Al was allowed a call on his international cell phone.  He called Jozey.  Hurriedly he instructed her to hop a plane as soon as possible and bring her lawyer.

 

“Or another one.  Any one, just so he – ”

 

“A lawyer?  Al, I can’t just pick one up at the supermarket.  What do you need a lawyer for?”

 

“To get me out of jail.  I’ll give you the username and password for my online account.  I need you to withdraw bail money, and bring a freakin’ lawyer.  Get him drunk and shanghai the prick if you need to.”

 

“What are you doing in jail?”

 

“Not much, God damn it.  There was an incident with a balloon, I’m accused of hijacking and assault.”

 

“What?  Hijacking what?  Assaulting who?”

 

“Hijacking the balloon –”

 

“Balloon?  You mean a hot-air balloon?”

 

“Well, Judas Priest, yes, a hot-air balloon.  There was a problem...navigating it...so we took over and it crashed.”

 

“Who’s ‘we?’”

 

“That Brit columnist, John Richards, you know him?”

 

“I know his stuff.  Like it, too.  He showed balls with those ‘killer’ riffs on Ruff and Abbot.  He’s there?”

 

“Was.  He...he fell on to the reef, started bleeding and...it’s unbelievable, a shark got him.  At least that’s the story Roxie’s telling, she says she saw the fin and John disappeared.”

 

Jozey was shocked silent.  After a moment Al continued, “The balloon pilot is pressing charges.  He fell out and he’s claiming we pushed him.”

 

“I don’t understand, are you shitting me?  You were in a balloon with Roxie and...”

 

“They were on land.  We all fell out, I got hung up in a tree top, tallest freaky tree on the planet.  And that prick Ruff took his goddam time helping me down.  My wrist is broken.”

 

“Ohmigod!  Did they fix it?”

 

“Yeah, it’s in a splint thing.  Look, I can’t explain it all now.  Tell you when you get here.  Get here fast, Babe.”

 

“Wait!  Was Spencer there when Richards got killed?”

 

“Yeah.  Hey, if you’re going to – God, just don’t cite me, I’m in enough shit.  Be careful, Babe.  He’s got two witnesses and I got nothin’.  Can’t back you up.”

 

Jozey was already composing as she hung up.  Should she revive the Curse of Ymanja, or in homage to Richards’ work obliquely accuse Spence of feeding him to sharks?

 

~*~

 

Jozey when she landed went straight to the jail.  There, she commiserated with the fretting, sweating Al.  He gave her his camera’s picture stick and told her the wedding would happen on another island called Lit Vert.

 

Jozey had flown down with an attorney from her divorce lawyer’s firm.  While she visited Al through old-fashioned bars Cloyd Williams navigated the local French-pattern bureaucracy, diminutive but languid in pace and housed in a charming County Courthouse, to arrange Al Claddon’s bail.

 

Spence was also on Cimitière.  Awaiting guests borne on the next connection flight from Australia, he had stopped in at Yves Le Baron’s barrister’s office to make an affidavit.  Advised of Cloyd William’s mission by a breathless clerk who burst in as he signed his testimony, Spence trotted off to intercept the Yank. He sent Hank to collect his guests.  Together they would take the seaplanes to Lit Vert.

 

Betrayed by his rumpled suit and tie the Yank lawyer found himself shaking mitts with Spencer Ruff.  Williams had just learned that Claddon’s bail transfer was held up by a problem with the prisoner’s papers.  His passport was a recent renewal of Cal Donald’s but it appeared the name had been changed; all else was the same.  Officials suspected that the page bearing name and photo had been replaced.  Cal/Al argued that he had got his name officially changed and his passport updated accordingly.  But documents proving name change were nowhere to be found.

 

“It must be assumed that the new passport is a forged copy of the original, until some proof is offered to the contrary,” the official told Williams.

 

“Let me tell you about Cal Donald: he’s a criminal wanted by the FBI!”  Spence blurted loudly.  All conversation in the high-ceilinged room stopped.  It had taken Spence a moment to digest this new shock.  “He’s under investigation for attempted kidnap and assault on my son.  He’s been associated with a woman in Austria who abducted my wife when she was a kid.”  Spencer’s heart was thumping.  No wonder that blister looked familiar, especially that faded bruise on his chin.  Spence gripped the bewildered attorney by the shoulders.  “You don’t want to work for that bastard.  Why shaft your own reputation?  You’ll look like a fool – can’t even establish who the fuck he is!  Nothing he’ll tell you is true.  And the money he’ll pay you with is stolen.  From burglary and ransom. Listen, you need to contact the FBI on his case in L.A.  And then talk to the Gordieva-Orsini investigators. This Donald asshole gets money from the Austrian kidnapers’ stash, her name is Aimée Imhoff.  Recently paroled from jail over there. If you take that bastard’s money – hell, I don’t know whether it’ll get confiscated or just never get paid out, once its origins clear up.  The Imhoffs, Aimée and her dead husband were professional criminals. Got away with two other abductions for ransom and hid the cash.  It was never found.  You following me?”

 

Cloyd Williams stood blinking in amazement.  Eventually he exhaled.  “Crap!  I thought this was just an overeager paparazzo and a case of reckless balloon driving.”

 

“`Fraid not, mate.  Turn your back on this mess.  Have a vacation, it’s a great atoll, relax and enjoy.  But don’t help that fuckin’ predator get free.”

 

Cloyd nodded.  It did sound like his client list could do without this dude.  But to make sure he phoned the Los Angeles branch of the Bureau, then his own firm which networked with Gordieva-Orsini.  Then he enjoyed a cold frothy one in the nearest beachfront bar.

 

~*~

 

Oblivious to the legal net ensnaring her lover, Jozey left the jail and hurried to a WiFi café.  From her laptop she uploaded pictures from Al’s memory stick.  She gasped over the prurient peeps at Ruffrox:  what a score!  What bodies!  Even she stared with grudging admiration.  Nothing was left to the imagination.  Once uploaded the digital revelations were offered to subscribers for a fee of $50.00.

 

While Jozey couldn’t advertise the pictures directly on her own site, she studded the Web with signs pointing to the “RUFFROXNUDE” URL.  She followed the list Al had recited from his cell.  Seekers would find if they expended some effort.

 

On her page she posted a tantalizing teaser, Coming Calumny in her next column:  “DID RUFFROX MAR MARRIAGE WITH MURDER?”

 

Now she had to bribe her way under the covers of Lit Vert.

 

~*~

 

Ambassador Leo D’Orsini had arrived accompanied by a pair of his own professional bodyguards, thus allaying residual fears of a plot to take the children.  Teresa was with Zio Leo.  She would be Maid of Honor.

 

Spence returned to Lit Vert with the wedding guests.  While they settled in to cabins he apprised Roxie of Cal Donald’s arrest.

 

“Good grief!  He came here after our kids!”

 

“Well, he didn’t get them or anything else.  And thinking about it, I doubt he planned a kidnap, Honey:  where could he take a stolen kid?  My guess is Imhoff sicced him on to us for pure harassment.  Doing everything she can to mess up our lives.  Cal’s no danger now, anyway.  He’s clapped up for a long stretch.  And we’ve got the kids guarded six ways til Tuesday.  Your Zio Leo’s crew has international diplomat carry permits, or whatever you call it – they’re packin’ heat, Bright Eyes!”  He did his Humphrey Bogart impression. “Those guys scare me!  And they’ll be with the kids from their bunk beds to our Green Bed.”  He kissed her, glad to see color return to her cheeks.  “Forget those fuckers.  Nothing they’ve done or will do can ruin our wedding.  All they’ve done so far is trip over their own dicks, right?  Or in Markswell’s case, over her own bloated venom gland.”

 

“Markswell?  She’s here too?”

 

“She just arrived, brought the mouthpiece.  Seems she and Cal have something goin’.”

 

“There’s a nauseating couple. They deserve each other.  Imagine her take on John Richards and that shark!”

 

“Imagination fails me.  Funny, though, now you mention it I’m feeling hungry...”

 

“Eeeeyew.  Remind me to avoid sea food for the rest of my life!”

 

“Shame she wasn’t in that balloon.  Presented the choice, would Jaws have bitten her or Richards?  Gossip-Hagfish versus Big-Mouth Bass-tard.”

 

“Not her.  If he didn’t choke first on all those metal bracelets, her venom would have killed him.  Even sharks can sense toxic prey.”

 

In advance of their trip Ruffrox had sent a crate to the resort.  Unpacking it now, they passed their guests cheap tennis rackets and giant badminton birdies with overweight rubber balls, perfect for freestyle batting about on the beach.

 

W-cubed studied one of the plastic-plumed projectiles: “This birdie has a glandular condition.”

 

Also in the crate were wedding decorations and candles and little gifts for the guests.

The Alvarado and Ruffrox kids and Lizbeth set to blowing up beach balls and seahorse-floats (equipped with tethers).

 

Soon winded, Lizbeth flagged down her passing dad for additional bellows-power.  Antoine set aside his beer and applied his lips to a seahorse.

 

Grownups strung hammocks between trees.  Soon Spence and Roxie were struggling to share one without flipping it, their laughter competing with the cries of sea birds.

 

“Love!  They’ve gone insane,” Katya observed, sighing.  “I caught them having an eyelash fight.  Honestly, an eyelash fight!   Anything to smooshy their faces together.”

 

“I hear ya.” Martin nodded.  “I don’t know how but they manage to squeeze in to showers together, no matter how small.”

 

Little Dave who had obviously overheard talk on this theme before, tried to copy his brother’s tone.  “And who knows what they do in bed!”

 

Antoine patted his head and advised gravely, “Don’t you try too hard to find out.  It’ll come to you on its own some day.”

 

~*~

 

Jozey bought passage on a vacationer’s sailing yacht, pretending to be a late guest bound for the wedding.  She nearly broke her arm patting herself on the back for this coup.  How clever to hit on a tourist since the locals were all paid off.  The tourists introduced themselves as Blanche and Henri.  Jozey decided that before she disembarked with her camera – an expensive new purchase she knew would be reimbursed through “RUFFROXNUDE.com” – she would promise to cut them in on her wedding-pix Web bonanza.  It was hard not to crow prematurely.  Get your tush on that Green Bed first, girl.

 

~*~

 

On Lit Vert the topic of conversation turned to marriage vows and pre-nups.  Input from the other couples was raucous if not particularly instructive.

 

“Your vows will have to cover a lot of contingencies,” Muriel suggested.  “‘Classy or trashy,’ drunk or hungover, on ‘Hot’ lists and off,  in jail and on probation...”

 

“Suspect in murders or nettle bombs...” Jack added.

 

“Through allergy or abortion...” Rosita reminded.

 

“What would you do if he hooked up with some whore?”  Emily asked the bride, expertly mimicking Oprah Winfrey’s deep emphatic tone.

 

“He’d have to bring her home and keep her as a concubine.  Double his misery.”

 

“No divorce?  How unfashionable!”  Peony giggled.

 

“Never.  This family will be permanent no matter how obnoxious he gets.”

 

“Hey,” Spencer demurred, “I’ll be old way before you.  You’re the one who’ll want to upgrade.”

 

“But as I keep telling you, I’m just a conventional Roman housewife at heart.  No divorce, no upgrade, no abandonment.”

 

“I’m waiting for you to add ‘no murder’ to the list...”

 

“Don’t hold your breath.  That loophole seals the deal.”

 

~*~

 

A fast black-hulled craft with a gray mainsail appeared out of nowhere as the sun glared wearily from the horizon, within sight of Lit Vert.  Jozey couldn’t see who was at the tiller, her view blocked by the jib.  A blonde woman in white with a big purple shawl stood at the transom.  Yanking the main-sheet she cracked the main sail whose luffing slowed the sleek boat.  Other invisible crew hands slacked the jib allowing the dark hull to pull within two meters of the tourists’ slower live-aboard yacht.  From beneath her shawl the disturbingly familiar blonde held up a bottle.  She tossed it right in to the hands of Blanche who squealed with delight.

 

Sinking swiftly the bloated red sun flared blindingly.  By the time Jozey’s dazzled retinas recovered the black boat was beyond view.

 

A few minutes later Henri passed around glasses of clear rum.  He had mixed a sort of Mai Tai with fruit juice and bits of pineapple.  Jozey drank gratefully.  Delicious.

 

Seconds, then thirds were offered and accepted.

 

Light from Lit Vert proved it was the wedding venue.  Jozey thought she heard snatches of music.  But as the sky went indigo those lights seemed no closer.  Jozey propped her feet up on her cushioned lazarette-bench.  She allowed herself to doze after the fourth Mai Tai.

 

She awoke in darkness uncomfortably crammed  in to the dinghy that yacht had been towing.  Bewildered, then enraged she tugged tentatively at the rope of the anchor that prevented her from drifting off alone in the South Pacific.  Safer to stay anchored than not.  She summoned every foul word in her vocabulary to stick on Blanche and Henri.

 

Presently it occurred to her to check for her purse.  The vile yachters had robbed her wallet!  Filthy pirates!  Pirates!  Holy crap, how had her life become a Johnny Depp flick?  No wonder those thieves had been so friendly and free with that rum.  They’d stolen her jewelry, too, even her signature gold and silver bangle bracelets.  The one relief was that she’d left her passport and return ticket in the hotel safe.

 

Jozey bobbed on anchor for interminable thirsty, hungry, fearful hours.  All night, taunted by celebration sounds wafting out from Lit Vert.  When she rose on each wave crest she could still see lights.

 

~*~

 

The wedding took place under moon and stars, without her.

 

On the candle-lit veranda that served as nave the beaming couple took their places, Spencer in dove grey suit with open white collar, Roxana in a lavender ankle-length silk sheath with an off-shoulder shawl neckline and bouquet of orchids, tuberoses and ferns.  Her bridesmaids Emily, Rosita, Muriel and Sofie stood opposite their groomsmen-mates Robbie, Jack, Wayne and Alfonso.  Zio Leo gave Roxie away.  Princesses in frocks the shade of the sea in dawn’s silver light, with narrow orchid sashes, Katya and little Emma were utterly captivating.  Martin bore the ring cushion with great solemnity.  Dave watched with wide eyes from his seat between Spence’s parents wondering why his Gran was sniffing and dabbing her eyes.

 

~*~

 

Morning came.  Misty at first.  She cursed the fog, it wouldn’t help her get rescued and it distilled on her until she was soaked.  But once the sun burned it off she regretted her lack of sunscreen and visor, pulled her jacket over her head for shade.  She needed it for a flag, too, waving it madly at several boats that passed further out to sea.

 

By the time she was rescued Jozey was badly sunburned and desperately dehydrated. 

Fate made a fiasco even of her rescue.  It was Spence Ruff and Robbie Abbot out for a jaunt on a small rented sailboat who found her.  (Jack had declined the trip: “Brothers get nervous on boats with white dudes.”  Wayne also had passed: “I’m too fuckin’ tasty – sharks from all the seven seas would cruise in to get a bite of me.”)

 

Recognizing the sailors in shorts as they jibed in her direction Jozey regained sufficient wit to remember and aim her camera, as incredibly her quarry rode the swell towards her.  She thought:  Headline: “BORED BRIDEGROOMS DUMP DAMES FOR GUY GAMBIT” and if they read ‘gay’ for ‘guy’ all the better...

 

Spence boarded her dinghy and hauled up its anchor while Robbie tied the dinghy to the stern of the sailboat.  The men stared at her red blistering face in stunned realization.  Jozey’s soggy hair looked like seaweed, her makeup was smeared and streaked, but she was definitely the Gossip Hag whose venom gland had spurted toxic waste on them for years.

 

“Ahoy, Matey Markswell.” Spence turned to Robbie.  “Shall we throw this Hagfish back in the drink?”

 

“It sure ain’t no marooned mermaid, is it.  But we can’t let this flotsam pollute the sea.  It needs proper disposal, eh?  Let’s tow her in.”

 

Spence reached down and grabbed her camera on its cord around her neck.  None too gently he yanked it over her burnt earlobes.  He dangled it above the gunnel grinning.  Jozey screamed.

 

“You can’t do that!”

 

Spence focused the lens on her salt-encrusted and UV-ravaged visage.  Several beats behind him, she hid too late behind her jacket.  Spence removed the memory stick and zipped it in to his windbreaker pocket.  “Not your best look but ‘twill suffice for Gossip Hags and Tabloid Bitches.  Caption:  ‘Hideous Hagfish Hooked in Honeymoon Harassment.’ ”

 

“Give me that stick and my camera too!  That’s my property!”

 

“Prove it, Flotsam.  But first you’ll have to dive for your evidence.”  Spence dropped the camera overboard.  The little splash it made was quite disproportionately satisfying.

 

Likewise the shrill shrieked invective issuing from the Hagfish’s mouth.

 

Emily and Roxie had provisioned the mini-voyage excessively.  “I expect you to capsize,” Roxie had said.  “I saw what you two did to that movie ship,” referring to the nautical film the men had done together a few years back.  So Jozey was generously fed juice and snacks as the sailboat jibed and took Jozey to the far side of Lit Vert.  One of the seaplanes had lingered overnight, its pilot invited to sup and enjoy the wedding from one of the hammocks.  That plane soon swooped around the end of the isle to collect Jozey.

 

Back on Cimitière she explained that the credit card number on her security form would have to bear her bill, as all her cash had been stolen by pirates.  She was politely referred to the Gendarme station.  But she didn’t bother to report the incident.

 

Cloyd Williams intercepted her in the lobby.  From him that Jozey learned Al Claddon’s true identity.

 

Jozey was dismayed.  She felt her career and her ego desiccate and shrivel together.

“What happened to the bail money?”

 

“It never came through.  The account’s been frozen.”

 

She marched to the jail. Cal still demanded she get him bail.  After all, the lucre from the nudes was safely accumulating in another online account blanketed by layers of encryption; nobody would get to it before her.

 

“Is my name on that account?”

 

“Not yet.  John Richards name is; he was my original partner.”

 

“So how do I get my share?”

 

He hesitated.  “First you have to get my share for bail.”

 

“But the FBI is after you.  Are you sure you’re even eligible for bail?”

 

“Get that lawyer to –”

 

“He turned down your case.  You’re on your own.”

 

“Then you’re never going to see a cent from those pictures!”

 

“I don’t want my name connected to yours, Cal.  People think you’re a kidnapper.”

 

Of course he denied any plot to kidnap or harm the Ruffrox brats.  And he had told the police that she hadn’t known who he really was, he assured her.  So she wouldn’t be charged as accessory to anything.

 

But guilt by association made her unsightly in Fortune’s eyes.  And her mirror seconded that motion.  She stalked out.

 

 She bathed, changed clothes, packed and took the next flight home.  Aware of the irony involved she shielded her peeling face with huge sunglasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat.  Her name she whispered.  Every camera made her flinch. Added to her mental hate-mail list was Cloyd Williams.  If he’d just done his job she and Cal – separated of course – would have left New Caledonia in its warm mists and the FBI uninvolved in her life.

 

She ignored the voice-mail messages stacking up on her phone.  Her laptop battery died; she’d neglected to bring a spare.  On the long flights she drank and slept.

  

As soon as she had dumped luggage in her bedroom she went to her office.  It was 10:30pm but she was wide awake, pulsing with spite.  Her incendiary column claimed that “sources afraid to make their names public watched in helpless horror as Ruff went berserk after the journalists had discovered his love nest.  They got a bird’s-eye view of him and his diva sprawled out naked.  When the balloon was buffeted by the wind and tried to land Spence dragged John Richards from the gondola and furiously battered him.  Bloody and dazed, Richards was shoved in to the shark-infested tide, according to our witnesses.  The photographs were rescued, though it was too late to save John Richards.  I have been told that the pictures are being made available on the Web.  Whether they will prove Ruff’s responsibility for Richards’ terrible death, I can’t say.  But how many of my colleagues have to die suspiciously before police connect the dots?  This makes three – all involving Ruffrox – and that’s just too many to write off as ‘coincidence.’”

 

Jozey’s accusatory post appeared on her page before noon.  It washed over gossip terrain in one sensational seismic wave.

 

One New York mag replaced its next front page with a lurid photo of a great white shark’s open jaws and the giant title “CAMERAMAN CUDGELED and THROWN TO SHARK for SNAPPING SPENCER’S SOPRANO NUDE!!”

 

Richards’ own tabloid asserted:  “‘TRYST TRESPASS IS NOT A CAPITAL CRIME’ SOBS SIS OF SAVAGED WRITER.  ‘Why can a celebrity get away with murder – again?  I demand murder charges!’” Cleverly the editors of both rags avoided actually naming Spence as the one who had tossed poor John to Jaws, or as the ‘celebrity’ against whom murder charges should be made.

 

But the G.O. Firm knew how to maneuver through legal roadblocks straight to the common sense of juries.  With confidence it began work on new defamation suits.

Pressed for more detail Jozey decided that as she’d been given an inch she might as well take a mile.  She explained in a radio interview with Reggie Sugarman that her witnesses had watched the fatal fracas through binoculars from a passing yacht.

 

 “They would only tell me their first names: Henri and Blanche.  It was a big motor-sail boat, red stripe around the hull, red deck shades and sail covers.  I didn’t see its name anywhere on the hull, though.”

 

“You saw their boat?  I thought you hadn’t gone down there yet.”

 

“No, not the day John died.  I met them two days later.  Then they took off.”

 

“You met them in the harbor there on Cemetery Island?”

 

“Not exactly.  They took me out to where they were anchored in the little boat I was – that I was on when  – well, never mind that.  They were afraid to go to the police.  But they wanted to tell someone.”

 

“Why you?  How’d they know you were on the island?”

 

“Well, I was looking for transport to the wedding.  I ran across Henri and he took me to his boat for drinks.”

 

“And told you what they saw through binoculars.  Did you try to get them to talk to cops when they took you back to land?”

 

“Well, actually they didn’t take me back.  We sailed back towards the wedding island but they...got scared and dropped me off there in the dinghy.”

 

“So you went to the wedding island?”

 

“No.  I had a problem with the boat.  The anchor fell out and stuck me to the bottom.  Never mind all that –”

 

“And they sailed off and left you with their dinghy?”

 

“Terrified of Spencer Ruff, yes.”

 

“But you never got to interview Ruffrox, right?”

 

Jozey hesitated.  She knew it was inevitable that her rescue tale would soon be told – and illustrated.  “Well, I did have a brief exchange with Spencer.  He and Robbie Abbot found me out there.  They were incredibly rude.  Stole my camera and dumped it in the water.  They wouldn’t volunteer anything about the murder, obviously, and since I was at their mercy, I was afraid to bring it up.”

 

“What did they do with you?”

 

“They took me to the island and put me on a seaplane that flew me back to Cimitière.”

“Did you ask the seaplane pilot what he knew –”

 

“Oh, nobody gave a damn about John.  Nobody would say anything about his murder.  They told shark stories but Ruff has them all on his payroll.  So nobody down there blames him.”

 

Her segment was ending in seconds.  Reggie spent those vowing to lead a campaign for truth about the monstrous death and those mysterious witnesses.

 

Cimitière’s law enforcement was pelted with letters, some solemn, others hysterical.

They were read with amusement, without replies.  Phone calls jammed the lines:

“What are you doing about the Richards murder case?”

 

“No murder, no case,” became the mantra of the beleaguered clerks, in several languages but primarily English.

 

“But what about the witnesses’ statements?”

 

“Four persons have given statements, none accusing anyone of murder.”

 

“The press has heard from eyewitnesses who saw the murder!”

 

“None such have come to us.”  After the first few dozen repetitions one exasperated clerk added, “And the shark has not made a statement, either.”

 

Cimitière braced for an invasion of reporters with little to investigate. Yves le Baron’s barrister refused to permit the pilot to talk to them.  Nor could they gain access to Cal Donald.

 

“Our system of justice leaves investigation and adjudication to the proper authorities,” read a distributed statement, again in several languages.  “We do not allow the press to prejudice our legal matters.”

 

This didn’t mollify the news hounds.  There were a few people at the yacht harbor who recalled a couple called Henri and Blanche.  They had eaten in a restaurant, done some shopping here and there.  No one had heard them speak of murder, sharks, Ruffrox or Richards.

 

However, people at Jozey’s hotel related her grumbling about “pirates drugging me and ripping off my purse and jewelry.”  One young Spaniard committed actual journalism when she compared Jozey’s description of the nameless red-striped pirate ketch with reports of stolen vessels.

 

She learned that a yacht christened “Cerise” had gone missing from Sydney harbor eighteen days ago.  It was the property of Henri Pecheur and his wife Blanche – who were with a band doing a gig in Japan.  The Spaniard wondered aloud, why would pirates of the yacht and its owners’ names risk exposure by reporting themselves murder witnesses to a professional rumor-monger – and then take the gossip aboard, rob her and leave her marooned near the alleged crime scene, where the alleged killer was celebrating his wedding?  Nothing in Jozey’s story made sense.  And why hadn’t this Cal Donald accused Ruff of murder?  As she discussed the matter with colleagues the Spanish reporter spread doubts.

 

Yves Le Baron couldn’t talk to the press.  But once a preliminary hearing had recorded his testimony under oath, which happened the afternoon of Jozey’s departure, his family shared his account.  Their press release was succinct, passed the logic test and was printed under a photo of Yves stalwart in a snug teeshirt with bandages on his forehead and muscular arms.

 

Yves’ version swiftly outdistanced Jozey’s.  At her sponsor network an emergency meeting convened.  Had her piece achieved actionable libel?  Voices echoing hers were a tabloid-tainted minority.  Murmurs of disgust now threatened to drown them out.