When downsized corporate executive and closeted lesbian Leslie Merrick takes a nose dive from an eighth-story window, the cops jump to the conclusion that her death is a suicide. Berkeley PI Helen Black discovers that the multinational conglomerate Merrick worked for is rife with political patronage, corporate treachery, sexual harassment, disgruntled employees, vindictive co-workers, and mysterious "vacations". Could the woman's fall have been accidental? Or is Helen Black being set up to take the biggest fall of all?