I haven’t had many opportunities to celebrate anything over the past year or so. But as I sat alone in the bar at the Lord Chesterton, I decided it was time. The lovely owner, an older ginger-haired woman with ancient hands that had probably poured millions of beers, had settled me in the quiet room. She was obviously a “sympathizer,” an Innocent Ted partisan. When she’d asked if I wanted anything to drink while I waited, my first instinct had been that I didn’t want to lose my edge for my first dreaded public audience. But then, since leaving the meeting with Frankie, Sean, and Elise, I’d enjoyed the delightful sensation of a huge weight sliding off my shoulders. I ordered a Wild Turkey and sat sipping it as she left me to my thoughts.

The online newspapers were already picking up on Melanie Springfield’s imminent press conference. I put my phone on the fuzzy bar runner and opened the top hit, the bourbon warm in the back of my throat.

CONKAFFEY SHOCKER: STORIES AND LIVES DUMPS ACCUSATION CONTENT, EX-GIRLFRIEND RETRACTS ACCUSATION

In a move that has bewildered Australians following the Ted Conkaffey case, Sydney woman Melanie Springfield has released a public statement retracting accusations she made in an interview with Channel Three’s current affairs program Stories and Lives against the disgraced former detective. Five million viewers tuned in two nights ago to see new sexual misconduct claims against Conkaffey that were never aired. Springfield plans to give a press conference later today retracting the claims, which she apparently made to Stories and Lives producers in an exclusive interview, that Conkaffey molested her younger sister 15 years ago. Springfield had claimed that the abuse occurred while she dated Conkaffey in high school. Springfield’s sister, Elise, and her parents will be in attendance at the press conference, along with representatives of the New South Wales Police.

Of course, there was no cause for me to go dancing in the street. Whatever Melanie’s reason for accusing me—whether she was mentally ill, wanted the money or notoriety, or simply had always held a grudge against me for ending our brief little teenage romance—the damage was done. If the Australian public thought that the chances of a man being falsely accused of something like child molestation could happen once, they certainly wouldn’t believe it could happen twice. People would think Melanie balked at the prospect of repeating her claims in a courtroom. Or that one of my apparent drug dealing compatriots had paid her off, or threatened her life. But a late retraction was better than no retraction at all. I raised my glass to myself and smiled.

Along with my success at the station, I’d managed not to run into my old squad brothers and get myself whomped again, and I liked to believe something had shifted between Little Frankie and me. She’d seen Sean out and then come back to me on the seventh floor, where I’d been sitting alone trying to think through Elise’s revelations. When Frankie found me I’d just poured myself a cup of that coffee and was staring into it, lost.