“You must have really offended him for him to move this quick,” Ozzie said.
“Or maybe he really does have something to hide,” I said, pointing. “Maybe there really is some kind of cover-up and he’s diverting attention.”
“Kitty—”
“Okay, I know. But we just hand this off to the lawyers and they should be able to wiggle us out of it. Right?”
“I think you should go pull the recording of that show for the lawyers. And what do you mean us?”
I escaped before having to come up with an answer for him.
The thing was, Franklin had a point. If my show somehow made people afraid of going to Speedy Mart, or damaged the company’s reputation to a point where the business was negatively affected, the guy had a right to sue me. I just didn’t think I was a big enough fish for him to notice. I had a decent-sized market share, but not that decent. This seemed like an overreaction. A cease-and-desist order and maybe a request for an on-air apology seemed more appropriate. Maybe Franklin and his lawyers were just trying to scare me, and they’d ask for the apology in exchange for withdrawing the lawsuit. I wouldn’t be able to argue with that kind of deal.
While I was pulling the digital file of Friday’s broadcast and burning it to a CD for the station’s lawyer people, I called my own live-in lawyer for advice.
After our hellos, I launched right in. “Well, Mr. O’Farrell, attorney-at-law. Guess what? I’m being sued for libel.”
“Well,” Ben said. “That’s a new one even for you. Who’s suing?”
“The president of Speedy Mart.”
“Already? That was fast, you only did that show a couple of days ago.”
“I know. I’m almost impressed.”
“I suppose it was only a matter of time.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking,” I said. “But I thought libel was when you lied about someone in print.”
“Print or broadcast media,” he answered. “It’s libel because you have a built-in audience.”
“So how do I get out of it?”
“You either prove that what you said wasn’t damaging, or that it isn’t libel because it’s true. You were pretty good about saying that you were only speculating. I wonder what argument they’re going to make.”
“You think they have a case?” I asked.
“I don’t know. This isn’t my area of expertise. A civil suit’s a long way from criminal defense. Do you think they have a case?”
I shrugged. “My instinct is that something really is going on. But I don’t have any way to prove it. I think my mistake was bringing up the president by name. Because even if something is going on, he may not have anything to do with it.”
“I assume KNOB has lawyers who can handle this?” Ben said.
“The legal side of it. I’m not sure they can do anything about proving there’s any supernatural involvement.”
He paused; I could almost hear him thinking over the phone. “I think I have an idea,” he said finally. “You coming home soon?”
“It may be an hour or so. What’s the plan?”
“We’ll talk about it tonight.”
“At least no one’s trying to kill me this time.”
“Yet,” he said. “Give it time.”
There was just no arguing with him. As a lawyer, he was trained to expect the worst.
WHEN I got home, Ben met me at the door and turned me right back around.