A Checklist for Murder (28 page)

She was relieved when they decided just to bring her through a back door of the court building, arriving with her each day at varied times. Everything felt bizarre enough already.

Pam Springer warned her that her father’s attorney, Bradley Brunon, would probably do everything he could to cast doubt on her story. This was because in the past months, not a single piece of solid physical evidence had been found that could tie her father to the scene of the crime. The case so far had boiled down to her credibility against her father’s.

Robert Peernock’s explanations had grown more polished
with practice, his denials more emphatic. And although no one inside the system who had observed his behavior since his arrest on September 4 retained the slightest belief in him, any slip of Tasha’s memory would be seized on by the defense and turned against her.

Now as she stood and slowly walked through the door into the courtroom, she settled the invisible blanket around her feelings the way she had learned to do at home years ago.

Tasha avoided looking around as she was sworn in. She knew her father was in the courtroom, but she was in no hurry to meet his gaze. She didn’t want to feel any more of his energy.
Evil
was the word she had privately used to describe him ever since her grade school days, and the night of the murder only reinforced her conviction that he had somehow lost himself altogether to evil. And the evil always seemed to find a way to prevail, to push through any situation against any adversary.

As she took her seat in the witness chair, the fear flashed through her that somehow her father had managed to get his hands on some kind of weapon, perhaps bribed a guard with the money his girlfriend had pulled out of his heavily stocked bank accounts before Victoria sealed them. She wondered, if her father had resolved to finish the attack right inside the courtroom, did anybody here have the power to protect her?

Fortunately for her, Pam Springer was the first to begin the questions. That helped put Tasha at ease a little. Springer’s cool, efficient demeanor and professional polish conveyed a sense that things were under the control of forces that could still overpower sheer evil. Tasha fixed her eyes on Springer, hoping that it was true. She didn’t look anywhere else as the initial questions began. The easy questions.

Springer: “Do you know the defendant in this case, Robert Peernock?”

Natasha: “Yes. He’s my father.”

Springer: “Is he seated over here in the middle of the counsel table next to the phone?”

Natasha twitched in shock as her eyes flew open in surprise. She hadn’t noticed the man sitting there and at first he didn’t seem familiar. But as she took in his features, the eyes, the skin, the build, she realized he was her father indeed. “Oh. Yeah,” she breathed in amazement. Since the arrest his hair had changed from bleached blond curls to straight, dark brown. His beard was gone. His chin was bigger, the skin around the eyes was tight. It finally hit her just how hard her father had tried to disguise his appearance with the plastic surgery. “He looks way different,” she added, exhaling with a sound that was halfway between a bitter laugh and a shudder.

Tasha knew that Springer didn’t want her to volunteer any comments, but the last remark slipped out. She wanted to go on, to rage at him, to demand that Robert tell them who the hell he’d been planning on fooling, by changing his face around like that. But she forced herself into silence. Springer had warned her how even the innocent volunteering of some little comment might be used to help the defense in some way.

Over the next few hours, the whole story slowly came out. Tasha never faltered, never broke down. She spoke clearly, sticking to the direct, simple sentences that Pam Springer had asked her to use. Sometimes when the questions elicited the most painful answers, her voice would drop so softly that the judge had to ask her to speak up and to repeat her responses. But she kept on without breaking, answer by answer by answer, building the huge jigsaw puzzle one tiny piece at a time.

Finally they got to the final moments of the crimes.

Springer: “What happened next?”

Natasha: “Then he stopped the car and put us both in the front seat.”

“Now, who did he place in the front seat first?”

“My mom.”

“He then placed you in the front seat?”

“Yes. On the passenger side.”

“When he placed you on the front seat, was the hood still on?”

“Yes.”

“Were you still handcuffed?”

“Yes.”

“In the front or in the back?”

“In the front.”

“When had he removed the handcuffs from the back to the front?”

“When I was in the bedroom.”

“Before he carried you out?”

“Yes. I told him I couldn’t feel my hands.”

“When he placed you in the front seat of his car on the passenger side—

“Yes.”

“—Were your feet still tied?”

“Yes.”

And later, Springer asked: “Natasha, had you ever driven that car before?”

“No.”

“Did you like the car?”

“No.”

“Did your mom drive the car?”

“No.”

“Did she like it?”

“No.”

“Did she, in fact, hate that car?”

“Yes. She thought it was tacky.”

“Natasha, did your mom drink and drive?”

“No.”

Before she could stop herself, Tasha raised her gaze to
meet her father’s. Her heart immediately jumped as the old feelings of fear shot through her. She was face-to-face with the man who had turned into a demon before her eyes and destroyed her family. How much power did he really have? Was he going to lunge for her right now? He seemed to be capable of any kind of violence. She tore her eyes away and turned her head, but it took conscious effort. She knew she could never get through this if she let his eyes meet hers.

She didn’t risk looking at him again for the rest of her testimony.

Upon cross-examination Bradley Brunon did everything he could to challenge her credibility. To make Robert appear supportive, he brought out the fact that Tasha’s father had paid for her medical bills and dental bills. He brought up her horse.

Brunon: “Did he buy you a horse?”

Natasha: “Yes.”

“When did he buy you a horse?”

“After he broke my arm.”

“Is that the arm you told the doctors and everybody else you broke while falling?”

“He told them that.”

“Didn’t you also tell them that?”

“Because he told me not to tell anyone, and my mom did not want me to tell anyone.”

“So, you told the doctors that you fell in your house and broke your arm, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You continued that lie for approximately four years?”

“I didn’t tell anybody else besides the hospital.”

“You told numerous people at the hospital, did you not, including the doctors and nurses?”

“Yes.”

“As far as you know they all believed you?”

“Yes.”

“So, you were a persuasive liar on that point?”

And so it went, for three days. Brunon and Springer alternately attacked her and defended her credibility while she held tightly to her story. It was to be the easiest questioning she would endure in the case; there was much more to come. But at least for now it was over.

Her portion of the preliminary hearing ended on the twenty-third of December.

This was not a trial yet; Peernock’s innocence or guilt was not to be determined here. But enough evidence was laid out, and the judge found Natasha’s testimony believable enough, that the case was successfully bound over for trial.

Her testimony had just ended when the bodyguards took her aside into a small room down the hall from the courtroom. Tasha had complained bitterly about not being given any freedom to see anybody while in Los Angeles to testify, but the police were firm in their conviction that she simply could not be allowed to risk independent movement. So an artificial little reunion with her younger sister at the courthouse had been the best they could offer.

Moments after Tasha entered the room, her eleven-year-old sister was brought in. The girl was now living with her full-time foster parents and the two hadn’t seen each other since before the crimes. The bodyguards stepped out to give them a few moments of privacy while they sat in two chairs facing each other in the barren little room. Later, even years later, the memory of the encounter would stick with her clearly.

There was an awkward silence as her sister looked strangely at Tasha, taking in her drastically changed appearance. Tasha wondered what she must look like to her and what she must be thinking. Finally the little girl spoke.

“Your hair looks really stupid.”

It wasn’t the best of circumstances for a fulfilling reunion.

So Tasha’s Christmas present that year was the knowledge that she had successfully helped to put in motion the long process of forcing her father to answer for the crimes of that terrible summer. As the bodyguards escorted her to the airport, automated holiday carols were playing everywhere. But the weight of what she had just endured hung heavily on her, making her feel alone while the entire Judeo-Christian world was on a giant Muzak high.

The carols tolled in the airport while the ticket agents screwed up her tickets and the carols tolled in the police station where her bodyguards took her to wait for four hours while somebody in a command position figured out what to do and the carols tolled back at the motel where they finally put her up for the night.

The carols were still Muzaking away on Christmas Eve when Tasha’s bodyguards finally released her to the next plane for Hawaii. I’ll be home for Christmas.

Daddy had received a visit for the holidays from his supposed-to-be-dead daughter. And during this season to be jolly, Tasha had brought him the gift of a living, breathing souvenir from their last dance together on their final night in the Peernock house.

CHAPTER

20

A
s the year drew to a close, Victoria found her practice suffering severely. Even though she had farmed out most of her non-Peernock cases, she barely kept her head above the paper river flowing her way from Dern, Mason and Floum. She had even farmed out Natasha’s civil cases to avoid any conflict of interest, concentrating on the probate settlements and the lawsuits against Robert’s estate. Although that cleared her of any hint of conflict of interest on Natasha’s behalf, it also lowered her prospects of financial gain from a case that had already sapped her resources to the breaking point. She was learning that no amount of work will maintain a sole practice when a lawyer is forced into court every day on endless rounds of motions, while her practice collects no money for the efforts and has to function solely in the hope of future compensation.

She went into the holidays in a miserable state, unconsoled by the early present from Richard, which she still kept propped in the footwell of her desk. Physically and mentally exhausted, she was finally beginning to face the thing she had feared most when deciding whether to take the case: she no longer saw how she could keep going against virtually unlimited resources fielded by an entire law firm bent on overwhelming her.

Confronted by the loss of her practice and complete defeat as Natasha’s advocate, she spent the holidays discussing with her husband, Richard, whether or not she should let go while there might still be something in the case to save. Noble as
it can sound to fight to the very last, such a strategy would not only leave nothing for her but could leave Natasha’s next attorney with insufficient ammunition to salvage the case.

On the other hand, there was that “Agreement.” The memory of it haunted her. She had long ago given it to Steve Fisk, but she could see it clearly in her mind’s eye. A simple, plaintive request by a frightened woman, asking that her alienated husband not beat her or attack her elder daughter or verbally abuse anyone in the household.

There was still Claire’s faith in her to consider, and of course Natasha’s. The young client who’d started out simply as a name on a dissolution form had become a warm human presence in her life. Natasha’s fears for the future, her hopes and concerns, had become familiar to Victoria. So was her pain. And Victoria knew that the grinding process Natasha was to endure under the wheels of the system had only just started. There were still civil trials, probate hearings and Juvenile Court hearings, not to mention the main criminal trial itself. She would be called to the stand many more times.

If Victoria walked away from this now, she had no idea how she could ever carry the guilt load should something go disastrously wrong with Natasha’s claim on her share of her parents’ assets. There was nothing else for a horribly injured girl barely out of high school to fall back on for rebuilding her life.

There was always some chance that Natasha might muddle through by herself, even if she wound up with nothing to help her. Others had done it in the past. But Victoria’s years of watching the effects of severe family disasters on children of all ages whose support system failed them convinced her that those who made it through the trauma unscathed were vastly outnumbered by those who went down for the count, who fell into deep depression and succumbed to various forms of slow self-destruction.

Still, Victoria just didn’t know how much more she could take.

It was in this frame of mind that she arrived early at the office on the first working day after New Year’s to see what new assaults on her practice had arrived from Dern, Mason and Floum. She found what she was expecting right on top of the early-morning mail, a legal-sized envelope with the DMF logo.

She sighed heavily and sat at her desk to open the mail, suddenly feeling as if she had put in a full day already, as she tore open the envelope flap and pulled out the contents.

And there it was.

A substitution form from the excellent law firm of Dern, Mason and Floum, officially notifying her that they were withdrawing their entire squad of corporate attorneys from the Peernock extravaganza. No longer would the unending avalanche of legalese from the Century City firm’s word-processing department bury her under opposition papers. Whether they were giving up the onslaught or whether their client had fired them, from now on Robert Peernock would be in propria persona. Peernock had chosen to represent himself in court against her.