Worth More Dead

Maria said she wouldn’t deny that there was a strong physical attraction between herself and the Marine who taught the judo classes with such grace and strength.
    Roland Pitre didn’t talk much about his Cajun roots in Louisiana, but he still had a trace of the accent that was partly French and partly the melody of the bayous. He was not classically handsome; his chin was a little weak, and he had a small brush of a mustache, the same reddish color as his wavy hair. But he had a tautly muscled body and moved like a tiger. Although he wasn’t particularly well educated, Pitre was innately intelligent and had a quick mind. There was also a sense of danger about him, nothing overt, more like electricity in the air before a storm, the kind that makes the hair on your neck and arms stand on end.
    Maria Archer’s and Roland Pitre’s magnetic attraction to one another was stronger than her loyalty to Dennis or the fact that Roland too was married. He and his wife, Cheryl, were married in May 1976. By May 1980 they were headed for divorce. She had moved back to Pennsylvania with their 18-month-old daughter, Bébé, to stay with relatives while they tried to sort their marriage out. Whether Cheryl knew all the details of Roland’s womanizing is unknown. Probably she didn’t. He had been like catnip to females since he was in his teens. Usually, he managed to keep his various conquests apart so that they had no way to compare notes.
    Detectives one day winked as they said that besides his having well-toned abs and biceps, rumor said that Roland Pitre was exceptionally well-endowed and that that was one of his secrets in seducing the opposite sex.
    Maria never mentioned that, of course. Later, she recalled that she was attracted to him because he seemed “a good person” and he adored children, as she did. She had felt a little sorry for him. He told her he’d spent six or seven years in an orphanage as a youngster, that he’d come from a home torn by dissension. “His first judo instructor changed his life,” she once told an Island County detective. “That was the first person who showed him he could be good at something. And he wanted to help other kids.”
    What happened next was perhaps inevitable. Maria Archer never denied that after Dennis Archer went to sea, she and Roland Pitre began a physical affair sometime in the latter part of 1979. According to Maria, the affair continued until late March or early April 1980. They made no effort to hide it, and the liaison was an open secret in the small town of Oak Harbor. The couple were often seen out together, and they even entertained together. Maria admitted to having serious doubts that she could continue in her marriage.
     
    Roland Pitre’s marriage blew sky-high, and his wife remained in Pennsylvania. Cheryl threatened to file for divorce, and he didn’t try very hard to dissuade her, although he did seem to be heartsick that he was separated from his daughter.
    Maria insisted that her relationship with Pitre had nothing to do with the breakup of his marriage. She said that it was already over by the time she and Roland began to sleep together.
    As for her own marriage, Maria had been torn. She wrote to Dennis and said, “If I can’t make you happy, I’m sorry, darling—but maybe we should try some other way.”
    Maria recalled that she was surprised by her husband’s answer: he wrote that their problems were largely his fault, that he expected her to do everything. She wrote back and said part of it was her fault. “He opened up for the first time.
    “He said he loved me very much, but he’d never contest a divorce. In late March or the first part of April 1980, I was planning to try my marriage again.”
    According to Maria, Roland Pitre took her resolution to attempt to mend her marriage with grace. “He said, ‘I’m just a good friend. I’ll always be your friend. I just want you to be happy.’ ”
    Dennis Archer was not due to return to Oak Harbor until June 1980. Still, Roland’s attitude toward her changed well before that. He seemed to accept her decision to end their affair but remained a constant in her life. They were no longer lovers, but he told her he considered her his closest friend. He would come to her house to babysit her children, and he was a great friend of the neighborhood children. She was busy sewing costumes for a town pageant and Roland even helped with that.
    The Marine from New Orleans, who was four years