Worth More Dead

school. She was nice to everyone.”
    And she was. It didn’t matter if it was the lot boy who washed the cars or one of the owners of Bay Ford, Cheryl went out of her way to help people.
    Meakin remembers that it was obvious Cheryl didn’t spend money on clothes or makeup for herself. She wore stretch pants and bargain knit tops. The dealership was very much laid-back and casual, and nobody cared that she didn’t dress like a career woman.
    “She was poor as a church mouse, and she lived in this tiny little house down in Port Orchard,” Greg Meakin says. “She was pretty plain with long dark hair that had kind of a reddish tone to it,” Meakin says. “She was only about five feet three, and she was a little chubby. But she had a completely angelic demeanor and beautiful light-blue eyes. Everybody at Bay liked her.”
    Between her job and her church, Cheryl Pitre had any number of friends. Some of them worried about her devotion to her convict husband, although she was careful to avoid telling anyone but Greg exactly why Roland was in prison. She wanted him to have a true fresh start when he was paroled.
    Always seeing that Bébé had what she needed, Cheryl deprived herself of everything beyond necessities so that she could send Roland money for the prison canteen and put savings away for when he got out.
    The dealer where Cheryl worked looked like a business frozen in time since the fifties or sixties. Bay Ford was owned by longtime Bremerton residents who knew almost everyone in Kitsap County. The office and the smaller cubicle rooms where car deals were made was a gathering place for a lot of Bremerton businessmen, who stopped by for a cup of coffee or a cigarette break or just to talk. Cheryl sat behind a counter in the large open space at the top of the stairs. Her desk was close to that of Bonnie Arter and that of the automobile title clerk.
    Cheryl seemed always to be smiling, and customers and salesman alike enjoyed visiting with her. “She had a tremendous confidence in her own abilities,” Greg Meakin recalls. “She was completely trustworthy. She was fun-loving, and she had a great dry sense of humor, but there was a romantic in her, too.”
    Because she took the time to listen, people shared their troubles and secrets with Cheryl. She wasn’t a gossip and never betrayed their confidences. Meakin, who avoided talking about his personal life on the job, did talk to Cheryl. He had just proposed to his girlfriend—who lived on the other side of Puget Sound in the Federal Way area—and he was very happy that she had accepted, but he didn’t want to talk about it with all the Bay Ford staff. Greg told only Cheryl, knowing that she would never tell anyone else.
    And Cheryl talked to him about Roland. She was hoping to get him a job at Bay when he got out. Like her other friends, Meakin was worried that she might be in for a disappointment. Roland’s track record for honesty and fidelity didn’t sound promising. But Cheryl’s optimism was pervasive. She was able to get a number of references from her church friends and prominent businessmen verifying that she had the reSources to help her husband adjust to the world outside prison.
    Her sincerity also came through to the Washington State Board of Prison Terms and Parole. She had established a good home and a solid place in the community and her church. She kept her small house spotless, and her credit record was excellent. And she had managed to arrange for a job for Roland at a branch of Bay Ford. He would start as a used-car salesman.
    Cheryl blossomed with happiness when she learned Roland was coming home at last. She started wearing makeup, and she splurged on a haircut and styling at a beauty parlor. Her fellow employees at Bay Ford noticed when she wore a new sapphire blue dress to an office party. She had bought it especially for Roland. She was determined to be so attractive to him that he would never stray again.
    On June 20, 1986, Cheryl waited for Roland when he walked through the gates of the McNeil Island prison. It was almost the first day of summer, and the sea air felt wonderful as they took the little ferry back to the mainland.
    Their little girl, Bébé, was 8 then, and she was thrilled to have her father back in her life.
    Roland Pitre was quietly paroled to his faithful wife after serving only six years of his thirty-five-year sentence. If there was any mention of his early release in the newspapers, it was only a short