Guilty pleasure

Straight out of a romantic-mystery novel you’re thinking, one filled with evil, intrigue and just a hint of sexual tension.

But it’s really straight out of the Globe, the tabloid that titillates housewives checking out of the supermarket. Lurid quotes like that draw them in like a segment on Dr. Phil about women who love too much. Their readers crave the shocking and sensational story of Scott Peterson!

The real story of the years-long trial is about physical evidence, testimony, affidavits, motions and thousands of pages of discovery. But that takes a back seat to the emotional pull of the murder of Laci. After all, she was the cute, vivacious housewife about to give birth and he was the hunky husband with the wandering eye.

That other bastion of journalism, the Star, reported that Scott was “bombarded” with marriage proposals from “love-hungry ladies begging to marry him.” Wow, groupies too.

So we sent our undercover man Harmon Leon to San Mateo to find out why a case like this attracts the people and attention it does, because honestly, we can’t figure it out (See “Scott is Hot”).

And just when you think the schlock can’t get any deeper, actual evidence is entered that Scott wooed the blonde masseuse Amber with a poem from Boris Pasternak, the author of the hopelessly schmaltzy Dr. Zhivago. He read to her over the phone: “Beneath the willow wound round with ivy / we take cover from the worst / of the storm, with a greatcoat round / our shoulders and my hands around your waist.” No, not exactly concrete evidence of a murder plot to do in his wife and baby, but juicy tabloid fodder for sure and that’s apparently what many in this country want.