“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.”
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.
She wasn’t alone now. She had friends here now. She even had someone she loved. But Maida was her mother, which made what she offered very special.
Poppy wasn’t prone to tears, but watching Lily and Maida, she came close. She knew all too well that some things in life couldn’t be changed. Others could. Grateful that this one had been, she wheeled her chair around and headed for the back of the hall. She was thinking about the improvement this would bring to Maida’s life, thinking about how much better Lily would feel and how much happier holidays would be, thinking that Lily really ought to stay in Lake Henry and marry John and how nice it would be to have her here, thinking about everything but where she was headed, when she turned the corner at the back of the hall and found herself face-to-face with a man she had never met—at least, not in the flesh.
But she knew who he was. He wore jeans, a sweater, and a fleece jacket. The jacket was a royal blue that picked up the blue in his eyes and was a perfect foil for hair that was thick, well styled, and red.
Where to go? Turn back! Where to hide?
But too late. He knew. She could see it in his eyes.
In the few seconds that it took him to approach, she felt guilty for not having told him, disappointed that the fantasy would end, dismayed that she was what she was when she wanted to be something so different.
He hunkered down so that his eyes were on level with hers. “Did you honestly think I’d care?” he asked so gently that, for the second time in as many minutes, Poppy nearly cried.
But Poppy Blake didn’t cry. Crying accomplished nothing. She had decided that twelve years before.
So she lashed back at his gentleness with the bleak truth. “I can’t run. I can’t ski or hike. I can’t work in the forest the way I was trained, because I can’t get around in a chair on rutted dirt. I can’t dance. I can’t drive a car unless it’s been specially adapted. I can’t pick apples or work the cider press. I can’t even stand in the shower.”
“Can you eat?”
Gruffly, she said, “Of course I can eat.”
“Can I buy you dinner?”
Her heart lurched. She fought the pull. “Yes, but if you think I’m talking about my sister, the answer is still no.”
“I don’t want to know about your sister. I want to know about you.” He stood, briefly studied the handles of her chair, then looked at her with such endearing helplessness that she was smitten. “I’m a quick study,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”
Poppy had strong arms. They were used to propelling her and her chair through almost any wheelchair-accessible area, and the church had a very fine ramp.
She prided herself on being independent.
But her friends did push her chair when they were out together. They said it made them feel like they were walking in step with her.
Wanting to walk in step with Griffin Hughes, Poppy said, “I point, you push.”
She pointed, he pushed, and off they went.
The celebration was spontaneous, a gathering of friends—then more friends, then more friends in Charlie’s back room. When reporters tried to join in, Charlie turned them away. “Sorry. Private party,” he said as he and his kids passed through the door loaded down with trays of the best the kitchen had to offer.
Lily didn’t sing. It was even better than that. She talked and laughed and was part of something she hadn’t known to miss but wouldn’t have given up for the world. She half imagined that she knew what it felt like to win the lottery. Mixed in with joy was the fear that something so wonderful couldn’t be real.
But it was. John was real; he rarely left her side. Maida was real; she smiled each time she caught Lily’s eye. Lake Henry was real; it had come through for her when she needed it most. She couldn’t remember a day when she had felt so strongly that every element in her life meshed so well.
Then the Cardinal called. She had just walked into the cottage when the cell phone rang. She assumed it was Poppy.
“Hey,” she said, a bit breathless, “was that fun?”
“Hey, yourself,” he said, playfully sober.
She caught her breath. “Father Fran!”
“Your sister gave me this number. I’m off to Rome tomorrow, but I wanted to talk with you first. You’re the only loose end I haven’t tied up.”
“There’s nothing—”
“There is.” His voice was as heavy as she had ever heard it. “I owe you an apology, Lily. I knew who Terry Sullivan was. I didn’t know him personally, but I knew the name. When he broke that story, which was clearly so wrong, I guessed that he knew about his mother and was getting back at me for hurting her. I didn’t know about the beatings until tonight when the first call came after your press conference.”
“They called you?” Of course they would. “I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t be,” he scolded gently. “It’s easily handled. I have no problem confirming that relationship. Jean and I were sweethearts, but I never hid from her the fact that I wanted to be a priest. My conscience is clear on that score, but not on the matter of what Terry suffered because of it, and not on the matter of you. If I had acknowledged the connection, the whole thing might have stopped sooner, and you wouldn’t have lost so much. I’m sorry, Lily. That was wrong of me. You deserve better.”
Yes. She did. She could be angry at the Cardinal for that, even for simplifying the story of his relationship with Jean. Knowing what he had left out, though, she understood. Knowing the predatory nature of the media, she doubly understood. Another person in her situation might have said that the Cardinal’s apology came too late. But Lily wasn’t another person. She was gentle, and she was forgiving.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, �
��of all the doubts I’ve had about my worthiness since I was named a Cardinal, a great many of them relate to this mess.”
“Oh, no. That shouldn’t be.”
“There’s no place for pride in my work. Or for dishonesty by virtue of omission.”
“But the world needs leaders like you.”
“It isn’t my job to cause suffering.”
“But I’m home,” Lily insisted. How to resent anyone when her life was this full? “So maybe the suffering had a purpose.”
He paused then. The tide of the conversation seemed to turn. “Are things working out for you there?”
“Very much. I think I’ve found me.”
“Ahhh,” he said. From the sound of it, he was smiling at last. “That does my heart good. It doesn’t forgive my selfishness—God will have to forgive that—but it does make me happy. Not surprised, mind you. I always said you were strong.”
She was smiling now, too. “You did.”
“You finally believe it, then?”
“I’m… getting there.”
“Will you keep me up on the progress?”
“That depends,” she said. “Will Father McDonough put me through?”
The Cardinal chuckled. “You bet. Peace be with you, Lily.”
“And with you,” she said and, ending the call with a sense of warmth, realized that a loose end had been tied up for her, too.
CHAPTER 30
They had to be crazy, coming out on the lake. The night was stark, and in the third week of October, the air too cold for canoeing, but Lily wouldn’t have been anywhere else. The past hours had been chock full of so many different emotions that she was on overload. Now, here—even in a chilling breeze—things were simpler.
There was no moon. The spot where it would have been was obscured by thick clouds. Farther west, the clouds were spotty. They were moving at a clip, judging from the appearance and disappearance of stars.
“Winter’s coming,” John said. “You can smell it.”
Lily smelled wood smoke from a chimney on shore, and the piney clean scent of John, against whom she nestled, but the leaves were too dry and cold to exude a scent, and the predominant aura on the lake was of something else. “Snow?” she asked.
Lake News Page 40