A Checklist for Murder (24 page)

Police Impound photo of Robert Peernock’s Datsun shows the front mounts for a tow bar.

The vise found in Peernock’s Datsun and the toolbox holding the guns are seen here through the rear-hatch window.

Guns and ammunition were in the toolbox. The top pistol matched the description Natasha gave the detectives.

CRIME SCENE PHOTOS: The force of the big Cadillac’s impact splintered the telephone pole.

The inside of the car was relatively undamaged, given the extreme head trauma of both women.

The sharpened steel-cutter bar after fire inspectors removed the rope wick and pulled it away from the gas tank.

Claire’s bloody fingerprints were on the liquor bottle, but not on the steering wheel. She had no gloves on.

Attorney Donald Green only could look on helplessly as Robert Peernock was dragged out of court in hysteria. Peernock did not display his teenage daughter’s ability to remain composed in the face of disaster. (CREDIT: GENE BLEVINS, LOS ANGELES
DAILY NEWS
)

Peernock was ordered bound and gagged after repeated screaming fits during his sentencing hearing. Here he slumps to the table with his head wrapped in duct tape, while Judge Schwab sentences him to
22 years and 4 months
, to be followed by
life
, then
life without possibility of parole
. (CREDIT: GENE BLEVINS, LOS ANGELES
DAILY NEWS
)

Robert Peernock revisited five years after the crimes, at the time of his transfer out of Pelican Bay’s isolation unit to the California Medical Facility. Peernock’s hair had gone gray. The face-lift appeared to be holding up nicely.

He ridiculed the devices as unbelievably crude and ineffective, especially for a man known to be an expert in pyrotechnics. He pleaded for someone to notice that the devices were not merely primitive, but
were phony and could never have worked as detonators
. This alone, he asserted, should tip off an impartial observer that the crimes were not of his doing.

He also pointed out that the missing underside of the Cadillac’s dashboard had caused stereo mounting brackets to be exposed, and that
these
had most likely been the source of the severe head wounds to both his wife and his daughter. The dashboard was supposedly stored in his garage, but police failed to find it. All this did was to convince Peernock that Victoria Doom had stolen it and that she’d gotten rid of it somehow in order to help the police make the case against him. He wasn’t clear on why it would occur to her to get rid of a single dashboard cover out of a garage stuffed with belongings, or how doing so would help rig the case against him.

He explained his initial attempts to avoid arrest as having
been made in the hope of establishing these and other facts prior to turning himself in, to prevent the very situation he found himself struggling with now. He knew the courts would not help him prove his innocence. He had recognized the wreck as being a staged fake from the very beginning.

Authorities agreed with him that the wreck had been a staged fake.

And as Robert John Peernock himself was loudly predicting from within his tiny cell, the courts would indeed have an entirely different scenario to describe that awful night.

CHAPTER

16

B
y the beginning of October, before Peernock had been in custody for a month, Victoria found herself beginning to founder under the abundance of legal action being directed at her office from several different sources. She had to work in cooperation with the attorney for Natasha’s sister, who was fighting Peernock’s attempt to reach out from behind bars and attach custody of the child to Robert’s girlfriend or to his elderly parents. At the same time she was fighting Sonia Siegel’s attorney, who was attempting to dispute Victoria’s attempts to regain control of the bank accounts.

Worst of all, she had been enjoined in a civil court battle on behalf of Robert Peernock by the Century City law firm that loyal Sonia had hired to defend him. The high-powered outfit was known as Dern, Mason and Floum. Through this firm Peernock was vehemently protesting having Natasha assigned as administrator of the probate actions, citing a clear conflict of interest on her part about handling “his” money. Victoria responded that Natasha was properly appointed administrator because Probate Code defines the order in which administrators are to be selected as being the surviving spouse, then the children. Since Robert had been a fugitive with a murder warrant outstanding at the time of the appointment, Natasha was clearly next in line.

Besides, Maurice had entrusted Natasha to Victoria for no other reason than that Claire Peernock had believed in her; Victoria was determined to search for every justification the
law would give her for stacking the deck on Natasha’s behalf, in any way that she could, without apologies.

She would soon need that determination. Dern, Mason and Floum was about to make her worst fears about taking the case come to life. This multipartner firm had enough resources to assign a full roster of corporate attorneys to it, plus all the administrative backup needed to research every move they made.