Perfect Murder, Perfect Town - Lawrence Schiller [45]
In the white-and-gray kitchen there was a large built-in refrigerator and an island counter. Copper pots hung from a ceiling fixture, and there was an eating area with three bar-height chairs. To the side was a butler’s pantry. The garage held the usual assortment of drills, saws, and tool chests. Skis hung from a ceiling rack.
Behind the kitchen, just inside the patio door, a spiral staircase led to the second floor. On the second floor landing were a stacked washer and dryer in a closet, a sink, an ironing board, and a microwave on a countertop. From this landing there was direct access to two bedrooms and a playroom. A staircase led to the third-floor master bedroom.
JonBenét’s second-floor bedroom, with a porch overlooking the south yard and patio, was closest to the spiral staircase. The room had a hand-painted hat motif, and the nursery rhyme “Hey, Diddle, Diddle” was painted on a carved corner cabinet. The police had removed a small piece of carpet in front of the night table between the matching English burl walnut single beds. To the left of the bed, the detectives had removed two additional pieces of carpet. At the foot of JonBenét’s bed there was a hand-painted locker that matched the fabrics in the room. All of JonBenét’s sheets, pillowcases, and bedcovers were taken into custody by the police. Fingerprint powder was everywhere except on the painted hooks of a trompe l’oeil hat rack stenciled on the closet doors.
JonBenét’s closet was stuffed with clothes. A small TV set with a built-in VCR sat on a shelf inside her closet. Other shelves held dozens of cartoon and Shirley Temple videos. To the right of the closet stood a pageant trophy as tall as the light switch. Another trophy was even taller. There was a floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree in the room too. In her bathroom hung an original pastel, called Tea for Two, by a Boulder artist.
JonBenét’s pageant costumes were stored in her half-sister Melinda’s bedroom. There, skirts, hats, boots, and dresses filled the closets and shelves. The drapes, daybed, and walls were done in a matching pattern of pink bows and vines. The book The 7 Spiritual Causes of Ill Health lay on a hand-painted table. John Andrew’s room, color coordinated with vertically striped fabrics, was next door to JonBenét’s. There, the police removed two more pieces of carpet.
Burke’s bedroom was also on this level but was separated from the landing by the children’s playroom. His wallpaper depicted World War I fighter planes, and a large wooden propeller hung over the small windows, which afforded minimal daylight. Two TV sets and a VCR shared a bookcase with a fish tank. Learning programs such as Practicing Landing and First Few Hours of Voyage sat beside his computer on a shelf.
The third-floor master bedroom had a cathedral ceiling and a view of the Flatirons. A framed print of red flowers hung over the fireplace. The king-size bed had a 4-foot-high hand-carved headboard. A Rider workout machine sat beside an exercise bicycle. A corner desk held a computer. Displayed on the floor and shelves were twenty-three of JonBenét’s pageant trophies. In a children’s play area stood a 5-foot-tall pageant trophy next to one that measured 8-feet-1.
A bookshelf contained such titles as Children at Risk, Children All Wide World Straight Talk, Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, It Ain’t as Easy As It Looks, and The National Geographic Society Index. On another shelf: The Cancer Conqueror: Incredible Journey to Wellness, New Cures for Almost Every Major Disease, and FBI profiler John Douglas’s 1995 memoir, Mind Hunter. On a night table were When Goodbye Is Forever: How to Deal with the Death of a Child and Learning to Live Again after the Loss of