Worth More Dead

established that this was a key to PJ’s Market.)
    The detectives said little as they moved around the Topaz, but they were all thinking the same thing. Something terrible must have happened to the missing 33-year-old woman, and it had probably begun as she sat behind the steering wheel.
     
    “We decided to pop the trunk forcibly,” Gruber remembers, “to see what else might have been left in the car.”
    Using a screwdriver and a hammer, Hank Gruber eased open the locked trunk lid. As it lifted, the four investigators were shocked. None of them had detected the odor of a decomposing body, so they weren’t prepared for the sight before them. A woman lay there, wedged in. They couldn’t see her face because it was covered by a paper bag and magazines and books—as if whoever had put her there didn’t want her dead eyes to look at him.
    They couldn’t say for sure, but they were fairly certain that they had found Cheryl Pitre.

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    The woman in the trunk lay on her back, her shoulders and head toward the passenger side of the vehicle. She wore blue jeans with the left front pocket pulled inside out, an aqua T-shirt with a humorous logo, and a shiny red waterproof jacket. Her arms were hidden beneath her. The white lining of her jeans pocket bore blood stains, probably from the killer’s hand. A child’s folding stroller lay beside her. Her own car had been a hiding place for her body, and it might even be the scene of the crime.
    The book that covered her face was entitled They’re All Dead, Aren’t They? It looked like a typical mystery novel; they didn’t know that this was the true story of a devout mother and her battle back from losing five children to murder and to cancer, the book that Cheryl had found inspiring. Joy Swift’s survival and renewed faith in the Seventh-Day Adventist church had helped Cheryl keep going when her world with her husband had shattered. What bleak irony that particular book should be used to hide her terribly battered face.
    The fact that her face was covered made the detectives suspect that whoever killed her had had a personal relationship with her. Even with such violence, the killer apparently hadn’t been able to leave her body in the trunk without some attempt to hide his gruesome handiwork. Maybe, as he slammed down the trunk lid, he hadn’t wanted to think that her empty eyes were watching him.
     
    The detectives couldn’t be sure who this female victim was yet, though they assumed it was Cheryl Pitre. The dead woman wore no shoes, but she did have either panty hose or knee-highs on, their bottoms shredded as if she had been walking on a rough surface.
    Before the investigators removed the books and magazines from the victim’s face, they called the King County Medical Examiner’s office. An ME investigator, Kevin Gow, responded and assisted the detectives as they carefully uncovered the dead woman’s face.
    Even if they had known her in life, they wouldn’t have been able to identify her. She had severe facial injuries. She had been battered repeatedly with something heavy and, possibly, with the trunk lid. Damaged tissue decomposes more rapidly than normal tissue, and the body’s head was unrecognizable. Blood and tissue were sprayed throughout the trunk area.
    It looked as if she might have tried to fight her way out of the trunk, only to be struck again and again until the trunk lid was slammed on her, crushing her face. The detectives retrieved and bagged several of her teeth and pieces of bones.
    “There was blood spatter on the inside of the trunk lid,” Hank Gruber wrote in his follow-up report.
    Dr. Greg Schmunk, an ME’s deputy, and Kevin Gow took possession of the body, teeth, and bony chips. An autopsy should show exactly how this woman had died and when. It was doubtful that she had been raped. She was fully clothed, with her undergarments in place.
    As they lifted her corpse from the trunk, the investigators saw that her hands were bound behind her, tightly secured with strapping tape. Her shoes, athletic running shoes, were in the trunk, too.
    The two detective teams—one from the Seattle Homicide Unit and the other from the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office—worked into the night, bagging tiny fragments of possible evidence that had been hidden by the body. Maybe some of it would help; maybe none of it would.
    There was a bank envelope with seven dollars in cash inside, a receipt for a hamburger and fries from Friday, October 14, a red