“Someone left a letter on my car while I went for breakfast at a truck stop. It was addressed to me. By name,” Rachel said, cupping the receiver of her phone so the waiter wouldn’t overhear.

“Were there any threats?” Pete asked.

“It wasn’t the content of the letter so much as the way it was left for me under my windshield wiper,” she said. “Someone recognized me, Pete.”

“It was bound to happen,” sighed Pete. “You are a household name.”

“I’m not a household face. People don’t recognize me so easily, and this place was truly in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think anyone here has ever heard of the podcast. It’s so remote.”

“What was in the letter?” Pete asked.

“Something about a girl called Jenny who was murdered here in Neapolis decades ago,” Rachel told him. “The writer claims to have emailed us in the past asking me to investigate. We must have sent back one of those rote letters I hate so much. We should stop sending them, Pete. They’re soul destroying. Better to not respond than brush people off.”

“Let me get this right,” said Pete. “After writing to you several times and getting a rejection letter, this person just by chance happens to see you at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, recognizes you, and leaves you a letter on your car while you’re eating breakfast.” A note of worry inflected Pete’s voice. “That seems awfully coincidental.”

“Yes. That’s exactly my point,” Rachel said. “I didn’t even know myself that I was going to stop until I saw the restaurant sign on the highway. What’s the probability that someone who sent me fan mail months ago and received your very polite ‘thanks but no thanks’ letter happened to be at an isolated rest stop area at the exact time that I made an unplanned stop?”

“Whoever left the letter must have followed you,” answered Pete. “Did you notice being tailed on the drive down?”

“I’m pretty sure I saw the same car off and on for a good part of the drive. I lost it when I hit heavy traffic as I drove into Neapolis,” Rachel said.

“Did you get a description? License plate?”

“You know me, Pete. I can’t tell a Mazda from a Toyota, and don’t even get me started on European cars. The way I figure it, there’s only one word for someone who followed me across three states to leave a note on my car.”

“A stalker,” said Pete.

“That’s why I’m just slightly freaked out. Not from the letter. The letter intrigues me, to tell you the truth. It’s the way it was left for me. The familiarity of its tone. And the fact that whoever left it must have followed me,” said Rachel.

“I could ask the cops to look into it. See what they can find out,” Pete offered. “My contact at the FBI said we shouldn’t hesitate to file a complaint after the death threats you got last year. I still have his card with his direct number,” he added. “Send me a copy of the letter. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Let’s keep the letter between us for now. I don’t want cops involved. Not yet, anyway. I don’t want to be the girl who cried wolf,” said Rachel.

“If you insist,” said Pete reluctantly.

“I’m sorry, Pete. I shouldn’t bother you with this stuff. You’re in the hospital and you’re probably in agony.”

“Nah, they’ve given me stuff for the pain. Trust me, anything I can do to take my mind off my current predicament is fine by me. Send it over, Rachel; I am actually begging you. I can safely say that if I die here, it will be only of boredom.”

“I feel like an idiot, Pete. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Better to be paranoid than to lower your guard, Rach. There are a few nutjobs out there and I am betting that you are right at the top of their crazy list. You need to watch your back.”

After hanging up, Rachel took a photo of the letter with her phone and emailed it to Pete. It was only when she was stuffing the pages back into the envelope that she noticed writing scribbled on the corner of the envelope, almost as an afterthought.

Maybe we should talk in person. I’ll wait for you at the Morrison’s Point jetty at 2 p.m. sharp.

Rachel tore the envelope into strips. She had no intention of rendezvousing with an anonymous fan and possible stalker at an old jetty. Pete was right. She needed to be careful. The first episode of Season 3 had been released. Her fans knew she was in Neapolis to cover the trial. So did everyone else.

4

Guilty or Not Guilty

Season 3, Episode 1: Victim Blaming

Ever since I announced that I’m covering a rape trial for Season 3, I’ve been inundated by people asking me why. My mother. My brother. My producer. Even my ex called to express his reservations.

The phrase “Rachel, are you crazy?” came up a lot. They’re worried that no matter how I report on the trial, I’m going to rile people up. I’m going to offend people. I’m going to get hate mail and abuse. And, perhaps most frighteningly, I’m going to get crucified on Twitter.

Because rape, for a reason that I can’t understand, is divisive.

Murder is a piece of cake by comparison. Everyone agrees that murder is heinous. There’s no argument about that. There’s no difference of opinion. The Bible says it straight out: “Thou shalt not kill.”

When it comes to rape, the Bible is more ambivalent. Much like rape laws have been for millennia.

Raping women was considered a legitimate spoil of war throughout much of human history. It wasn’t that long ago when a husband could rape his wife without breaking the law in some states. In some countries, a husband can still rape his wife, or even a random woman or girl. As long as he marries her afterward.

That’s why I chose this case rather than cover another murder trial for Season 3. I want to make you think about how rape and the threat of rape affect the lives of women in a hundred different ways.

I suppose there’s another reason why I chose to cover this case. Long before I heard about the rape trial in Neapolis, there was another case I worked on that, well, I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that it got to me. Even today, I get kind of teary. And emotional. As you can probably hear … Damn, I promised I wouldn’t cry when I told you the story.

The victim was my age. She lived on my block. We shopped at the same supermarket. We took shortcuts through the same park at night. We took the same train from the same platform. So, yeah, her death felt personal.

It was my park. My neighborhood. And she died there, on a damp stretch of grass where my friends and I would play Frisbee in the summer.

But … if I’m honest, I think there was more to it than that awful, selfish thought that “but for the grace of God go I.” Her story, out of all of the stories that I covered as a crime reporter, tore me up because of the way she was treated after her death.

I won’t say her real name, but let’s call her Cat Girl. She loved cats. She had a miniature sphinxlike cat tattooed on her shoulder. That was how she was identified—through that tattoo. She worked at an animal shelter on Sundays and at a soup kitchen on Wednesdays. She was kind and funny. By all accounts, she was a talented jazz musician with a husky, evocative voice that put chills down my spine the first time I heard a recording of her singing. If that wasn’t enough, she played some seriously good sax.

Cat Girl worked at a little jazz club in Carytown, in downtown Richmond. Music lovers went there for the jazz. College students went there for the Happy Hour specials. The bar was a hole-in-the-wall sort of place. Narrow wooden stairs at a side-street entrance leading down to a basement bar. It had midnight blue walls and grungy water-stained tables with mismatched chairs. Nobody noticed because the place was too dark to see anything except the stage.

It was a Thursday night. Cat Girl performed a few songs in between serving tables. At some point, a big-shot record producer who was out scouting talent gave her his business card and invited her to audition for a band he was putting together. It was the biggest break she’d ever had. His business card was listed in her personal effects in the autopsy report. It was a sobering reminder that her life went from elation to tragedy in the space of hours.

When the bar closed, she walked home instead of taking a cab. Maybe she wanted to unwind. It was early summer. A perfect night for walking. So she walked. Why not. Right?

It took fifteen minutes for her to walk home. The last part was a little dicey. Remember, it was my neighborhood. I knew it like the back of my hand. Before she cut through the park, she texted her friend to say she was almost home. I guess you can figure out the rest.

Her body was found by a jogger. She was lying on the grass in the middle of the park. Her clothes and hair were wet. It had rained overnight. Her underwear lay in a ball in a puddle and her skirt was hiked up. There were bruises around her throat. She’d been raped and strangled.