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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