Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel (9 page)

“That was brave of you.”

“And stupid. He went crazy. He slapped me and then he said he was going to teach me a lesson. He’s really strong and he grabbed my arms and held them above my head with his left hand. Then with his right hand, he pulled down my panties and that’s when he—”

She hesitated. I said, “That’s when he forced you to have sex?”

“Yes. I started crying because it wasn’t love, it was rape, but that only seemed to make him more turned on. That was the first time he did that to me, and the next day, he laughed about it and said, ‘You liked it, baby, and you know it. You just don’t want to admit it. Deep down, you’re a dirty little whore.’”

“How often did that happen—forced sex?”

“Too many times.”

I gently squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry.” Putting my prosecutor’s hat back on, I asked, “Did he ever tell you what he thought of women in general?”

“Oh yeah, he said a woman was good for two things, having sex and cooking, and I didn’t know how to cook very well. Then he said I wasn’t very good in bed, either, because I didn’t like to do things he wanted me to do. He told me no one else would want to be with someone like me because I was frigid and stupid. I never finished high school. He brought that up a lot. And he told me I was getting fat and that I smelled bad when we had sex.”

In a gentle voice, I said, “Mary Margaret, jurors are going to wonder why you stayed with him for four years when he treated you like that.”

Tears began to form in her eyes and she whispered, “I loved him and I thought he loved me. Once he came into O’Toole’s when I was working and he heard this customer tell me I had a really nice ass. Rudy went outside and waited for him to leave. When the guy came out into the parking lot, Rudy hit him with a tire iron and beat the crap out of him. I’d never had anyone do something like that for me. He told me I was special and he’d always take care of me. I knew he had a nice, sweet side. And I kept thinking, ‘Why can’t I get that Rudy back? What am I doing wrong?’ When I got pregnant the first time, he was so happy. I thought, ‘This is great. We’ll be a family.’ Then I had the miscarriage and he told me that I couldn’t even do that right—have a baby. I was too stupid for even that. I thought he was right. I keep thinking if I could only do things right, then the old Rudy would love me.”

“Did you ever consider leaving him?”

“Yes, after the miscarriage, things got so bad, I thought we should break up.”

“But you didn’t leave.”

“I was too scared.”

“Of him?”

“Yes, I was scared of him but that wasn’t the only reason. I hadn’t been able to make him happy. I kept doing everything wrong so I didn’t think anyone else would want me. Then I got pregnant again and I thought, ‘He was happy the first time. A baby will make him happy again.’”

Mary Margaret gingerly moved her right hand to her belly.

“Did it make him happy?”

“No. He seemed to lose interest in me and I learned he was cheating on me with that other woman.”

Ah
, I thought,
she knows about Gloria Lucinda
.

She looked emotionally spent, so I said, “You’ve done great. You’ll make a fantastic witness. When we get into court, I probably won’t be able to ask you much about those other times he raped and beat you.”

“Why?”

“It’s not allowed generally, but I can ask you about the Friday night when he put you in the hospital. That should be enough.”

“I talked to Detective O’Brien about that night. He has it all in his report now.”

I nodded. “We can talk more about that later, but for now, we’ve done enough.” I gave her a tissue and she wiped her eyes with her right hand.

“You’re going to put him in jail, right?”

“I’m going to do my best.”

She looked scared. “You got to do it,” she said, squeezing my hand hard. “If you don’t, he’ll kill me.”

8

An hour later, O’Brien and I were sitting on the front seat of an unmarked Ford police cruiser parked less than a hundred feet from the entrance to O’Toole’s bar. We were waiting for Rudy Hitchins to surface. I’d assumed we’d simply drive over to the apartment house on Canfield Avenue that Rebecca Finn owned and arrest him, but O’Brien had insisted on waiting here. In my hand was a temporary order of protection signed by a judge that prohibited Hitchins from coming within five hundred feet of Mary Margaret and the apartment that they’d once shared. I checked my watch and it was 4:45 p.m. The evening traffic was beginning to back up as weary workers made their trek home through downtown White Plains.

“Why do you think Hitchins is going to show up here? Isn’t this the last place he’d want to show his face?” I asked.

Detective O’Brien, with his ever-present toothpick held firmly on the right side of his mouth, said, “Oh, he’ll come here.”

I noticed a sudden glint in his eyes. “You a betting girl?” he asked. “I’ll bet you a ten-spot Hitchins shows up here.”

I shook my head. “No thanks.” He seemed too confident for me to bite.

“C’mon,” he prodded. “I thought you had balls. Look, I’ll make it even sweeter. If he don’t show up in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll give you fifty bucks. If he does, then you owe me only ten. He shows in fifteen minutes or you win.”

I could hear my father’s voice screaming in my head—“Watch out! You’re being suckered!”—but I said, “Okay, I’ll take those odds.”

O’Brien grinned and part of me was glad. Even if I lost the bet, he seemed to be warming up to me. Or so I thought. His smile could also be part of a con.

I checked my wristwatch again and as I was raising my head, O’Brien said, “There he is and he’s got that blond broad with him.”

I glanced out the sedan’s front windshield at O’Toole’s, but didn’t see Hitchins or Gloria Lucinda. I looked at O’Brien and saw that he was looking into the car’s rearview mirror. As I swung my neck to check behind us, Rudy Hitchins and his girlfriend strutted by my car door on the sidewalk next to where we were parked. I reached for the door handle, but O’Brien gently took my left arm and said, “Not yet! Wait for him to actually go into the bar.”

I didn’t understand, but figured O’Brien had a reason. As soon as the couple stepped into O’Toole’s, O’Brien barked, “C’mon, Counselor.” He shot out the driver’s door and I scrambled from the passenger side. We walked briskly toward the bar’s solid wooden door. Like many drinking establishments in White Plains, the bar’s front windows were tinted so you couldn’t see the patrons inside. It was a throwback to the times when drinking alcohol was taboo and barflies didn’t want their neighbors spotting them knocking down shots of Jack Daniel’s.

When we reached the bar’s entrance, O’Brien again gently touched my arm, forcing me to stop. “Wait,” he commanded.

At that moment, the door swung open and Rudy Hitchins stepped outside with his new lover. They stepped forward and almost walked into us.

“Hitchins!” O’Brien growled.

Hitchins had been preoccupied, but now he saw the plainclothes detective.

“You’re under arrest.”

“For what?” If he was intimidated, he wasn’t showing it.

“For assaulting Mary Margaret Finn!” I answered before O’Brien could.

The sound of my voice seemed to surprise both men, as well as Hitchins’s girlfriend.

“Who the hell are you?”

Suddenly time seemed to slow down. I’d been so intent on confronting Hitchins that I’d not noticed that three men had slipped silently out of the bar and were now standing directly behind Hitchins and his girlfriend. Without warning, one of these men slammed his right fist into Hitchins’s right side while another hit him on the left side of his head with a pocket-size blackjack. Hitchins hit the concrete sidewalk hard from the blows and immediately began to reach inside his blue windbreaker. Before he could grab whatever he was going for, O’Brien stomped his right foot against Hitchins’s wrist, pinning it to his chest.

Hitchins hollered in pain.

Two of the men behind Hitchins dropped to their knees. One pinned Hitchins’s shoulders against the sidewalk while the other began hitting him repeatedly in his face. All this time, O’Brien kept his foot firmly on top of Hitchins’s wrist and chest. I could hear Hitchins’s nose crack. Blood spurted from his nostrils. The man hitting him landed at least six hard punches. I had never seen such brutality.

Without warning, Hitchins’s girlfriend lunged at me. I’d never been physically attacked, either, but I instinctively reeled back to avoid the bright red fingernails that were targeted at my face. As I was back stepping, one of the men grabbed Lucinda’s arm and expertly twisted it back behind her. In a well-practiced move, he slapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists.

It dawned on me that these men were off-duty White Plains police officers who’d been inside the bar and had come outside to assist O’Brien. Obviously, he’d tipped them. As she was handcuffed, Lucinda began shrieking obscenities. The officer slapped her with his open hand and said, “Shut the fuck up!”

“Don’t hit her!” I yelled. This was getting out of control.

The officer glared at me.

O’Brien removed his foot from Hitchins’s wrist, bent down, and flipped open Hitchins’s windbreaker. A small-caliber handgun was tucked into his waistband. O’Brien snatched it as the other officers lifted Hitchins to his feet and handcuffed his hands behind him. Blood was flowing from his broken nose.

“Now we got some other charges to file against you, tough guy,” O’Brien said. “Resisting arrest, attempting to assault a police officer, not to mention a gun charge.” He glanced at the pistol, rolling it over in his hand. It was a cheap Saturday night special. “What were you going to do, if you’d gotten that?”

Snorting out blood, Hitchins said, “Fuck you and fuck your bitch, too!”

The officer who had been slugging Hitchins released his grip while his partner instinctively tightened his hold on Hitchins’s handcuffed wrists, keeping him from moving. The first officer punched Hitchins in his gut. Like a trained boxer, the officer followed that sucker punch with a left jab and then got another shot in with a right to Hitchins’s abdomen. Leaning back, the officer lowered his right shoulder and delivered an upper cut that hit Hitchins in his jaw with such force that it lifted his feet from the sidewalk.

“Wow,” the officer holding Hitchins’s wrists said admiringly. “That must have hurt. Carl—have you been working out?”

I was stunned and afraid that Carl—I had no idea what his last name was—would continue punching Hitchins to the point that the attack might jeopardize my trial. I shouted, “I’m from the district attorney’s office and I have a court order here that says you can’t get anywhere near Mary Margaret Finn until this order is lifted by a judge. Do you understand what I’ve just said?”

Everyone stared at me. Hitchins could barely hold his head up. He didn’t say a word, but Lucinda did.

“Why would Rudy want to see that skank Mary Margaret again?”

“Yeah, especially when he’s got a prize like you waiting in his bed,” I responded.

The cops, including O’Brien, burst out laughing. He handed the Saturday night special that he’d taken from Hitchins to Carl.

“Take this and that piece of shit to the car.”

But Carl wasn’t finished. He took the handgun and then swung the pistol upward, smacking the gun’s metal grip against the side of Hitchins’s head. The prisoner’s entire body went limp.