Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel (3 page)

When I’d first arrived at Albany Law School, the female students used the term “FEK” when they talked about men who were like Detective O’Brien. When I finally asked what the acronym meant, they said it was not a compliment. It referred to these men’s Neanderthal outlook. Whenever they encountered something new, they tried to fuck it, eat it, or kill it.

The only male figure in my life of that generation was my father, Leo, and he wasn’t anything like that. Dad was kind, humble, and he loved to laugh. But the older women warned me that I would be encountering a lot of FEKs once I became a lawyer, regardless of whether I went to work in a high-priced law firm or chose the public route.

O’Brien showed no sign of removing his ample posterior from my office chair, but he did lift his feet from my desk and leaned forward, jabbing a manila envelope at me as if it were a knife—all the while continuing the conversation that he was having on my phone.

Placing my leather briefcase, a gift from my mother, on the industrial-grade white tile floor, I accepted his packet and shot him a glare that was meant to say: “Okay, Detective, I’ll look inside your envelope, but get your butt the hell out of my chair.”

O’Brien either didn’t get my social cue or didn’t care. From his comments into the phone, it sounded as if he was speaking to a woman.

Still waiting in front of my own desk, I slipped open the envelope and removed a handful of eight-by-ten glossy, color photographs. The pictures showed a woman’s face. Her eyes were swollen shut, her nose seemed broken, her lips were puffed out, her jaw was askew, and her cheeks were varying shades of black and blue. From the photographs, I estimated she was in her twenties, although her appearance had been so brutalized that I couldn’t be certain. Several more photographs showed there were no visible marks on the rest of her body, which meant her attacker had focused exclusively on her face. Whoever did this wanted to make her ugly and remind her every day when she looked into her mirror that he’d done it. This was a crime of emotion. Why would a stranger beat her so savagely? This attack must have been personal. Someone she knew had done this to her.

Having finally finished his conversation, O’Brien put down the phone receiver and nodded toward the packet of photos. “He worked her over good this time,” he announced, without identifying who “he” was, but implying that “he” had delivered this sort of beating before.

Nor did O’Brien vacate my chair.

I asked: “Who’s ‘he’?”

“Her husband, Rudy Hitchins,” O’Brien replied. “She’s Mary Margaret Hitchins, age twenty-four. Tends bar, or did until yesterday, at O’Toole’s, down on Mamaroneck Avenue.”

O’Toole’s was a favorite watering hole for cops but I’d never been there. I’d never been invited.

O’Brien said, “Rudy’s a raging asshole—a jealous prick and he don’t like cops. Mary Margaret, well, she is—or was—a real looker before he decided to rearrange her face.”

I slipped the photographs back into the envelope and pointed out the obvious: “Detective, you’re sitting in my chair.”

O’Brien gave me a look-over, running his eyes from my knees to my face, all the while twirling the toothpick in his mouth with his right thumb and forefinger. He didn’t say anything and I thought this practiced scrutiny was probably an intimidation tool that he used whenever he was interviewing a suspect or a witness. Reluctantly, he rose from my chair.

I edged by him and sat down. I noticed that in addition to using my phone, chair, and desk, he’d eaten all the candy in a bowl near the phone. Sweets are one of my vices. Thankfully, I have a metabolism that lets me satisfy my taste for chocolate yet weigh in at 105 pounds at five feet four inches.

Now he was the one standing at the side of my desk. “A few of the regulars at O’Toole’s wanted to deal with Rudy on our own. But the prick would only take it out on her later if he got what he deserved and he’s the sort of asshole who’d hire a lawyer and go after our badges if we taught him a lesson. Besides, he’s not really the type who can be educated.” He paused and then added, “There’s a few other complications, too.”

“Complications?”

“Mary Margaret is knocked up and rumor is it’s not his kid. That’s what pissed him off.”

“So who’s the real father?”

O’Brien shrugged, indicating that it wasn’t really important. But I was quiet for a moment and that awkward silence apparently loosened his tongue. “I guess the father could be a cop. Mary Margaret, well, she’s a flirt at the bar, makes lots of tips that way.”

“A cop got her pregnant?”

“I’m not saying that. The kid’s probably Hitchins’s, okay? But, like I said, she’s a popular girl at the bar—if you catch my drift. And if the kid is a cop’s and the cop is married …” His voice trailed off.

“Why are you showing me these photographs?”

“Because you’re the only gal who works here. We figure this is a female thing.”

“No,” I said firmly. “It’s not a female thing, Detective. It’s an assault thing. Rudy Hitchins should be put in jail for what he did to her. But he hasn’t broken any laws here because it’s not against the law in New York for a man to beat his wife—we both know that. Especially if he accuses her of cheating on him and getting pregnant by another man.”

O’Brien said, “Hold on, Counselor. No one is talking about filing criminal charges here. Me and the boys, we just thought maybe you could go talk to her in the hospital and tell her to leave town, maybe start over someplace new. Just get away from Rudy because of her situation with the baby and all.”

“What?” I said incredulously. “You want
her
to leave town because
he
beat her?”

“Hey, let’s get real here. It’s not like she’s got a lot of options. You’re from the D.A.’s office so she might listen to you, especially if you told her it’d just be better for everyone if she left White Plains and had her baby.”

I hesitated, not certain I should ask the next question, but since he wanted my help, I needed to know what I was getting into. “Detective, why do you know so much about Rudy and Mary Margaret Hitchins? This baby, it isn’t yours, is it?”

A look of anger washed over O’Brien’s face. I’d clearly hit a nerve.

“No,” he snapped. “I didn’t fuck this broad. I know Rudy because I’ve busted his ass a half-dozen times. And I’ve talked to her at the bar. She’s a sweet kid. That’s it.”

“Okay, so tell me about Hitchins.”

During the next several minutes, O’Brien described how Hitchins had grown up poor in a White Plains neighborhood and moved quickly through juvenile correctional facilities into adult ones. At age thirty, Hitchins’s most recent arrest was for an afternoon robbery at a White Plains jewelry store on Mamaroneck Avenue. Along with three thugs, Hitchins had burst into the store in broad daylight. Three of the robbers had smashed the glass display cases with hammers, scooping up diamond rings, precious jewels, and watches. The fourth had held the owner and clerks at gunpoint. For some bizarre macho reason, three of the robbers had not been wearing masks. But the fourth had concealed his face. Detectives had identified and arrested the three without masks. But the masked gunman—who they were certain was Hitchins—had slipped through their hands.

“Hitchins is a murderer waiting to strike—if he hasn’t already done one,” O’Brien said casually. “The punk can’t stay out of trouble. Meanwhile, Mary Margaret needs to get out of town. She might not be so lucky next time.”

Lucky? I thought. He nearly beat
her
to death and she’s lucky?

O’Brien said, “She’s over at White Plains Hospital in Intensive Care if you want to pay her a visit. Me and the guys, well, we’d appreciate it.”

He started to leave.

“Wait,” I said, holding up the envelope with the grisly photos.

Removing his toothpick, O’Brien glanced over his shoulder at me and said, “Keep ’em. Tell Mary Margaret when you see her—the guys down at the bar are thinking of her.”

2

Although no one in my office had given me permission to get involved, I made up an excuse, ducked out the door, and headed to the White Plains Hospital at 41 East Post Road. I drive a British green Triumph TR6 sports car. It was my first splurge after I got hired and had a regular paycheck. On such a beautiful morning, I would have been tempted to put the top down, but after being forced to iron my hair that morning, there was no way I was going to take that chance.

I’d bought my car at an English import dealership but it had taken me two trips to find the right one—not the car, but the right salesman. The first one tried to steer me toward a white MGB, explaining that Triumphs were considered masculine because the TR6 came with a six-cylinder engine, as opposed to the standard four in an MGB. The boxy shape of the Triumph screamed male, he warned, especially when compared to the soft curves of the MGB. Hearing that had ended our discussion. I actually drove thirty miles over the Tappan Zee Bridge to a different dealership to buy my Triumph. I hate when men pigeonhole women.

You can blame my father for my taste in sports cars. Leo was a salesman by trade and a car buff by choice. He especially admired sleek European race cars. Dad died of cancer not long after I was hired as an assistant district attorney and one of my deepest regrets is that he never got a chance to watch me prosecute a defendant in court.

As I was walking to the hospital entrance, a car came to a screeching stop, nearly hitting me. I looked, assuming someone in it was injured. But the driver stepped nonchalantly from one of the ugliest vehicles that I’d ever seen. He’d clearly customized his 1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Half of its roof was covered with white vinyl and the car’s body had been spray painted a brilliant gold and then flecked with silver. The wheels were chrome. You might have expected to see it on a seedy Times Square side street being driven by a pimp, but not here in White Plains.

The car’s owner seemed equally out of place. Recent issues of movie magazines had published photographs of John Travolta’s upcoming release called
Saturday Night Fever
and the driver was clearly mimicking the actor’s disco-dancing character. The top buttons of his black silk shirt were undone, exposing his dark chest hair. He was wearing a white three-piece suit, white leather shoes, and had a half-dozen gold chains dangling from his neck. As he shut the door, he leaned down to speak through the open window to a woman with bottle-blond hair.

“If the cops bug you, tell ’em I’m coming right out,” he said as he left the Monte Carlo parked next to a No Parking sign. He began walking toward me and the hospital’s entrance, but something caught his eye. It was a nearby trash can that contained a ditched bouquet of spring flowers. Snatching up the drooping flowers, he plucked off a few dead petals and headed inside.

I followed and walked to the receptionist’s desk while Disco Man and his bouquet marched to an elevator.

“Can you tell me if Mary Margaret Hitchins is still in ICU?” I asked the receptionist, a fresh-faced candy striper.

She said, “Mrs. Hitchins was moved into a private room last night. It’s on the fifth floor, room five-o-five.”

The elevator doors announced my arrival on the fifth floor with a loud
ding
. I stepped onto a gray tile floor with pink and green specks and was immediately hit with the strong smell of antiseptic. A plastic sign attached to a pale green wall pointed me to the nurses’ station, where a uniformed woman wearing a name tag that read Susan RN was working. When she glanced up from a medical chart, I said, “Hi, I’m from the district attorney’s office and need to speak to Mary Margaret Hitchins—if she’s up to seeing visitors.”