Empty Promises

different from Brenneman’s and Richardson’s. Almost military in his bearing, he fired off objections and questions in a staccato fashion that left witnesses stuttering. He knew his law and he caught every slip away from proper questions and answers. He shot out “Hearsay” again and again.
    Sherri Schielke picked up the thread of her testimony at Mair’s urging. “I asked him to mail packages for me whenever he could,” she said. “He was coming the next day anyway. I asked him to drop off the check for the mortgage and put it in the bank. I left a deposit slip. We had a hidden key. Wally had two kids; I had three. Laura had lived at home, and she still had her key.”
    Sherri explained how she had cut her trip short and arrived home on Wednesday. “I went to the Hagels’. Steve was extremely upset.”
    She was the first witness who had noticed that, and they had been in trial for weeks. Steve’s mother told the jury that she thought it would be a nice thing for her and Saundra to clean Jami’s house October 8 so it would be clean when she got home. Sherri intimated that she was sure Jami was coming home.
    Steve’s mother cried as she read his suicide note, especially when it said, “I’ve lost Jami one way or the other.” Once more, she detailed the financial arrangements about the house and why eventually they had to rent it and then sell it: Jami was no longer there to make the mortgage payments.
    Hank Corscadden cross-examined Sherri. He peppered her with questions about the Microsoft stock, the house sale, the broken window, the replacement carpet next to the garage door and why she had chosen to clean Jami’s house this time when she had never done it before.
    “The other times when he assaulted Jami, you didn’t clean the house?”
    “I picked her up after one assault.”
    “How long have you been in court?”
    “Four weeks.” Sherri had heard seventy witnesses testify.
    “You talked with Mr. Mair?”
    “I spoke with him every day about the witnesses’ impact.”
    Sherri’s brother had been a police officer and was now a private investigator. She agreed that she had signed a note for a loan to set up his business with no collateral.
    “You knew that any information your brother uncovered would incriminate your son?”
    “No!”
    “You confided to Carolyn Willoughby that there was a good chance that Steve was involved?”
    “No—I said that anyone could be involved.”
    Corscadden prodded her with questions until Sherri Schielke answered, “There is always that possibility, but I hoped it wouldn’t be true.”
    “You knew of your son’s assaultive behavior.”
    “I only knew about that one time with Jami.”
    “Actually two,” Corscadden reminded her. “There was another time where Steve was arrested for pulling Jami’s hair out.”
    That was a coup for the prosecution; the memory of earlier testimony brought back ugly images of a piece of Jami’s scalp lying on the floor. Sherri was clearly downplaying Steve’s propensity for physical violence. Bettina had called her for help from California once and Sherri had ignored her plight, too.
    “Do you believe your son is involved in Jami’s disappearance?” Corscadden asked rapidly.
    “I don’t know.”
    Sherri said there was no way for her to know if her front windows had been broken. “I usually don’t inspect my house for damage or broken windows. If it was well done, I wouldn’t have noticed.”
    “Your son took your car [a Bronco] at New Year’s? You would not have entrusted your son with a key—but he drove your car?”
    “I didn’t know.”
    “There is no doubt in your mind that Jami is dead?”
    “No.”
    As Corscadden pelted her with facts and with the many times Steve had taken advantage of her, Sherri’s answers grew foggier and less precise.
    “After the case was filed,” Corscadden said, “you gave the Seattle Times an interview over the phone?”
    “I spoke to someone. I don’t recall.”
    “You said, ‘Ten years later, this is a little bit much.’ If your daughter was murdered, would you feel the same way?”
    Mair roared out an objection, and Hank Corscadden moved on to other aspects of the case.
    “Did you think the police meant to interrupt Chris’s birthday party?” he asked Sherri, who had complained bitterly that the Redmond police had deliberately ruined Chris Sherer’s birthday.
    “I think they knew Chris was there.”
    “You’ve heard all the police who have worked to