The Sabbathday River (62 page)

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Authors: Jean Hanff Korelitz

BOOK: The Sabbathday River
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Another wound.
A blow upon the bruise.
“Listen, there's no reason why we shouldn't do this in a dignified and equitable manner.”
“Equitable,
Daniel?”
“There's no reason we should have to involve lawyers.”
“What?”
“Though I've spoken to one of our neighbors in Woodstock, who is an attorney. And he feels it would be best to have the house appraised and take it from there. Certainly I have no objection to your buying me out if we can reach a price we both feel is fair.”
She shook her head. “God, you're a bastard, Daniel.”
“Of course you feel that way. It's normal,” he reassured her blandly.
She got to her feet, not entirely steady. “Well, while this house is still mine, I'd like you to leave it, please.”
He sighed, and stood. “All right. You know, I'm sorry you're reacting like this, though I'm not really surprised. I thought, at least, you'd bring your business acumen to bear on the situation.”
“My business acumen,” she observed, shaking her head. “You detested my business acumen. You said my values were defective. You said my conduct was unbefitting a socialist.”
“It was,” Daniel said languidly. “And it is.”
“You're too busy perfecting your own life to have an impact on anybody else's. Your mom and dad knocked themselves out to change the world, and you're just sitting there with the rest of the converted, preaching into thin air.”
“Are you finished?” He half smiled.
“What have you done?”
Naomi shouted.
“What have you done to make the world better? What have you done except talk?”
Daniel shrugged on his parka. “I'm staying down in Hanover with Katya. If you want to reach me tomorrow, we're at the Chieftain Motel. If I don't hear from you, I'll have my neighbor write you a letter, and we can do all this by mail. You're looking well, Naomi.”
“You said that already.”
“Take care.”
And he left. She stood where she had been standing, uncertain of where she would go when the potential for movement returned. On the floorboards in front of the couch bits of dried earth ringed the place where his feet had been. From outside there was the unmistakable sound of a car, slogging and spinning in muck, trying to make way. Then the tires caught and pulled him up—out of the mud and the stones, and away down the road.
Human Error
JUDITH WAS WHITE. NAOMI SAT STILL IN HER seat, mildly watching the mime of argument, the stray gestures and overworking of jaws. They looked almost comical against each other, Judith with her blanched skin and bobbing black curls, and Charter red in the face with his colorless comb-over. It amazed her how little she had come to care about all this, even about Heather, who slumped a few feet before her, numb with Valium and grief. This, she was beginning to understand, would not end soon. They would always be here, the same players in the same seats, watching the same mute drama. Only outside, on the steps of the courthouse, would the participants change. Today there were more—more Dartmouth students, men included, more Boston matrons fired by the
Globe
editorial into a froth of righteous anger, and for the first time a tentative cell of her own neighbors, each carrying a flimsy placard that read GODDARD SUPPORTS HEATHER. This ought to be remarkable, but Naomi was no longer in a mood to find anything remarkable.
Nor was she surprised, any longer, to be still here in the courtroom
—though after Nelson's confession she had indulged in a spasm of relief: surely it would end now. Surely Warren, the attorney general and nobody's fool, would stop the trial in its tracks and publicly haul Robert Charter down to Concord and across the coals of his office portal before summoning what dignity he could to drop all charges against Heather. Judith did not concur, and of course she had turned out to be right. No public announcement followed Nelson's visit to Naomi, but Judith believed that Warren was watching closely now, whether Charter knew it or not. He would not compromise himself by drawing attention to Charter's excesses, but he was watching closely.
In her lap, she held Ella's latest proclamation, a sheet of lavender bearing what was by now the conventional wisdom surrounding Heather's tragedy. Naomi, with nothing to do but watch Judith fight with Charter in the sidebar, read it again, straining for enlightenment:
WHO KILLED THE GODDARD BABIES?
1 Man:
Ashley Deacon, who refused to accept responsibility for his children.
2 Men:
Nelson Erroll and Robert Charter, who used intimidation to force a false confession.
A Town Full of Men:
who condemned a woman for her sexuality.
A Society of Men:
for whom a woman is always suspect.
Naomi sighed and crumpled the page. She knew why Judith was angry. She knew that David Keller was sitting outside in the courtroom hallway, waiting to testify, reading a copy of
The New York Times
and getting impatient, and that Charter, who had said his interrupted psychiatrist would be the final prosecution witness this morning, now wanted to put somebody else on the stand.
Hayes, evidently refreshed from his long weekend break, seemed to possess the patience neither of the two attorneys could summon. He sat placidly, his chin planted on his two fists, listening and nodding.
When he made his decision and sent them back to their seats, Judith
turned with a bitter face. Naomi sighed. Evidently they were now going to hear from Charter's unanticipated witness, after all.
The door behind them opened, and a man named Bob Rena was called. Naomi did not know a Bob Rena and turned with mild curiosity. This was more curiosity than Heather herself seemed to muster. She continued to sit stodgily in her place, her white arms outstretched on the tabletop to maintain her balance, and barely shifted her gaze to look. Judith, as if in compensation for all the indifference, stared intently at this unanticipated personage, as if hoping to glean from his appearance some clue to who he was, or why he was here.
Bob Rena, for what it was worth, turned out to be a husky kid of twenty or so, with thick brown hair and a rather pleased expression. That he was a Dartmouth student was evident from his sweatshirt in green and white, which plainly announced Dartmouth Rugby, and the rest of his outfit (old corduroys and new Dock-Siders) did nothing to counter the impression. He walked deliberately up the aisle with a comfortable grin on his face, holding a small white paperback book in his hand as if it were a Bible. When he passed Heather he did not so much as look at her, so intent was he on getting to the witness seat and saying whatever it was that he had come to say.
He took the oath and sat down. Judith glared at him, her pen poised over her legal pad, waiting to learn who he was and why he was important enough to send the prosecution case into overtime.
“Mr. Rena,” Charter said, “can you tell me why you contacted me last Friday afternoon?”
“Sure.” The kid had a deep voice. “I saw something about this case in
The Manchester Union Leader
. I don't usually read the paper, but it was lying around the house and I saw her picture.”
“Who do you mean by ‘her'?” said Charter eagerly.
“Hers.” Rena nodded in Heather's direction. “That girl. Heather. And I remembered her.”
“You remembered meeting Heather Pratt?”
“Sure. It was a while ago, but I remembered. And I checked to make sure.” He held up the white book.
Dartmouth Class of 1987,
it read in bright green letters. “Then I was sure, when I saw her picture.”
“When did you meet Heather?” Charter moved to the front of his table.
“At Dartmouth. It was my sophomore fall. So two and a half years ago.”
“That would be the fall of 1983, during Heather's first week at college. Before she dropped out.”
Judith objected to the term, but was swiftly overruled.
“Did you meet Heather in one of your classes?” Charter said. “Or perhaps in the dining hall?”
Rena grinned. “I met her in my fraternity. Alpha Delta. In the basement.”
“I see. You met Heather Pratt in your fraternity basement.”
Naomi sighed. Had it really come to this?
Bob Rena was now describing how Heather had looked at him, and what she had said, and how many plastic cups of beer he had filled for her from the keg before she'd gone upstairs with him. From the back of the courtroom, loud whispering signaled the disapproval of Heather's supporters.
“Did she seem hesitant about having sex on the first date?” Charter stressed the word “date,” since it wasn't even that.
“Not at all. She was eager to have sex,” Rena commented, pleased with himself.
“Did Heather say that she expected this encounter to lead to some kind of relationship?”
“Not at all. She got up and went home, all on her own. I got the impression she'd got exactly what she wanted from me, and that was it.”
Heather the sexual predator, Naomi thought grimly. This was new.
“You're saying she was sophisticated sexually?”
“She was a natural,” Bob Rena said. “Definitely.”
Charter seemed to give this rather more consideration than it deserved. “Mr. Rena, do you happen to know a Christopher Flynn?”
He had obviously been asked this before, because he did not hesitate now.
“I don't know exactly, but I have known a few guys named Flynn, yeah.”
“A few guys named Flynn,” Charter intoned. “Could any of them have been at Dartmouth during the same time Heather was there?”
“Sure.” He nodded. “I couldn't say for sure, but it's possible.”
“Thank you, Mr. Rena. I appreciate your coming forward.”
As if he had done something noble. This seemed to be Rena's interpretation, too, for he nodded with great solemnity. Then Judith got up.
“Mr. Rena, am I right in thinking that the only reason you are here
is to inform this court that you had sex, on one occasion two and a half years ago, with the defendant in this case?”
“Well, if you put it
that
way.” He grinned.
“Do you, in fact, have any information on anything that is actually at issue in this trial?”
He shrugged, nonplussed. “I thought I ought to come forward.
He
thought it was important.” Rena nodded at Charter.
“Do you even know what this trial is about, Mr. Rena?”
He looked up at the ceiling. “Didn't she kill a kid or something?”
“Your honor!” Judith shouted, appalled.
Mr. Rena was given a brief instruction on the appropriate parameters of testimony. The jury was instructed to disregard what he had just said.
“No,” Rena said next time around. “I'm not really clear on the details.”
“You've testified that during her single sexual encounter with you, Heather was a ‘natural.' Can you tell us what you mean by that?”
He nodded eagerly. “Sure. I mean she knew how to move like she'd been doing it for a long time. And she told me I was the first.”
There was a sputter of shocked laughter from the back. Naomi looked at Charter, who evidently had not heard this part of Mr. Rena's braggadocio. Now the self-satisfied expression was waning on his face, and it was Judith who was smiling.
“So she was a virgin when you met.”
“I was her first, yeah,” he confirmed.
“And you slept with her once?”
“Yup.”
“And this was September of 1983?”
“Yeah. Like I said.”
“I see …” Judith nodded, letting the jury do the math. One lover, one time, before Ashley. So much for Heather's fabled promiscuity.
“Mr. Rena, you testified that you were not certain that you remembered Heather until you checked your book.”
“Yeah. I thought so, because she looked familiar. But I was sure after I looked in the p—” He looked suddenly abashed. “In the face book,” he amended, but not fast enough.
“I'm sorry. Were you about to call it something else?” Judith said, and Naomi was right there with her. There really was so very little new under the sun, she thought bleakly. The frat boys at Cornell had been
just the same, circling the pretty girls in the directory and planning their strategies.
“It's just a name. It's not the real name.”
“Well, I'm curious,” Judith said. “Enlighten me, please.”
“Some of the guys call it the pig book. It's not meant to be serious.”
“Maybe not to you,” she said archly. “May I see your pig book, please?”
He didn't want to hand it over, but he'd brought it with him nonetheless. It was duly passed to Judith, who flipped the pages, frowning.
“Now this is interesting,” she said, walking over to the jury. “Here is Heather Pratt's name and photograph, right here. There's some other information, her home address and her dormitory address in North Massachusetts Hall. But her photograph has some notations in pencil, I see. It's been circled, and there is a check next to the picture.” She looked innocently at Rena. “What does that mean, Mr. Rena?”
“I'm not the only guy who uses that book,” he said, suddenly reticent.
“But you know what it means, don't you?”
“Well, sometimes it can mean somebody in the frat wants to meet the girl in the picture.”
“Meet?” Judith said harshly. “Or screw?”
There were the expected objections. Even amid this mess, a bizarre pretense of decorum. But Judith was enjoying herself now.
“What does the check mark mean, Mr. Rena?”
He shrugged. He actually looked at his watch. He was told to answer the question, and so he did.
“So can we infer that you have had sex with every girl in this so-called pig book whose photo has been checked off?”
“I'm not the only one who uses that book,” he complained. “Hey, I came here to do my civic duty!”
“Really,”
Judith said dryly. “I would have thought you came here to boast of your many conquests. So why don't we do that?” She sat back against her table and started to read. “Laura Karris? She has three checks. What does that mean? Did you do her three times, or was she three times as good as somebody with one check?” She flipped pages. “Wow, you were busy in the G's, weren't you?”

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