Too Big to Die

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  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.

  eighteen

  I followed Doris through a formal living room to a great room that took up most of the back of the home. The huge area was sectioned off by tasteful furniture into a family room and informal dining area. To the far right was a long counter with tall stools that divided the dining area from the kitchen. The entire back wall of all three sections was made up of French doors leading to a patio and a pool area surrounded by grass. Along the back and side stone walls tall shrubs provided more privacy. The lot wasn’t that big, but good use had been made of it. The dogs had followed us to the back of the house and were now curled up together on a large doggie bed.

  I had been right about her working out right before I arrived. On a huge TV screen a yoga video was set on pause and a yoga mat was laid out on the floor in front of it. “I’m sorry I disturbed your workout,” I told Doris.

  She waved off my comment as nothing. “It was almost over anyway.”

  She directed me to a U-shaped sofa. I took a seat on one of the short extensions and she took a seat to my left on the middle section. She grabbed a bottle of water that was set on the coffee table and took a long drink. She offered me nothing. After a second long drink, she said in a voice that chilled me to the bone, “Did he send you?”

  “You think Jordon sent me here?” I asked, surprised.

  “Well, that’s a possibility I hadn’t considered,” she said, “but it hardly looks from that photo that Jordon has the capacity to do something like that.”

  I prickled at the way she was putting down Jordon. I’d only met him, but she was his mother. Yet I was his only advocate in the room. The near tears of a few minutes ago were gone, turned off as easily as a faucet. Was Doris Hoffman really that cold? “As I told you, your son is hardly a vegetable. He has limitations, but his brain functions quite well.”

  She got up from the sofa and went to a wall unit I hadn’t noticed before. On it were books and knickknacks and bushels of photos in frames. She plucked out two photos and brought them back to the sofa. She held them out to me. I put my phone on the coffee table and took the photos. In one were three children—a teenage boy and two toddlers, a boy and a girl. The second photo was an action shot of the teen running down a grassy field in pursuit of a soccer ball.

  Doris sat back down. “That’s my son. Jordon was smart and funny. A sweet kid with a bright future. He was on his way to UCLA on a soccer scholarship.”

  “Your other two children are much younger,” I observed. “Were they from a different marriage?”

  She shook her head. “No. When I had Jordon I had a hard time with the
delivery. The doctor said the odds of me getting pregnant again were almost nil. When Jordon was twelve, my husband and I got a big surprise: I became pregnant with twins. Once we got over the shock, we were delirious with joy. Even Jordon was excited. Just months after this photo was taken,” she tapped the one with the three kids, “my husband suffered a heart attack and died. He’d hardly been sick a day in his life, but one day on the golf course he dropped dead, leaving me with a teen and two kids barely out of diapers.”

  I felt tears welling in my eyes. It was a tragic story. Not that uncommon either. People in their prime often had heart attacks with no warning, usually caused by a defect they never even knew they had. “I’m terribly sorry,” I said to Doris, meaning it. “Truly sorry. And then a few years later to have Jordon cut down. It must have almost killed you.”

  “Honestly, I thought I was in hell when Jack died, but to lose Jordon was the real hell.” She reached out and lightly touched the soccer photo. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t lose Jordon, but I didn’t think she needed reminding at that moment. “A hell that still continues,” she added. “I told the young ones that Jordon had died. They were so young when it happened that there was no need to have a fake funeral or anything. It’s what they believe to this day.” She smiled and now touched the photo with the three of them. “George is in law school up north. Marissa moved to London last year to take a job in fashion marketing. I’m very proud of them both.”

  I was realizing that Doris Hoffman would have nothing to tell me that could help me. She was a grieving mother, perhaps even trapped by guilt. My Spidey sense had been off. Maybe the heat had warped it or maybe the stress of not having my job had tipped it off balance. But I didn’t want to get up and leave. Something held me to the sofa.

  “Who was the he you thought had sent me, if not Jordon?”

  She looked at me funny, then quickly looked down. “I don’t recall asking that.”

  “You specifically asked if he sent me,” I told her. “I thought at first you meant Jordon, but now I know you didn’t. Who is the he you thought sent me?”

  Instead of answering, she picked up my phone. The screen had gone dark and the phone had locked as part of its security system. “May I see the photo of Jordon again?” she asked.

  I took my phone and unlocked the screen using my thumbprint. It instantly lit up. I opened Jordon’s photo and gave Doris the phone. She studied the photo. “He still has the same warm eyes.” There was a catch in her voice.

  Before I could stop her, she turned off the phone. I was worried she was going to destroy it, but she didn’t. She just turned it off and held on to it. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Give me my phone back.”

  “I had to make sure it was off,” she said, still clutching it. “I needed to make sure you’re not recording this. Who knows, maybe you’re a reporter, and all that about you and your husband is BS. He warned me that someone might start snooping around and connect us. I guess he got some bad press recently, and that always stirs up his enemies—and here you are, right on cue.”

  “Who is he?” I asked in frustration.

  “The man who put Jordon in that wheelchair, that’s who he is.”

  My mind was reeling. “Wait a minute,” I said, both of my hands raised in “stop” mode. “I was told Jordon was injured in a DUI accident. I assumed he’d been drinking. You know, a crazy kid out with his friends.”

  “Jordon never drank,” Doris said, getting defensive. “He was hit by a drunk driver.”

  I fell back against the sofa, a hand slapped against my mouth in surprise. “That’s why the trust, isn’t it?” I asked when I found my voice. “He’s being supported by the settlement from the accident when you sued the driver of the other car.”

  “We didn’t sue. It never went to court, and the police reports say that Jordon was at fault. He saw to that. It was all done behind closed doors in private.” Her lower lip trembled. “He told me if Jordon shouldered the blame and we took the settlement—which was astronomical—and didn’t drag him into court or the news, he’d make sure Jordon was cared for until he died, and that I would be supported until I died.” She looked me in the eye. “If we didn’t take the deal, he said we’d end up with nothing. He said he’d make sure of that. I believed the bastard. I still believe he’d ruin us if he felt the need.”

  Tears started running down her cheeks. She picked up the towel she’d dropped on the coffee table and dabbed at her face. I wanted to reach out to her, to give her comfort, but didn’t get the feeling it would be welcome.

  “I sold my son, Odelia. I sold the light of my life for a life of comfort for the rest of us. That’s why I can’t bear to visit him. I live with enough guilt without seeing it in the flesh.” She looked up at me again and I saw that her grief was real and as deep as a cavern. This woman had been suffering a long time in silence. I wondered if I was the first person to hear this story.

  “But what could I do?” she continued. “I was a widow working a dead-end job to support three children. Jack owned his own small business, but when he died I found out he’d gotten us deep in debt trying to keep it afloat. We lost everything. When Jordon was in that accident, I knew he’d never be the same boy he’d once been and that his future was gone. So I traded doing the right thing for doing what I felt was best for my other two children.”

  “Did your second husband know about this?” I asked.

  She gently blew her nose into the towel. “No, he knew nothing about it. I told him the money came from the accident and my first husband’s insurance. When we married, I insisted on a prenup and I kept the funds separate, saying it was for my children’s future. Dave Hoffman is a sweet guy and understood.” She snorted softly. “Too sweet for the likes of me. I was bored and withdrawn, and he was frustrated trying to make me happy. After two years of marriage, we went our separate ways. He remarried shortly after I moved back here with Marissa and George. We don’t keep in touch at all.”

  “So who is this guy who hit Jordon?” I asked. It had to be someone in the public eye, a politician maybe.

  “I can’t tell you that, Odelia. If I do, it will all go away, including Jordon’s support. And I can’t destroy the life I built for the other children. They can never know I lied to them.”

  “Don’t you think they’ll find out one day? Things like this have a way of leaking out.”

  She glared at me. “So you do intend to cause trouble?”

  “I intend to cause no trouble,” I assured her. “Like I said, some things happened to my husband and me this past weekend that led me to Jordon and to you. What you’re telling me doesn’t appear to have anything to do with our problem.”

  Doris took another drink of water. I was as parched as sand, but still she didn’t offer me a drop. After she swallowed her water, she said, “What’s this about some woman claiming Jordon is the father of her child? They told me he’s totally paralyzed.”

  “We’re not sure,” I told her. “But we think some college girl who used to work at Bayview put his name down on the birth certificate.”

  Again Doris snorted. “She must be a gold digger after the money he lives on.”

  “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “The child would have been born over twenty-five years ago, and she’s not made a single claim on Jordon in all this time.”

  “And what does that have to do with you?” Doris narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Well,” I began, deciding to tell her a partial truth, “we think the child might be my husband’s. The mother is someone he dated about the same time that she worked at Bayview. The mother of the child recently passed and we want to reach out to the girl, who we know is still local, but that’s about it. I went to Bayside hoping to find out more.”

  “Interesting,” Doris said, her guilt replaced by curiosity. “Most women would tell their husbands to forget about it—that he dodged a m
ajor bullet.” Another soft snort of laughter. “Unless you intend to give this love child a poisoned apple.”

  I didn’t find the reference to Snow White at all funny, especially with me in the role of the wicked stepmother. “Nothing of the kind,” I said, getting to my feet.

  I was dying of thirst and needed to pee, but I didn’t think my request to use the guest bathroom would be met with courtesy. Doris Hoffman was on the edge, careening between hate, guilt, and paranoia like an Olympic bobsled bumping along on an icy run.

  “If you’ll give me my phone, I’ll be on my way.” I held out my hand for the phone. “I’m meeting a friend shortly. I need to call her.”

  She handed me the phone, and I put it into my bag. At the same time I pulled a card out and gave it to her as we walked to the front door. She opened the door for me as she glanced down at my card. I had one foot outside on the landing, one foot still at the threshold, when her eyes shot up from the card to my face.

  “How dare you!” she yelled at me. “He did send you, didn’t he? He’s checking up on me, making sure I behave. Is he trying to get out of paying for what he did to my son? Trying to see if I would break the confidentiality agreement so he can stop the checks? Well, he’ll have a fight on his hands, believe me.” My ears were ringing with her shrieking.

  “What do you mean, Doris?” I asked, surprised by her attack. “No one sent me. I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Then how did you find me if not through him?” Before I could respond, she screamed, “Get out of here!” She followed it up with a hefty shove, her palms squarely against my chest, just above my breasts.