Drowning Tucson (38 page)

And the guy? What do we do with the dad? the governor asked.

He already knew there was no point in asking. The last year and a half had Arizonans enamored with Babbit and his policies. He cut the amount of money doled out to drunk Indians. He’d made several appearances at public schools with Nancy Reagan to promote her futile Just Say No campaign. There was no way he wouldn’t get another term, unless he actually allowed the state to bring Alejandro Santiago up on first-degree murder charges. There’s the right thing to do, and there’s the
right
thing to do.

In almost any other state where kidnapping wasn’t such a large problem, he could simply leave the guy to rot, citing loopholes in the law and smoothtalking the pushy liberal journalists until the next big story came and Santiago was buried in a landfill of paperwork and legal problems that ensured his trial would be long and unresolved until years after Babbit moved on to greater things. The Senate. The White House. But his state was plagued with missing children and mysterious bones found protruding from the desert hardpan. Then he had the Mexican problem. And the developing gang problem. Those he could deal with. Missing, sexually assaulted, murdered, and brutalized children was a touchier issue. Of course something of this magnitude had to happen on
his
watch.

He swiveled back around and ordered the cabinet members to leave him alone for a while, just give me a few minutes to figure out an angle. Call up the TPD and make sure they have every officer there until we
send reinforcements. And NO outbursts. This mob is just waiting for the chance to riot, and we’re gonna be directly in the line of fire.

The cabinet members rushed out of the room with the lieutenant governor leaving last, closing the door slowly while peeking at the back of the governor’s head, relieved that this wasn’t his problem—a real bitchofa nightmare.

The mob pulsed with anger, chanting and demanding that Santiago go free for doing what any parent would have—should have—done. They took turns screaming into the news cameras. The heat was incredible, reflecting off the courthouse dome and adding to the growing uneasiness. Children splashed around in the fountain to escape the heat, and the out-of-town journalists looked on with envy, annoyed that their jobs required them to wear ties, pantsuits, polyester. If the story unfolding in Tucson wasn’t so wonderfully scripted, most of them would have packed up their gear after filming the mob from various angles. But it was impossible to leave. The Santiago murder had all the makings of Pulitzer journalism. The fact that he shot his daughter’s murderer point-blank in the face—and on live television—had sparked the interest of the entire country. And his reasons for doing it? It couldn’t get much better. Of course some of the reporters tried to incite the crowd—holding up that year’s school pictures of the murdered girl while asking questions. Did you know her? Do you have kids? What would you have done if your daughter was found raped and mangled in the desert? And the cameramen zoomed in close when a father clenched his jaw or narrowed his eyes. Up close action. The people at home will eat it up. And they did.

They came to the courthouse in ones and twos. Carloads of people with out-of-state plates cruised around Congress and Church and Granada, trying to find parking, eventually pulling onto the lawn next to the statue of Pancho Villa and swarming over the Allande Footbridge where police were stationed to block them. But they walked right past them, knowing they wouldn’t be stopped because any one of them would have done the same thing. You can’t possibly beat a parent for defending his child, even if she is already dead. It’s the principle, someone said to one of the officers assigned to block the bridge. It’s the
principle and you know it, and the cop, even though he knew better, let the people pass, because he was too ashamed to stop these parents, united in grief and anger, from completing their pilgrimage.

The courthouse plaza was bursting with people. They stood on benches to get a better view. Some climbed the trees, hiding from the sun and trying to get a glimpse of anything happening inside. One sighting of Alejandro Santiago walking in shackles would make the discomfort of waiting in a tree for two days worth all the inconvenience. So they waited. They shared stories of child abduction in their own states, praising Alejandro for skirting justice and blasting the head off that sick sonofabitch. Full of joy that he stood up to the law and took care of business instead of cowering in his home, taking all of his sick days at work, coming before a jury and reliving the painful experience of losing his child over and over and over again while her murderer maintained his innocence and sat smugly listening to his actions being recounted. To hell with that, they said to each other. We will not back down just because we’re supposed to. We’re not SUPPOSED to lie there and let the scum of the earth snatch everything from us that we work so hard for. They yelled in agreement and waited for some word from inside the courthouse. Waited to see Alejandro. Waited for anything.

What they got, in the early afternoon, three days after Alejandro Santiago had committed Arizona’s most famous murder, was his nervous wife appearing at the courthouse entrance. A podium had been wheeled out two-and-a-half hours before, and the crowd had pressed in, waiting to see who was coming out to give them some news. The reporters had gone to work immediately, setting up their microphones on the podium, turning the mics just right so each TV station’s logo could be seen clearly by viewers at home.

Carmella Santiago, flanked by police officers in riot gear, walked to the podium and squinted her eyes in the sunlight, surveying the mob that had grown quiet in anticipation. She tried to smile, to show the people that she was so happy they were here. But she couldn’t do it. There were so many kids in the crowd, holding their parents’ hands. Looking up to their mothers and fathers. Looking at her. She walked
around the podium and sat on the ground, cross-legged, and beckoned a young girl to join her. Ven aquí, mija.

The child didn’t want to go, but her mother pushed the back of her head lightly and said go. Just go on. She needs you right now. The little girl walked over to Carmella and sat down on her lap and Carmella held the girl’s head between her hands and looked into her eyes, felt the individual folds of her braids, smelled her scalp, then broke into tears and hugged the child’s head to her chest. Everyone was silent. While the news cameras were trained on the podium, waiting for Carmella to stand up and address the crowd, one cameraman, who left a camera recording on the ground between his feet, captured the scene between Carmella and the little girl. Every other person present—parents, children, police, politicians, reporters, cameramen—watched in silence as Carmella held the girl and traced her ears and her tiny lips and her knobby knees.

Even the little girl was transfixed, looking up at the sad woman who touched her like a mommy. Like someone who knew children and knew how to admire by touch, without offending. She was proud that this woman noticed things like her new cross earrings, her big brown eyes, her braids that she liked to squeeze during school. She didn’t even mind that the front of her dress was soaked with this woman’s tears, because somehow she understood that this mommy isn’t a mommy anymore and that’s why she’s sad. Her baby is gone, and so my mommy is sharing me.

The one camera capturing the moment was on a live feed to WGN, and soon the scene was being aired nationally, much to the dismay of the governor, who was eating lunch at a small diner in Phoenix when he noticed that all conversations had ceased, replaced by sniffling and coughing and an uncomfortable silence as, one by one, the customers looked up at the TV in the corner of the room and watched as a child comforted a woman sitting on the ground in what appeared to be an outdoor market or something—who’s that woman?—and then it suddenly clicked, and a gasp went up from everyone when at the same moment they understood who was on television, her name flashed across the bottom of the screen, and the governor knew he was screwed, absolutely fucked. He ran out of the diner and into his limo waiting
outside and yelled at the driver GET ME HOME NOW, RUN PEOPLE OVER IF YOU HAVE TO, and he dialed the lieutenant governor and told him get the chopper ready because we’re flying down to Tucson as soon as I get there. For the rest of the drive back to the mansion, he bit down on his tongue and scraped at the pimple on his head and prayed that the crowd would stay calm until he arrived. He stared out the tinted windows at the city of Phoenix, watching the cars and the people milling about and wondering how he was going to stifle the overheated and heartbroken swarm of people down in Tucson. And every time he closed his eyes, he saw Carmella and the little girl holding each other and a surge of panic overcame him.

The courthouse plaza was overcast with dread. After Carmella finished holding the young girl and calmed down a bit, she returned to the podium and the crowd released a collective sigh. The microphones crackled to life, and she leaned in and began to speak.

I’m so glad you all showed up to support my husband, Alejandro Santiago. I’m not sure what to say exactly, but the mayor thought I should explain to everyone why you should go home so there won’t be any trouble. But, the way I see it, there already
is
trouble, don’t you think? The people roared in unmovable agreement, proving their inherent understanding of exactly what the trouble was.

Carmella continued, urged on by the shouts and bellows from the parents who wanted her to speak. Since the day we went to the site of our daughter’s murder, I’ve been unable to look at the desert—which is impossible in this city—without seeing her face. Don’t you think that’s what the trouble might be? I’ll never get to make another Halloween costume for her. This year she wanted to be a toothbrush. She thought that’d be funny. When she first told me about it, she smiled her wonderful smile. Yes, I think that’s what the trouble might be, Mister Mayor.

The crowd shouted in agreement, a wave that tore through the trees of the courthouse lawn, through the streets of downtown Tucson, cascading against buildings and causing businessmen in their offices to cringe. It was more than anger. It was the sound of pure animal rage barely held at bay by the last remnants of human reason.

But the shouts held a different meaning to a young newlywed named Rudy who was on his way to the courthouse, barely able to contain his excitement at the good fortune of having such a large, hungry crowd of people gathered in one place, standing in a huge cluster—as he had seen them on TV—sweating and on the verge of being overcome with what he had misinterpreted as heat exhaustion. Especially those who’d traveled from other parts of the country, whose climate was a bit more forgiving, whose children huddled at their parents’ feet, seeking the shelter of bodily shade while the parents tried to suppress a pent-up fury so close to boiling over that the people in the crowd had stopped shouting in any recognizable language. They had even stopped looking at each other for fear of what they might see in the eyes of the person standing next to them. They could all feel the tension in the air, a mighty weight of rage and injustice bearing down on them like a massive storm cloud, a weight so heavy that even seasoned TPD officers given orders to maintain calm outside the courthouse found themselves wishing they could strip off their helmets and vests because it was stifling, this feeling in the air that made them shift from one foot to the other and practically demanded that they maintain radio silence.

Yes, this crowd was perfect. A captive market, thought Rudy the newlywed, who knew the reason the mob was gathered at the courthouse, who knew the tragedy of Alejandro Santiago’s imprisonment but did not know the man Alejandro Santiago murdered had been an ice cream man, this detail only briefly mentioned when the story first broke—as Rudy and his wife were returning from their honeymoon and were distracted by the romance of their new life—but quickly forgotten as the growing tension at the courthouse between the parents and the law became more and more palpable. So Rudy drove onward.