The Night Swim Read online

  A cold chill ran through Rachel. Twenty-five years had passed and someone still went to the trouble of stopping by Jenny Stills’s grave, not to lay flowers but to insult her. To dehumanize her. Rachel had heard the same word used to describe Kelly Moore, the complainant in the Scott Blair trial. Would Kelly have to spend the rest of her life being smeared as well?

  Rachel saw no other graffiti, although she did find a faded two-toned blue ribbon among old leaves piled up at the corner of Jenny’s grave. It was tied around a bouquet of flowers so desiccated that the dry petals turned into dust in Rachel’s hands when she picked it up. Attached to the ribbon was a water-stained card; the ink had run and the message was unreadable.

  It began to rain. Lightly at first, and then with a ferocity that forced Rachel to run for cover. It felt as if the elements were pursuing her as she ran, deafened by the crackle of rain hitting hard, unyielding gravestones.

  Rachel sprinted through the cemetery gate to her car. She clambered into the driver’s seat, dripping wet, still holding the ribbon and faded card from the old bouquet she’d found at the grave. She shoved them into her glove box.

  The downpour was heavy as Rachel backed out. Yet through the thick relentless pelting of raindrops again her car, something caught her eye in the rearview mirror. It was a woman standing by the cemetery gate, watching her. When Rachel turned around for a better look, there was nobody there.

  12

  Guilty or Not Guilty

  Season 3, Episode 4: Into the Night

  I’m a visitor in this town. I don’t know anyone at all. So when I’m not working, I’m listening to local talk radio. It keeps me company. That and my calls to my producer, Pete, who, incidentally, for those who have written to ask, is on the mend. He should be out of the hospital very soon.

  I miss Pete. It’s lonely being on the road without him. Local radio has become my companion. Pathetic, right? Aside from keeping me company, it helps me take the temperature of this town. I can tell you that it’s fever pitch ahead of the trial.

  One theme that keeps coming up is opinions from some people—by no means all—suggesting that K kind of brought this on herself. Drinking. Hanging out with boys. You know, the usual BS we hear about rape victims. This is a small town and there has been lots of gossip about what happened that night. Lots of speculation.

  Today I was at the supermarket to buy candy to feed that sweet tooth of mine. An argument broke out in the checkout line next to me over whether Scott Blair was guilty. And even if he was guilty—to quote the lady in front of me in the line—“whether his life should be ruined over one dumb night with a girl who knew what she was getting herself in for the second she got into his car?”

  I managed to record part of the argument that broke out on my phone. I want to play it to you so you can get a sense of how the locals feel about this case.

  “She was drunk. Means she couldn’t consent.”

  That was from a mom with a toddler sitting in the back of a shopping cart.

  “He was drunk, too. How could he know she didn’t consent if he was drunk? It goes both ways. Anyway, his life is ruined. What happens if some slutty girl tries to ruin my kid’s life by making stuff up?”

  “Watch your mouth, mister.”

  “Hey! You watch it.”

  “If she says it happened, then I believe her.”

  This was from the lady working the checkout.

  It went on like that for a while until voices were raised so loud that the store manager threatened to call the cops. This town is so wound up about the trial that it will almost be a relief when it finally starts. Everyone has an opinion, but nobody seems to know any facts. So let’s talk about what did happen that night.

  It was close to midnight when K entered that barren field of wild grass after being kicked out of Lexi’s party. The path was slick and muddy. It had rained earlier. K would have had to walk slowly so as not to slip.

  The cold air might have sobered her. Perhaps enough to realize that it was a really bad idea, walking there alone. She probably considered turning back. In the same situation, I might have turned back. At least, the sober me would have turned back.

  The drunk me, scared and humiliated, emboldened by alcohol, probably would have done exactly what K did. Yeah, if I think about myself in that situation, then I would have kept going. Turning back would have amounted to defeat. K wouldn’t have wanted to give Lexi the satisfaction.

  At around the halfway point, K heard footsteps. Someone was running toward her. A tall, broad-shouldered man emerged from the dark.

  Have you ever heard of the “fight-or-flight” response? It’s an instinct hardwired into humans to either fight or flee from danger. Except turns out that “flight or flight” isn’t the whole story.

  Experts now know that when faced with extreme danger from which we can see no way out, humans freeze. Just like lizards freeze in the hope their camouflage will protect them from a predator. That’s why it’s now called the fight, flight, or freeze response.

  So from what I’ve learned, K didn’t run. She didn’t hide. K froze. Right there on the path as the man came closer. When she saw his face, a rush of relief would have run through her. He was a familiar face, a senior from school with a nice-guy reputation.

  Harris Wilson has darkish hair that flops over his forehead. That night, he wore a denim jacket over a gray T-shirt and black skinny jeans. According to a phone interview I did with him several weeks ago, he told K that she shouldn’t be walking there alone.

  “And you should?” she responded.

  “Probably not. I thought I’d keep an eye on you. Make sure you get home safe.”

  “I don’t need company,” she replied. “It’s no big deal. You can go back if you’re scared.”

  She walked off, leaving him behind for a second until he caught up. Silence followed until K asked how he ended up at Lexi’s party. He said he and a friend heard about the party on Instagram and decided to check it out. The friend wanted to stay. He thought the party was boring and left.

  Eventually, the path came out alongside a neighborhood playground surrounded by hedges. Harris lived diagonally opposite the playground. K lived three blocks away.

  They hung out in the playground, rocking gently on adjacent swings as they talked about Lexi, and the party, and school.

  Harris had a flask of bourbon in his jacket pocket. They shared it. It burned her throat, but it made her drunk again and restored the euphoria she’d felt at the party.

  They listened to music on Harris’s phone. He showed her funny memes. They drank more whiskey. Between the two of them, they finished the flask.

  Emboldened by the alcohol, Harris kissed her. He said she kissed him back. They messed around for a bit. Nothing serious. When he tried to take things further, she pulled away and pushed off on the swing until she was airborne. He said he was going home to get a joint from his bedroom. Remember, his house was right across the road.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” K promised. She put her head back and stared at the stars as she swung through the air, while Harris ran home, leaving her alone in the playground in the middle of the night. The wind whooshing into her ears would have been so loud that she probably didn’t hear footsteps approach until the intruder was standing right there.

  What happened next is at the center of the trial that starts next week. We’ll talk about it in the next episode of Guilty or Not Guilty, the podcast that puts you in the jury box. I’m Rachel Krall.

  13

  Rachel

  Rachel pulled the fleece hood of her sweatshirt over her head before climbing out of her car in a nondescript street in Neapolis. It was after 11:00 P.M. Most people in the neighborhood had turned in for the night.

  Bedroom lights shone dimly behind pulled-down blinds on the upper floors of houses. The lights of a TV set flickered from a window as Rachel turned a corner onto the next street. She counted three houses, all shrouded in darkness. The fourth house had a light
turned on above the garage. She walked toward the light and then down a path alongside the garage into the back of the house, where a glass sliding door had been left unlocked.

  Kelly Moore’s father, Dan, was sitting on the leather armchair in the corner of his office. His eyes were closed and his hands were pressed together against the profile of his face as if he was deep in thought. He had light hair, dark blond with a sprinkling of gray, and a tanned face. Laugh lines permanently crinkled the corners of his eyes.

  When he opened them to greet Rachel, his pale blue irises were filled with bewilderment and exhaustion. He’d taken his daughter Kelly’s rape very hard. Rachel knew this because she’d spoken to him on the phone half a dozen times as she tried to convince him to meet with her.

  Rachel pulled off her sweatshirt hood to reveal her slightly rumpled shoulder-length auburn hair. Her cheeks were glowing from the nighttime walk.

  “Sorry about making you park a block away.” He stood up abruptly and quietly shut the door that connected his home office to the rest of the house. “I didn’t want anyone to see your car near our house. People talk. Especially now.”

  Dan Moore’s office mirrored his personality. Everything was arranged with razor precision. There was a sitting area with a wide-screen television on the wall, a leather sofa, and two armchairs. On the other side was an L-shaped desk and metal filing cabinets. The walls were decorated with photos of his wife and two children and his naval service, all arranged with geometric precision. He was neat, disciplined, and clearly took great pride in all he’d accomplished. Especially his family.

  It had taken Rachel weeks to convince Dan to talk to her. It was easy enough getting the defendant’s side. Scott Blair and his family had done several media interviews. Even though their new trial lawyer had banned further interviews, the Blair family still worked the media by drip feeding leaks from their inner circle. Leaks that were designed to whip up sympathy for Scott and portray him as an innocent young man who was the victim of a vindictive girl.

  It was an open secret in Neapolis that Kelly Moore was the complainant in the Blair rape trial, even though the media was withholding her name from publication. Theoretically, the anonymity gave her a measure of privacy, but Dan told Rachel when they’d last spoken on the phone that it was a double-edged sword. It silenced Kelly and her family at a time when the Blairs were using every means possible to win public relations points ahead of the trial.

  It didn’t help that the prosecutor’s office had insisted that the Moore family refuse all media requests until after the trial, even requests from TV news networks promising to film Kelly and her parents as dark silhouettes and disguise their voices to maintain Kelly’s anonymity. “The prosecutor’s office is worried it could backfire. Hurt the case. We can’t let that happen,” he’d told Rachel in a past conversation when she’d pressed for an interview.

  Dan Moore’s view had changed that morning when he read an article in the Neapolis Gazette that quoted “friends of the Blair family” as saying that Scott was severely depressed. “He’s lost everything. His career. His friends. His good name. There are days when he wonders if there is anything left to live for. He is struggling to cope. It’s heartbreaking seeing him like this,” an unnamed family friend told reporters.

  When Dan saw the article, he felt as if he’d been sucker-punched. His daughter, with whom he’d always had a close relationship, now shrank if he came near her. He couldn’t so much as bend toward her to press a goodnight kiss against her temple without her flinching. She’d sit for hours scratching her arms until the skin was raw. She barely ate. She was morose. Uninterested in everything. She’d changed almost beyond recognition since she was raped.

  Dan was so furious that Scott Blair was being presented as the victim to the public that he telephoned Rachel that afternoon, his voice still trembling with anger when she answered his call. He told her that he was ready to talk. She wasn’t allowed to quote him, but at least she’d know Kelly’s side of the story. The only proviso was that Rachel had to come to his house and she had to do it late at night after his wife and daughter were asleep.

  Rachel helped Dan get comfortable with her by asking a string of questions about Kelly’s childhood. He reeled off his daughter’s many accomplishments. She was a good student, athletic, and a great dancer. She’d won a lead role in the school musical in junior high. He told Rachel that one of his proudest moments as a father was when Kelly asked her friends for donations for hurricane victims in Haiti in lieu of presents for her fourteenth birthday. “Kelly was always full of energy. She wanted to change the world,” he said. “These days she can barely get out of bed.”

  Rachel examined a framed photo of Kelly with her parents, taken after the junior high musical. Kelly had the same lustrous dark hair and dimples as her mother. Her hazel eyes sparkled in the photo as she smiled for the camera.

  “You wouldn’t recognize Kelly now. She’s a different girl. In appearance and in personality. All that confidence; gone. She’s gaunt and so on edge we worry she’s going to shatter,” Dan said.

  “It sounds as if the past few months have been incredibly difficult. Not just for Kelly but for the rest of the family as well,” said Rachel sympathetically.

  “You can’t begin to imagine,” said Dan, unconsciously rubbing his temple. “The family of that animal have hired a public relations company to help them portray Scott as a victim of an unhinged teenage girl who turned on him when he dumped her. They’ll lie their way to an acquittal. People will believe them. They already do.”

  “What happened that night? I’ve heard scraps of information, but I haven’t heard Kelly’s story.”

  “I told you on the phone, the prosecutor specifically said we shouldn’t discuss Kelly’s testimony. I can’t say anything that could jeopardize our case.”

  “I won’t tell the DA’s office, if you don’t,” Rachel pushed.

  “My dad was a cop. I was taught to respect officers of the law,” he responded.

  Rachel had been in town long enough to learn that Dan Moore’s dad was the town’s legendary police chief, Russ Moore, who’d served for nearly two decades. A street had been named after Russ Moore when he retired from the force. Some of the locals in the Blair family camp said the case against Scott Blair was so weak that he would never have been charged if Kelly hadn’t been Russ Moore’s granddaughter. Rachel was curious to see what Russ Moore looked like, and she was a little disappointed that Dan didn’t have a single photograph of his renowned father in his collection of framed family photos on display.

  “You didn’t want to follow in your dad’s footsteps and go into law enforcement?” Rachel asked.

  “It wasn’t easy being the son of the police chief. I needed to find my own way,” Dan explained. “The navy gave me that opportunity.”

  Dan had returned to Neapolis after leaving the navy and started a moderately successful tour boat business. He employed five people full-time and another ten during the tourist season. He had four cruisers and a couple of speedboats. They were owned mostly by the bank.

  “I’ve been throwing myself into work the last few months. It’s peak season. Even though the trial is coming up, there’s not much I can do except be there for Kelly. I’m grateful we have the best prosecutor around on the case. If anyone can get that son of a bitch locked up, then it’s Mitch Alkins. He’s always been a fighter. Even when he was in preschool.”

  “So you knew Alkins growing up?” Rachel asked.

  “Oh, sure. We were in the same grade at school. Then he went off to Georgetown and became a hotshot defense attorney. Made a lot of money and a big name for himself. Now he’s back here as DA. Said he missed the old place. Gave it all up to come home.”

  Rachel knew Mitch Alkins by reputation only. He had been a gun-for-hire defense attorney whose client list read like a “Who’s Who” of scumbags. All rich. They had to be, to pay his fees. Nobody else could afford him. Then about three years ago, he threw it all in, re
turned to his hometown, and left criminal defense law to become a prosecutor.

  “You don’t find it strange that Mitchell Alkins is prosecuting a rape case after spending most of his career defending some of the most savage rapists and murderers imaginable?” Rachel asked.

  “I don’t rightly know why Mitch became a prosecutor. I don’t care, either. He is back on the side of good. If anyone is going to get a conviction in this case, it’s Mitch. He’s the best of the best. I’ve known him since we were this high.” He held his hand up to knee level.

  “Does everyone know each other here?”

  “Not everyone. Newcomers have been pouring in over the past few years. But sure, those of us who grew up here and whose parents grew up here know each other. More than we would like sometimes.”

  “The defendant’s father grew up here, too. Greg Blair. Did you know him as a kid?” Rachel asked. The question prompted an awkward silence from Dan Moore.

  “Greg and I were friends when we were young,” he answered stiffly. “We grew up to be very different people. We haven’t been friends for a long time. He tried to contact me after it happened. I think he wanted me to ask the police to back off so we could sort it out between us. I don’t know what he was expecting, that Scott could apologize to Kelly for what he did? That all would be forgotten? I told him where he could shove it.”

  “You both went to Neapolis High?”

  “In those days there was only one high school. Even Judge Shaw went there. He was four years ahead. I never knew him except to say ‘hi.’ You look shocked.” He laughed, taking in Rachel’s surprised expression. “Go ahead and say it: this town is inbred. No doubt about it.”