Chapter 1
Have you ever had a day when absolutely everything goes haywire and nothing goes as planned? I have. More times than I care to remember. Like the time my kitchen pipe burst just as I was heading off on a date with my old college crush who was in town on business.
Instead of rekindling the unrequited spark from college, I spent the evening frantically mopping the flood of water on my kitchen floor while waiting for the emergency plumber to turn up. My next-door neighbor Chloe kindly went down to the bar across the road to keep my date company while I dealt with the plumbing crisis.
By the time I joined them, they were hitting it off. Sparks flew like fireworks that night. Just not with me. Incidentally, they’ve been married for three years. One baby. Another on the way. Cutest couple ever.
It’s unlikely they’d have met if my kitchen pipe hadn’t blown. Was it fate, or destiny? Your guess is as good as mine.
It happened again this week. This time it was a telephone call that sent everything into a wild tailspin.
I’d planned to spend the day catching up on admin work and tidying my apartment. I’d hoped to squeeze in time to paint a mid-century dresser that I bought at a flea market and was in the midst of up-cycling. In the evening, I’d arranged to go to my producer’s place with takeout sushi for a working dinner while we went over stuff that had piled up while I was out of town. It was supposed to be a hump day. A day to get stuff done.
That all fell by the wayside when the loud ring of my cell phone catapulted me out of a deep sleep some time before dawn. Within two hours, I was staring out an airplane window at an aerial view of the Eastern Seaboard, sipping ice-cold reconstituted orange juice as I winged my way to northern Florida.
By late morning, I was back on the ground. This time I was driving a rental car along the winding road of a state forest. Glimpses of the ominous guard towers and barbed-wire fences of a maximum-security prison peeked through sun-kissed foliage. The prison was incongruently located on the edge of the natural wilderness.
At that point, I still had no idea why I’d been asked to fly down. The FBI agent who woke me that morning had thrown in just enough information to pique my curiosity. I took the bait. No big surprise; curiosity and procrastination are my kryptonite. It didn’t escape me that flying down to Florida without knowing why was the ultimate act of procrastination—proof that I’d do just about anything to avoid paperwork.
As I drove through the forest to the state prison, I passed a timber sign pointing to a rudimentary campground off the road. Crime scene tape cordoning off the campground entrance wasn’t visible from my car.
It was only later that I found out what happened there. The campground, which I’ve since visited several times, is designed for hard-core campers. It has no amenities other than a shower-toilet block and the chance to camp under the stars.
That’s what Bill Morrow and his family were doing on the night in question. Bill and his two sisters had come with their respective spouses and kids on what I guess you’d call a family pilgrimage. They wanted their kids to experience the simple back-to-nature camping trips of their childhood. Without phones or gaming consoles. Without every waking moment being documented on social media. Three days of uninterrupted family time. The way it used to be. #socialmediadetox #familyreunion #getmeoutofhere
They arrived in the afternoon in a convoy of three SUVs packed with camping gear and food. They remember noticing a camper van parked under a tree on the periphery of the otherwise deserted campground. The van’s screen door was loose. It rattled annoyingly in the wind.
The campers paid it little mind. They were busy unloading equipment and erecting tents in a semi-circle around a rusted metal fire pit on the other side of the campground.
The campsite filled with the clang of tent pegs being hammered into the ground to a chorus of young kids hollering while playing tag, and teenagers whining about poor cell phone reception and the inconvenience of being dragged on a family camping trip they considered to be a refined form of torture.
Eventually, the exasperated parents tied a volleyball net between two trees and sent the teenagers off to play, which they did with the pained expressions of hard-core addicts going cold turkey. Their hard-done-by disgruntlement melted into genuine enjoyment when they won a kids versus parents volleyball tournament as the afternoon slid into dusk. By the time they were eating their dinner of barbecued hamburgers by the crackling campfire, everyone had shifted gears into vacation mode.
As evening moved into night, an easterly blew in, causing the camper van door to slam more frequently. It got on everyone’s nerves. That’s when the campers had the first inkling that something was wrong.
Ignoring their niggling disquiet, the parents sent the kids to bed. Once the kids were in their zipped-up tents, the adults pulled their canvas chairs around the campfire to unwind after the long drive and exhausting day setting up camp. They stretched their legs toward the flames and sipped beers, reminiscing about the camping trips of their childhood and how much simpler the world had been before gaming consoles and social media.
The nostalgic mood was ruined when a powerful gust violently slammed the camper van door shut with an explosive crack that ricocheted across the campground. Six-year-old Billy Jr. was woken by the noise.
“Daddy, I’m scared,” he called out, holding his teddy bear under one arm and gripping his sleeping bag with the other as he stuck his head out of his tent.
His dad drained his beer bottle and rose from the canvas chair near the fire.
“I’m going to say something,” Bill Sr. said. “Otherwise we can all forget about getting any sleep tonight.”
He stormed toward the van. His brother-in-law followed him, holding out a large flashlight. The campground was close enough to a swamp called Rattlesnake Lake to make him want to see exactly where he was stepping.
“Anyone home?” Bill Sr. bellowed as they approached.
Bill’s brother-in-law fixed the flashlight beam unsteadily on the van door while mosquitos tore into him. He scratched the bites until they bled. Bill Sr. started feeling uneasy as he pounded on the door.
“Even before I went inside, I could tell something was wrong. There were these eerie reverberations coming from inside the van.”
When there was still no response, Bill opened the aluminum door. All he could see in the musty interior was a haze of gray. He stepped into the camper van. His brother-in-law heaved himself up as well. The van sagged under the cumulative weight of the two hefty men. Mosquitos and moths followed them in, attracted by the bright beam of the flashlight.
What happened inside that van is what this podcast is all about. It’s consumed me ever since I came down here to look into this case. I’ve been looking for a predator. It turns out that a predator has also been looking for me.
Chapter 2
Rachel Krall pressed her foot on the gas as a view of barbed-wire fences and towering steel guard towers emerged from beyond the treetops. She drove until the road ended at a row of bright yellow boom gates under a sign as cheery as it was cynical.
“Welcome to the Central Florida Correctional Facility” it said in the childish bubble letters of a tourist billboard.
As Rachel waited for the gate to go up, she caught a glimpse of prisoners in orange jumpsuits exercising in a yard penned in by razor-wire fences. An officer at the top of a steel guard tower trained his high-powered rifle at the prisoners as they moved about the yard.
“Name and ID,” a surly voice boomed out.
Rachel shifted her gaze from the prison yard to the driver’s window, where a stocky guard with a down-turned rusty mustache glowered at her. He held a clipboard against his expansive belly.
Rachel lowered the window only to be assaulted by the blistering heat outside the cool air-conditioned interior of her car. She slapped her driver’s license into the guard’s outstretched hand.
“Pop the trunk,” he barked.
The guard went around the back of the vehicle and lifted the trunk. Inside was the mini carry-on suitcase that Rachel had packed in a mad hurry early that morning before rushing to the airport.
“This your first time here?” the guard asked when he returned to Rachel’s half-open window. His forehead was covered in perspiration. Sweat marks were forming in the armpits of his uniform.
“It sure is.” Rachel didn’t answer his unasked question as to the purpose of her visit. The truth was that she had no idea.
“Boyfriend or husband?”
Rachel squinted as she looked up at him, perplexed.
He gestured toward her jeans and casual shirt. “You’re obviously not law enforcement, or an attorney,” he said snidely. “That means you’re here on a personal visit. Which brings me back to my original question: boyfriend or husband?”
“Neither.”
“Ma’am, I can’t let you through until you tell me who you’re here to visit.” He had the officious tone of a petty bureaucrat on a power trip.
Through her side mirror, Rachel noticed that a line of cars was waiting behind her vehicle. Car engines idled impatiently. The guard chewed a wad of gum with the side of his mouth like he had all day.
“I have a meeting here.”
The guard checked his clipboard again. “Your name isn’t on our list, ma’am.”
“It must be an oversight. I’ll sort it out when I get in,” Rachel said. “Are you going to let me in or not?” she added, when the guard showed no sign of budging. “Because if you’re not letting me in, then you’ll have to get all those cars behind me to move so I can back out. There’s going to be an awful traffic jam. I’m terrible at reversing.”
“I’ll ask the warden’s office what it wants to do with you.” The guard droned Rachel’s name and details into a radio mouthpiece fixed to his shirt.
“Send her through,” a woman responded, her voice faint over the crackle of the radio.
The guard scowled at the decision. “Leave the car at the dirt parking lot and join the line outside the visitors’ building. It’s a long wait. At least an hour. In the sun. When you eventually get inside, tell them what you told me. Don’t be surprised if they turn you back. Next time, remember, don’t turn up without advance notice.” He strode to the next car as the boom gate lifted up.
As Rachel drove into the visitors’ parking area, she passed two men in dark suits and ties. Only a crazy person or a federal agent would wear a suit in the scorching Florida heat. Rachel parked the car and locked it with a remote-control key as she strode toward the men, studying them through the mirrored lenses of her sunglasses. Her copper-brown hair hung loose, the ends curling into untamed tendrils in the humidity. A jade heart on a leather band sat against the nape of her neck, just above the open collar of her oversized white linen shirt.
“I’m Special Agent Torreno. We spoke earlier.” The sandy-haired man reached out to shake Rachel’s hand once she’d joined them on the curb. “This is Special Agent Martinez.”
Agent Torreno’s deference was unmistakable as he gestured to his colleague. Agent Martinez had been watching Rachel with a panther-like intensity ever since she left her car. It had been obvious he was in charge from the moment Rachel first set eyes on him.
Agent Martinez’s charcoal suit jacket was unbuttoned, showing a hint of a weapon in a black leather holster that matched the color of his neatly clipped hair. Rachel flipped off her sunglasses. Her green-flecked eyes met Agent Martinez’s steady gaze as she stretched out her hand to shake his firm grip. She was annoyed at her uncharacteristic nervousness.
“I came here like you asked.” She addressed Torreno. “What’s this all about?”
Before Torreno could respond, Agent Martinez looked up at the blinding sun in the near-cloudless sky. “It’s too hot to talk out here, and it’s not very private. We’ll talk inside.”
They fell in step behind a mom carrying a toddler on her hip as she headed toward the visitors’ building. There she joined the back of a long line of people waiting in the heat to go through security. The guard at the boom gate hadn’t been kidding when he’d said there was a long wait. In Rachel’s case, the FBI agents ushered her to a modern VIP building reserved for prison staff and law enforcement.
“Does the name Terence Bailey mean anything to you?” Torreno asked conversationally as they waited their turn while Martinez went through an airport-style metal detector machine at the entrance.
“Can’t say I’ve heard of him before,” said Rachel, putting her belongings onto the X-ray machine’s conveyor belt.
“He sure knows you,” said Torreno once they’d both gone through the metal detector and were collecting their things on the other side. “Bailey’s a big fan of your podcast. I’m guessing getting that high school coach off the hook for murder has made you popular with super-max lifers,” said Torreno.
“Could be,” said Rachel noncommittally. She was somewhat embarrassed as to how she’d catapulted from a relatively obscure crime podcaster to a household name.
Rachel’s podcast, Guilty or Not Guilty, had become a national sensation when the first season uncovered fresh evidence and a litany of mistakes in the trial of a high school coach convicted of murdering his wife on their second honeymoon.
Circumstantial evidence and the lack of a solid alibi had sealed Coach Murphy’s fate. Among the most damning evidence were traces of cleaned-up blood splatter belonging to his wife, found by the forensic team during a chemical analysis of the carpet of his car. He’d claimed the blood was from a nosebleed, to which his wife had been prone, and that he’d bought a special carpet cleaner to get rid of it. The jury didn’t buy it. They convicted him of all charges.
Thanks to crucial evidence that Rachel had dug up for the podcast, the coach received a new trial. The jury found him not guilty less than ninety minutes after it began deliberations. Outside the courthouse when he was released, he told TV cameras that he owed not just his freedom but his life to Rachel Krall and her podcast.
His words prompted inmates across the country to write to Rachel swearing they were innocent of the crimes for which they’d been convicted and imploring her to help them prove it. Rachel and her producer, Pete, were soon knee-deep in letters postmarked from a who’s who of high-security prisons. After Season 2, when Rachel solved the cold-case murder of a hairdresser bludgeoned to death in her hair salon, the podcast was inundated with messages from relatives of crime victims begging Rachel to bring justice when law enforcement had failed.
Guilty or Not Guilty had inspired an industry of imitation podcasts catering to the public’s insatiable appetite for true crime. One particularly generous newspaper reviewer said that all the podcasts that followed were but pale imitations of Rachel Krall’s original:
“Krall’s seductive voice and out-loud musings give her true-crime podcast the intimacy of pillow talk,” he’d written. “I suspect Ms. Krall could record a podcast about paint drying and people would be hooked on her every intonation and the silky cadence of her bedroom voice.”
Copyright © 2023 by Megan Goldin
