The Night Swim Read online

  When the Blair family’s car pulled in, there was a sudden high-pitched scream so loud that heads turned to see what was going on. “Castrate him,” a protester screeched. It was followed by incoherent chanting that became louder as Scott Blair and his parents moved through the crowded plaza, flanked by a two-man security detail. Rachel realized the protesters were chanting, “Cut it off, cut it off,” as they followed the Blair family to the courthouse steps. They were shouted down by a rival group of mostly women wearing white T-shirts with Scott Blair’s photo printed above the word “Innocent.”

  The courtroom was half-empty when Rachel pushed through its imposing polished doors and settled in her reserved seat in the media gallery. The court had original timber benches, paneled walls, and a gray stone floor. Filtered light came through clear lead windows set high up on the walls. They softened the harsh summer light and gave the court the atmosphere of a church.

  The relative quiet was disrupted by the chaotic thump of files being unloaded onto tables by paralegals. Court clerks turned on computers and arranged paperwork as they prepared for the judge’s arrival. A hum of chatter rose into a din as the courtroom quickly filled to capacity.

  Scott Blair arrived, surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers. He wore dark pants and a light blue V-neck sweater that made him look wholesome and younger than his nineteen years.

  Cynthia Blair walked behind him in an austere navy dress. Her hair was styled straight; her makeup, natural. Her jewelry was almost nonexistent other than her wedding ring. Rachel found it hard to believe that she was the same glamorous, bejeweled woman she’d met two days ago. Greg Blair wore a middle-of-the-range suit that Rachel cynically suspected was carefully chosen to make the jury forget that the Blairs were the wealthiest family in town.

  Dale Quinn had chosen an equally forgettable suit-and-tie ensemble in his bid to play the role of local boy done good rather than the brash out-of-towner. Quinn had used every media opportunity leading up to the trial, including a profile puff piece in the local newspaper, to wax nostalgic about growing up in Neapolis. Even though, from what Rachel knew, he’d lived there only briefly.

  With those carefully placed interviews, he’d courted the future jurors before they even received their letters in the mail summoning them to jury duty. Quinn well knew the power of pretrial publicity. “It’s never too early to start influencing a jury,” he was fond of saying, as Rachel had learned from watching YouTube videos of his lectures and interviews as part of her own pretrial research.

  The bailiff’s booming voice brought everyone to their feet as a wood-paneled door opened and the judge entered the courtroom. Judge Nathaniel Shaw was a shortish man with a wiry frame evident despite the billowing folds of his black robe. His tanned face was testament to his reputation as an avid sailor and cyclist. Rachel had heard the judge was sometimes known to cycle to court on his racing bike. The gray tinges to his light brown hair gave him a gravitas beyond his forty-something years. His sharp blue eyes scanned the court with a haughty authority that told everyone, without him having to utter a single word, that he did not suffer fools gladly.

  Judge Shaw was known to have an aversion to long-winded arguments and courtroom theatrics. He had a low threshold for legal maneuverings of any kind if they slowed the wheels of justice unnecessarily. His judgments were terse and rather colorless in their legal prose, though sometimes interesting in points of law. He had zero tolerance for grandstanding, and most notably, he loathed journalists with a passionate intensity. He glared at the reporters in the media gallery as if to remind them of that fact.

  Rachel felt that his most withering scowl was reserved for her. She’d been told confidentially when she picked up her media accreditation badge that Judge Shaw was not happy that she’d be covering the trial for the podcast. He’d found out from his staff that her investigative work in Season 1 of Guilty or Not Guilty had resulted in Frank Murphy being let out of prison after Rachel found fresh evidence that quashed the popular high school coach’s murder conviction.

  For the past seven of the eleven years in which Judge Shaw had been a judge, he hadn’t been reversed. Not once. He’d told his staff that no podcaster was going to ruin his near-exemplary record. Or at least that’s what Rachel was told by her source, a court administrator who was a fan of her podcast and had become a wealth of information on the inner workings of the courthouse.

  Judge Shaw had already banned video and audio recordings of the trial. The last thing Rachel needed was for the judge to micromanage her coverage or restrict her access. It was with relief that Rachel heard from the same court administrator that Judge Shaw was a self-confessed Luddite who had never listened to a podcast in his life and didn’t even own a smartphone. “Let’s hope it stays that way,” she’d told Pete.

  After the jury filed in, the Moore family entered the courtroom. Kelly’s parents held their daughter’s arms, propping her up and shielding her from seeing Scott Blair at the defendant’s table as they made their way to a row of seats behind the prosecutors. Kelly had been allowed in court to listen to the prosecution’s opening arguments. After that, she and her mother would have to leave, as they were both being called as witnesses and the rules of court prohibited them from being present until they testified. Dan Moore had told Rachel that he would sit through the entire trial to represent the family.

  The first hour was spent on tiresome administrative matters that made everyone restless as they waited for the trial to begin in earnest. An almost perceptible sigh of relief ran through the court when Judge Shaw called on the prosecution to present its opening arguments.

  Mitch Alkins stood to his full imposing height. He had dark hair and the broad shoulders of a lumberjack. His thunderous baritone could scare the bejesus out of witnesses when used to full effect. Seasoned police detectives were known to leave the stand in a quivering, sweaty mess after going a few rounds with Alkins when he’d been a defense lawyer. Rachel had no doubt that he was equally intimidating as a prosecutor. Just the sound of his thunderous voice was enough to make people quake, which is why she guessed he used it judiciously. There was a fine balance between having the jury in awe of him and terrifying the jurors to death.

  Alkins’s decision to switch from criminal defense to prosecution was one of the great mysteries of the criminal law world. Some said it was penance for getting a child rapist acquitted. Others said it was a stepping-stone to politics. Speculation was rife, but nobody knew the truth. The only person who did was Mitch Alkins, and he wasn’t talking.

  Alkins stood before the jury and surveyed their faces over the tops of the pages of his opening statement. He always wore the same tie on the first day of a trial, yellow with navy diagonal stripes. He was not superstitious about anything except that tie, which he kept in an old tobacco box in his office desk drawer.

  Without saying a word, he tossed the prepared speech into a trash bin by his table. It was as if he was telling the jury that he trusted them enough to give them the raw, unvarnished truth. No subterfuge. No pretense. The jury was craning to listen to him before he’d said a single word.

  Rachel’s pen hovered over her notebook as she waited for Alkins to start talking. She intended to take down every word, if she could keep up. She’d post a transcript of his opening statement on the podcast website after court recessed that afternoon.

  Alkins opened his address softly, introducing himself and telling the jury a little about the case. By the end of the trial, he said, there would be enough evidence for them to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the multiple counts of rape, sexual assault, and sexual battery of which he was accused.

  He gestured in the direction of the defense table, where Scott Blair stared straight ahead, trying not to squirm under the jury’s piercing appraisal. He had a contrite, vacant expression that made him look as if he couldn’t harm a fly. Rachel thought it looked rehearsed, just like everything else about the Blair family’s presence at court that morning, from the und
erstated clothes to the somber demeanor.

  “The victim, Kelly Moore, had her whole life ahead of her on the afternoon of October 11 when she went to her friend Lexi Rourke’s house.” Alkins’s smooth voice filled the courtroom.

  “Kelly was sixteen. She was a happy, well-adjusted girl. An excellent student. A gifted athlete. She was looking forward to all the usual rites of passage of her teenage years, getting her driver’s license, her junior prom. Maybe even her first boyfriend. Kelly worked hard in school. She wanted to become a physiotherapist, or work in education with disadvantaged children. Those were her dreams. Simple dreams.” Alkins locked eyes with each juror as he spoke.

  “All of that changed when the defendant lured Kelly to an isolated beach in the middle of the night where he raped her. Repeatedly. And sexually assaulted her. And brutalized her.

  “Kelly will appear before you as a witness. She will tell you in her own words what happened to her and the terrible things that were done to her body and to her spirit. No person, let alone a young girl, should ever have to endure such treatment. Kelly was left with deep emotional wounds that may take years to heal. If ever. Let us not diminish the impact of a sexual assault on a victim’s life.”

  Dale Quinn and his team shifted restlessly in their squeaky chairs as Alkins moved on to detail the evidence that he would present. Judge Shaw gave them several sharp looks but he didn’t admonish them. There was no need to intervene. The noise was lost on the jury. Their attention didn’t waver from Alkins as he effortlessly commanded the courtroom.

  “Kelly’s mother and her therapist will take the stand. They will tell you how the rape has affected Kelly and her family in ways that have, frankly, left me heartsore. You will hear testimony from doctors, nurses, and police investigators about physical evidence that supports Kelly’s description of what happened to her.

  “You’ll hear how the defendant, Scott Blair, and his college roommate were having a competition to see who could have sex with the most girls in a thirty-day period. They were to take a photo and rate each girl. The friend was winning. The defendant, Mr. Blair, did not like to lose. Not in his competitive swimming meets and certainly not in this sordid sex competition with his roommate,” said Alkins. “When he saw Kelly walk off from the party and was wrongly told that she was interested in him, he decided he’d have sex with her that night. What she wanted was of no interest to him.” He paused. “He had a motive to rape Kelly. And he raped her. He even took a photo and rated her so she’d be added to his tally.”

  At the mention of his name, Scott Blair looked up at Alkins defiantly. Rachel saw Dale Quinn surreptitiously kick his client’s shoe and Scott quickly lowered his eyes and hunched his shoulders like a victimized schoolboy.

  “You will hear from Harris Wilson, who will testify about the predatory, premeditated steps Scott Blair took to have sex with Kelly that night, while trying his best to establish an alibi. Mr. Blair told Harris that he was not interested in whether Kelly consented to sexual intercourse because he would have sex with her regardless. And she did not consent, as Kelly herself will tell you when she takes the stand. In addition, we will enter into evidence the heartless boastful message that Mr. Blair sent his friend after he raped Kelly. He wasn’t ashamed of what he’d done. He was proud.”

  Alkins did not point out that Kelly was sitting in court with her parents’ arms around her, a pale face cocooned by her family’s love. It might have added to the dramatic effect. Rachel saw him hesitate for a fraction of a second as if he was considering it, but he moved on.

  “The party hosted by Kelly’s friend Lexi was supposed to have been a small get-together, but word got around on social media, as seems to happen frequently these days. More than sixty people turned up, including college kids and high school seniors. Among the kids who crashed the party were Scott Blair and his friend Harris Wilson.

  “Kelly had a couple of beers, as did most of the partygoers. She hadn’t eaten anything that night, which made the effects of the alcohol worse. When she started feeling drunk, she drank a couple of cups of soda to sober up. She didn’t know that someone had spiked the soda bottle with vodka, and thus she inadvertently became very drunk. Not long after, Kelly had an argument with her friend Lexi, apparently over a boy they both liked, and she was locked out of the house and forced to walk home in the dark.

  “Kelly is not on trial,” said Alkins. “We’re not here to judge the wisdom of her actions that night. Is it illegal for a girl her age to drink alcohol? Yes. But Kelly has not been charged with underage drinking. Nor have any of the kids at that party. And you are not here to pass judgment on that matter. Was it a poor decision for Kelly to walk home in the dark? Any one of you who has raised teenagers knows they routinely make poor decisions. Does that justify them being hurt, or assaulted, or raped? No, it does not. A person should be able to walk home, even in the dark, even through an isolated field, and arrive home safely.”

  Alkins moved into a detailed description of how Scott Blair told Harris to follow Kelly back from the party and keep her distracted at a local playground until he could get there. “Kelly had no idea that she was being set up. That she was walking into a trap.”

  Rachel flexed her cramped hand as Alkins paused to let it all sink in. He moved into a vivid description of how Kelly came to be in Scott’s car and their visit to the pizza place.

  “Scott Blair offered her a ride home. But instead of driving her home, the defendant took Kelly to an isolated beach where he raped and sexually assaulted her. When he was done, he left her to make her own way home by bus and he fled to his college apartment, where, he later falsely claimed, he’d spent the night.”

  The jurors sat transfixed as Alkins wove a narrative so convincing that one of the jurors glared at Scott Blair when Alkins described how he’d left Kelly Moore to make her own way home by bus, slipping her money for a ticket but not bothering to check the schedule to see if there were any buses running. Kelly had to wait for hours at a lone bus stop by the car park next to the deserted beach before a bus arrived. It was out-of-season and the beach was only serviced by two buses a day.

  “Scott did everything he could to cover up before and after the crime. He convinced Harris to lure Kelly to the playground so that he wouldn’t be seen with her in advance of the rape. He then abandoned her and drove back to his apartment after he raped her. He even ensured that she washed after the rape in a failed attempt to eradicate forensic evidence of his assault,” said Alkins.

  “Scott Blair committed a grave and terrible crime,” he said. “He did it knowingly. He did it violently. And he did it with the arrogance of someone who believed that he could get away with it. He believed that his fame and family connections put him above the law,” said Alkins, taking a step closer to the jury as he wrapped up.

  “Scott Blair ignored Kelly’s desperate requests for him to stop having sex with her because he didn’t care what she wanted. It was of zero interest to him. His only concern was what he wanted, which was to satisfy his own carnal desires and to win a sordid and demeaning sex competition,” said Alkins. “He did what he did with a clear head. With planning. With forethought. With full knowledge it was wrong. And most of all, with contempt. Contempt for the law. And contempt for the rights and choices of young Kelly. The evidence will prove this beyond a reasonable doubt. When it does, it will be your duty to convict Scott Blair on all charges.”

  23

  Rachel

  The effect of Alkins’s address was hypnotic. His final words hung in the air as he walked back to his seat slowly and deliberately. For a long moment, the only sound in the courtroom was the tap of his shoes against the stone floor. The electric silence reminded Rachel of the hush in a theater before the audience rises to its feet for a thunderous standing ovation.

  Sitting at the defense table, Dale Quinn flicked through the pages of his legal pad with pretend nonchalance while he waited for Judge Shaw’s instructions. Rachel knew that Quinn would come out fig
hting harder than ever to win the jury back from Alkins.

  During the brief pause that followed Alkins’s address, Rachel checked her phone discreetly to see if Pete had made any headway finding Hannah. In the last few days, Hannah had abruptly stopped sending letters. Rachel had asked Pete to check hotels and even car rental places in the greater Neapolis area to locate her. If that didn’t work, then Rachel had decided to do a callout at the end of her podcast. Hannah claimed to be a fan. She’d hear the callout and, Rachel hoped, contact her again.

  Rachel turned to a fresh page on her notepad as Judge Shaw invited Quinn to deliver his opening statement. She hoped to have a pretty comprehensive, perhaps even word-perfect transcript of both opening statements on the website by the end of the day. She wanted her audience to feel that they were in court themselves, getting all the relevant information so they could come up with an informed verdict. She wanted them to feel as if they were in the jury box.

  Quinn stood abruptly, with what seemed to be nervous clumsiness. He took a sip of water and promptly spilled some on his shirt in full view of the jury.

  Rachel, who’d studied Quinn’s playbook in her pretrial research, knew it was a trick he’d learned from a legendary trial lawyer he’d interned with during law school. His mentor’s go-to move was to stumble over something in court, be it a briefcase or a table leg. It didn’t matter what he tripped over so long as he tripped. It immediately broke an invisible barrier with the jurors. They connected to him as a person, and by extension to his client.

  Quinn made a show of pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his water-stained shirt as the jury looked on sympathetically. Judge Shaw, who knew all the tricks of the trade, was less tolerant.

  “Mr. Quinn.” The judge’s chair squeaked as he leaned into his microphone. “I believe we’re waiting.”

  “Of course, Your Honor,” said Quinn. He gave one final dab to his wet shirt and smiled bashfully at the jury. He seemed young and inept compared to Alkins, even though Rachel was pretty sure they were around the same age.