Plain Truth

by Jodie Picoult

  “Why didn’t you wake anyone up, or go to a doctor, or try to find that baby?”

  Her eyes brightened with tears. “I don’t know. I should have. I know that now.”

  “When you woke up the next morning, what happened?”

  She wiped her hand across her eyes. “It was like nothing had changed,” she said brokenly. “If everyone had looked a little different; if I’d felt poorly, maybe I wouldn’t have . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she looked away. “I thought that maybe I’d made it all up, that nothing had happened to me. I wanted to believe that, because then I wouldn’t have to wonder about where the baby was.”

  “Did you know where the baby was?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t remember taking it anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t remember waking up with the baby in your arms at any time?”

  “No. After I woke up, he was already gone.”

  Ellie nodded. “Did you plan to get rid of the baby?”

  “No.”

  “Did you want to get rid of the baby?”

  “Not once I’d seen him,” Katie said softly.

  Ellie was now standing only a foot away. Katie waited for her question, waited to speak the words she had come here to say. But with a nearly imperceptible shake of her head, Ellie turned to the jury. “Thank you,” she said. “Nothing further.”

  Frankly, George was baffled. He’d expected more flashes of brilliance from Ellie Hathaway in a direct examination of her client, but she hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary. More importantly, neither had the witness. Katie Fisher had said what anyone would expect her to say-none of which added up to Ellie’s disclaimer in chambers this morning.

  He smiled at Katie. “Good morning, Ms. Fisher.”

  “You can call me Katie.”

  “Katie, then. Let’s pick up where you just left off. You fell asleep holding the baby, and when you woke up, he was gone. You were the only eyewitness that night. So tell us-what happened to that baby?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, a tear leaking from one corner. “I killed him.”

  George stopped in his tracks. The gallery erupted in confusion, and the judge rapped her gavel for quiet. Turning to Ellie, George lifted his palms in question. She was sitting at the defense table, looking almost bored, and he realized this had not been a surprise to her. Meeting his gaze, she shrugged.

  “You killed your baby?”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  He stared at the girl on the stand, looking powerfully beaten as she curled into herself in misery. “How did you do it?”

  Katie shook her head.

  “You must answer the question.”

  She clenched her hands around her middle. “I just want to make my things right.”

  “Hang on now. You just confessed to killing your baby. Now I’m asking you to tell us how you killed him.”

  “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I can’t.”

  George turned to Judge Ledbetter. “Approach?”

  The judge nodded, and Ellie walked up beside him to the bench. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  “Ms. Hathaway?”

  Ellie raised a brow. “Ever hear of the Fifth Amendment, George?”

  “It’s a little late,” the prosecutor said. “She’s already incriminated herself.”

  “Not necessarily,” Ellie said coolly, although she and George both realized she was lying through her teeth.

  “Mr. Callahan, you know very well that the witness can take the Fifth whenever she chooses.” The judge turned to Ellie. “However, she needs to ask for it by name.”

  Ellie glanced at Katie. “She doesn’t know what it’s called, Your Honor. She just knows she doesn’t want to say anything else about this.”

  “Your Honor, Ms. Hathaway can’t speak for the witness. If I don’t hear the defendant officially plead the Fifth, I’m not buying it.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “May I have a moment with my client?” She walked to the witness stand. Katie was shaking like a leaf, and with no small degree of shame Ellie realized that was partly because she expected a tirade. “Katie,” she said quietly. “If you don’t want to talk about the crime, all you have to do is say in English, ‘I take the Fifth.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s part of the Constitution. It means you have the right to remain silent, even though you’re on the stand, so that your words can’t be used against you. Understand?”

  Katie nodded, and Ellie walked back to the defense table to sit down.

  “Please tell us how you killed your baby,” George repeated.

  Katie darted a glance at Ellie. “I take the Fifth,” she said haltingly.

  “What a surprise,” George muttered. “All right, then. Let’s go back to the beginning. You lied to your father so that you could see your brother at college. You did this from the time you were twelve?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re eighteen now.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “In six years’ time did your father ever find out you were visiting your brother?”

  “No.”

  “You would have just kept lying, wouldn’t you?”

  “I didn’t lie,” Katie said. “He never asked.”

  “In six years, he never asked how your weekend with your aunt went?”

  “My father doesn’t speak of my aunt.”

  “How lucky. Then, you lied to your brother about sleeping with his roommate?”

  “He-”

  “No, let me guess. He never asked, right?”

  Confused, Katie shook her head. “No, he didn’t.”

  “You never told Adam Sinclair he’d fathered a child?”

  “He’d gone overseas.”

  “You never told your mother about your pregnancy, or anyone else for that matter?”

  “No.”

  “And when the police came the morning after you gave birth, you lied to them as well.”

  “I wasn’t sure it had actually happened,” Katie said, her voice small.

  “Oh, please. You’re eighteen years old. You’d had sex. You knew you were pregnant, even if you didn’t want to admit it. You’ve seen countless women in your community have babies. Are you trying to tell me you didn’t know what had happened to you that night?”

  Katie was crying silently again. “I can’t explain how my head was, except that it wasn’t working like normal. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I didn’t want to believe that it might not have been a dream.” She twisted the edge of her apron in her fists. “I know I’ve done something wrong. I know that it’s time for me to take responsibility for what happened.”

  George leaned so close his words fell into her lap. “Then tell us how you did it.”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  “Ah. That’s right. Just like you figured that if you didn’t talk about your pregnancy, it would disappear. And like you didn’t tell people you murdered your baby, assuming they’d never find out. But that’s not the way things work, is it, Katie? Even if you don’t tell us how you killed your baby, he’s still dead, isn’t he?”

  “Objection,” Ellie called out. “He’s badgering the witness.”

  Katie hunched in the chair, sobbing openly. George’s eyes flickered over her once; then he turned dismissively. “Withdrawn. I’m through here.”

  Judge Ledbetter sighed. “Let’s take fifteen. Ms. Hathaway, why don’t you take your client somewhere to compose herself?”

  “Of course,” Ellie said, wondering how to help Katie pull herself together when she herself was falling apart.

  The conference room was dark and dingy, with nonfunctioning fluorescent bulbs that spit and hissed and emitted no viable source of light. Ellie sat at an ugly wooden table, tracing a coffee stain that was likely as old as Katie. As for her client, she was standing near the chalkboard in the front of the room, weeping.

  “I’d
like to have some sympathy for you, Katie, but you asked for this.” Ellie pushed away from the table and turned her back. Maybe if she didn’t look at Katie, the sobs wouldn’t be quite so loud. Or upsetting.

  “I wanted it to be over,” Katie stammered, her face swollen and red. “But it wasn’t like I expected.”

  “Oh, no? What were you expecting-some movie-of-the-week where you break down and the jury breaks down right along with you?”

  “I just wanted to be forgiven.”

  “Well, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen right now. You just kissed your freedom good-bye, sweetheart. Forget about forgiveness from your church. Forget about seeing your parents, or having a relationship with Adam.”

  “Samuel asked me to marry him,” Katie whispered miserably.

  Ellie snorted. “You might want to let him know that conjugal visits are hard to come by in the state correctional facility.”

  “I don’t want conjugal visits. I don’t want to have another baby. What if I-” Katie broke off suddenly and turned away.

  “What if you what?” Ellie shot back. “Smother it in a moment of weakness?”

  “No!” Katie’s eyes filled with tears again. “It’s that disease, that bacteria. What if it’s still in me? What if I give it to all of my babies?”

  Above Ellie’s head, the bulb fizzed and popped. She slowly stared at Katie, from her obvious remorse to the way her fingers now clutched at the thick fabric of her bodice, as if this illness was something that might be scratched out of her. She thought of how Katie had once told her that you confessed to whatever the deacon charged you with. She thought of how a girl used to having others accuse her of sinning might hear the pathologist’s testimony and take the blame for something that was, in truth, an accident.

  She looked at Katie, and saw the way her mind worked.

  Ellie walked across the room and grasped her shoulders. “Tell me now,” she said. “Tell me how you killed your baby.”

  “Your Honor,” Ellie began, “I’d like to redirect.”

  She could feel George looking at her like she’d lost her mind, and for good reason: with a confession on the court record, there wasn’t too much Ellie could do to erase all the damage that had been done. She watched Katie take the stand again and shift restlessly in the seat, nervous and pale. “When the prosecutor asked you if you killed your baby, you said yes.”

  “That’s right,” Katie answered.

  “When he asked you to explain the method of homicide, you didn’t want to talk.”

  “No.”

  “I’m asking you now: Did you smother the baby?”

  “No,” Katie murmured, her voice cracking wide open over the syllable.

  “Did you intentionally end the baby’s life?”

  “No. Never.”

  “How did you kill your baby, Katie?”

  She took a deep, rattling breath. “You heard the doctor. He said I killed him by having that infection, and passing it on. If I wasn’t the baby’s mother, he would have lived.”

  “You murdered your baby by passing along listeria from your body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what you meant when you told Mr. Callahan you’d killed your baby?”

  “Yes.”

  “You told us before that in your church, if you sin, you have to confess in front of the other members.”

  “Ja.”

  “What’s that like?”

  Katie swallowed. “Well, it’s terrifying, that’s what. First there’s the whole Sunday service. After the sermon comes a song, and then all the nonmembers, they leave. The bishop calls your name, and you have to get up and sit right in front of the ministers and answer their questions loud enough that the entire congregation can hear you. The whole time, everyone’s watching, and your heart is pounding so loud you can hardly hear the bishop talk.”

  “What if you didn’t sin?”

  Katie looked up. “What do you mean?”

  “What if you’re innocent?” Ellie thought back to the conversation they’d had months ago, praying that Katie remembered too. “What if the deacon says you went skinny-dipping, and you didn’t?”

  Katie frowned. “You confess anyway.”

  “Even though you didn’t do it?”

  “Yes. If you don’t show how sorry you are, if you try to make excuses, it just gets more embarrassing. It’s hard enough walking up to the ministers with all your family and friends watching. You just want to get it over with, take the punishment, so that you can be forgiven and welcomed back.”

  “So . . . in your church, you have to confess in order to be forgiven. Even if you didn’t do it?”

  “Well, it’s not like people get accused of sinning for nothing. There’s a reason for it, most of the time. Even if the story isn’t quite right, usually you still did something wrong. And after you confess, the healing comes.”

  “Answer the question, Katie,” Ellie said, smiling tightly. “If your deacon came to you and said you’d sinned, and you hadn’t, you’d confess anyway?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Now-why did you want to be a witness in your trial?”

  Katie looked up. “To confess to the sin that I’ve been accused of.”

  “But that’s murder,” Ellie pointed out. “That means you intentionally killed your baby, that you wanted it dead. Is this true?”

  “No,” Katie whispered.

  “You had to know that coming here today and saying you killed your baby was going to make the jury believe you were guilty, Katie. Why would you do that?”

  “The baby is dead, and it’s because of me. It doesn’t matter if I smothered him or not, he’s still dead because of something I did. I should be punished.” She brought the hem of her apron up to wipe her eyes. “I wanted everyone to see how sorry I am. I wanted to confess,” she said quietly, “because that’s the only way I can be forgiven.”

  Ellie leaned on the edge of the witness box, blocking everyone else’s view for a moment. “I’ll forgive you,” she said softly, for Katie’s ears alone, “if you forgive me.” Then she turned to the judge. “Nothing further.”

  “Okay, so this is all twisted around now,” George said. “You killed the baby, but you didn’t murder it. You want to be punished so that you can be forgiven for something you didn’t mean to do in the first place.”

  “Yes.” Katie nodded.

  George hesitated for a moment, as if he was considering all this. Then he frowned. “So what happened to the baby?”

  “I made it sick, and it died.”

  “You know, the pathologist said that the baby was infected, but he admitted there were several reasons it might have died. Did you see the baby stop breathing?”

  “No. I was asleep. I don’t remember anything until I woke up.”

  “You never saw the baby after you woke up?”

  “It was gone,” Katie said.

  “And you want us to believe you had nothing to do with that?” George advanced on her. “Did you wrap the baby’s body in a blanket and hide it?”

  “No.”

  “Huh. I thought you said you don’t remember anything after you fell asleep.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Then technically, you can’t tell me for certain that you didn’t hide the baby.”

  “I guess not,” Katie said slowly, puzzled.

  George smiled, his grin as wide as a wolf’s. “And technically, you can’t tell me for sure that you didn’t smother the baby.”

  “Objection!”

  “Withdrawn,” George said. “Nothing further.”

  Ellie cursed beneath her breath. George’s pointed statement was the last thing the jury would hear as part of testimony. “The defense rests, Your Honor,” Ellie said. She watched Katie open the gate of the witness box and step down, crossing the room with studied caution, as if she now understood that something as stable as solid ground might at any moment tilt beneath her feet.

  “You know,” Ellie s
aid to the jury. “I wish I could tell you exactly what happened in the early hours of the morning of July tenth, in the Fishers’ barn, but I can’t. I can’t, because I wasn’t there. Neither was Mr. Callahan, and neither were any of the other experts you’ve seen paraded through here during the past few days.

  “There’s only one person who was actually there, who also spoke to you in this courtroom-and that’s Katie Fisher. Katie, an Amish girl who can’t remember exactly what happened that morning. Katie, who stood up here wracked with guilt and shame, convinced that the accidental transmission of a disease in utero to her fetus made her responsible for the baby’s death. Katie, who is so upset over losing her child she thinks she deserves to be punished, even when she’s innocent. Katie, who wants to be forgiven for something she did not intentionally do.”

  Ellie trailed her hand along the rail of the jury box. “And that lack of intention, ladies and gentlemen, is quite important. Because in order to find Katie guilty of murder in the first degree, the prosecution must convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Katie killed her child with premeditation, willfulness, and deliberation. First, that means she planned this murder. Yet you’ve heard that no Amishman would ever consider such violence, no Amishman would choose an action that valued pride over humility or an individual decision over the society’s rules. Second, it means that Katie wanted this baby dead. Yet you’ve witnessed the look on Katie’s face when she first saw the father of her child again, when she told you that she loved him. Third, it means that she intentionally murdered her baby. Yet you’ve been shown proof that an infection transmitted during pregnancy could very well have caused the baby to die-a tragedy, but an accident all the same.

  “It is the prosecution’s job to prove to you that Katie Fisher’s baby was killed. My job is to show you that there might be a viable, realistic, possible reason for the death of Katie’s infant other than first-degree murder. If there’s more than one way to look at what happened that morning, if there’s even the slightest doubt in your mind, you have no choice but to acquit.”

  Ellie walked toward Katie and stood behind her. “I wish I could tell you what happened or did not happen the morning of July tenth,” she repeated, “but I can’t. And if I don’t know for sure-how can you?”

  “Ms. Hathaway’s right-but only about one thing. Katie Fisher doesn’t know exactly what happened the morning she gave birth.” George surveyed the faces of the jury. “She doesn’t know, and she’s admitted to that-as well as to killing her baby.”