The Sabbathday River (48 page)

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Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz

BOOK: The Sabbathday River
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The midwife nodded. “Sure.”
“Is it possible she did not know she was pregnant in February of last year?”
“Yes. If she wasn't menstruating due to nursing her baby, then she might have been unaware for a long time.”
“Could Heather have gone through the spring without knowing she was pregnant?”
More of a hesitation here. “Possibly. Less likely, though.”
“Could she have been under the impression that she was pregnant but that the pregnancy was conceived later than January?”
Charter objected, of course. Randa Burns could not possibly know what impression Heather was under, but the jury got the gist.
“In your opinion, without the anchor of a menstrual period to determine the onset of gestation, might a pregnant woman experience confusion about how pregnant she actually was?”
Absolutely, Randa said helpfully. “In fact, I would expect confusion.”
“Ms. Burns,” Judith said, smiling, “you described Heather earlier as a conscientious expectant mother. Do you think that a conscientious mother would willfully take risks with her baby's life?”
She shook her head. “I never thought that of Heather, no.”
“Do you think it's possible that Heather intended to place herself under your care again, but that she was under the mistaken impression that her pregnancy was not far along?”
Naomi looked instinctively at Charter, but he was offering no reaction except a composed, dubious expression.
“Yes. I think it is possible. I assume that, in fact.”
Judith nodded sagely. “Are you aware that the support system you alluded to earlier in your testimony—Heather's grandmother, who helped her with the infant Polly—was no longer in place during her second pregnancy due to the grandmother's sudden death?”
Randa looked briefly stricken. “No. I didn't know that.” She cast a brief, resentful glance at Charter. “I wasn't told that.”
“Are you aware that this death occurred shortly after the conception of Heather's pregnancy?”
“No,” she said angrily. “I think that changes things rather significantly.”
“You do?” Judith sounded innocent. “In what way?”
“Well, it implies that Heather had her mind on other matters at the time of the conception. If she was occupied with the experience of grieving, she would have been paying even less attention than usual to the question of how fertile she was. If that was the case, then she might really have been unaware of when she became pregnant. She might have thought she had plenty of time to prepare for the birth.” She shook her head. “It's so tragic.”
“Thank you,” Judith chirped. She sat down.
Charter, having gleaned that his witness was now openly hostile to him, opted not to redirect. Instead, the district attorney swiftly moved on to his next witness, Nelson Erroll, who now walked to the front of the room with a grim expression. He looked tired, Naomi thought. The papery skin beneath his eyes showed faintly blue, and his gold and silver hair had not been recently brushed. She noticed these things, but she did not linger on them, and if he saw her looking he did not look back. This, it seemed to her, was a kind of agreement between them. Not acknowledged, but an agreement nonetheless.
Nelson said his name. He said he was the senior ranking police officer in Goddard township. He sat down.
“Officer Erroll,” Charter began. He spoke from his seat. “How did you become aware of the crimes in this case?”
Nelson cleared his throat. “Naomi Roth came to my office on September 22. She brought the baby she had found in the river.”
“And would you describe what happened following this discovery.” Charter nodded encouragement.
A call was placed to the district attorney's office in Peytonville, said Nelson, and to the medical examiner's office. Then they waited for representatives of these offices to arrive. One hour later, Dr. Ernst Petersen and Mr. Robert Charter arrived in separate cars. They all went to view the site, with Naomi Roth. Then Dr. Petersen took the baby's remains back to Peytonville, and Mr. Charter stayed to interview Ms. Roth.
“I interviewed Miss Roth, is that correct?”
“You did, yes.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, over the next days we talked at length about how we ought to proceed, and who in the area ought to be questioned. We were also getting calls. Information. From people in the town of Goddard and in Goddard Falls.”
“Calls offering suggestions about whom you ought to question?”
“Yes,” Nelson said.
“And whom did the people of Goddard and Goddard Falls think you ought to question?”
He looked briefly at Naomi. “They said Heather Pratt.”
“And others?” Charter pressed.
“Almost everyone said Heather. There were a few others, though. We
had a couple of calls about Appalachian Trail through-hikers, and some about students in Hanover.”
“What form did your investigation take, Officer Erroll?” Charter said.
He looked uncomfortable. “I did conduct interviews with a wide selection of townspeople, as well as some tourists and through-hikers. I was able to eliminate the hikers very quickly. I think a very pregnant hiker on difficult terrain would probably be noticed. I made some inquiries in Hanover as well. It was clear to me fairly early on that we were either dealing with somebody local or that the birth had occurred far away and, for whatever reason, this body had been deposited somewhere near Goddard. If that were the case, I felt it was very unlikely that I would be able to identify the baby's mother.”
“And that was your object? To identify the mother?”
Nelson nodded. “Well, yes. That seemed like the right first step.”
Charter stood up and walked around to the front of his table. The preliminaries were clearly over.
“Officer Nelson, at what point did your investigation focus on Heather Pratt?”
He looked down at his hands and seemed to sigh. “It began to focus almost at once. The name came up constantly. Those who had seen Heather over the preceding month had observed that she appeared to be pregnant. No one had definitive information, however.”
“But it required looking into,” Charter prompted, a little harshly.
“Yes. It bore looking into.”
“At what point did you conduct an interview with Heather Pratt, Officer Erroll?”
“Well, we wanted to take our time. We were waiting for the medical examiner's findings, for one thing, and we wanted to be sure we had … that we were interested in talking to the right person. We conducted the interview on October 12. We invited Ms. Pratt to come talk to us at the police station, and she came at about five that evening.”
Nelson was asked about the interview then. He described the room in which they had sat and counted the people present: himself, Heather Pratt, and District Attorney Charter. Later, another officer joined them to take Heather's statement.
“How long did the interview last?” Charter asked.
“Several hours all told. There were breaks, though. We weren't talking the whole time.”
“Was Miss Pratt ever threatened or unduly pressured, Officer Erroll?” There was the briefest hesitation, Naomi thought, but perhaps only she would have noticed.
“No. Not at all.”
“And did Miss Pratt have the option to call an attorney to be present during this interview?”
Again: so fleeting it barely registered. “She did. She chose not to call an attorney.”
“Did Miss Pratt admit outright that she was responsible for the death of the Sabbathday River baby?”
“No,” Nelson said. Heather had denied any connection to the baby. At first, indeed, she had denied a recent pregnancy outright. Eventually, after some discussion, she admitted her pregnancy, but suggested that she had miscarried her baby and flushed its remains down the toilet. Then she rescinded that information and claimed that she had had a full-term baby outside on the hill behind her house. Ultimately, she admitted stabbing her child with a sharp object and placing its body in the river. She signed a statement to that effect. She identified the sharp object as a fine blue metallic knitting needle that had earlier been collected from her house, in a search she had authorized by signing a release form.
Nelson was then asked to read the confession. He took the sheet from Charter's hand and seemed to read it briefly himself, frowning as he did.
“‘My name is Heather Ruth Pratt and I was born May 1, 1965. I live in the farmhouse on Sabbath Creek Road. This is the house left to me by my grandmother Mrs. Polly Bates Pratt. I am employed as a craftsman at Flourish, Incorporated, in Goddard. I had a sexual relationship with Ashley Deacon, who is a married man, from October of 1983 to January of this year, 1985. I am the mother of a daughter, Polly Pratt, born in August of 1984, now fourteen months old. In December of 1984, I became pregnant for the second time. I did not seek prenatal care for this child. I did not tell anyone I was pregnant. On the night of Tuesday, September 17, I went into labor in the middle of the night. I went outside into the back field behind my house. I had my baby alone and unassisted. I did not bring my baby into the house after it was born. I returned to my house without the baby. I went back to the field with a sharp object, a blue knitting needle, to make sure the baby was dead. I
stabbed the baby once in the chest. Then I carried the baby's body across the field to the Sabbathday River. I laid it in. Like …'” Here Nelson raised his eyes, which for some reason found Naomi's. “‘Moses'. When Naomi Roth found that baby, I knew, deep down. I felt it was mine. I felt sorry. I am so sorry.'”
“The statement is signed?” Charter said, almost eagerly.
“Yes. This is Heather's signature.” Nelson held it up.
Charter let this sit for a moment. Naomi, for her part, thought that the voice of Heather's statement was far more self-assured, far more emphatic, than anything she had ever heard out of the girl's mouth. That she herself was so sorrowfully evoked in the statement took her by surprise, and grieved her.
“Officer Erroll, were there other items of significance collected during the search of Heather Pratt's home?”
“Yes.” Nelson nodded. “There were a number of towels with evident bloodstains. They had been left in a heap on the floor of an upstairs closet. Also bloodstained underwear.”
“Are these the same towels?”
Charter produced them, bagged individually so their harsh brown stains would show to best advantage. Naomi found she could not look at them and averted her eyes.
“They appear to be, yes.”
The towels were entered into evidence and passed to the horrified jurors.
“Any other items?”
“Yes. We retrieved an address book from Heather's bedroom.”
“Why would an address book be of interest to your investigation, Officer Erroll?”
Your investigation. Naomi nearly laughed aloud.
“Well, we wanted to be able to speak with Heather's friends and associates. It was a way to confirm her statements or else to oppose them if she had not been truthful with us.”
“Was this the address book?”
He brought it out. Another plastic bag with a thin booklet, dark green, with some kind of gold seal on the cover. Nelson took it between his hands and gazed down at it, almost sadly. This was indeed the address book, he said.
“And was the address book helpful in putting you in touch with Heather's friends and associates?”
Nelson shook his head. For an instant the remaining straw-colored hairs on his scalp caught the light. Then they let it go.
“No. There was only one name in the book, and it was not the name of someone we knew. There was no address.”
“And that name, Officer Erroll?”
“Chris Flynn.”
It went around the room like something electric. In this first tangible proof that the name existed, however, it was easy to overlook the fact that no actual person had been shown to be using it.
“What efforts were made to locate Mr. Flynn?” Charter asked, smiling broadly.
“Our efforts are ongoing. As yet, we have not found him.”
“And what would be the purpose of finding him, Officer Erroll?”
“We would like to discuss with him the paternity of the Sabbathday River baby,” Nelson said, and Naomi, for the briefest moment, wanted to laugh. A name in an address book? It was too crazy. But no one else was even smiling.
Charter moved closer to Nelson, marking another segue in his questioning. He propped a hand familiarly on the railing. “Officer Erroll, at what point did you realize that you were dealing with two murdered infants, not one?”

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