Page 16 of The Night Swim
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, returned 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 couldsort 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.”
“What was Alkins’s reputation like at school?” Rachel asked.
“Even at school, Mitch was intimidating. He was smart as a whip with a gilded tongue to boot. That is a lethal combination. He will get a guilty verdict,” he assured Rachel. “Strange how life brings old friends back together. Before this trial, we hadn’t been in touch since school. That’s a good twenty-five years ago. I graduated in ’92.”
Rachel thought back to Jenny Stills’s gravestone in the cemetery. The summer of ’92 was the summer that Jenny Stills had died. It was a small enough town in those days that her death was surely ingrained in the memories of her schoolmates. Or maybe not? Rachel figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
“When you were at school, did you know a girl called Jenny Stills? She was probably a sophomore when you graduated.”
“Jenny Stills?” He paused, deep in thought. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “School was a long time ago. I don’t remember a lot of people. Why are you asking?”
