A Checklist for Murder (27 page)

Other guys were beginning to talk. One of the inmates on the black side had supposedly been hit up for the job. Another of the Mexicans bragged of being approached. So far these men were laughing it off, but Lyle knew that the size of some of the drug habits in the joint guaranteed that eventually Peernock would find someone who was desperate enough to do anything for cash, even seek out a man’s terrorized daughter, identify her by the scars covering her face, and finish her off once and for all.

Lyle couldn’t believe it. The irony of his position was breaking his face. Here he was, feeling coated with shame
over the treatment he had inflicted on his own daughter, while the man he had befriended as a part of this attempt to turn over a new leaf in life was asking him to arrange for
his
daughter’s death.

Lyle might have been twisted but he wasn’t stupid. As he explained it later, he could see from that very moment that life was messing with him.

He decided that this time old Lyle wasn’t going to take the bait. Killing “some bitch attorney” was one thing. But helping Peernock to contract a whack on his own flesh and blood? “Hey,” he explained to Fisk, “at least when you screw them they can survive to go get therapy.”

No, Lyle concluded, he had starred in a few too many of his own personal tales from the dark side. And when he thought about Peernock trying to make Lyle his private flunky in this evil deed, Lyle started to get mad. He wondered, did Robert give a damn about Lyle at all or about whatever might come around in Lyle’s life because of this? Right. Lyle could see that Peernock had no respect for him; the man just wasn’t coming from the heart.

Clearly, it was time to give Robert Peernock a chance to make his own decision about whether he would step any farther into hell or not. Lyle had made his.

And so, two weeks after checking in to the L.A. County Jail, Lyle took a guard aside on his way back from mealtime. He talked fast. Keeping his voice low, he muttered that he had information for the detectives on Peernock’s case and
somebody
better talk to him
soon
and, hey, this is no bullshit.

Then he headed back to his cell, moving fast but casual, acting like nothing was up. To simply be seen by another inmate talking to a guard without some clear, valid reason was enough to turn the others on you, get you branded as a squealer. But to actually be heard leaking information on somebody was a sure guarantee of a bad death.

•   •   •

Steve Fisk knew all too well that there was a dire snitch situation over in County Jail. Some of the inmates would make up stories about their mothers to get a plea bargain or a shortened sentence. The courts never accept an isolated story offered by one con against another, not with so much special interest at stake. With a story like Lyle’s, hard evidence is the only way to go.

Still, to Fisk this report rang true. It seemed perfectly plausible that Peernock wasn’t through yet, not as long as his daughter was alive and willing to testify.

So on November 19 Fisk wired Lyle for sound and sent him back into the cellblock with a story about a fictitious hit man named “Jake.” The plan was simply to feed Peernock a verbal noose and see if he hung himself on tape.

Murphy’s Law being what it is, naturally the machine malfunctioned.

What Lyle brought back was a tale of how Peernock had made clear and incriminating statements during the bugged conversation, but that something bungled the connection on the microphone wire. Fisk wound up with zero. The pressure increased when Lyle assured him that Peernock was shopping for killers on other cellblocks, leaving Fisk with the possibility that Peernock might find one before Fisk could use Lyle to get the drop on him.

What would happen, Fisk wondered, if Peernock had a hired killer lined up already?

Fisk feared that Lyle might be getting buyer’s remorse. Maybe the guy sabotaged the mike himself, Fisk thought. Speaking to Lyle so there would no chance of miscommunication, Fisk warned that if a young girl died because of any such sabotage, Lyle’s life would fall face-first into the toilet.

Then Fisk had the audio experts wire him up again. He ordered them to do it so carefully that if anything screwed up this time, they would know for sure whose fault it was.

•   •   •

On November 24 Lyle went back into the cellblock wired for sound. The tape recorder functioned properly this time. Nevertheless the tape Lyle brought back was maddening, nearly impossible to listen to. Fisk strained his ears for more than half an hour, struggling to hear through the deafening background din produced by a rooftop basketball game, countless bickering jailbirds, and frequent unintelligible announcements blaring over what sounded like the world’s worst loudspeaker system.

But then—toward the end, practically buried in the ball-court babble—there was that one section. Five minutes and six seconds that simultaneously chilled Fisk’s blood and gladdened his heart.

Lyle had gotten Peernock to say it out loud after all.

On top of the jail, in the rooftop ball-court area, sprinkled in with inane bits of jailhouse ball-game chatter and questions about passes to see the chaplain, the ice-cold truth came out.

Lyle: “So I got one phone call before I got back. And, uh, you won’t get hurt.”

Peernock: “Is there a wire on you, by any chance?”

Lyle:
[sounding crushed by the implication] “No
, Bob.”

Peernock: “’Cause they’ll do that.”

[
There is a rustling sound as Lyle pulls up his shirt to make it look like he has no wire. He manages to pull it up just high enough to bunch the fabric over the recording unit, which was taped high on his back between the shoulder blades
.] “I don’t mind. I don’t have nothin’. I’m clean. I wouldn’t let ’em do that. I don’t mind, I’m glad that you’re, uh, y’know, that you watch.”

Peernock: [
apparently satisfied
] “’Cause that’s one of the only reasons why I came up here. I’m
ver-y cau-tious
.”

[
other inmates discuss the game for a while, then
:]

Peernock: “I don’t know when my attorney’s coming this
week. But I’ve got the case starting Wednesday of next week. Which is the second.”

Lyle: “Next week?”

Peernock: “The second. We’ve got one weekend.”

[
garbled words in the background
]

Lyle: “Well, I got on the phone when I was up there.”

Peernock: “Say again?”

Lyle: “I got on the phone. When I came back? Just briefly, they got me off of it right away. I did get hold of Jake. He said he’ll want to get some money but he’ll take care of these things.”

Peernock: “Mm-hm.”

Lyle: “He said he’ll be glad to take care of the situation. He lowered it to fifteen thousand.”

Lyle later testified that Peernock had chortled off tape: “If this thing works, maybe we should go after the district attorney and the lead investigator on the case.” Lyle claimed that Peernock even discussed how lucrative it might be to go into the murder-for-hire business. Fisk knew that no one can deny that there are plenty of other arrestees who would appreciate the service of having inconvenient witnesses removed. Fisk also knew that Robert Peernock had always been good with money and seldom missed a chance to turn one dollar into two.

Robert Peernock was immediately charged with solicitation of the murders of Victoria and Natasha.

Lyle has been given a false name here. Whatever crimes he may be paying for currently, he neither requested nor received special privileges for his testimony about Robert’s solicitation attempt. And he did not ask for early parole by risking himself for Victoria and Natasha.

Only Lyle knows if his remorse over the damage he inflicted upon his own daughter is genuine. But he saved two lives on the day that he dared to come forward.

•   •   •

Victoria received a call shortly after Peernock’s jail-cell arrest for the solicitation of murder. Pam Springer, the deputy district attorney who had been assigned to Peernock’s case, wanted Victoria to come in to Springer’s office right away. But she wouldn’t say why.

Victoria showed up fearing that something had gone wrong with Peernock’s case, that she was about to be told that the charges against him would be dropped on some asinine technicality.

Instead she was greeted by a tall, attractive woman with short blond hair and cool blue eyes, who was every bit as expert as Victoria in keeping her feelings hidden behind a professional mask when duty called for it.

At the moment the mask told Victoria nothing.

Once inside Pam Springer’s office, Victoria sat down and tried to read the woman’s expression while the DDA took a seat behind her desk. Springer’s slim face could look alternately sharp and cold or angled and pretty, depending on the light, the occasion, the mood. She gave Victoria the news with a soft voice and a dry smile.

“No point beating around the bush, really. We weren’t going to tell you, since at this point there isn’t much you can do. But in case he got to somebody else that we don’t know about yet …”

“Please. Just tell me what this is about, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. But we have to let you know, and there’s no easy way to do it, so here it is: Robert Peernock was tape-recorded in jail soliciting for a hit man to kill you and Natasha.”

“
What
??”

“Seems there was some debate over whether they should firebomb your car or kill Natasha with a drug overdose and make you take the blame.”

“No. You don’t … this isn’t …”

“Don’t worry. The guy turned on him. We’ve got him. Strengthens our case against Peernock, actually.”

“Strengthens your—?”

“But you might want to take extra security precautions. I mean, we’re telling you this on the off chance that he got to someone else. Someone who might still come looking for you.”

There was much more to the conversation, of course. Victoria was able to recall bits and pieces of it once she left the building. After she’d finished throwing up in the ladies’ room.

Robert Peernock’s response to the charge of solicitation of the murders of Victoria and Natasha was unequivocal. He cried out that the jailhouse snitch was a paid liar and that the DA’s story was simply an excuse for the DA’s office to justify freezing all of Peernock’s money. To Peernock, this was proof that Victoria Doom was actively working with the prosecution to rig a conviction.

Victoria acknowledges that he was right about one aspect of his suspicions; she was certainly doing everything she could think of to help put Peernock away. The attempt on her life had given her the final element of legal power she had not been able to secure up to that point. Now all of Peernock’s money was cut off to him. And since his assets were completely frozen, he could no longer afford private attorneys.

Deputy DA Springer and Victoria Doom decided not to tell Natasha about the hit man. Not yet, anyway. Peernock had no way of knowing his daughter had moved away, that she had married, or that she was in Hawaii. Secrecy was Natasha’s best protection; Steve Fisk’s caution in having had Natasha flown out under an assumed identity had paid off in spades. Naturally she would have to be told before her time
to come back and testify, but for right now there had to be a limit to how much she was expected to cope with.

But Victoria received one of her Christmas presents a month early that year when her husband gave her a shotgun with the barrel cut down to the minimum length. So while Robert Peernock was being arraigned on the additional charge of solicitation of a dual murder, screaming that this “bullshit charge” was simply one more example of the governmental plot to destroy him, Victoria was keeping her new present propped in the footwell of her office desk.

She was also granted a permit to carry a concealed pistol. Since it was next to impossible to obtain such a permit in Los Angeles County at that time, the fact that she actually got one was a mark of just how highly the system had begun to assess Robert Peernock’s level of potential danger.

Like the nurses who avoided telling Natasha about her mother’s death, the attorneys in Los Angeles may have underestimated her ability to comprehend her father’s animosity. After all, she had been there the first time he’d tried to kill her. Today she says she wouldn’t have had much trouble comprehending the idea that he’d tried to hire a murderer to finish the job for him.

Nevertheless, the warmth she was feeling as a new bride in Hawaii came to represent a focal point she would badly need later on. She had no way of predicting the deeper challenges that lay waiting, because she had yet to meet the confusers or to hear the accusations and suspicions that would be leveled at her, one on top of another, by individuals eager for fresh interpretations of the events behind the night of slaughter. Even as she lived in the hope of a safer future, the gray cloud of despair she had dared hope to have escaped back in California was already approaching relentlessly
across the sea, drawn magnetically by the pull of unfinished business.

She had one more dance with Daddy left ahead of her. This one would not last for a matter of hours, as the last one had.

It would go on for days.

CHAPTER

19

I
t was three o’clock in the afternoon on December 21 when the bailiff finally came out into the hallway and called Tasha into the courtroom. For her, the past two days leading up to her time of testimony at her father’s preliminary hearing had been marked by a steady buildup of tension and a sick feeling of dread.

The return flight to California was an ordeal of apprehension as Tasha wondered how hard she would be grilled. Immediately on her arrival, the authorities told her about the hit man. There was no avoiding it. They had to explain why she was to be accompanied by two bodyguards twenty-four hours a day, why she was to be whisked away to a secret hotel for the duration of her stay, why she was not even to be allowed to step outside the room without a guard. There was even talk of placing a heavy bulletproof vest over her for the journey from the car into the courthouse.