The Sabbathday River (42 page)
Read The Sabbathday River Online
Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz
“Were you aware that many other people seemed to know about the affair?”
Ashley, sublimely unperturbed, merely shrugged. “Small minds, if they have nothing else to think about.”
“I take it you were aware, but not particularly bothered, then.”
“Not particularly.” He laughed. Then he said, “You know, it was nobody's business but ours.”
“And your wife's, perhaps?”
“Well, sure,” Ashley said responsibly. “That's more or less why I cut it off when I did. Because I could see my wife was upset.”
Naomi looked again at the jury. Her favorite alternate was rolling her eyes. One of the other women, she was delighted to note, had a look of utter incredulity on her face.
“Did Heather ever discuss with you any expectations she might have about your support of her daughter Polly?” said Charter.
“No.” Ashley's voice was firm. This point, Naomi thought, was somehow terribly important to him. “Never.”
“She never said, âAs the father of this child, I expect you to â¦'” He waited for Ashley to fill in the blank, but Ashley seemed unable to do this. “âContribute financially for her care? Spend time with her? Bring her gifts?'”
“Nothing like that,” he said. “I told you, she could take care of herself.”
“So she never requested that you be Polly's father?”
Judith stood. “Objection, your honor. I'd like Mr. Charter to clarify that he is speaking in terms of support and behavior. Mr. Deacon either is or is not the biological father of Heather's daughter Polly. One way or the other, it's a fact. He can't change his mind about it.”
“Quite true,” Hayes said. He looked at Charter expectantly.
Charter looked at Ashley. “She never said, âAshley, this is your child.' Did she?”
“Never,” he said emphatically.
“All right,” said Charter, evidently satisfied. He flipped a few sheets of his legal pad, then searched the yellow page with his fingertip.
“Let's talk about last January, Mr. Deacon. January 16. A Monday, I think.”
“I remember.” Ashley nodded. “We split up that day.”
“You went to work as usual that day?”
“Sure. And after, Heather and I drove into the woods.”
He let this sink in. “Was the baby with you that day?”
Ashley thought about it. “No. I guess she was home with Heather's grandmother.”
“What happened in the woods?”
“There were people there. My wife was there. They were making a big fuss.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I couldn't drive out. My car was blocked. So we walked out.”
“âWe' being?” Charter nudged.
“Me and Heather. We walked out. We walked all the way back to the mill where she worked.”
He nodded. “And what did you do when you got there?”
“Well,” he said evenly, “we went inside.”
“Oh,” said Charter disingenuously. “Was it open?”
“No, no,” said Ashley. “But I knew it wouldn't be hard to fix up the next day. So I broke the windowpane.”
“Really!” Charter said. “Now, whose idea was that?”
Ashley shrugged. “I really can't remember. Might have been hers. She was pretty excited.”
“Excited?” Charter said lecherously.
“Sexy excited,” Ashley spelled it out. “Well, me too. So we went upstairs. But after, I started to feel bad. About Sue. And I thought, This is just nuts. I've got Sue pissed off at me, and it isn't worth it. So I told Heather that was it.”
“I see,” Charter considered. “And how did she react to that?”
“Oh, fine. She just said goodbye. She didn't cry or anything, if that's what you mean.”
She was crying now, Naomi observed. Little snorts of grief, tamped down, wetly stifled. It amazed her that they weren't all staring, but then Naomi had been watching only Ashley's face. Now she looked around and saw that, in fact, she and Ashley were nearly the only ones not looking at Heather. The jury gaped openly at her, their faces variously disapproving and compassionate. Even Judith was murmuring something that sounded vaguely kind into Heather's ear. Heather, impervious, seemed to be reliving the moment of her abandonment with such uncontrollable force that Judge Hayes himself was leaning forward in his seat, first inquiring and then requiring a break for everyone. The jury was removed, some shaking their heads. When the door closed behind them, Charter leaped to his feet and condemned the defendant's “blatant grandstanding,” her “cynical histrionics,” but he could barely be heard over Heather's wailing. Naomi got up from her seat and went to Heather. She waited for someone to stop her, but no one did, so she put her arm around the girl and held her, hardening herself against the mucus-sweet smell of Heather's grief.
The break lasted ten minutes, during which Ashley excused himself to go to the bathroom and Charter, his face pink with anger, wrote notes in his tight-fisted hand. Heather, by tiny increments, seemed to bring herself under control. She rocked in small movements, her back
slumped against her wooden chair. “I can't do this,” she confided. Judith, angry, turned away.
slumped against her wooden chair. “I can't do this,” she confided. Judith, angry, turned away.
“The worst is almost over, I think,” Naomi lied. She was crouching next to Heather's chair. “Jesus, who knew he was such a bastard?”
“But he's not,” she sobbed anew. “He isn't. I don't understand why this is happening.”
To that, Naomi could say nothing. She gave Heather a last squeeze and went back to her seat. The jury returned. Then Ashley came back. His face had a sheen, though not of sweat. He looked cool, washed and blotted dry, his hands thrust deep into his jeans pockets. He passed them, rigorously impervious to their staresâNaomi's baleful, Heather's imploringâand returned to his seat. Charter, still red-faced in frustration, set off again without delay.
“So after you broke into the mill where Heather was employed, you went upstairs and had sex. Do I have that right?”
“Yeah,” he said affably. “She was pretty wild that night. I remember that.”
“Oh yes?” Charter said, discernibly eager. This, it struck Naomi, must be some kind of unanticipated morsel.
“Yes. I guess it kind of ⦠well, the danger of it, right? Like, we ran away from all those people. I guess it turned her on.”
Judith, cursing beneath her breath, quickly objected. “I wish the witness would stick to his own thoughts, rather than speculating on other people's.”
Hayes leaned over to Ashley. “Mr. Deacon, kindly limit your testimony to what you experienced or observed, and refrain from making assumptions about what other people were thinking.”
“Sure.” Ashley said agreeably, as if the damage were not already done.
“There was something different in Heather's sexual
behavior
that night?” Charter immediately picking up the scent again and emphasizing the key word with a fairly unpleasant leer.
behavior
that night?” Charter immediately picking up the scent again and emphasizing the key word with a fairly unpleasant leer.
“She wanted me to do something different to her.”
Heather, white, put down her head. She put it down on the table, turning one cheek to its surface. She looked alarmingly serene, as if she had been struck deaf and could not hear what he was saying about her. Ashley went on talking. In the jury box, fourteen faces reacted.
“And this was how Heather responded to being confronted by your wife and others in the woods?”
“She thoughtâ”
“Your honor!” Judith slapped the table with her fist.
“Mr. Deacon, you could not possibly know what the defendant, or anyone else, was thinking.”
“She said it. She said she thought I was going to leave my wife for her. I said no way. I never said I was going to leave my wife. I wouldn't ever do that.”
“So Heather would have been mistaken in that belief, then.”
“Totally. It was just nuts.”
“And after that nightâafter you left that nightâwhere did you go?”
“Back home. I might have stopped off for a drink first. But I went home after.”
“And did you speak with Heather after that night?” Charter said.
“Nope. Never. I don't know what she did, but I had no part of it.” He paused, and looked at her for the first time since entering the courtroom. “I feel bad for her, though. I mean, I'm not a creep.”
Naomi glared at him. Ashley looked back at Charter.
“Mr. Deacon, when did you become aware that Heather had again become pregnant?”
He pursed his lips. “Well, not till you told me,” he said. “Would have been last fall, I guess.”
“Miss Pratt did not contact you to tell you about the pregnancy?”
“Nope.”
“But during Miss Pratt's first pregnancy, when she clearly considered you to be the father of her child, she did inform you, didn't she?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe this time she thought it was somebody else's.”
“I see,” Charter said thoughtfully. He studied his legal pad for a moment, tapping the pencil in his right hand against the palm of his left. “Any ideas who that somebody might have been?”
Ashley looked up at the ceiling. “Well, she didn't tell me who else she was seeing, so I really couldn't say.”
“She didn't tell you she was seeing Christopher Flynn?”
Judith, her hands tied, moved her jaw in frustration.
“No.”
“But as far as you're concerned, she might have been seeing Christopher Flynn, and indeed other men in addition to him.”
“I don't know who all she was seeing,” Ashley said tersely. “I told
you, she didn't say, and I didn't ask. Most of the time I wasn't around her, you know.”
you, she didn't say, and I didn't ask. Most of the time I wasn't around her, you know.”
Charter gave the jury a moment to give this observation weight.
“For the record, Mr. Deacon, where were you between September 19 and 20 of last year?”
Then he grinned, lit with paternal pride. “Well, down at Mary Hitchcock mostly. My wife went into labor on the afternoon of the eighteenth. I stayed in the room almost all the time. Her folks were there, too. And our son Benjamin was born the next afternoon at four. I just stayed at the hospital till she checked out the day after that.”
Charter allowed Ashley to glow for a moment. Then he went still and solemn. “Mr. Deacon, did you have any idea what happened to Heather Pratt's infants?”
He had already begun to shake his head when Judith interrupted. “Objection, your honor. There's been no evidence to show that Heather's pregnancy produced two infants, rather than one. I don't appreciate Mr. Charter's attempts to introduce this notion.”
“Nor do I,” Hayes said dryly. “Mr. Charter, you are cautioned.”
“And I apologize,” the D.A. said smoothly. “Mr. Deacon, do you have any knowledge at all about what might have befallen the infant or infants to which Heather Pratt gave birth on or about September 19 to 20?”
“Absolutely not!” Ashley said fiercely, looking, for the first time, utterly affronted.
And on this note, Charter was finished.
They all took a break after that. Judith could barely rouse Heather, who gradually sat upright but was dazed and thick, anesthetized against pain by the force of her pain, like someone in new, cataclysmic grief. Naomi, watching her, thought for the first time that she might be illâclinically, corporally illâand wondered if she ought to say something to Judith. A doctorânot a psychiatrist, not some fertility specialist or forensic clinician, but a real doctorâought to look at Heather, and do basic things like take her pulse and look into her mouth and ears. This wasn't normal. Nobody who stumbled through the day this way, this white and unsteady on her feet, was normal. She reached forward to touch Heather, and the girl remained inert, only her thin back making little, fluttering shudders. The jury went out, then filed back in.
Judith was itching for her crack at him. She leaped up and walked
over, smiling with a warmth Naomi certainly distrusted. She was in her element already, thrilled, tensed for the starter's gun.
over, smiling with a warmth Naomi certainly distrusted. She was in her element already, thrilled, tensed for the starter's gun.
“Mr. Deacon,” Judith said. “Ashley, after all. We've met before today, haven't we?”
“Yuh.” Ashley nodded. “I put in some French doors for you.”
“You did a great job.” Judith grinned at the jury.
“Thanks,” he said warily.
“Now, you've told the jury all about how you met your wife at the University of Vermont, and how you moved to Goddard after you got married and started up your business and had your two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. Is that right?”
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