Huttington had begun his pursuit by lavishing praise on her for her work and then finding reasons to keep her after hours and reward her with dinners. "I started to notice that she was spending more and more time with him, and then he started taking her on these little trips. She told me they were for 'university business,' but I could see that she had fallen in love, and my heart ached for her. He was a married man and twice her age. But she was as head-strong as her mother-who married me against the wishes of her family-and would not listen to me."
"Where is her mother?" Marlene asked, though she suspected the answer already.
Santacristina shook his head sadly. "She died four years ago, when Maria was seventeen," he said. When he looked back up at Marlene, his eyes were shiny with tears. "It was ovarian cancer. I was, of course, devastated. But it was even harder on Maria. Her mother doted on her, and they could talk about anything. Maybe if Elena had lived, she could have talked sense into our daughter. But I would not have wanted Elena to have the pain that I endure now."
"I'm so sorry," Marlene commiserated. "Was your wife Basque, too?"
"Yes," Santacristina replied. "I met her shortly after I arrived in this country and came to Idaho, which you may have heard has a large Basque community. My Elena was much younger than me and very beautiful." He stopped and pulled out his wallet, from which he produced photographs of two strikingly beautiful women. "This is my Elena and my Maria." He replaced the photographs. "They were my reasons to live. But now they are both gone, and I live only to find my daughter so that I may lay her to rest beside her mother."
"And you think Huttington has something to do with Maria's disappearance?"
Santacristina nodded. "I last saw her two days before she disappeared. I dropped by unexpectedly and it was evident that she had been crying. But she assured me it was nothing, and that soon everything would be all right. The next day, I called to check in on her, but there was no answer. And there was no answer the next day or the next, either… It was not like her. She called me almoste very day. She knew how lonely I was without Elena."
He'd driven to his daughter's apartment and talked the landlord into letting him in. "All of her books for school were piled neatly on her desk, ready for class," he said. "Even her clothes were laid out and waiting. Everything you would expect of a young woman going to school. But the most important clue that something was wrong was that her cat was almost crazy for want of food and water. She loved that cat and would have never left it to suffer like that."
"Did you go to the police?"
"Yes," he replied. "They were polite and took my information down. But they seemed to think that she was just a silly college girl who ran away from home."
"Did you tell them your suspicions about Huttington having an affair with your daughter?" Meyers asked.
"No," he said. "I was sure he had made her pregnant. But I did not yet suspect him. I was afraid that he had spurned her and…and she had, perhaps, harmed herself. Or maybe let her guard down in her grief and was attacked by a stranger."
"Have the police done anything?" Marlene asked.
Santacristina nodded. "Yes," he said. "As much as they could. When Maria did not return, a young detective was assigned to her case. He filed a report with the FBI and registered her with a national crime computer in case someone saw her, or she tried to leave the country, or…or a body was found that matched her identity."
The Basque stopped talking for a moment to compose himself, then smiled at some memory. "Her mother was always afraid of losing her, so she had Maria fingerprinted when she was a young child when the police were promoting such a program. But there was nothing."
Santacristina said he began to wonder more about Huttington. "I called and asked to meet privately with him. I wanted to ask him when he had last seen her and what had happened. But he would not see me without his attorney present, and there is something about that man, Barnhill, that makes my skin crawl. I did not want to discuss my daughter's sexual life in front of him."
Marlene frowned. "But what makes you think Huttington was responsible for her disappearance?"
Santacristina was silent for a long moment. "I believe that she was pregnant," he said. "I found a box for a pregnancy test kit in her bathroom trash can. There was a positive result on the indicator strip. I think that the child was his. But he is a married man, an upstanding-oh, what is the term?-pillar of the community. Getting a young college girl pregnant would have been a great embarrassment, and maybe cost him his job. I think this is why my Maria is…she is gone."
He'd crashed a university dinner party and attempted to talk to Huttington, but Barnhill had him thrown out and arrested for trespassing. "The charges were dropped, but I was told to stay away from him or go to jail. This seemed to me to be the acts of guilty men, so I went back to the young detective and told him what I believed."
"Did he look into it?" Meyers asked.
"Yes, or at least that is my understanding," Santacristina said. "He told me he talked to Huttington-though Barnhill had insisted on being present-but the sasikumea…"
"What is sasikumea?" Marlene interrupted.
"Bastard," Santacristina replied. "And he is one and worse. He did not show the slightest concern about Maria's disappearance, not even the sort a university president would for his intern. All he ever said to the press was that he hoped she was all right and had simply 'moved on.' Anyway, Huttington denied having an affair-saying that I had jumped to conclusions-and that he had not seen Maria for more than a week before she disappeared. He said he assumed she had quit."
"Did you ever tell the press about your theory?" Marlene asked.
Santacristina shook his head. "There is no proof," he said. "And if I made it public, Barnhill would go after me, and as you may have guessed from my conversation with them this afternoon, my immigration status is somewhat questionable. I would not care about that if it would help find my daughter, but I fear that if I am deported, there will be no one here who will remember Maria and seek justice for her."
"But what I don't get is why Barnhill hasn't carried out his threat to report you," O'Toole said.
"They are not anxious for the publicity," Santacristina replied. "So far the newspapers and television stations have not caught wind of this, but if I was arrested, they would pay attention to what I said. So we have this stalemate."
Santacristina hung his head and his shoulders shook. When he brought himself back under control, he apologized for crying. "It is a sign of weakness."
"No, it's not. It's a sign of love and heartbreak," Marlene replied. "But we can change the subject if you like."
Santacristina nodded. "Yes, please," he said with a weak smile. "Tell me why you are here with these gentlemen."
Marlene smiled at the gallantry, but let Meyers and O'Toole talk to him about the lawsuit. "So I guess we both have problems with Huttington and Barnhill," O'Toole said when they finished. "But unlike you, I don't know why they turned on me."
Santacristina suddenly furrowed his brow and then looked intensely at Marlene. "Maybe we were intended by God to meet," he said.
"I'm always open to the possibility," she replied. "But why do you say that?"
"Bear with me, as I have not thought this out entirely," Santacristina said. "But Coach O'Toole, you said you were surprised at the lack of support from Huttington, someone you once considered to be on a friendly basis with, no? What might that indicate to you?"