Worth More Dead

button, a single earring for pierced ears, a ballpoint pen. They found a small leather pouch that held a driver’s license for Cheryl Pitre and a receipt from a veterinarian. Both important items in the victim’s life and the detritus everyone collects were left in Cheryl’s car.
    The detectives found hair fragments in six spots in the trunk and on the rear bumper, and they located more swaths of blood from the trunk and its lid. They took the dimensions of the trunk and photographed the exterior of the Topaz. Finally, they sealed the car and roped it off until they and expert crime-scene technicians could process the vehicle inch by inch.
    The murder of Cheryl Pitre had just become a Seattle case—because her body was found within the Seattle city limits—but Detectives Doug Wright, Doug Hudson, and Jim Harris would continue to work on it. They were inclined to believe that she had been killed in Kitsap County and disposed of in Seattle to delay the discovery of her body and throw roadblocks in the path of the men who investigated it.
     
    Homicide investigators always look first at those who have been closest to the victim: relatives, friends, work associates. And even after their separation, Roland Pitre was probably the person Cheryl had been closest to. On Saturday morning, October 22—one week after Cheryl disappeared—Sergeant Joe Sanford and Detective Hank Gruber went to the Port Orchard offices of Detectives Doug Wright and Jim Harris. Roland Pitre and his new girlfriend, Della Roslyn, had been asked to come into the sheriff’s office at eleven. They had not yet been informed about the discovery of Cheryl’s body.
    Joe Sanford and Jim Harris would interview Della, and Hank Gruber and Doug Wright would talk to Pitre.
    Pitre and his girlfriend arrived fifteen minutes early. Neither of them appeared unduly nervous.
    Alone now with Hank Gruber and Jim Harris, Pitre nodded as Gruber read him his rights under Miranda. He had heard them before, and he didn’t question why he had been warned as a suspect. “A suspect involving what?” most men would have asked, but Pitre didn’t. He signed the form.
    “We found your ex-wife’s body in the trunk of her car,” Gruber said, studying Pitre’s face. The man before him was very quiet when he heard this news, but he didn’t seem overwhelmed or emotional.
    “When did you see Cheryl last?” Gruber asked.
    “In person?”
    “Yes.”
    “That would have been last Sunday—the ninth. I had dinner with her.” Pitre added that Cheryl was at work on Friday when he picked Bébé and André up from day care for their weekend with him. “So I didn’t see her.”
    “Do you remember the last time you spoke to her?”
    “That Saturday night. She was working at PJ’s, and I called her there to talk about getting our children back to her on Sunday. I was going to the Seahawks game—to cheer for the Saints—so I told her I might be a little late getting the kids back.”
    Gruber already knew that Pitre had been to the football game on Sunday, October 16. The Kitsap County detectives had listened to the messages on Cheryl’s telephone answering machine. Roland Pitre had called her after the game, and he was joking because the Saints had won.
    When he was asked about his activities on the weekend Cheryl disappeared, Pitre had ready answers. He recalled being with Della and her family along with his own children on Saturday.
    “On Sunday?”
    “Well, Della’s an early riser, and she always does her exercises each morning. Every Sunday I get up and go out to get the Tacoma News Tribune from a machine outside the Mile Hill Thriftway store. And then I fill up the gas tank of my Chevette at the Texaco station there because I have a credit card for it.”
    Pitre recalled that it was still dark when he left on Sunday morning, but Della was up. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been gone. “However long it takes,” he said offhandedly. “I didn’t go anywhere else. I came home, read the sports section, and got ready to go to the football game in Seattle. Della, her sister, her brother-in-law, and I left for the game about nine. We drove to the ferry in Della’s car and parked it on the Bremerton side.”
    When they returned from the Kingdome, Pitre said, he called Cheryl to see if she was coming over to Della’s to pick up Bébé and the baby or if she wanted him to drop them off. “She didn’t answer, so I left a message for her to call me if she wasn’t