Empty Promises

wore clothes that were so feminine they were almost ridiculous—flowered silk dresses, tiny miniskirts with tight tops, revealing bikinis. She showed her girlfriends lingerie in her drawer that looked to be straight out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog: tiny thong panties that were hardly more than G-strings.
    There were spates of calm in her relationship with Steve, but inevitably there were also arguments and temporary breakups. Jami visited her family as often as Steve would let her, and when she was with them it seemed as though everything was going to be all right after all. At one point, Jami broke off with Steve completely; she had enough strength to stop being a “Stepford Barbie girlfriend” as one of her friends called her changed persona.
    The separation didn’t last.
    Concurrent with his return to the Northwest, Steve Sherer’s Washington State rap sheet sprouted new entries. He already had the arrest on Christmas Eve 1986, when the Bellevue police found him at the Hagels’ home. Judy had seen a strange car driving by their house at all hours of the day and night and wondered about it. It was Steve’s bail bondsman, who figured Steve and Jami might come home to spend Christmas with their families. When Steve showed up, the bail bondsman spotted him. He’d skipped out on the bond posted the time he laid open Bettina’s scalp with the shot glass. Bail bondsmen who have been stiffed are notoriously dedicated to finding their quarry, and Steve was arrested where he hid in Jami’s family’s home.
    He was anathema to the Hagels. Never in a million years could they have imagined that Jami would align herself with a man like Steve or that they would have the police coming into their home at Christmas to arrest him.
    It only got worse. Two months later, Steve was identified as the person seen fleeing a just-burglarized home in a posh neighborhood near Lake Sammamish in Bellevue. The Bellevue police found his truck parked nearby, and Jami Hagel walked up as police were checking it. She refused to say who owned the truck, but by now the Bellevue police knew Steve. They knew him as Steven Sherer a.k.a. Steven Frank Sherer a.k.a. Steven Jeffrey Sherer a.k.a. Steven Christophe Michaels. He used aliases and reversed his Social Security number just enough so his name wouldn’t draw a hit on police computers. But this time they had his fingerprints, and they matched them to the prints in the house that had been burglarized. He was arrested a week later and sentenced to sixty days in the county jail.
    In May 1987 Steve Sherer was spending his days and nights in jail, and Jami was desolate without him. Even though he was locked up, and she was free and working at her new job at Microsoft, Steve was still manipulating her. He had groomed her carefully to be totally dependent on him and to accept the blame for whatever went wrong in their lives.
    A letter she wrote to him on May 24 is a classic example of the thought process of an emotionally abused woman: “Dear Steve, I have done so much thinking since last night after I left you. I have been so selfish and stupid … feeling sorry for myself lately and taking it out on you. I have this bad habit of holding everything inside for too long. I just didn’t want to burden you with my problems when you’re in jail, and instead you think I don’t care about you.”
    Jami wrote that she was miserable because he was the only person she could trust enough to talk to: “My whole problem is that I miss you so much. Nobody (especially you) can believe that I am not out enjoying myself while you are in jail…. I should be fine because I’m not locked up, right? Wrong, because actually, Steve, I am locked up too. The only difference is that somebody else is holding the key to your cell and you’re holding the key to my heart…. Every time we are apart, I want to crawl into a hole until you come home.”
    Again and again, Jami reiterated that Steve was “all I have.” It was clear that she was filled with anxiety because he had suggested it might be better if they broke up:

But you said something the other day about us being too dependent on each other and that was the first time you actually talked to me about a problem with us. I only wish you would write me a letter regarding your feelings. Because sometimes I feel more like just your “friend” visiting you in jail. Have your feelings changed to friendship? … Please don’t hold back on me. On three