Empty Promises

had asked other women to try on, and elbow-length black gloves. There were eight pairs of transparent bikini and thong panties in various colors, a bikini bathing suit, and a black silk dress with a peplum and a pattern of pink, white, and purple tropical flowers. In contrast, he had also packed Jami’s long-sleeved cotton nightshirts and her T-shirts that said “Super Mom” and “Moms Are Wonderful People!” The suitcase also contained their bowling shirts and a key to a Mazda.
    Jami’s clothes were as light as gossamer, but their wedding album and yearbooks were heavier. There were framed pictures, and for some reason, Steve had carried Jami’s accordion file with all her paperwork everywhere he went: IRS receipts, credit card bills, and anything Steve could find with Jami’s distinctive rounded script. The file also held the contract for her car loan. She had put $3,000 down on the $11,429.26 cost of her Mazda and carefully taken out insurance to cover the loan if she was disabled or deceased; Judy Hagel had co-signed for the car loan.
    The way she kept such careful track of her bills and records helped the investigators to know Jami; she had been Steve’s opposite. He honored no contracts or bills, while Jami had been meticulous and dependable. The clothes Steve kept were mostly her Barbie clothes, but a few of them must have brought back an image of Jami in the kitchen, fixing breakfast or feeding Chris.
    How bizarre that a man who began dating two weeks after his wife disappeared should have carried the essence of her with him for almost a decade. “He had it all,” Marilyn Brenneman commented. “A beautiful wife who loved him, a wonderful little boy, and they would have been rich by now. And he destroyed it.”

15
    S teve Sherer’s trial for the murder of his wife was set for April 17, 2000. The trial was held in King County Superior Court Judge Anthony Wartnik’s courtroom, but it took until May 3 before a jury was selected: half women and half men, who looked to be from their early thirties to their early seventies.
    The courthouse had once been majestic, but it now faced demolition. Seismologists had declared its marble halls unsafe in case of a major earthquake. The wooden gallery benches seemed to turn to stone after a few hours, but Judge Wartnik’s courtroom was as modern as any, with paintings gracing the wall, and plants drooping in the windowless room.
    Brenneman, Corscadden, and Richardson sat on the left side of the courtroom. Flanked by defense attorneys Peter Camiel and Pete Mair, Steve Sherer sat at a table facing Judge Wartnik. The twelve jurors and four alternates sat in padded chairs that were the envy of the spectators. Both the Hagels and the Sherer-Schielkes were represented each day by a dozen or more family members and friends. Since he knew it would be a long trial, Judge Wartnik decreed the two families would alternate sitting in rows two and three on a weekly basis.
    Despite his effect on the women in his life, Steve Sherer was not a prepossessing man. He was short with very small hands and feet. His California blond hair had grown out to its natural faded brown, and it looked as if it had been cut by an amateur. The jury never saw the long, wavy hair and goatee he usually affected. He wore slacks and a jacket that didn’t match, an open-necked shirt without a tie, and white socks with black shoes. To those who knew nothing of his background, he appeared to be a weak, almost pathetic-looking man down on his luck. That may well have been the image the defense wanted. He never looked at the gallery except when he stood up to be handcuffed during breaks in the trial. And then his icy eyes swept the reporters who sat on the front bench.
    The rage was still there, but it was suppressed.

    Marilyn Brenneman made the opening statement for the prosecution. Brenneman, tall and attractive with thick, blunt-cut hair that tumbled over her forehead when she concentrated intensely, looked from one juror to another and told them that Jami Sherer had never been found and possibly never would be: “Jami was a devoted mother who never would have absented herself from her young son’s life. And [Sherer] has a long history of control and domestic violence against Jami.”
    She described a chaotic, abusive four-year marriage that ended when the defendant “hit [Jami] in the face, and she bled. Ten years ago there was a vicious punch to the face, a rush of blood, and a fall.”