A Perfect Husband

by Aphrodite Jones

  “Michael claimed he was concerned about the headstone. He claimed he visited the grave twice a week,” Fred recalled. “But there were people who were watching the grave site who said they never saw him there.”

  There was a laundry list of problems that Michael Peterson had created for Kathleen’s grieving family. During his comments to the media, Peterson not only asserted that the city officials were vindictive, he announced that Caitlin had become irresponsible and hateful. Peterson was playing with the media.

  Caitlin hadn’t really wanted to return to the Cedar Street house, not for any reason, but her father thought she should return there to collect the remainder of her things. Caitlin had left the house just after her mom died, and she had taken only a small part of her belongings. Caitlin had her whole life stored in that house—her trophies, her yearbooks, her childhood diaries—these were things that Fred felt Caitlin had a right to possess.

  But Caitlin didn’t feel safe going near Michael. When Fred suggested that she request a sheriff escort to take her to Cedar Street, Caitlin didn’t like the idea. Caitlin didn’t want to anger Michael in any way; she was more concerned that her mom’s headstone be taken care of.

  “Michael made it impossible for Caitlin to get into that house, unless she was to get a court order,” Fred confided. “Because of his threats in his letters, there was such animosity set up, and Michael, in a sense, was blackmailing her.”

  Fred Atwater had decided, not long after Kathleen’s death, that Michael Peterson had a very sick mind. He didn’t appreciate the way Michael phrased things, always asserting that if Kathleen were alive, she would have supported his fight against the authorities, insisting that Caitlin should support him too.

  Of course it wasn’t always the case that Fred could see through Michael so easily. In the beginning, when Michael and Kathleen had first wed, Peterson was arrogant, and very much the breadwinner. Kathleen seemed to be in awe of him, hanging on his every word. And for years, Fred went along with whatever Kathleen’s perceptions were, never questioning Peterson and his motivations. Without thinking anything was amiss, Fred would deal with Michael’s financial demands, Michael’s huffing and puffing about how hard he was working to support all three girls.

  Fred would notice that Michael was very free-spending with his money, that Michael liked to play the role of “savior” to his three stepdaughters. He knew that Kathleen was convinced that Michael had “rescued” the Ratliff girls from unhappy lives. Of course Fred never knew how hard Michael had tried, in an insidious way, to discourage Caitlin from paying too much attention to her natural dad. Michael would usually cut Caitlin off, telling Caitlin that Fred’s advice was bogus. Michael always contradicted Fred’s ideas, acting like he knew better.

  As the master of the house, Michael was good at “programming” his flock. It was something that was happening underneath the surface, but it seemed Michael had taken over the whole family, both in mind and spirit. He controlled all of their movements by handling all the household finances. And, even though Michael was no longer making much money from his writing, he was in charge of everything, from family investments to family vacations. He was the ultimate planner.

  Peterson was good at hiding the reality of his failing writing career; no one ever fathomed that he was leaning on Kathleen; people never realized that Kathleen had become the family breadwinner. For years, Fred Atwater thought Michael Peterson was doing a good job of raising their patchwork family. Atwater, who earned a Ph.D. from Duke University in physics, who worked as a software developer for huge companies such as Sprint, had been too busy with his career to see through Michael’s game.

  Not to say there weren’t times when Fred had some particular concerns. There was a moment, when Caitlin had just turned seventeen, that Fred and Michael had an argument over the financial arrangements regarding a vehicle. Fred was paying Kathleen monthly child support, and from the time of their separation, the arrangement had worked well. Fred and Kathleen had agreed on a solid financial support system for Caitlin, and Kathleen felt that Fred’s payments were more than fair. But then Michael began to interfere.

  When Caitlin was seventeen, Michael decided to buy her a new Montero SUV. Within weeks of the purchase, Michael suggested that Caitlin approach her father to ask him to pick up the payments for the new vehicle. To everyone’s surprise, Fred refused.

  Fred hadn’t been consulted about the purchase, and he resented the idea that Michael had used Caitlin as a go-between. It was unfair, Fred believed, for Michael to approach him in that way. If Caitlin had asked her father to buy her a car, Fred would have been willing to do that. In fact, Fred later wound up buying a different SUV for Caitlin when she went off to college at Cornell. But while Caitlin was still living under Michael’s roof, Fred wasn’t about to pay for something that he hadn’t even picked out.

  “I just didn’t think it was right. Michael was trying to push me,” Fred recalled. “I was trying to be reasonable, and wanted to work something out where I would increase Caitlin’s child support, rather than pay for specific things that Michael decided to buy. I was talking to Michael on the phone, but he hung up on me. He wouldn’t answer the phone, so I went over there and Michael was sitting outside, pouting like a little kid.”

  As the years passed, there had been a number of financial concerns between the two men. Fred had been asked to pay for things, and he had been made to look like the bad guy. But Fred hadn’t done anything to deserve that. At one point, Kathleen sent her ex-husband a memo regarding Caitlin’s schooling, about the price of her private school and school supplies. When Fred calculated the school costs, looking at a record of all his spending, Fred noticed that Michael was using part of Caitlin’s child support to buy things for Margaret and Martha. As it turned out, Fred had paid for so many things that Kathleen hadn’t taken into account, she actually owed him money.

  After receiving a number of nasty letters from Michael, letters that asserted that Fred wasn’t keeping up with his daughter’s expenses, letters that demanded additional payments, Fred couldn’t understand why Michael was acting so cheap and greedy. From Fred’s perspective, there was no good reason for Peterson to be complaining about money. He honestly couldn’t understand the constant gripes. Michael Peterson was living in a big mansion—he took ski trips and belonged to exclusive clubs. But for some reason, both Michael and Kathleen kept trying to get more money from Fred. Even after he had increased his child support payments for Caitlin, Fred still felt like he was being “shaken down.”

  Fred thought it was strange that Kathleen would go along with Michael; it seemed she had become materialistic overnight. The way Kathleen had changed, the way she acted about money, was entirely foreign. But then, there were so many differences Fred had begun to notice in Kathleen, especially after Michael and Kathleen became a solid married couple. Michael had changed his wife’s personality so much, that when it came to personal life decisions, Kathleen didn’t have much of a mind of her own. Kathleen had become a new person, and the influence that Michael was having overall wasn’t always a positive one. Fred noticed that Caitlin seemed to be living in Peterson’s “perfect” fantasy world—which he didn’t really think was healthy.

  There were so many things about the Peterson household that didn’t make sense. Kathleen and Caitlin were constantly painting a glowing portrait of their life with Michael. They would talk about the wonderful stepfather Michael had become. Yet things were clearly not all that perfect. Over the years, Fred learned of the notorious problems with one of Michael’s sons. And he knew the history of the Ratliff girls, who had a whole series of denials and troubles to overcome.

  Fred didn’t learn about Caitlin’s diary entries until much later, but his daughter would secretly confess that Michael’s blood ran hot and cold, that Michael had some sort of split personality. Caitlin would describe Michael as being manipulative. She would reveal that Michael would get mean and nasty, and would fly off the handle for no apparent r
eason. According to Caitlin, Michael would throw tantrums, exhibit fits of rage, and then expect everyone to forget it, to act like nothing had ever happened.

  It wouldn’t be until after Kathleen’s death that Fred would reflect about his ex-wife, thinking back to the time when they were newlyweds, when they were young, and things seemed free and easy. He remembered the day he learned that Kathleen was pregnant. It was on his thirty-fifth birthday that Kathleen had thrown him a surprise party; she had come down the stairs with a gigantic red ribbon wrapped around her waist, presenting herself as his “present.” The couple had tried for so long to conceive that Kathleen and Fred had almost given up. Both of them had careers by then, but they were very excited to start a family.

  The Atwaters were living in Maryland at the time, where Fred was working for the Johns Hopkins physics lab. Kathleen enjoyed being a career woman, and had landed a satisfying position as an engineer for Baltimore Air Coil. Because she didn’t want to lose her job, Kathleen returned to work just two months after Caitlin was born. She began traveling for the company quite a bit, so the primary care of Caitlin fell into Fred’s hands. And that was fine with him. The hesitant new dad found he truly enjoyed taking care of his daughter. He would feed her, dress her, get Caitlin to day care every day, and he never tired of his new routine. At night, he and Caitlin would play games, and Fred would teach Caitlin all kinds of new things.

  As the months passed, Fred became so attached to his little girl, he began to keep a diary for Caitlin. For thirteen years, Fred would chronicle all the important events of his daughter’s life.

  He started from the beginning, when he and Kathleen fell in love, and wrote about the excitement he experienced in the delivery room, from the minute Caitlin was born. Fred described their happy life, detailing Caitlin’s growing stages and the way he and Kathleen developed parenting skills. Fred and Kathleen enjoyed being new parents. They liked the change-of-pace life they lived in Maryland. But a year or so after Caitlin was born, Fred was offered a more high-powered job. The family moved to Durham, where Fred began working as a systems analyst for a company in the Research Triangle.

  With Fred’s raise in pay, Kathleen was able to become a stay-at-home mom, and they bought a beautiful home on Hermitage Court, in their dream neighborhood, the place Kathleen loved most in the world, Forest Hills. Kathleen, however, quickly grew unsatisfied with the role of mother and housewife. She would soon get a job at Nortel Networks, and her life would become extremely busy.

  Somewhere along the way, though, Kathleen had forgotten about romance. The great love that she once shared with Fred, all the romantic evenings they’d had together, just seemed to have disappeared. Even though they were living back in Durham, they couldn’t seem to recapture the days when they both were carefree students at Duke. Their marriage had been crumbling over time, but Kathleen was so busy, she wasn’t even aware of it.

  Before Fred’s marriage to Kathleen broke up, Kathleen was living in a state of denial. She knew that Fred did not want to abandon Caitlin, and she felt Fred still loved her, in his own way. And Kathleen had tried, not long after they returned to Durham, to salvage their union. She had given Fred all the devotion in the world, but her time was limited. Fred tried to be patient with her, to allow Kathleen the freedom to work, hoping that she would learn to balance her two lives, that she would pay more attention to him. But when his needs weren’t met, Fred found comfort in the arms of another woman.

  Fred had talked to Kathleen. He had confessed that he felt isolated from her. Fred explained that he loved Kathleen, but thought she was holding back her emotions. He felt her silence wasn’t helping matters. He understood that Kathleen didn’t like to talk much. Fred knew that she was a person of few words, but he was having a hard time communicating with Kathleen on any level. His infidelity wasn’t all her fault, Fred knew. They both had trouble expressing themselves. But Fred didn’t want to keep living that way, completely avoiding each other’s feelings.

  Fred was willing to try to work things out. He later recalled one fateful night, when he sat down with Kathleen to have a serious “talk” just before they went to sleep. Fred decided it was time to confront his wife, to tell her how unhappy he was. He needed change in their marriage. Fred admitted that he felt emotionally detached from Kathleen. He wanted things to go back to the way they were when they first met.

  “I feel like there’s nothing here,” Fred admitted, pleading with his wife.

  “What do you mean?” Kathleen asked. “What is the problem?”

  “We’re just not connecting like we used to. Don’t you feel that?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” she said.

  “I feel empty inside,” he told her. “There’s this big space between us.”

  When Fred suggested that they go to a marriage counselor, Kathleen wanted no part of it. She was a private person, and she had no desire to share her inner secrets with strangers.

  “We don’t need to go to anybody on the outside,” she insisted. “People should be able to work on their own problems.”

  Kathleen was hopeful that the trouble between them would just fix itself. But it didn’t. And because of the infidelity on his part, the couple decided to separate. The thought of a marriage breakup absolutely devastated Kathleen. She was raised in a very strict household, taught that marriage vows should never be broken. So when Fred filed for divorce, Kathleen stayed locked away at home for months, just crying and moping around, holding on to Caitlin for dear life. By then, Kathleen had been promoted at Nortel Networks, she was busier than ever with work. But she would come home at night feeling sad. To occupy her spare time, Kathleen started doing major remodeling projects around the house.

  It wasn’t until Michael Peterson came along that Kathleen ever had a smile on her face again. She found that, unlike Fred, Michael was an openly loving person who was able to draw her out of her shell. Michael wanted to be there for Kathleen. Michael wanted to be everything that Fred wasn’t.

  Fred hadn’t wanted any wedding ceremony at all, so Michael made up for that by having a grand wedding at his Cedar Street mansion. Fred hadn’t been much of a big spender—he was the type who was happy to spend Sundays taking long walks or bike rides. And Michael would make up for that too. He took Kathleen and the kids on extravagant trips to places such as Southeast Asia. He took them on all kinds of adventures.

  Back then, it seemed that Michael Peterson was providing his daughter with a Norman Rockwell family. Caitlin often claimed she had the ideal life. But oddly, after Kathleen’s death, most of that facade seemed to peel away.

  As Fred began to consider the coincidence between the deaths of Elizabeth and Kathleen, he began to realize that Michael had some kind of demented personality. Michael was acting insane. His attitude was changing from minute to minute. Fred wasn’t willing to make the leap, to think that Michael had premeditated anything. At some point, he was convinced, though, that Michael Peterson had lost his grasp on reality.

  “When I looked at the e-mails from Michael, where he wrote about the estate, he talked about missing all these items. But Caitlin had a right to have all those things,” Fred confided. “Michael was just trying to badger her. He’s screaming about missing a hundred thousand dollars, while at the same time, he’s taking money and buying all kinds of furniture and crap for the house.”

  When Fred Atwater did finally go into the Cedar Street house, it was in late 2003, long after Peterson’s trial was over. What shocked Fred was all the new purchases that Michael had wasted money on. Fred counted six new couches that were sitting in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He noticed a new large-screen TV in the family room, as well as new pieces of elaborate exercise equipment.

  Beyond that, Fred was aware that Michael was spending cash on expensive new suits and Italian loafers, always looking like a millionaire when he appeared at a court hearing or was seen on TV. Fred realized that the Peterson “image” was nothing but a sham, that Michael had gone on a shoppin
g spree to try to impress people. But Michael’s antics seemed to be working. The local news always asserted that Peterson was a “successful” novelist, and David Rudolf made certain that the public perception of Peterson’s success was at the front of everyone’s mind. To everyone in the Triangle region who read the papers or watched the news, it seemed that Peterson was a financial powerhouse.

  But to Fred, that perception was crazy, given the fact that Peterson had been soliciting so many people for money. Fred knew that, to help with the costs of his legal bills, Michael had gone to his brother Bill, who had already lent him approximately $300,000.

  To the members of Kathleen’s family, in the months leading up to the murder trial, there were two sides to Michael Peterson that had become painfully evident.

  To the media, Peterson was promoting himself as a wealthy highbrow novelist, a person who had no financial motive to kill his wife. But behind the scenes, Michael was still using every trick in the book to get his hands on Kathleen’s jewelry, hoping to pawn it for additional cash.

  Thirty-nine

  When David Rudolf filed a motion in mid-May 2002, demanding any information police might have collected regarding the death of Elizabeth Ratliff, the entire Triangle region paid attention. Up until that point, the idea that Michael Peterson might be connected to any other death—had not been addressed in public.

  Rudolf’s motion, filed in the Durham County Superior Court, was demanding information, looking for facts that would exonerate Michael Peterson. The public was informed, through newspaper accounts, that the mother of Margaret and Martha Ratliff had a rare blood disease, that the reports about her death indicated “there were no signs of a struggle.” Early news accounts stated that the 1985 death of Elizabeth Ratliff had been caused by “a fall on the stairs.”