After the wedding at the Alabama Theatre on June 24, the plan was for Alan and Terra to honeymoon for a few days while the girls spent some time with their grandparents. Then Alan and Terra could take them back to Maryland for the summer.

Maybe Jessica had finally seen the light. Perhaps she decided it wasn’t worth destroying the kids’ lives for her own self-centered benefit.

Jessica affirmed that she was not going to be a nuisance anymore. The kids had suffered enough. When Alan called to say he was picking up the kids, and not his mother, Jessica explained that she had something to tell him. Something important. Something he’d probably be surprised by. But she wanted to do it in person.

Could be just about anything, knowing that woman.

Alan walked into Jessica’s home in Montevallo, a house, incidentally, he had handed over to her as part of the divorce, no questions asked, so his kids could have a stable life and environment to grow up in. There was someone else there, Alan noticed. A barrel-chested man, maybe five foot nine, two hundred pounds. Stocky. Rough around the edges. He had beady blue eyes, very distinctive and unique in color. His hair was cropped short. Buzz cut. He was thirty years old. (Jessica was about to turn twenty-nine on June 25.)

Alan stuck out his hand.

The guy looked like a cop.

“This is Jeff,” she said. “My husband.”

“Husband?”

Jeff was a Pelham police officer, Jessica explained with a smirk. They had gotten married the previous Saturday, she explained with a beaming glow about her. Her mother knew. A few others. But besides that, Jessica said, she hadn’t told many people. Jeff was “shy,” she seemed to point out to Alan for no reason. She called him a “loner.” Said he didn’t like a lot of fuss. “[Jeff] would be very difficult to provoke in any way,” Jessica said later. “He avoids confrontations.”

As far as Jeff being a police officer, Jessica addressed that in court in a bit more detail, saying, “Police officers, if they are even involved in an assault of any kind, they lose their jobs. They are trained to use other methods than drawing their gun whenever they can. And, you know, I don’t know if it’s from television or media or what, but people seem to have this impression that, you know, police officers tend to be very controlled and will not just, you know, walk up on you and they’re going to draw their gun and things like that. It’s not the Wild West, and people think that way.”

Jeff Kelley McCord seemed like an all right guy, Alan considered. What divorced father of two girls wouldn’t want a police officer—a protector by nature—in the same house with his kids if he wasn’t there? This might turn out okay, after all, Alan felt. Maybe this was the reason why Jessica had suddenly turned into a cooperative ex-spouse. She was happy, for once in her life.

Still, it would have been nice beforehand to know that the kids were going to have a stepfather, Alan thought after leaving the house. But that was Jessica—she had to one-up Alan. Now the court would see who was married first, he knew. Jessica also said she and Jeff had purchased a house—but she didn’t say where. It was a nice home in a middle-class neighborhood by a lake outside Birmingham. They were moving there soon.

Of course, there was one minor detail she forgot to mention to Alan in all of this. Jessica was going to have Jeff’s baby. One friend said it was right after Jessica convinced Jeff to get that money from his mother that she became pregnant again. Before this, Jessica had an abortion for Jeff, perhaps even two.

Alan got the kids into the car. No argument on Jessica’s part. Alan and Terra were married on June 24, 2000, with both of Alan’s children there by his side. It was a beautiful ceremony, replete with the affection that had been missing from Alan’s life with Jessica all those years. Alan had found and married the love of his life. They were the ideal couple, mimicking the plastic model atop the wedding cake.

You can see the radiance in the photographs of their wedding. Terra was pictured talking to guests, Alan in back of her, smiling, as if he had just met the love of his life. He’d probably heard those stories she was telling ten times already, but he still hung on every word. The look in his eyes was magical, respectful, dignified. He loved this woman with every ounce of his soul. Terra had brought such permanence, such unconditional love, into Alan’s life. She was the blessing he had been searching for all along. They would rise together in their chosen careers, spend the summers and holidays with Alan’s kids, maybe start a family of their own. This wedding, with all of its past difficulties, was behind them. They could begin their lives anew.

And it appeared that even Jessica was now going to accept it.

36

As soon as Jessica and Jeff moved into the house on Myrtlewood Drive in Hoover, Jessica began to create a new plan to keep Alan away from the kids. And Jeff went along, doing whatever he was told.

The only reason there were no problems for Alan during the summer of 2000 was because Alan had kept the kids at his home in Maryland. He and Terra set aside a room for the children. Decorated it. Spent the summer rebuilding relationships Jessica had spent years destroying. It didn’t take the kids long to realize Alan loved them, no matter what Jessica had said or drilled into their heads. It was clear in Alan’s words, gestures and pure show of affection that his love was genuine, and had been all along.

Alan and Terra dropped the kids off in Birmingham at the end of the summer. Then returned to their lives in Maryland. Alan lost touch with his girls the next day. It was easier for Jessica now that Alan lived nine hundred miles northeast. He couldn’t drop by unexpectedly and say he wanted to see the girls. Now, same as she had before, Jessica refused to allow the children to speak with their father on the telephone. More than that, Alan had no idea where, exactly, did Jessica and Jeff lived in Hoover.

Here we go again. . . .

All Jessica had to do was conform with the court’s order and she would have saved herself from serving ten days in jail—the sentence she had been given was six months suspended. This was, however, providing she proved to the court she made an effort to live up to her obligations. October 2000 was just around the corner, a time when Jessica and her new lawyer would have to prove she was living under the provisions of the court’s ruling.

Frank Head let the court know she wasn’t. He also made it clear that Jessica never provided written documentation—a note from her doctor—regarding her “inability to appear for trial” that past April 4, 2000

(her excuse a day later was that she was ill) .

Alan and Head showed up in court on October 16, 2000. Jessica’s new lawyer was there. But once again, Jessica chose to skip it.

“Your client, is she here?” the judge asked Jessica’s lawyer.

“I have not had recent contact with my client, Your Honor, this after diligent efforts.”

The judge ordered both sides to get on with the hearing.

By the end of the session, the judge ruled that Jessica had “failed to comply with the Order of the Court entered [in April that year], by failing or refusing to allow [Alan] to speak with his children at least one evening each week on the telephone for up to fifteen minutes of uninterrupted conversation. . . .”

In addition, she hadn’t paid Alan’s attorney’s fees, which she was responsible for.

With that, the judge ordered the contempt charge against Jessica be put into action. Someone needed to find Jessica McCord. She owed the judge ten days in jail.

When she heard, Jessica became infuriated. She called a friend a few days later to vent. She described the “gall” Alan had to demand that she be put in jail. This was all Alan’s fault. He did it. He could have stopped it, but he chose to make her suffer.