Recollection Rick
Chapter 44
Preferring the Times, Gilly doesn't usually bother with the Ledger, but her department head sent her a link to the online version of the attack on Stop the Poison and Gilly herself. It's not as if she's never been the target of criticism or even humiliation, but this comes at a particularly bad time. She's up for tenure, and this kind of smear could ruin her chances. What's even worse is the attack on Dana and Alexis. Soiling the reputations of innocent young people is beyond shameful. She's not going to take it lying down.
Hudson doesn't have a law school, but Columbia does. Gilly has friends there, one in particular, who dates back to her high school days. By chance, they were assigned to the same lunch table and immediately formed a bond. Nothing romantic ever worked out, but they've always been there for each other as friends. He's not only a distinguished member of the faculty. He's a practicing attorney. His labor law expertise led to being drafted by the Obama administration to serve on the Federal Services Impasses Panel and aiding in settling several thorny disputes.
Gilly's situation is hardly a labor problem, but she could be at an impasse of her own. And Harry Morton's always been a sucker for anything that involved helping kids. Chances are he can't represent her himself, but he can point her to the best person for the job.
"Franny, I was just about to call you," Harry Morton confides. "I saw the Ledger this morning. A few years ago, they never would have run that kind of character assassination. But newspapers are fighting for their lives these days. Some idiot on the editorial staff must have decided it was worth sacrificing journalistic standards for a temporary circulation boost. Or someone slipped them some green to make that decision. Are you going to fight back?"
"Of course, I'm going to fight back, Harry. Are you in?"
"You know I'll help you in any way I can, Franny. But the kind of law you need is not the kind I use to kick corporate ass. I can refer you, though. My friend Jim Beckett loves slaying this kind of dragon, and he's damn good at it. His office is also on the same subway route as Hudson. I'll give you his number."
Slowly exhaling, Gilly picks up a pen. "Ready!"
"Look, Castle," Henry Browning protests, "my firm does prenups – which you've never been smart enough to get – divorces, and contracts. Fighting major corporate malfeasance, especially the kind you're describing, is beyond the bounds of our practice. But I can refer you to a lawyer who specializes in consumer law. This Stop the Poison thing would be right up his alley. And you might even know him. He has the same last name as your wife. It's James Beckett. He has an office uptown."
Rick forces his jaw back in place. "Yeah, I know where his office is. Jim Beckett's my father-in-law. Thanks, Henry."
"No thanks necessary, but your rant was almost 15 minutes. The quarter-hour will be on your bill."
"Of course," Rick acknowledges.
Jim Beckett examines his notes on the calls that just poured into his ear. He wasn't surprised by Rick's fury over the story in The Ledger. He was pretty furious himself when he saw it. When Kate took the plunge into the Castle family, Alexis became part of the package. But with the raft of lawyers Rick can afford, Jim was surprised his son-in-law chose him. The call from Harry's old friend Frances Gilly just made Jim even more enthusiastic about taking the case.
It's hardly the first time someone's exposed dangerous problems with Chinese products. Many pet owners grieved after melamine-containing food killed their beloved animals. Possible cancer-causing NMDA contaminated pharmaceuticals were no small matter either, but at least the recalls were reasonably straightforward.
This battle will be a whole other animal. A panoply of products packaged under a wealth of private labels is in who-knows-how-many little discount stores in who-knows-how-many places. They're purchased by the most vulnerable – not only starving students but low-wage workers struggling to make ends meet.
Jim also expects that tracing the attack on Professor Gilly and the kids back to the originator will be a bear. Shell corporations will form layers of cover for the source of the lies spread by the City's highest-circulation paper. But Jim's played that game before and knows how to construct his battle plan. The most immediate part of it is keeping any more garbage out of the press and getting the truth out ASAP. He'll be starting on that right now.
Kate rakes her fingers through her hair. "You hired my father?"
"If the boss upstairs allowed her another visit, I might have also hired your mother," Rick responds. "Anyway, it seems that Professor Gilly was referred to your dad as well, so this isn't merely a family action. I don't know if the Wygards want to get on board too. We could certainly use Bart's investigatory skills. I have a call in to him now. I'm waiting to hear back. In any case, some corporate attack dog is going to rue the day that article met eyeballs.
After returning to the United States, Lee Anne was grateful to hear that the China report would be signed by someone higher up the food chain. She didn't have to put her name to a lie. But she can't let it stand, either.
The many SQUZ Group divisions must be shipping millions of toxic bottles, jars, and tubes to little stores all over the country. She may not have developed her parents' passion for spreading the good news, but this is bad news that needs to get out.
On the plane back from Asia, Lee Anne heard that some people calling themselves Stop the Poison are trying to keep consumers from using tainted products. She doesn't dare use a company computer or phone to search for their contact information. Anything she enters could be logged. She has her own iPad at her shoebox-sized apartment. As soon as she makes it home from the office, she can use it.
She'll have to find one of those email forwarding services or something. Lee Anne can tell Stop the Poison what she knows, but she can't let them trace the information back to her. Now that she's back, she can do her best to ensure that in-house quality control is as honest as she can make it – while quietly searching for a new job. Right now, that's the best she can do.
Alexis almost dreads checking the email on her laptop. When the article first came out, she received hundreds of messages. Some of them were supportive, but most spewed insults usually reserved for the kind of people Kate puts in handcuffs. A few of the invectives, despite having lived in New York all her life, the teen had never encountered before. She doesn't want to encounter them again.
The stream of abuse has slowed to a trickle, and one email looks different from the rest. Whoever wrote it is offering information to back up Stop the Poison's claims. The anonymous whistleblower even sent the address of a factory in China. Alexis enters it into Google but can't get past the silk curtain. Dana can also access the email, and she sends him a heads up to have a look. She also forwards the alleged revelations to Jim Beckett and Bart Wygard. They'll be able to figure out the next step better than she can.
