Worth More Dead

had two children, who didn’t live with her full time. At 35, she was a divorcée making up for the years when she had too much responsibility and missed out on having fun. A man who was married to one of Debra’s clients recalled his impression of her. “Debra was like a young college student who went off to school and had never experienced drinking and went to every sorority and frat party around. She was definitely a fun-loving person and enjoyed herself.”
    Debra was a slender blonde, very attractive. Originally from the South, she still spoke with a charming honeyed accent. She was about five feet ten inches tall and would have been hard to ignore, even if her looks hadn’t been so dramatic. She was usually the center of attention wherever she was. She dressed impeccably and a friend recalled that she had “big hair” and “great clothes: party dresses.” No one ever saw her looking less than perfect.
    “Debra was professional, self-confident, a flirtatious woman with a lot of nerve and energy,” one platonic male acquaintance said. “She was boisterous and not afraid of embarrassment; she spoke loudly at a restaurant telling an inappropriate joke. Others might look on in disbelief, but it was all in good fun. Lots of fun, in fact.”
    Not surprisingly, Debra Sweiger attracted men. It wasn’t unusual for her to have at least “three serious dates” with three different men in a week’s time.
    As their corporation thrived, the State maintained that nurses could not be classified as professionals while Cascade paid them as independent contractors. That was the whole point of Cascade’s existence: highly capable nurses who were tired of being treated as nonprofessionals and being paid low wages had found their niche with Debra and Joyce and were loath to give it up. Washington State wanted to reclassify Cascade’s nurses as Cascade employees. A lawsuit was filed, and, after a long struggle, Cascade won. They wouldn’t have to pay business taxes, social security withholding taxes, and other fees the IRS and the state charged employers. The nurses, working as independent professional contractors, would be their own bosses, a big step upward for their bargaining powers in wage demands.
    Joyce and Debra enjoyed a newfound sense of power, power for women and power for nurses. To celebrate, they bought matching Jaguars. They hosted lavish black-tie parties for their contractor-nurses, and they lived far more carefree lifestyles than they had known in the days when they were simply nurses with tired feet and never enough money.
    The two women upgraded their computer system, and their office procedures became even better organized. They prepared to start branches of their business in other cities. A Kansas City franchise was their first goal.
    They deserved their success; they had worked tirelessly. Joyce and her husband, Mark,* were like a sister and brother-in-law to Debra. Debra was the one who gloried in being the hostess of their upscale parties and in the social life at the state capital with the movers and the shakers. She did most of the traveling, but she found time to have fun. This was probably the best part of her life.
     
    Those who knew her well believed that Debra dated only casually, but they were concerned because many of the men she met wanted more serious commitments than she did. She had had that. Now she was enjoying a carefree life. While many women in their mid-thirties want to settle down, Debra Sweiger didn’t. That only made her more attractive and more of a challenge to men.
    One man fell totally under her spell, becoming besotted with her to the point that he was willing to give up everything he had going for him just to be with her in a committed relationship and, hopefully, in a marriage. His name was Bill Pawlyk, he was 48, and he had a great deal going for him. He had a master’s degree in business, and he was a highly respected business leader in the Tri-Cities area of Washington (Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland on the east side of the mountain passes that divide Washington). He was the chairman of the Richland Economic Development Board, a highly placed executive with the Boeing Company’s Computer Services Division, and a high-ranking naval reserve officer who was cleared to command submarines.
    Pawlyk had been married a couple of times, unions he described to an acquaintance as “disasters,” and he had a son and a daughter. He didn’t have a single black mark on