What might have been for Zapata

So many things changed after Mia Zapata was raped and killed in 1993.

Her family lost its fire, its social conscience. Her circle lost a strong friend with a salty mouth and a soft heart. The Gits, a standout punk band, lost their talented frontwoman.

And the Seattle music scene lost its sense of invincibility — and the momentum that comes when the world is watching and anything is possible.

But what might have been was there yesterday in King County Superior Court, where justice is catching up with the promise that died with Zapata.

The man accused of raping and strangling her, Jesus Mezquia, is on trial for murder.

Not far behind him sat Zapata's father, Richard, who has been waiting 11 long years for this. Zapata's sister, Kristen, flew in from Kentucky.

And in the back row were the men who once backed Zapata's stirring vocals: Matt Dresdner, Steve Moriarty and Andy Kessler.

Their hair is shorter, but they still paged through the club pages of Seattle Weekly. There are wedding bands now, along with the tattoos. They have moved on; it is inevitable.

But there were moments when you could sense that summer, and what could have followed had Zapata just made it home that night, and slept off the booze and the blues fueled by the ending of a relationship and the beginning of a music tour.

In fact, Zapata was scheduled to finish the vocal tracks on the band's second album, "Enter ... the Conquering Chicken," the morning after she was killed.

"Everything changed," Moriarty, The Gits' drummer, told me. "We had all planned this life together, to make records and tour the world, to see places and meet people.

"All that was crushed."

Zapata, 27, had been at the Comet Tavern on Pike Street until the early hours of July 7, 1993. She stopped in on a friend, then headed home. Her body was found a few hours later on a then-dead-end street in the Central Area. The streetwalker who came upon her body said it was positioned with the feet crossed and arms stretched out to either side. Like Jesus.

The man who bears that first name, Mezquia, sat at the defense table yesterday, wearing headphones so he could hear a Spanish translation of the testimony. It took 10 years for DNA to link him to the crime.

Zapata's family and friends declined to be interviewed yesterday; they want to let the evidence speak before they do.

So I gleaned what I could from the testimony: that Zapata was "in a fantastic mood" that night, according to witness Mike Nichols, who was working at the Comet. And that Zapata was "the better singer," said friend Tracy Kenly, who sang with a band called Hell's Smells.

Kenly's comment stirred smiles and good memories.

More may follow when the verdict is read, when the waiting is over, when a documentary called "Viva Zapata: The Story of The Gits," is released, and when more people get a sense of what might have been.

"If there is anything such as karma in the world," Moriarty said, "it's coming around now."

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.

She's mastered some Stones.