The Night Swim(38)
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 understated 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.