Lake News (54 page)

“I don't know.”

“Has the
Post
issued an apology to Ms. Blake?”

“No.”

“Will you demand one?” a reporter asked Lily.

Cassie leaned toward the microphones. “A lawsuit is pending. Ms. Blake has no comment at this time.”

The next question came to John. “You've tried and convicted Mr. Sullivan. Isn't that an abuse of your own power?”

John couldn't believe the man's stupidity. “Excuse me,”
he said to the reporter who asked. “Would you identify yourself.”

“Paul Rizzo,
Cityside.”

“Paul Rizzo. Ahhh.” Utter
stupidity
. John was thrilled. He couldn't have hoped for better if he had scripted the scene himself. Paul Rizzo had just put himself on the witness stand. He was fair game now. “What qualifications do you have to be in this room?”

There were a number of confused looks in the audience, not the least of which belonged to Paul. “I've been on the
Cityside
staff for seven years.”

“Before that?” John asked.
Lake News
didn't cover this. It focused on Terry's malice and the harm done to Lily. But a golden opportunity was looking him in the eye. “What's your educational background?”

Rizzo glance uneasily around. Tightly, he said, “That's irrelevant.”

“Is it? You pride yourself in saying you have an undergraduate degree from Duke and a graduate one from NYU. That's what your
Cityside
bio says. I assume that's what you told them when you applied for the job. I've heard you refer to those degrees, myself. The thing is, they don't exist. According to the records at Duke, you flunked out after two years. NYU doesn't have a record of your being there at all. So that's misrepresentation. If you lie about those things, can we trust what you write?”

Lily actually felt sorry for him. Being humiliated publicly wasn't fun, and two wrongs certainly didn't make a right. But John wasn't a cruel man. If there had been another way, he would have taken it.

Besides, painful as the lesson might be for Paul Rizzo, there was a moral to the story. She held her head higher. She could have sworn Maida gave a small smile.

“Justice” was the operable word. John told himself that as Rizzo sputtered, “Your information's wrong. Besides, where I went to school is
my
business.”

“That's right,” John said. “Like where Ms. Blake shops is her business. Like where she eats and vacations is her business.”

“You're avoiding the question.”

“Since
you
aren't valid, that question isn't,” John said and pointed at another reporter. “Yes?”

“Rizzo's question is fair,” that one said. “You pulled strings to get us up here for a press conference. Isn't that an abuse of power?”

John might have been guilty of using people at earlier times in his career, but not now. There wasn't the slightest pulse of a tic under his eye. He was confident.

“I didn't force anyone here. There was no false pretense. I said I had new information. I invited you here, and you came. I've now given you that new information.”

Another reporter asked, “What about the issue of trying and convicting Mr. Sullivan?”

“This isn't a trial. It's investigative journalism. I've simply printed the results in my paper.”

“How does that differ from what he did to Ms. Blake?”

“He fabricated. He falsified. He invented. What's in
Lake News
is fact.”

“You didn't have to call a press conference for that.”

“Yes, I did. This is a new development in a case that kept you all going for days, but you're tired of it now. You've moved on to other things. You wouldn't have reprinted anything I wrote in
Lake News
if I hadn't gotten you here.”

“How do you know we'll report it now?”

He grinned. This was safe ground. He knew the media mind. Hell, wasn't his one? “Look around. There are quite a few media outlets here. Can you take a chance that one or more of the others will run the headline and get the coup, and you'll have dropped the ball? Ms. Blake was smeared on the front page. She deserves to be exonerated the same way.”

“Sullivan will be smeared in the process. But he's been fired. Isn't that punishment enough?”

“It would be. But the
Post
wants this kept quiet. They don't plan to tell people he was fired, because it implies bad judgment on their part. They'll sit there smugly, keeping their mouths shut when another paper signs him—and hey, that's okay by me. The guy has a right to earn a living. I just think the public ought to be warned. His credibility should be seen for what it is.” He pointed at another raised hand.

“Ms. Blake, you're an entertainer. Do you anticipate that this notoriety will give your career a boost?”

Lily felt her heart pounding again. John had talked. Cassie had talked. It was her turn.

She took a minute to make sure that her tongue was relaxed, but it took little effort. She was feeling surprisingly strong when she leaned toward the mike. “I'm a
teacher. I lost my job because of the charges made in the
Post
. I'm also a pianist. I lost that job, too, because the… notoriety… was bringing the wrong kinds of people to listen.” She paused and collected herself. “This has been a very negative experience. I don't know that I'll ever want to be in that kind of limelight again.”

“Would you comment on the car theft conviction?”

Cassie leaned forward before she could. “I'll comment on that, since I've seen the court file. There was no conviction. Ms. Blake didn't know she was in a stolen car. Since she was a juvenile without any prior record, the judge continued the case without a finding. The charges were subsequently dropped and the file was sealed. Ms. Blake's civil rights were violated when Mr. Sullivan printed information from that file. He'll have to answer to that.”

A homely man halfway back on the left rose. Lily felt a qualm when he addressed John. “Is it, or is it not true,” Justin Barr asked in a self-righteous voice, “that you hold a grudge against Terry Sullivan?”

“That's an understatement,” John declared, emboldened. He hadn't asked Justin Barr to put himself in the limelight any more than he had asked Rizzo to do it. It was another gift. Lily Blake was going to be remembered for far more than a trumped-up relationship with any Cardinal.

He experienced a moment's doubt when he glanced at Lily and saw her queasy look. She knew what was coming and regretted it. Hell, so did he. But Justin Barr was no innocent. He used people. He took potshots for
the fun of it. Being shot at in turn was the price one paid for that.

Praying that Lily would understand and forgive what he was about to do, he looked out at Barr. Did John hold a grudge against Terry Sullivan? “I loathe the man.”

“Then you have cause to smear him, just as he had cause to smear Cardinal Rossetti.”

“I'm not smearing him. I'm simply presenting facts about his childhood and family that shed light on what he did to Ms. Blake.”

“What is Ms. Blake to you?” Barr asked smugly.

John didn't blink. “An innocent victim. My turn, Mr. Barr. There's a high-priced call girl in Boston by the name of Tiffany Coupe. What's she to you?”

Barr said, “I don't know anyone by that name.”

“No. But Jason Weidermeyer does. There are checks signed by him, made out to Ms. Coupe. His name is on ledgers covering a period of eight years. Jason Weidermeyer. Isn't that your real name?”

“There are other Jason Weidermeyers in the world,” Barr said, but the crowd was tittering. In making himself a celebrity, Justin Barr had gloried in giving interviews. His standard line, spoken haughtily, was how determination, diligence, and an impeccable sense of morality had turned Jason Weidermeyer from a nobody into the renowned and respected Justin Barr. Jason Weidermeyer. Jason Weidermeyer. Jason Weidermeyer. Everyone who knew of Justin Barr knew of Jason Weidermeyer.

The tittering went on. Barr had few friends here. Beside John, Lily seemed to release a breath and relax. He felt her understanding and her forgiveness, felt her letting
go of last bits of anger, and in that instant more than any other, he knew that the day had been a success.

Barr raised his voice, once again the prince of bombast. “Who are
you
to accuse me of that? And who are
you
to question Mr. Rizzo's credentials? You couldn't make it in Boston, so here you are editing a two-bit backwoods weekly. Who are
you
to snoop into people's lives?”

John stood again. “I'm a concerned citizen. Lily Blake's life was destroyed for the sake of selling newspapers—or in your case, boosting ratings. You excoriated her on your show, Mr. Barr. You made her out to be wicked and depraved. So let's talk about wicked and depraved. How do whips and leather fit in with that? Or handcuffs and chains? You want to point a finger at people, Mr. Barr, you'd better make sure there's nothing for them to point back at.” He looked away. “Other questions?”

Lily felt the stunned silence and half expected that no one would
dare
speak up, lest John have something on them, too. One reporter finally did. She was a timid type who might not have been heard if the others hadn't been still.

“Will Ms. Blake be writing a book?” she asked.

“No,” Lily said, shuddering at the thought.

There was a brief silence. Then, from somewhere in the hall came a defensive “We're not all bad.”

She knew they weren't. John had taught her that. She wanted to think there were more than a handful of good people out there—and thinking that, she felt another little boost inside. It was nice, so nice, to trust again.

John was quieter, but no less impressive. “I know. That's why I'm
counting on you to cover this story the way you covered the original scandal. Reporters who make up facts dirty the rest of us who don't. We need to put a lid on commentators who shoot off their mouths for the sake of self-aggrandizement. They give us all a bad name. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of that.”

He sounded tired. Leaning down to the mikes, he said to the gathering as a whole, “That's it. Thank you for coming.”

He turned to Lily, bent over, and said softly, “I'd give you a hug here and now, except I don't trust that that won't be what they report. So, consider yourself hugged.”

Lily did. Incredibly. She also felt overwhelmed with emotion—relief, triumph, satisfaction, love. Appallingly, tears came to her eyes.

She looked at the spot where Maida had been sitting, but she had to blink before she could see clearly enough, and then she was suddenly surrounded by people—technicians removing microphones, photographers snapping pictures, reporters asking final questions. Other reporters were facing their own cameras, some broadcasting live. She craned her neck in an attempt to find Maida, but bodies got in the way.

“Are you returning to Boston?”

“Will you try to get your job at the Essex Club back?”

“Has the Cardinal called?”

Having bared enough of herself to last a lifetime, she held up a hand and turned away.

“That's all,” Cassie told the crowd. With an arm around Lily's shoulders, she drew her away from the crowd that surrounded John.

When they had sufficient privacy, Lily asked, “What do you think?”

“John did good. They'll report what he said. If you don't get front page, you'll come close.”

“Will this affect our suit?” Lily wanted that settled. Other loose ends were being tied up. She wanted this one done, too.

Cassie grinned. “It sure ups the ante. The AG will be looking for Terry once he reads about the tape, and I figure that once the
Post
's lawyers look at their own case vis-à-vis that tape, they'll be wanting to settle fast.” She chuckled. “Max Funder, eat your heart out.”

“It's not about the money,” Lily said. She wanted no part of the money.

“If it comes, you'll donate it somewhere. But if there isn't a penalty for libel, what's the incentive not to do it again?”

Lily barely heard the question. With the crowd thinning, she spotted Poppy, who was looking at her with such pride that her eyes again filled with tears.

Even through the blur, though, she saw Maida. She was closer to the front of the hall than she had been, but she stopped walking when Lily caught her eye.

“Excuse me,” Lily whispered to Cassie.

With reassuring freedom, she moved past the reporters who lingered with John. Maida stood about a third of the way back, with her hand on the end of the pew. She looked like she wanted to flee but couldn't, like she wanted to cry but couldn't, like she wanted to crumble but couldn't.

Lily started toward her. Oh yes, there was the fear of rejection,
but the need she felt overcame it. She went the rest of the way, slowing as she neared, stopping when she was right there, less than an arm's length away.

What to say? What to ask? Or beg?

Maida took a deep, shuddering breath. She raised a tentative hand to Lily's cheek. Just shy of touching, it settled on her shoulder. It was light, awkward, testing.

“Forgive me?” she whispered.

Lily didn't know whether Maida wanted forgiveness for things she had done in her own childhood, or in Lily's, or more recently, but there was never any doubt in Lily's mind. Where the Sullivans, Rizzos, and Barrs of the world were involved, Lily needed justice. Where her mother was involved, she needed… she needed…

Maida's arms were unsteady, but they reached in the right direction. Lily went into them with a sense of relief so great that she was suddenly sobbing, holding on for dear life, finding the comfort she had wanted so badly when she had been alone in Boston.