A Checklist for Murder (34 page)

Craig ran his eyes down the rest of the page, but all the other items were innocuous little entries, notes about fixing air-conditioning on the rental properties, about a renter coming over at 4:30, nothing remarkable.

And then it hit him. He felt as if his blood temperature dropped twenty degrees.

The flat steel bar that had been bent into an L-shape and fastened under the death car had also been filed to a sharp point.

Just like the little drawing Richman was holding in his hand.

Craig considered the little drawing of the hollow, sharpened L and the word
stock
. He already knew that when you go to a metal supply place and order a thick bar of steel, you ask for a bar of stock. Bar stock. Bar stock is thick enough to be strong, but thin enough to be bent into an L-shape if you use a good vise and a large wrench.

Two large wrenches had been taken from the Datsun. A vise had been found in the hatchback section, wrapped in white plastic right next to the toolbox that had the guns inside.

And here on this list was this bizarre little entry, tucked in among all these other daily chores. The only date on the page was a reference to one of the renters’ starting on June
3, 1987, so the list had been drawn up sometime during the seven weeks preceding the crimes.

“So,” Craig muttered, “go out and buy a piece of bar stock and bend it into a right angle and sharpen the long end to a point to use in murdering your wife and daughter in such a fashion that it will look like they died in a fiery auto accident. Oh, and don’t forget: a renter is coming over at four-thirty.”

And if this drawing was not the cutter bar found rigged under the car by the gas tank, then what was it? What harmless thing could it be?
What innocent thing is described by drawing a large, hollow, sharp-pointed L—followed by the word
stock?

By now Richman’s heart had started pounding. He snatched another handful of papers from the box and began going down each list. Still, most of them were nothing.

June 7, “Air pump from Datsun,” scratched out, “rope,” not scratched out. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the rope he needed on June 7.

June 8, “Buy battery, 9 volt,” scratched out, followed by two more lists on the same page, all for plain daily chores at the rental properties.

But here was one, labeled “To Do 5/14/87,” and the very first item was “Call about window tint.” Richman already knew that Peernock had taken the Cadillac in to have the windows tinted early in June, less than a month after this notation was made. But Peernock claimed that he rarely drove the car at that time. His girlfriend, Sonia Siegel, confirmed that he had nearly stopped driving it altogether. So why tint the windows? Besides, tinting makes it harder to see out at night.

And harder to see in.

But the other items on that list were just chores, right down to the last entry, an odd little item labeled number eight, “Take care of Foothill.” It was the last item on that
page. It had not been scratched out. Peernock claimed in his pretrial hearings to have been engaged in struggles with the Foothill police over something or other concerning his ongoing whistleblower activities. So as of May 14 he had apparently not taken care of Foothill yet. But the wreck had been staged inside the Police Department’s Foothill Division.

Richman was tearing through the box now, scanning each page quickly, rejecting most of them as meaningless, and setting them aside before picking up another and still another. Check the sprinklers. Check the car. Cheek this. Check that.

Here was an odd one: “Find Loc.”

Location? Craig wondered. Find location? The item was not scratched out. It dated all the way back to December 1, 1986, a short time after Claire had seen Victoria Doom about the divorce. Peernock needed a location on that day and he had not scratched it out. Also on that page was “Empty car,” and “Buy Liq.” followed by a number 2 inside a small circle. Buy two bottles of liquor? Peernock didn’t drink and everyone confirmed that Claire never touched hard liquor. Since Peernock did not seem to have any friends, for whom would he buy two bottles of liquor,
without bothering to note what kind or what brand
?

That is, unless he needed a bottle of hard stuff, any kind of hard stuff, to force-feed the women. And maybe a second bottle to leave next to Claire’s body in the staged car wreck?

Of course, that would have to take place after carefully pressing her fingers against it to leave prints on the bottle. And yet it seemed he had forgotten to press her fingers to the steering wheel; the controls of the car she had supposedly been driving showed no trace of ever having been touched by her.

Craig Richman hadn’t left his chair, but he had broken a sweat. He wouldn’t need an aerobic pump today; his heart rate was right up there in the target zone.

And there now, on the same December page, set inside a
little hand-drawn box, was a sublist of seven numbered entries. To the right of that box were the abbreviated words “Bar thick 2 R. & Sq.” Peernock’s car had indeed been fitted with a thick bar that had been turned at nearly a right angle, squared off to the flat side of the bar. But this item was written six months before the June 3 list that had the L-shaped drawing. This earlier list didn’t have such a drawing anywhere on it, just the item. Maybe Peernock hadn’t perfected the design, back in December?

But it was the seven numbered entries on the left side that really jumped up off of the page. Written in terse abbreviations, the seven items looked confusing.

1. H.C.
   

2. Cl’s Pur
   

3. Keys
   

4. W. Bott.s
   

5. Rags & Tissues
   

6. Liq
   

7. F.M.
   

At first the abbreviations made no sense. Then they began to translate themselves—

Within moments the items unfolded before Craig Richman’s eyes.

Number two. Claire’s purse? Peernock didn’t live with Claire, they barely communicated. What did he need with Claire’s purse? What else could this be? Richman asked himself. What harmless list of things would this be?

“My God,” Richman muttered out loud. It had to be a “To-Do” list to murder Claire. Peernock had drawn up this list, working out the details,
seven months before he actually did the deeds
.

ONE, handcuffs, TWO, Claire’s purse, THREE, don’t forget the extra keys, FOUR, water bottles to clean up with,
FIVE, rags and tissues to wipe off with and for the fire in the trunk, SIX, liquor to pour into her and to leave in the car, SEVEN, either remember to set the car radio on FM, the way Claire would set it if she were really driving the car. Or maybe—

Don’t forget the face mask.

He shuffled through more lists. Page after page. Here was another: “Flashlight,” for obvious reasons, then “Rope & G”—rope and gas? “Tire replacement”—after removing the murder kit from the trunk at the scene? “Lq in Bot.”—liquor in bottle? Peernock didn’t drink. “Wat. in bot & rags,” water and rags to clean himself up before leaving the dark location?

Beneath that was the underlined heading “
Bag
,” followed by the familiar “H.C.” and “F.M.” and also by “Rope” and “Gloves” and “Matches” and the note to “Put spark plugs in Cad.”

Yeah, right
, Richman thought to himself.
You certainly don’t want the car you don’t drive to be futzing out on you when you send it speeding for the concrete wall
.

On the same page was a separate section with the notations “W. in backseat + Ch. + cover.” Wife in backseat, plus child, plus cover. If not that, then what? What harmless thing could it be, other than an idea to cover the kidnapped women with something so passing cars wouldn’t see? Also “Bott liq & water & rags,” obvious again.

And then came the most chilling notation so far:

“Test str. to what speed.” Test straight to what speed? Got to make sure the car you don’t drive goes straight at high speeds. Even if no one is holding the wheel. Straight all the way to the wall, assuming that by now Peernock knew about the wall—because this list had no date, but it also had no reminder to “Find Loc.” as there had been on several other lists throughout the seven-month period.

By the time Peernock had made the notation of “test str.
to what speed,” he was apparently no longer concerned that he needed to “Find Loc.” The lists covered seven months of time and many of the more incriminating notations had been made over and over. Find location, find location, find location. It seemed that by the time he’d drawn up this one he had already found his location. That meant that by this time he knew about the wall.

Then all he would have to do is “test str. to what speed.”

And finally, there at the bottom of the page, Craig Richman found the last list he would need. It consisted of nine items in all, sprinkled in with other routine chores that any landlord might perform, mixed in with perfectly understandable and harmless activities. The list began with the reminder to “move seat up.” To hold Claire’s body in place? Richman felt as if he was gazing into some madman’s crystal ball, watching the carefully crafted crimes being rehearsed.

Then came the reminder “pur.” Wouldn’t want to forget to throw her purse in, as the purse indeed had been, to make it look as if she were really driving.

Then came the notation “keys,” followed by a couple of unreadable scribbles.

Next was the reminder to “pull wires.” The paramedics testified that light was a problem inside the car. The dome light was off even though the door was open. It seems that the reminder had worked and he had remembered to pull the wires.

The bottom notation was the reminder “plastic bag for rope and wire.” Right, he thought grimly. Wouldn’t want to put bloody equipment inside the getaway car.

Last of all, at the right of the page directly next to this final list, was a single notation “home contracts.”

Natasha had testified several times that her father had told her, before Claire had arrived at home, that he was going to force her to sign papers. Craig had already recovered a scrap of paper written out in draft form in Peernock’s handwriting,
which said, “In lieu of anything, I accept $2,000 dollars.” It had a hand-drawn signature line. Robert had printed Claire Peernock’s name underneath the signature line.

But Claire had never signed it. Did she, Richman wondered, have that piece of paper waved under her face just before Natasha, lying bound in her mother’s bedroom, heard the sound of bodies falling to the floor like little girls turning cartwheels indoors on a rainy day?

Richman knew that even though the courts won’t allow a witness to testify to her gut feelings, Natasha was convinced that the loud thuds on the floor were the result of Claire’s refusal to sign whatever contract Robert had handed her.

Craig Richman was holding, right here in his hands, a road map of progress showing the twisted journey Peernock had walked as he pursued the idea of slaughtering his family. Over the months that Robert Peernock had been compiling these lists, he had met with his family women, spoken with them, looked into their eyes, while planning their fiery deaths.

When the ominous items were culled from the harmless reminders and translated from their abbreviations, they formed an arm of incrimination that swung toward Robert Peernock as plainly as a compass needle showing magnetic north.

Check underneath car
Call about window tint
Check straight to what speed
Wife in backseat, plus child plus cover
Liquor bottles
Water bottles
Rags and tissues
Move seat up
Claire’s purse
Handcuffs
Keys
Face Mask
Find Location
Find Location
Find Location
Get statement straight.

Craig Richman finally stood up from the table in the deserted office building, his mouth dry as parchment. He hurried to the nearest phone and dialed Steve Fisk’s home number.

“Steve, Craig Richman. You’re brilliant. Do you know that?”

“Wow. Thanks. You called at this hour to tell me that?”

“No. I called at this hour to tell you that a lot of other detectives would have decided that Peernock’s car was full of bits of scrap paper that weren’t worth anything and they would have let the papers get pitched out.”

“You finally get around to going through that stuff?”

“Ohhh, yeah.”

“What’ve you got?”

“Lists. The guy was writing little reminder lists, over and over, for
seven months
! There are about ten of them, but they’re all part of the same thing. The same list.

“Steve, it’s a checklist for murder.”

When Craig Richman finally hung up the phone, it wasn’t just the telephone receiver that he felt dropping into place. It was all of the pieces of the giant puzzle cube, dropping into all of the proper spots.

The way they do when the puzzle finally gets just the right twist.

CHAPTER

26

T
he fireworks began on the first day of trial. Before Judge Schwab allowed the jury to come in for the first time, Robert tried to fire Green and go in pro per as his own attorney. He had already been given this opportunity during the pretrial phase but had turned it down. Now Judge Schwab dismissed his motion as a stalling tactic. He cited the fact that trial was already beginning and emphasized Peernock’s prior outrageous behavior in court as proof that he was either unable or unwilling to conform to court standards of behavior. When Robert’s motion to defend himself was denied he blew up once again and was finally dragged out and put in the lockup next to the courtroom.

The jury had not even been called in yet.

There was a pause in the courtroom as Donald Green excused himself and visited Robert in the lockup. Green’s shouting was so loud that his muffled voice could be heard inside the court. But a few minutes later Robert was escorted back in, subdued and somehow persuaded to remain calm.

Judge Schwab called for the jury to be buzzed in from the jury room and the trial of Robert John Peernock formally began.