When Johnny Came Marching Home (38 page)

“I'll make sure she stays there, Jimmy,” he would promise, as he did each year. “I'll make sure she's there until she's dead.”

 

* * *

 

Harry Santos and his brother Jimmy died on June 7, 1985, on a hot, humid Florida morning. The boys were ten and six years old and on the morning of their deaths they were seated in the kitchen of their home waiting for their mother to join them at the breakfast table. Jimmy, the youngest and the family clown, was imitating their three-year-old next-door neighbor who sang the same song day after day while playing in his backyard. It was a simple, childish song about a spider and a water spout, but Jimmy's hand gestures and facial expressions perfectly mimicked the three-year-old and produced gales of laughter from his older brother Harry. Across the kitchen their mother Lucy smiled at their antics. Then she turned her back to them and began crushing four sleeping pills into a fine powder. She divided the powder, put equal amounts into two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, and brought the glasses to the table. Twenty minutes later, when the boys were unconscious, Lucy dragged them into the garage and placed them on the floor side-by-side next to the exhaust pipe of her five-year-old Chevrolet. As both boys slept she carefully folded their hands across their chests, placed small silver crosses on their foreheads, and covered their eyes with hand towels, then stood quietly for a moment, viewing the scene she had created. Slowly, a look of pleasure crept into her eyes and she turned and walked quickly to the car, opened the driver's-side door, slipped inside, and started the engine. Finished, she went back into the house and closed the door to the garage behind her. After placing a folded towel at the base of the door to confine the exhaust fumes, she smiled again, collected her Bible, and walked the two short blocks to the evangelical church she attended each Sunday. There, she prostrated herself on the floor of the altar, just below a large stained-glass window depicting the three crosses of Golgotha, and asked God to deliver her sons to His heavenly peace.

While Lucy was praying an elderly neighbor walked past her house, heard the car running inside the garage, and became concerned. He knocked on the front door and after getting no response, hurried home and called 911. Two patrol cops arrived at the scene minutes later and forced their way into the garage. They found Harry and Jimmy just as their mother had left them and carried them outside. Both boys had stopped breathing and neither had a heartbeat. The two officers called for emergency service backup and immediately began CPR. Harry, who was big for his age, was brought back to life before the EMTs arrived. Jimmy, who was much smaller and quite frail, never regained consciousness.

When she returned home from church, Lucy Santos was arrested and charged with the murder of her son Jimmy, and the attempted murder of her son Harry. Under questioning she admitted drugging the boys, placing them on the floor next to her car, and starting the engine. She told the arresting officers that she was making sure her sons would be waiting for her in heaven. When asked why, she said that June 4 had been her thirty-third birthday, as if that alone explained her actions. A psychiatrist hired by Lucy's court-appointed attorney theorized that Lucy, as a devout Christian, believed that Jesus Christ had been crucified, died, and was buried shortly after his thirty-third birthday, and then had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven three days later. He said Lucy believed that God had chosen her to follow that exact same path, and that she had not wanted to abandon her sons to the care of strangers.

The state's attorney, who was eyeing a future run for governor, told the press that he wasn't buying any of it, and announced that he would seek the death penalty and would have ten-year-old Harry testify that his mother had been perfectly rational in the days—even the hours— leading up to the murder. Harry, who was now in state custody, became an instant media darling. Reporters swooped in like seagulls at a picnic, easily manipulating the child into a series of sensational quotes. The few child welfare workers who tried to intervene were pushed aside by the state's attorney, who insisted that Harry was under the protective custody of his office. With that door opened wide, the media played its part and gave the state's attorney just what he wanted. The initial headline in the
St. Petersburg Times
read:
Ten-Year-Old Ready to Put Mom on Death Row,
while the
Tampa Tribune
intoned:
Harry Says Killer Mom Must Die.

After the initial barrage of outrageous quotes and comments, the story made its way to the back pages and a year passed in relative quiet before the case was ready for trial. By that time, closely held psychiatric evidence had begun to build indicating that Lucy Santos was insane. Two days before the trial was set to begin, the state's attorney held a press conference with Harry at his side. There, surrounded by the media, he announced that a plea bargain had been reached that would send Lucy to prison for the rest of her natural life. Harry, now eleven, was asked how he felt about the decision and the fact that he would not have to testify against his mother. The young boy, well coached by prosecutors, stared back at the reporters with very lost, very empty eyes and told them that he had been prepared to testify. Then he paused, and in words that had not been scripted for him, said: “I just want to be sure my mother never gets out of prison.”

Three weeks after his mother was sentenced, the county agency that had taken charge of Harry placed him in permanent foster care. The foster family's name was Doyle. The father, John—Jocko to his riends—was a sergeant with the Clearwater Police Department. The mother, Maria, was a Cuban exile, who ran her home with endless amounts of love, and the efficiency of a Marine drill instructor. There were no other children, and after two years Jocko and Maria Doyle petitioned the courts to adopt Harry and make him their son. Harry had no objection and the courts saw no reason to deny the request. Harry had never known his father, he was simply a man he vaguely remembered who had occasionally come into his mother's life, remained awhile, and then left again. They had never married and by the time Jimmy was born he was gone for good.

Harry remained with the Doyle's for eleven years. Over time he learned to care for them, but he never allowed himself to love them, or to look on them as his parents. His affection tended more toward respect and gratitude for the care and love they had generously given him. Trust was never an issue for Harry. Throughout the time he lived with them, Harry Santos Doyle never went to sleep without first locking his bedroom door.

 

* * *

 

Harry arrived at the Pinellas County sheriff's office at three-thirty, parked his unmarked car in the lot reserved for police vehicles, and headed for a rear door that would take him to the second-floor offices of the homicide division. He was working four to midnight, which meant he'd probably finish up at three or four in the morning if the night turned busy. But the extra time didn't matter. It was his favorite shift, one that his fellow detectives, most of whom had families or lovers, preferred to avoid. It also encompassed the hours when the most complicated murders took place. Daylight killings, and those that happened after midnight, usually turned into ground balls—simple, straightforward homicides that often left the perpetrator standing at the scene, murder weapon still in hand. Those, anyone could handle. It was the more difficult, more intricate cases that Harry loved, and as far as the other homicide dicks were concerned, if the dead detective wanted the more complex cases, and the extra, unpaid hours they inevitably involved, it was fine with them. The job was tough enough and dangerous enough as it was.

They had been calling Harry the “dead detective” ever since his appointment to the division. During his time in a patrol car he had kept a fairly low profile about his past. But once he reached homicide the cat quickly left the bag. Detectives have a tendency to remember cases, especially the big ones, and when Harry was promoted to homicide five years earlier at the tender age of twenty-six, there were still older cops who remembered the case of the two murdered brothers. They also remembered that a Clearwater patrol sergeant named Jocko Doyle had adopted the one who came back to life. Given the morbidity of cop humor, Harry's new name was immediately set in stone.

Harry had joined the sheriff's department shortly after graduating from the University of South Florida. Everyone thought it was a tribute to his adoptive father, who had become a stabilizing force in his life. To some small degree that was true, but there was also another more driving reason that Harry never spoke about. The sheriff's department handled most of the homicides throughout the county, and Harry had one very personal goal: to devote his life to the pursuit of murderers.

As Harry approached the rear door of the sheriff's office, a small, lean figure stepped out from behind a thick pineapple palm. He was dressed in an oversized basketball shirt and baggy basketball shorts, with a Miami Heat cap sitting slightly askew on his head. Even though the boy was squinting into the afternoon sun, Harry recognized the size and shape of his favorite twelve-year-old gangsta
,
Rubio Martí.

“Hey, Doyle. Wassup?” Rubio offered.

Harry shielded his eyes and saw that Rubio was grinning up at him. It was an infectious grin and Harry had to force himself not to smile back. “What's up with you, you little weasel,” he said. “And why aren't you in school?”

“School's out, man. It's been out for three weeks. Where you been at? Maybe they still goin' ta school up north, but not in Florida.”

“I thought you'd be in summer school,” Harry said, playing a game they always played about Rubio's school work.

“Hey, man, I'm too smart for summer school. You know that. That's truth.”

“The only thing smart about you is your ass,” Harry snapped back. “And that's truth.”

“Don't you be dissin' me. You do, I'll have to whoop you good.”

Harry put a hand on the boy's shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Two years ago he had stumbled across the kid while investigating the murder of a Cuban crack dealer. Rubio, who was ten at the time, was working for the man as a lookout, and being paid in both money and drugs. The dealer had been trying to get the kid hooked—something he had succeeded in doing with a number of others. It was a way of guaranteeing both dependence and loyalty from the children who comprised his last line of defense against the police. But Rubio had sold the drugs he had received and given the money to his mother in a vain effort to keep her off the streets. Harry had befriended him and talked him into going back to school. A year later he found himself investigating the murder of the boy's mother. She had been found in an alley beaten and stabbed fourteen times. It had been a ground ball that ended with the arrest and conviction of her pimp. It had also been one more devastating blow in Rubio's young life. Now he lived with his grandmother and peddled information to the police—mostly Harry—whenever he could.

“So you down here to have a late lunch with me, or what?” Harry asked.

“Naw,” Rubio said. “I got sumthin' for you.” He jabbed the index finger and thumb of each hand at the ground as he spoke, playing the gangsta wannabe to the hilt. But with his soft brown face, liquid brown eyes, and strands of curly hair sticking out from beneath his cap, he looked more like a wayward cherub. This time Harry couldn't keep the smile off his face.

“So whaddaya got, hotshot?” he asked.

The boy kept using his hands and shoulders to emphasize his words. “Hey, you know that woman down in my hood got herself offed? That scaggy ol' junkie broad?”

“Yeah, it's not my case, but I know who you're talking about.”

“Hey, I know it's not your case, man. It belongs to that tall, skinny dude you work with. The one with the fat partner who's such a mean-assed mutha.”

“Weathers and Benevuto,” Harry said. “What about it?”

“Yeah, well, they tryin' to pin it on that scaggy ol' junkie's boyfriend.”

“And he didn't do it,” Harry said.

“You bet you ass he din'.” Rubio was grinning again.

“But you know who did.”

“You got that straight.”

“So who did it?”

“You tell that skinny cop—don't you tell that mean, fat one—that he oughta check out the ol' lady lives next door. The real ol' one.”

“The old lady killed her?”

Rubio shook his head. “Nah. Was her son. That scaggy ol' junkie broad was robbin' that ol' lady's Social Security checks. Pissed the son off real bad.”

“You sure about this?” Harry asked.

Rubio jabbed his index fingers and thumbs at the ground for emphasis. “Truth, man. You check it out. You see.” He grinned up at Harry. “You know, you shoulda had this case. You coulda solved it right off, usin' that power you got.”

Harry suppressed a smile. “What power is that?”

“You know what I'm talkin' about. That way you have to talk to dead people. The way you can look in a dead person's eyes and see stuff there, because you was dead once yerself.”

“Who told you that?”

“I heard other cops talkin' about it.” Rubio grinned. “I hear lots a stuff you cops say.”

“Well that one's a fairy tale.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rubio said. “You jus' don't wanna let on about it.” Harry put his hand in his pocket and took out a fold of bills, slipped a twenty off the top, and handed it to the boy. “You put that to good use,” he said. “Buy a couple of books. Do something for your brain.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rubio said. He shrugged his shoulders, becoming the tough guy again.

“And come see me later in the week so we can grab something to eat,” Harry said.

“I will. I will.”