As the detective prepared to leave the office that day, he was told that Amber and Scott were speaking on the phone. Scott was telling Amber to let her know that he had scheduled a polygraph exam. He wanted her to meet him at the polygrapher’s office at eleven o’clock the following morning. Replaying Scott’s calls, Grogan learned that Scott had actually made the appointment for nine o’clock. Yet Amber believed that she was going to accompany Scott to the test, and called police to ask if an undercover officer could escort her there. The police later instructed Amber not to meet him at the office. No undercover operation was planned.
In a follow-up call, Scott asked Amber if she believed their relationship would continue. He saw no reason to take the polygraph if she saw no possibility of the two of them going forward together. He explained that he was taking a risk by agreeing to the test because if the media learned of his intent to take one, it would be “bad.”
The two got into an argument when Amber asked Scott to use her name during the examination. He insisted on replacing it with another name. He was worried that the polygrapher would go to the media with the results of the test if he realized who his client was.
Scott next advised Amber to take precautions so that she wasn’t followed to the office the next day. He also told her that he’d been thinking about her, and that he was nervous about their meeting.
The following morning was February 1. Just before nine o’clock, Scott dialed Amber and asked her to meet him in thirty minutes.
“Are you kidding?” Amber asked.
“It’s real close to you,” Scott her.
Amber asked if Scott was just now contacting the polygrapher. He said yes, then gave her directions to Expert Polygraph Services, on the corner of Palm and Browning Streets, and told her the examiner would meet them in the lobby. When Scott declined to reveal the polygrapher’s name, the two started arguing again.
Amber asked if he would be there whether or not she came.
“I will be waiting there at nine thirty. I hope to see you there,” he told her.
It’s unclear whether Detective Brocchini acted on his own when he decided to stake out the location that morning. What is clear is that he parked a discreet distance away from the polygrapher’s office, in a school parking lot about two hundred yards away. He was hidden among eight other cars.
Yet just after 9:30, Scott came up to his unmarked car and startled him. “While watching the intersection, I saw someone walking up toward the back of my vehicle,” Brocchini wrote in a report. “I looked in my mirror and noticed it was Scott Peterson. Peterson was wearing blue sweatpants and a blue sweatshirt, and he was holding a spiral notebook. I immediately exited my vehicle and walked towards Peterson.”
“I wanted to thank you for going to America’s Most Wanted and answering the phones,” Scott said.
Brocchini thought it odd that Scott did not ask how he found out about the test. “It’s too bad you want to take a polygraph in private,” the detective replied.
Scott told him that it was “not appropriate” for him to take one with the police, then turned and walked away. He entered the office complex and then emerged ten minutes later. As he was walking back toward his truck, Brocchini drove over to him and parked behind his vehicle.
“Scott,” the detective yelled. “Is it true that Kirk McAllister fired you as a client?”
“That’s news to me.”
Brocchini told him that Gloria Gomez, a local reporter, had re-ported from outside McAllister’s office last night that he had been fired.
“You mean the news reported it?” Scott replied.
“Yes.”
Scott was silent.
Brocchini told Scott he had a lot of “explaining to do.”
“You don’t know, I just stop on the side of the road and break down for no apparent reason,” Scott said. “I just really miss Laci.”
Brocchini told Scott he “did not act like someone who missed his pregnant wife.” As Scott walked away, he yelled after him that he had some explaining to do about “the other girlfriends I identified.”
“Right, other girlfriends,” Scott mumbled.
Brocchini said that he had a photo of Scott with another woman, but Scott ignored the statement. Instead he climbed into his truck and got on his cell phone. According to Brocchini, Scott remained “calm and emotionless” throughout the confrontation.
As he pulled out of the parking lot, Scott was dialing Amber Frey’s number, ready to accuse her of telling police about the polygraph.
Amber didn’t pick up his call, but a few minutes later she called him back. When he told her he’d found Detective Brocchini in the parking lot, she was nonplussed. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
Scott said he was heartbroken. He had “totally” trusted her, but now she couldn’t be trusted. He’d given her the name and the place, and Brocchini showed up. “What does that say?” he demanded.
Amber insisted she hadn’t spoken to Brocchini in weeks.
“Well, then how did he end up there?” Scott broke down in tears.
Amber said she’d nothing to do with it.
Scott admitted that he had done a terrible thing by lying to her, and now he knew how it must have felt.
Amber asked Scott if he intended to follow through with a test.
Scott said he’d still take one, as long as she met him there, and insisted that he had taken a “big risk” in going to the polygrapher’s office.
Amber said she would feel safest with Scott taking the polygraph at the police department.
“That’s not even an option,” he told her.
“What did you tell the polygrapher?”
Scott said he paid him three hundred dollars and explained the situation.
“Can I call him?”
Scott gave her Melvin King’s telephone number.
As the two argued, Jackie Peterson was anxiously leaving a mes-sage asking Scott if Kirk McAllister had really dropped him as a client.
A short time after the parking lot encounter, Detective Brocchini arrived at Amber’s home to find her in her pajamas chatting on the phone with him. Once the two hung up, he discouraged her from having any further contact with Scott, explaining that it could be “detrimental” to the case.
Amber handed over more audiotapes to Brocchini, along with the recording of their conversation just after Scott discovered Brocchini in the parking lot. Brocchini reported that the tape captured Scott “acting” like he was crying. “Peterson encouraged Amber to meet him ’anywhere, anytime, in any public place as long as the po-lice were not involved,’” Brocchini wrote. “Frey asked Peterson why he did not want to be with law enforcement and Peterson said law enforcement had ’systematically lied to his family and Laci’s family’ and we were trying to say he was involved in the case.”
Later that day, without immediately identifying himself as a police officer, Brocchini contacted Melvin King. Through a series of questions, he learned that the polygraphs King performs are completely confidential.
“When I asked if he was served with an FBI subpoena would he turn over records of polygraphs, … King said there is no requirement for him to keep records and it is not unusual for his polygraph records to be destroyed,” Brocchini wrote. “King’s answers indicated he was willing to work with someone regarding a confidential polygraph.”
Once Brocchini identified himself as a police officer, King revealed that he was a retired lieutenant for the Fresno Police Department. A thirty-five year law enforcement veteran, King had been conducting polygraphs for twenty-eight years.
In response to questions, King said that he didn’t know the identity of the man who was scheduled to take a polygraph that morning, and that the man had canceled the exam after his girlfriend refused to go with him. King said that Scott had been told that he needed to bring someone with him to the polygraph, and that otherwise the test would be of little value, “as the result had to matter to someone in order to add pressur
e to the exam.”
King also said that he’d received two calls from a woman asking whether the person who had an appointment that morning had completed the test. Citing confidentiality, King had declined to answer her questions. This contradicts the account Amber recalls in her re-cent book. According to her, she asked King, “Is Scott Peterson scheduled to come in for a polygraph?” and King answered, “Yes. He said he was just waiting to hear from the person who would be coming with him.”
In any event, King told Brocchini that he would not polygraph Scott Peterson. He later advised Scott to take the test with law enforcement. He told Scott how Congressman Gary Condit had taken a private polygraph test after the disappearance of Chandra Levy in 2001, and how useless the test had been in proving his innocence.
“Peterson never told King why he didn’t want to take a police polygraph,” Brocchini wrote.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
FEBRUARY 2003
In Modesto, detectives continued refining their profile of Scott. After profiler Sharon Hagan identified Scott as a “narcissist,” po-lice psychiatrist Phil Trumpeter met with investigators at police headquarters to offer guidance on how best to interview Scott and the people close to him.
At no time did the members of law enforcement officially label Scott a sociopath. But narcissism is a major trait of sociopathy; such individuals care for no one but themselves, tending to their personal needs and desires to the exclusion of all else. Egocentric and selfish, the sociopath exhibits an absence of conscience, an ability to lie at will with no guilt or remorse. The sociopath often has a flat affect, displaying none of the emotions a normal human being would in the same circumstances—for the sociopath simply doesn’t feel the same things others do.
Though it would still be several weeks before the case was publicly classified as a homicide, after hearing Sharon Hagan’s interpretation of the evidence, the Modesto police were confirmed in their conviction that Scott was the leading suspect in the murder of his wife. The investigators believed that the motive might have stemmed from one or more factors that were converging in Scott’s life: his failing business; the pressure of becoming a parent when he did not re-ally want a child; his wife’s “expensive” tastes and high expectations, including her desire for a new car and a new home; and, of course, Scott’s relationship with Amber Frey.
The absence of evidence at the Peterson house suggested that Laci was the victim of what is termed a “soft kill,” a death from strangulation, poisoning, or suffocation, which might not leave be-hind a great deal of blood or other forensic material. The two drops of blood present on the couple’s duvet cover suggested that Laci might have been killed on the bed; the fact that Scott had no signifi-cant injuries, aside from a scuffed knuckle, led police to suspect that Laci did little to defend herself. She “may have been drugged prior to suffocation or poisoning or otherwise incapacitated without a struggle,” officials speculated in one internal report.
The detectives believed that after killing Laci in the bedroom, Scott had wrapped her body in a tarp inside the house, then dragged her out through the back door, wadding up the throw rug in the process. It was likely Scott—not Laci, as he later claimed—who had mopped the floor on the day of her disappearance. Scott was later observed vacuuming around the couch, coffee table, and washer and dryer, possibly attempting to rid the home of potential evidence. Scott admitted to placing umbrellas wrapped in a tarp in the back of his truck at 9:30 on Christmas Eve morning. They theorized that he loaded Laci’s tarp-encased body into the truck and then transported it to the warehouse after releasing McKenzie with his leash attached.
Once he reached the warehouse, police believed that Scott had attached homemade anchors to Laci’s body, and that he may also have wrapped her body in chicken wire and plastic wrap—both of which were found in the warehouse during the search. He may have replaced the boat cover on the Gamefisher after putting Laci’s body-inside. Police believed he then drove to the San Francisco Bay, where he dumped her weighted body.
Scott told police that several people had observed him attempting to back the boat down the ramp at the marina. While no such witnesses were ever located, the fear that he’d been sighted may have explained why Scott had changed his alibi from golfing to fishing near Brooks Island.
It seemed apparent that Scott didn’t want anyone to know about his boat. In another change from his normal behavior, he also stopped using his cell phone after 10:06 A.M., including the entire time he was at the bay. He did not make a single call until after he was convinced witnesses saw him around the marina. When Scott learned of a planned bloodhound search, he moved the boat cover to a shed in the rear of his home. There he placed a leaking, gasoline-powered leaf blower on top of the tarp, which would obliterate any other odors. As police noted, there was no sign that Scott was other-wise careless with his equipment. This looked like a deliberate act.
With their working theory in place, detectives on F Street began preparing a case for the district attorney. By mid-month, how-ever, it became clear that they needed more evidence. The police did not have a body; nor was there sufficient physical evidence to link Scott to the crime. DNA evidence collected during the search warrant had not yet returned any results. The case, thus far, was entirely circumstantial.
At headquarters, Grogan was investigating the possibility that Scott had intended to flee the country. On February 1, Scott’s employee Rob Weaver alerted investigators that his boss had just advised him to “pack his bags,” telling him that they were flying to Guadalajara in two days.
A surveillance team had followed Scott (with McKenzie in tow) to his parents’ home in San Diego. During the surveillance operation, police again planted a tracking device on Scott’s vehicle. They learned that he was scheduled to depart from LAX International Air-port on February 3, on a United Airlines flight to Guadalajara, and Weaver was expected to meet him at the airport and join him on the flight. Weaver promised to contact police if it became apparent that Scott didn’t intend to return to the States.
Before Scott was scheduled to depart, he called polygrapher Melvin King to ask if anyone had inquired about the February 1 appointment he had cancelled. King advised Scott that a woman had phoned but did not identify herself. In a second call to King, Scott explained that he had encountered an undesirable third party in the parking lot just before the meeting. King, in turn, informed Scott that a detective from the Modesto Police Department had phoned and wanted to know what was going on. The rest of the call was lost.
Later that day, Scott spoke with Amber. After speaking with King, she said, she would be willing to reschedule the examination for another day. She also told Scott about a surprise phone call she’d received from Al Brocchini, offering to accompany her to the appointment with Scott.
“It’s not a possibility,” Scott replied. “I will meet you anywhere [but not] with the police, especially Al Brocchini.”
Amber said she wanted to do the polygraph where she felt protected and safe because he had been so dishonest with her.
“Then there is no future between us,” Scott said. “That kills me, but that is a decision you will have to make.”
By now, accusations of bad faith were volleying back and forth between Scott and Amber on a regular basis. In a later conversation, Scott complained to Amber that the cops had lied to his family, friends, and “everyone else.”
“It’s not like you’ve been honest,” Amber retorted.
As if to defend himself, Scott insisted she was the only person he’d ever lied to.
There was one thing he wasn’t lying about, though. Though the agents had been deeply suspicious of Scott’s plans to travel to Mexico—watching as he boarded the plane and monitoring his calls while he was in Mexico—once he arrived they may have been surprised to discover that he was, in fact, conducting business there.
Scott Peterson, it seemed, would be returning to Modesto after all.
Deputy District Attorney Rick DiStaso met Amber
Frey for the first time at the Modesto police headquarters in mid-February, where they spent much of the time discussing Scott. Amber also ex-pressed an interest in being interviewed by TV news personality Connie Chung, saying that she was upset at the way she was being portrayed in the media. She was told that no one could prevent her from giving an interview, but she was cautioned not to release any in-formation about the case when speaking to reporters. Amber later phoned Sharon Rocha to get her feedback; ultimately, she would decide against granting an interview to Chung or anyone else until the case was resolved.
Throughout the month, Detective Grogan found Sharon Rocha a consistent source of important information. At one meeting, while the two were watching a crime scene video from December 26, Grogan asked Sharon to look for anything that appeared to be misplaced, reorganized, or missing. She pointed to a pair of men’s tennis shoes near the French doors, the usual entrance to the home from the back yard. The sneakers, she assumed, belonged to Scott; normally, she said, Laci kept a pair of shoes there, too. Sharon also noticed that her daughter’s pocketbook, which had been hanging in the closet, was now hanging on a hat rack in the dining room area.
Sharon also reviewed the events of Christmas Eve with Detective Grogan. In hindsight, she found it telling that Scott wasn’t alarmed when he first returned home to find McKenzie still wearing his leash and Laci’s car parked in the driveway. Scott’s claim that he didn’t grow worried until after he showered and dressed for dinner made no sense to her. Her daughter was a “communicator,” she said; Laci would have left a message on Scott’s cell phone, or a note for him at home, if she’d gone out for some reason.
Laci’s mother also told Grogan that Scott had left it up to her and Ron to call the police that night. Indeed, Scott never once suggested that the police should get involved. He didn’t even know that Grantski had called the police until the officers arrived in the park that evening.
A Deadly Game Page 32