Moments later, Michael explained that, unfortunately, the photography had to be done. Because the police were trying to frame him, it had been suggested that Michael take photos of the scene. Michael said he really couldn’t rely on whatever the police had done the night of Kathleen’s death. The police were being obnoxious; they had been out to get him from day one. Michael felt their work efforts would certainly be slanted; the police work would be heavily one-sided. Michael needed to protect himself.
Candace didn’t quite like the idea of her sister’s death scene being preserved and photographed, but she realized that Michael was innocent. If he felt he needed to do certain things, if he felt the police were harassing him, it might make sense that he have his own set of photos. She figured that Michael’s brother Bill, an attorney, might have suggested it, just as a precaution.
As soon as the photos were taken, Candace was happy to see that the stairwell was being boarded up. Candace felt there was no need for any of the other people in Kathleen’s life—certainly not her daughters—to ever have to look at something like that.
As it was, the police presence around the house was unnerving. The yellow tape was causing extra grief for the family. Things were hard enough on them already, with Kathleen gone so suddenly.
With all the drama going on in that house—amid the police, the tears, and the media beginning to call—at least the blood wouldn’t be visible any longer.
Seven
It had been a typical winter day in New York, December 9, 2001, the day Caitlin received word that there were important messages for her from her sorority friends at Cornell. She had been out late the night before and had strolled in at noon after crashing at a girlfriend’s house. She couldn’t understand why she had so many messages waiting for her. She walked around her sorority house, looking to find one of her friends to figure out what was going on, when she came across her friend Becka, who took her into the piano room, looking very upset.
Caitlin could see her friend had been crying. Caitlin knew it was something serious, there was that bad feeling in the air. She started to think one of their friends had an accident. But Becka was refusing to tell her what the matter was. Her friend wanted Caitlin to wait for some other people. Even though Caitlin was becoming increasingly upset, Becka wouldn’t talk. Then Caitlin finally looked her friend in the eye and pleaded with her.
“You can’t do this to me,” Caitlin said. “What’s upsetting you so much? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t tell you. I have to wait.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? What is it?”
Caitlin was begging her friend to speak. After a long pause, after what seemed an eternity, Becka finally knew she would have to break the news.
“Caitlin, it’s your mom.”
“What about my mom?”
“Caitlin, she’s gone. There’s been an accident. She fell down the stairs. Caitlin, your mom is dead.”
Becka’s words whirled in Caitlin’s head. This was the first time ever that the cheerful nineteen-year-old had suffered a real loss in her life. She never knew death. She never knew tragedy. Up until then, any bad news Caitlin ever heard had been followed by a silver lining. But not this time. This time, the news was completely final.
As Caitlin was trying to process it all, the grief counselors from Cornell arrived. When Caitlin looked over at the counselors, who had grim looks on their faces, she instantly broke down in tears. The counselors reiterated what her friend had just told her, but by that time Caitlin had tuned everyone out.
Caitlin and her mom were very close. They spoke on the phone every day. They loved each other; they were friends. Caitlin was Kathleen’s treasure. Though she worked hard not to play favorites, Kathleen’s other daughters were really Michael’s girls, born in Germany to another woman, Liz Ratliff, and the Ratliff girls had a lot of issues. Even though they’d been “adopted” by Michael when they were children, the girls maintained their distance.
In the back of her mind, Kathleen always knew that Margaret and Martha had never totally accepted her. As much as Kathleen bent over backward for them, as much as she and Michael had hoped the Ratliff girls would adjust to their American apple-pie lifestyle, Margaret and Martha were never completely okay.
Kathleen did everything she could to treat Margaret and Martha as equal daughters to Caitlin. She did everything she could to make the Ratliff girls feel as one with the family, but there was always that separateness about them. Kathleen sometimes felt that perhaps, even though their mother died when they were just babies, the girls had never really gotten over that loss. For whatever the reason, no matter how hard she tried, Kathleen could never fill that gap. The Ratliff girls called her Mom, they loved her, but Kathleen knew she could never take the place of their true mother.
So it became natural for Kathleen and Caitlin to gravitate to each other, especially after all three girls had gone away to college, each to opposite ends of the country. Once they were all off on their own, so to speak, Caitlin had become Kathleen’s special concern. Kathleen was able to confide more in Caitlin. The two of them shared a special bond together. They looked alike, they thought alike. They were as close as a mother and daughter could be, and Caitlin always knew that.
As the grief counselors continued to give Caitlin advice, letting her know that all her professors would be contacted, telling her that she didn’t have to worry about her classes, promising that people at Cornell would always be there for her, Caitlin couldn’t really listen. They were working on her plane ticket to return to Durham, they said, and they wanted her to know that she could call them anytime, that she could lean on them.
But Caitlin was numb.
She didn’t want to talk anymore.
She ran up to her room to call her sisters, and was able to get Margaret on the phone. She and Margaret just kind of cried to each other, but they didn’t have many words to say. Caitlin hung up after she realized she needed to call her father, Fred, who had been her background support throughout her life. Even though Caitlin’s parents had been divorced for years, and even though Michael Peterson had taken on a father-figure role in her life, Caitlin had Fred Atwater. He was her real father, and he made sure they kept a loving relationship. To her credit, Kathleen had insisted that Caitlin remain close to her biological dad. Kathleen made sure that Caitlin had a good relationship with Fred. Regardless of her new family with Michael, she wanted Caitlin to remain close to her biological father.
When Caitlin dialed Fred, her father was anxious to get the call. He was on his cell phone. He told Caitlin he was already in the car, on his way up to Cornell to pick her up. He was driving there from Philadelphia, where he had been on a consulting job. He was dropping everything, and he didn’t want his daughter getting on a plane by herself. He asked her to book him a hotel room and said he’d be there in a few hours.
Friends brought Caitlin little stuffed teddy bears and left them at her door. Her mom’s death had been announced to her sorority, and they had canceled that Sunday’s usual meeting, in honor of Kathleen. Girlfriends were sitting in her room, just watching her. People were bringing her food, but Caitlin wasn’t really eating or moving. She wasn’t functioning.
It wasn’t until her ex-boyfriend stopped over that Caitlin really lost it. The two had a huge cry together; they still had a connection. But then Caitlin recalled him leaving, and the next thing she knew, her dad showed up. Everything was happening through a filter for her. She couldn’t name a single person who had brought cake or coffee or a stuffed animal. With her dad there, Caitlin felt a bit safer for a while, but everything inside her just hurt. She felt lost. She didn’t want her dad to go to his hotel room, even if only for a few hours, but then she realized she had to get a grip on herself.
The following morning, as Fred took his daughter back to Durham, in a very gentle way, he began to warn Caitlin. He wanted her to know that it was going to be a bad scene down there. Fred hadn’t really told her all t
he details, but he mentioned that the house had police tape around it. He said that her mom’s death was being reported in the news. He wanted Caitlin to brace herself.
By the time Caitlin’s flight touched down in North Carolina, a few of her high-school friends had left messages on her cell phone. When Caitlin called some of them back, speaking to kids who knew her mom, all Caitlin did was cry.
Because she and her father had gone to Philadelphia first, to catch a flight from there, Caitlin hadn’t landed until late on Monday evening. She and her dad had been met at the airport by his wife, Carol, and it was understood that, since the Atwaters would not be entirely comfortable with the Peterson clan, Caitlin would be dropped off to spend some time alone with them.
There had always been hard feelings between Fred Atwater and Michael Peterson. Kathleen had had a bitter divorce from Fred, and Michael knew that. Michael had been the man to rescue her from all her sorrow after Fred had filed for divorce. Fred had never been able to redeem himself to Michael, who never liked having Fred in the picture. Fred and Carol Atwater realized it would be best to drop Caitlin off with her siblings. They would remain nearby and available for anything the family needed. They wanted to respect Caitlin’s grieving.
So Caitlin was the last of the Peterson household to enter Maureen Berry’s house, the Monday after Kathleen’s death, and everyone was there waiting for her. As Todd came outside to console her, escorting her out of Fred’s car, Caitlin barely noticed the yellow crime tape around her home. She was in tears, but also in shock, and she fought to put up a good front, to wipe her tears away for a moment, only to have them come back all the more, the minute she and her sisters saw each other. As the girls hugged and cried, Clayton and Todd were at a loss for words. They wrapped their arms around all three girls.
But there was not much else anyone else could do.
At that point, Michael appeared. He wasn’t crying, but he was all welled-up. When he saw Caitlin, he went into a deeper sorrow. Young Caitlin had Kathleen’s mannerisms, Kathleen’s features, Kathleen’s body shape, which made his grief all the more painful. Seeing Caitlin seemed to be the most upsetting for Michael. He immediately took her upstairs, to one of the guest rooms, so he could speak with her in private.
With Michael looking across the street at their home, shedding tears, Caitlin began to think more about her mom. She wanted Michael to tell her about her mom’s day on Saturday. She wanted to know every detail about what her mom had done. She wanted to hear what the last day of her mom’s life was like. She asked Michael to give her every detail, about when they woke up, about what they ate, about how her mother was feeling. She just wanted to know everything.
Caitlin wasn’t thinking about the yellow tape; she hadn’t crossed that bridge at all. She just wanted to hear about her mom. She wanted to be assured that her mom was happy and in a good mood that last day. So Michael sat Caitlin down and told her all about how they spent their time.
On Saturday, her mom had gone to work for a little while in the morning, but then she had called him. Kathleen had decided to take the rest of the day off. They went to do Christmas shopping. He and Kathleen had gone to Costco. They had stocked up the house. They had bought a few Christmas gifts, some things for the house, some things for Caitlin and the other kids. Michael said Kathleen was excited about everyone coming home for Christmas. She had already put a few presents under the tree.
He said that he had gone to the gym in the afternoon, as always, and when he got home, the two of them had cooked dinner together. Michael said they had been celebrating his book option, his movie deal. The two of them had some champagne. They were just enjoying the evening. They’d watched a film he’d rented. At some point, Todd had dropped by. Everything was normal. They’d been drinking and talking, and had they stayed up late.
Caitlin knew about that routine. Michael and her mom would spend evenings alone like that sometimes, just having a quiet dinner, drinking wine, and getting into deep conversations. Usually when they would stay up after midnight, they would wind up outside at the pool. They liked to end their nights out there, under the stars, where Michael would smoke a pipe, and her mom would sometimes sneak one or two cigarettes.
Michael explained that he was outside with one of their dogs, he recalled that it was going on 2:00 A.M. He said that because her mom had a phone conference in the morning, she had gone upstairs to get some sleep. He said that about twenty or thirty minutes after she’d gone up to bed, he came inside and found her at the bottom of the stairs.
As Michael told her of these events, Caitlin was increasingly upset. He was about to go into further details. He began to say he’d called 9-1-1, but Caitlin didn’t really want to hear about anything like that. She told him she didn’t want to know.
Caitlin had heard enough. She didn’t need to know about the kind of shape her mom was in when Michael found her. With Michael becoming more distraught as he spoke, Caitlin could see he was reliving the horror. She started crying, as did Michael, and he gave her his shoulder to comfort her. The two of them were sitting on a twin bed in a guest room that looked over at their beautiful home. After Michael hugged Caitlin for a minute, he got up and went over to the window to stare at the big, old, empty place. The sight of it made him more tearful.
“Does Mom have life insurance?” Caitlin asked, as an afterthought. “Does she have a will?”
“I don’t know,” he told her. “I mean, I have all kinds of life insurance policies that I’ve taken out. But I don’t know that she had any.”
“Well, does she have a will?” Caitlin wanted to know.
“I don’t think she had one. I know we had once talked to Mr. Egan, he’s your mom’s friend, you know, the lawyer. It was sometime last year. I can’t remember. I know she was supposed to get to it. But I don’t think she ever wrote anything out.”
She and Michael were rambling on about different things. They talked for about thirty minutes, jumping from one subject to the next, mostly talking about Kathleen, but also worrying about Margaret’s birthday, which was, unfortunately, that very same day. And then, suddenly, before Caitlin had a chance to stop him, Michael brought up the unpleasant subject of the police.
“You know, they’ve been at the house for over a day,” he said. “The police are calling it a suspicious death. They’re blowing this into a big thing.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Caitlin told him. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, you know, it’s because I was the last person to see her. Because I was the only one there. So, of course, they’re looking at me.”
“But why?”
“Who knows? I can’t really tell you. The police have never liked me around here.”
“But I don’t understand why they would want to do this.”
“You know, Caitlin, how much I loved your mother.”
“Of course I know that.”
“I would never do anything to hurt her.”
“I know,” Caitlin said, “you and Mom loved each other.”
“It’s the police,” he said. “They’re trying to make problems.”
“Well, I think it’s just crazy.”
“It is,” Michael assured her, “but we’ll get through it.”
Michael and Caitlin had no more time to waste on the subject. They had to think about the others. Everyone was downstairs waiting for them. There was a small cake someone had brought, just to acknowledge Margaret’s birthday, and they felt they should at least go down and talk to her, and just be with the rest of the family.
Eight
The Petersons were never really a touchy-feely family. As they sat huddled together, some of them crying, it was an awkward time for them. No one was really saying much. There was nothing being discussed about the funeral. The family was just receiving callers, people from the neighborhood, mostly, who were stopping in with goodies, who had come to offer some support.
The family was overcome with grief, and with the
added trouble the police were causing, turning their most solemn time into a public circus, they had nothing to say to anyone. At about 10:00 P.M., when the police phoned Michael Peterson to say that he could return to his home, everyone felt a sigh of relief. The officials had informed him that the search warrant was completed, that the yellow tape had been removed. The Petersons would be able to grieve in a place of comfort.
Michael and his sons were anxious to get back over there, but the girls had no desire to enter the house. There was still blood in the stairway. It was too sad, really, for the girls to face. The girls had a lovely hotel room on the Duke campus waiting for them, and they were happy to go straight there, to be in the midst of their aunts and uncles, their cousins, and their lovely grandmother, Veronica.
As for the adults, they were not allowing the children to see the full extent of their grief. It was already too hard on the girls, who were so fragile, each in their own way. For Caitlin, Kathleen’s baby, there was a sense of complete and utter devastation. For Margaret and Martha, two girls who had long-before suffered the loss of their biological mother, losing their stepmother was all the more dramatic.
Things were different for Todd and Clayton Peterson. They were older, already finished with college. They still had their biological mother, Patricia Peterson, who was a constant presense in their lives. Patricia lived in Europe, where she had raised her sons until they graduated from high school, and the boys visited with her often, each taking trips back and forth to Germany. Nonetheless, even Patricia’s phone calls could offer little comfort regarding the loss of Kathleen. Sure, Patricia had played a significant role in raising her sons, and she had played a role in raising the Ratliff girls. In her many years of marriage to Michael, Patricia had an impact on the four children. Her boys were close to her, but they still could not be consoled. As for Margaret and Martha, who had left Germany as children, they had formed a bond to Kathleen that Patricia could never replace.
A Perfect Husband Page 5
