The Night Swim(68)
“I was so embarrassed,” she said. “I begged him to take it down. He said something like, ‘You’re right. That was a dumb move.’ He took it down, but a couple of his friends had already texted him back emojis like a tongue hanging out of a mouth. One of them asked him whether I was any good. He showed me that text. He wrote back: ‘C minus.’ He showed me that, too.”
“Were you offended that he’d rated you like that?” Alkins asked.
“He’d raped me. I didn’t care about his stupid rating. I was scared that he’d do it again.”
Kelly described how she fell asleep on the sand. She suspected that Scott had put something in her beer, because she was very sleepy. She said she woke briefly to find a musty old shirt tucked over her like a blanket. She didn’t know where the shirt came from, because she said that Scott hadn’t worn a shirt like that. She was grateful for the shirt. It was cold on the beach. Its warmth helped Kelly drift off again.
“It felt is if someone was watching me sleep. I must have been dreaming, because Scott wasn’t there. I woke up to the sound of his car door opening and then slamming closed. I looked up and I saw Scott walk over holding a sports bag. He opened it up and threw out a bar of soap, shampoo, and a towel. He ordered me to wash in the outdoor shower on the beach. And then told me to get dressed.”
“Once you were dressed, what did he do?”
“He threatened me. He told me next time he’d bring friends,” she said. “He also said that he’d make sure that everyone knew I was a slut if I said a word to anyone. That the only way to keep my ‘good girl’ reputation was to shut up.”
By the time Judge Shaw called a late lunch recess, four hours had passed. Rachel had no appetite. She doubted that anyone else did, either. She saw a social worker taking Kelly Moore down a corridor into a private room. Kelly would have the lunch recess to compose herself for the cross-examination.
40
Guilty or Not Guilty
Season 3, Episode 9: The Testimony
As soon as court was adjourned for the day, I rushed out of the courtroom to the ladies’ restroom where—well, I’ll spare you the gory details. Other than to say that I’ve never felt as sick as I did that afternoon after watching a sixteen-year-old girl get tortured on the stand. All in the name of justice.
Rape cases can be more traumatic to try than murder cases because the brutalized victim is there to describe what happened to her. More than that. She lives with the nightmare every … single … day … of … her life.
Today K took the stand. She was asked about every tiny detail of what happened. And I mean every single detail. Did he ejaculate. Sexual positions. Everything. Can you imagine at the age of sixteen—hell, at any age—having to go into that level of detail to a room full of strangers? It was awful.
Her parents clutched each other’s hands as they listened to their daughter recall the worst night of her life. Her mother went through a packet of tissues. Her father, well, he’s an ex–naval officer. He’s been pretty stoic in court so far. But tears streamed down his cheeks as he listened to his daughter recount what happened to her on that lonely beach last October.
There wasn’t a sound in court except the rustle of paper as Mitch Akins went through a thick legal pad full of questions written out on page after page after page.
K never strayed from her testimony. Over and over and over again, she consistently said that she told Scott Blair to stop. She pushed his hands away. She told him that she wanted to go home. She told him that she didn’t want to have sex with him. He didn’t listen. He raped her. And when he was done, he raped her again. And again.
K’s testimony left me feeling queasy. I’m sure that it sickened the jury as well. Every day since the trial started, it’s been a running joke between the jury and the judge about what meal they would get for their lunch. Today it was obvious that the jury wasn’t interested in food when we adjourned. Who could possibly have an appetite after hearing that horrific testimony?
The defendant had a tendency to stare into space during K’s testimony. Dale Quinn, and his team of lawyers, scribbled furiously on their notepads and traded notes as K testified. They were already preparing for their redirect even before K left the stand.
Judge Shaw, who throughout the trial has been quick-tempered and sharp-tongued, was unusually pensive. He’s probably presided over his fair share of rape trials, but by the end of the session he looked drained.
K’s answer each time was consistently “no.” K insisted that nobody could possibly have mistaken her responses—weeping, struggling to get away, begging to go home, the way she tried to wriggle out of his grasp, holding her legs together and covering her genitals—as suggesting that she was a willing participant.
So, yeah, I was nauseous after I heard her testimony. But not half as sick as when K took the stand after the lunch recess for cross-examination.
Dale Quinn is charming. He comes across as a regular guy. He loves to mention his wife and twin babies. We know their names. We know that he and his wife put bands on their daughters’ wrists to tell them apart. He acts scatterbrained. Drops stuff. Spills stuff. And then pretends to forget his train of thought before going for the jugular with a question that nobody sees coming.
He acts dopey. He seems kind, and considerate and very friendly. It’s hard not to like him. If a survey was done, then I’m betting that Dale Quinn’s congeniality rating would be through the roof.