A Deadly Game

by Catherine Crier

“Well, I guess that’s up to you to make the decision,” Grogan advised.

  “He told me it’s a dictatorship. Not to—not to talk to anyone, unfortunately.”

  “Okay, I just want you to know that I know who that is.” Grogan was referring to the woman in the picture. “I know it’s Amber, and I wanted to give you an opportunity, maybe, to talk to me about that.”

  “Okay, well, appreciate the call. Fm glad I have—have listened to Kirk, though. But, yeah, we can’t,” Scott sighed loudly, “have any discussions.”

  “I just want you to know—that Fm not going to the media about this or anything. That’s not happenin’. But I wanted you to know that I know that she’s out there, and I wanted to see if you could explain it.”

  Scott interrupted the detective mid-sentence. “Yeah, I just, you know, really shouldn’t talk so … ”

  “Well, then that’s fine, but you’re not gonna see me on Larry King talkin’ about it, okay.-*”

  “All right.”

  “I mean, is there going to be other Ambers out there, Scott?”

  “What’s that?” Scott acted as though he could not hear the detective, just as he did whenever Amber asked him a difficult question.

  “Are there other people out there, Scott? Other Ambers?” Grogan repeated.

  “Other press people, or … ?” Scott asked at the same time.

  “Well, I’m talkin’ about other gals,” Grogan clarified.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about… ” Scott started.

  Grogan asked Scott if his low-key attitude with the press, and his hesitancy to become involved in interviews, had something to do with the fact there were females like Amber who may have seen him. Instead of answering, Scott told Grogan that he’d discuss the matter with his attorney, and if McAllister agreed, he would set up a meeting.

  The phone call ended.

  Scott also spoke with his dad that day. His mom had already left him a message telling him that she was putting “a check in the mail” for his expenses. “I got an envelope all ready, and we’re gonna be here,” Jackie Peterson said in the message. “So the mailman hasn’t come yet. Give me a call. Love you. Bye.”

  When Scott returned her call, he got Lee on the line. “Okay, how much do you need?” his dad asked.

  “I don’t know, not much,” Scott told him.

  “A couple of grand?”

  “Yeah, that would be fine,” Scott said.

  “We’ll put five in just for the hell of it,” Lee Peterson said.

  “Oh, great, yeah, pay some bills,” Scott stated.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m going to workout for a few minutes here at the club,” Scott said.

  “Good, good,” his dad responded. “I told Mom how great your club was.”

  “Relax a little bit,” Scott said. “1 don’t know if I’m pulling an O. J. by being at the club or not, but … ” Scott was referring to O. J. Simpson’s claims that he was searching for his wife’s “real” killer when he was actually playing golf.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Lee Peterson said. Once again, Scott’s parents were reinforcing the kind of anythmg-goes behavior Scott showed throughout his adult life. Go ahead, hang out at the country club while your wife is missing. You had an affair? Don’t worry about it. You can do no wrong. And, by the way, we’ll take care of your bills.

  In fact, to the police it didn’t look like Scott was worrying about much of anything. Just days after he’d called to get the Playboy Channel added to his cable system, he had called to replace it with a seriously hard-core porn package, including the Ten and Ecstasy sex channels.

  Interestingly, Scott’s half sister, Anne Bird, learned that Scott ordered the “upgrade” on January 12, 2003, the very day he’d attended her son’s christening. When the subject came up later with the priest, he couldn’t resist a moment of dark humor.

  “Must have been some service, huh?”

  Officers monitoring Scott’s calls made some notes of their own in January. During one call, a college buddy told Scott that the newspapers had been “brutal” to him. The reporters were “not his friends,” Scott replied. “They can make me the biggest villain in the world if they keep covering it.” As the monitoring officer noted, Scott’s comment seemed like one you’d expect from a criminal, not a husband concerned about the desperate search for his missing wife.

  In this period, Scott also called Sergeant Ron Cloward to ask if the officer had “any” directions for him. Cloward responded that there would be times when police “did things that people did not agree with.” In some instances, he explained, they might even make Scott or his parents angry.

  “Right,” Scott replied. During the call, he did not appear to be affected by the comment, but later conversations would reveal a different attitude.

  Scott ended the dialogue by asking the sergeant to call him if there were “anywhere else” he could look for Laci. It was as if Scott had suddenly grown anxious to convince the police that he was interested in helping in his wife’s case.

  In stark contrast was another call Scott placed to his parents’ home. This time, Scott’s brother Joe answered the phone. The media “is trying to make me feel bad,” Scott told him. Of course, it’s clear why the prospect of all this attention was such a burden for Scott. He couldn’t appear before the media because he knew the scrutiny could only do him harm. Scott’s obsession with the media may seem to have bordered on the histrionic, but in hindsight it’s clear that it was just another of his self-preservation instincts.

  Scott told his brother that he’d just received a call from Craig Grogan. “He knows that I don’t take his calls because his caller ID is blocked, but he calls me from a different phone line. I don’t know where he’s calling from, but I can hear cars in the background, so I answer it. He’s just throwing out all this shit, just for me to talk.”

  “What is he talking about?”

  “They are just so searching for something, they are trying so hard. My attorney said yesterday, ’They have such a hard-on for pinning the case on you.’”

  Joe missed the allusion. “He feels they have a hard case on you?”

  “No, no, his expression was that they have a hard-on to make a case against [me], but these cocksuckers … ” Scott continued. Grogan had tried to “throw some bait out” by getting him to talk about the headliner in his car, which needed to be fixed. “So he throws that out there and says, ’You know, I need to clear up a few things.’”

  Less than eight hours before this call, Scott was asking Sergeant Cloward what more he could do to help in the investigation. I find it revealing that he would make such overtures to people at the top— including the mayor—but when it came to Brocchini and Grogan, Scott’s true feelings were revealed by the choice words he had for them in private.

  As Officer Jacobson would ask in one report, “Exactly what is Scott Peterson so worried about?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEE N

  JANUARY 15, 2003

  At headquarters on Wednesday, January 15, 2002, Detectives Brocchini and Buehler were attending a briefing with Department of Justice Criminal Profiler Sharon Hagan. The topic: The explosive story about to run in the National Enquirer detailing Scott’s relationship with an as-yet unnamed woman. Police knew that woman to be Amber Frey.

  The group decided to inform Scott and Laci’s families simultaneously about the story, which was due to run the following day. Lead Detective Craig Grogan and Detective Phil Owen would travel to San Diego to tell Lee and Jackie Peterson in person. Brocchini and Buehler would meet with Sharon and Ron Grantski in Modesto.

  That afternoon, Buehler placed a call to Grantski and arranged a meeting at the Detective Division on F Street, the details of which have never before been reported. Upon their arrival, Sharon and Ron were escorted to a lunchroom on the first floor of the detective offices.

  Buehler began by giving Sharon and Ron a very general overview of the case. He hesitated before disclosin
g the substance of the National Enquirer story, but when he did, Laci’s parents were stunned. Buehler explained that the story was also expected to contain important information relating to physical evidence in the case. He didn’t know how the tabloid had obtained the details, and cautioned them that the article might include some information the police were not aware of.

  The press has always been both a help and hindrance to law enforcement. Publicity about an investigation can bring witnesses forward. Nosy reporters can uncover problems with a case, or even pressure a suspect to make a misstep that might ensure a conviction. The limits placed on the police do not bind the media, so we journalists often push microphones into a suspect’s face and “offer” the chance to give a different take on the story. As in the Peterson case, these interviews can become critical evidence at trial. Sometimes, however, this power can cause problems for investigators. Evidence they would prefer be kept under wraps is sometimes exposed, and suddenly they have to respond to our timetable, not their own. Obviously, Buehler was not prepared to break Amber’s story to the families, but now he had no choice.

  Buehler admitted to Sharon and Ron that his team had known about Scott’s relationship for about two weeks. He told them that Scott and Amber began dating in November, and continued to see each other after Laci’s disappearance. Even now Scott was still in touch with Prey, and the two had spoken of a future together. When she had confronted him about his marital status, Scott had told her that he had “lost his wife” and that the matter was too difficult to speak about.

  “Why did he have to kill her?” Sharon Rocha moaned, breaking down in tears.

  Buehler sat motionless, eyeing Brocchini. No one uttered a word. Sharon Rocha’s desperate sobs filled the room.

  After what seemed like an eternity’, Sharon managed to compose herself. The detective filled her in on additional details concerning the affair. Buehler pulled out three photos and slid them across the table. Two of them were taken in Amber’s kitchen. One showed Scott and Amber side by side, the other captured Amber looking at Scott lovingly. The third was a photo of Amber in the red dress, posing next to a tuxedoed Scott in front of a Christmas tree.

  As Sharon stared at the photos, Brocchini requested that she and Ron not tell anyone about Scott’s claim that he had “lost” his wife. They could discuss other information they had learned with family and friends, to help everyone prepare for the media onslaught to come.

  The detectives knew they were walking a tightrope with the Rochas. While they needed to be truthful with Laci’s parents, Brocchini and Buehler didn’t want to destroy any hope that their daughter might still be found alive. They assured them that the investigation would continue as a missing persons case—not a homicide.

  Sharon confided that she was immediately suspicious when Scott first told her that Laci was “missing.” Scott had yet to tell her exactly what happened that day

  “She said he deflected, gave her only brief information about leaving the house shortly after 9:00 A.M., returned home, noticed Laci had not prepared any food nor was she baking,” Buehler later noted in his report.

  Sharon then tearfully told the detectives about something that occurred just the night before. Scott had come over to her house, she explained. He was talking on the cell phone about Laci’s due date, and she overheard him state that the expected date for Conner’s birth was February 16. The conversation completely surprised Sharon, who knew the correct date was February 10. When she tried to confront Scott about the error, he brushed her off and walked away.

  In San Diego, Grogan dialed the Petersons.

  “Lee, I caught a flight today, and I’m down here in San Diego,” Grogan told Scott’s father. “There’s something I want to talk to you about, I think it might be upsetting to Jackie. I didn’t want to just drop by. We haven’t found Laci or anything like that, but I was hoping that maybe I could meet with you for a few minutes, and then you could decide on how best to handle it with Jackie. Do you think that would work?”

  “Urn, yeah, I suppose, can you tell me about it?” Lee inquired.

  The men arranged to meet at Einstein Bros. Bagels at Lomas and Santa Fe by the freeway.

  “What is this all about?” Lee Peterson asked the two detectives seated at the table in the bagel shop.

  “When Scott came in with you a while back, I showed him a photo that was sent to us, and it’s a photograph of him and another girl,” Grogan started.

  “What?” Lee exclaimed. “And what circumstances?”

  “Well,” Grogan said, pushing the photos across the table to Scott’s father.

  “Well, how old are these? Who is this?”

  “We’ve talked to her. Those photographs were taken this Christmas. So it was taken on December … ”

  Stunned, Lee interrupted. “This Christmas?”

  “It was taken December 14 of this year,” Grogan explained.

  “Where are they taken?”

  “She lives in the Fresno area, and it was on the day when Scott said he was meeting his boss in San Francisco,” Grogan said.

  “How did you get these?” Lee asked.

  “Well, we talked to the girl, and she gave us this photo,” Grogan said. “This is a function that they went to together. She sent out this photograph of her and Scott in some Christmas cards to other people. I don’t know how many photos are out there, but my concern is that you and Jackie were going to see one of these in the paper. Now I know you’re probably thinking, can you believe me or not, and am I trying to put something over on you or something like that. All I can tell you, sir, is that I give you my word that those are the circumstances.”

  Again Lee Peterson interrupted. “Did she volunteer these or … ?”

  “Yeah, she had the photographs.”

  “[Does] she know him as someone else?” Lee asked.

  “Scott was telling her that he was not married to start with. They had been set up by a friend, a mutual friend. They carried on a relationship from about mid-November and they haven’t actually seen each other since Laci’s disappearance, but they have continued to talk over the phone.”

  “Since Laci’s disappearance?” Lee repeated.

  “Yeah,” Grogan replied.

  “I’m shocked,” Lee told the detectives.

  “There’s something very disturbing… . It’s one thing if it’s just some relationship that, I mean people have affairs,” Grogan said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but…”

  “That’s true,” Lee interjected. “You know, I don’t know if I should talk to you fellows anymore without talking to Kirk. You know, I’m a babe in the woods here. I don’t know law enforcement or, you know, lawyers or whatever. And I don’t want to say some-thing that could be taken out of context later, or whatever. So, I don’t think I can talk to you anymore.”

  “All right,” Grogan agreed.

  “Well, just wanted you to understand before this hit the press,” Detective Owen added.

  “This is gonna hit the press?” Lee shot back.

  “I don’t know if these photos are going to be in there or not. My problem is she sent out photos to a lot of people,” Grogan said.

  “These photos?” Lee asked again.

  “It’s a photograph similar to that, that she sent out in her Christmas cards,” Grogan replied. “And I don’t want you to see Scott in this photo [for the first time] in print.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t release that to the press, would you?” Lee questioned.

  “She was under the impression that her and Scott had a relation-ship and she was proud of him, so she was sending out Christmas cards to her friends,” Detective Owen explained. “She came to us with the pictures.”

  “She came to you?” Lee asked, still stunned. “Since Laci’s disappearance? Why in the hell would she do that?”

  “She says that at first, Scott said that he was not married. And then the friend that set them up to start with made some inquiries and found out that he was m
arried, and told this girl. The girl then asked Scott about it on December 9. Scott told her that he had lost his wife.” Grogan paused and looked at Lee Peterson. “That concerns me.”

  “I don’t know, what can I tell ya?” Lee stated, clearly confused.

  “She felt a little lied to because she found out Scott was married,” Owen clarified.

  “Well, what do you want from me?” Lee asked the detectives. “Why are you … except to protect my wife and I and so we’ll have prior knowledge of it.”

  “I understand that your job as Scott’s father is to try to protect him,” Grogan comforted.

  “Sure,” Lee agreed.

  “And I’m not trying to dissuade you from that. But I wanted you to know that these exist, that we didn’t release them. This information is very concerning. If Scott told this girl that he lost his wife be-fore, weeks before Laci disappeared … ”

  “That sure isn’t proof that my son was involved in this thing,” Lee said, defending Scott. “And I’ll stake my life that my son was not involved in his wife’s disappearance. I’m behind him. And I can understand someone having an affair, I mean, it’s not a good thing, but I can understand. … ”

  “It seems to me that you weren’t aware of this girl,” Grogan stated. “Are you aware of any others?”

  “No. Maybe this was at a party. Maybe Laci was in attendance and they were taking funny pictures because I have pictures of them in Hawaii with mutual friends …”

  “No,” Detective Owen interrupted.

  “Why not?” Lee asked.

  “Couple of reasons,” Owen began. “One is [that] the photographs kind of speak for themselves, but the other thing too is, the gal that’s in the photo talked to us.”

  “I’m shocked, but I still don’t think my son is involved in his wife’s disappearance,” Lee said. “He may have had an affair, but the kid couldn’t hurt a flea. I mean, he feels bad when he hurts your feelings.”

  It’s hard to interpret Lee’s reactions in this conversation. He is certainly showing the protective instincts of a parent. Yet his denial seems so strong that I’m not sure he knew exactly what he was protecting. Did Lee Peterson ever really know his son?