6 “Why Wouldn’t I Be?”

By the following Monday morning, six days after Cindy Roth drowned, Peters had made only slight progress. Reay had give her his tentative conclusion from the autopsy, that the drowning was probably an accident; still, Peters couldn’t shake her doubts.

Meanwhile, she’d been able to reach only two of the witnesses; the lifeguard Michael McFadden, and a fourteen-year-old girl on the beach who had told Redmond police she had seen the raft “tip up,” which might at least partially confirm Randy’s story. McFadden told Peters that he too was struck by Randy’s odd behavior on the beach, but attributed it to shock. Peters made calls to other lifeguards present on the beach, but no one had called back.

Like all detectives, Peters kept a running log of all her actions on the case—every call made, every message left, even to other police officers. The log was the backbone of the detective system. Each entry was dated and timed, and confined to the dry facts. Later, when other officers or prosecutors needed to know exactly what a detective had done, said, heard or seen, and when, the record would be there.

One thing Peters had discovered was that Randy was a convicted felon. He had pleaded guilty to a burglary charge in a county north of Seattle back in 1975 and had received a short jail term and probation. Peters was still checking to see if Randy had had contacts with other police agencies, but it was slow going; each of the several dozen police departments in the Seattle area have different record systems.

In any event, that morning Peters decided to call Randy and take a statement from him. This would represent her first encounter with the one witness who knew the most about what happened to Cindy. Peters placed the call and got Randy’s answering machine.

Five minutes later, Randy called Peters back. Could he talk to her about the events at the lake? Peters asked. And would he mind if she tape-recorded their conversation? Randy was agreeable, if brusque. He was on his way to a memorial service for Cindy, he told her; he couldn’t talk long. Peters expressed her sympathy for Randy’s loss. Randy said nothing.

The rafting trip had been Cindy’s idea, Randy said; she’d wanted to row across the lake to the far shore. Randy described the trip across, then the trip back. He told Peters how he and Cindy had decided to leave the raft for a swim, Cindy’s cramp, his attempts to hold the raft steady so she could climb in, and the wake from the powerboat that caused the raft to flip over. He heard a single cough, Randy told Peters.

When he turned the raft right side up, Cindy was floating facedown in the water. By the time he got into the raft himself and maneuvered it over to Cindy, she was already unconscious, he said. So far, Randy’s story was consistent with what he had first told the Redmond police and the medical examiner’s office.

Peters kept her tone neutral. At this stage, she only wanted to hear Randy’s story in his own words. At one point, however, she asked Randy whether anyone had seen what was going on as Randy pulled Cindy into the raft. Peters wanted to find out from Randy whether there were any other witnesses to the drowning, but also was a subtle way of asking if Randy had tried to get help from any of the numerous boats nearby.

“Not that I know of,” Randy said. “It was my primary concern to get her across the water.” That probably meant Randy hadn’t signaled for help at all, Peters thought, which was strange for an accidental drowning but perfectly logical if murder had been committed.

The whole interview lasted just six minutes, but Peters was struck by Randy’s matter-of-fact tone. There was no emotion at all, no grief. It was almost as if he had been discussing a blown engine, not the death of a mate. And it was even stranger that Randy insisted Cindy had given out just a single cough and had swallowed only a mouthful of water. The rescue people were certain that Cindy had swallowed a lot more than just a mouthful; so was McFadden. That was evidence Cindy had been under water a lot longer than Randy was willing to admit.

About the time the memorial service for Cindy Roth was drawing to a close, Stacey Reese was calling the police.

Stacey explained to the police operator that she might know something about the woman who had drowned. The operator connected her with Sue Peters in major crimes.

Sue Peters always answered her telephone the same way. “Detective Peters,” she said.

Stacey told Peters that she didn’t know whether it was important or not, but that she knew the man whose wife had drowned. “Oh?” Peters asked.

Yes, said Stacey. His name is Randy Roth, and he works where I work. “How well do you know him?” Peters asked.

“I’ve gone to lunch with him a couple of times,” Stacey said. Beginning when? Peters asked. Beginning earlier in the year, shortly after she had started work at the car dealership, Stacey said. In fact, Stacey said, she and Randy had lunch together in a park only the day before Randy’s wife had drowned.

“Really?” said Peters, to encourage her to go on.

Yes, said Stacey. Randy wasn’t very happy with Cindy, Stacey told Peters. In fact, Randy told her he and Cindy weren’t really married, that they only had a one-year “marriage contract.” Randy told her the contract “was just about up.” Randy complained about Cindy a lot, Stacey said.

“He said she was obsessive and nasty,” Stacey continued. “He said she was too bitchy.” Randy made it clear to her that he wanted to get out of the relationship. In fact, Stacey said, she had the impression that either Cindy or Randy, one or the other, was packing to move out when the drowning happened.

Still, moving out was one thing, and dying was another.

Tell me about Randy, Peters encouraged.

Well, Stacey offered, Randy was a Vietnam veteran. He talked a lot about Vietnam, and he talked about death a lot, too. “He said that in the last six weeks, four of his family members had died,” Stacey told Peters. He’d said this just the day before the drowning.

Stacey faltered a bit, and Peters realized that she was frightened. It wasn’t so much that Stacey was frightened of Randy, Peters sensed, as much as of the act of actually calling the police to report these suspicions. Peters could imagine Stacey’s predicament: one day Randy tells her he doesn’t like his wife, that he wants to end the relationship, that he was in Vietnam, that four of his family members have died in six weeks, and the very next day the unwanted wife is dead. It would make anybody wonder.

But what if the drowning was just a horrible coincidence? By calling the police to report the information, Stacey could be getting Randy in a lot of trouble. After all, he seemed a nice enough guy. And what if it got out at work that Stacey had said anything to the police? That would make her look like a troublemaker, like she was some sort of stool pigeon.

Peters assured Stacey that no one would know Stacey had called unless Randy were charged with a crime, and that was a long way off, if ever. Stacey said she understood that, but it still made her nervous. Stacey told Peters about a call she’d had from Randy two days after Cindy drowned.

“I asked him, ‘Are you all right?’ and he said, ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’” Stacey told Peters.

Randy’s attitude was the thing, Stacey said. He was acting like Cindy’s death was no big deal. Later the same night, Stacey told Peters, Randy had called her a second time, and this time he talked about the drowning. “He said it was a horrible thing,” Stacey recounted. But then Randy suggested that perhaps Cindy had subconsciously wanted to die because their relationship was over. It gave Stacey the creeps.

But that wasn’t all. Randy complained about the way Cindy had decorated their new house. “He said, ‘It’s going to take me fucking forever to get this pink and mauve out of here.’”

Randy called her a third time to ask her out to breakfast a few days later, Stacey continued. She turned him down, Stacey told Peters. It just felt all wrong, Stacey said. She had the feeling—it was only a feeling—that maybe, just maybe, Randy had killed his wife so he’d be free to make a play for her.

Then Stacey, growing more nervous, told Peters something that focused the detective’s mind wonderfully: “You know that Randy was married before?” Stacey asked. “He told me the day before the drowning, while we were having lunch in the park, that his second wife died in a hiking accident. She fell off a cliff about ten years ago. They’d only been married about eight months when it happened.’

Peters’ mind churned as she took in this development. So Randy Roth had been married before, and that wife had died too—also outdoors, also accidentally, it seemed. Very convenient, Peters thought. But who was the first wife? Where had the accident happened?

Peters pressed Stacey for more details, but Stacey had reached her limit. “I can’t talk any more. I’m at work,” she said, and hung up.

There had to be some way to find out who the first wife was, Peters thought. Too bad she hadn’t known about the earlier wife when talking to Randy that morning; she could have asked him. That reminded Peters of the tape-recorded statement she’d taken from Randy about the circumstances of Cindy’s drowning. She decided to take a copy of the tape over to the medical examiner’s office to let people there listen to it. Maybe the medical experts would hear Randy’s taped version of the drowning—at least listen to his voice—and decide there was just no way it could have happened that way. Maybe, after listening to Randy’s own words, they would reconsider their tentative decision to classify the death as an accident.

Peters drove over to the county medical examiner’s offices and met with Dr. Reay. Reay listened to the tape, and afterward Peters had questions. Based on Randy’s story, did Reay now think Randy could have drowned Cindy deliberately? Was it possible for a person to drown so quickly? Was there anything at all to indicate murder rather than accident? For example, were there any marks on Cindy that might have indicated she’d been held under until she drowned?

Reay said he couldn’t be sure, but he didn’t think so. Yes, there were the two small scratches on Cindy’s neck, but they could have come from the resuscitation violence. The tape didn’t clarify the matter very much, Reay said. Based on the available medical evidence, he said, he’d have to stick with the idea that the death was a probable accident.

Peters was only slightly disappointed. She was still thinking about Stacey Reese’s phone call. Peters was growing more and more convinced that Randy Roth had murdered Cindy Roth, no matter what the medical evidence suggested, or rather, failed to suggest. But why? Why would Randy have murdered Cindy?

Tomorrow, Peters decided, she would start trying to find out who Randy Roth’s first dead wife was. Maybe that would shed more light on the death of the second.