Sly Fox

by Jeanine Pirro

  “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.”

  Before Susan RN could reply, an angry male voice yelled: “Go to hell! Both of you!” It was followed by the sound of cracking glass.

  Nurse Susan darted down the corridor with me in pursuit. As we reached the doorway to Room 505, Disco Man burst out into the hallway, almost smacking into Nurse Susan. Red-faced, he stomped to the elevator without acknowledging us.

  We rushed into the room.

  An older woman was hovering near a hospital bed where a young woman was lying. The patient’s face was a mask of bandages. An IV bag hung next to her left arm and an electronic monitor tracked her vital signs with flashing yellow, green, and blue lights. I guessed this was Mary Margaret Hitchins and noticed that her swollen eyes, visible through a slit in the white gauze covering her face, were closed. She was either asleep or unconscious.

  Addressing Nurse Susan, the older woman said, “I don’t want that animal allowed in here again! He’s got no right after what he did to my baby girl.”

  I p
ut the woman at about forty-two, a real beanpole, standing at least five feet ten in flats. Only she seemed even taller because she’d teased her dyed black hair into a B-52 beehive—a popular hairdo fifteen years ago. Although she wasn’t that old, her face was a road map of wrinkles and her husky voice suggested she was at least a two-pack-a-day smoker. This, I assumed, was Mary Margaret’s mother.

  Judging from the yelling, profanity, and shattered water glass on the room’s floor, I further assumed that Disco Man’s visit had gone poorly. The discarded bouquet that he’d so lovingly plucked from the trash can was scattered on the tiles, too.

  Two plus two told me that Disco Man was Rudy Hitchins.

  Nurse Susan said, “I’ll get someone to come clean this mess,” as she stepped gingerly over the broken glass after quickly checking the IV and vital-signs monitor connected to Mary Margaret. Satisfied, she slipped by me out the door. The older woman noticed me and asked: “Who are you?”

  “My name is Dani Fox. I’m an assistant district attorney from the Westchester County district attorney’s office. I’ve come to speak to Mary Margaret.”

  The woman replied, “She can’t speak to no one right now because of what that bastard done to her face. He broke her jaw.”

  I asked, “And you are?”

  “I’m Rebecca Finn. Her mother.”

  I looked again at Mary Margaret’s eyes. She seemed oblivious.

  Mrs. Finn said, “They drugged her up with painkillers. She’s out of it. Thank God! He busted her nose this time and then he has the nerve to come in here with flowers like he cares about her. I ain’t stupid.” She hesitated and then asked, “My daughter’s not in any trouble, is she?”

  “Oh no,” I replied.

  “Then why are you here? Do you know my daughter?”

  I explained that Mary Margaret was well liked at O’Toole’s pub, especially by the police. “A detective asked me to look in on her.”

  Mrs. Finn said, “She’s pregnant, you know.”

  I faked a surprised look. “This isn’t the first time that he’s beat her, is it?”

  A flash of suspicion appeared in Mrs. Finn’s eyes. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to be cautious because she was speaking to a prosecutor or if she was afraid she might say something that might anger Rudy Hitchins. Hoping to reassure her, I said, “I don’t think Rudy Hitchins should get away with this. He should be in jail. But we don’t have laws in New York yet that protect women from this sort of brutality.”

  “Damn shame,” she replied.

  “I came to speak to your daughter about her plans, after she’s discharged. There are women’s shelters here and in Manhattan especially for battered women, or maybe she could go somewhere on the Jersey shore where it’s peaceful so she could have her baby and escape her problems for a while.”

  “She’s only got one problem—that prick who hit her!”

  “Do you have relatives living out of town where she could stay?”

  Mrs. Finn shook her head, indicating no. “She’s not going to run away and hide. Our family’s been in White Plains for generations.”

  I noticed tears forming in her eyes. “I just wish her father was alive. He’d put Rudy Hitchins in a hospital bed right next to this one—if he didn’t kill him first.”

  “I know you’re angry but vigilante justice isn’t the answer.”

  She looked at me and snapped, “Oh, it ain’t, is it? Then what is? This happening like this? If the law don’t protect you, then you got to take it in your own hands. This never would have happened if my Harry were here. He’d make short work of that bastard.”

  I replied, “That’s why we need to make it a crime for men to hit their wives like this.”

  “His wife?” Mrs. Finn asked.

  “Yes, isn’t your daughter married to Rudy Hitchins?”

  “Hell no! She isn’t married to that son of a bitch.”

  “Doesn’t she use his last name?” I asked, surprised.

  “Oh that. It don’t mean nothing. She began calling herself Hitchins the first time he got her pregnant a year ago. She didn’t want anyone to think her baby was a bastard. But she had a miscarriage and, well, she just kept telling everyone that Hitchins was her last name, but them two never got married.”

  “Are you absolutely certain? You’re one hundred percent sure they didn’t visit a justice of the peace in Atlantic City or fly off to Las Vegas and get married without telling you?”

  “Look, I’d know if my only daughter was married, wouldn’t I?”

  I broke into a smile. “Mrs. Finn, I don’t know what others might have told you, but New York State does not recognize common-law marriages. Do you understand what this means?”

  She shook her head, indicating no.

  “It means Rudy Hitchins was not beating up his wife. It means he doesn’t get a free pass.”

  She still seemed confused.

  “Because they aren’t married, Rudy Hitchins can be charged with a felony and put in jail.”

  “Well, he should be in jail.” She paused and whispered: “He didn’t just beat her, you know. There’s more.”

  “Oh no.”

  “He comes home and is pissed off from the moment he walks through the goddamn front door, of course. Excuse my French. He starts yelling at her, accusing her of being a whore, claiming it’s not his baby. When she tells him it’s his, he slaps her and calls her a lying whore. Then that sick son of a bitch pushes her down on her knees, unzips his pants, and pulls out his dick and tells her to, well, you’re a woman, you know what he wants her to do.”

  Without waiting for me to respond, she continued, “When my daughter refused to suck his dick, again, excuse my French, well, that’s when he started beating her, and after he’s nearly killed her, he pulls down her pants and screws her.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to get past the vision of a violent rape. I looked at Mary Margaret, remembering that her mother had just mentioned that Hitchins had cracked her jaw, and asked, “How do you know these details? Can Mary Margaret talk? When did she tell you this?”

  Rebecca Finn looked at me and I could see embarrassment in her eyes. “This ain’t the first time he’s done this, that’s how. Only he don’t usually beat her so bad. I also talked to Mrs. Latham.”

  “Who?”

  “She’s the one who called the cops. She lives upstairs next to Mary Margaret and that bastard. Them walls in them apartments are like paper. She heard everything—them yelling—plus Mrs. Latham is a real busybody. You can bet she had her ear pressed up against the walls as soon as she heard him hollering.”

  “The rape? You said that happened before, but how do you know he did it this time?” It was the prosecutor in me kicking in. I was already forming a case against Hitchins in my mind.

  “After Mrs. Latham heard Hitchins leave the apartment, slamming the door behind him and stomping down the hall, she looks out to make sure he’s really gone and then she hurries over because she’s scared my Mary Margaret is dead. She has a key to their place in case one of them gets locked out. She opens the door and sees Mary Margaret lying half-naked on the floor. Mrs. Latham called me and we pulled up Mary Margaret’s panties and pants before the cops got there because we didn’t want the police to see her all exposed that way.”

  As she stood next to the bed, she gently caressed her daughter’s right arm. Rebecca Finn said, “I’ll testify against the bastard. I’ll tell the jury what he did to my baby girl.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t do that, Mrs. Finn,” I said quietly.

  “Why not? She’s my daughter.”

  “Anything Mrs. Latham told you would be considered hearsay and not admissible and I wouldn’t be allowed by a judge to ask you about the other times that Hitchins beat Mary Margaret. The court considers that information prejudicial and a violation of a defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

  “His rights? What about her rights?”

  Trying to soothe her, I said, “If Mrs. Latham is willing
to testify, I can ask her about what she saw and heard that night. But the truth is, I really can’t do much unless your daughter is willing to file a criminal complaint against Hitchins and testify in court. If she isn’t willing, he’s going to get away with this.”

  I was speaking to Rebecca Finn and had moved closer to the hospital bed so that we could talk without people in the hallway overhearing us. I hadn’t noticed that Mary Margaret had opened her eyes. Nor had I seen her slowly inching her hand toward my right arm. Without warning, she grabbed my wrist with such force that I jumped. She tugged on it, indicating that she wanted me to bend down close to her face.

  Between clenched teeth in her wired jaw, she whispered, “Make him pay for what he did. I’ll testify.”

  3

  The first call I made when I returned to my office was to White Plains police detective Tommy O’Brien. He was not at the station but one of his fellow detectives gave me O’Brien’s beeper number and he returned my call minutes later from a pay phone.

  “Mary Margaret and Rudy Hitchins are not married,” I proclaimed. “They lived together, but never officially tied the knot.”

  “Yeah, so,” O’Brien replied, clearly unimpressed.

  “So? It means we can file felony criminal assault charges against him.”

  O’Brien was quiet.

  After a few moments, I asked, “You still there, Detective?”

  “I didn’t send you to the hospital to see her because I want to arrest Rudy Hitchins,” O’Brien replied, clearly irked. “I sent you there to tell her to leave town for her own safety.”

  The superior tone in his voice irritated me. He didn’t have the authority to send me anywhere. “Listen, Detective, whether you like it or not, a crime has been committed. You’re a cop. Mary Margaret is a victim. And I’m an assistant district attorney. It’s that simple.”

  “Okay, Counselor, you think it’s really that simple—a crime’s been committed, I’m a cop, you’re a prosecutor, he’s a perp? Well, let me explain a few facts of life to you, sweetheart. Right now, Mary Margaret is pissed. She wants that son of a bitch in jail. But he’s going to come around with flowers and apologize in a few days, if he hasn’t already. And when she gets out of that hospital, he’s going to be waiting for her in his car to take her home. Where else is she going to go? She lives with him, remember? She’s pregnant so she’s going to lose that bartending job at O’Toole’s because no one wants a knocked-up broad serving them. And Mary Margaret ain’t like you. She don’t have a fancy law degree to fall back on and she don’t have any job skills, so you tell me, Counselor, what’s she going to do, being that she’s pregnant, homeless, and out of work?”