you’re wasting your bleeding-heart breath because I decided a long time ago that it was best for this family if Jordon died, and that’s what my other kids think happened—that he died after we moved.”

“Did you have a funeral for him?” I was now curious about the web of lies this woman had been weaving for over two decades. I was angry at her and felt sorry for her at the same time.

“Leave before I call the police,” she threatened. A car drove down the street behind me. She looked up, taking note of it, but I didn’t.

“Listen, this has nothing to do with Jordon being alive or dead, but someone put his name on a birth certificate saying he fathered her daughter, and this is connected to me in a roundabout way. I want some answers.”

“Go,” she said again. “You know nothing about me.” She pointed a finger at my face. The nail was neat and trim and painted a soft pink. “And I’m telling you right now that you’re going to stir up a shitload of problems for yourself if you don’t stop butting into something that’s none of your business.”

Now there’s a threat I’ve heard before—many times.

I straightened my shoulders and ignored her threat, as I do most threats thrown in my face. “What I know about you, Doris West Hoffman, is that you moved with your other children to Spokane shortly after your son’s accident. There you married Alex Hoffman, a small-time CPA,” I said, ticking off points learned from Marigold. “You moved back to Southern California four years later, after divorcing Hoffman.” I lifted a hand and swept it over the front of the house. “And you live here, in this million-dollar home, without any visible means of support, unless Hoffman gave you a bundle in the divorce, which I doubt, seeing he was small potatoes.” I actually didn’t know that about Hoffman but thought it was worth a shot. I returned to looking her in the eye. “You can slam that door if you want, Doris, but trust me: I smell a juicy story here, and I will get to the bottom of it.”

If Doris Hoffman had looked down, she would have seen my knees knocking. I can talk a big game, but inside I’m a pile of melting Jell-O.

While she pondered my counter threat, I quickly produced my cell phone. “Would you like to see a picture of Jordon?” I pulled up the photo Celeste had texted to me and held it out toward her. Doris looked down at it. Her eyes showed initial shock. Seconds later they started tearing up. Bingo! The picture had hit some maternal nerve that wasn’t quite dead.

Slowly, the door started opening wider, and without a word Doris invited me in.