Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel (19 page)

“What if I promise to work some of these statistics into the story? Will you tell me more about you so I can personalize it?”

Before I could respond, he said, “Let’s start with me asking you if Hitchins is the first wife-beater who you went after.”

“No, he’s the first one I prosecuted, but there was an earlier incident that had a huge impact on me. It was the very first case that I was assigned when I reported to work in the appeals division. The victim was twenty-five years old and her name was Debbie.”

Harris began writing.

Continuing, I said, “Debbie was a beautiful young woman. She had two kids and she had a husband who beat her. One day, she disappeared with the kids. She ran away and got a job as a waitress and started going back to school. She was getting her life on track until her husband tracked her down and hired a kid—a seventeen-year-old punk—to kill Debbie. That kid stabbed her twenty-one times. You could see the slashes on her arms where she’d fought back. The husband paid that kid a thousand dollars so he could go buy himself a used motorcycle. I’d never seen such horrific autopsy and crime scene photos. Blood was splattered everywhere. But the most disgusting photo was the mug shot of her husband in the file. He was smirking. Grinning like he was proud of what he’d done. I worked my tail off on that appeal to keep the husband and that punk in jail and even argued the case in the appellate division before a panel of judges. I won. In fact, that case made legal precedent. But what I did came too late for Debbie.”

“How old did you say she was?”

“She was my age—twenty-five—and she had everything to live for and some controlling man took it away and laughed about it. Who are these monsters who beat women? Who are they? What right do they have to shoot, stab, and brutalize women and then feel so at ease, so protected, so entitled to take their lives, as if these women aren’t human beings. They’re chattel? And why isn’t anyone doing anything to stop them?”

“That’s what I’m after,” Harris said, encouraging me. “Your anger, your passion. Is Debbie one of the reasons why you decided to go after Hitchins?”

“Actually, she was. A White Plains detective showed me photographs of Mary Margaret immediately after she’d been beaten by Rudy Hitchins. When I looked at them—she reminded me of Debbie. Only Debbie was dead. Her photos were marked in big bright letters: AUTOPSY. The photos of Mary Margaret were marked with the word ‘EVIDENCE.’ I thought that if I didn’t do anything to punish Rudy Hitchins, I’d soon be looking at a new set of photos of Mary Margaret with the word ‘AUTOPSY’ on them.”

“And that’s exactly what happened.”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I thought I could prevent Hitchins from hurting her and now some people think I’m responsible. That I should have stayed out of it.”

“Someone like Carl Jones?”

“I’m not going to say who.”

Harris stopped writing. “Look, I know about the cops and the charges you refused to pursue.”

“Are you putting that in your story?”

“No, it’s water under the bridge.”

“Thanks.”

“Look, I admire what you are trying to do. But tell me something, is there more to your story?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have a boyfriend? Has he ever abused you?”

“I do have a boyfriend, and no, he has never raised his hand to me, and he better not!”

“What if he did?”

“Bob wouldn’t do that, but if he hit me, I would file assault charges against him.”

“Even if you loved him and you had been together for years?”

“Mr. Harris, if a man loves a woman, he doesn’t beat her. Because that’s not love. That’s abuse and control.”

“Is it really that simple?”

“Can I tell you something off the record?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“I mean it. Can I trust you to keep this private, just between us?”

“You have my word.”

“I have lots of relatives and we always gather at Thanksgiving for dinner. Growing up, I was especially close to my cousin Monica, who was a couple of years older than me. She always included me when she and her friends shopped in Elmira or went to a movie—even their pajama parties. When she was sixteen, Monica fell in love with Gary and I thought it was magical. But a year later, she got pregnant. Abortion wasn’t an option in our family and she and Gary didn’t want to put the baby up for adoption. My aunt and uncle opposed them getting married, so they eloped and moved to Canada. Even though they were estranged from her parents, my mom invited her and Gary to our family Thanksgiving. I remember how excited I was when I saw Gary’s old pickup pull up in front of our house. When the doorbell rang, I flew to open it and what I saw left a scar on my heart. Monica stood there with little Gary Jr. in her arms. She was pregnant again and her right eye was swollen shut. It was black and blue and so was her right cheek. Her lip was cut and looked like it had been stitched. Gary was nowhere in sight.”

Harris said, “How did your family react?”

“Monica told everyone that she had been in a car accident, but my mom knew better and I was suspicious because they only had that old pickup and it was fine and Gary wasn’t with her. That afternoon, Monica and I had a chance to talk privately and she broke down and told me that Gary had lost his job, he’d started drinking, and he blamed her for ruining his teenage years. He wished that they’d had an abortion and never married. She told me that the first slap was over a meal he didn’t like. It was followed by progressively worse beatings. I told her to go to the police, but she said, ‘I love him, and besides, it’s my fault. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant, we both would have gone to college. He would have gotten a good job and not started drinking. Besides, I’m pregnant again and who’ll want me?’”

Harris interrupted. “How old were you when this happened?”

“I had just turned seventeen.” Continuing, I said, “Monica stayed for the night and everyone was told that she was in a car accident and was lucky to be alive. Only Mom and I knew. My mom tried that night to get her to move in with us and leave Gary, but she left for Canada the next morning. A few months later, I was in college and my mom called and said Monica had miscarried when she was rushed to the hospital one night after Gary had beaten her. Of course, she told doctors that she had slipped and fallen.”

“Are they still together?”

“Yes, they are but she no longer stays in contact with us. He has cut her off from us.”

“I see, so you know personally what it is like to have domestic violence in your family.”

“That’s right. I wanted you to know that, but I don’t want it in the papers.”

I stopped to buy Junior Mints on the way back to work. With everything going on, I felt like I deserved a box or two.

21

“I made a mistake this afternoon,” I told Wilbur, who was brushing up against my leg while I stood at the sink in my kitchen slicing apples for him. He grunted, and for a moment, I suspected he actually was listening and not simply urging me to hurry up with his dinner. “I told a reporter about Gary and Monica. Oh God, Mom is going to kill me if he writes about them. Even if he doesn’t use their names but describes them as relatives, I’m going to be in real trouble.”

Wilbur grunted again.

I debated calling Mom and telling her what had happened, but I didn’t. Instead, I called Bob in Albany and listened as he gently reprimanded me for being so trusting—especially of reporters. That night I hardly slept.

Just before six a.m., I jumped out of bed and slipped on my jogging pants, sweatshirt, and running shoes and headed out the door to a neighborhood grocery that carried the
White Plains Daily
. My photograph—a picture provided by the D.A.’s office—was just under the fold. The headline read: “Feisty Female Prosecutor Fights Abusers.”

In the first paragraph, Harris described how I had filed felony charges against Rudy Hitchins. He quoted me calling Hitchins a “controlling, abusive coward.” I quickly scanned the remainder of the story for some mention of my cousin and her husband. They were not mentioned. Harris had kept his word. Our talk had been off the record. I breathed a sigh of relief.

My kitchen phone was ringing when I got home. Mom, I thought. Who else would call me so early in the morning? But when I picked up the phone, a male voice said, “Dani Fox?”

I didn’t recognize the voice.

“Yes, this is Dani Fox.”

“You fucking bitch! We’ll see who’s a coward.”

The line went dead.

Had the caller been an angry husband or had I just heard from a furious Rudy Hitchins? I called the White Plains police and left word for Detective O’Brien to contact me as soon as he got to work.

22

My office phone didn’t stop ringing. Most callers were women who thanked me for condemning domestic violence. A few asked for help. The director of the White Plains women’s shelter telephoned to tell me that the federal government was awarding grants to local prosecutors who wanted to prosecute domestic violence cases. The money was coming from the LEAA, an acronym for the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. Three years earlier, the LEAA had caused a national uproar by announcing it would not award any federal funds to local police departments unless they dropped height requirements for new applicants. The cops had started using minimum-height rules to avoid hiring women as officers. The LEAA’s stipulation put a stop to it.

“You should apply for a grant,” the director urged. I listened intently as she told me more about the process.

Shortly before ten a.m., O’Brien returned my call. When I told him about my early anonymous caller, he said, “Probably some prick who slaps around his wife and didn’t like you implying he was a coward. The detectives handling the case still believe Hitchins is hiding in Canada, and the last time I checked, the
White Plains Daily
isn’t circulated there. Just the same, it might be a good idea if you made one of those out-of-town trips this weekend that you like to take.”