Beyond Reason (33 page)
Authors: Ken Englade
“That’s your terminology,” Elizabeth repeated angrily.
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Yes, like I slept with my mother.”
To many, that brought the issue back to where it had begun: Was there a sexual relationship between Elizabeth and her mother? As was common with Elizabeth, what she said was frequently elliptical. It often had only a very tenuous connection with reality. Since no one doubted that the relationship between “Bunnie” and “Melie” had not been sexual, was this Elizabeth’s way of admitting that her relationship with her mother also had been sexual?
Updike groped for a way out. He seemed to acknowledge to himself that the line he had been pursuing was reaping very few rewards. He had made an effort to get to the bottom of that conundrum but hadn’t been successful, and he couldn’t see wasting any more time on it. He dropped the incest issue and never brought it up again.
INSTEAD, UPDIKE HAMMERED AT HER CREDIBILITY. HE was troubled by her inconsistencies, he told her, particularly in the various ways in which she characterized her relations with her parents. In her first interviews with police, he pointed out, she said her parents were wonderful. Then, beginning with the admissions she and Jens made to detectives in London, they were terrible. And, in another reversal, on the stand a day earlier, they were back to being wonderful. She could not have it both ways, Updike said. Which was it going to be?
Updike lived, for all intents and purposes, in a black and white world. The law does not equivocate. There is right and wrong. Legal and illegal. Guilty and innocent. Elizabeth, on the other hand, lived in a world of gray, a dreamer’s world. There was right (maybe) and wrong (maybe). Guilty (of some things) and innocent (of some things). Her parents may not have been cruel to her, she explained, but she
thought
they were, which was just as important. “A lot of my resentments were in my own head,” she said. “My parents were wonderful, and they tried very hard. Sometimes my mother probably tried too hard. I believe one of her faults was that she loved me too much.”
thought
they were, which was just as important. “A lot of my resentments were in my own head,” she said. “My parents were wonderful, and they tried very hard. Sometimes my mother probably tried too hard. I believe one of her faults was that she loved me too much.”
Elizabeth meant it as a throwaway line. Updike jumped on it. He shook his head and repeated in a sad voice: “Loved you too much.”
Elizabeth, demonstrating how quick she could be on the uptake, saw where he was going and fell into step. “Yes,” she said, determined to use it to make her own point. “And I think that possibly because she did love me too much, she did make me feel guilty because I had let them down so badly. They had such expectations of me, and I was so very
imperfect and so very far from what they really wanted me to be that I felt guilty. So what I’m trying to say is that you’re quite right. The problem was with me, not with my parents.”
imperfect and so very far from what they really wanted me to be that I felt guilty. So what I’m trying to say is that you’re quite right. The problem was with me, not with my parents.”
Updike saw an opening. “And despite all of these allegations that we’ve heard and talked about, especially concerning your mother, you say now that the main fault with your mother was she loved you too much?”
“I think that’s very true, sir.”
He delivered his punchline. “And she died because of it.”
Elizabeth paused, then all but whispered: “Probably.”
UPDIKE HAD LISTENED IN DISBELIEF THE PREVIOUS DAY as Elizabeth played her game about whether she had manipulated Jens or Jens had manipulated her. First it was the former and then it was the latter. He was not interested in her intellectual gymnastics. The way he saw it, Elizabeth had zeroed in on Jens, led him on with an amazing repertoire of lies and half-truths, and kept after him until she convinced him to kill her parents. Her explanation that Jens had simply misinterpreted her was about as credible to Updike as if she had said it had snowed in Bedford on July 4th. But there was a big difference between what he felt and what he could get her to admit.
He decided to begin at the beginning—to go back to the early days of their relationship and see if he could wring from her an admission that Jens had been totally under her spell.
Elizabeth saw him coming. When Updike asked if she had not talked to Jens about killing Derek and Nancy even before Christmas 1984, she firmly denied it. She told Jens only about her “frustrations,” she claimed.
Updike thought he saw an opening, but she cut him off again. When he asked her to elaborate on what she called “frustrations,” she found another opportunity to beat her breast. She thought the problem was her parents, Elizabeth said, but in reality the problem was her. “It was my attitude that was wrong,” she said. Mea culpa.
The issue of whether Elizabeth manipulated Jens or Jens manipulated Elizabeth was temporarily lost while the prosecutor and the witness sparred over Derek’s and Nancy’s treatment of Elizabeth.
“It sounds like your mom and dad couldn’t win,” Updike said. “You didn’t like it when they didn’t give you attention, and you didn’t like it when they did.”
That was because they went from one extreme to another, Elizabeth explained. They were either sending her off somewhere or smothering her with affection.
How could she look at it that way? Updike asked. Her parents had given her every opportunity. Had sent her to the best schools. Had done everything they could to make her life full and rich. “What did they do that was so wrong?” he asked in exasperation.
Elizabeth switched tones, moving in a blink from argumentative to submissive. “Probably not very much, sir,” she said.
Updike wanted to explore the field more thoroughly. He repeated his question. “Well, what did they do that in your estimation was so wrong?”
Elizabeth knew an opening when she saw one. The thing she really resented, she said, was they insisted on telling everyone that she was perfect and they made her feel guilty because she was not.
Updike took that to mean that they bragged about her accomplishments. If that was true, what was so wrong about it? Didn’t parents have a right to brag about their children? Didn’t they have a right to be proud of her?
“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth answered meekly. “They certainly did. Except that they exaggerated my achievements, and I had to try and live up to those exaggerations. That,” she said, “was difficult.”
Cross-examining Elizabeth Haysom, Updike was learning, was a very frustrating experience. She was very adept at maneuvering, slipping away and not answering his questions. He had started out hoping to nail her on how she had
controlled Jens, and he ended up letting her maneuver the dialogue and switch it to her advantage.
controlled Jens, and he ended up letting her maneuver the dialogue and switch it to her advantage.
Let’s get back to Jens, he said with a sigh. Let’s talk about the things you wrote him during the Christmas vacation.
DESPITE HIS INTENTIONS HE GOT NO MORE THAN ONE OR two questions in before she orchestrated a debate on whether her Christmas communication to Jens had been a “letter” or an entry for her journal. He had started out with the idea of making her defend her earlier statements that she had been writing only some random, personal thoughts about her relationship with her parents but that Jens had interpreted her remarks as expressing her desire to have them killed. Updike thought that theory was hogwash, and he wanted to demolish it. But he was having trouble getting started. Immediately, she challenged his presumption that she had planned to share those thoughts with Jens to begin with. She did not mean it to be a “letter,” she claimed.
Updike could not believe this was happening. What did she mean it was not a letter? he asked. It was dated, was it not? It had a salutation that read, “My Dearest Jens.” She had put it in an envelope, had she not? Jens’s name and address were on the envelope. She had put a stamp on it. And she had dropped it in a post box. What did she mean it was not a letter?
Elizabeth was a shrewd witness. She knew when to take ground and when to give it. She had made her point, so she decided to give a little. But only a little. “I don’t know when I began whether I intended to mail it to him,” she said. “I did eventually send it to him, which I should never have done.”
Updike rolled his eyes.
HE TRIED AGAIN TO PIN HER DOWN. HE USED SARCASM. He used politeness. He used anger. He tried to be conciliatory. He ducked and dodged and poked and probed. But he hardly got anywhere at all.
Most of the time she answered evasively, trying to take his questions off on tangents. When that failed, she reverted to breast-beating.
Why are you writing such nasty things about your parents to someone you had known only a short time? he wanted to know. What kind of letter is this to send? he demanded.
She retreated. “It’s a disgusting, atrocious letter,” she agreed.
Updike paused. How in hell was he supposed to respond to that? “Then we’re in agreement,” he said finally. “But why did you write it?”
She started to wander. He tried to pull her back. “I still don’t understand
why
, Ms. Haysom,” Updike said.
why
, Ms. Haysom,” Updike said.
She repeated what she had told Hugh Jones during the direct examination. All of her references to voodoo and willing her parents to death were digs at Jens, nothing more.
Updike wanted her to confess that she was working on Jens, not tweaking his intellectual eccentricities. She would not go along. The fault was hers, she said, retreating without surrendering. “I was completely selfish and self-centered.”
Updike sighed. He was going to give it one more try.
“ALL RIGHT, MA’AM,” HE SAID PATIENTLY. “SO YOU’RE saying that this expression of concentration on their deaths, then, was mere fantasy of yours. Just yours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why is it, then, that you communicated this fantasy to Mr. Soering? I mean, you can fantasize things—you can write them down and throw them away. You don’t have to stick them in the mailbox. Why did you mail this fantasy to this young lover of yours?”
“We shared many things,” she said, “and one of the things I think that was wrong about our relationship was that perhaps I shared too much with him. I indulged my resentments, my self-pity, my frustrations with him. I exaggerated them. I let them run away with themselves.”
“Did he know these were merely fantasies?”
“Well, this is one of the problems that we obviously had. He would discuss with me his fantasies as he describes them in his letters, some of his bizarre sexual fantasies, and I told him my fantasies.”
So far so good, Updike told himself.
One of
her
bizarre fantasies, Elizabeth explained, was of a life without her parents. The problem was, Jens had taken her seriously. He had not known she was fantasizing. When she had said “life without her parents,” he had understood her to mean life with her parents dead. He had “misinterpreted.”
her
bizarre fantasies, Elizabeth explained, was of a life without her parents. The problem was, Jens had taken her seriously. He had not known she was fantasizing. When she had said “life without her parents,” he had understood her to mean life with her parents dead. He had “misinterpreted.”
“That’s right much of an understatement,” Updike commented laconically. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” she agreed.
BUT THAT DID NOT EXPLAIN JENS’S REACTION, UPDIKE pointed out. In his letter to her on the same date, he was expressing similar thoughts. While she was writing about voodoo and life without her parents, Jens, who was several hundred miles away at his parents’ home in suburban Detroit, was writing to her using phrases like “that instrument for a certain operation on somebody’s relatives.” Updike wanted to get her to admit that they were plotting—that they had, jointly, begun thinking about murdering Nancy and Derek. “So about the same time you’re fantasizing about their deaths, he’s talking about using an instrument on somebody’s relatives, isn’t he?”
Elizabeth tried to slip away, seeking refuge in Jens’s intellectualism. “I believe he discusses this weapon, or instrument, and it is, what does he call it? Neurolinguistic programming. Psychology. Hypnosis. All his pseudo popularized psychology.”
Updike was not going to let her get away that easily. He pointed out that Jens had further discussed what he called “the ultimate weapon.” At one point he had written that Elizabeth’s father could “could quite well die from a confrontation.”
At another, he had commented that he “had the dinner scene planned out.” Hanging in the courtroom air was the knowledge that Derek and Nancy were murdered at dinner. “Was it just coincidence that he is fantasizing about their deaths while you are also fantasizing about their deaths?” he asked.
At another, he had commented that he “had the dinner scene planned out.” Hanging in the courtroom air was the knowledge that Derek and Nancy were murdered at dinner. “Was it just coincidence that he is fantasizing about their deaths while you are also fantasizing about their deaths?” he asked.
Elizabeth hedged. “I believe you’ll find he also fantasized about his own parents’ death as well in that letter.”
She’s wiggling away again, Updike realized. He tried to get her back. “I’m not concerned with that here today, Ms. Haysom. I’m concerned with why your mom and dad got butchered like they did and why y’all were writing these things at the same time. His diary is full of references to weapons against your parents, isn’t it?”
Elizabeth refused to concede. “If you examine what he describes as the weapons,” she said, “they are things like emotional blackmail.”
Updike was frustrated with the bantering. There were other avenues he wanted to explore. Elizabeth, however, had another idea. She decided to use Jens’s words to prove the opposite of what Updike was saying. The prosecutor was anxious to demonstrate that a conspiracy existed between Jens and Elizabeth to murder Derek and Nancy. Elizabeth wanted to demonstrate that all she had been doing was exercising her right to complain to her boyfriend about her relationship with her parents and that Jens had taken it from there. He read something into her words she did not mean and used that to begin manipulating her.
“Jens Soering manipulated my resentment and my frustration,” Elizabeth began. “He began talking about a dinner scene three or four months before it happened.”
Updike nodded.
“So I don’t see how I could have manipulated him to plan those sorts of things when he already had it planned,” she said, willing to drift wherever her thoughts carried her. “We had been discussing these things, my hatred and my resentments, and he takes it one step further,” she added, building
steam. “I told you, I admit fully that I had macabre and dreadful fantasies for many years about …”
steam. “I told you, I admit fully that I had macabre and dreadful fantasies for many years about …”
Updike cut her off. This was getting nowhere, he perceived, and he had his own agenda. “If we could move on, please,” he said impatiently. “We’ve covered those letters then.” It had been a disconcerting hour.
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