A Deadly Game (16 page)

"So on Friday, did she stop by and have lunch with you or what?"

"No, no, not lunch on Friday. [I] remember that. Well, I'm not sure if she did or not. I mean, I know we'd have lunch, but I don't know if she came by to say hi or not."

"You're not sure if she came by or not." Grogan inquired.

"No, I think so, but I'm not sure, you know, I don't-make a note of it or anything." While he had assured Brocchini just days ago that he and Laci never spoke when he was at work, now he had them lunching there regularly. "Craig, I'm sorry, I've gotta go," Scott said. "I've got an interview-I'm gonna talk to some press here." The call ended abruptly, but there is no record that Scott had an impending interview with any members of the press.

At 10:15, Detective Tom Blake gave Grogan a report on the boat purchase. Blake had tracked down the previous owner, a man named Bruce Peterson (again, no relation). Peterson told police that he'd run an ad in a local newspaper to advertise his fourteen-foot Sears aluminum fishing boat, with a fifteen-horsepower outboard motor, a fish finder, and other accessories for $1,500.

On Sunday, December 8, Scott came by to see the boat. Bruce Peterson told him he had only used it a few times in freshwater; the last time was about three months earlier, in September. Scott asked a few questions, then told Bruce Peterson he would take it for $1,400. The owner wanted cash, and Scott promised to return with the money the following day. Bruce Peterson said he did not show Scott how to start the motor.

Scott came back the following day, cash in hand. According to the owner, Scott was polite and gracious throughout their dealings.

Later that afternoon, detectives reexamined Scott's boat. They had been unable to start the boat when they first examined it on December 26. Water tests confirmed the presence of salt, indicating that the boat had been used in saltwater.

Just after 2:30 P.M. police interviewed a woman named Peggy O'Donnell. O'Donnell worked at a business called Adventures in Advertising that was located in the same industrial park as Scott's office on North Emerald. O'Donnell claimed that Laci Peterson had visited the complex several days before her disappearance, either December 20 or December 23, and asked to use the bathroom. O'Donnell's remarks fueled speculation that Laci may have known about the boat, just as Scott claimed, and that she could have left her hair in the boat when she visited the warehouse that day.

Based on the condition of the office when Brocchini saw it that first night, police do not believe that Laci ever entered the warehouse that day. It would have been impossible for her, in her condition, to get to the bathroom area. Pallets of product were stacked floor to ceiling. Even the police had trouble moving about in the cluttered space.

Later on the afternoon of December 30, Scott called Grogan with the information on Laci's dentist. When Scott admitted, after days of delay, that both he and Laci shared the same dentist, Grogan's eyebrows shot up.

He listened attentively to Scott as the tape recorder whirred quietly on his desk, capturing a conversation that the public and jury never heard.

"Scott, are you there?" Grogan asked. "Yeah."

"On the press issue," Grogan began. "Obviously, you've been going to the press conferences."

"No," Scott responded flatly.

"You have not?" Grogan was surprised.

"I went to one." Scot explained.

"All right, the chief's been getting a lot of inquiries since the beginning of this thing about the polygraph." Journalists were asking whether Scott had taken a polygraph examination. "I mean every day they ask him about that and every day he doesn't really lie, but he doesn't really tell the truth either," Grogan said. "You know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I'm shook up." Scott said.

"It's going to make things a little bit uncomfortable, but, we're probably going to release ..."

"Okay," Scott interrupted.

"Okay? I wanted to talk to you about that up front and tell you man-to-man cause I don't want you to be knocked down by that."

"I appreciate that, sir." Scott then asked about getting his vehicles back, along with the keys to his house and office.

Grogan promised to check with the crime scene investigators about the keys. He then asked a series of questions about the anchor police found in his warehouse.

"When you told us you made a homemade anchor ... it looks like you made that right there at the shop?"

Scott answered in the affirmative.

"Did you just make one?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," Grogan sighed. ". . . the boat didn't come with one?"

"No, the guy wanted to keep the anvil mushroom," Scott explained. "Did um, Kirk McAllister call you?" McAllister was the criminal attorney he'd retained.

"No." Grogan responded.

"Okay, I don't mind answering your questions."

"All right. Can you tell me when you made that?"

"When?"

"Yeah." Grogan answered.

"Ah, I don't know, Friday, Saturday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, maybe, somewhere in there," Scott said. "Maybe it might have been before that, no, wouldn't have been before that because I was in Carmel."

"It looked to me like you made it in that ah, pitcher."

"I used a plastic bucket," Scott responded.

"Okay. And then poured it in the pitcher or something?"

"I just used the plastic bucket, little painter's bucket." While the pitcher was quickly located by officers, the little white painter's bucket was never found, nor could Scott explain its absence. Police suspected that Scott had left it on the last anchor and pushed it overboard with Laci's body.

"Is that what it was set up in?"

"Yeah," Scott responded.

"Okay. And that's just rebar or something on the top?"

"Yeah, exactly." Scott explained that he'd placed the rebar in the anchor to use in affixing a rope.

"Okay. There's chicken wire in your truck,"
 
Grogan asked. "What was that for?"

"Ah, little trees at my house. See those little stakes I've staked up?"

"Okay..."

"Cat keeps scratching the hell out of 'em."

"All right. Why was it in your truck?"

"Well I bought it, had it in the back of the truck, taking it home to put around the trees," Scott told the detective.

"Okay, you hadn't put any up yet?"

"No, no." Scott told Grogan that he had bought the chicken wire at Home Depot about two weeks earlier; he had left it sitting in the car trailer in his office, and he had just decided to bring it home. While the umbrellas never made it to the warehouse, the chicken wire came home.

"All right that sounds good. Ah, any questions you got for me, Scott?"

"No, no, you've been, you've been, you know, real good to me so, you've been real fair, I appreciate it." Scott responded. He asked not one question about Laci or the police investigation.

"At some point tomorrow, and this is up to the chief, if they ask about the polygraph," Grogan started. "We're gonna say that, you know, you didn't take the exam. We're not going to say that you've been totally uncooperative 'cause that's not true either."

"Right," Scott answered dryly. "... All right and if I can get one of those cars back, it'll be a big help in finding Laci."

"Okay, all right, thanks a lot."

"Thanks Craig."

It was 5:30 P.M. on December 30 when Detective Grogan stepped into a private ninety-minute debriefing at headquarters. Only those officers closest to the investigation were invited to attend.

The topic was a phone call that had come in on the Laci Peterson tip line from a woman claiming she was Scott Peterson's lover. Her name was Amber Frey.

CHAPTER SIX

DECEMBER 30, 2002

At police headquarters, Detective Al Brocchini was checking on leads coming in to the tip line when a conversation between a member of his team and a female caller grabbed his attention. Brocchini was standing directly behind Beverly Valdivia as she took notes on her desktop computer; his eyes were riveted to the screen.

A woman named Amber Frey from Madera, California, was calling to claim that she was Scott Peterson's current girlfriend. She sounded credible. She gave a list of specific dates when she claimed to have spent the night with him, and related details of several phone conversations between the two since Laci's disappearance.

Taking the receiver, Brocchini identified himself, then listened intently as the woman told her story. After seeing a news report about a man named Scott Peterson who had reported his wife missing in Modesto, Amber had attempted to call Brocchini the previous evening. When she couldn't reach the detective, she dialed headquarters and spoke with a dispatcher, who confirmed that her boyfriend had the same birth date as the Scott Peterson in the news. Upon hearing that, Amber decided to call the tip line.

Amber told the police that she'd been seeing Scott Peterson since November 20, 2002, five weeks before Laci's disappearance, and had spoken with him on the phone virtually every day since then. Grabbing pen and paper off Valdivia's desk, Brocchini scribbled furiously as Amber told him about her "single" boyfriend. The two of them had even discussed the subject of marriage. Just as with Janet Isle and Katy Hansen, Peterson first told Amber that he'd never been married, but later changed his story and confessed something quite different.

Amber related the conversation. It occurred on December 9, just a couple of weeks into their relationship, at her home in Madera, ninety miles south of Modesto. Soon after Scott arrived, she recalled, he suddenly broke down sobbing. He had "lost his wife." He offered no specifics, and Amber felt uncomfortable asking for more. His anguish led her to believe that Scott was either divorced or a widower. Scott sobbed that "this would be the first holiday without her." He "did not want to talk about it," Amber said, so she pressed him no further.

Brocchini asked if the young woman would assist in the investigation by maintaining contact with Scott without revealing that she had spoken with the police. Amber agreed. Promising to call her right back with a meeting time, Brocchini hung up, raced upstairs to find Grogan and Buehler, and called an emergency meeting.

As Brocchini excitedly briefed his colleagues on the call, Grogan quickly realized that December 9 was the very day that Scott Peterson had plunked down $1,400 to buy Bruce Peterson's aluminum fishing boat. He immediately dispatched Brocchini and Buehler to Amber's home. This could be the break they needed.

The late December sun peeked through patchy clouds as the officers made the nearly two-hour drive to Madera, a small city in the heart of California's Central Valley. Home to a portion of Yosemite National Park, Madera County is largely rural. Yet Madera itself is a fast-growing town of 43,000, dominated by young people. The average age is just twenty-six.

It was almost 11:00 A.M. when the detectives pulled up to Amber Prey's house in Rolling Hills. Standing in front of the cottage were two women, tall and slender, with fair skin and long blond hair. They looked very much alike.

Pulling badges and photo ID from their pockets, the men identified themselves and handed over their business cards. Amber Frey identified herself and her friend, Shawn Sibley, the woman who had introduced her to Scott Peterson.

For Brocchini, the name Shawn rang a bell. Two days earlier, he had heard the same name while interviewing a fellow employee of Scott's named Eric Olsen.

The police had first learned of Olsen through an e-mail they found on Scott's computer, in which Olsen informed Scott that he was resigning from Tradecorp. In a subsequent phone interview, the thirty-two-year-old Olsen told police that he had traveled with Scott on several business trips, and that on those occasions Scott was always generous, wining and dining clients and splurging on expensive bottles of wine. Still, he said, he had grown unhappy because Scott had made him financial promises that were never fulfilled.

Olsen also told the police that he'd never seen Scott abuse alcohol or pick up women on those business trips. But there was one troubling incident that stuck in his mind. Near the end of the conversation, Olsen mentioned that a woman named Shawn had contacted him several weeks earlier asking about Scott's marital status. Olsen told the woman he did not want to be involved in Scott's personal affairs, and that she should contact Scott directly. As the detectives entered Amber Prey's residence, Brocchini wondered if this could be the same Shawn whom Olsen had mentioned.

Amber invited the officers into her large, open living room. Although sparsely furnished, the one-bedroom cottage was tastefully decorated. She may not have had much money, the police judged, but Amber Frey was a neat and meticulous young woman who was trying to provide a good home for her young daughter, Ayiana.

As they sat down, Amber showed the officers several items to prove that she and Scott Peterson had been dating. One was a Star Theater 2 home planetarium, a Christmas gift she had received from him on December 26. The gift was purchased by mail order and was accompanied by a receipt and a special message from Scott written in Spanish. Then Amber pulled out three corks from bottles of wine and champagne she said the couple had shared during their dates. The corks were signed and dated and bore the couples' names. As the officers examined the items, Amber handed them a formal invitation for a black tie Christmas party on December 14. She told police that she and Scott had attended the party together, and then presented the officers with a receipt for the tuxedo Scott had rented for the formal affair.

Amber wore an awkward smile as she next presented the detectives with a strip of unused condoms that she said would have Scott's fingerprints on them. She also turned over a wrapped Christmas gift that she had intended to give him, with the words FOR MY LOVE inscribed on the wrapping paper.

After the show-and-tell session, Brocchini pulled out a tape recorder, and explained that he wanted to record their conversations as part of the investigation. Both Amber and Shawn consented.

"Okay, it's ah, Monday, December 30 of 2002," Detective Buehler began, as the tape recorder on the table whirred. "Present is Detective Brocchini, along with myself, Detective Jon Buehler. We are here with Amber Frey and Shawn Sibley and the time we are starting is 11:02. We're going to do two interviews here. Probably the first thing we oughta start-ah, I guess Shawn you were the first one to meet Scott?"

"Yes," Shawn confirmed.

"And if you wanna just go into that and start telling us about how you met him, where you met him, how long ago it was, and under what circumstances," Buehler instructed.

Adjusting herself in the chair, Shawn Sibley began her story. Shawn had met Eric Olsen and his boss, Scott Peterson, in October at a California Association of Pest Control Advisers trade show in Anaheim. One evening, they all enjoyed a Monday night baseball game in the lounge at the Disneyland Hotel bar, with another man named Dave whose last name she didn't know.

Shawn and Scott spoke briefly about business. He was polite and engaging. Although the men would view it differently, Shawn insisted that Scott did not hit on her. She was wearing an engagement ring and made it known that she was in a committed relationship. Shawn decided to stay on for dinner with Scott, Eric, and Dave, and the four walked to Blue's restaurant on the Disneyland strip. During the stroll, Scott removed his conference name tag and asked Shawn, "What can I write on the back of this that would attract a woman to me?"

"I took it and wrote, 'I'm rich,'" Shawn recalled.

Scott smiled, and suggested the initials, "H. B. for Horny Bastard."

Scott picked up the tab for dinner and all the drinks. After the meal, Eric and Dave went back to their hotel while Scott and Shawn went back to the Disneyland Hotel and drank at the bar until it closed. They then sat in the hotel's courtyard and talked until the security guards told them to leave. Scott followed Shawn to her hotel room, where they sat in the hallway chatting until 3:30 A.M. She was sharing a room with her coworker, she said, so they couldn't go inside.

Although Sibley maintained that Scott never came on to her, they did talk about relationships. "He asked me," she said, "'do you think there is only that one person who you are meant to be with forever?' There's probably a thousand people out there on this earth that we could be compatible with; I don't think there's necessarily just one." Scott "wanted to find the one person who would make him happy," she explained. He told her that he thought he'd found the right person, but it didn't work out, and now he was looking for someone "intelligent." Shawn said Peterson claimed he was "sick of bimbos," and "he didn't like one-night stands." He was "looking for someone he could spend the rest of his life with," she said. Scott asked Shawn if she had any friends who might fit the bill, but Shawn had nobody in mind.

Since Scott had been drinking, he wound up sleeping in his truck in the parking lot instead of driving back to his hotel. When Shawn ran into him the following morning, the two continued their discussion. He told Shawn that he lived in Sacramento and had a condominium in San Diego. His office was in Modesto, but he was rarely there. He also told her that he traveled extensively, in and out of the United States, and at the end of the conference the two exchanged business cards and went their separate ways.

About a month later, Shawn received a message at her office from Scott. Assuming it was business-related, she returned the call.

Scott immediately started talking about "personal stuff." After the conference, Scott told Shawn, he did not check out of his hotel; instead he had driven straight back to his home, and the hotel mailed him his packed bag. With that Shawn and Scott began a phone friendship, speaking two or three times a week on both her business line and cell phone.

Shawn said the charming young man always wanted to talk about personal things before they discussed business. She liked Scott, and eventually she decided to introduce him to her friend, Amber Frey, if he was "serious" about meeting a smart girl and settling down. Shawn told Scott that Amber had been hurt before, but Scott assured her that he was not a cad. "Scott insisted he would do nothing to hurt her," Shawn told the officers. The introduction was made, and Amber and Scott began dating.

In early December, however, Shawn had learned that Scott Peterson might be married. Brocchini leaned forward and readjusted himself in the chair, paying close attention as Shawn recalled a December 6 conversation with an ex-employee named Feras Almasari, also known as Mike. Almasari told her that he had recently applied for a job with Scott Peterson at Tradecorp. Scott told Mike quite a story: Having sold his business in Europe, he said, he had retired and come to the United States to launch Tradecorp.

According to Almasari, Scott claimed to have so much money that his wife just "went ahead and bought" a house in Modesto.

Shawn was shocked to hear that Scott was married. She continued to question Almasari to make sure that they were talking about the same man.

"It's Scott Peterson, the owner of Tradecorp," Almasari told her. "Did you confront Scott that same day?" Buehler asked, shifting in his seat.

"Immediately," Shawn recalled, her voice rising. "I mean Amber is my best friend in the whole world. I was freaked. Here I'm thinking, Oh, my God, I set her up with a married guy. How horrible is that?"

When Shawn got Scott on the phone, he vehemently denied ever being married. But she hung up feeling unsatisfied by his explanations, and soon thereafter she called Olsen. Shawn's account of her conversation with Eric Olsen corroborated what Olsen had told Brocchini during their interview on December 28.