Empty Promises

had apparently confided in Adams that he had committed a number of crimes, including robberies in California.
    That was interesting, but not necessarily a motive for murder. Finally, Lew Adams admitted that he had been sexually involved with Jami on about five occasions. The first three had been Steve’s idea. “He likes to watch,” Adams said.
    Steve had manipulated both Lew Adams and Jami into having sex. He woke Adams up as he slept one night, intoxicated, on the Sherers’ couch and told him to come into the master bedroom. There he awakened Jami too and began to remove her nightclothes as if offering a prize to Adams.
    Over the next few weeks, Lew Adams said, he had watched Steve badger Jami, drug her, and coax her until she finally capitulated and participated, albeit unwillingly, in the threesome that Steve wanted. Steve’s impotence made him a voyeur rather than a participant.
    On the third occasion, Lew Adams said that Steve had videotaped them. It had all been for Steve’s pleasure, Adams said. He was positive that Jami had been mortified over the whole episode.
    What Steve didn’t count on was that Jami was so desperate for a helping hand and kind words that she began to visualize an actual relationship with Lew.
    After being married to Steve for three years, her self-esteem was practically nonexistent, and Lew Adams was the first man in years who had roused her long-dormant belief that she could love a man again—or that any man would want her.
    So Jami obediently dressed in the garish outfits Steve bought her: spike heels, diaphanous lingerie, miniskirts, and long black gloves. But that wasn’t her; that was a woman acting out a part that her husband had written for her. Lew and Jami halfheartedly went through the motions, following Steve’s directions for his homemade porno movie. Lew couldn’t imagine that a man would use his own wife like that, and he was ashamed afterward.
    In the resultant videotape, it was obvious that Jami was under the influence of some drug Steve had given her. It was also clear that she wasn’t enjoying herself. Her eyes were hollow and vacant. She was acting—and clumsily—responding to the director, who was just out of camera range.
    Lew Adams told Sergeant Watson that he had been with Jami the day before she disappeared, that they had gone to the Crest Motel on Aurora Avenue and stayed until early in the morning. Lew suspected that Steve knew what had happened because he learned from his estranged wife that Jami had called Dru’s house the next morning. So had Judy Hagel, and of course Judy learned from Jami that Steve had run off with Jami’s purse, in which he would have found Lew’s business card and the motel receipt. Lew felt that Jami had been trying to get a message to him to warn him.
    “Steve never called me on it,” Adams said, “and that might be because he took out his anger on Jami.”
    Lew Adams feared that Steve had killed Jami or driven her so far away that she couldn’t get home. He told Sergeant Watson that the videotape Steve took of them had been filmed on the night of September 21, and though Jami said that Steve promised to destroy it, Lew didn’t know if he had done so.
    Lew Adams was not eliminated as a suspect, but he had certainly raised some questions about Steve Sherer. Lew had nothing to gain from Jami’s death or disappearance, but Steve did: revenge, for one thing. Steve had told a number of people, including Jami’s brothers, that she was as good as dead if she ever cheated on him.
    Jami’s Microsoft co-workers cooperated fully with the Redmond detectives. Two of her friends remarked that Jami had stopped wearing her diamond ring a few days before she disappeared. It was the same ring, of course, that Steve had already collected insurance on. Jami was reportedly afraid that Steve would pawn it, as he had done with several other items they owned. Steve was not drinking for the time being, but he had threatened to start again if Jami left him. He’d also told her he would commit suicide if she deserted him.
    If Jami was dead, however, Steve would realize much more financial gain than he would from pawning her ring. Microsoft provided life insurance to its employees. In Jami’s case, the payoff would be twice the amount of her salary. She was making $23,000 a year, so her beneficiary would collect $46,000. Steve Sherer was that beneficiary in May of 1987, designated as Jami’s “fiancé.” However, Jami had changed