Two large wrenches had been taken from the Datsun. A vise had been found in the hatchback section, wrapped in white plastic right next to the toolbox that had the guns inside.
And here on this list was this bizarre little entry, tucked in among all these other daily chores. The only date on the page was a reference to one of the renters’ starting on June 3, 1987, so the list had been drawn up sometime during the seven weeks preceding the crimes.
“So,” Craig muttered, “go out and buy a piece of bar stock and bend it into a right angle and sharpen the long end to a point to use in murdering your wife and daughter in such a fashion that it will look like they died in a fiery auto accident. Oh, and don’t forget: a renter is coming over at four-thirty.”
And if this drawing was not the cutter bar found rigged under the car by the gas tank, then what was it? What harmless thing could it be? What innocent thing is described by drawing a large, hollow, sharp-pointed L—followed by the word stock?
By now Richman’s heart had started pounding. He snatched another handful of papers from the box and began going down each list. Still, most of them were nothing.
June 7, “Air pump from Datsun,” scratched out, “rope,” not scratched out. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the rope he needed on June 7.
June 8, “Buy battery, 9 volt,” scratched out, followed by two more lists on the same page, all for plain daily chores at the rental properties.
But here was one, labeled “To Do 5/14/87,” and the very first item was “Call about window tint.” Richman already knew that Peernock had taken the Cadillac in to have the windows tinted early in June, less than a month after this notation was made. But Peernock claimed that he rarely drove the car at that time. His girlfriend, Sonia Siegel, confirmed that he had nearly stopped driving it altogether. So why tint the windows? Besides, tinting makes it harder to see out at night.
And harder to see in.
But the other items on that list were just chores, right down to the last entry, an odd little item labeled number eight, “Take care of Foothill.” It was the last item on that page. It had not been scratched out. Peernock claimed in his pretrial hearings to have been engaged in struggles with the Foothill police over something or other concerning his ongoing whistleblower activities. So as of May 14 he had apparently not taken care of Foothill yet. But the wreck had been staged inside the Police Department’s Foothill Division.
Richman was tearing through the box now, scanning each page quickly, rejecting most of them as meaningless, and setting them aside before picking up another and still another. Check the sprinklers. Check the car. Cheek this. Check that.
Here was an odd one: “Find Loc.”
Location? Craig wondered. Find location? The item was not scratched out. It dated all the way back to December 1, 1986, a short time after Claire had seen Victoria Doom about the divorce. Peernock needed a location on that day and he had not scratched it out. Also on that page was “Empty car,” and “Buy Liq.” followed by a number 2 inside a small circle. Buy two bottles of liquor? Peernock didn’t drink and everyone confirmed that Claire never touched hard liquor. Since Peernock did not seem to have any friends, for whom would he buy two bottles of liquor, without bothering to note what kind or what brand?
That is, unless he needed a bottle of hard stuff, any kind of hard stuff, to force-feed the women. And maybe a second bottle to leave next to Claire’s body in the staged car wreck?
Of course, that would have to take place after carefully pressing her fingers against it to leave prints on the bottle. And yet it seemed he had forgotten to press her fingers to the steering wheel; the controls of the car she had supposedly been driving showed no trace of ever having been touched by her.
Craig Richman hadn’t left his chair, but he had broken a sweat. He wouldn’t need an aerobic pump today; his heart rate was right up there in the target zone.
And there now, on the same December page, set inside a little hand-drawn box, was a sublist of seven numbered entries. To the right of that box were the abbreviated words “Bar thick 2 R. & Sq.” Peernock’s car had indeed been fitted with a thick bar that had been turned at nearly a right angle, squared off to the flat side of the bar. But this item was written six months before the June 3 list that had the L-shaped drawing. This earlier list didn’t have such a drawing anywhere on it, just the item. Maybe Peernock hadn’t perfected the design, back in December?
But it was the seven numbered entries on the left side that really jumped up off of the page. Written in terse abbreviations, the seven items looked confusing.
H.C.
Cl’s Pur
Keys
W. Bott.s
Rags & Tissues
Liq
F.M.
At first the abbreviations made no sense. Then they began to translate themselves—
Within moments the items unfolded before Craig Richman’s eyes.
Number two. Claire’s purse? Peernock didn’t live with Claire, they barely communicated. What did he need with Claire’s purse? What else could this be? Richman asked himself. What harmless list of things would this be?
“My God,” Richman muttered out loud. It had to be a “To-Do” list to murder Claire. Peernock had drawn up this list, working out the details, seven months before he actually did the deeds.
ONE, handcuffs, TWO, Claire’s purse, THREE, don’t forget the extra keys, FOUR, water bottles to clean up with, FIVE, rags and tissues to wipe off with and for the fire in the trunk, SIX, liquor to pour into her and to leave in the car, SEVEN, either remember to set the car radio on FM, the way Claire would set it if she were really driving the car. Or maybe—
Don’t forget the face mask.
He shuffled through more lists. Page after page. Here was another: “Flashlight,” for obvious reasons, then “Rope & G”—rope and gas? “Tire replacement”—after removing the murder kit from the trunk at the scene? “Lq in Bot.”—liquor in bottle? Peernock didn’t drink. “Wat. in bot & rags,” water and rags to clean himself up before leaving the dark location?
Beneath that was the underlined heading “Bag,” followed by the familiar “H.C.” and “F.M.” and also by “Rope” and “Gloves” and “Matches” and the note to “Put spark plugs in Cad.”
Yeah, right, Richman thought to himself. You certainly don’t want the car you don’t drive to be futzing out on you when you send it speeding for the concrete wall.
On the same page was a separate section with the notations “W. in backseat + Ch. + cover.” Wife in backseat, plus child, plus cover. If not that, then what? What harmless thing could it be, other than an idea to cover the kidnapped women with something so passing cars wouldn’t see? Also “Bott liq & water & rags,” obvious again.
And then came the most chilling notation so far:
“Test str. to what speed.” Test straight to what speed? Got to make sure the car you don’t drive goes straight at high speeds. Even if no one is holding the wheel. Straight all the way to the wall, assuming that by now Peernock knew about the wall—because this list had no date, but it also had no reminder to “Find Loc.” as there had been on several other lists throughout the seven-month period.
By the time Peernock had made the notation of “test str. to what speed,” he was apparently no longer concerned that he needed to “Find Loc.” The lists covered seven months of time and many of the more incriminating notations had been made over and over. Find location, find location, find location. It seemed that by the time he’d drawn up this one he had already found his location. That meant that by this time he knew about the wall.
Then all he would have to do is “test str. to what speed.”
And finally, there at the bottom of the page, Craig Richman found the last list he would need. It consisted of nine items in all, sprinkled in with other routine chores that any landlord might perform, mixed in with perfectly understandable and harmless activities. The list began with the reminder to “move seat up.” To hold Claire’s body in
place? Richman felt as if he was gazing into some madman’s crystal ball, watching the carefully crafted crimes being rehearsed.
Then came the reminder “pur.” Wouldn’t want to forget to throw her purse in, as the purse indeed had been, to make it look as if she were really driving.
Then came the notation “keys,” followed by a couple of unreadable scribbles.
Next was the reminder to “pull wires.” The paramedics testified that light was a problem inside the car. The dome light was off even though the door was open. It seems that the reminder had worked and he had remembered to pull the wires.
The bottom notation was the reminder “plastic bag for rope and wire.” Right, he thought grimly. Wouldn’t want to put bloody equipment inside the getaway car.
Last of all, at the right of the page directly next to this final list, was a single notation “home contracts.”
Natasha had testified several times that her father had told her, before Claire had arrived at home, that he was going to force her to sign papers. Craig had already recovered a scrap of paper written out in draft form in Peernock’s handwriting, which said, “In lieu of anything, I accept $2,000 dollars.” It had a hand-drawn signature line. Robert had printed Claire Peernock’s name underneath the signature line.
But Claire had never signed it. Did she, Richman wondered, have that piece of paper waved under her face just before Natasha, lying bound in her mother’s bedroom, heard the sound of bodies falling to the floor like little girls turning cartwheels indoors on a rainy day?
Richman knew that even though the courts won’t allow a witness to testify to her gut feelings, Natasha was convinced that the loud thuds on the floor were the result of Claire’s refusal to sign whatever contract Robert had handed her.
Craig Richman was holding, right here in his hands, a road map of progress showing the twisted journey Peernock had walked as he pursued the idea of slaughtering his family. Over the months that Robert Peernock had been compiling these lists, he had met with his family women, spoken with them, looked into their eyes, while planning their fiery deaths.
When the ominous items were culled from the harmless reminders and translated from their abbreviations, they formed an arm of incrimination that swung toward Robert Peernock as plainly as a compass needle showing magnetic north.
Check underneath car
Call about window tint
Check straight to what speed
Wife in backseat, plus child plus cover
Liquor bottles
Water bottles
Rags and tissues
Move seat up
Claire’s purse
Handcuffs
Keys
Face Mask
Find Location
Find Location
Find Location
Get statement straight.
Craig Richman finally stood up from the table in the deserted office building, his mouth dry as parchment. He hurried to the nearest phone and dialed Steve Fisk’s home number.
“Steve, Craig Richman. You’re brilliant. Do you know that?”
“Wow. Thanks. You called at this hour to tell me that?”
“No. I called at this hour to tell you that a lot of other detectives would have decided that Peernock’s car was full of bits of scrap paper that weren’t worth anything and they would have let the papers get pitched out.”
“You finally get around to going through that stuff?”
“Ohhh, yeah.”
“What’ve you got?”
“Lists. The guy was writing little reminder lists, over and over, for seven months! There are about ten of them, but they’re all part of the same thing. The same list.
“Steve, it’s a checklist for murder.”
When Craig Richman finally hung up the phone, it wasn’t just the telephone receiver that he felt dropping into place. It was all of the pieces of the giant puzzle cube, dropping into all of the proper spots.
The way they do when the puzzle finally gets just the right twist.
CHAPTER
26
The fireworks began on the first day of trial. Before Judge Schwab allowed the jury to come in for the first time, Robert tried to fire Green and go in pro per as his own attorney. He had already been given this opportunity during the pretrial phase but had turned it down. Now Judge Schwab dismissed his motion as a stalling tactic. He cited the fact that trial was already beginning and emphasized Peernock’s prior outrageous behavior in court as proof that he was either unable or unwilling to conform to court standards of behavior. When Robert’s motion to defend himself was denied he blew up once again and was finally dragged out and put in the lockup next to the courtroom.
The jury had not even been called in yet.
There was a pause in the courtroom as Donald Green excused himself and visited Robert in the lockup. Green’s shouting was so loud that his muffled voice could be heard inside the court. But a few minutes later Robert was escorted back in, subdued and somehow persuaded to remain calm.
Judge Schwab called for the jury to be buzzed in from the jury room and the trial of Robert John Peernock formally began.
In his opening remarks, Donald Green called allegations against his client a “Grand Illusion” consisting of unprovable accusations against a man who simply could not be placed at the crime scene by the prosecution. He promised the jury that they would soon see that despite the theory of guilt against his client, there was no proof. There would be plenty of that golden commodity, reasonable doubt.
But then Craig Richman began. The experts came again as they had for the preliminary hearing years before. The paramedics, the doctors, the coroner, the evidence technicians. Piece by piece, the story was laid out for a jury who were hearing it all for the first time.
This time the new addition to the witness list was Sonia Siegel. At the time of the preliminary hearing she had still been convinced that Robert was innocent and had been embroiled in legal troubles of her own, facing charges of conspiracy in the crime. By now the authorities had concluded that she’d had nothing to do with the Peernock crimes but had been a silent victim that night. They believed that her love had been prevailed upon as a source of alibi and her trust manipulated to provide Peernock with an accomplice during his flight from arrest.
She was now a principal witness against him.
Sonia explained that it had been Detective Castro who had called her with the bad news on the day after the murder and asked her to have Robert contact the police—not Detective Fisk, as Peernock had claimed in his postarrest statements. Peernock had insisted it was Fisk who’d been on the phone during that call to Sonia’s house and that Fisk had promised to frame Robert, saying, “This time we’ll make it stick.” She confirmed that in the years she and Robert had lived together he had never once stayed at Claire’s house unless he was there with his youngest daughter. But he had left the little girl at Soma’s house that night.
She went through the checklist for murder with Craig Richman and sadly agreed that despite all of the many lists she had seen Robert make, she could offer no innocent explanations for what those ominous items might be.
Sonia’s most poignant moment came when Craig Richman showed her a doctor’s form that Robert had filled out for the plastic surgeon in Las Vegas. She went through all the fake information point by point, until they reached the date of birth. At first she confirmed that the birth date was accurate, then she paused and said, “Wait a minute, the year is right but the month and day are wrong.” For some reason, the month and day that Robert had listed were not for his birthday. They were for hers.
With a sad smile, she added softly: “He remembered.”
Tasha stood before the mirror on the morning of her first day of testimony and studied the strange reflection. She looked like somebody else. Friends had brought her a dress to wear in court, some pink feminine outfit that looked just fine on her except for the fact that she never wore pink and never wore this style of clothing. On somebod
y else it would have been a pretty dress; on her it was a costume.
But Craig Richman had been adamant that the jury would not have time to get to know Natasha, might not appreciate her artistic nature and her recent tendency to dress entirely in black. They might find it foreboding or intimidating. They might even wonder if black clothing made her a bad person.
What, after all, was she going to do if her father walked away?
So she stepped outside with the bodyguards who had come for her and she rode with them to the courthouse hoping that the weirdness she felt inside wouldn’t show to the jury.
The bodyguards took her in by the back entrance. Reporters had the front staked out and there was still concern that a hired killer could be there among the journalists, the free-lance writers, the thrill seekers, and the curious observers.
But by now she was a pro at keeping cool under fire. She kept away the fear and the nerves and the dread by focusing on happy little things. She knew from Craig’s daily phone calls to update her during the course of the trial that her father had been freaking out pretty regularly in court, getting himself thrown out. It seemed that people were finally seeing her father as she saw him, right there in open court. This time it wasn’t taking place in some civil trial or some minor hearing, it was the main trial, the prime test of truth. And she knew that a lot of experts had been heard already and their testimony had all helped to bolster her story. It was a good feeling, all these strangers using their expertise to say that, yes, she must be telling the truth even though her own father kept saying that she was a liar, had always been a liar.
She smiled to herself, down inside where the guards waiting beside her could not see. Because she had lied to her father in the past about where she was going with friends, and she had lied to her mother about whether or not she had any homework to do at night. But this time she wasn’t the one who had to remember the lies and keep the story straight. All she had to do was stay calm and say what had happened just as she had done a hundred times before. And try not to look like a weird, artsy-fartsy kid. She knew from experience that some people just hate those types. If one of those people was on the jury, he or she might be inclined to sit and wonder if she was actually capable of the horrible things her father claimed about her. All it would take was that one juror to turn her father back out into the streets. And if he went free, how long would he let her live, knowing what she knew about him?
A Checklist for Murder Page 25