DURHAM, N.C. — Candace Zamperini has a knack for remembering dates and places. She vividly recalls giving her late sister, Kathleen Peterson, a fireplace poker as a Christmas gift in 1984.

Zamperini also remembers the last time she saw the tool, also known as a "blow poke." She testified Wednesday at the murder trial of her former brother-in-law, novelist Michael Peterson, that she used the poker to stoke a fire when she and her family traveled to North Carolina from Virginia for the last time before Kathleen Peterson's death at age 48.

"I did use it on Thanksgiving in 1999. It was right next to the fireplace," Zamperini testified.

But it wasn't there on Dec. 9, 2001, when police were called to the Peterson home at 1810 Cedar Street, where they found Kathleen Peterson dead from an apparent fall down a flight of stairs. Police soon decided that the fall was staged and began asking why they didn't find any tools next to the fireplace in the kitchen of the Petersons' 11,000-square-foot home.

Zamperini on the stand

Prosecutors contend that Michael Peterson beat his wife to death with a weapon, perhaps the poker or something similar, and that he got rid of it before calling 911 at about 2:40 a.m. on Dec. 9. Durham District Attorney Jim Hardin Jr. introduced Zamperini's own fireplace poker, a twin to the missing one, early in the trial.

On Wednesday, he entered the poker into evidence "for illustrative purposes" only and asked permission to allow jurors to handle the poker.

"I object to it being handed to the jury unless it is offered as real evidence," said defense lawyer David Rudolf, to no avail.

The defense argues that Michael Peterson, 59, was in the backyard smoking near the  swimming pool for as long as 45 minutes after Kathleen Peterson went inside the house the night of her death. His lawyers maintain that Peterson found his wife's body after she either slipped or blacked out in a dimly lit staircase and struck her head.

Hardin, however, keyed in on the missing fireplace poker as he began to steer the prosecution toward the end of its case. He showed Zamperini photos taken in 1996 and 1998 that depict the missing fireplace tool in the background of family photos.

"It was always in the kitchen. I used it. I observed Kathleen using it," said Zamperini, who paused her testimony several times to wipe tears from her eyes with a tissue.

She also repeated testimony from an earlier hearing outside the jury's presence. Zamperini described her deceased sister's growing fear that she could lose her $145,000-a-year job at Nortel Networks and that she wouldn't be able to find another one that paid so well.

Prosecutors contend that Kathleen Peterson's $1.4 million life insurance policy might have appealed to Michael Peterson because his own 2001 income from writing was nil and his wife was in danger of losing her job. The defense has countered that Kathleen Peterson was worth more alive than dead.

Michael Peterson showed no reaction as Zamperini described how she, Peterson and another of Kathleen Peterson's sisters walked up the bloody stairwell after police had finished processing the scene.

"Michael said, 'I came up the stairs, I think to get some towels,'" Zamperini testified. "He looks back down and says, 'She fell down the whole staircase.'" Prosecutors didn't explain the significance of the statement, but perhaps will try to use it to argue that Peterson was trying to reinforce the idea that his wife's death was an accident.

A day or two later, Zamperini was writing her sister's obituary on the computer in her brother-in-law's study when she noticed Peterson looking out at the swimming pool, according to her testimony. Zamperini said she stood next to him and looked out with him.

"There was no furniture around the pool. That just seemed very odd to me that there was no furniture around the pool that I could see," Zamperini said. Where the prosecution was going with the lack of furniture is uncertain. Perhaps they will use it to challenge Peterson's assertion that he had stayed out by the pool for 45 minutes before finding his mortally injured wife.

When Zamperini finished her direct testimony, she sobbed quietly and put her head face down on the table in the witness box.

On cross-examination, Rudolf wasted no time asking Zamperini about statements she made to police immediately after her sister's death.

"Do you recall telling a detective that Michael Peterson and your sister had a very good relationship?" Rudolf asked.

"Yes, I said I thought they had a good relationship," Zamperini said.

Rudolf, however, confronted Zamperini with transcripts of prior testimony and police statements in an effort to show that her support for the prosecution's effort against Michael Peterson evolved over time.

Initially, Zamperini believed that her sister had died from an accidental fall, and that the couple's marriage was healthy. But she testified that since her sister's death, everything she has learned about her brother-in-law has made her uncertain about the Petersons' relationship.

"Do you still feel that way, that the marriage was a truly loving, respectful relationship, based on what you know now?" Hardin, the prosecutor, asked on re-direct examination.

"Sitting here today, I have no idea who Michael Peterson is, none whatsoever," Zamperini testified.

Zamperini appeared most upset Wednesday by the defense attorney's attempts to prove that the missing fireplace poker she had given her sister was gone long before her death. Using photos and home videos, Rudolf offered jurors numerous images of the kitchen fireplace taken over several years that did not appear to show the poker.

Some of the images, however, did show two canes, including one used by Zamperini and Kathleen Peterson's father before he died. Police never seized the canes as evidence.

Rudolf held one of the canes and asked whether the Petersons used it to stoke fires.

"That's my father's cane you're holding," Zamperini said. "She wouldn't use my father's cane to tend to a fire."

Rudolf then showed Zamperini a clip from a home video made around Christmas in 1999, a month after Zamperini said she last used the fireplace poker.

"Do you see a blow poke there?" Rudolf asked.

"I see the two canes there," Zamperini said.

Prosecutors did not have to introduce evidence of a murder weapon at Peterson's trial, but having presented Zamperini's testimony about the poker, they run the risk that jurors will discount it without more conclusive evidence that the poker was in the house the night of Kathleen Peterson's death.

Jurors could, of course, conclude that the prosecution missed the mark about the murder weapon but still believe that Kathleen Peterson's wounds were too numerous and diverse to be explained by a fall down stairs.

As court ended Wednesday, jurors had begun hearing testimony from Deborah Radisch, a North Carolina pathologist who previously testified while jurors were not in the courtroom.

Testimony resumes 9:30 a.m. Thursday. The trial is being broadcast by Court TV.