Be Reasonable Do It My Way Ch 12

Ed and Harry had an impromptu meeting on Wednesday afternoon in preparation for Harry's meeting with Olivia Freemont the next morning. Ed just showed up at Harry's office that day with his administrative assistant, Lilli Clutch, in tow.

"Ed!" Gloria exclaimed in surprise, "Lilli! What are you doing here?"

"Lilli managed to dig up a few more things on the Freemont situation," Ed said proudly, "But, it's explosive stuff. I didn't want to risk any kind of electronic communications with this intel. That's why I didn't call or e-mail. This requires a face-to-face."

"He's in a meeting over in Marketing," said Gloria, "But, he'll gladly break from that to hear this. I'll go get him. Go ahead into the office. You know where everything is, Ed. Lilli, there's fresh coffee on the credenza."

"Thanks, Gloria," said Lilli.

"Does Harry still stash a bottle of Jack Daniels behind the coffee stuff," Ed asked.

"And two shot glasses," Gloria said as she left the room.

As they entered Harry's office Lilli said with a note of concern, "Isn't it a little early in the day to be drinking?"

"With what we've got," Ed replied, "one good shot won't hurt me. It might even help."

"All right," said Lilli dubiously.

Slate Investigations, LLC was one of the most successful detective agencies in town. Despite that Ed always seem to look like a down-on-his-luck P.I.

His ill-fitting, off the rack, grey suit couldn't hide his middle-aged spread anywhere near as well as his battered fedora hid his receding hairline. Though he shaved meticulously every morning, he always sported a five o'clock shadow by lunchtime. That and his generally combative attitude helped him to cut an imposing figure even though he was only five feet six inches tall.

Lilli Clutch, on the other hand, was a fifty year old, auburn haired stunner. On her round, almost baby face she had a little, button nose, very full lips and wide, green eyes that captivated any man, and many women, that she met. They were the kind of eyes that always seemed to carry a hint of mischief; very sexy mischief. Of course, it frequently took a while for people to notice eyes because of her head-turning 36DD-24-36 body. The only reason that one wouldn't call her a MILF is because she never had children.

"I already have one child," she would tell people, pointing to Ed, "that's plenty."

As Ed began hunting for the whiskey and a shot glass Lilli went to Harry's computer and popped a thumb drive into the first empty portal she found. She was just clicking on the first document she wanted when Harry walked in.

"Lilli" he said happily, "Ed, Good to see you both."

Lilli ran over to him to give him a big hug and a deep kiss.

Lilli finally let go of Harry and asked, "Where's Gloria?"

"She stopped to get her steno pad so that she could take some notes," said Harry. Then he turned to Ed, who had his head buried inside the credenza, and said, "The J.D. is on the other side of the shelf."

Lilli grabbed Harry's wrist and led him to the desk.

"I hope you don't mind," she said, "I put my thumb drive in your computer so that I could show you what we've found."

"What she found," Ed added as he held up the bottle of whiskey in triumph.

As Harry sat down behind his desk Lilli leaned over next to him to manipulate the mouse to open the pictures and documents. Harry felt the delightful pressure of her soft breasts against his upper arm.

Ed poured a shot of the Jack Daniels, downed it quickly then sat down in the chair in front of Harry's desk. As he sat Gloria came in, note pad and pen in hand. Noticing that Lilli was in Gloria's usual spot next to Harry she pulled up another chair and sat down next to Ed.

Lilli looked up from her work and said, "Sorry to invade your space, Gloria. But, I'm the only one who knows what and where all these document are."

"No problem," said Gloria. Then she thought with a hint of jealousy, "It also gives you a chance to rub your tits up against Harry."

As Lilli worked the mouse, opening different folder to locate the file she wanted, she said, "You were right about a couple of things, Gloria."

"Like what?" Gloria asked apprehensively.

"For a start," said Lilli as she pressed her breasts a bit more closely to Harry's arm, "The 'A.W.' in A.W. Accounting and Consulting does, indeed, stand for 'Agnes Walker', sort of."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" asked Harry.

He was having a little trouble concentrating on the job at hand with two of Lilli's best features rubbing his arm. He could feel his trousers getting tighter.

"Well," said Lilli, "It doesn't stand for her name in the direct sense. There are no actual documents stating that the company might, formally, be called 'Agnes Walker Accounting and Consulting'. She's set up a pretty good smoke screen of dummy corporations to cover her trail. The 'A.W.' seems to be sort of a back-handed joke. But, if you look at the structure carefully, all of the dummy corporations lead a trail right back to her."

"Shit!" Harry exclaimed. The he contritely added, "Pardon my language, ladies."

"Don't worry about it," said Lilli, putting her free hand on Harry's shoulder, "An obscenity is probably the only reasoned response to news like that."

"Good point," Said Ed with a chuckle, "But, that's not the scary part."

"What's the scary part?" Harry asked anxiously.

Before he answered Ed looked knowingly at Lilli. He knew exactly what she was doing to Harry. He didn't mind. He and Lilli had always had an open relationship. Neither begrudged the other outside sexual conquests. Sometimes they even shared. Ed was actually getting a chuckle out of watching Harry squirm. He idly wondered if he might get a crack at Gloria this time around. He hadn't gotten into her panties, or her delightfully over-stuffed blouse, for a long time. He put his hand on the brown-haired beauty's shoulder.

The touch surprised Gloria for a moment. She knew just as well as Ed what Lilli was up to. Although she had recently admitted to herself that she wanted it to be more, she and Harry had no permanent ties on each other. She was emotionally caught between a tinge of jealousy at Lilli and sharing Ed's amusement at Harry's discomfort.

"The poor dear really is trying to focus on the business at hand," she thought.

As Ed brushed her hair back and tickled the space behind her ear Gloria shivered at his touch and decide to just roll with it. Besides, she knew Ed to be a skillful and considerate lover. He also had a nine inch cock that was as thick as a beer can. Her pussy moistened at the thought.

"Do you want to tell him," Ed asked "or should I?"

"Go ahead," said Lilli, "I've got to find the next picture."

"The scary part," Ed announced, "is that Gloria was also right about there being a connection between the con and the audit."

Harry and Gloria gasped.

As Lilli opened the picture on Harry's computer screen she said, "It turns out that Mrs. Walker has been having an affair."

"Well, that's not news," said Harry, laughing out loud.

"Would you like us to make you a list?" Gloria asked sarcastically.

The picture finally appeared on the screen. Lilli gave Harry a moment to get a good look at it then she turned the screen around so that Gloria could see it.

"Ah," said Lilli, "but, this one is significant."

The picture on the screen was of man who might have somewhere between thirty-five and forty years old. He had a gaunt face with a long, almost hook of a nose, thin lips, and beady eyes partially hidden behind a pair of round, wire-framed glasses.

"This," Lilli announced, "is Wilbur Dweeple. He's an official with the local IRS office."

"And he's responsible for the audit?" Gloria inquired.

"Exactly," said Lilli, "He's rarely worked on the up and up through his whole career. Mr. Dweeple has been investigated several times for just this sort of stunt. Over the years several key government officials, from both parties, have used him to harass their political enemies."

"I'll be damned," said Harry, "The government really does use the IRS for political purposes."

"Harry," said Ed as though addressing a particularly dim-witted child, "Harry, don't go off the deep end with conspiracy theories, buddy.

In every agency of government, or business for that matter, you'll always find a few jackasses who will bend or break the rules to advance their careers and put a couple of extra bucks in their pockets. It doesn't mean that the whole agency or business is corrupt.

This guy Dweeple has been at this for a long time purely for his own gain. The only difference is that this time is that, instead of doing it for power or money, he's doing it because he's getting his pole royally greased by Aggie Walker."

"Point taken," said Harry with a rueful smile.

"The only conspiracy at work here," Ed continued, "is by three people against you and Bill, and, to be brutally honest, more against Bill than you. To Aggie you're just collateral damage."

"No doubt you're right about that," said Harry, "It still doesn't explain why, though. I mean, wasn't the con itself enough?"

"It's what they call a 'blind'," Lilli explained., "the audit is there to keep you off balance and distracted enough to not notice that you're being swindled by the fake accountancy firm."

"It's a brilliant plan," Gloria admitted grudgingly.

"It is," Ed replied, "The big flaw, of course, is that Aggie and Ms. Freemont, or whatever her name is, don't have the knowledge or experience to cover all the bases. They left big holes in the game plan. That's why Lilli was able to dig up so much on them."

"I don't see any big holes in it," said Harry.

As Harry spoke Lilli removed her hand from his shoulder and reached down to stroke the hardening bulge in his trousers. Harry shuddered at the contact.

"There were three in this one," Ed elucidated, "one that they should have seen coming and two that were just stupid."

Ed had, by that time taken his hand off of Gloria's shoulder and was delicately tracing circles on her back between her shoulder blades. Gloria shivered as her vaginal juices flowed and her nipples hardened.

"The one that they should have seen coming," Lilli said to Harry, "is that you and Gloria have really good bullshit detectors. You both smelled a rat almost immediately. You've got a lot more on the ball than the people they've been pulling their sexual harassment scams on."

She squeezed Harry's cloth covered cock just below the head. Harry suppressed a groan. Harry decided to throw caution to the winds. He reached over, stuck his hand under Lilli's tight skirt, and fondled one of the round cheeks of her spectacular ass. It was Lilli's turn to suppress a groan.

Ed picked up the story saying, "That is what led us to the first stupid mistake."

"You," he said to Gloria, "Figured out the 'A.W.' in the fake company's name, not to mention the connection between the scam and the audit."

Gloria blushed, partially from the compliment and partially from Ed's hand moving along her thigh.

"If you figured it out anyone could have," said Lilli. Before Gloria could object she added, "Nothing against you, honey, but, you have no experience with things like this. If someone who doesn't know how these things work figured it out, someone who does know could have been on it in a heartbeat. It's an obvious and stupid piece of very incriminating evidence."

"What's the other stupid thing?" Gloria asked as she started openly stoking Ed's boner through his trousers.

"That's the dumbest thing of all," said Lilli.

She had to pause a moment to gather her thoughts. Harry had abandoned her ass and was running his finger along her labia through her panties.

"Guess where Dweeple and Mrs. Walker have been having their little tryst?" Lilli asked with a smirk.

Harry's eyes widened as he said, "No. Even Aggie couldn't that arrogant and stupid."

"Yes she could," Ed shot back with big grin.

"It was the one thing that she didn't think to hide because she's never tried to hide her extramarital affairs," said Lilli.

"Could somebody, please, enlighten me?" said Gloria, "I don't get it."

"Think about it, Gloria," said Lilli, "What's the one place that could go to fuck Dweeple where everybody would know about it?"

Gloria thought about it for a moment. Then her eyes widened in shock as she asked incredulously, "Dweeple's offce?"

"Bingo!" said Ed as he squeezed one of her tits to accentuate the statement.

All four exploded with laughter.

"That's insane," Harry squeaked between mirth driven gasps, "That's completely nuts!"

"But," said Gloria, "in context, it makes perfect sense. She doesn't care who knows about her sleeping around. So, she wouldn't think to hide it."

"Exactly," said Lilli.

"That still leaves two big, open questions," Gloria said, "First, why did Olivia go along with all this? Whatever we may think of her she's probably not stupid. Given what we've figured out about her personal history, I don't think that she's capable of Aggie's level of arrogance. She must have had some inkling that she was getting in over her head. Something tells me that the lure of a big score wouldn't have been enough. There must have been something else."

"That's part of why they couldn't get this scam past the two of you in the first place," Ed said as he put his arm around her and began openly fondling her left breast. "You've got good instincts, and your right. There was another reason."

As Ed spoke Lilli decided to up the ante on Harry. She had deftly unzipped his fly, fished out his stiff dick, and was stroking it rhythmically under the desk. That left Harry fighting desperately to maintain the outer appearance of composure. He decided to give as good as he was getting. He pushed aside the crotch of her panties and crammed two fingers into her dripping snatch.

Though maintaining composure wasn't any easier for her than she was making it for Harry, Lilli managed to say, "That's the one other big pieces of the puzzle that we found."

"What's that?" Harry croaked out.

Lilli couldn't answer right away as she had begun overtly riding Harry's fingers. Ed didn't answer right away because he was trying to figure out a way to covertly hump against Gloria's hand. So, he tweaked her nipple as she rubbed her thighs together.

At long last Ed answered, "We have to start at the beginning on this. We all know that Aggie came from East Coast old money. But, her father was a lousy business man and eventually pissed away most of the family's fortune. The one smart thing that he managed to do was to set up trust funds for each of his children. How the funds survived the bankruptcy I couldn't tell you."

"He must have spent his last dime on some really good lawyers," Gloria observed.

"That's as good an explanation as any," said Ed.

Lilli, by that time, was incapable of coherent speech. Harry had upped the ante again by using his thumb to diddle her clit while his fingers slid in and out of her slick hole. She had completely abandoned his cock and was gripping the sides of the desk for dear life while she fucked herself on his hand.

Ed and Gloria stopped actively fondling each other to watch Lilli grind herself on Harry's fingers. Lilli could feel her knees about to buckle.

"Please," she moaned, "let me sit down for a moment."

"No," said Harry sternly, "You started this and now I'm going to finish it."

Harry started manipulating his fingers with increasing speed on her pussy. Lilli humped, and whined, and shuddered, and whimpered. Her soft, 36DD tits bounced and jiggled as she danced on Harry's hand. As he watched them bob with her movements, it struck him how he was going to put her over the top. He reached up to squeeze one of her big tits through her blouse and bra. Then he pinched the nipple as hard as he could.

Lilli convulsed and groaned as the orgasm overcame her. Her brain momentarily shorted out because every nerve ending in her body seemed to be on fire.

When her climax subsided and she slumped over the desk, she looked at Harry with a smirk and said, "I'll get you for that, you bastard."

"You're welcome to try," Harry said smugly as he stuffed his then softening dick back into his pants.

Meanwhile, Ed and Gloria had leaped to their feet and begun applauding.

"Bravo," Ed shouted between guffaws, "Bravo!"

"A sparkling performance executed with grace and impeccable timing," Gloria laughed.

"Thank you," said Harry, bowing and chuckling, "Thank you."

Lilli had enough on the ball to also see the humor of it. Still, through her own mirth, she managed to say, "I'll get all of you for this one."

"Promises, promises," said Ed.

"Getting back to the subject," said Harry as he crossed the room to the credenza, "What were you saying about the trust fund?"

"Oh, right," Ed said, snapping back to the business at hand, "The trust fund somehow survived the bankruptcy. That's why Aggie was able to go to college in the first place. Of course, had her old man been better at business she would have been at some fancy Ivy League school instead the University of Wisconsin."

"How does that relate to our little problem?" asked Gloria.

"That's where she met Grizelda Krepplemaier, or, as we know her, Olivia Freemont," Ed answered, "They became inseparable."

"Grizelda became Aggie's most loyal sycophant," said Lilli.

She was sitting on the edge of Harry's desk. At some point while everyone's back was turned she had removed her panties. She sat with her legs spread to flash Harry.

"That's a good description," Ed responded, "Anyway, to make a long story short, most of the rest of the trust fund went to pay for turning Grizelda Krepplemaier into Zelina Mayer."

"In other words, she owes Aggie big time because Aggie paid for the cosmetic surgery," said Harry as he poured a shot of the Jack Daniels.

He held up the bottle and asked, "Anyone else?"

All declined.

"Aggie used most of what was left of the fund to stake Grizelda, or by that time Zelina, for her first couple of scams," Ed continued.

"I take it that the sexual harassment scams were done to pay Aggie back for the cost of the surgery?" Gloria inquired.

"I'm sure that that's what Zelina must have thought when she did it," Ed responded, "Thing is, though, they've built the fund back up and then some. Zelina also has built up a nice little chunk of change of her own. She could retire tomorrow and not hurt.

The only thing I can figure is that Aggie used the surgery to keep Zelina under her thumb and Zelina could never figure out a way to escape it."

"Somewhere along the line, probably only recently, Mrs. Walker must have decided that the small scams weren't bringing in enough money, and she was probably getting tired of being married to Bill," Lilli chimed in.

"Granted," said Ed, "that's pure speculation. But, it's the only scenario that makes sense."

"So, she came up with this scheme to get it all," said Lilli.

By that time Lilli had closed her legs, but had unfastened the top three buttons of her blouse to display her copious cleavage.

Harry set his shot glass down on the credenza as he thought about all that had been said. The room fell silent for a moment.

After a time Harry said, "Gloria."

"Yes?" his administrative assistant answered.

"You said that there were two big questions to be answered," Harry said, "What was the other one?"

"What do we do now?" Gloria said anxiously.

"Ed?" said Harry.

"Well," Ed answered slowly, "there aren't a whole lot of options at this point. We could take what we have to the cops, but that wouldn't achieve very much."

"Why not?" asked Gloria.

"Everything we have is circumstantial evidence and supposition," said Lilli, "What we've got might not even be heavy enough to trigger an investigation. They certainly couldn't make an arrest based on what we have, let alone get a conviction."