On the afternoon of Friday, March 29, 1985, Elizabeth and I drove north from our college dorm to Washington D.C. in the grey Chevrolet Chevette she had rented. There was nothing unusual about our mini-vacation. In the two and a half months since our separate Christmas holidays we had used my scholarship's spending money on two sleepless nights in motel rooms off campus, as well as the two trips to Loose Chippings.
But this weekend was supposed to be Liz's treat, and she had made all the arrangements and reservations. She even paid in cash when we checked into the downtown Marriott Hotel at about 7:00 p.m.! Of course we immediately rushed upstairs to make love; I had my priorities for this weekend.
When we decided around 8:30 p.m. to go to a movie, Elizabeth and I discovered that we might not have enough ready cash for all our plans for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So on our way out of the hotel I paid for our room with my father's VISA card, and Liz received back her $95. We drove around Georgetown and eventually saw the movie "Porky's Revenge" at a huge mall at the northern end of Wisconsin Avenue. Normally we would have considered "Porky's Revenge" below us, but since this was a vacation we decided to drop our intellectual pretensions for once.
The next morning Elizabeth and I spent making love and eating breakfast in bed. Eleven o'clock had passed before we were ready to get dressed and face the world. What a blissful, perfect, lazy day this was promising to be! Even the weather seemed to co- operate, the sun beaming down on the beautiful residential district of Georgetown as we circled around looking for a parking space.
For the rest of the morning and the early afternoon Liz and I window-shopped. I remember passing an importer of Thai silk, a reminder of my place of birth transported half-way across the world. To make up for the lowbrow movie of the previous night we decided to re-establish our credentials as connoisseurs of pomposity by purchasing a white-sleeved LP by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Later we got back into our car and drove north on Wisconsin Avenue again, past the ugly German Embassy building on our right.
It was about 3:30 p.m. when Elizabeth and I decided to park again and have a late lunch. The restaurant where we stopped was decorated with a train motif: there were trains painted on the walls, drawn on the menus and printed on the napkins. Sigmund Freud would have had a fit over all that phallic imagery, I joked. We had a pleasant, if unremarkable meal and afterwards relaxed over a couple of soft drinks.
The conversation began as so many others had before: Jens, I have a small confession to make. . . !
I was neither shocked nor worried. In the three and a half months we had been in love Liz had already had to confess quite a lot to me. Both of us saw my forgiveness as a foregone conclusion, I am sure.
Elizabeth's newest little confession in the restaurant was that she was still using heroin. Two months earlier, after she had shown me the needle mark on her arm, she had promised me that she would stop. Of course Liz apologised profusely for her lying and her continuing addiction. She was throwing herself completely on my mercy, she said, but if I sent her away now she would understand. She knew she did not deserve me, but she would continue to love me from afar!
In fact Elizabeth gave me almost exactly the same speech now that she had written me three weeks earlier in the letter from her spring skiing vacation in Colorado:
"Hate me, shout at me, torture me, make me rob the Federal Reserve -- whatever -- but please hug me when we meet. I will do anything to compensate. You're the only person I've ever loved, and you're the only person who has ever really loved me. You are my life. To have any deception remaining in my life would be unbearable. It is time to risk all for the truth -- may some fate, god, realize that the horror of this truth and confession and all that it entails is more than equal to all my scheming deception in the past.
You know the whole truth, nobody else on this planet has a glimmer of the whole truth of Elizabeth Roxanne Haysom, for I have deceived them all to a lesser or greater degree -- please don't create the greatest irony of my life. All my defences are down -- there is nothing left but raw flesh -- love in its real form is a truly revolutionary thing. I love you, and no matter what your judgement -- I will always love you." 4:1 (rtn 4:1)
I forgave Liz for the lies she had confessed in that letter. And three weeks later in the restaurant in Washington I forgave her again for lying about her drug addiction.
I begged Elizabeth to stop apologising and reassured her that I loved her. She could hardly blame herself for her heroin addiction, since that dependency was a disease, not a sin. A member of my own family had problems with alcohol, so I knew what a terrible psychological toll such an addiction took. If anything, I should apologise to her for not having noticed, for not having won her trust so she could have sought my help sooner! Anything I could do now to help her kick her habit, I would do. She only had to say the word.
Liz thanked me for my understanding and concern. She swore that she had now resolved to break her addiction for good! Unfortunately there was just one little problem: she had run up a debt with her dealer, Jack Bauer.
I knew Jack because he had received a Jefferson scholarship from U. Va.'s Alumni Association two years before me. We had met again outside Alumni Association functions because he was one of the many older, effeminate, pseudo-artistic drug users who frequently dropped by Elizabeth's dorm room in the fall semester of 1984.
Liz had met Jack through her parents. Jack's father was a local Lynchburg judge and thus moved in the same social circles as Mr. and Mrs. Haysom. In her Christmas diary-letter Elizabeth had written me that Jack had given her some marijuana joints and asked her to join a menage a trois with his black homosexual lover.
Naturally I offered to pay Liz's debt to Jack. I thought it could only amount to a few hundred dollars, and her freedom from her addiction was worth much more than that to me!
Again Elizabeth thanked me profusely, and again she raised a new problem. She had already arranged to pay off her debts to Jack by picking up a large shipment of drugs in Washington this weekend and bringing it back to U. Va. when we returned on Sunday. Since the whole thing had already been set up she could not back out now. Jack was no longer interested in money but only in her courier run.
Telling him to get lost was no option either, Liz explained. If she did not fulfil her promise to transport the drugs, Jack would snitch to her parents. He would tell then that, contrary to her claims and promises, Elizabeth was still using drugs -- such as on that certain weekend she had spent in Washington with her new boyfriend, Jens, without asking her parents' permission!
Of course Mr. and Mrs. Haysom would believe Jack's story. He was a scholarship winner, a judge's son, practically an old friend of the family. Jack might be unabashedly homosexual, but he had never been suspected of drug use, much less drug dealing.
Liz, on the other hand, had a reputation for lying and had even run away to Europe to live as a junky and tramp. Even worse, she would not be able to deny making our trip to Washington without her parents' permission; the Haysoms could easily confirm that part of Jack's story. And once they caught her in one lie they would immediately assume that Jack's accusations of drug use were also true.
Elizabeth's explanation made sense to me. She would have to transport the drugs. Of course I insisted that I accompany her when she went to pick up the shipment from the dealer in Washington. I had no illusions about my intimidating anyone, but it seemed obvious that I could not let her go alone!
Liz, however, objected once again. Jack had arranged for her to pick up the drugs alone, and if two people suddenly showed up the dealer would get nervous. Who knew what might happen then? Also, I was so very obviously not a drug user that the dealer would refuse to do business around me for fear of being arrested. Elizabeth thus not only had to pick up the drugs, but she would have to do so without me.
In any case there was no time for further conversation: the last part of Liz's little confession was that she was scheduled to pick up the drug shipment very soon. She had to leave more or less straight away, and she wanted to know where she could drop me off.
Finally I objected a little more strenuously. I needed to think this over! What, for instance, would stop Jack from blackmailing her again and again into making courier runs?
I am not sure, but I think I remember relief passing across Elizabeth's face when I asked this question. She certainly had an answer ready! Chile she was picking up the drugs I should go to a movie and purchase two tickets as an alibi.
Then, if Jack snitched to her parents, she would admit to having been in Washington with her boyfriend without their permission. Confessing that much would establish a little credibility. But after a great show of digging through her various pockets Liz could fish out a pair of ticket stubs. A set of two tickets would help support her claim that she had been with me the whole weekend, and no one could possibly suspect Jens Soering of abusing drugs.
This alibi would surely be enough to protect her from at least some of her parents' wrath, Elizabeth told me. Right now, however, there was no more time! She had to leave without further delay, and she needed to know if she could trust me and rely on me -- please?
The pressure for an immediate decision and Liz's puppy-dog pleading silenced my internal alarm bells. The alibi was harebrained but not actually harmful; I would go along with it to calm her today and to end her addiction to heroin later. We climbed into the car and discussed this so-called alibi further on the short drive to the nearest movie theater. She dropped me off around 4:30 p.m., and I watched the 5:05 p.m. showing of the film "Witness" with two ticket stubs in my pocket.
When I arrived by taxi back at the hotel at about 7:30 p.m. I cashed a personal check at the front desk. After I had paid for the room with my father's VISA card the previous evening Elizabeth had put the entire refund into her wallet. In the rush to meet her drug dealer she had driven off with all the money, leaving me with only a few dollars in cash. On the back of my check the hotel cashier noted details from my driver's license, took an imprint of the VISA card, asked me to sign again, and initialed and dated the whole thing.
I went to our room and waited. Liz had told me that picking up the drugs would take at least two hours, so she should be returning soon. I turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, unable to concentrate because of my fear for Elizabeth's safety. I got up and paced. I sat back down. The whole foolish, dangerous mess would blow up in our faces, I was sure of it!
But it was too late to turn back now. Liz was relying on me and this stupid alibi. The nonsense with the two tickets was unnecessary and unworkable, of course, but I had given my word! Perhaps it would all work out.
Finally I ordered room service for two, another part of the alibi which Elizabeth and I had discussed before her departure. If she turned up soon, we could at least have a snack before going out again! I definitely remember thehors d'oeuvres of pink shrimp fanned out atop lettuce leaves on glass plates, but I simply cannot recall the entrees: Welsh rarebit or something simple like that. I signed the room service bill and was given a small torn-off receipt.
But Liz did not arrive. So around 9:30 p.m. I gave up waiting and proceeded to the final stage of the so-called alibi. I took a taxi to a small movie theater and bought two tickets for the 10:15 p.m. showing of the film "Stranger Than Paradise." Screamin' Jay Hawkins' rendition of "I Put A Spell On You," the film's theme music, seemed an appropriately ironic comment on my nervous await for Elizabeth! I chuckled to myself and hoped she was safe.
As soon as the movie ended I rushed to the nearest pay telephone on Wisconsin Avenue to call our hotel room. Of course no one answered. I had almost expected the endless ringing and finally lost my temper. The whole evening, half of our weekend in Washington, had been a complete waste of time and money! I was sick and tired of waiting around for Liz and her stupid drug deal, and I was sick and tired of this wasteful idiocy of buying tickets and meals for two!
Angrily I stomped onto Wisconsin Avenue and waved down a taxi. I was going to see the special midnight showing of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at a small theater in the heart of Georgetown -- and with only one ticket, too! Whenever Elizabeth deigned to carry her precious behind back to the hotel, she could wait for me for once!
I arrived at the Marriott around 2:00 p.m. in a huff, fully expecting Liz to be waiting for me. But our room key was still at the front desk! In the room I began pacing again, sitting down to flip some channels on the TV, and pacing some more. Something had gone wrong, I just knew it! I started to regret my anger at Elizabeth. She was not late, she was in trouble! And I had no idea how to find her or help her. I should have refused to go along with this drug deal, or I should have at least accompanied Liz!
Suddenly there is a knock at the door, and I rush to open it. Elizabeth stands in front of me, and with one glance I know there has been serious trouble. Her face is white and tense, her eyes wide. She is wearing different jeans from those she wore when she left Washington; this is the baggy pair with the big pockets on the legs. Her blouse looks different, too, somehow.
Liz pushes past me without saying a word and sits down on the end of the bed, hunched over with her elbows on her knees. I sit down next to her and turn to my left toward her.
Elizabeth speaks in a monotone while staring at the floor in front of her. Over and over she repeats variations of the same phrases: I've killed my parents, I've killed my parents. But it wasn't me, it was the drugs that made me do it, the drugs did it, not me. They deserved it anyway, my whole bloody childhood, always sending me away, and now they want to control every little thing, it serves them right, they deserved it. If you don't help me, they'll kill me, you have to help me or I'll go to the electric chair, you have to help me or they'll kill me.
None of this sinks in immediately of course. My mind is blank during Liz's recitation. I simply sit and listen. Is there a punch line coming? Is this some new mind game, a new "p.o.t," or "perversion of truth"?
I look to my left at Elizabeth's profile as she speaks. No, that mixture of shock and anxiety is still in her face. Why is she wearing different jeans, a different blouse? I look past her to the table with the left-overs from the room service: the little bowl of garishly red sauce for the shrimp. Then I look at her exposed forearms resting on her knees. Her hands are clean, but there are dry reddish-brown smears on the arms.
I keep listening, and she keeps repeating the same phrases in that flat, quiet monotone. The phrases start to sink in. I begin to believe her. She has killed her parents. The drugs made her do it. They deserved it anyway. I have to help her, or they'll kill her in the electric chair. The phrases sink in. I believe her. But what. . . ?
Then a new sentence enters her litany and slowly awakens me from my stupor. I've been with you the whole evening, you have to say I've been with you, you have to be my alibi, you have the movie tickets, you have the alibi!
My mind begins to stir. Something about the alibi, there is something about the alibi. . .
I interrupt Liz's flow: It will never work! They'll never believe me. I am the boyfriend, and no one believes husbands and boyfriends. The tickets prove nothing! It will never work.
At last Elizabeth is silent. She looks into my eyes, and I look into hers. In the background someone on TV is trying to sell a food processor with fifteen amazing attachments and a lifetime guarantee.
I cannot think. I cannot think about Derek and Nancy Haysom lying dead in their home in Lynchburg -- I dare not think of that horror. I cannot think about Liz's actions -- I dare not think of how that blood got onto her forearms. I cannot, I dare not think of my own guilt -- if I had not agreed to create an alibi, she might not have picked up that knife. No, I cannot think, I dare not think, I must not think! I am only looking at Elizabeth, just looking.
What do I see when I look into her eyes? I do not see a cold-blooded, heartless butcher sitting beside me on that hotel bed. On TV murderers always look like monsters, inhuman; but this person looks like Liz, the same girl I love more than anyone in the world! She looks not like a vicious reptile but like. . . a victim, silent with shock, her blue-grey-green eyes staring wide, her porcelain skin now grey, her shoulders almost quivering. She looks like she did in those nude photographs her mother took when Elizabeth was younger. She looks like she did a couple of months ago, when she showed me the photographs and refused to answer when I asked if her mother had abused her. She looks like she did at the Tree House, telling me little but hinting at the fondling, the bathing and all the rest. She looks frightened, heartbreakingly lonely and helpless. That is what I see.
She has killed her parents. The drugs made her do it. They deserved it anyway. I have to help her, or they'll kill her in the electric chair. I have to help her, or they'll kill her in the electric chair. If I don't help her, she'll fry!
I do not think about options or morality or legal consequences, I do not think about the victims or their killer or myself, I can bring myself to think about only one question: how do I stop them from frying Liz?
Sending her off to go on the run by herself is impossible. Elizabeth's passport is at Loose Chippings, and she is in no condition to travel anyway. How do I stop them from frying Liz? How do I stop them? How?
And then, somehow, I have my brilliant idea.
I did it! Whenever the police arrest us -- and that's got to be soon -- I'll just tell them that I did it! You are the accomplice, not me. We'll switch roles! Heck, it's been done before: think about Sidney Carton in Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities," or those Los Angeles street gangs you see on TV. I've heard it's part of their initiation ritual for underage kids to take the rap for older gang members, because minors get less time. If those guys can make it work, so can we! You'll be out after a few years, everyone will feel sorry for you. And you won't have to go to the electric chair. And me, I'll get diplomatic immunity, at least partially. I'm a diplomat's son, right? I've got a German diplomatic passport with a U.S. diplomatic visa. They'll arrest me and ship me back to Germany and put me on trial there. That's what they did with the Japanese Consul General in Atlanta during my senior year of high school, when he was caught for drunk driving or hit-and- run: they just shipped him back to Japan. Of course they'll have to put me on trial for the murders once I get to Germany, because there's no more full diplomatic immunity. But eighteen-year-olds like me can't get more than ten years under German law, I read that in the newspaper. They'll let me out on parole after five. We'll probably get out at the same tine! It'll work! It'll work! The police will believe me because only guilty people confess to murder. And the police will believe you because only guilty people confess to arranging an alibi for the killer of their parents. It'll work!
Elizabeth did not hesitate. She accepted my "sacrifice," as she called this plan in the letter she wrote me shortly after her parents' funeral 4:2 (rtn 4:2). Now Liz and I only needed a theatrical paradigm on which we could model our performances. We chose Shakespeare's "Macbeth," of course: Elizabeth would play the part of the instigator, Lady Macbeth, while I should play the Thane of Cawdor, the murderer Macbeth. During the remaining early morning hours we fleshed out our version of Shakespeare's plot-line. I told Liz what I had done, so she could confess convincingly how she arranged the alibi. Then Elizabeth described the scene of crime, and I tried to imagine how I might have been driven to kill her parents. She did not tell me why she had driven to Lynchburg or what had actually happened at Loose Chippings, and I did not want to know. We never mentioned the murders directly to one another again.
In July, 1986, shortly after we had been interrogated about the murders, Liz wrote me that the detectives "made it quite clear how they perceive the situation, and believe me, you're a 'poor boy' and I am an 'evil' Lady Macbeth creature who used sex and emotional blackmail to get what I wanted." 4:3 (rtn 4:3) That Shakespearean allusion was intended to remind me of the plan we had made on the evening of the homicides, a plan which was spectacularly successful. Later, when l had come to regret the success of our plan, I turned again and again to "Macbeth" to study the relationship between the driven, blood-thirsty Lady Macbeth and the weak but murderous Macbeth himself. Could she have pushed Macbeth to kill if he had not had slaughter on his mind already as he returned from a hard-fought battle? And how would Lady Macbeth have satisfied her ambitions if her husband had not been a great warrior, but a courtier or a diplomat unused to swords? would she then have grasped the knife herself? In Act 1 of the play it is Lady Macbeth, not her husband, who calls out,
"Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here;
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty!
Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!"
4:1 -- This letter is available in the public records at Bedford County Courthouse and is discussed in detail in Chapter 3. (rtn 4:1)
4:2 -- This letter is available in the public records at Bedford County Courthouse and is discussed in detail in Chapter 5. (rtn 4:2)
4:3 -- This letter is available in the public records at Bedford County Courthouse. (rtn 4:3)