53

VIENNA

JON SAT AT THE long table at the front of the foundation’s main conference room, watching as reporters filed in and took their seats. Next to him sat Vanessa Gray, pale and fragile and silent. She and her husband had arrived only minutes earlier, and they had merely nodded to him and Claire as they sat down. Jon saw Vanessa’s gaze dart around the room. He couldn’t blame her for her apprehension. He reached for her hand and squeezed it.

“I’m glad you came,” he said. “Thank you.”

Claire sat to his right, engrossed in conversation with Steve Ackerson, the foundation’s attorney, whom Jon had insisted she consult. Steve was not at all happy about this press conference and had demanded to be with Claire as she spoke. Only if he’d let her speak without interruption, Claire had said. She’d requested the same of Jon. She wanted to do this alone. Jon understood. He admired her for doing it at all.

It was hardly Claire’s first press conference. At least ten times in the past, reporters had converged on this room at the foundation to hear about the development of a new program or some other topic of interest to the foundation. Still, Jon could tell she was nervous. She had stayed at the house with him the night before and had been unable to sleep. They’d made love, which made her alternately giddy and weepy and very, very tender toward him. It hadn’t eased her nerves, though, and now she kept unconsciously groping for his hand, holding it for only a second or two before pulling her own hand away. Her voice was breathless as she talked with Steve, and she kept checking her watch. On Jon’s other side, Vanessa rocked her foot frenetically beneath the table. He was sandwiched between two human bundles of anxiety.

Perhaps twenty-five reporters were seated in the room, and there was a steady buzz of chatter, which quickly abated when Claire stood up behind the microphone-studded podium.

“Thank you all for coming,” she began. Jon shifted his chair away from the table a bit so he could more easily see her face. Next to him, Vanessa did the same.

“I am, as you all know, the sister of Dr. Vanessa Gray, who recently accused Senator Zed Patterson of having abused her when she was eight years old.” Whatever nervousness Claire had exhibited before starting to speak had disappeared. A sheet of paper rested on the podium in front of her, but she didn’t glance at it. “My sister and I have been estranged since the time of her abuse,” she continued. “We were separated by our parents, Vanessa living in Seattle with our father while I lived here in Virginia with our mother.” Claire spread her hands out on the sides of the podium. Her wedding ring glittered in the overhead light. “For the past several months, I’ve been trying to make sense of some long-forgotten memories from my childhood,” she said. “I recently visited Winchester Village in Pennsylvania, where the carousel built by my grandfather is housed, and I remembered very vividly that I, too, was molested by then deputy sheriff Walter Patterson on the carousel.”

A surge of whispering swelled in the room but faded quickly as Claire spoke over it.

“This occurred at least two times that I remember,” she said, “but I believe it probably happened more often than that. I realize that my sister’s allegations haven’t been taken seriously, and it’s with some apprehension that I go public with this information myself. But I feel that I must, not only to lend credibility to Vanessa’s statements, but also to alert others to the fact that Senator Patterson does indeed have a history of pedophilia. I doubt very much that Vanessa and I were his only victims, and I hope that by our coming forward, other victims will be given the courage to do so as well. Pedophilia is not an illness that goes away on its own, and I’m concerned about the possibility of other children being at risk in the presence of the senator.”

She glanced down at Jon. He smiled at her, and she looked out at the reporters again.

“I’ll take your questions now,” she said.

A woman wearing thick glasses stood up in the third row. “Forgive me, Ms. Harte,” she said, “but your coming forward at this time seems a bit suspicious. Your sister makes some allegations against Senator Patterson and, suddenly, you claim to remember something similar happening to you. Can you offer us any proof at all that what you’re telling us actually took place?”

“I have no proof other than my words and Vanessa’s,” Claire said. “There were two witnesses to one of the incidents of abuse. Unfortunately, both of those people, my mother and my grandfather, are dead.” Claire drew in a breath. “After visiting the carousel and recalling the abuse, I told my husband what I’d remembered. He then told me that shortly before my mother’s death, she revealed to him that she and my grandfather had walked into the barn one day to discover Mr. Patterson molesting me on the carousel. My mother described an incident to my husband, which I remembered only as my husband repeated it to me. She said that after she and my grandfather found us on the carousel, a fight broke out between the sheriff and my grandfather. During that fight, Mr. Patterson knocked my grandfather to the floor and I…” Claire’s voice failed her for the first time. She looked down at the podium, and Jon felt a film of sweat break out on his back as she raised her eyes to her audience once again. “I got one of my grandfather’s carving knives,” Claire said, “and I stabbed the sheriff with it.” Jon could see tears in Claire’s eyes. “I loved my grandfather very much,” she said. “I think I was trying to protect him, but he died of a heart attack during the fight. My mother never pressed charges against Sheriff Patterson, for reasons of her own. She was the type of person who distorted the truth in an attempt to protect her children from pain. She made sure I forgot what had happened, but the incident came back to me as my husband told me about it.”

There were a few seconds of silence in the room. Looking at the faces of the reporters, Jon knew that for perhaps the first time they were beginning to doubt Patterson’s slick and convincing rebuttal of Vanessa’s allegations.

A second reporter stood up, this one an obese middle-aged man. “How can you explain the fact that Senator Patterson has made victims’ rights his pet project?” The man wheezed as he spoke. “Not to mention all the work he’s done for women and children?”

Claire leaned into the bank of microphones. “Only the senator can answer that question,” she said. “I can speculate, but I’d like to stick to what I know as fact during this conference, rather than conjecture.”

An African American woman sitting in the middle of the room stood up. “You said you”—the woman looked down at her notes—”stabbed Senator Patterson with a carving knife. How serious was the wound and where was he cut?”

“He was cut in the lower abdomen, and I remember a lot of blood,” Claire said. “I don’t know if the wound was very serious, however.”

Jon stole a look to his left, at Vanessa. Her round blue eyes were on Claire. The fingers of her right hand were pressed to her mouth, while her left was tucked snugly into her husband’s hand on the table.

The questions continued for a few more minutes. They were skeptical questions. Stunned questions. It was obvious that Claire had shaken up this room of reporters. Whether they believed her or not was unclear. Jon wasn’t certain it was important.

Steve Ackerson suddenly stood up, leaning across Claire to speak into the microphone. “That’s all the questions Ms. Harte-Mathias will take today,” he said. “Thank you very much for coming.”

Claire raised her hand to keep the reporters in their seats. It was obvious she had something more to say.

“I don’t know if I’ve been fortunate or unfortunate to have blocked these memories from my mind all these years,” she said. “All I know is that my sister has done the suffering for both of us.” She glanced in Vanessa’s direction. “I feel as though it’s long past time for me to take on my share.”

Steve set his hand on Claire’s shoulder, turning her, and quickly ushered her from the room, out into the hallway. Vanessa and Brian followed, with Jon behind them in his wheelchair. By the time Jon reached the hallway, Vanessa and Claire were embracing. He was anxious to touch Claire, to tell her how much he admired her for what she had done, but he could see that he would have to wait his turn. It was going to be a long time before anyone could pry these two sisters apart.