A Deadly Game (15 page)

Laci told Wolski that she was planning to "break" the ring into smaller pieces, including an engagement ring for her sister. She had worn them to class because she was going to have them appraised afterward, and she didn't want to leave the gems in her car.

During the chat, Laci also mentioned that she was in the process of putting her grandfather in a nursing home, and that the family was going to sell his house and his furnishings. Laci said the house contained a number of antiques, and inquired if Debbie would be interested in purchasing anything.

Laci told her that her exercise consisted of walking her dog every morning. The instructor remembered Laci describing a day in early

December when she was starting to feel dizzy and lightheaded. The feeling was like a "hot flash," she said, and she had to turn back early. The last time Wolski had seen Laci was on December 13. Scott was "very excited" about the baby, Laci had told her. "I got the impression they were very happy," Wolski reported.

Another friend of Laci's, Terri Western, spoke with Detective Jon Buehler that afternoon at the Detective Division on F Street. Western, a fifty-four-year-old real estate agent and mother of Laci's girlfriend Stacey Boyers, was the broker who sold the couple their Covena home. She had known the "outgoing" Laci since she was a child. She noted that Scott was the quiet one in the couple's relationship, but the couple "always appeared to be on their honeymoon."

Scott seemed to adore her, Western said. "He would stand up as she entered a room or get up from the table and seemed like a gentleman who was in love with his wife."

Western had last seen Laci at Stacey's holiday party on December 14. That night, Laci told her that Scott could not attend because his boss had flown into San Francisco from Europe unexpectedly and Scott had to go to the city to meet him. Western found the story "extremely difficult to believe." As a businesswoman herself, she found it implausible that a boss would fly from Europe unexpectedly and require an employee to meet with him on such short notice. As the police would soon learn, Western was right on target.

CHAPTER FIVE

DECEMBER 29, 2002

On day five of the investigation, Detective Grogan began his shift with a telephone call to Laci's parents, Sharon Rocha and Ron Grantski. Grogan needed to know more about the couple's missing daughter. He asked them to meet him at noon at Modesto's Tenth Street police headquarters, about a five-minute drive from their home on Marklee Way.

As Grogan worked, a woman named Kim Peterson showed up at headquarters. No relation to Scott and Laci, Peterson was a representative from the Carol Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, a victim's assistance group that was helping members of Laci's family cope with the traumatic events.

Kim brought with her a videotape she had been given by Laci's parents. Sharon and Ron wanted to release the footage to the media, but first wanted official approval. Kim also had some information she wanted to share with the detectives.

First, she told the officers that Scott Peterson had requested that no images of him be distributed to the media. Beyond that, in viewing the video herself, she "saw some behavior that indicated Scott may not have been excited about having a child."

The three sat down and watched the video together. In one segment, dated Christmas Eve 2001, Laci is seen repeatedly coaxing Scott to hold a friend's baby. Her voice can be heard telling her husband to hold the child for "five minutes," "one minute," then "two minutes." Finally, he relents.

An image of Scott cradling the infant shows up on the video, and Scott can be heard saying, "This isn't that much fun."

Laci's voice is again heard on the video. "This is your one and only time you'll see him do this," she lamented. Grogan made a note in his case file.

Kim Peterson had been actively involved in criminal cases since the horrific murder of Carole Sund and her daughter, Juli, by a serial killer. In February 1999, Carole, Juli, and a young woman named Silvina Pelosso went missing on a trip to Yosemite National Park. Desperate to locate them, Carole Sund's parents, Francis and Carole Carrington, established rewards for any information about the case. The couple was convinced that the reward money and media attention were instrumental in locating their daughter's rental car-the first break in the case. Although the case ended tragically when the women were found violently murdered, the Carringtons resolved thereafter to help others in similar circumstances. They established the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation to help families without economic means offer rewards for information that might help police locate missing loved ones.

As executive director of the organization, Kim Peterson might be expected to suspect foul play. Yet it was her experience, coupled with everything she had learned thus far about the case, that made Kim suspicious of Scott Peterson.

Later that morning, Grogan met with Laci's parents. As Sharon sat nervously on the edge of her chair, listening purposefully, the detective probed for more details about their daughter's life, from her childhood through the day she disappeared.

Sharon and Ron had been all over the talk shows, pleading for news about their missing daughter. The last time Sharon had seen Laci was on December 15, nearly ten days before she disappeared.

"Mom, come quick," Laci had excitedly urged her. "Put your hand on my stomach to feel the baby kick."

Sharon rushed over, placing a hand on Laci's belly. She held it there for a long time, but when she didn't feel anything she put her ear to her daughter's stomach instead. "Hello, little Conner," she said. "Your Nana loves you. I'm waiting to see you."

"We haven't completely decided on Conner yet," Laci replied. "We're thinking we might name him Logan."

"And then that was the last we had talked about it," Sharon explained. Laci's parents thought Laci and Scott had a good marriage. "Even when Scott should have been mad at Laci, he wasn't," Ron told the detective. The couple had never separated according to Sharon and Ron, and they spent up to 90 percent of their time together. They shared the same goals, including having a child and buying a larger home.

Grogan was taking notes. "Neither Sharon nor Ron ever heard Scott or Laci become involved in an argument, raise their voices at each other, or complain about any problems with their relationship," he noted.

On the surface, it sounded like the kind of relationship most people dream of having. But human nature rarely affords such perfection. A keen observer might have drawn a different conclusion from Scott's behavior: that he simply wasn't invested, wasn't emotionally involved in his marriage. It's easy enough to do whatever your wife wants, after all, if you just don't care one way or the other.

Sharon and Ron were both surprised when Grogan asked them about Scott's boat. Neither of them knew that Scott had purchased a boat, or that he was even thinking about it. They were both visibly upset to hear that Scott had been fishing in this boat the very day Laci disappeared.

Detective Grogan was back at headquarters early on December 30 when he received a call from Scott Peterson. Scott wanted the cell phone number for Sergeant Cloward.

Grogan said he'd find it and call back. When he did, the tape recorder was rolling. Grogan gave Scott the number, then asked for the name of the delivery person who had dropped off a parcel at the Peterson home on the morning Laci disappeared.

"Oh, sure, hold on. Let me dig out that paper."

Grogan could hear papers rustling in the background.

"Oh, ah, Russell Graybill." Consulting the receipt, Scott said that the driver had been at the house between 10:35 and 10:50 A.M. "I'll hang on to this until I see ya or you send someone for it."

Grogan then asked about the jewelry Laci was wearing the morning she disappeared. "She had on the diamond earrings, right?"

"Yeah."

"And she had on a wristwatch that is diamond encrusted ..." "I believe so."

"Around the side, what's the metal on that though, is it gold or silver or . . . ?"

"Um, I don't know, she had a couple of 'em-I think she has a silver one and a gold one. A couple of gold ones."

"She had two gold ones?" the detective asked.

"Think so."

Just as Scott had failed to check for Laci's purse, shoes, or jacket in the hours immediately following her disappearance, he still was unsure about the jewelry she was wearing. If Laci had frequently changed her jewelry, of course, this might be understandable. Yet in photographs taken in the weeks before she disappeared, Laci's jewelry was consistent: the diamond earrings, the Geneve watch, and her diamond pendant. By this time, her grandmother's expensive ring was already at the jewelers' being divided into several pieces, including an addition to Laci's own wedding ring.

"What about the dental records?" Grogan asked. He had already asked Scott twice for the name of Laci's dentist. Scott had said he didn't know the name but knew where the office was and promised to call him with the information. Now, two days later, Scott still hadn't bothered. "Oh yeah, I meant to go," he said. "I'll go by there today and get the name of it."

"One of the things I noticed when I was at the house is you had like ah, four degrees or something up on the wall," Grogan said. "Are all those yours?"

"Well, that was a joke from Laci," Scott explained, "a running joke because I went to school for so long."

When police investigated this "joke," they weren't convinced. Three of the diplomas were phony, including a BA in religious studies from Arizona State University dated June 1, 1992, and two from the University of San Diego: a BS in psychology from June 21, 1994, and a BS in business dated June 12, 1996. The diplomas were beautifully matted, framed, and displayed in the Peterson home as if they were legitimate. As the police soon learned, they had been ordered on December 16, 2002, from a website called phonydiplomas.com. It was Scott's credit card, not Laci's, that reflected the $269.85 charge, and Scott's shipping and e-mail address that appeared on the order.

The diplomas received little attention in the press, yet to me it was obvious that Scott had ordered the diplomas for himself, that they were part of his plan to create a new persona. They wouldn't have fooled Laci, of course, but others, like Amber Frey, might be deceived. The religious studies diploma, I believe, must have been purchased with Amber in mind.

Next, Grogan asked Scott whether Laci had ever driven Scott's truck.

"She liked it," Scott told him.

"Either one of you ever been injured in the truck or anything? You ever been in an accident in it?"

"No, never been in an accident. Find probably blood climbing [sic] in it but..."

"You know what that was from?" The detective interrupted, referring to the blood in the truck that Scott just mentioned.

"But I mean I-cut my hands every day."

"You cut your hand that day? How'd that happen?" Grogan asked.

"Um, reached in that side pocket in the door."

"What cut you?" Grogan asked.

"I mean, I know, Alan looked at my hands and I know he noticed cuts on my hands so-he knows." Scott was referring to the first night, when Detective Brocchini had inspected his hands.

"What was in there that cut you?"

"I don't know, probably just a door or the pocket or something." He said he bled slightly. "Still my hand, I, you know, I keep cutting it handing out flyers so, that's the reason I-I keep remembering it." Scott was not making sense.

Scott's injury fueled police speculation that Laci scratched him when he was strangling or smothering her. The other drops of blood, found on the couple's duvet cover, supported this conclusion.

As I learned later, one theory police entertained seriously was that Scott strangled Laci in the bedroom, laying her body out at the foot of the bed where Brocchini saw the indentation in the covers. As he was strangling her, Laci reached up and scratched Scott on the knuckle, causing the tiny blood spatter on the duvet cover near the indentation. Scott could have dripped blood from that cut into the side pocket of his truck when he transported Laci's lifeless body, hidden beneath the umbrellas, to the warehouse, where he loaded it in the boat and covered it with the tarp.

As he had with Sharon and Sandy on Christmas Eve, Scott knew he needed to explain how he had cut himself the very day Laci went missing. Since no one could know exactly how it happened, why was he worried?

"So you just had like a scuff on your knuckle or something?"

"Yeah, yeah. Still here."

"Which hand?"

"Ah, left hand, index finger-"

Grogan shifted the subject again. "Did Laci know you had that boat?"

"Of course," Scott retorted. "Can't go out and buy something, you know, without telling your wife."

"She's been at the warehouse before?"

"Yeah, I don't know, I mean I had it for a few days before, she came and saw it," Scott offered.

"Can you say when the last time she was in there was?" Grogan asked.

"Ah, it's probably Friday."

"Just a few days before she disappeared."

"Yeah, I don't know if she was down there the weekend or not. It's pretty much a common stop for us going to Home Depot-it's on the way-stop and get a tool or whatever," Scott said.