A Deadly Game (25 page)

That evening, Sharon Rocha appeared on the Fox News Channel's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. The distraught mother continued to support her son-in-law.

"If you knew Scott, you wouldn't have any doubts," Sharon Rocha assured viewers. "If you saw the way the two of them are together, and always have been together, I mean, I've never even known the two of them to have an argument or harsh words with each other. They've just always been a team."

"0h, my God, I'm so glad that... to hear from you," Amber told Scott when he phoned that evening.

"Why? "Scott asked.

"Oh well, something uh . . . strange happened today."

"Amber?" Scott asked, as if he couldn't hear her through the static on the line.

"I'm here," Amber replied.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I don't know," Amber stated. "Sauki called and left me a message and said she was worried about me. She was in between flights and she said she needed to talk to me when she got back into town, and I have no idea."

Amber was referring to a message her friend Sauki had left on her answering machine earlier that day. She said that she was at the airport and had just read the latest edition of People magazine. "There's something in it that just at this moment, it just shocks me and if I don't talk to you before I get on the plane ... I will call you as soon as I get in ... I really hope you're okay," Sauki said in her recorded message.

"Huh? Weird," Scott responded. "She left like a cryptic message?"

"I have no idea," Amber said. "I'm scared, I have no idea what she's talking about." Amber-and the police-were hoping that Scott would pick up on the subtle cue and tell Amber about Laci. The latest issue of People did contain a story about the Laci Peterson case. Only later did Amber learn that Sauki herself had supplied the magazine with a photograph for the story in People. Amber suspected that her friend had phoned to alert her because she was feeling guilty for what she had done.

"Weird," Scott repeated, but offered no explanation.

It was just after eleven on January 6 when Scott Peterson dialed Amber's cell phone again. This time, unbeknownst to Scott, the young woman was sitting in an interview room at the Modesto Police Department's Detective Division with criminal profiler Sharon Hagan and Detective Jon Buehler. Hagan and Buehler planned the phone call, even giving Amber specific questions to ask Scott. It was in this taped phone call that Scott confessed to lying to Amber about "everything." "I'm so sorry that this has happened," Scott began. "And I'm so sorry that I've hurt you in this way. I don't want to do this over the phone. I want to tell you this. I want to be there in person to tell you this. But I'm sure that's why Sauki called you." "What? "Amber asked.

"You haven't been watching the news, obviously," Scott stated. "No," Amber replied.

Scott hesitated. "I have not been traveling during the last couple of weeks. I have, I've lied to you that I've been traveling." "Okay," Amber replied.

"The girl I'm married to, her name is Laci. She disappeared just before Christmas. . . . For the past two weeks, I've been in Modesto with her family and mine searching for her. She just disappeared, and no one knows where she's been," Scott explained. "I can't tell you more because I need you to be protected from the media and Ayiana." "Okay," Amber said. "Scott, are you listening?" "Yeah, I am," Scott replied.

"You came to me earlier in December and told me that you had lost your wife. What was that about?" "She . . . she's alive," Scott said.

"What?"

"She's alive," Scott repeated.

"Where? She's alive? Where?"

"In Modesto. Now, I know, I this is the hardest, I wanted to tell you in person. I... you need to protect yourself from the media."

"Okay," Amber replied.

"If you even watch the news at all... well, you haven't. Um, the media has been telling everyone that I had something to do with her disappearance. So, the past two weeks, I've been hunted by the media. And I just... I don't want you to be involved and to protect yourself. I know that I am, I'm destroyed. And God, I hope ... I hope so much that this doesn't hurt you."

It was amazing: only two weeks into this investigation, long before the media coalesced around Scott as the suspect, Scott was telegraphing his fear of detection to Amber.

"How could it not affect me?" Amber asked, her voice rising.

"It does, and I just..." Scott started.

Amber sighed.

"But I...I...I... have just been torn up the last two weeks wanting to tell you, and I'm so weak that I haven't. And I just, I just hope that, um, I had to call you and tell you that."

"You never . . . you never answered my question, Scott." Amber said.

"Sweetie, you don't, I can't, I can't say anymore," Scott told her.

"I think I deserve ..." Amber started.

"You deserve so much better," Scott interrupted.

"Yeah, and I deserve an explanation of why you told me you lost your wife. And this was the first holidays you'd spend without her." Amber asked. "That was December 9, you told me this, and now all of a sudden your wife's missing. Are you kidding me? Did you hear me?"

Scott repeated that he could not give her any more information.

"Well, you know, you told me you lost your wife. You sat there in front of me and cried and broke down. I sat there and held your hand, Scott, and comforted you and you've lied to me."

"Yeah," Scott admitted. "Lying to me about lying," Amber continued. "I lied to you about traveling," Scott said.

"But didn't you say, 'Amber, I will do anything for you to trust me?' 'Baby, we have, I feel we have a future together.' What was that about?" Amber demanded.

"I never said anything to you that I didn't mean," Scott replied. "You never told me anything you didn't mean?" Amber repeated in an angry tone.

"I lied to you about things, I did," Scott insisted. "And you don't deserve the things that I've done to you, but. . . there's no but. Hey, I agree with that. I want to explain everything to you, but I can't."

Scott would repeat this damning phrase again and again in his conversations with Amber. I find this extraordinary. Even as he protested his innocence, Scott was insisting that he knew much more than he was telling. If he had nothing to do with Laci's disappearance, why would he say such a thing? "Why?" Amber asked.

"Primarily, well, I've got a lot of reasons. Primarily protection for everyone."

"Protection of who?" Amber inquired. "Everyone," Scott restated. "Who is everyone?"

"Everyone is ... you, me, our families," Scott explained. "I asked if there was anybody else. 'Oh no, I'm monogamous as far as I'm concerned,'" Amber mocked. "I never cheated on you," Scott declared. "Ha, ha." "I never did."

"You're married," Amber announced. "How do you figure you never cheated on me? Explain that one to me." "I want to explain to you Amber," Scott stated. "And you're going to, right? Is that..." "I will. No, no, I will," Scott promised. "When?" Amber asked.

"I hope . . . God, I hope the hell that you will listen to me and I can. I want to explain it to you so badly, but I can't now. And I... I can never ask you to ... to trust me or to even listen to me again."

"You know what, that. . . that makes a lot more sense to me now, Scott," Amber said.

"What's that?" Scott asked, confused.

"Of course you couldn't tell me the story about your wife, because it hadn't happened yet," Amber declared, "and you were hoping to resolve [it] in January, that it would be resolved, and you'd have a story to tell me."

"Sweetie, you think I had something to do with her disappearance? Amber, do you believe that?" Notice how many times Scott answers a question or challenge with another question. He seems to believe he can deflect inquiry with this tactic-as, no doubt, he had done throughout his life.

"Well, let's see, how can I believe that? How can I believe anything?"

"I am not evil like that," Scott insisted.

"I would hope not," Amber said. "You know you've lied to me now and, do you know how many people I've given your picture to, or of us in Christmas cards? So, you're telling me that you want to keep me out of this, and Ayiana, and you want to protect me from that. I'm just at a loss.

"But isn't it ironic how, Scott, when I first met you on our date, how you told me you were going to Maine with your family, and you were going to Paris and Europe and all these things," Amber continued. "And then you came to me after Shawn found out that you were married and you came and told me this elaborate lie about her missing and this tragedy and that. . . this will be the first holidays without her."

"I... God, I don't want to fight with you. I never said tragedy or missing," Scott insisted.

"Oh yes, you said you've lost your wife," Amber recounted.

"I said that I lost my wife," Scott agreed.

She had it! The phrase Scott used on December 9, long before a tape recorder could capture it, was now preserved for trial. Either he was guilty as sin, or those four words made Scott Peterson the un-luckiest man alive.

"Yes, you did . . . How did you lose her before she was lost? Explain that," Amber insisted.

"There's different kinds of loss, Amber," Scott said. "Then explain your loss." "I can't [explain it] to you now," Scott said. "When can you?" Amber asked. "I can once there's ..."

"When my name has been smeared all over tabloids and everything else, because I'm the, the lover, I'm the girlfriend. When you've been married to this woman," Amber interjected. "You don't deserve that," Scott told Amber. "No, I don't deserve this," Amber retorted. "And you said you've been safe with me. 'Oh, some people I tell I've been married, and other people I say I never have because it's so painful for me,'" Amber jeered.

"I've lied to you," Scott admitted.

"So, Scott, what about your baby? Laci's . . . missing woman, pregnant, is that what you just said?"

Scott would not address Amber's question. He did everything he could to avoid talking about Conner. "I want to explain all of this to you, and I... I just am not able to." "Why?"

"I can't ask you to trust me, but you will... if you give me a chance to later to explain it," Scott pleaded.

"Yeah, is that why you said you didn't want to have any children and Ayiana was the only child you ever see of having and . . . and at that point assuming we're together she would be ... you would have her as your own? Why would you tell me that when you were expecting a baby?"

"Sweetie, I... I'm sorry that I can't tell you everything right now," Scott said.

"Why can't you tell me everything? Why?"

"It just has entirely too many repercussions and they're not all for me. Okay, there's a lot... and the repercussions don't deal with me," Scott said, without offering any explanation. No sufficient explanation has ever surfaced for these comments.

"Tell me the coincidence of Laci, your wife, disappearing and your stories earlier in December? And then you . . . you're carrying on this elaborate lie with me that you're in Europe and you're in Maine with your folks? Explain that to me?"

"I wanted to tell you about this," Scott contended.

"But of course you couldn't because you were in Maine with your folks," Amber said sarcastically.

"No, I didn't make that trip," Scott sighed.

"You and I, assuming we'd be together, how would you have explained a new baby that you brought into this world?" Amber questioned. "How would you explain your baby to me?"

"Sweetie, you don't know everything," Scott continued.

"Well, is this child yours?" Amber confronted Scott.

There was a long silence on the line before Scott finally said, "Sweetie . . . I'm sorry. Amber, I cannot tell you." Astonishingly, Scott was now suggesting Conner was not his baby. As this conversation played out in court, mental daggers were being thrown by prosecutors and jurors alike. How could anyone be so cold and callous? How could he angle for advantage with his girlfriend by disowning his own child? It seemed clearer than ever that Scott Peterson could not feel empathy or pain for others-that he would say or do whatever was necessary to ensure his self-preservation.

"Is this child yours?" Amber repeated.

"I can't tell you all these things now," Scott sidestepped again. "God, I know I hurt you."

"Why should I not go to the police with this?" Amber demanded.

"It's your decision," Scott replied.

"Really?"

"Of course."

"And at that point... I go to the police . . . with this, what do you see happening?" Amber let out a sigh.

"Obviously they would question you; they would want to know everything. I mean, it is your decision, of course. Um ... I... I wanted to tell you what has happened and I wanted to tell you that I lied to you," Scott insisted.

"And what stopped you from this?"

"Previous to now?"

"Yes," Amber demanded.

"I could make excuses how to justify it to myself," Scott began.

"You're not doing great right now," Amber stated.