A Checklist for Murder

by Anthony Flacco

  These features went beyond the mere similarities of the vise teeth as they came from the factory; they included the nicks and wear marks that give each vise its own particular “fingerprint.” Lewellin found three major dings on the clamping surface of the vise, plus a couple of smaller striations. Their size, shape, and orientation to one another formed a metallic “fingerprint,” and they were the basis of his conclusion that the metal bar found under the Cadillac had undoubtedly been made in Peernock’s vise.

  At 10:30 A.M. Fisk’s men observed Sonia Siegel leave her aunt’s house and load suitcases into a blue Toyota that she had rented the day before, after the police went out to her place and impounded her car. She drove back to her condo.

  Later that day she drove to Century City, a prestigious business community adjacent to Beverly Hills. The COBRA unit tailed her to an attorney’s office inside the gleaming white Twin Towers, a matching set of designer skyscrapers housing dozens of prestigious law firms. More big-time corporate legal work gets done in Century City in a single day than many small towns see in a year.

  Sonia asked her attorney, Paul Moore, if she should be helping Peernock by paying his bills.

  “That’s a personal decision,” he answered. “I can’t advise you on that.”

  “I just feel that I should be loyal,” Moore remembers her reply, “—that I’ve been in love with this man for a period of years. I don’t want to, you know, be his friend and because of the circumstances just remove myself from him.”

  Robert Peernock, however, was not sitting back and passively relying upon his girlfriend to find out things for him. As Tasha lay in her “safe house,” she had no idea how close by he really was.

  Deanna Bello shared a common wall with the condominium of Natasha’s future in-laws. But Bello had no idea that Natasha had just taken temporary refuge there while she tried to get some balance back into her life.

  Bello had decided to put her condo on the market and had recently hung a “For Sale” sign out on the balcony. It was a good spot for the sign, clearly visible to any potential lookie-loos who might be cruising the neighborhood in search of a good deal on a place to live. The balcony was right above the garage and faced directly onto the street.

  As Deanna Bello later recalled for detectives, it was at the very end of July or the beginning of August that she was at home on her hands and knees scrubbing the wall-to-wall carpet. She had just put her small child down for a nap and while working she kept the door to the garage open to get some cross breeze. Bello was so busy scrubbing that she didn’t hear the man approach her until after he had entered through the open garage door and stepped inside.

  He quickly identified himself as a realtor, offering her a card with a Latino surname that she didn’t really focus on. But she did notice that when he handed her the card his hand was shaking.

  She also noticed that his Latino name didn’t seem to fit his Anglo features.

  Despite her eagerness to sell the place, this just wasn’t sitting right with her. She tried to stop him, suddenly nervous about this intrusion. She was annoyed at him for presuming to enter uninvited and at herself for not having taken the sign down until her cleaning was finished. Besides, being alone there with her little boy sleeping upstairs made her feel even more vulnerable. She explained that she wasn’t really ready to show the place today because the rug was wet.

  But the white-skinned realtor with the Latino surname was already sweeping his eyes all around the room. “That’s okay,” he replied without looking at her, then proceeded to walk in uninvited. She didn’t stop him as he passed, but she trailed close on his heels.

  The mysterious visitor went straight for the back sliding glass door of the condo and peered out at the adjoining lawn, toward the place next door where Natasha was staying. From this vantage point he was able to see the other place over the wood fence separating the backyards.

  He stood for several minutes, not doing or saying anything, just looking out the window. Bello kept herself between him and the room her child was sleeping in while an uneasy feeling grew inside her. Finally the man turned abruptly and walked toward the kitchen. Once again he focused on looking out the window, but from there Natasha’s temporary home could not be seen, just a truncated view of the people living on the other side. This didn’t seem to interest the realtor as much; he stayed at that window for only a few seconds. She watched him nervously and tried to think of ways to get him out of her house without appearing frightened.

  He then moved to the sliding glass door. He seemed to have forgotten Bello completely and didn’t bother asking the constant patter of realtor-type questions that she had come to expect from professionals who dropped by to evaluate the prospect of a sale.

  The sliding glass door had a curtain on it. He moved the curtain aside in order to look out at the yard. Again, that view didn’t seem to tell him what he wanted to know. He spun around and walked upstairs without bothering to ask for her permission.

  She followed nervously as he walked right into her master bedroom and looked out the sliding glass, once more toward Natasha’s temporary home. He remained there about a minute.

  Suddenly he turned to her and muttered something about his clients, that he would “have to get back” to her. Bello was so grateful he was leaving that his comments didn’t even register.

  She gladly followed as he moved down the stairs and stepped outside, where he stopped and stood for another moment in front of the garage, looking around.

  As the realtor got in his car and drove away, she noticed that it was, in her words, a squarish blue car.

  Robert Peernock’s Datsun F-10 was small, blue, and built with a “squarish” design.

  It is an interesting coincidence, as such things go, that Deanna Bello was a nurse at Holy Cross Hospital, from which Natasha had just checked out. But at this point she didn’t yet know anything about her new neighbor’s dance with the grim reaper, so she had no reason to go next door and mention anything about what had taken place. She was just glad the strange episode was over.

  Bello would later identify Robert Peernock from a police photo lineup called a “six-pack,” where his image shared the page with those of five other men. Whether or not any of them were actually employed in the real estate market, none had the Latino name on the business card that she later turned over to the police.

  Steve Fisk blinked back the burn in his eyes and struggled to concentrate. You can only put in so many eighteen-hour days before they start catching up to you. But as he sat interviewing Jeanette, a longtime friend of Claire Peernock, he found that what she was telling him dissolved away the fatigue. She later repeated the story for this book.

  “It was about three years ago,” she said, her voice shaking slightly under the weight of the memory.

  “Claire had made a left turn at a yellow light. An oncoming car ran into her and she ended up with a broken ankle. But the thing is, and she was so upset when she told me this, Robert was furious with her. Claire thought that it was not for wrecking the car, but … for surviving the impact.”

  Jeanette inhaled and continued in a softer voice, in which the pain and the anger were nevertheless plain. “She told me he seemed disappointed she didn’t die. It would have made everything easy for him, don’t you see? Nobody wanted to believe her, of course, when she called several of us and begged us to make sure that if she was ever killed in a traffic accident, to see to it that it was investigated. I mean, I grew up in Louisiana where human respect, basic decency, it still means something, you know? Because even those of us who knew Bob, and knew what he was like, we never wanted to believe he would actually …”

  Lead Investigator Steve Fisk left Jeanette’s place knowing it was going to be a while longer before he got any decent sleep.

  He knew that the Foothill Homicide Division had received a rash of calls in the past day or two, from former neighbors of the Peernocks as well as former co-workers. They claimed to have seen Robert driving around hi
s old neighborhood and in the area where Natasha was now staying. He was said to be driving a blue car, but there was some disagreement whether it was his Datsun F-10 or the blue Toyota Sonia had rented a few days earlier.

  It was August 1 and Natasha tried not to think about anything going on outside the room. She wouldn’t have been physically strong enough to endure Claire’s funeral that day, even if the cops had allowed her to risk exposure there. Her father was still at large, still sending messages through various attorneys that at some unspecified point he would be getting ready to turn himself in.

  She tried not to wonder where her father was. She tried not to hope that the cops downstairs were very, very good at their jobs and wouldn’t be killed in an ambush by her father, because to hope for that was to admit there was a chance that they could not protect her.

  She was learning that in situations like this the trick is to get small in your thinking. Avoid the big picture. Focus on moment-to-moment victories, things like getting out of bed by yourself then sneaking into the hallway so that you can practice walking to the bathroom without somebody rushing up to help you.

  It took several tries, but she finally made it without anyone having to carry her. Leaning on the wall, walking slowly, she was able to keep just enough balance to walk to the bathroom by herself.

  The Elephant Man with bad legs.

  While Natasha was trying to make it down the hallway without falling over, Steve Fisk attended Claire’s funeral in the faint hope that something would come up that could help lead him to the suspect. Claire’s husband, as it turned out, failed to show up for her last rites.

  “Tash,” Patty ventured softly, “everybody wants me to pressure you into going for therapy. Do you even want to try it?”

  “I did at the hospital.”

  “No, I think they mean more like a long-term type of thing.”

  “Come on, Trisha, you know I’m not the type to spill my guts. This whole southern California thing about everybody telling you to get therapy every time anything goes wrong … I mean, people go to therapists like it’s shopping or something. Sometimes I get the feeling that saying ‘Get into therapy’ to somebody has just become like another way for people to tell you they don’t want to deal with whatever’s going on in your life. You’re just supposed to go tell it to somebody who’s being paid to listen.”

  “Okay.” Patty sighed. “I figured your answer would be something like that, but I just thought—”

  “Hey, why don’t you go out somewhere? You’ve been on duty ever since this all happened. Get some sun. You’re not as allergic to daylight as I am.”

  Patty smiled, relieved that Tasha seemed to know how much strain she was under, living for days at the hospital and now crammed into whatever spare space they could find for her there in Natasha’s temporary home.

  “Maybe I could go out for just a little while.”

  “Honest, it’s okay. I can pee by myself and everything.”

  Patty laughed. “Hey, I know that.”

  “Go on, then.”

  “You sure it’s okay? You won’t run away from home while I’m gone?”

  “I might. You’ll find out when you get back.”

  Patty left reluctantly, but Tasha knew her friend needed the breather. Patty just didn’t have Tasha’s experience handling bizarre experiences. Growing up in the monster house, she had become an expert.

  So she lay in the quiet of the room and listened to people padding around downstairs and talking quietly as they tried to keep it light and not be paranoid about her father being at large. This was about as bizarre as anything she had ever imagined. But who else was there who could handle it along with her? None of them had Tasha’s expertise with weirdness either.

  She knew that Patty had about come to the end of her rope, had given all that she could. It wouldn’t be fair to keep her hanging on. Uncle Maurice had made it plain that Tasha could return to Canada with them, or join them there later after all the probate stuff had been handled here. But even without bothering to reason it through, Natasha knew that this wasn’t the avenue she was going to take. Canada was an unknown world to her. The huge family her mother had left behind in Quebec was essentially a group of strangers.

  No, Tasha had grown up right here. What little familiarity existed for her now existed here. She could feel intuitively that the answer wasn’t going to lie in running off to some foreign country to live with strangers. Her fiancé was due back from his advanced training at the end of September. So if her father didn’t kill her first, it would probably be a good idea to just go ahead and get married.

  It really was touching that he seemed to still want her. It would have been nice to be in love. But she wondered if that was a luxury she just couldn’t hold out for now, or even if something had happened to her feelings that would prevent her from ever being able to feel love again.

  On August 3, early in the afternoon, Victoria Doom met Natasha Peernock for the first time. Up to that moment Natasha had only been a name listed on Claire’s dissolution form under the heading “Children of the Marriage.” Victoria arranged the meeting after Maurice had told her that he couldn’t remain in town much longer. There were matters that would not wait.

  Victoria was concerned that as long as Robert Peernock remained at large he had the ability to dissolve away any remaining assets that might give his daughters a basis on which to rebuild their lives.

  She quickly sized up Natasha as the young woman entered with her uncle. Her new client’s eyes were clear. The sharp gaze told Victoria that despite all the damage done to her, Natasha Peernock would be able to communicate clearly. Up to that moment she hadn’t really believed that anyone could come through such an experience and not be a complete basket case. She wondered where her strength of spirit came from.

  But Natasha’s physical state was still a mess, ten days after the attack. While her wounds had been stitched and repaired by plastic surgery to some degree, not a whole lot of healing can take place in so little time except for some of the swelling to go down. Her new client was very quiet as the introductions and opening small talk were conducted between Maurice and Victoria. She wore a scarf tied softly over her head wounds, but angry surgical scars spilled down from her forehead and zigzagged across her face. She appeared extremely uncomfortable and more than a little self-conscious.

  “I explained what we needed to do about the estate,” Victoria later said, “and I also talked to her about a civil lawsuit against her father for wrongful death on behalf of the estate which would also benefit her little sister, plus a separate lawsuit on Natasha’s behalf for the personal injuries her father inflicted. There wasn’t anything else we could do that first day.”

  But these actions gave Victoria the power to begin taking steps to lock up the estate before Robert could dissipate the rest of it. If he was never caught there was a danger that he would liquidate everything somehow through an intermediary. If he was caught and then charged with the crimes, he would certainly spend much or all of it on expensive criminal lawyers. Either way his daughters would be left out in the cold completely.

  Victoria realized that if she lost in court on these actions, or if some opposing law firm simply outfoxed her because she didn’t absorb her crash course in probate law fast enough, then Claire had made an awful mistake in coming to her in the first place. And Victoria would have compounded Claire’s mistake by not sending Maurice away to some other lawyer.

  But this case had already struck a deep chord with her, just as it had with Steve Fisk. Although neither she nor Fisk had any way of knowing it yet, similar notes had been struck within a small group of unrelated people which would motivate them to fight this situation with all their abilities and with every ounce of energy they could muster. They were the first of an expanding group of people who would have had no reason to come together except for this case, and who would all find in it some reason to reach within themselves for their strongest powers.

  Member
ship in that group would not come cheap for any of them.

  For Victoria, doubts about her advice to Claire had already begun to wear away at her, night and day. Maybe it was just as well that she had hardly been able to sleep in the days since Maurice broke the news to her; sweating out the beginnings of a legal strategy on Natasha’s behalf gave her plenty to keep busy with while she paced the floor at night.

  “Natasha, the crime lab called at three o’clock. There weren’t any traces of opiates in the Seagram’s bottle. Why were there traces in your blood?” Fisk tried not to push her. She had just come in from meeting with her attorney and looked drained.

  But Robert Peernock was still out there somewhere and Fisk needed to know anything she could tell him. Anything at all.

  “I don’t know. It must have been that pill. It hurts to think. I have to go to sleep.”

  “You can sleep, but tell me. Did the alcohol taste funny? Do you think there was something crushed up in it?”

  “I told you before, I don’t know. Can’t we do this later?”

  “Yes. We can do it later. But if you can help me figure out where he got the pill from, maybe I can track down the source. If it was a drug dealer, then maybe the dealer knows something. Maybe the dealer’s still in touch with him, you know?”

  “I just … I don’t know. He takes all these pills for his back. I don’t know. It hurts to think.”

  “Okay, Natasha. Okay. Take a nap. I’ll come back and see you later.”

  Her eyes were already closing.

  But on that same afternoon Peernock was back in Las Vegas, finishing up his initial consultation visit to Dr. Edward Kopf, a local plastic surgeon.

  Peernock was again “Robert Thomas,” no longer the Caucasian realtor with the Latino name from Los Angeles. He gave Dr. Kopf’s staff at the front desk a fake address, fake phone number and fake social security number, while making arrangements to pay in cash. He claimed to have been an employee for the last three years at a company called Har-Tec Carburetor. Dr. Kopf’s staff had no reason to check “Robert Thomas”’s place of employment. But if they had, they might have learned that Har-Tec Carburetor had gone bankrupt fourteen years before.