The Night Swim Read online

  A gasp rippled through the courtroom. Alkins paused as heads turned toward Scott Blair. He sat impassively, but Rachel could tell that he was exerting every ounce of self-control to avoid reacting. His parents, behind him, were equally still, like gazelles freezing to avoid catching the attention of a predator. Gradually, despite Scott’s best efforts, a pink tinge ran up his neck.

  Alkins nodded slightly as if to tell the jury that he wasn’t surprised at the red flush of guilt. He moved on, asking Harris to describe what happened once he’d brought Kelly to the playground and waited for Scott’s next move.

  “Scott texted me to say he was in his car next to the playground and that I should leave so he could be alone with Kelly. He used an emoji that means sex. I hesitated. Kelly seemed nice. I was worried about Scott. He’d drunk a lot that night. Usually he didn’t drink because of his swimming. That night he was plastered. Scott can get pretty unpredictable when he’s drunk.”

  “But you left her anyway?”

  “I stayed for a little, thinking that maybe Scott would change his mind if he saw that I wasn’t leaving. Then he sent me another text telling me to ‘beat it’ with an emoji of a finger across a throat. It scared me … and—I left,” said Harris.

  Alkins asked Harris to read the text messages that Scott had sent that night. After Harris read the messages out loud in a trembling voice, Alkins moved into a series of questions to show the jury that Scott had planned to rape Kelly Moore that night. That it wasn’t done in the heat of passion, or out of drunkenness. It was premeditated.

  “Did you see Scott on your way home?” Alkins asked.

  “I passed Scott’s car. When he saw me, he put his hand out the window to fist bump me. I fist bumped him back. Once I crossed the road to my house, I turned and saw him get out of his car. I should have gone back and stopped him,” said Harris. “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. Although I’m not sure it would have helped. Scott always gets what he wants. That night he wanted Kelly.”

  When Alkins was done with his witness, Harris scrambled to his feet, his relief visible. He seemed about to bolt from the witness stand when the judge leaned forward to his microphone.

  “It’s just a wild guess here, Mr. Wilson, but I’m thinking there’s a chance Mr. Quinn might have a few questions for you.”

  “What did you and Kelly do for so long? Were you stargazing?” Quinn asked, his tone friendly, his right hand casually tucked inside his front pant pocket. Rachel could tell this was a precursor to a brutal cross-examination. She’d spoken with Harris on the phone. Talked to his dad, too. He was a good enough kid but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Rachel almost felt bad for him. He wouldn’t know what had hit him once Quinn really got into his stride.

  “We talked. And drank,” said Harris. “I had a flask and we shared it.”

  “What was in the flask?”

  “It was bourbon.”

  “Where did you get that bourbon from? You’re too young to buy it legally.”

  “It was my dad’s bourbon.”

  “When I was your age, if I asked my daddy for bourbon he would have said, ‘No chance.’ What did your dad say when you asked him for liquor?”

  “Nothing,” Harris muttered.

  “Is it possible that you didn’t ask your dad?” Quinn asked. “Did you perhaps take the bourbon without your father’s permission? Did you steal the bourbon, Mr. Wilson?”

  “I guess I did,” he admitted.

  “Mr. Wilson, I notice that you’re flushed. Are you hot? Should we ask for the air conditioner to be turned up? Or tissues to wipe the perspiration off your forehead?” Quinn asked, with barely concealed sarcasm.

  “Your Honor, Mr. Quinn is badgering the witness.” Alkins’s voice thundered across the court.

  “I am merely being solicitous,” said Quinn.

  “Move it along,” snapped Judge Shaw.

  Quinn did just that, asking Harris about why he’d changed his testimony since he’d first spoken with police on the day Kelly disappeared.

  “Isn’t it true that you told the detective who came to your house in the hours after Kelly disappeared that you thought Kelly had walked home from the playground that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you lie to the detective that morning? Or are you lying here in court today?” Quinn asked.

  Harris stuttered, lost for words. Quinn went through each and every one of Harris’s lies when he was first questioned by Detective Cooper about Kelly’s disappearance. Harris’s credibility was in shreds by the time that Quinn was done.

  “One last question, Mr. Wilson.” Quinn swiveled around dramatically, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. “Have you received anything for your testimony today?”

  “Uh, what do you mean?” Harris mumbled.

  “Isn’t it true that you agreed to testify today in return for pleading guilty to a lesser charge, a charge that comes with a more lenient sentence?”

  Harris stuttered, “Y-y-yes,” into his microphone.

  “And how much time will you be spending in jail on that lesser charge?”

  “Uhm,” said Harris. “I don’t think I’ll be going to jail.”

  “To clarify, in return for your testimony today, you’ve been given a get-out-of-jail-free card. Is that correct?”

  Alkins stormed to his feet.

  “Objection.”

  “Sustained,” said Judge Shaw, allowing Harris to finally step down.

  As Harris stumbled off the stand, red-faced and trembling with a combination of fear and sheer relief, Rachel could tell the jurors were divided over his testimony. Several jurors sat with their arms crossed. They wouldn’t look his way. It was obvious to Rachel that they simply didn’t believe Harris. A few others, mostly the older women in the jury, watched him with some sympathy as he left the stand. It was clear that his life was in shambles from the consequences of that night.

  Rachel had spoken briefly to Harris’s dad, Bill, before court that morning. He’d said that they’d lost their house because he couldn’t cover the mortgage payments and pay the lawyers representing his son when he was fired from his job. His boss, a cousin of Dan Moore, had retrenched Bill after Harris was charged, claiming it was part of a restructuring. The family was now living with Bill’s parents an hour’s drive from Neapolis while Bill looked for a new job.

  When court adjourned for lunch, Rachel watched through the hall window as Harris’s dad walked across the southern courthouse lawn to his car, his hand on his son’s left shoulder to comfort him. The lawn bore no sign it had been the scene of live news broadcasts across the country other than a few muddy indents in the grass in the shape of broadcast-van wheels.

  After Harris and his dad were out of sight, Rachel stood for a moment watching people scatter across the plaza for the lunch recess. There was a line forming outside a food truck across the road. Others headed to cafes down side streets or sat on benches to eat packed lunches.

  Rachel spent the lunch recess working on a bench in the hall outside the courtroom. She’d packed a sandwich but didn’t have a chance to eat it as she typed up the notes from that morning’s testimony. When she was done, she posted the notes on the website and closed her laptop as people started filing back into court for the afternoon session.

  Rachel used the remaining time to slip into the ladies’ restroom. When she came out of the stall and approached the sink to wash her hands, she saw a small envelope propped against a hand soap dispenser. It had her name on it. The restroom door swung backward and forward as if someone had just left.

  26

  Hannah

  I heard your message for me at the end of the podcast, Rachel. You want to meet me. I get it. I want to meet you, too. I’ve been a fan for a long time. But trust me, right now is not the best time. One day, you’ll understand. It really is in your own best interests. What’s that expression? “Plausible deniability”?

  That doesn’t mean we haven’t met, incidentally. If you c
an call two strangers passing by each other in a crowded courthouse plaza a meeting. Among other places where we’ve virtually rubbed shoulders.

  In fact, you looked right at me this morning when I was in court today. I came in just before the guard closed the doors for the morning session. The only seat available was in the last row. I was stuck staring at the balding head of the man in the row in front of me, listening to Harris Wilson recount his role in Kelly Moore’s rape. Harris tried to sound unwitting. I didn’t buy it. He knew what he was doing when he followed Kelly from the party that night.

  Still, I thought Harris’s testimony was damaging. I bet Scott Blair never imagined his loyal wingman would turn on him once the prosecutors offered him a plea deal.

  I didn’t stay for long. I found the testimony too upsetting. Nothing has changed. Everyone is still up to their same tricks. I was so disgusted that I came out and scribbled this note for you instead.

  Yesterday I went back to see our house. Of course, it no longer exists. Stupid me to have imagined that it was still there just as I remembered it. I’m sure the locals were happy to see it gone. The last trace of the Stills family erased.

  We moved to Neapolis when Jenny was eight. I was a toddler. Too young to remember our momentous arrival in a brown station wagon where we had to sleep for weeks until the house was habitable. Mom’s grandfather hadn’t cleaned the house in the fourteen years since his wife died. Her name was Hannah, too. Mom never talked about her grandfather, but she kept a photo of her grandmother on her dresser.

  Jenny told me once that Mom ran away as a teenager and only returned once her grandfather died because she’d inherited his house, along with the surrounding land. Jenny said it was her first permanent home. It was all she ever said about their life before we moved to Neapolis.

  I was told plenty of stories about how Mom and Jenny spent weeks cleaning that house as I toddled around the overgrown garden in my diapers. Once they’d thrown out the junk that Mom’s grandfather had hoarded, she and Jenny scraped the dirt off the floors with trowels and grease remover.

  When the house was clean, they painted the walls and window frames in a fresh shade of white. They sanded down and wood-washed the timber kitchen cupboards and reworked the grime-filled tiling in the bathroom and kitchen using oddments of bright yellow and blue tiles that Mom bought at a hardware store closing-down sale.

  Our furniture was secondhand. Mom would buy furniture at garage sales or flea markets. She used to say that all it took was a few coats of paint and a whole lot of imagination.

  She hid our threadbare sofas under painters’ throw sheets that she’d dyed crimson in a metal washing basin. She decorated the windowsills with painted glass jam jars that she filled with wild yellow daisies we’d pick from the fields around the house.

  When she got sick, I always made sure to put a vase of yellow daisies in her room so that there was something for her to look at on the days when she couldn’t get out of bed. She was in bed an awful lot that summer.

  As for Jenny, she became skinnier than ever after she was taken by those boys. She was always thin, so that was saying something. Her face became pale and her glossy hair turned brittle and lifeless. Her nails were a disaster. She bit them down almost to the flesh.

  Mom was so ill that she had no idea that Jenny was hurting. Maybe I should have told her. God help me, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I kept the house going as best I could. Mopping the floor and hanging out laundry while standing on my tiptoes to reach the clothesline. It was fortunate that nobody had an appetite. There was no need to cook. I lived off jelly-and-peanut-butter sandwiches and glasses of milk. I spent the days drawing pictures on the porch and riding my bicycle.

  One afternoon, I heard tapping on the screen door while I was slumped on the sofa, watching television. Visitors rarely stopped by. Through the window, I saw a woman. She was snooping around while she waited for me to answer the door.

  “Is your mom home?” The lady wore a patterned dress with lipstick too orange for her complexion, her blow-dried hair sagging from the humidity.

  “She’s not seeing visitors,” I said.

  “She’s expecting me,” the woman insisted. “We arranged this meeting weeks ago. Tell her that Mrs. Mason has come to see her.”

  I went back into the house, leaving the woman waiting outside in the clammy heat. Mom was lying in bed in a loose caftan that she’d made herself on her grandmother’s vintage sewing machine.

  “There’s a lady here,” I told her. “She’s got ugly lipstick and she’s wearing a church dress. She said she’s supposed to meet with you. Said her name is Mason, or something.”

  Mom nodded, like she already knew. She climbed out of bed and shuffled to the living room. Only when she was properly settled in the armchair did I let that woman inside the house.

  The woman made an awful din coming up the stairs in her heels. She looked disappointed to see the air conditioner was not turned on and kept waving her hand in front of her face like it was a fan.

  Mom didn’t stand up or reach out to shake the woman’s hand. It wasn’t because she was being rude. It took every last drop of her energy for her to sit up straight in the armchair and pretend that everything was fine.

  “Hannah, it’s time to play outside,” Mom ordered when I brought them a pitcher of water.

  I deliberately left the door open while I played with a tea set on the back patio. I tried my hardest to listen to what they were saying. It was difficult. Their voices were hushed.

  I stayed there until the woman rose from the sofa. I thought she was leaving. Instead, she walked through the house with a clipboard and pen, pausing occasionally to write something down. Mom sat in the armchair, watching the woman helplessly as she opened our refrigerator door and examined the contents.

  “Not much food in your fridge,” the woman said.

  “That’s because we’re going shopping later,” I snapped, shocked at her rudeness. It was a lie. We’d run out of money for groceries and couldn’t get more until Mom’s welfare check arrived later that week.

  That awful Mrs. Mason walked through the rest of the house with her lips pursed. When she opened Mom’s bedroom door, I was relieved it was aired out, with clean sheets on the bed. She walked down the hall. Without asking, she pushed open our bedroom door. It was dark with the drapes drawn. She turned on the lights. Jenny, who’d been sleeping, sat up in bed confused at the intrusion.

  “My sister has a cold,” I told her. “She’s very infectious.”

  The woman quickly turned off the lights and closed the door. When she was done poking around our house like a busybody, she and Mom had a quiet chat. I was once again banished to the backyard. Mom asked me to pick lemons from our tree. I think she wanted to give them to that Mason woman. By the time I came back, that woman had already gone. I stood by the window and watched her little car rattle down the dirt driveway. “Good riddance,” I murmured under my breath.

  Mom’s eyes were closed with relief as we heard the last splutter of Mrs. Mason’s car engine.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “She works for the city. She was checking to make sure we’re managing,” Mom said.

  And then as if she suddenly remembered, she asked, “Where’s Jenny?”

  “She’s sick.”

  “In summer?”

  “She has a cold,” I answered evasively. “She didn’t want you to catch it.”

  “She hasn’t been having enough fruit,” said Mom. She went to the kitchen and sliced in half the lemons that I’d picked. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead as she squeezed those lemons by hand and poured the juice into a glass jug. She added ice cubes, water, and sugar. When it was ready she stirred it with a long metal spoon and poured three glasses of lemonade.

  “Give this to Jenny. Tell her to drink every drop. It’s full of vitamins.”

  Jenny sat up in bed and drank the whole glass in a single go.

  “It tastes l
ike Mom’s lemonade.”

  “It is Mom’s lemonade. She’s feeling better today.”

  “Can I have more?” Jenny said when her glass was empty.

  I brought her my own glass of lemonade from the kitchen. She drank that as well.

  The next morning, for the first time in days, Jenny rose from bed. She spent the day lying on a picnic blanket in the backyard as laundry flapped on the washing line against a pristine sky. I lay near her, content, as I tried to replicate the exact shade of the cloudless cerulean sky with my dollar-store paint set.

  27

  Rachel

  Scott Blair’s former roommate, Dwaine Richards, was a squat nineteen-year-old with a thick neck, wide shoulders, and a buzz cut. He was a college wrestler and he looked the part. He wore a square-cut light gray suit two sizes too big that Rachel suspected belonged to his father, who was watching sourly from the front row of the public gallery.

  “We came back to our apartment with some girls after a party,” Dwaine Richards was saying, sitting on the edge of his seat as if looking for an escape route as Alkins fired questions at him. “When they left in the morning, me and Scott joked about how many times we’d each scored that night. One thing led to another and Scott bet a thousand dollars that he could sleep with more girls than me in a month. I thought it was a joke, but then Scott put up a chart on our fridge to keep track. He was mad as hell when he came back from a weekend swim-team training camp and saw that I was ahead of him.”

  Alkins moved on to the night of Lexi’s party: “The defendant called you from a party. Can you tell the jury what he said?”

  “Scott said that he was crashing a high school party in his hometown and he expected ‘to bag at least one girl,’” said Dwaine. “He warned me that he’d catch up to me, and that he planned to win.”

  “Did you hear from the defendant again that night?” Alkins asked.

  “Yup, I did,” he said. “Scott woke me up in the middle of the night. Said he’d banged a high school girl just like he’d said. He told me to ‘add her to the list.’”