This story is for entertainment purposes only and copy written by the author.  Reproduction in any form of this text is forbidden.

 

 

GOSSIP FROM THE GRAVE

©01/2007 by: Mare

 

CHAPTER 2

 

While the kids ate room-service breakfasts, Spence and Roxie shared a long soothing shower.  The trailing oxygen line presented a minor challenge but Spence insisted she stay connected.  Sensual sudsing was as far as they went.  But they made the most of that.  Stroking the rugged spread of his back Roxie rubbed soapy fingertips down his spine, made thumb prints in the dimples above his bum, caressed the curving cheeks.  He massaged suds down her shoulders, leaning back to watch bubbles flow over her breasts.  He made a purring sound deep in his throat.  “Like avalanches rolling over a pair of major moguls.”

 

Knocking on the bathroom door, a voice: “Sorry – there’s a call.  Western again.”

 

Announcement of Beryl Couvier’s death had produced scant sincere grief and few fond remembrances.  Even those she worked with were a bit relieved that lightning had prevented a tell-all autobiography featuring them.  Among the members of Gigawest the grim news imbued phones with eerie auras.  It had been forty minutes before W-cubed could pick his up to call Spencer again.

 

“You heard the news?”

 

Spence hadn’t.

 

“Beryl bought it last night.  Electrocuted, a lightning bolt went through her phone wire.  We were hassling her, she was talking to me.  I’m kind of creeped.  Like, the phone cops will trace the call and arrest me.  There was this loud zap and she quit talking so I just hung up.  Didn’t know...”

 

“Wow!  Shocking! Shit, I don’t see how you’d be responsible; she didn’t have to answer a phone in an electrical storm.  Just an act of Nature, eh?  But what do I know?  I never even had a part in ‘Boston Legal’.  It’s a question for Roxie’s lawyer kin.  Some folks from the firm are meeting us in New Orleans; we’ll ask them.  Where will you be?”

 

“Booked to perform in Saint Louis, Denver and San Francisco, Wayne decided he would sidetrack to Los Angeles for the premiere.  “See you in what, eight or nine days.”

 

“Cool!  Did Muriel relent?  Is she coming, too?”

 

“No.  She’s still icy.”

 

“You got eight days to defrost her.”

 

Flicking the phone off Spence returned to Roxie who sat on the bed flanked by the cats, combing her clean hair.  Martha sat up with forepaws on the bed nuzzling the teasing calico Brigitte while Baron, huge and glossy black, stretched to take up as much space as possible.

 

“News flash: ‘Kilowatts Kill Couvier!’”

 

Hank bearing breakfast chuckled.  “‘Current Cooks Couvier,’ just heard it the TV, it’s a fact.”

 

“Shocking!  ‘Bolt Broils Beryl!’ God, we’re ghoulish.”  But Roxie smiled.  “Death diminishes all, ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls,’ all that...  What does Beryl’s unlamented demise have to do with Wayne and our family lawyers?  Wayne can’t sue her for defamation now.”

 

“That’s not the problem.  He was on the fatal phone call, hassling her.  He wonders if that and his not summoning help for her could get him arrested.”

 

“No problem.  The whole phone system at her hotel was probably zapped, anyway.”

 

“Speaking of your family’s firm, I’d like to hire a couple of them.”

 

“Really.  What laws have you broken?”

 

“No important ones.  Actually it’s not attorneys I need.”

 

“Oh?  What’s that mean?”

 

“I reserve the right to be mysterious.  Patience, Sugartits.”

 

“Okay, Honeyplums.  I have my own little project at the moment.  I’m sleuthing out photos of all the jerks who told putrid lies about the allergy, so I’ll spot them if they hit our premieres.”

 

“Then what, you’ll bodily eject them?”

 

“No.  Ignore them.”

 

~*~

 

Her Thursday hair salon appointment was not going well for Jozey.  Usually she enjoyed the services of a gangly, chatty artist called Johnson.  But Johnson was ailing so she went to Sunny’s station.  And instead of catty chat Jozey got a lecture.

 

Sunny was an ardent fan of both Spencer Ruff and Robbie Abbot.  And far from fannish in her feelings for Jozey Markswell ever since her snide column depicted Abbot as “too terrified of Ruff’s wild temper to work with him again.”

 

“In fact,” Sunny demurred, “they’ve signed on for two more flicks together.  And every interview Robbie’s done since you wrote that rubbish, he’s repeated how he’s never seen Spence mad, much less violent.”  Sunny, an Australian,  had composed and rehearsed her rebuke last night when Johnson had called assigning her his best clients.  She had waited until Jozey’s hair was wet and trimmed to air her little speech.  “You knew Robbie was overseas filming when you published that bit of nastiness, so he wouldn’t find out til it was too late.  And you never retracted or apologized.  I have to tell you, that’s rotten.  Now, what’s your color?  Or would you prefer to try something new?”

 

Fuming, Jozey was nonetheless at Sunny’s mercy.  “Sometimes,” she conceded in a mutter, “we get it wrong.”

 

“No you don’t; you just lie.”  But while Sunny’s judgment was harsh her hands were gentle. 

Jozey while the dye set reexamined her mental list of shots to fire at Ruffrox.  That Guy Drake’s abortion hit had easily trumped her slam steamed her clams.  Drake’s take had been reprinted on many more online sites.  In Jozey’s estimation most of those copy-cat columns were written in dorm rooms or lonely basements by misfit authors for whom Jackass was the fulcrum on which American culture rocked.  But they wielded power as gauges of a gossip’s grasp of the game.

 

Now Jozey needed to play the high card.

 

A Roxie porn past would fly like a lead balloon, but a sex tape with Spence might sprout wings.  It had gone missing and was coming soon to a website near you...  That would trigger fruitless Internet searches.  Then some entrepreneur would briefly sell fake Ruffrox sex tapes.  Defrauded buyers might throw their sour grapes at Jozey and her sponsor network WNNTV.

 

She had spent the last two days pestering people from the Webster Slaughter shoot for some sort of sludge to dump on the couple.  All she got was a sign taped to Spencer’s trailer warning  “IF THIS TRAILER’S A-ROCKIN,  DON’T COME A-KNOCKIN.”  Was there a videocam in that trailer?  Nobody said “yes,” but nobody could prove “no” either.

 

As for the Orsini family rejection of Spence, Jozey had found no seed from which to grow her dream headline, “ROXANA’S PARENTS DEMAND CUSTODY OF HER CHILD !!!  Fear Spencer’s RAGES !!”  In fact she had learned that Roxie’s parents were dead.  And there were pictures of other relatives and even the husband’s parents laughing with Spence in NOLA.  Spence and Alfonso, Roxie’s brother were shown enjoying several discouragingly healthy activities together: tennis, kayaking on a bayou, etcetera.

 

However, once a sex-tape scandal surfaced those warm relationships might cool.  Then she would write, “Orsini Family Embarrassed by Lurid Ruffrox Sex Tape!!”  “Aussie Spencer’s Appalling Antics Alienate Ambassador!!”  “Raunchy Ruff Repulses Roxie’s Relatives!!”  “Ruff’s Licentious Lifestyle...”  Jozey wracked her brain for “L” verbs.  Ah – “loathe.”  “Orsini In-Laws LOATHE Ruff’s Licentious Lifestyle!!”

 

~*~

 

Robbie Abbot and his bride Emily Hartford were honeymooning in Wales.  Relaxing – and dressed in fine English woolens against the February chill – with a picnic lunch in an ungroomed meadow near a chambered cairn called Maen Ceti in western Glamorgan county,  they relished the lack of paparazzi.  Robbie loved such ancient lithic artifacts.  Emily shared his enthusiasm.  They had explored henges, cromlechs, cairns and tombs from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages.

Emily, apparently inheriting via mitochondrial DNA her female forebears’ fascination with flora, had been weeding some sites.  Robbie watched her curiously.  She was handling the plants with care, hands gloved, collecting something in a stoppered pot.  She was brewing a sort of beer at Robbie’s parents’ house, to his Mum’s delight.  Over the past months Emily had exchanged mysterious calls with Antoine L’Ètrange’s wife Peony in Jacmel, Haiti   Peony was a Vodouisante and herbalist.

 

When she rejoined him Robbie told her, “Whatever you just harvested, you test it first.  If you don’t turn green I’ll try it.”

 

They made a startling couple:  he tall, very fair and lanky, she a curvaceous beauty with black hair and turquoise eyes.

 

Back at the inn in Merthyr Tydfil they enjoyed privacy if not anonymity.  The other guests didn’t bother them and the staff, very well tipped, had not betrayed them to the tabs.

 

But they made the mistake of reading a London paper in the bar before supper.

 

A story with no byline accused Robbie of driving the crashed car that had killed his sister Marcy’s husband Kent the previous summer.  A photo of the wreck purported to show Robbie standing in the background, hiding among trees, as Kent was loaded into an ambulance. Kent had died soon after.  He had been ejected from the convertible.

 

But Robbie had not been in that car.  Kent had been en route home from an anniversary party at the senior Abbots’ house.  Robbie had bicycled home from the party.  Marcy had driven her own car to the event, bringing the cake, and had lingered to help her mother clean up.

 

It was obvious to Robbie and Marcy that his image has been added to the scene.  Robbie had attended the party with some minor injuries visible, sustained in a mishap while repairing the slate roof of his old cottage.  Arriving at the hospital on bike after Kent’s ambulance, he’d been snapped with the scabs on his face and one forearm.  The clothes in the doctored picture looked like his bicycling hoodie.

 

Stunned, Robbie and his bride packed up and driven to the Constable’s HQ in the Abbots’ home town Hay-on-Wye.  After an intense consultation there, Robbie got Spence on his international cell phone.  He and Emily knew about the legal-eagle contingent of Roxie’s kin.

 

~*~

 

Ruffrox went by over-packed RV to Roxie’s brother’s NOLA manse with kids, body-

guards, cats, dog and oxygen-generating machine (prescribed for another week just to make sure her lung stayed inflated.)  Martha had made peace with the rumbling, groaning, hissing machine, but Baron and Brigitte still stalked it, joined now by the house felines who hissed back.

 

Alfonso’s wife Sofie was a veterinarian.  Since Hurricane Katrina had separated families from pets they had adopted five new mammals, a tank of tropical fish, a pair of domesticated ducks called Aflac and Quackjack, and two raucous parrots.

 

One of the rescued dogs was a bloodhound or mostly-bloodhound, whom Roxie soon renamed George.  Martha’s interest in this male was obvious and ardently requited.

 

Antoine L’Ètrange opted to fly in.  Peony L’Ètrange sent regards and an herbal bathing mix for good luck.  But she was still refusing travel to the States.

 

Early on Friday the 21st the newlywed Abbots “crossed the pond” to New York City.  Emily during the airport layover left the lounge briefly while Robbie made phone calls.  With her wide-brimmed scarf hat hiding her face she emptied envelopes from a plastic bag into a mail collection box, then disposed of the bag in a washroom.

 

The flight to New Orleans was on time and uneventful.  Emily and Robbie were welcomed warmly into the squawking, quacking, hissing, woofing melee at Alfonso’s house.

 

In the grand salon of the house the group met with two detectives from the Gordieva- Orsini firm.  Alphonso, a junior partner himself, had summoned operatives introduced as simply Madison and Rex at Spencer’s request.  On the parlay’s agenda: first and most urgent, the libel against Robbie, as it was an accusation of crimes, leaving the scene of an accident and withholding evidence from the police.  While the on-scene Hay-on-Wye constables’ report stated that Kent had been the car’s driver and sole occupant, the libelous version was still difficult to disprove.  Robbie had already looked at the police photographs, none of which showed the bystander in the published picture.  Investigation would aim at locating the individual responsible for concocting the false image.  Or a disillusioned employee at the tabloid who knew who had written the article and included that image.  England-based detectives would do this job.

 

“Look for a fan,” Emily advised. “A certain type of English Rose can’t resist a ‘thinking woman’s crumpet’ like Robbie.”

 

Second, a punitive suit against Guy Drake and his editor.  Due to the confrontation at the hospital, traumatic to the children particularly, real damage could be claimed.

 

Alfonso shrugged off Wayne Western’s fears.  “He should tell the truth if authorities question him.  He had no way of anticipating a lightning strike at the other end of the line.  Only Couvier could have charged him with phone harassment, and she’s –”

 

“Rather well-done,” Robbie finished.

 

“A Crisp Couvier,” Roxie added.

 

“A Barbecued Beryl,”  Emily agreed.

 

Alfonso wagged a forefinger at them.  “Do NOT let anyone hear that stuff, and that goes triple for W-cubed and his band!”

 

Spencer spoke up next.  “Madison, Rex, I want to hire you two for an extended period, a bigger job.  At your usual retainer.”  He produced a list.  “Intensive background checks on all of these vipers and their families.”

 

Roxana looked over his shoulder at the list.  It wasn’t very long and she recognized most of the names.

 

“What’s on your Antipodean mind  – preventive blackmail?”

 

“No, something more fun.  Couvier may be toast, but she’s going to lob some gossip bombs from hell.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“You’ll see.  Patience, Sugar Tits.  Now, folks, let’s adjourn to a good bar and hit the Sazerac cocktails, shall we?”

 

The women went upstairs to dress.  Emily described the wonderful sites in Wales. “Glamorgan County is strewn with them.  There’s one rock face above a spring with carvings, one of a merman – human torso and face but fish’s tail.  Some sort of guardian water spirit, I guess.  And the names!  Nothing is pronounced as it’s spelled, which would be impossible for English speakers anyway.  Remind me to bring my camera to the bar.  I took pics of the road signs.  We’ll make Robbie pronounce them.  His Mum is Welsh.”

 

She had not exaggerated.  Towns named Aberystwyth,  Bwtch-gwyn,  Penbwch Uchaf, Croft-yr-haidd,  Rhiwfelin Fach,  Maes-y-grug and  Gelynog Fms twisted their tongues more than the alcohol in Sazerac cocktails.

 

~*~

 

Jozey Markswell, like all her ilk begrudged the Abbots their nuptial privacy. “Hello!” mag had snagged a three-page spread of wedding pics to publish two weeks after the event. But those would be boring posed shots.  No snaps of groom-to-be with bachelor party strippers, or bedraggled and hung over next day.  No bride-to-be in curlers sans makeup, or with male strippers at her hen party.

 

Jozey had jumped triumphantly on the “Abbot Drove Death Car” story and put the faked photo on her site, protecting herself by citing the English tabloid without any claim for its veracity.

 

She was the first in the States to do so.  She beat not only Drake and Dark but even Fiona Bright, an English transplant who from her New York lair was hot-wired to London.

 

Robbie’s new attorney Alfonso, forewarned, promptly released a statement calling the photograph “a fake, with Robbie’s image computer-applied” and blasting Markswell, Dark and Bright as “pathetic secondhand slanderers.”

 

He quoted Robbie: “It wasn’t sordid enough to plagiarize. They plagiarized libel. How proud their families must feel.”

 

~*~

 

The first premiere was held for Ymanja in New Orleans where most of it had been filmed.

Antoine, Robbie, Alphonso and Spence in tuxedos looked like the neighborhood tomcats forced to sport Christmas bows.  Roxie, Emily and Sofie skipped showy jewels and decolleté wearing dresses with sleeves and locally made capes against a nippy wind.  The turnout was good, considering, and cheerful.  They all spent extra time outside the theater signing autographs, talking and posing with fans.

 

Indoors, a press opportunity preceded the screening.

 

Roxana consulted a printout of portraits before she or Spence acknowledged a questioner.

He did most of the talking.  She had a portable oxygen tank waiting by her seat.  Asked if she would ever be able to sing arias again, she nodded smiling.

 

“When dogs stop howling to drown her out, we’ll know her voice is back,” Spence quipped.

 

Jozey demanded his attention vigorously waving, her signature broad gold bracelets clinking, and Tad O’Malley tried to shout his query in, but they found themselves ignored.  A notorious English snark maven called Miss Lark had flown from London just to re-attack Robbie, and Roxie for “harboring a criminal.”  Her trip was wasted.  It was her tabloid that had published the first salvo in that escalating battle.

 

Frustrated Jozey burst out, “What about your sex tape?  I hear it’s for sale online!”

 

Exchanging glances Spence and Roxana decided to rebut that one later, and left.

 

They called the Times Picayune night desk.

 

“‘We never made a sex tape,’” Spencer averred in the next edition, “and never will.  I don’t care to see my bits in action.  Don’t want anyone else watching them, either.  As Gene Shallitt once said, you might as well watch a documentary on the piston engine.’”

 

Roxana declared, “‘I follow a strict rule about my lady parts: in public keep panties on them; in private keep cameras off them.’”

 

~*~

 

On Saturday afternoon Jack and Rosita Alvarado, a uniquely successful couple in marriage, music and film, left their Los Angeles pediatrician’s office with their six-year old James, four-year-old Emma and eight-month-old Joseph in a carriage.  They were aggressively door-stepped by two paparazzi.  Two more in cars screeched to the curb and leapt out, flashing bulbs.  By the time the Alvarados reached the corner crosswalk three more cars had pulled over, causing a traffic snarl, and the third, with a torn bumper protruding from its right-front fender snagged Emma’s coat and pulled her down.  Narrowly missed by a tire she screamed.  She was freed and snatched up by her father.  Her mother dashed as fast as she could across the intersection shoving her pram.

 

A melee ensued between paparazzi and other frightened, annoyed pedestrians.  With paparazzi fighting those and one another, the Alvarados escaped to their car.

 

In the February 23rd issue of his Sunday weekly, Drake wrote more attacks.  As Antoine was without wife Peony at the New Orleans premiere, Drake claimed she had “quit him and his bigamous lifestyle.  But he’s not worried, he has a backup wife.”  Drake had dropped the “Abbot Drove Death Car” matter on advice from his magazine’s lawyers.

 

Instead, he fastened on the Alvarado incident.  “Jack Alvarado’s crew attacked several photojournalists plying their trade on the sidewalks of L.A.,” Drake lied.  He scooped his colleagues but their Monday offerings echoed the self-righteous charge, using terms like “posse” and “hired thugs.”

 

The Alvarados’ publicist’s press release demurred:  “Jackson and Rosita have no ‘posse’ or ‘crew.’  Their African-American heritage does not make them gangbangers with ‘crew’ or ‘posse’ or thuggish bodyguards.  On the day in question they were not accompanied by any bodyguards.  They were busy rescuing their young children from aggressive, irresponsible stalkerazzi, one of whom nearly ran down their four-year-old, while these jackals fell on one another, and other imperiled pedestrians joined the fight.  Whatever happened to these dangerous pests they brought on themselves.”

 

Spence and Roxie, friends and admirers of Jack and Rosita, invited them to leave L.A. and join the party in NOLA.  They would stay at the kids-and-pets-friendly Fairmont Hotel.

 

With the premiere done Spencer, Robbie, Antoine and Jack and by turns Hank and Richie went out to help Habitat for Humanity build houses.  Roxana, Emily, Rosita and Sofie made lunches for the builders and enjoyed the Fairmont with the kids.  Alfonso and Sofie kept several suites available to their guests the year round.  The grand old hotel had lost a sad number of employees to the hurricane.  Water damage was easier to deal with.  Part of the hotel’s works were housed below sidewalk-level.

 

But the wonderful wall scenes in the lobby-alcove bars were intact, and the fine gleaming lobby elevator doors still struck one with awe.

 

Sofie was an 8th generation daughter of New Orleans.  Like many such her spiritual life mixed Catholicism with Vodou.  She had taught Roxie in her teens how to serve their ancestors and the Lwa.  After the Alvarados’ arrival the two women performed a special service to thank Papa Legba and Carrefours for safe journeys over roads and crossroads, and Ymanja, also called La Sirene for easing the Abbots’ travel over the sea.  Then these Lwa were entreated to extend their protection to upcoming trips.  Emily and Rosita watched curiously but respectfully.  Roxana explained that the food was not eaten or the drink imbibed by the Lwa or ancestors, who now existed in spirit form.  It was just an offering, honor, invitation to party.

 

~*~

 

On Tuesday  tabloids, radio stations and TV entertainment commentators blared complaints of a “mystery substance” burning their hands when they had opened certain pieces of mail.  The FBI was alerted and quickly identified the substance as what made stinging nettles sting.  Botanists explained that an irritating histamine was combined in this natural plant defender with acetylcholine to produce the burning sensation, and serotonin to enhance the chemical reaction.

Was this terrorism?  A New York Bureau spokeswoman replied.

 

“Considering who the recipients are – tabloid gossips – and that gossips’ names were also on return addresses, we see this as personal vendetta, a grudge act.  We  believe these mailings were generated by one or more individuals the recipients have maligned.”

 

“Any idea who sent the stuff?”

 

“The list of suspects is very, very long.”

 

Shown on TV, an absurdly grave Tad O’Malley displayed the red rash raised by the irritant.  On the front page of her noxious English tabloid Miss Lark looked like she was trying very hard to weep.

 

At her laptop Emily perused the “Nettle Bomb” pieces.

 

“Look at Lark, the bitch!”  Emily giggled at the woman’s pathetic expression.  “You’d think it was anthrax.  Leprosy is what she deserves.  Can she actually believe anyone pities her?”  She turned and confided sotto voce to Roxie, “I did it!  Those were my nettle-grams.  Nettles were Peony’s recommendation. I was looking for something more exotic, but in the end, an English weed is all you need.”

 

Gloved and holding her breath she, with a scalpel, had scraped off many tiny, brittle, hollow hairs covering leaves and stems of Urtica dioica plants.  She described the harvesting as Roxie’s eyes grew wider.  “I got most of it in November, the plants die down in winter, which came late this year.  I sprinkled the hairs in to the folds of greeting cards.  Put the cards in envelopes and mailed them from La Guardia on our stopover.”

 

“Emily!  Using the U.S. mail – you’ll get Homeland Security on your tail!  It was probably illegal just to bring that stuff through Customs.”

 

“But I was extremely careful.  Never touched anything with bare hands, didn’t lick the envelopes, used American stamps from a machine, gloves on, printed the addresses and return addresses beforehand in Wales on a very popular brand of printer, and the return addresses are addresses of New York tabloids.”

 

“Oh, Lordy.  Not that it isn’t brilliant.  I love it but you could get prison.”

 

“Don’t worry.  I planned it for ages, covered all the bases.  Robbie doesn’t even know, only you.”

 

“Where did you get the cards?”

 

“From a charity that mass-mails millions of them.  Carried them around in a plastic bag for weeks.  And when I dumped them in the mail box I didn’t mail anything else with them.  They’re totally untraceable.”

 

“God, I hope so.  What about that jar you collected the stuff in?”

 

“I threw it in the River Wye in Wales.”

 

“Please don’t tell Alfonso.  It would put him in a bad position.  Even as your attorney he’s

supposed to report crimes he finds out about unrelated to the matter you hired him for...or something like that.”

 

“I won’t tell him.  Oh, here’s a gem. Fiona Bright: she’s moaning about having to dictate her trash, her fingers are so sore.  And this is followed by, ‘If American actresses were as concerned with their craft as with their diets and implants, they’d lose fewer roles to Brits, Aussies, Spaniards and Gauls.  Anorexia versus diction lessons, double-D cups and Botox versus body language and emotive expression: choose, Yanks, you can’t have it all.’”

 

In the following days the nettle story subsided swiftly from legitimate news coverage.  Gossips strove to keep it current.  Reggie Sugarman appeared with hands wrapped in gauze, Anastasia Dark berated the Feds for neglect of the case.  But the Bureau seemed disinclined to launch an exhaustive search for the mischievous mailer.

 

When Robbie’s suspicions were confirmed by his wife he exploded, albeit in a muted, literate way.  “I thought you were brewing beer!”  He groaned.  “Can they extradite from Wales? Or will we have to hide in Venezuela?”

 

“Don’t panic, they can’t possibly trace it to me.  I planned very, very carefully.”

 

“To misquote Hotspur, ‘out of this nettle, danger, we hope to grasp this flower, safety.’”

 

He could not resist inserting Shakespeare in to his rant.  “Henry the Fourth, Part One, Act Two,”

he added before she asked.

 

“Robbie, I refuse to believe that just fell out of your brain.”

 

“All right, I Googled it.  But don’t change the subject!  I take you to Wales and you turn witch on me.”

 

“Join the brotherhood, mon” Antoine sighed.

 

“Well, you did get some beer from it,” Emily reminded.  “Quite nutritious.”

 

“Bloody awful, that, too.  What’s next, pulling tongues out of frogs and gouging eyes out of newts?”

 

“Hey, if I do become a suspect that nettle beer is my alibi.  ‘Of course you found nettle

hairs – she used the plants for beer.’”

 

Roxie, Rosita and Sofie got the nettle beer recipe: young nettle tops, brown sugar, a bit of

toasted bread, fresh yeast, ginger and water.

 

~*~

 

The London-office Gordieva-Orsini detectives, Jacob and Ryleigh reported Wednesday.

It had not taken long to learn that the original crash-witness photo was taken by a teenaged bystander who later got the idea of selling an altered copy.  He was irritated by his two sisters’ mooning over Robbie, and excited by the prospect of payment.  Now, his horrified sisters had turned him in.

 

The libeler’s identity required a hefty bribe.  His poison-pen name was John Richards.

 

The antique, stricter libel and slander provisions in English common law had been abandoned.  But a lawsuit could still be filed.  Since the accusation involved crime, damage to Robbie’s reputation could be successfully argued.

 

The teenager had used one of the many published photos from Robbie’s hospital arrival to concoct the image of him lurking wounded in nearby woods.  Little red streaks were added to the scabs to make them bleed.

 

No surprise, neither retractions nor apologies appeared in any column, or aired on any wavelength.