Plum Girl (Romance) (29 page)

Obviously the answer was no, but Lonnie wasn't sure that he should be asking. There was something possessive about it, as if it mattered to him who'd been there before him, and Lonnie didn't know if she wanted to encourage that kind of thinking. Then again, there was something about Dominick that made her want to tell him every single thing about herself.

"I liked Eric, but that's all I did. Oh, except for when I stopped liking him." She leaned her head forward and pressed a warm, suctioning kiss to his lips.

"Good... He didn't deserve you," he muttered, before turning the kiss into something feral and blatantly sexual. Lonnie kissed him back while she reached her hand over to her nightstand, grappling to find the handle to the first drawer. She nastily yanked it open, felt around for a condom, and shoved it into Dominick's hand, as she rocked her body up and down suggestively.

It didn't take much suggesting. Anxiously, he tore the condom wrapper, and they both slipped back into the sweet oblivion of heat and sweat and sex.

Chapter 21

First thing Monday morning Lonnie sought out Macey. "Macey, can I speak with you?" Lonnie hoped she'd say yes, because she already decided not to take no for an answer. Lonnie was determined to corner Macey while she had the chance.

"Sure, Lonnie. What's up?" She pushed her glasses higher on the bridge of her nose. "Actually, I'm glad you stopped by, because I wanted to talk to you about something anyway."
Good start.
"Please, sit down."

She obeyed, but made sure to start speaking first, so they wouldn't get sidetracked. "Macey, I have to talk to you about something... well, ask you, really." Lonnie unfolded Twit's fax, which had been clutched in her hand since she'd taken it out of her bag that morning, and passed it to Macey.

"I wondered—between you and me—if you could tell me something about this."

Macey's face changed from random curiosity to pointed interest after she read the fax. "Where did you get this?" she asked softly.

Lonnie replied, "It's a long story." And all she needed was to start relaying it and then get interrupted by a phone call or a client before she made any headway with her inquiry. "What I need is to know what it means."

"What makes you think I would know?" Macey asked.

"I just—I don't know," Lonnie stammered. "I just hoped maybe you would. I mean, since Ann Lee used to work here, and... well, Sandra Neemas did too, didn't she?" She crossed her fingers under her lap and waited for some useful information.

Macey nodded, but said nothing. Obviously a more direct approach was needed.

"Did Lunther sexually harass Ann Lee?" Lonnie asked.

"What makes you say that?" Macey asked, furrowing her brows.

"I just... had a feeling. I remember that Ann Lee left abruptly, and Lunther was... I could be wrong, but—"

"You're not wrong," Macey said. She sat forward and clasped her hands together tightly. "Forgive me, Lonnie, but I am not clear on how this matter concerns you." It wasn't a challenge; it was an invitation to explain. Unfortunately, Lonnie couldn't quite do that because she'd promised Montgomery that she wouldn't tell anyone at Twit & Bell about his investigation. As far as they knew, Lunther's death was ruled a heart attack, case closed.

"Well..."
Think. Think.
What possible reason would she have to be inquiring about Lunther's history of sexual harassment? Suddenly, she thought of a good angle to use with Macey—one that wouldn't be
entirely
untrue, and might coax some information out of her.

"The truth is," Lonnie began, "I am just sickened by the thought that women today still have to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace."
Well, that part is definitely true.
"And I need to know because I need peace of mind."
Also, based in reality.
"I'm just so worried that those women... on the list... that they might not be okay. That they may have felt traumatized, or...
" Felt like icing Lunther.
"So I was hoping you could tell me what happened to them. You know, so I could... sleep at night."
Utter bullshit.

A pregnant pause followed Lonnie's monologue. Then Macey spoke.

"I understand," she said. She lifted her blue eyes off of the piece of paper in her hands and settled them on Lonnie's face. Her expression reflected a kind of weary sadness that made Lonnie feel guilty about deceiving her. She wished she could tell her that she was really asking because she was an unofficial informant for the police, but then she'd have to tell her that Lunther's death was murder, and
Oh, by the way, Montgomery has it in his head that you're involved somehow.
Obviously that wasn't an option—Montgomery would kill her if she did that. Or, at least, make good on his regular threat to arrest her.

Macey continued. "You want to know because you sympathize with them—with whatever might have happened to them. You want to know if you can help. If they
need
help. Is that it?"

Lonnie felt like a complete slug, but nodded. What she'd said about sexual harassment sickening her—not to mention making her mad as hell—was true. But at the moment, that was the least of her concerns. Right now she had to find out the connection between the women on the list and Lunther. More specifically, she needed to know if any of them had enough motive to kill him.

"Did all these women work at Twit & Bell?" she asked Macey.

"Yes. Although Mabel Wills and Courtney Adams predate my employment here."

"What happened to them?"

"Like you said, sexual harassment interfered with their productivity—as it's designed to do."

"Well... were they fired because they wouldn't..." Her voice trailed off, waiting for Macey to fill in the blanks.

"No, they quit. Look, Lonnie, I don't know how well you observed Lunther around the office, but I can tell you right now: he was a self-obsessed bastard. Plain and simple. And he was never going to change. He wasn't capable of change. He was too stupid to change. These women moved on to other jobs that didn't force them to confront the same kind of abuse."

"How do you know they moved on?"

"You're not the only one who has a level of emotional commitment that few people understand." Lonnie guiltily contemplated hara-kiri with the nearest letter opener. "I checked up on Lunther's history as soon as I found out the kind of man he was. That's why he despised me. Well, among other reasons."

"What other reasons?" Lonnie pushed.

Macey looked at her squarely, appraisingly, and answered her even though she didn't have to. "I like you, Lonnie. You're sensitive to much of the unfairness that still exists. Obviously that's not much of a blessing. It's frustrating as hell." She stood up and walked over to look out the large plate-glass window behind her desk.

"To answer your question, Lunther hated me for knowing what he was
and
for using it against him." She turned around to meet Lonnie's eyes, which were unblinking and expectant. She sighed and started to explain. "I was planning to leave Twit & Bell—which thrilled Lunther, believe me. The last thing he needed was me around to remind him of his alter ego."
Alter ego?
"What didn't thrill him, however, was the threat of what I might do before I left."

"Lonnie, I'm no lightweight where retribution is concerned. I am not a person who blindly follows the learned 'ethics' that have been determined by a patriarchal society. If it were up to me,
Extremities
and
Death and the Maiden
would've had very different endings. I believe revenge is a dish best served
whenever."
She propped herself up on her windowsill, appearing more relaxed, as if just discussing this was alleviating some burden.

"After I found out about Lunther's
proclivities,
I told him that I planned to leave the firm and that I'd announce my resignation early this spring. What drove him crazy was that he was sure I was up to something—some scheme to 'screw him over.' How typical. After adversely affecting another woman's life, his only concern was the slight chance that he might be inconvenienced."

"Another woman... You mean, Ann Lee?"

Macey nodded. "I'd found out about his history of harassment a couple months ago, and that's when I'd confronted him. He assured me that he'd just been suffering personal problems, but that he'd gotten help. He assured me he had stopped. But then, when Ann left the firm so abruptly, I knew... he was still at it." Her face twisted into a taut expression of detestation.

"But how did you find out at all?" Lonnie asked.

"Sandy told me."

"Sandy?"

"She was my assistant. She left a year ago."
Sandra Neemas! The one who'd pressed charges a year ago... right after it happened to her.
"We stayed friends after she quit, but she told me the truth about why she'd left only a few months ago. She told me she'd pressed charges against Lunther, but she'd dropped them when she got her plum job in London. The point is: she moved on with her life, but that doesn't change what Lunther did."

"Anyway, after Ann Lee left, I confronted Lunther again and told him that he'd be sorry. You should've seen him squirm." She laughed humorlessly at the image and went on. "Of course, he assumed I would do something soap opera-esque, like blackmail him. Or tell all of Boston about his obsession."
Obsession?
"He never figured out that I'd undermine his power by simply inverting it."

Huh?

"I was taking his clients." She moved back to the desk and sat down again. "Remember that research project I gave you?"
The one that got me mugged? Vaguely.
"Those 'hypothetical' cases were Lunther's. Ann told me where he kept his legal notes, and how they were filed. You know the citations I needed you to look up for me?" Lonnie nodded. "Well, we all knew who Lunther's clients were, of course, and the overall scope of his cases. But what I needed to know were the exact kinds of legal strategies and loopholes he'd applied to them. So I copied those citations straight from his notes."

Lonnie still wasn't sure what Macey had hoped to gain from that, but she answered that question next. "You see, I was looking for the best angle I could find to convince his clients that their interests would be better served with me. I knew Lunther's legal maneuverings were hardly superior. It just took a little digging to uncover his ineptitudes."

So, Lunther hadn't known what was in the notebook specifically, but he'd known that Macey was up to
something,
and he'd been absolutely desperate to find out what it was. That was probably why he'd come up to Lonnie at the holiday party; he'd wanted to pump her for information.

"Anyway, it's all moot now. He's gone and I'm not about to mourn the loss to humanity."

Lonnie let a few moments pass, while she tried to digest all the information. That explained a lot, but she was still confused about the fax. Why had Twit hired a private investigator? What did the women on the list have to do with him?

"Macey, do you have an idea what this fax
means?
Why would Twit get this?"

"Oh, of course I have an idea! It's just a guess, but I'm sure a plausible one. Beauregard
loathed
Lunther. He was desperate to force him out of the company. The rumor was, he'd offered to buy him out repeatedly, but Lunther always refused. I'm sure Beauregard figured that if he did some good digging, he'd find some dirt—dirt that would finally give him
leverage."

"And those women may not have pressed charges, but—as I learned from my own investigating—they're more than willing to discuss Lunther if asked." She rested her elbows on her desk in an uncharacteristically casual gesture. "Lonnie, Lunther Bell's days as a consequence-free harasser were coming to an end. How ironic that he died first."

"I see... So I guess his thing was, what, quid pro quo?" Lonnie asked. "You know, either put out or—"

"Oh, no! No, no, no. Oh, I'm sorry, I should've explained better." She leaned forward and said, "Lunther didn't want those women to sleep with him."

"What do you mean? W-what did he want?"

"He wanted them to baby-sit him. Literally." What kind of riddle was this?

"Macey, I'm sorry, I'm really not following you."

She nodded her head. "Of course you're not. I'm sorry. Lonnie?"—she paused—"have you ever heard of an 'adult baby7?"

Lonnie racked her brain, and all she could come up with was the memory of a
Jerry Springer
episode about grown men whose hobbies included wearing diapers and pretending to be newborns. But that couldn't possibly be what Macey was referring to, could it?

"Um... is that when grown men... dress up like babies?"

"For sexual excitement, yes. It's a type of role-playing fetish, which presumably rests on the tenets of domination and submission. Some would argue, however, that a man's desire to revert to infantilism has more to do with his inability to cope with the standards of masculinity."

"And Lunther was one of those—I mean, he pretended—?"

"Yes. He was an adult baby. And he was on the lookout for a woman to play the game with him. To act out the role of his 'caretaker.' He preyed on the women here who seemed the weakest because... Well, I have my own theories." She shook her head in more of the same disgust. Lonnie just waited for her to elaborate, so she did.

"I think Lunther preyed on women he worked with because it killed the proverbial two birds with one stone. To be crass: he got off on more than the role-playing. He literally
got off
on disabling a woman's power. If he could bully an assistant into doing what he wanted—for fear that otherwise she might lose her job—then he'd feel satisfied in his own ability to subordinate her. Economic subordination, in that case."

Lonnie sat back in the armchair, feeling drained and exhausted, even though she'd barely said anything throughout the conversation. She just couldn't believe all this corruption and debauchery had been going on under her nose the whole time she'd worked at Twit & Bell! Lunther Bell, an
adult baby?
It was all too much to imagine.