Worth More Dead

in a long time, Guidry had called his old friend, Roland Pitre, “to discuss the Marines and what schools I might want to get into.”
    Guidry said Pitre urged him to wait until the avionics school was available. Steve followed his advice, delaying his departure for basic training until sometime in September. It left him with several weeks of free time on his hands; he’d quit his job and had virtually no money. He testified that he was really pleased when Pitre called him a few days later and invited him to come up to Washington State for a visit. It would give him the opportunity to look over the Marine installation in Oak Harbor.
    It turned out that Roland’s life wasn’t running smoothly, either. He told Steve Guidry that he was in terrible trouble, something he couldn’t discuss over his phone, which he said was tapped. “He told me I was the only person he could trust. He offered to pay for my ticket both ways and all expenses if I’d fly up.”
    Guidry testified that he agreed to fly to Washington. He was supposed to leave during the week of July 14 to July 19, but he had received an eviction notice from his landlord and had to wangle an extension from a Hanrahan constable. He called Pitre and said he couldn’t make it. “He told me I had to come—it was so important—so I told him I’d come for a couple of days anyway.”
    Guidry said he thought it was kind of strange that Pitre didn’t want him to fly under his own name, but he finally agreed to fly under the name “Billy Evans.” He flew into Sea-Tac airport on Saturday morning. He brought one change of clothes, and, yes, he had worn his usual rubber thongs for footwear.
    “Roland met me about noon on July 12. I axed [ sic ] him what the trouble was, but he told me to wait till we were in his van. First, he bought my return ticket, and then we headed for Oak Harbor. I axed him again what the big problem was, and he started talking about his affair with his girlfriend and how much he loved her and how he wished he’d met her before he met his wife and how no woman ever treated him like that before. It seems like she was married and her husband was back from deployment. The guy being back presented a big problem. Roland said that the guy knew about him and the wife and was going to have Roland sent to a military prison because you can’t go out with an officer’s wife while he’s gone on duty.”
    Then Roland said, Guidry testified, that he really brought Guidry up to Washington State to kill his girlfriend’s husband.
    “He says he wants me to kill the husband because of the prison threat and that the guy found out because he’d tapped the phone and heard his wife and Roland talking. He said the guy had beat the girlfriend and her kids up, too.”
    Guidry said he’d been shocked and told Pitre it was ridiculous to plan to kill the man. “But Roland ignored me. He showed me a pistol, ammo, and some maps in a duffel bag. It was a .357 pistol.”
    Guidry said he’d called Pitre “crazy,” and Pitre assured him that nothing could go wrong, the killing had been planned for weeks. The maps and diagrams were of the house where the man was to be killed. Pitre explained several plans that had already been considered and discarded. In one plan, Pitre was going to have someone fly to California or Oregon under Dennis Archer’s name. Then Pitre was going to kill Dennis and dispose of the body, and it would look as if Archer had simply disappeared from the flight. In another, Pitre was going to talk Archer into climbing a ladder, from which he would fall and break his neck. Guidry testified that he was dumbfounded. None of his old friend’s wild imaginings sounded like the Pitre he knew.
    The current plan was for Guidry to be the hit man while Pitre spent the time—set for Monday evening, July 14—with friends at the Globe and Anchor Bar so he’d have an alibi.
    Guidry told the jurors next about a less than delightful “vacation” weekend in Washington State. He said that Pitre had insisted that he spend most of his time waiting in Pitre’s van, because Pitre didn’t want his sister to see him. Oddly, Pitre has taken Guidry to the Globe and Anchor (where Pitre worked) on Saturday night and introduced him around, but then he stashed him right back in the van parked outside Pitre’s apartment.
    By Sunday, Guidry said, he was getting pretty annoyed. Pitre had taken him for a ride and bought him a couple of Big Macs, for a picnic on the