The Sabbathday River

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

  She thought. She shrugged. “Nobody I can remember.”

  Judith walked back to her table, and her place. She might have looked finished, but in fact she had one more question.

  “Ann,” she said, “there’s no such person as Christopher Flynn, is there?”

  Charter frowned but stayed quiet. Ann Chase shook her head. One ragged breath escaped her throat. “I wouldn’t know,” she said.

  Chapter 35

  Witness for the Prosecution

  HEATHER’S MIDWIFE WAS A SQUAT WOMAN WITH a single rope of black hair that she wore like an ornament across her breasts. She had not been subpoenaed, but Naomi felt sure that she had not precisely come willingly, either. Her first act, on being seated in the witness chair, was to smile consolingly at Heather. Her name was Randa Burns. Her affiliation was to Mary Hitchcock Hospital, in Hanover.

  Heather, Randa Burns said, had been an extremely conscientious patient during her first pregnancy. She had attended her appointments faithfully, and eaten well, and generally demonstrated in every possible way that she was preparing for and looking ahead to motherhood. At Charter’s prodding, she told the story of Heather’s labor and delivery, and her account did not shy from detail: four centimeters by eight o’clock, five centimeters by ten, then the long hours spent at eight as the night dragged into darkness. Heather was strong, that was the point Charter seemed to be making. She did not ask for relief. She barely asked for diversion. And indeed, the birth was achieved with very little in the way of intervention, which—Randa Burns informed Mr. Charter—was certainly appropriate to her philosophy that labor was a most natural passage.

  “In other words,” Charter said, “you might just as easily have not been there at all.”

  “Well …” She considered. “I only helped her accomplish what she was quite capable of accomplishing herself.”

  “Alone.”

  “Well, it’s always helpful to have others there. It’s a fine thing to gather other women around the birthing woman. It can be very spiritual. And also, there is always the possibility that the mother or the baby could require some special assistance.”

  “You mean, there might be a need for medical intervention.”

  “For further support. And sometimes for the kind of support generally available in a hospital environment, yes.”

  “The baby could die, for example.”

  “An extreme example. Also, the mother could experience difficulties.”

  Charter was not interested in the mother.

  “When was the last time you heard from Heather, Miss Burns?”

  Randa, a woman after Naomi’s own heart, bristled at the “Miss.”

  “I made my last postnatal visit when Polly was two weeks old. She was doing beautifully. Nursing was well established, and the baby was growing. There was a good support system in place—Heather got wonderful assistance from her grandmother—and the household seemed to be in good shape.”

  “So your work was finished.”

  “Sure.” Randa nodded. “She had things under control, and she was clearly elated by her daughter.”

  “Did she ask you any questions? You know, general advice? Things she might be worried about?”

  Randa glanced at Heather. “She had no major concerns, no.”

  “What about minor concerns? Do you recall whether she asked you any questions at all?”

  She shifted. “She only asked me one question, and it was entirely unremarkable under the circumstances. In fact,” she said, openly irked, “most of the moms I’ve worked with asked me this question at one time or another.”

  “And what question is that?” Charter said, preemptively smug.

  “When she could have sex again. After the birth.”

  “Really,” Charter said. “That’s what she wanted to know? Not what she ought to feed the baby? Or worries about the baby’s health?”

  Randa glared at him. “I think she was able to answer those questions on her own, Mr. Charter. Most mothers can.”

  “And all she wanted to know from you was when she could have sex again?”

  A crisp nod. “As I said.”

  “All right.” He emphatically flipped a page of his legal pad. “Now, at what point in her second pregnancy did Heather again place herself under your care?”

  Momentarily thrown, Randa shook her head. “She didn’t. She didn’t call to say she was pregnant again.”

  Charter mimed surprise. “Never? Despite the fact that her experience with you was so positive the first time around?”

  “I didn’t know she was pregnant again until”—another uncomfortable glance at Heather—“I was told. By you.”

  “In your opinion, Miss Burns, is it wise to go through a pregnancy without medical supervision?”

  She appeared to consider her words. “It’s far wiser to be supervised. Even women who have experienced a complication-free pregnancy could be at risk for complications in subsequent pregnancies. Of course, she might have felt that her first pregnancy had been sufficiently recent that she could recognize any symptom that might be abnormal and could contact me then. But no. It isn’t wise. I certainly wouldn’t encourage it.”

  “How would you characterize Heather’s general health, Miss Burns?”

  “Excellent, I’d say.”

  “And her general ability to bear children?”

  “Well, in terms of fertility, she was obviously fertile. In terms of carrying a baby to term, she was clearly capable of that, too.”

  Charter nodded sagely. “So no outstanding difficulties, then?”

  Randa said there weren’t.

  “In your opinion, could Heather have delivered an infant without assistance?”

  The midwife looked uncomfortable. “It’s really impossible to say. There are many, many cases in which women deliver unassisted. Most women, thankfully, don’t have to. But certainly, it does happen.”

  “And would a strong woman like Heather, a woman who had already had one uncomplicated labor and delivery, stand a better chance of surviving such an ordeal than a first-time mom who might be panicky and not know what was happening?”

  Randa Burns considered. “It would be an advantage in that situation, I suppose.”

  “So it’s certainly possible.”

  She nodded grudgingly. “Yes.”

  “Could she have carried twins to term, Miss Burns?”

  The midwife looked across to Heather. “I didn’t see her during her pregnancy,” she told Charter.

  “I’m aware of that. That is not what I asked, however. Was there anything, any physical condition, that would have prevented her from either conceiving twins or carrying them to term?”

  Randa sighed and shook her head. “I can’t think of any,” she said finally.

  “Could she have delivered twins, alone and unassisted?”

  “It would certainly add to the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome,” the midwife said. She intended this, Naomi thought, as a jibe to Charter, but he did not seem to take it as such. Indeed, he shook his head with a kind of sage sobriety, looked meaningfully at the jury, and took his seat.

  Judith, Naomi knew, did not consider the midwife the type of threat that Ann Chase represented, but Randa’s very sympathy to the defense made it more difficult to score the kind of satisfying points Judith had won with Ann. She rose from her seat and smiled warmly at the witness. “Hi, Ms. Burns.”

  “Hello.”

  “Do you believe that, in ideal circumstances, women ought to be empowered to make their own decisions regarding their own health?”

  “Absolutely,” said Randa. “Women know their own needs and their own bodies far better than anyone else can be expected to.”

  “Do you consider pregnancy to be a kind of disease which must be medically supervised?”

  “No!” she said forcefully. “Pregnancy is a normal physical and psychological passage in a woman’s life. It is not a medical ‘condition.’ Western medicine insists on treating pregnanc
y and childbirth as a disease. I treat it as a different aspect of a woman’s health.”

  “So you wouldn’t necessarily feel that a pregnant woman who did not pursue medical supervision is showing depraved indifference to her health and her baby’s health.”

  Randa considered. “I would not, no.”

  “Is it depraved indifference for a pregnant woman to engage in certain behaviors—such as smoking, or drinking alcohol, or taking drugs—which might harm herself or her baby?”

  “No. Not depraved indifference. It’s not wise, but I don’t think of it as criminal. If it were, the jails would be full of pregnant women.”

  “Is it depraved indifference for a pregnant woman to drive her car without a seat belt?”

  “No.” She smiled. She saw where this was going.

  “What about skydiving?”

  “Nope!”

  “Race-car driving?”

  “Not criminal.”

  “Is it depraved indifference for a pregnant woman not to seek medical supervision during pregnancy?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. No. As far as I’m concerned, it’s kind of a dangerous question, too. Because, I mean, how many appointments would a woman have to miss before it was depraved indifference?”

  Judith nodded. She walked around her desk and sat. Her way, Naomi knew by now, of signaling a change in direction.

  “You testified that Heather established breast-feeding shortly after Polly’s birth. To the best of your knowledge, did she continue to breast-feed her daughter?”

  “I don’t know exactly when she stopped. I remember discussing breast-feeding with her at some length. We discussed my own belief that breast-feeding can and should continue until either the child or the mother wishes to stop. In other words, there is no set age by which the child should stop nursing.”

  “A one-year-old child should still nurse?”

  “Absolutely. If the child is still interested.”

  “Two years old? Three years old?”

  “Why not? The notion of breast-feeding as only for very young infants owes everything to Western images of women and nothing to the physical abilities and needs of mother and child. In some cultures, children nurse until puberty.”

  The men on the jury reacted, Naomi saw, but the women were mostly nonplussed.

  “Are you aware of the common belief that breast-feeding has a contraceptive effect? In other words, that so long as a woman is nursing she is protected from becoming pregnant?”

  Randa nodded. “Certainly I’m aware of it. But it’s not, unfortunately, true. There are plenty of unplanned children conceived while the mother is nursing. Breast-feeding may delay the recurrence of menstruation, and many people erroneously assume that pregnancy is not possible until menstruation recurs.”

  “When Heather asked you about resuming sexual activities after giving birth to Polly, did you warn her that she would require some type of birth control if she did not wish to get pregnant again?”

  The midwife frowned. “I don’t remember that coming up, to tell you the truth.”

  “So it’s possible that Heather was having sex with the misconception that she was protected from pregnancy, when in fact she had no such protection.”

  Randa considered. With one hand, she fingered the end of her black braid. “Yes, maybe.”

  “Isn’t the duration of a pregnancy usually measured from the first date of the woman’s last period?”

  “Yes, we use Nagle’s Rule to determine due date and, by extension, the period of gestation. We take one year from the date of the first day of the woman’s last menstrual period, then subtract three months, then add seven days. In other words, human gestation is, on average, 275 days from the first day of the woman’s last period.”

  “But if Heather did not, in fact, recommence menstruating after the birth of her daughter Polly, wouldn’t she find it rather difficult to gauge the onset of her second pregnancy?”

  “Yes, she would,” Randa said helpfully.

  “Is it possible that Heather did not know she was pregnant in January of last year?”

  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.”