The Doomsday Girl, Page 3

  “I met Jeff in high school, in San Jose. I was a freshman, and he was a senior. I have to admit, at first I really thought he was a big dork. But he had charm in his own way. I mean, he was confident and cool, and he always said it was love at first sight for him. We got married when I was twenty, after Jeff’s career started going.”

  “What did he do for a living?”

  “At first he worked for a construction company, managing projects. Then he formed his own company, as a contractor. He specialized in upgrading apartment complexes. I kept all the books for him.”

  “You managed his money?”

  “The company’s money. He did business as Jordan Contracting.”

  “Your last name?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m Melanie Jordan. I suppose I can still keep that name, even though Jeff is… gone.” I looked over and her eyes were downcast.

  “Of course you can,” I said.

  “It’s hard, you know,” she said through a sniffle. “He was my life, my family. I mean, I really haven’t come to terms with it, I mean, any of this.”

  “It’ll take time,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say, but the comment sounded empty as soon as it left my mouth.

  “I suppose,” she replied. “But I have no idea what I’m going to do without him, and without…” Her voice cracked, and I saw her lips tremble. “And without Mia, my daughter.”

  “You have to go one day at a time,” I said. She didn’t respond and stared with red-rimmed eyes out the windshield. I always hated this part of the job. Dealing with distraught women never failed to jangle my nerves, even though I’d done it plenty of times, endured their sadness and grief and anger and hysterics. I’d utter things straight from the counselor’s playbook, but none of it ever seemed to ease their pain or solve anything. A lady once told me that women just want to be listened to, while men, fools that we are, we don’t want to listen, we just want to fix the problem. Her advice to me was simple: shut up and listen, and quit trying to fix what can’t be fixed.

  We turned south onto 395, driving down the California-Nevada border. To our right, the early sun lit the east flank of the Sierra Nevada, and to our left the high desert plains stretched eastward.

  A few minutes passed before Melanie spoke again. “Let’s do this chronologically,” she said. “I think that’s the most logical way.” Her tone was now flat and even, and as she talked I kept glancing at her quizzically. There was no longer any grief or sadness in her voice, as if she had become vacated of emotion. It was as if she’d shifted from a helpless, damaged victim to a woman who was utterly stoic. I was struck that I was witnessing a hidden side of her, maybe her mother’s genes at play. But as she described her life leading up to the attack, I became increasingly perplexed at how detached she sounded. It was a bit eerie, as if a switch had been clicked inside her head. In this almost robotic manner, Melanie recounted her existence since meeting Jeff Jordan.

  He was a big man, broad-shouldered and thick in the chest. His eyesight was poor, which prevented him from playing sports in high school. Doctors told him a minor surgery would make his vision perfect, but his divorced parents considered it unnecessary, or perhaps were unwilling to spend the money. Jeff paid for the procedure himself once he could afford it.

  More than anything, Jeff’s personality was defined by an intense desire to rise above the standards set by his family. His mother suffered from depression and spent weeks at a time alone in her dark house. She refused all pleas by her family to seek treatment. Jeff realized she was mentally ill, but he could not forgive her for lacking the will to better herself.

  Jeff’s father, Bur Jordan, was largely absent. He worked for the government and spent long months overseas. The nature of his work was something he did not share with his family. Over time, Jeff came to suspect he was involved in covert operations, and was probably a spy. Bur Jordan, during the short times he was at home, would never respond when asked about his career. What exactly he did for the government remained a mystery to Jeff.

  When Jeff was fifteen years old, his parents divorced. This was, for the most part, a non-event in Jeff’s life. His father sent monthly support checks until Jeff turned eighteen. After that, Jeff never heard from Bur Jordan again. The meager relationship Jeff had with his father became nonexistent from that point.

  As for Jeff’s siblings, he had an older brother and sister. His sister married a man in Connecticut and rarely stayed in touch. Jeff’s older brother went to college and played football. After graduating, he bounced from job to job, had alcohol problems, became involved in several failed business schemes, and was divorced twice.

  Melanie’s parents viewed Jeff dimly and hoped the relationship would be temporary. But Melanie saw in Jeff not only strength and determination, but also confidence and the ability to work tirelessly. She didn’t care that he never went to college. She knew he’d be successful in whatever he set his mind to. And besides, she loved him.

  After marrying, they moved from San Jose to Salt Lake City, where Jeff worked in construction. He quickly became a manager and within three years decided to branch off on his own. Headstrong and viewing his previous bosses as lazy and incompetent, Jeff founded Jordan Contracting. He was twenty-six years old. Shortly afterwards, Melanie became pregnant, but miscarried.

  A year later, Jeff had three full-time employees. He and Melanie bought a home in a suburban neighborhood at the base of the Wasatch Range. Melanie became pregnant again, and this time gave birth to a daughter, Mia. For the next five years, Melanie’s primary role was that of a mother, but she also had an instinctive knack for accounting, which was not among Jeff’s strengths. She began managing the books for Jordan Contracting.

  At age twenty-eight, Melanie’s life could be considered idyllic. She loved her husband and her daughter, and she was quite content living in their large home, especially after Jeff remodeled the kitchen and bathrooms. He’d also offered to put in a swimming pool, but Melanie insisted he wait until Mia was older and could swim. Melanie also thought the money could be put to better use, and she’d opened tax-deferred retirement accounts for both of them.

  Melanie began to think of her existence in terms of an article she had once read on the Great American Dream. She had her husband, the house, plenty of money, and a daughter. The next logical step was a second child. But when she spoke to Jeff about getting pregnant again, he was strangely evasive. It was only after she confronted him that she first learned of certain opinions he held.

  “I was completely blindsided by this,” Melanie said, some emotion creeping back into her tone. “He had been reading things on the Internet about conspiracy theories, about government corruption and secrecy, about the impending collapse of the world economy. I never had any idea he was into this stuff.”

  Over the next year, it became clear to Melanie that this was not a passing phase, as she originally hoped. Jeff Jordan became increasingly obsessed with the notion that the global economy was a house of cards, and the point of critical mass was looming. The ensuing implosion would be catastrophic, he believed; the United States, along with the rest of the world, would descend into a state of apocalyptic chaos once a worldwide depression replaced the current bubble economies. All governments would fail, as violent protests erupted. Bankrupt, the U.S. government would no longer make basic services available. Without funding, utility services, police and fire departments, and the military would cease to operate. Food would become scarce and the streets would fill with starving mobs. Desperate to survive, the law-abiding citizenry would resort to crime. Gun stores would be quickly cleaned out. Anarchy would reign.

  “Did you believe any of this?” I asked.

  “At first, no. I thought it was ridiculous. But Jeff made me read things on the Internet. ‘Thank god for the Internet,’ he’d say. So I read different articles, and there is a basic argument that Keynesian economic policies are not sustainable. From an accounting point of view, I understand the logic.”

&
nbsp; “But do you believe we’re headed for anarchy?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “I never believed that.”

  “Did that create any problems for you with Jeff?”

  When she didn’t respond I looked over and saw her palms pressed to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice faltering. “All this talking is making me tired. I’m going to close my eyes for a few minutes. Why don’t you turn on some music?”

  I found a light rock satellite station and turned the volume low. We were now heading east, away from the Sierras and into the desert. The two-lane highway split vast fields of sagebrush and was straight until the road merged with the sky. We were driving into an expanse where only a few tiny towns existed, relics of the silver or copper mining industries.

  I drove on for thirty minutes and didn’t see another vehicle. A spider-webbed pattern of white clouds stretched across the brilliant sky. In my rear view mirror, I could still see the Sierras, which were now under a dense shroud of storm clouds. Next to me, I didn’t know if Melanie was sleeping, but I saw no need to bother her. We still had six hours of drive time in front of us.

  When she spoke again, we had just passed the exit for Luning, a town with less than a hundred residents. “Three years ago, Jeff told me we needed to move,” she said, turning the radio off. “He said we’d have a ranch with cows and chickens and a water well and windmills. He said we needed to become self-sufficient, and that meant being able to survive on our own. ‘Imagine if there are no stores,’ is how he put it.”

  “So you moved to Cedar City?”

  “About ten miles north of the city. Jeff bought a twenty acre parcel and built our house.”

  She paused and seemed deep in thought. Then she said, “The goal was to be off the grid. Are you familiar with that?”

  “It usually means hiding from the law,” I said.

  “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. For us, it meant not relying on any public utility or institution. We had our own water supply, our own power, our own food source, our own health care. We also home-schooled Mia. That is how we lived.”

  “So, if the world went to hell, you’d be ready to survive.”

  “Prepared is the word. Prepared to survive. Jeff was determined to be prepared and protect his family. He felt that ninety-nine percent of the population was hopelessly oblivious and gullible. He referred to them as ‘sheeple.’ He said that when the day came, the sheeple would run around like fools, while we were prepared.”

  “Bizarre,” I said.

  “Is it? Do you believe everything the establishment tells you?”

  “You mean newspapers and television?”

  “Yes. The establishment, the mainstream mass media. Your local news channel or CNN, or the New York Times or USA Today. They’re all government and corporate mouth pieces, brainwashing the lemmings to make them feel that all is secure and stable.”

  “Is this your opinion? Or Jeff’s?”

  “He tried to convince me, and I went along with it. He thought he was doing what’s best.”

  “But you didn’t buy into the whole doomsday scenario.”

  “There are worse ways to live. And Jeff was always a good provider.”

  “He was still running his business while all this was going on?”

  “Oh, yes. Money was always important. It’s not cheap being prepared. Jeff worked constantly. He traveled all over for different jobs.”

  “And you spent most of your time at home?”

  “I almost never left. There was a lot of work to be done, way more than I could handle. We had over a hundred chickens and we were farming an acre, growing potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons, and more.”

  “Did you hire people to help?”

  “A couple times a week I’d bring in teenagers from town for various things.”

  “Do you think any of these kids might have been somehow involved in the attack at your home?”

  “Oh, no. I doubt it. I mean, that never occurred to me.”

  I noticed I was going over ninety and eased up on the gas. “Did Jeff have any disputes with his customers, or employees, or people he did business with?” I asked.

  “Well, sure,” Melanie said. “That’s unavoidable in business.”

  “Anything that stands out? Like someone seriously pissed off?”

  “Not really. There was one guy who worked for us who was kind of trashy. Jeff fired him and he got bent. That’s how Jeff put it.”

  “I should talk to him. Anybody else you can think of that Jeff might have had issues with?”

  “No, not really. Despite his views on the world, Jeff was a pretty normal guy. He didn’t have enemies or anything like that.”

  “Let’s talk about the gold. The perpetrators invaded your home specifically to rob you of gold. Is that correct?”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “I asked you before if there was gold at your house.”

  “And I told you, if there was, I didn’t know about it.”

  “But you said Jeff talked about gold, and didn’t believe in banks, right? So it seems plausible he had gold hidden on your property. Would it surprise you if that was the case?”

  “No, but even if Jeff had bought some, it couldn’t have been much,” she said.

  “But he never confided in you, huh?”

  “Nope.”

  “Melanie, how about helping me out here? You say you loved your husband, and you stuck by his side even though he uprooted your life. You also say you managed his books, so you know where your money was. But you’re just drawing a big blank on the gold question. We need to get to the bottom of that.”

  I could almost feel the air change in the space in which we sat. I believe the human body emanates certain wavelengths, invisible but real. The frequency and height of those waves is something we can intuit on a subconscious level. A happy person emits a certain profile range, while someone upset, discontent, angry, or nervous would project a very different range. As for Melanie, I could feel her vibe change, and it felt as if the air had grown denser.

  “You’re making me feel like I’m either stupid or a liar,” she said.

  “Are you lying?”

  “No, I’m not. And if you don’t trust me that’s your problem.”

  I clamped my jaw shut and stared out the windshield. I could feel her glare on my face. We were cutting through a plain so featureless it looked almost cosmic. The only sound was the hum of my tires on the pavement. I turned on the radio.

  Melanie reached out and switched it off with an angry flick of her wrist.

  “We were both busy, all right? I had a lot to manage at the house, and he worked his butt off. I trusted him and didn’t micro-manage his life. So yes, he could have had gold hidden away, but if it was more than a couple thousand dollars’ worth, he didn’t buy it with company money.”

  “Did he have any other income source?”

  “He sometimes did small side jobs, but it was only a thousand here or there.”

  “If he made a lot on a side job, would he hide it from you?”

  “Why would he?” she snapped.

  I saw a tiny speck on the horizon, and after a minute I could tell it was a car coming in the opposite lane. I looked over at Melanie.

  “You said Jeff was paranoid. Maybe he thought the gold would be safer if you didn’t know about it.”

  “What gold?” she screamed, thrusting her arms outward and jerking in her seat. “I don’t know that he had any!”

  I kept my eyes on the road and watched the approaching vehicle grow larger until it became a red sports car. Then it passed by in a flash, the high-pitched growl of its motor loud for an instant before the sound faded behind us.

  Melanie sighed and sunk back in her seat. “Listen, Jeff sometimes said things were best kept on a ‘need to know’ basis. But it always seemed he was kidding—I never thought he was serious about it.”

  “I see,” I said. I was tempted to ask if she eve
r suspected her husband was unfaithful. But when I looked over, she sniffled and wiped at a tear.

  “I’ll tell you everything I possibly can. I just…I just want to hold my daughter again.” The grieving, vulnerable Melanie was back. She put her hands between her legs and seemed to shrink into herself as if the burden she faced was more than she could bear.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes, until I said, “The men who invaded your house. A white man and a black man. Is there anything about them that hinted why they targeted you? Anything they said?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Are there many black men who live in Cedar City?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  I grunted and turned the radio back on. I didn’t yet know what to make of Melanie Jordan. My initial impression of her, that she was wholesome, sweet, and a defenseless victim, was fraying around the edges. I was having a hard time reconciling her two personas; the grieving, widowed parent, versus the dispassionate wife of a successful businessman who had turned into a paranoid nutcase.

  “Their voices,” Melanie said.

  “What about them?”

  “They were foreign, not American. They had accents.”

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing I recognized.”

  “Spanish? Indian? An Asian accent?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “British? French?”

  “No. For the white guy, maybe Eastern European is the only thing I can guess. The black man only said a sentence or two, and his accent was different, not like anything I’ve heard.”

  “Interesting,” I said, just as my phone beeped with a text message. I took a quick glance and saw it was from Cody Gibbons. We were now climbing a slight grade and there were a few bends in the road. As soon as the road straightened, I read the text: Referred you a job. As usual, you owe me.

  I shook my head. Cody had been my best friend since high school. After he was fired from San Jose PD, he got an investigator’s license, and we’d worked a number of cases together. I’d once told Candi that Cody’s approach to crime solving sometimes skirted legal convention. That was as politely as I could put it. If I were in a more forthright mood, I might have said his methods were often illegal and invited violent confrontation. In almost every instance, working with him made me question my career choice.