Empty Promises

been done to him, Steve Sherer grew more and more angry. And when Steve got angry, he acted out. But he’d never been angry in jail before and acting out was frowned upon by the guards. He could only seethe inside and consider what he would do when he was free again.
    When Steve turned himself in for those DUI warrants, Jami had been gone for eight years. During most of those years, Steve had lived an entirely self-indulgent life, most of it far away from the house on Education Hill where she was last known to be alive. His little boy, Chris, was thriving in Judy and Jerry Hagel’s care, and the world was going on. But for Judy and Jerry, a life without answers was bleak.
    Marilyn Brenneman was impressed with the growing pile of reports and interviews the Redmond detectives were bringing her. True to form, she sent the men back to find more. And true to their form, they grinned and went back out to see what else they could find out about Steven Sherer.
    They all knew it was going to take a mountain of circumstantial evidence to bring this case before an inquiry judge and convince him that a crime had been committed.
    So the “autopsy” on Steve Sherer’s life continued, but it wasn’t easy. For every person who opened up and gave the Redmond detectives a solid opinion or an anecdote that helped, there seemed to be three who were still afraid of Sherer. Taylor, Mains and Faddis listened to everyone, even psychics, believing that there was someone out there who could fill in the pieces of their baffling puzzle. They were getting a much more comprehensive understanding of Steve Sherer, but there were still too many empty spots where there were no pieces at all to fit in.
    Most significant, they now understood how Steve was able to keep so many people under his thumb. He choreographed his illegal and illicit activities so they involved his friends, while he kept his own hands clean. That allowed him to control the balance of power; he always threatened to turn his friends in if they talked too much. It wasn’t that he didn’t partake of the fruits of his con games and drug schemes. He always did, but he managed to put other people in a position where they would be hung out to dry if he chose to snitch on them.
    But the longer Steve remained in jail, the more willing those people were to come forward. They could see now that he wasn’t nearly as much in control as he wanted them to believe.

13
    F inally, even Jami’s brother Rob decided to tell the police what he had not wanted to acknowledge as anything more than his brother-in-law’s usual rantings on the Saturday night before Jami vanished. Steve had been blindly furious when Jami didn’t come home that night. He and her twin brothers and their girlfriends had looked for her in vain.
    Rich and the girls had finally gone home, and Rob was alone with Steve when he muttered, “If I find out she’s cheating on me, I’ll kill her.”
    But Steve was always threatening to kill people, or making grandiose—and violent—statements. It was difficult for a brother to accept that he hadn’t paid enough attention to the man who probably had actually destroyed the sister he loved. As the years passed, and Jami didn’t come home, Rob agonized about what might have been if only he had done something. Finally, he told the Redmond police about Steve Sherer’s threat against Jami.
    On October 6, 1998, Marilyn Brenneman and Hank Corscadden felt they had enough evidence to begin calling witnesses before Inquiry Judge Robert Lasnik. IJ hearings are secret, just as grand jury proceedings are. The testimony is secret to protect the target of an investigation. If the inquiry judge should decide that there is not reasonable suspicion to believe that a crime had been committed, the suspect’s name would never have been broadcast throughout the media. If the judge agreed with the prosecutors and a trial lay ahead, the media would have plenty of opportunities from testimony in open court for headline stories.
    “What I try to do,” Marilyn Brenneman says, “is think like a defense attorney. What would I do in this instance?”
    It was important to have the potential witnesses in an actual trial testify before the inquiry judge, not only to give information and build a case, but also so that transcripts of what they said could later be used either to help them or to haunt them.
    To Brenneman’s relief, Lew Adams said he would be glad to testify. She phoned Lew in Idaho and