contact with the abuser.”
“And you went anyway.”
“I needed money for my apartment. I’d found a job on Friday, and I needed to get moved in and settled. Fred promised he’d give me the money if I’d just come by and see him. He said he was sorry for what he’d done. He begged me to come.”
“And you agreed?”
“Because I had to have the money,“ she answered. ”I had given the landlord a small deposit, but I had to have the rest of it that afternoon or I’d lose the deposit. I wouldn’t have been able to move in over the weekend.“
“He did give you the money, then,” I continued. “I understand from Mrs. Fields here that you did get moved into your own place.”
If she heard my comment, LeAnn didn’t acknowledge it. She seemed distant. When she spoke, her mind was still locked on the money and her need of it.
“My counselor was right. Fred used the money for bait to get me to come to him. He had it there waiting for me in an envelope on his desk. When I reached for it, he pulled it away from me, pulled it closer to him. He said I’d have to pay to get it.”
“Pay? What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” She dropped her gaze. Her lower lip trembled. In the silence that followed, I could hear the clatter of silverware and the muted conversation of diners in the other room. Alice Fields had been right. The round table did provide some privacy. Some, but not enough.
When LeAnn spoke again, it was in a ragged, painful whisper. “He said being with me made him want me again, turned him on. He said I could have the money if I’d make love to him there in his office, on the couch.”
“LeAnn, you don’t have to do this,” Alice said. “You shouldn’t do this.”
Their hands were still clenched in what seemed like a death grip. Both sets of knuckles were white.
“No,” LeAnn insisted. “I have to tell him what happened. I told Fred no. It was the first time ever. I told him I wasn’t his whore, that he couldn’t pay me enough money to have sex with him.” She paused and then continued. “That’s when he hit me.”
“On your face?”
She nodded, self-consciously touching the angry purple spot below her eye. “He hit me first and then he grabbed my arms and held me against the door. That’s when he told me about her. I didn’t want to listen, I didn’t want to know about it, but he forced me to. I couldn’t get away. He told me how nice it was to have a real woman for a change, one who knew her place and didn’t mind doing things his way.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“Like keeping his office immaculate and falling on her back whenever he snapped his fingers.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes, he told me that,” she hissed. “He wanted to rub my nose in it. He wanted me to understand that it was my problem, not his.“
I felt like I was missing important pieces of the conversation.
“What was his problem?“
“Sex. He wanted me to know that he could get it up with her even if he couldn’t with me.” She paused. “Except…” she added as an afterthought.
“Except what?” I asked.
“Except when he beat me up. He could do it then.”
“Did he?”
She looked at me without flinching. “He tried. He let go of one of my arms to unfasten his pants. That’s when I managed to get away. I grabbed the money and ran.” She stopped.
“Go on,” I urged. “What happened then?”
“There was a man standing right outside the door.”
“A man? Who?”
“A carpet installer. I didn’t know him, didn’t know he was there. He was working in the other room and heard us. He said he heard me scream. Fred must have forgotten about him, too. Anyway, he told Fred to leave me alone, so Fred went after him.”
“Where was this?”
“Out by Debi’s desk. All I could think about was getting away, but I couldn’t get past them.
They were wrestling there in front of the door. I tried going out the back way.“
“Through the garage?”
She nodded. “But the lock had been changed. My key wouldn’t work. Fred came charging into the room. He picked up something by the door, a tool of some kind, and came after me with it. I fell against a flowerpot and knocked it down. Just then the other guy came in. He got between us, and he and Fred struggled. Fred hit him with that tool, that thing in his hand, and he started bleeding. That’s when I hit him.”
“Hit who, Fred?”
“Yes, with a piece of the flowerpot. I remember picking it up with both hands and hitting him over the head with it.”
“Where? On the back of his head? On the side?”
“Here,” she said, pointing to a place just above and behind her left ear.
“And then what happened?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
“What do you mean?”
“I must have gone back to Phoenix House, but I don’t remember it. Someone told me I had blood all over me…”
Alice Fields had become more and more agitated as LeAnn talked. At last she could restrain herself no longer. “That’s enough, LeAnn!” she ordered. “Don’t say another word. We’re going now, Detective Beaumont. You’re not going to stop us.”
She stood up and glared at me defiantly. She must have thought I’d whip out a pair of handcuffs and arrest LeAnn on the spot. I didn’t.
“I’ll need your address and telephone number,” I said quietly to LeAnn. “Someone will need to come to the medical examiner’s office and make a positive identification.”
LeAnn started to answer me, but Alice Fields stopped her. “No more questions until she has legal counsel with her, Detective Beaumont.”
“Of course,” I said agreeably. I didn’t want to press my luck with the executive director of Phoenix House.
“One of our attorneys will be in touch with you today or tomorrow,” Alice declared firmly. “In the meantime, since you didn’t read LeAnn her rights, I wouldn’t count on using anything she said in a court of law.”
With that, Alice Fields pulled LeAnn bodily to her feet and hustled her out of the room. She left me holding the ticket for both our cinnamon rolls.
LeAnn’s story sounded on first hearing like a case of self-defense. Grabbing whatever weapon happens to be at hand-including a broken flowerpot or a dental pick-and using it to ward off an attacker doesn’t imply premeditation. It’s not in the same class as sitting in a room with a loaded gun in your hand waiting for some poor sucker to walk in the door so you can blow him away.
Besides, I’m opposed to rape, all kinds of rape. Including marital rape. As far as I was concerned, LeAnn Nielsen’s story had played to a pretty sympathetic audience.
For a moment I considered trying to follow them in an effort to find out exactly where LeAnn lived, but that would only have provoked Alice Fields. It might have speeded the process some, to be able to question LeAnn at my convenience instead of at Alice Fields“, but I could afford to wait until LeAnn showed up with her attorney. I hoped he’d be a good one.
About that time Diane came by with a coffeepot and offered a refill. While I waited for it to cool off enough to drink, I scribbled down some notes from what I remembered of LeAnn’s story.
Reading back through it, I could see that most of it rang true. The part about using the money as bait and having LeAnn come over to his office to get it certainly squared with everything else I knew about the late,
