Worth More Dead

said.
    No one who knew him in the seventies expected Pitre to do anything criminal. Years later, when one of the other men they had been with all through the Marine Corps years wrote to Pitre’s best friend to tell him that Pete had some “legal problems,” he didn’t believe it. “I thought he was pulling my leg.”
    The Pete he recalled was in his early twenties, a handsome guy who was a practical joker, at most a small-potatoes con man. Thirty years later, his closest service buddy, who has become a successful businessman, was stunned to learn all that happened to Roland Pitre Jr. after their paths diverged.
    “Pete was bright, well-spoken, and talented. He was fun to be around. He made things happen. He was tough—a brown belt in judo and a black belt in karate—when I knew him. We worked side by side almost every day for nearly two years. He was a good Marine—most of the time—and a good electronics technician. And funny!
    “When I think of what he could have accomplished and the life he could have had with just a little effort on his part, it depresses me.”

6
    Kept from the outside world in the McNeil Island Penitentiary, Roland Pitre had plenty of time to formulate careful plans for his future. He had been dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps, of course, and he had no option of military service. He needed to make contacts that he thought would be helpful to him later.
    His letters from prison to Cheryl and their daughter, Bébé, were masterpieces of persuasion, if not outright brainwashing. He’d assured Cheryl again and again that he wanted only to rescue their marriage and help her raise their daughter. They could start a new life together if only he could be free to be with her.
    Cheryl took a huge chance. So they could be close to Roland, she left her family and the security they offered her as she and Bébé moved back to Washington in the mid-eighties. Now Cheryl could visit Roland in the McNeil Island prison. She found a tiny place to live near Bremerton, site of the huge Bremerton Naval Base. She immediately looked for a job and found one with a local car dealer, Bay Ford.
    Cheryl began to attend a Seventh-Day Adventist church and made friends. She was searching for the right church, and she read books and participated in Bible studies. Roland had been raised Catholic, but he hadn’t practiced that religion for a long time.
    One of the books that tremendously impressed Cheryl was a true story called They’re All Dead, Aren’t They? by Joy Swift. Swift wrote of her marriage to a man much older than she was and then becoming the mother of five, including three stepchildren, when she was still in her teens. Her family’s lives were soon marked by terrible violence. Swift and her husband lost his two sons and the two little girls they had together to a teenaged mass murderer. Less than a year later, Joy’s young stepdaughter died of cancer. Swift’s book was a gripping and inspiring story about her struggle to find faith in the wake of incredible personal disasters. After studying the beliefs of many religions, Joy Swift found her answers in the Seventh-Day Adventists’ doctrine.
    The book helped Cheryl believe that she, too, could turn the tragedies in her own life into triumphs.
    Cheryl had long since forgiven Roland for his affair with Maria. That was in the past. She also convinced herself that Roland would never have wanted to kill Maria’s husband. She felt that if he had anything to do with Dennis Archer’s death, it could only have been because he was hounded and manipulated into a situation that raged out of control. Cheryl blamed Maria. Now she was willing to wipe the slate clean and to look at her marriage as if it was just beginning. Somehow she would find a way to show the parole board in Washington that Roland wasn’t dangerous and that he deserved to be free.
    Cheryl Pitre was organized and precise, and she was a whiz at math. She rapidly became a very valuable employee in the office at Bay Ford. In a few weeks, she knew everything there was to know about car contracts, title searches, simple and compound interest. It wasn’t long before she was running the office and training new salesmen. Her bosses at Bay Ford were grateful to have her.
    Greg Meakin, who later worked at the car dealer for over a year, recalls that Cheryl taught him “about paperwork and financing. She helped everyone. Cheryl was like—well, sort of like your favorite teacher in grade