Written in Blood

by Diane Fanning

  After a few month’s hiatus in her career, Kathleen went back to work. June 8, 1987, was Kathleen’s first day at Northern Telecom, later known as Nortel, in the Research Triangle Park, the commercial center for Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Her entry-level position was low on the totem pole. Kathleen’s ambition and competence soon elevated her at Nortel as it had at BAC—Pritchard.

  Her marriage to Fred Atwater did not fare as well. In fact, the foundation was crumbling beneath their feet. On her visits to their home, Candace noticed a young woman, a co-worker of Fred’s, whose presence in the Atwater home seemed constant. She observed what she thought was an inappropriate level of intimacy between Fred and this woman and spoke to her sister about it.

  At first, Kathleen ignored the warning signs. At last, she could deny it no longer—her marriage was sinking fast. Fred moved in and out of the home for short periods of time.

  Caitlin was aware of the fighting and unrest in the home, but she was having problems of her own. Second grade was proving to be a challenge. She had no difficulty with the academics, but the social interaction was a disaster. She didn’t feel she fit in and she could not understand why the other children didn’t like her. In the midst of her own turmoil, Kathleen took the time to listen to her daughter and help her cope.

  She explained to Caitlin that her problem was only with one girl who was cruel to her, not with the whole class. “Don’t let one little thing become a generalization,” Kathleen told her. With every passing year, Caitlin developed a deeper appreciation for the consistency and constancy of her mother’s advice and in her ability to break problems down to their bare essentials.

  The last hurrah for the Atwater family was a trip to Disney World. Like millions of kids before her, Caitlin was enchanted. She did not like the teacups because her Dad—in a burst of enthusiasm—made them spin too fast for her taste. She was a bit leery of Space Mountain, too—a little too dark and a little too scary. But she was wild about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Frontierland. She squealed with delight as she zipped in and out of the deserted gold mine on the runaway mine train.

  They picked up a set of four Disney placemats on that trip. Caitlin claimed the one with Cinderella on it as her own. When the table was set for dinner, that mat always marked her place.

  After that trip, Fred moved out for good. The reality of the permanence of the situation sunk in for Caitlin when her mother gave her a Baby-Sitters Club book about divorced parents.

  Kathleen worked hard to shield Caitlin from her marital problems. Her daughter, though, was a very bright girl, who noticed her mother’s tear-stained cheeks and forced smile.

  1987 was a difficult year for Kathleen. Still she took time away from her problems to help her younger sister, Candace, pick out her wedding gown and make other nuptial arrangements.

  Candace Hunt married Mark Zamperini in a ballroom with a small, but traditional, ceremony. The bridal party consisted of a best man, a maid of honor and Caitlin Atwater as the flower girl. The family gathered round for the exchange of vows.

  It was a bittersweet time for Kathleen. She had hope and joy for her sister and her future. For herself, she had despair. The service resurrected the memory of vows she had exchanged—vows that were broken—and a marriage that was shattered beyond repair.

  As is natural in times of divorce, a bit of friction arose between mother and daughter. Caitlin wanted a “cool mom” like some of her friends had—a mom who would never say “no.” But Kathleen did not succumb to Caitlin’s childish attempts to manipulate her guilt. She simply told her, “Caitlin, I am not here to be your friend. I am here to be your mother. Whatever comes of that, does.”

  Although out of the home, Fred kept a constant connection with Caitlin. His efforts with his daughter enabled her to accept the divorce and not develop an unhealthy desire to salvage her parents’ marriage.

  At the same time, just a block away, Michael and Patty Peterson’s relationship was deteriorating. Patty decided to go back to Germany to teach. She wanted Margaret and Martha Ratliff to go to Rhode Island and live with their family. She told Michael that she had not signed up for another family. She already had one and that was enough.

  Michael refused to relinquish guardianship of the girls, and Patty and the boys went to Germany without him. Kathleen and Mike reached out to each other to fill the void in their lives. Caitlin, Margaret and Martha played together with increasing frequency.

  One day, in 1989, Kathleen and Fred sat down with their daughter to ask her an important question. “How would you like it if Margaret and Martha came to live with you?”

  Caitlin was delighted—Barbie playmates all the time! It would be like one big never-ending sleepover. In Caitlin’s mind, Michael Peterson was just a tag-along.

  When Margaret, Martha and Mike moved into their home, Kathleen took her daughter aside to reassure her. “Caitlin, you are my daughter. My love for you is not going to change. But Margaret and Martha are going to be my daughters now, too.”

  Although the concept of death was still alien to a child of her age, Caitlin did understand on a superficial level that Margaret and Martha were orphans, and realized that they needed a mother. Kathleen, who had always wanted more children, was thrilled to nurture two more.

  True to her word, Kathleen cherished the Ratliff girls. Before she arrived on the scene, Margaret and Martha attended public schools even though the Petersons enrolled Todd and Clayton in private schools. Kathleen placed both of the girls in a private Catholic school.

  Of course, there were the normal problems of blending a household. Concessions needed to be made for the harmony of the whole. With three girls between 7 and 9 years old, rivalries did arise. One clash was over the Disney placemats. Margaret, Martha and Caitlin all wanted to use the Cinderella mat. Compromise did not come easy. From Caitlin’s point of view, she shared her house and her mother with Margaret and Martha; she was darned if she’d share her placemat, too.

  Patty, with Clayton and Todd, moved back from Germany after the school year and into the same neighborhood. Although living with Kathleen, Michael had not severed his ties to Patty. When Patty announced at summer’s end that she had another job in Germany and was taking the boys with her, Mike had second thoughts about the dissolution of his marriage. He took Margaret and Martha with him and followed her overseas. Now, the two little Ratliff girls suffered loss again—they were torn away from their surrogate sister and another substitute mother.

  Not long after Margaret and Martha had settled in with Patty as their substitute mother, Michael decided the marriage was over after all. He brought Margaret and Martha back with him to Durham. And left his two boys in Germany.

  Far from his father’s watchful eye, Clayton started running amok. He experimented with alcohol and played with explosives. He built a homemade bomb during his senior year in high school, and blew up a phone booth after his application to Massachusetts Institute of Technology was rejected. He also attempted to send chemicals he stole from his school to his father’s house in the States. The package did not make it. An acid leak injured several mail handlers and the package was intercepted and destroyed.

  Clayton did not pay any price for the destruction caused by his behavior—at least, not yet.

  MICHAEL AND KATHLEEN

  “With Michael by your side, you showed us how to rise to every occasion.”

  –Maureen Berry

  23

  Kathleen’s star continued to rise at Northern Telecom. She visited Russia and the Ukraine to explore the possibilities of her company’s expansion into the Commonwealth of Independent States, formerly the Soviet Union.

  Kathleen comforted Caitlin through the first loss in her life in 1992. Her great-grandfather on her father’s side was a special person to her. Although he was deaf, the two communicated well. He was a patient and gentle man who loved children—especially Caitlin.

  Caitlin adored the man she called Super Pop-Pop. He was 104 years old when he died,
but his passing still broke the little girl’s heart. Kathleen sat by her ex-husband’s side during the funeral and held her daughter tight while she shed tears of grief.

  Home from Europe for good, Mike Peterson was ready to purchase a home that suited his lofty position as a New York Times best-selling author. He had quite a bit of money to invest. He still had a great deal of his $600,000 advance for A Time of War, and he’d received additional funds when NBC acquired an option on that book. On top of that, his agent sold his unfinished manuscript, Peace and Reparations, to Simon & Schuster for a $450,000 advance.

  He found the perfect home in the heart of the Forest Hills neighborhood at the corner of Cedar and Kent Streets. Built in 1940, its 10,000 square feet made it the largest home in Durham. It boasted fourteen rooms, including six bedrooms, a striking spiral staircase in the front of the house, another unique staircase in the back and an elaborate swimming pool.

  The house was featured in a movie, The Handmaid’s Tale, released in 1990 and based on a book by Margaret Atwood. Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway starred in the movie and three thousand area residents appeared as extras.

  The value of the home was listed on the tax records as $1.2 million. Peterson knew he could get it for a lot less. There was just one catch. He did not get a regular paycheck and the bank wanted the signature of his wife, Patty, on the loan.

  Patty balked. She wanted nothing to do with that house. Michael took her out to Reno to visit his parents. He prevailed upon them to help him make Patty come to her senses. Michael had not been able to persuade her, but the pleas of his parents did the trick. Patty signed on the dotted line. The deal was closed on July 7, 1992.

  Although Patty’s name was on the deed, Mike moved into the home with Kathleen Atwater. Living with them were Margaret and Martha Ratliff, Caitlin Atwater and Clayton Peterson, who had just returned from Germany after graduating from Frankfurt High School. He enrolled as an Engineering student at Duke University.

  The move to Cedar Street created a rift in Kathleen’s family. Her sister, Candace, thought she was wrong to live with a married man when there were children involved. The two sisters did not speak for more than a year.

  Kathleen was a gracious and willing hostess. She often opened her home for after-concert receptions and fundraising galas for the American Dance Festival, the Durham Art Guild, the Mallarme Chamber Players and the Carolina Ballet. She thought nothing of planning a dinner for one hundred people and preparing all the food herself.

  “She was the Martha Stewart of Durham,” said Jimmy Gibbs, society columnist for The Herald-Sun. “She actually prepared the food for the parties. [ …] Virtually all her foods were homemade—and they were always wonderful.”

  Kathleen was also active with the Durham Arts Council, serving a term on the board of directors and with the Historic Preservation Society. She often provided auction items for the Durham Arts Guild. Both she and Michael were involved in the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association.

  Filled with thousands of dollars’ worth of antiques and collectibles, including 200-year-old furniture from Germany and Japan, and carved vases from ancient Chinese dynasties, the home was a breathtaking sight for first-time visitors. And Kathleen kept it all spotless. She was the queen of clean. She knew the best solution for making short work of any kind of dirt or stain and she used her knowledge like a woman possessed. One of her favorite outside activities was power-washing the exterior of her home until it shined.

  Kathleen’s other love was shopping. Little thrilled her more than finding a great bargain. When the three girls were going through the stage where their shoe sizes seemed to change every week, Kathleen found a great buy on tennis shoes. She came home with twenty pairs in sizes the girls could grow into.

  Todd Peterson returned to North Carolina after his graduation from high school in 1993. Kathleen blended the family of seven together like a magician. She expected all five children to be at the dinner table every night. She sat at one end and Michael sat at the other. The conversation was animated and boisterous. At times, multiple concurrent conversations created an atmosphere of convivial pandemonium.

  All these activities, though, did not fill the void Kathleen felt from the disconnect with her family. She wanted to make peace, and planned a family reunion. Her mother and her sisters and brother and their families showed up for the food and fun in Kathleen’s beautiful new home.

  The reunion also gave Kathleen’s family members the opportunity to meet the man who was the root cause of the family uproar. They liked Michael. They found him funny and entertaining.

  Former U.S. Representative Nick Galifianakis introduced Michael Peterson to David Perlmutt in 1993 with the idea that the two men should collaborate on a book. David was a reporter for The Charlotte Observer. The year before, he had written an article about Tsui Chi Hsii, a Chinese man nicknamed Charlie Tsui or Charlie Two Shoes by the U.S. Marines who befriended him in 1945.

  When the communists took over in 1949, the Marines pulled out and Charlie spent seventeen of the next thirty-five years as a political prisoner because of the suspicions raised by his close relationship to the Marines.

  When the soldiers learned of his plight, they moved heaven and earth—and the U.S. Congress—to bring him to the United States. After publishing Charlie’s story in his paper, David sold reprint rights to Reader’s Digest and Parade magazine. The hundreds of letters generated by the article in these two periodicals indicated a national audience for a book that would detail the complete story.

  At their first meeting, Mike and David sat out by the pool at 1810 Cedar Street and talked for over an hour. Both felt they could work well together and soon they had prepared a chapter-by-chapter proposal, attached news clippings and sent it off to Michael’s agent.

  They did not find a buyer for the concept until 1996. The Naval Institute Press, a small outfit that had made its mark on the landscape with the publication of Tom Clancy’s first book, The Hunt for Red October, signed a contract with the two writers. It would be two years of work after the sale before Charlie Two Shoes and the Marines of Love Company was finally published.

  Michael wrote during the day, then left to work out at the YMCA each afternoon at 4. Sometimes he did not return until 7 or 7:30 at night. Kathleen always kept dinner warm and quieted the impatient children so the whole family could be together for dinner.

  Unbeknownst to his wife, Mike’s trips to the Y were not always as wholesome as they sounded. The steam room had become a trysting place for homosexual activity. While men engaged in sexual activity inside, a lookout was posted on the bench outside the door to sound a warning if any staff approached. Kathleen had divorced Fred for an extramarital affair with a woman. Surely, if she had been aware of this infidelity, she would have left Michael in a heartbeat.

  Some troubles in the Cedar Street household were more visible. During the summer of 1993 when Clayton was between his freshman and sophomore years, Michael found it necessary to send his son to Duke Hospital for counseling because of disciplinary problems at home and at the university. Mike added to the household chaos by being arrested for DWI (Driving While Intoxicated). The charge was later reduced to reckless driving.

  Then in 1994, the image of the perfect blended family blew up in their faces. On April 24, in a closet in the Allen Building at Duke University, an administrator discovered a bomb made with a Gatorade bottle filled with gasoline. Someone had lit the fuse, but it burned out inches before ignition. On a nearby table was a note stating that war had been declared on the university. A further search revealed that someone had stolen the equipment the school used to make official identification cards for the students.

  Clayton was a suspect. Michael Peterson cooperated with the police and gave permission for them to search his home. In the attic, they discovered an assortment of model rocket engines, gunpowder, a coffee grinder, lengths of fuse and the stolen I.D. equipment. More telling was the presence of six pipe bombs and the materials to make th
irteen more.

  Two of the bombs were rigged for aerial assault. They were constructed so that they could be screwed onto an arrow and launched from a crossbow. All of the bombs were designed to send metal projectiles flying in all directions at a very high rate of speed.

  Mike Peterson belittled the danger of those devices, telling The Chronicle, “Those six little things could fit inside a shoebox.”

  Upon his return from a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Clayton was arrested at his dorm. The state charged him with breaking and entering. The federal government brought one charge against him for possession of an unregistered destructive device.

  Mike Peterson rushed to his son’s defense, saying that Clayton’s only intent was to create a diversion so that he could get away with stealing the I.D. equipment to replace the fake I.D. he lost in mid-April. “There was never an intention to ignite the bomb,” Mike Peterson said in a written statement. “There was only an apolitical, hedonistic intent to party.” Clayton had even spliced the fuse with electrical tape, his father said, to prevent it from exploding. Some investigators speculated, however, that the electrical tape tactic was a delaying device to allow him time to escape.

  At the end of May, a grand jury handed down two indictments for possession of an unregistered destructive device and a third indictment for the manufacture of those devices. Clayton faced up to 30 years in prison and $750,000 in fines.

  At the Federal Correctional Institute at Butner, Clayton underwent psychiatric evaluation to determine whether or not he was fit to stand trial. It was easy jail time for the 19-year-old. He had access to the library and a weight room and was not required to wear a uniform.