The Sabbathday River

by Jean Hanff Korelitz

  “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 Then she rescinded that information and claimed that she had had a full-term baby outside on the hill behind her house.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?”

  In front of Naomi, Judith straightened and loudly objected. “Your honor, we’ve had no proof as yet that either of these infants was murdered.”

  “Two dead infants?” Charter suggested sarcastically.

  Judith sat, scowling.

  “Well, about a week after Heather made her statement, Naomi Roth called me to come out to Heather’s house. She had found a second baby in a little pond at the bottom of the hill behind the house. So we had two,” he said lamely.

  “And did you interview Heather Pratt about the second baby?”

  “No. Her attorney would not permit a second interview.” He paused. “I would very much like to have interviewed her again, but it just wasn’t possible.”

  “You had questions you needed answered, didn’t you?” Charter said with eminently false sympathy.

  He nodded. “Many questions. Yes.”

  “Questions about the second baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “Questions about other men in Heather Pratt’s life?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she was no longer cooperative, was she?”

  “She did not agree to speak to us again.”

  “Officer Erroll, did you conduct your investigation in a responsible, professional, and thorough manner?”

  He looked sad. “I tried to. I … There were others involved in the investigation. We worked together. We tried to do our best.”

  “Was the woman who eventually emerged as your
suspect, Heather Pratt, treated with dignity and fairness?”

  “She was,” Nelson said.

  “Was she forced in any way to make a confession, or identify the weapon she had used, or give a detailed statement to the police?”

  He shook his head, but not very emphatically.

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Can you think of any reason why Heather Pratt should claim that she was forced to confess, and that she confessed falsely to this crime?”

  “It happens very often that people recant their confessions,” Nelson said. “But I can’t think of a specific reason in this case.”

  “Thank you, Officer Nelson.” And Charter was done.

  Judith rose. Naomi, who lacked her habitual taste for revenge in this instance, did not quite relish the cross-examination to come. Nelson was drumming his fingers on the thighs of the brown corduroys he wore. He looked resigned, but not particularly strong. He looked as if he was not quite fortified, not quite committed to the cause.

  “Do you often conduct your investigations by public opinion poll, Officer Erroll?”

  Nelson, to his credit, took this without offense. “I’ve never conducted an investigation like this before. I was willing to take advice wherever I could get it.”

  “Including advice based on nothing more than suspicion?”

  “Sometimes suspicion can be useful,” Nelson observed. “People can certainly misplace suspicion, but often a person attracts suspicion because he does, in fact, warrant it.”

  “Did any of your callers possess actual, direct evidence that Heather Pratt was involved with this crime?”

  “No one knew anything,” Nelson said. “There was no direct evidence.”

  “And yet the consensus was that Heather Pratt was the guilty party.”

  “There were many calls about her,” he said.

  “She wasn’t very well liked, was she?” said Judith. “I mean, by her neighbors.”

  Nelson nodded. “That’s true.”

  “In fact, she was rather vehemently disliked, wasn’t she?”

  “True.”

  Judith gave the jury a sad look. “When these … informants called you to talk about Heather Pratt, did they only discuss her supposed pregnancy?”

  “No. In fact, only one or two mentioned that they thought she might have been pregnant.”

  Judith looked surprised. She was surprised, Naomi thought. This was a windfall. “Only one or two? And the rest of them? What did they talk about?”

  “Heather’s …” He glanced at Naomi. “Her character, I guess you’d say. People knew about her affair with Ashley Deacon, and they knew who Polly’s father was. I think they were pretty disgusted by the whole thing.”

  “I see,” Judith said. “And so, this is how you came to focus your investigation on Heather? Because her neighbors were pretty disgusted by her affair with Ashley?”

  He shrugged. “I guess you could put it that way.”

  “And is that, in your own opinion, enough reason to accuse a woman of murder?”

  The question caught him off guard, but he didn’t look angry. “No,” he said carefully. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then why did you accuse her, Officer Erroll?” Judith asked. “What was the evidence that convinced you Heather Pratt had given birth to the infant known as the Sabbathday River baby?”

  He looked uncomfortably at Charter. Thus far, Naomi knew, Charter had had barely a walk-on role in the official story of the investigation. She wondered why Judith had chosen to let this falsehood alone, and if she ever planned to confront it.

  “We had established from Ashley Deacon that the affair had ended the previous January. We had established that, in the opinion of some observers, Heather might have been pregnant in the late summer. These two things were enough to justify our interviewing Heather. Other information emerged from the interview.”

  Judith smiled. “Ah yes,” she said, almost happily. “The interview. From the fact that you use the word ‘interview’ rather than the word ‘interrogation,’ I infer that this was a voluntary conversation, that you did not force Miss Pratt to come to the police station and speak with you.”

  “In no way was Heather forced,” Nelson said, looking a little resentful for the first time.

  “You gave her a call, asked her if she would come in and have a chat, and she came. Is that it?”

  He shook his head. “No. We went out to her house. She came back to the station with us.”

  “Us?” Judith said. “How many officers makes an ‘us’?”

  “I believe there were three cars. Six of us.”

  “Six officers? Three police cars? For a voluntary interview?” She sounded aghast.

  “It was voluntary,” Nelson said stiffly.

  “And at what time of day was this invitation extended?”

  “I believe it was late in the afternoon. About five.”

  “Was it dark out?” Judith asked.

  Nelson nodded. “Getting there.”

  “And what was Heather doing when you arrived with three police cars and six officers to extend your invitation, Officer Erroll?”

  He looked, for the briefest instant, at Heather. “Cooking dinner.”

  “In fact, you left her chicken roasting in the oven when you took her away, didn’t you? I hope somebody remembered to turn the oven off,” she said archly.

  Nelson didn’t answer, but his discomfort was eloquent.

  “Let’s talk a little bit more about this voluntary interview,” said Judith. She was speaking without notes, her arms folded as she leaned back against her table. She was settling in. “It must have been after dark by the time this young woman and her fourteen-month-old daughter got to the police station in Goddard Falls with her six-police-officer escort. Did you place her in an interrogation room?”

  “An interview room, yes.”

  “Was Polly just about falling asleep in Heather’s lap?”

  He knew what she was asking, and he didn’t shy away from it. “She wasn’t in Heather’s lap. She was in another room. She was well cared for,” he added.

  “Well cared for?” Judith sounded amazed. “You take this baby out of her home, at night, and transport her in a strange car to a strange place, and then take her away from her mother, and you think that’s well cared for?”

  “A female police officer was with her. She was perfectly safe. And we needed to speak with Heather while she was not distracted.”

  “Don’t you think the thought of her daughter in another room with a stranger must have been pretty distracting?”

  He thought about it and answered honestly. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “But that didn’t bother you because you needed to have your voluntary talk with Heather.”

  “The interview was entirely proper.”

  “Yes, so you said earlier. You also said that Heather did not ask for an attorney. Was she made aware that it was her right to have an attorney present?”

  Nelson considered. “I don’t know for a fact that she knew that. Most people know that.”

  “But you don’t know if Heather knew it.”

  “I don’t know, no.”

  “And you didn’t tell her, Officer Erroll, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Because, as you’re well aware, an attorney would almost certainly have ordered you to stop your … interview.” Judith smiled.

  “I was not under an obligation to tell Heather about her rights at this point. She was not under arrest.”

  “Oh?” Judith said, sounding surprised. “Could she have left if she’d wanted?”

  “Sure.” He nodded, but he didn’t look at her.

  “Just get up and leave? ‘I don’t feel like talking. See ya!’”

  “She could have, if she’d wanted.”

  “But instead she elected to go with you and five other police officers in the middle of feeding her daughter dinner and then remain in the police station as the evening wore on an
d her daughter was kept with strangers in another room, talking about her sexual partners and her private experiences. She could have gotten up and left at any time, but she preferred to spend her evening this way, with you and District Attorney Charter?”

  Nelson looked at the jury—but he did not like looking at the jury either.

  “I can’t know what was going on in Heather’s head, Ms. Friedman.”

  “Did Heather inquire about her daughter Polly, who was with a stranger while she herself was being interrogated?”

  He reacted to the word, but he did not quarrel with her over it. “She might have. I don’t really remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.”

  “And she didn’t ask for an attorney.”

  “I said she didn’t.”

  Judith nodded. “Right. So you did. You said that Heather first denied her pregnancy, then admitted her pregnancy but said she had miscarried her baby, is that correct?”

  Nelson said it was.

  “And then she confessed that she had had a full-term baby which she stabbed and threw into the Sabbathday River?”

  “Right.” He ducked his head.

  “Are you sure you’re not leaving anything out? Are you sure you’re not omitting any interim steps here? After all, this was a rather lengthy interview, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t think I’m leaving anything out,” he said stiffly.

  “No? What about the part where she consistently denied any connection to a stabbed baby in the Sabbathday River? What about the part where she said she had had a stillborn baby in the back field and placed its body in a pond, near the spot where it was born?”

  “I don’t remember that,” Nelson said quickly. “That wasn’t part of her statement.”

  “What about the part where she offered to show you where she had put the body of her own stillborn baby, and you refused to allow her to do so?”

  “No,” Nelson objected. “That didn’t happen.”

  “What about the part where she was told that she would never be allowed to take her daughter home unless she confessed to a brutal crime she insisted had nothing to do with her?”