To Live and Die In Dixie (17 page)

Neva Jean had Baby by the arm, guiding her toward the door. Suddenly an idea occurred to me.

“Miss Baby, Miss Sister,” I said loudly. Baby turned slowly around to try to see where my voice was coming from. “Do ya'll feel like doing a little snooping for me today?”

Baby beamed. “Hear that, Sister? Callahan done give us an assignment. Yes, ma'am. We're going undercover.”

W
HEN I WENT OUT TO GET in the van, Ping-Pong had stretched herself out across the hood. She raised her head questioningly, but didn't move, not even when I slammed the car door, not even when I started the engine. She didn't move, in fact, until I honked the horn and tapped the gas pedal. Then she leaped off the van and skulked toward the back of the house.

Stupid cat. I'd have to tell Edna about her sooner or later, but right now I thought I'd check on Coach J.

Maybe with all the other cars parked in the driveway and the curb nobody else would notice the red Hyundai parked across the street from the Jordans' house. But I noticed it as soon as I turned onto the street. I parked the van in the cul-de-sac and walked quickly back to the Hyundai, jerking the front door open, and sliding into the passenger seat.

“Just what on earth do you think you're doing?” I demanded.

Jocelyn was slouched down in the driver's seat, nibbling on french fries. She hurriedly stuffed the french fry bag under her seat.

“I'm on a stake-out,” she said, showing me a pair of expensive Swiss binoculars she held in her lap. “These are Dad's, he uses them at Falcons games, but I don't think he'll miss them.”

I slouched down in my seat as low as I could go, but it's tough for a five-foot-seven woman to slouch in a car built like a Spam can.

“Well, tell me what's going on,” I said resignedly.

She picked up a new-looking spiral-bound notebook and began reading from her entries.

“Two
P.M.
Subject Lissa Jordan and white male teenager return to house in white Camaro. Enter house. Mrs. Jordan carrying grocery sacks in arms.

“Two fourteen
P.M.
Black Jeep arrives at house, white male driving, two white female passengers. All three enter house. Loud music coming from house. (Bon Jovi)

“Two thirty
P.M.
Powder blue VW beetle and bronze-colored Toyota arrive at house. Five more teenagers enter house. Music turned up louder. (Metallica)

“Three ten
P.M.
Domino's pizza delivery boy arrives with three large pizzas, white male with strawberry blond hair in ponytail pays driver.

“Three twenty
P.M.
Pregnant woman walks across the street, bangs on Jordan door. Lissa Jordan answers door, angry conversation, pregnant woman shakes finger in Mrs. Jordan's face, Mrs. Jordan gives her the finger. Woman leaves. Music gets louder. (Megadeth)

“Three forty-five
P.M.
Tall, balding older man from house next door crosses lawn, bangs on door. Lissa Jordan answers, angry conversation. Music turned down.”

“That's it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jocelyn said. “How am I doing?”

“Fine, I guess,” I said. “I wonder where Lissa's kids are?”

“She didn't have them with her when she got home, and I haven't seen them playing outside, but maybe they're inside having naps,” Jocelyn said.

“Or they could be at a sitter's. You recognize any of the partygoers?”

“Well, they all look vaguely familiar. The guy who came in with Mrs. Jordan, I think he drives that rusted-out green Vega. He might be Zak Crawford, but his hair's a lot longer than it was the last time I saw him. A couple of the girls used to play on the soccer team with Bridget: Kelly and Brittni, I think their names are. The other guys, I don't know, they might have graduated the year after me.”

“You know anything else about the friends?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I remember having heard something about Zak Crawford getting kicked out of All Saints, but I don't remember why.”

“Think about it,” I suggested. “Maybe it'll come back to you. What about the soccer camp alibi? Does it check out?”

She flipped to another page and surveyed her notes. Her handwriting was neat and she'd outlined her notes in Roman numerals. I was impressed again. Must have been that Catholic school training. Me, I could never remember anything higher than X.

“Coach J got to camp about nine
A.M.
Saturday. It was team picture day. They had their picture taken. Then they practiced until eleven. The kids swam until noon, and then had lunch. After lunch the kids had free time for a couple of hours, then at three they scrimmaged again, and at five their parents picked them up.”

“And Coach J was there all day?”

“As far as the kids knew. I talked to two different kids. They said he was there.”

“What about free time?” I asked. “Was Coach J around for that?”

She reread her notes. “Hmmm. No, they said he was just in his office as far as they knew. Free time is when they can watch soccer videos or swim again or just hang out. Randy Myers, the assistant coach, supervises free time.”

“So there was a period of two hours in the afternoon when they weren't sure whether or not he was there?” I asked. “Read your notes carefully, Jocelyn, this is important. Bridget was killed sometime before five o'clock.”

Her face fell as she went back over the notes. “Geez. I'm sorry, Callahan. I just don't know if he was there.”

“No problem. Sometimes I have to go back and ask questions a second time, too. Don't sweat it. You learn as you go, and you're doing fine.”

“Really?” She looked dubious.

“Yeah.”

We sat quietly for a while after that, watching the sprinklers whirl and the grass grow. The neighborhood was quiet except for the occasional deep bass thump of Lissa Jordan's heavy-metal platter party. I glanced sideways at Jocelyn. She looked very young and vulnerable.

“You and your mom have a good talk?”

“As good as it can get with her,” she said. “She thinks this homeless guy did it. But then my mom thinks anyone who doesn't wear a three-piece suit or drive a BMW is the equivalent of Charles Manson. My shrink says my mom is controlling. Or maybe it was codependent. I can't remember which is which.”

“Oh.” I wondered to myself how it felt to have an outsider explain your family dynamics. A shrink would have a field day with the Garrity clan.

A thought occurred to me. “You said Bridget and your mom had a big fight before Bridget ran away.
Was that when Bridget told her she thought she was pregnant?”

“Bridget didn't tell her anything,” Jocelyn said. “My mom had been sneaking around, going through Bridget's room. She read Bridget's diary. That's how she found out.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah. Bummer, huh? The worst thing is, before she even talked to Bridget, my mom called her gynecologist and told him and they made an appointment for Bridget to have an abortion at this clinic in midtown Atlanta. So one day my mom picks Bridget up after school and she just announces, ‘We're going to the abortion clinic now, and you're gonna have an abortion, and then you're gonna be on restriction for the rest of your life.'”

“What did Bridget do?”

“Oh man. It's kind of funny, if you forget how awful it is. See. Bridget was really, really pro-life. They give them all these lectures at All Saints, show them pictures of fetuses sucking their thumbs and stuff. Bridget had already decided she was going to keep the baby no matter what. So she's crying and screaming at my mom, telling her she hates her and she's keeping the baby, and she'll never speak to her again. Then, when they get to the hospital, Bridget hops out of the car and goes running down the street, in her school uniform, with her book bag. And my mom is standing there—you've seen my mom, right? I've never in my whole life heard my mom so much as raise her voice at us. She said yelling shows bad manners. So, my mom is screaming at her, ‘Come back, you little bitch, I won't let you ruin your life.' And she's dressed in high heels and a dress and pearls, chasing Bridget down this street, with all the winos laying on the sidewalk.”

I'd started laughing in the middle of the story and
now, picturing blond, beige Emily Dougherty chasing her daughter through midtown Atlanta, I laughed so hard tears streamed down my face.

“I'm sorry,” I apologized, once I'd gotten a hold of myself. “But the way you tell it, it's really funny. Awful, but funny.”

“I know,” Jocelyn said. “We're a pretty fucked up family, huh?”

“Wait,” I said. “Look. The party's breaking up. Hand me those binoculars.”

A boy and girl swaggered out of the house, their arms entwined around each other. The girl took a long drink from a green glass bottle, offered it to her boyfriend, and then tossed the empty into the yard. A few minutes later, the other teenagers Jocelyn had described came straggling out, followed by Lissa Jordan.

I hadn't noticed the other two times just how young Kyle Jordan's wife must have been. In her black Spandex bicycle shorts, and a sexy black lace bustier, with her hair gelled and spiked, and without a kid on each hip, Lissa Jordan looked the same age as the high school kids. She spotted the wine bottle in the yard, frowned and picked it up, then walked over and leaned against the hood of the bronze Toyota, laughing and flirting with the young men who'd gotten into it.

Both the boys were bare-chested and summer-tanned, wearing only knee-length, dark, baggy shorts, the same kind we kids had always begged our dads not to wear to the beach. They wore black high-top sneakers. One had his hair cut in the 1990s version of a buzz, the other wore a bandanna around his head, tied buccaneer-style.

“Is that the latest style for guys?” I asked Jocelyn. She leaned over and looked at the boys I pointed to.

“If you're a skate rat.”

After a few more minutes, the other carloads of teens
pulled away from the house, music blasting from their car windows.

“Was that everybody?” I asked.

“Everybody I saw go in, except for Zak Crawford,” Jocelyn said. “His car was parked in front of the house when I got here.”

She pointed to a green Vega parked at the curb. It had so much rust on it that it looked like the large patches of Bondo were actually holding it together.

“Bad ride,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Must have been another seventies flashback. Happens sometimes.”

She sat straight up in her seat, yawned and stretched. “What now? I need to pee.”

I looked at my watch. It was after five, and I hadn't had any lunch. But I wasn't ready to give up on Lissa Jordan just yet. I handed Jocelyn the keys to the van.

“Go back to that Burger King we went to the other day,” I suggested. “Have yourself a potty break, and call Edna. Find out if she turned up anything at the antiques dealers, and ask if she talked to the lawyer about that estate Littlefield appraised on Saturday. If she's not in too crabby a mood, ask if she's found out anything about our mystery phone number. You might also call one of your friends and ask about those kids we saw leaving the Jordans' today.”

“Anything else?” Jocelyn said, looking up from the list she was making.

“Yeah. Double cheeseburger, hold the lettuce and mayo, double pickles. Fries, no ketchup. Diet Coke with extra ice. Money is in the ashtray. And watch you don't pop the clutch on the van.”

After Jocelyn left, I settled in for a staring contest at the Jordans' house. The neighborhood was starting to
shake itself out of its late-afternoon slumber. Women in office clothes and stockings stepped wearily from cars bearing armloads of dry-cleaning and sacks of groceries. Dads came home, turned on their sprinklers, then reemerged to play catch with children.

Soon a haze of barbecue smoke started rising from backyards up and down the block. I would have killed for a slab of ribs.

I wondered where Kyle Jordan was, but then remembered it could be a long ride home from his soccer camp in Rockdale County.

The sound of a car door closing, and an engine starting, startled me. I looked up in time to see Lissa Jordan back out of her driveway in the white Camaro, a ponytailed young man in the front seat beside her.

Although tempted to follow, I decided to stay where I was.

Maybe ten minutes later, the Jordans' front door opened again. Two towheaded little girls dressed only in cotton panties scampered out of the house and ran for the sprinklers, where they darted in and out of the spray, screaming with glee each time the cold drops touched their skin. A young girl appeared in the open doorway, nearly dwarfed by the baby she lugged in her arms.

I raised the binoculars to my eyes to get a better look. The sitter Lissa Jordan had left her three babies with was little more than a child herself. Long skinny legs had scraped knees, and there was no sign of breasts. The kid couldn't have been more than ten years old.

I watched for a while longer, wondering if maybe an adult was there supervising the group, but after twenty minutes or so, the children were still playing, and there was no sign of an adult.

The girl disappeared into the house once, briefly, and
when she came back out, the baby was no longer in her arms. “Megan, Jessica,” she called. “Come on and eat your pizza.”

The two preschoolers screamed again, darted in and out of the spray once more, and then obediently ran for the front door, their soggy drawers drooping from the weight of the water. The baby-sitter waited until they were safely in the house, then closed the door.

I sat and waited and watched and fumed. Somebody should report these people to the child welfare authorities, I thought. Leaving three small children alone in the care of a kid barely out of Pampers herself.

Maybe somebody would.

I dug around in the glove box of Jocelyn's car until I found a hairbrush and a lipstick, then applied both liberally. Straightened my rumpled skirt and blouse and looked ruefully down at my muddy tennis shoes. The kid was young, maybe she wouldn't notice them.

I rang the doorbell purposefully, indignantly even.

“Yes,” came the muffled reply from behind the door. At least the kid knew better than to open the door to a stranger.