A Mother’s Promise Read online

  I was taken into a small room where Pedr was waiting. He gave me a smile and said it was time for the mug shot. That’s when things became very real for me. From this date, 5 November 2013, there would be a mug shot of me in the records forever. Next, a female officer came into the room and told me I would be strip searched. The fact that I was fifty-three years old and a mother of two didn’t reduce my humiliation, especially when I had to turn around naked in a circle with my hands in the air.

  After dressing it was time to go to the cells. Pedr moved towards me. ‘Hang in there, look down and don’t speak to anyone. They will all try and hassle you.’

  I assured him I would be fine as long as my kids were. I looked one last time at his kind eyes and said thank you.

  But almost immediately it began.

  ‘Psst, pssst. What’s your name, lady?’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘What are you doing in here?’

  The questions kept coming and I kept ignoring them. We passed a man who was screaming obscenities at us and unfortunately I stole a glance just in time to see his half-naked tattooed body and his hand violently grabbing his crotch. I should have listened to Pedr. After manoeuvering our way through cavernous halls, we finally stopped. I looked up. In front of me was a tiny cell consisting of a dirty mattress on a cement block, and a metal toilet and sink. The smell was revolting, but it was forgotten when my eyes looked up at the ceiling and I noticed the camera. All privacy was lost. I crawled onto the ‘bed’, careful not to touch anything with my hands, and assumed a crash position, with my back against the wall and my head on my knees.

  ‘Hey, Gertrude! What are you doing over there? You sure are quiet. Gertrude, I know you can hear me,’ said the girl in the cell next to me.

  It took me a moment to realise that was me. I smiled and a small laugh escaped. Oh, what the hell, I thought. ‘Hi, my name’s Alex. What’s yours?’

  ‘Lisa,’ she replied.

  After a few minutes of chatting, I asked Lisa what to expect the next day. She said that if I didn’t get bail I would be sent to prison to wait for my trial. ‘Trust me, you’ll be happy to get the fuck out of here and go there. It’s a million times better then this.’

  A few hours later, I was startled by spine-chilling screams and the thuds of violence. Mostly drug withdrawals, I was told.

  The next morning, I was anxious to meet my lawyer. I knew I was a mess, filthy from head to toe, but there was nothing I could do about my appearance. Finally around 9.30 a.m. I was taken to a small room with a little teller window, through which I would speak to my lawyer. A metal stool was secured to the floor.

  Chelsea eventually arrived and after some preliminaries said there was a great deal of media keen to speak to me. She asked me who I wanted to be my power of attorney. That threw me. I thought for a bit and suggested she ask my friend Sharon Williams. Then I asked to take a look at the indictment. I skim-read the sheets of paper until I found what I wanted: the name of … the informant.

  contacted Harris Todd via the Internet after Lee Barnett slipped up at a barbeque and referred to her daughter as Savanna.

  In spite of the redacted name I knew instantly who did it: Stephen Schofield! And I had never slipped up with the name; I did it on purpose when I confided in Stephen. When the kids had been much younger, Juan and I had carefully chosen people to share our secret with just in case something happened to us. We had known Stephen and Shelley from the time we lived in Bostwana back in 2000, some thirteen years earlier. But Juan and I had always agreed that they were untrustworthy. So in 2010 when I told Juan that Stephen now knew my story, his fury at me came as no surprise. Juan had thought that Shelley was poison in particular. I explained that I had no choice, that Stephen and Shelley had kept digging, and it would only have been a matter of time before they learned the truth.

  Chelsea interrupted my thoughts to tell me that my friends had chipped in $150,000 for bail, which should help. Then she said that I needed a barrister, a good one, and that it would cost me. I sighed with the knowledge that once again everything I had would soon go to legal costs. I thanked Chelsea and knew that I only had a couple of hours before the hearing.

  When I returned to my cell, the girls assured me that I would get bail because I had roots here: I had a job and owned my own home. As for me, I wasn’t so sure; life hadn’t worked out altogether smoothly for me so far.

  As we moved from the earth’s bowels up to the courtroom, I reminded myself to take deep breaths. I had to appear calm for my children. The officer asked if I was ready. I smoothed down my greasy hair, wiped my wrinkled clothes and found a smile. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I am.’

  Directly exiting from the elevator we entered a glass cage on one side of the courtroom between the public and the judge. I felt like the prize pig at a country fair on display for the highest bidder. I had thought I would be sitting next to my lawyer as I had done so many times before, but evidently not.

  There were so many people. Journalists were busy scribbling, sitting and standing; smiling and nodding encouragement at me were friends of mine, friends of the children, coworkers, and finally Samantha and Reece. I mouthed the words ‘I love you’ to them and they did the same back to me.

  We stood when the judge entered. She was about my age and had a kind smile. Chelsea spoke and asked for bail, offering the $150,000 my friends put forward as payment. The lawyer representing the US stood and railed against the idea of my having bail, especially given that I had successfully evaded the FBI for nearly twenty years. He read my charges out loud: one count of parental kidnapping, three years; and two counts of false statements on passport applications, ten years each, bringing a total of twenty-three years. I flicked a glance at Ed and Pedr sitting in the front row at the suggested length of sentence.

  The judge took a few minutes to read the papers in front of her and the courtroom waited patiently until she lifted her head to say she needed more time. I had to go back the next day.

  I was taken back to my cell where there was the continual noisiness – banging, screaming, toilets flushing – when suddenly I heard sweet Sammy’s voice from the other end of the maze-like hallway. It was unmistakably her. I reached for the intercom button and after what seemed an age, a guard answered.

  ‘Excuse me, I know this sounds crazy but I swear I just heard my daughter’s voice. Am I right?’

  ‘Umm yes, you’re right. She’s dropping off something for you.’

  ‘Do you think I could quickly say hi to her?’ I pleaded.

  He agreed as long as I made it quick.

  ‘Mum, I’m here.’

  Hearing those words was magic. I told her I loved her and just before we got cut off I shouted, ‘It was the Schofields who turned us in!’ I was so thankful I got to warn her.

  The next morning I met my barrister. He was perfectly groomed in an immaculate suit while I remained in filthy wrinkled clothes and with a mop of matted hair. Nasty was how I was feeling.

  He said he had come up with a loophole that he thought was promising and that 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Dateline, and even Dr. Phil had all been in touch for him to comment. I shrugged. I had always known that Harris would never cease hunting me down and that when the day came it would be a circus.

  This time the courtroom held even more people than the day before.

  As I sat, my guard smiled at me and gave me some tissues. ‘Hang in there,’ she said.

  I nodded and looked out at the sea of faces to find that my daughter had made an assortment of signs in bright colours: ‘We love you Mum’, ‘Be strong’, ‘You are so brave’. She swapped them over and over for me to read. It was a stunning show of support and it brought me strength and immense pride. I looked back at the guard and, as we exchanged an understanding nod, I handed the tissues back to her. She was more in need of them.

  From that day I also remember the judge say to the prosecutor, ‘This lady was not out there manufacturing passports. She got married and changed
her name, count one, and she asked for more pages for her passport, count two.’ I nodded a thank you in her direction.

  She then made the point that I had contributed to society, that I had a job, a home and by all accounts had raised two well-adjusted children. All of this made my heart soar. And yet the arguments bounced back and forth around the courtroom for some time before a ruling was made. And once it was, it was bad news: bail was refused and I would go to prison to await extradition.

  I was taken downstairs to speak to my barrister. I considered how much money that short bail hearing had cost and knew that this was only the start. When my barrister joined me he was apologetic and asked me how I was. I told him I was disappointed, but that it was the outcome I had suspected.

  He looked at me with his eyebrows raised and head cocked to one side.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s just that you’re taking this so much better than I would have thought.’

  ‘What do I have to complain about? This is the first time in my life I have had a lawyer and a judge who I knew I could trust. I can’t ask for more.’

  5

  Charleston, South Carolina, US

  1986

  WHEN I MOVED BACK TO CHARLESTON FROM ORMOND BEACH, Florida, in 1986, I felt I was coming home to my roots, and one of the first things I wanted to do was transfer my Merrill Lynch bank account there from Florida.

  When I entered the Merrill Lynch in downtown Charleston, a receptionist led me past several small offices occupied by men with phones to their ears, to one where a balding gentleman sat quietly behind his desk. He looked up expectantly, stood, shook my hand and, in a very soft Southern drawl, introduced himself. ‘Hello, I’m Harris Todd. How can I help you?’

  Once I had introduced myself and sat down, he plucked a business card from its holder and gave it to me: B. Harris Todd III.

  ‘Wow, that’s quite a mouthful,’ I said with a smile.

  I’ve always been vivacious, and whenever I meet someone shy or reserved it seems I just become more so. I think it’s to put the other person at ease. And if there was ever someone who appeared buttoned-up and reserved it was the man who sat across from me that day.

  I gave him a warm smile and asked him about himself, but that only seemed to make him more uncomfortable so I tried a different approach, one embraced in the Deep South: the damsel in distress, accentuated by the blonde, blue-eyed doe-in-the-headlights look. ‘I went to Auburn University but didn’t finish my degree.’

  Instantly Mr Todd relaxed and a faint smile appeared, reducing his upper lip to the thinnest of lines. Success! Harris slowly opened up and informed me he went to Yale. I was impressed.

  Our strange friendship began that day. Even now I’m not sure why his aloofness was such a magnet to me, but it seemed like a challenge to get this man to open up. Over the following months, whenever my mother and I had a cocktail party we invited Harris, and soon he became my mother’s broker too. If I needed a date to a dinner party, a ball or the theatre I asked Harris and he did the same. Even when I was officially dating someone else it was accepted by that boyfriend because Harris never posed a threat. This was largely because there was no physical attraction on my part. I accepted him as I saw him, my gay stockbroker friend. It was a comfortable, if unconventional, relationship that lasted for several years, during which Harris got to know my boyfriends past and present and me warts and all. And yet I learned next to nothing of his relationships, his past or his life. And this seeming secrecy intrigued me.

  One evening after too many drinks I asked him straight up about his homosexuality.

  ‘Why in the world would you ask me something like that?’ he said defensively.

  I didn’t want to be cruel so I didn’t tell him that his mannerisms were identical to many of the openly gay flight attendants I worked with, or that I had never seen him with a girlfriend or heard him speak of one. Nor did I want to call attention to his fastidious attention to his appearance, or how circumspect he was when speaking. I’m aware that these are all stereotypical traits, but to me he epitomised a gay man still in the closet, afraid to open it. And this was in part understandable in such a conservative place as Charleston at that time. But as well as all of that, I was convinced Harris was hiding something so deep and dark that it rendered him a prisoner in his own skin, and I felt it was my duty as a friend to help him release it.

  About a year later, my best friend Susan Poag and I set out on a long-planned trip to Africa. This had been our childhood dream since I was five and Susan was seven. It took us twenty-two years to do it but we spent four glorious months travelling the continent, just the two of us and our tent. When we returned, Harris listened to us prattle on and on about it and shared his own stories of travelling across Africa on a motorcycle. I was both surprised and delighted by this and I found a new respect for him. Only later would I discover it was a lie.

  After Africa I started a new job as a flight attendant with Piedmont Airlines. Harris encouraged me to use some of my grandmother’s inheritance as a hefty down payment on a house. He was my rock when it came to difficult decisions and I felt I could rely on him. So much so that when I was in a tempestuous relationship with Andy, a pilot with whom I worked, Harris insisted that I leave Andy and for safety reasons stay with him for a while. I did and I felt indebted to Harris for giving me a safe haven from such a volatile man.

  Around 1989 or 1990 Harris invited me to his uncle’s beach house on Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, a place he and his brothers often visited. I was excited to go and the two of us had a wonderful day with champagne, walks along the beach and throwing the football. I made dinner and afterwards we watched the bright stars appear over the ocean. Harris is highly articulate and, as always, enthralled me with his poetry. It wasn’t so much what Harris said but the way he said it. In truth I found his poetry somewhat morbid (I used to say he made Edgar Allen Poe seem like a comedian), but the sound of it was pure music. It had gotten to the stage where my feelings towards him grew with every word he uttered.

  My head swirled with Harris’s soft voice, the champagne and salt air, and I headed towards a guest bedroom. A few hours later I was startled awake, feeling that someone was in the room. It was Harris. I whispered hi and without a word he sat on my bed and laid his head on my stomach. Naturally I started to stroke his back wondering what in the world was going on.

  ‘Are you okay, Harris?’

  After a few seconds he said yes then, ‘You are the only person who has ever made me feel human.’

  I gently pulled his head up to mine. ‘Human? If you’re not human, what are you?’

  Harris looked at me. ‘I’m a cross between a mountain lion and a lizard.’

  I knew this man was deadly serious so instead of laughing, which was my first reflex, I asked him what he meant.

  ‘A mountain lion because I sit high up on the rocks and look down on all the people, and a lizard because I’m cold-blooded.’

  Looking back on this now, I suspect a normal response to such a statement would have been one of revulsion, but instead I held this broken man in my arms, feeling his pain. I suspect too that I thought, Damn, I’m really special, so special I make this man feel like a human. Was it an egotistical move on my part, or was I someone who had never felt so special and needed as at that moment?

  In the darkened room I saw his eyes raised to the ceiling, a habit that I knew meant he was about to say something profound. And sure enough, while looking upwards and not at me, he said, ‘You are the only person who has ever truly loved me.’

  We made love for the first time that night and began an intense, passionate relationship.

  In fact, after that weekend our lives exploded. We couldn’t get enough of each other physically or emotionally. I had never been with a man like Harris; his intelligence was evident in his every word and this was something I had come to find soothing and sensual. I respected him, trusted him and loved him more than even myself.
r />   Quite honestly, I drank the Kool-Aid.

  Before long, Harris became my only priority. I moved from my lovely house in town to Harris’s, which sits in the middle of ten acres on Johns Island, a large island fifteen minutes from downtown Charleston. Within weeks I had changed from an outgoing, sociable woman to one who rarely left the property. And no one was allowed to drop by for a visit, especially if he was there. If you showed up unannounced, like my mother and her friend once did, Harris was liable to be very rude. It all made me feel so uncomfortable that I started to dissuade any of my friends from stopping by.

  I tried to ignore or deny any discomfort I might have felt about my new life by instead focusing on how deeply in love we were. We had each other so who else did we need? There also seemed to be a gentleness and serenity in sharing activities with Harris that was so different from all my previous relationships. Harris had a particular fascination with the ancient Greek philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, and his favourite, Zeno of Citium, founder of the Stoics. Whenever he spoke of them he would come alive, aflame with their ideas and ways in which to negotiate the world. He would stroke my head like a child and explain that Zeno believed that rage, elation and depression were all simple flaws in a person’s reason and that because of this we are only emotionally weak when we allow ourselves to be. At times like these, Harris and his philosophers assumed a god-like status while I remained a mere mortal.

  During this heady period we would sometimes break up then get back together. The reason for this was always the same: my desire to have a child and Harris’s disdain for children. We jokingly called it our Friday night break-ups, because almost weekly we wondered how we could ever stay together with this deep difference between us. There was a profound sadness when we split up, then elation and passion when we reunited. As I said, it was intense.

  When we finally decided to get married, which was another thing Harris said he would never do, I was so happy. We had talked briefly about a prenup agreement but I had refused. At that time I think I had more assets than he did; however, his earning capacity was much greater than mine. He was adamant that we wouldn’t be having an actual wedding, and while I was disappointed by that I didn’t fight it; after all, he was all I really wanted.