Continuing, he said, “I’ll tell you what she’s going to do because I’ve seen it a hundred times. She’s going to keep her trap shut—until one day when she can’t stand it no more. On that day, he’s going to come home drunk and start hitting her again. And that’s when she’s finally going to fight back and whop him in the head with a frying pan. But all that is going to do is piss him off even more. And now he’s going to be so furious that he’s not going to put her in a hospital, he’s going to put her in the ground. And nothing is going to happen because some slick defense attorney will claim he was just defending himself.”
God, I thought. This is more complicated than I had imagined. And yet there was something about this incident that made me believe it could turn out differently.
“I know you’ve done this a long time, Detective, and you know more than me. But when I was at the hospital, I saw Rudy Hitchins and he was with another woman, a blonde. He’s cheating on Mary Margaret. He might not want her back. Besides, shouldn’t we let Mary Margaret make the final decision? She’s the victim.”
He didn’t answer. “Detective, there’s something more. He not only beat her, he raped her.”
I thought that might sway O’Brien but it only seemed to make him more reticent.
“What the hell?” he said. “I didn’t read anything about that in the original officer’s report.”
“That’s because the neighbor who found Mary Margaret pulled her pants up before the police arrived.”
“Are you telling me that you not only want to charge this prick with assaulting his longtime girlfriend but also with raping her, too, even though they were living together, sleeping together, and there’s no mention of rape in the original report? Do you have any idea what’s going to happen if we charge him with rape? You’re going to be laughed out of the courtroom. You can’t rape some broad who’s living with you and passing herself off as your wife.”
“I disagree. Rape is about control, domination—not sex.”
“And where did you hear that, young lady? Some sociology course or at some women’s rally on a fancy-dancy college campus? You need to get real, Counselor. You might get him on assault—if you’re really, really lucky. But toss in rape? Hell, you’ll never get this case out of a grand jury. They’ll think you’re bonkers!”
Sadly, I suspected he was right. “Okay, forget the rape charge for right now.”
“No. Forever.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment and then he said, “Listen. You’re a good kid, okay. But do you realize what you’re stepping into here? You’re going to be putting this victim in even more danger by going after that prick. What do you think Rudy Hitchins is going to do if I bust his ass? He’s going after her.”
“I’ll get a temporary order of protection keeping him away from her. She wants me to file charges. If you’ll help me, we can do this. We can get him for felony assault.”
O’Brien was still hesitant. “Okay, Counselor,” he finally said. “Let’s assume I go along with your harebrained scheme and arrest this prick. Are you telling me your boss is going to allow you to try Rudy Hitchins in criminal court or is he just going to send this case over to family court?”
“He’s got to file charges in criminal court,” I said. “Family courts don’t have jurisdiction over couples who are not married, only couples who are married. That’s the law.”
“That may be the law, Counselor, but you and I both know that anytime there is a fight between two people who are living together in this county, the cops, prosecutors, and judges consider the case a domestic issue and that means they get sent to family court for touchy-feely counseling. That may not be the letter of the law, but it’s what always happens.”
“If you can get Mary Margaret to swear out a complaint against Hitchins for first-degree assault, I’ll do my job and make sure this gets into criminal court, where it belongs.”
O’Brien considered my offer silently for several moments. Finally, he said, “Well, you got moxie, I’ll give you that, Counselor. Okay, I’ll go out on a limb here and have a chat with Mary Margaret and if she wants to file criminal charges, I’ll arrest Rudy Hitchins for assault. I don’t mind getting laughed at at the station. But you’re playing with fire, Counselor. You’ll end up with more than egg on your face if we blow this. And Mary Margaret will be putting herself in real danger. He’s not the sort who forgets and forgives. He’s the sort who gets even.”
There were a million responses that shot through my mind. I knew O’Brien was right. If I managed to get D.A. Whitaker to prosecute this case in criminal court—where it belonged—and not shuffle it over to family court and then I flubbed it, I’d never get out of the appeals bureau—ever. And that was assuming I’d be able to keep my job. I also knew Rudy Hitchins would want revenge. Was I ready for what he might do? Was Mary Margaret ready?
I didn’t want to think about it.
Instead of admitting my fears, I replied with a smart-ass comment.
“Egg on your face? Frying pans? Really, Detective, if we’re going to work together, you’ve got to move out of the kitchen and into the brave new world.”
“Not a chance, Counselor,” O’Brien replied in a deadpan voice. “I like it fine in the world we’re in right now.”
4
Westchester County District Attorney Carlton Whitaker III liked to refer to himself as a “hands-off” manager who gave the assistant district attorneys in our office the freedom to work without second-guessing their actions or peering over their Brooks Brothers–clad shoulders. What that really meant was that Whitaker spent most afternoons at the Westchester Country Club in nearby Harrison playing golf and kissing up to the club’s elite. There were plenty of prestigious posteriors worth smooching. Howard Hughes used to play at the club’s links, along with Ed Sullivan. Just getting through the country club’s front door was rumored to cost as much as $100,000 in membership initiation fees. The fact that D.A. Whitaker, whose annual salary topped out at $65,000, was a member raised eyebrows in the courthouse, especially after it was revealed that his membership fee had been waived. But Whitaker was willing to risk possible public criticism in order to hobnob with the likes of Tonight Show host Johnny Carson, comedian Jackie Gleason, and boxer Gene Tunney. It was the ultimate old boys’ club perk.
In New York, district attorneys are elected every four years, which is why my boss spent time schmoozing at the country club. But Whitaker was no dope. Whenever a high-profile prosecution surfaced, he jumped in to claim the headlines. While Whitaker was a capable prosecutor, the real legal strategist in our office was an immaculately dressed fellow who could always be seen seated next to Whitaker at the prosecutor’s table or standing behind him at press conferences.
Paul Pisani was the most successful assistant district attorney in the history of Westchester County. It had been years since Pisani had lost a criminal prosecution. Even his most hated rivals referred to him as “Mr. Invincible.”
The two men had much in common. Both were handsome and razor smart. But there was one glaring difference. D.A. Whitaker rarely permitted the public to peek behind his well-crafted public mask. Paul Pisani didn’t give a damn about public opinion. If anything, he viewed the public with contempt. He was vain, condescending, and arrogant—except when he appeared in the courtroom. Pisani put his ego in check and transformed himself into whatever was necessary to win the hearts of jurors. He was especially brilliant when it came to interpreting the law and he knew how to lead jurors exactly where he wanted them to go. His opening and closing statements were delivered in eloquent bursts, aimed directly at the heart of the defense counsel’s case and the unlucky defendant who’d come into Pisani’s gun sights.
Together, Whitaker and Pisani ran an efficient operation. Whitaker glad-handed the Westchester County power brokers and kept the public happy with his glowing news reports about his office’s successes while Pisani made sure the bad guys were sent up the river to Sing Sing. The third member of the tri
umvirate was Mark Steinberg, who was Whitaker’s chief of staff. Although he was an assistant district attorney, Steinberg had never tried a case. Rather, he oversaw the day-to-day operations, paying particular attention to anything that could impact his boss’s political well-being. Steinberg’s stress level was at its highest at reelection time. He handled the media, political polls, campaign management, and fund-raising.
With Whitaker serving as the public face, Pisani as the legal mastermind, and Steinberg running daily operations and overseeing politics, the D.A.’s office performed much like a well-oiled machine.
On paper, the prosecution of criminals in Westchester seemed straightforward. After the police made an arrest, the accused was taken before a judge for arraignment, advised of charges, told to get himself an attorney, and had a bail hearing. If the accused couldn’t post bond, he was remanded to jail. Next came a preliminary hearing at which the state was required to show it had sufficient evidence to seek an indictment from a grand jury. All grand jury hearings were secret, but if its members agreed that the prosecution had a solid case, the accused was bound over for trial. Next came a series of pretrial maneuvers by both sides that eventually led to a trial.
At least, that’s how the legal system was supposed to work. What really happened was quite different. As soon as someone was arrested, charged, and got a defense attorney, that lawyer and a prosecutor from our office would begin wrangling. Ninety percent of all criminal cases filed in Westchester County would never make it to an actual trial. Deals would be cut at some point in the process. These plea negotiations were exercises in bluster, horse-trading, and strong-arming and had more in common with the give-and-take that happens each day on used-car lots rather than with our blind, lovely Lady Justice.
Detective O’Brien had promised me that he’d get the criminal justice process started by interviewing Mary Margaret, doing a background investigation of her and Hitchins, and collecting sufficient evidence to arrest Hitchins on first-degree assault. But I knew O’Brien was a realist and he’d find a reason to drag his feet until he heard through the grapevine that D.A. Whitaker or Steinberg had agreed to let me move forward with my plan. O’Brien wasn’t going too far out on a limb for me without glancing over his back to see if anyone was firing up a chain saw.
The next step was to convince either Steinberg, who oversaw our office, or D.A. Whitaker that prosecuting Hitchins in criminal court was a good idea. I decided to focus on Whitaker. What would make our golf-playing D.A. want to charge Hitchins with a felony?
The answer seemed obvious. Whitaker was a publicity hound. That was the key. There was nothing especially newsworthy about the Hitchins case. I suspected there were plenty of men who slapped around women in Westchester. But the political and social climate in our country was clearly shifting. While it was not illegal in New York for a husband to hit his wife, there was a movement afoot to draft legislation that would make spouse abuse a crime. Women were gaining more political power. More and more unmarried couples were living together. And the legal system was being dragged into the social fray. A few years earlier, Michelle Triola had filed a lawsuit against actor Lee Marvin claiming that she was entitled to “palimony” because they had lived together even though they weren’t married. The media seemed fascinated by the changes in traditional male and female roles. If I could convince Whitaker that prosecuting Hitchins as a criminal could get him on the front page of the White Plains Daily and help him politically with women voters, he might sign on.
I had an idea. Not long after I’d been hired, Will Harris, a reporter at the White Plains Daily, had telephoned me. He’d wanted to write a feature story about me since I was the first female assistant D.A.
I’d turned him down because I already knew that I was going to face resentment from male prosecutors and I didn’t need the additional grief. I hadn’t even bothered to mention it to Whitaker or Steinberg.
If I could get an appointment directly with Whitaker, I could tell him that Harris was interested in writing a story about women and the legal system. I could tell him that having me prosecute Hitchins as a criminal would give reporter Harris a terrific news angle. D.A. Whitaker could tell the public on page one how concerned he was about battered women in our county and that message would surely help him win the female vote in his upcoming reelection in November this year.
The trick was getting to Whitaker. And that meant I had to find a way to get around Steinberg. Our office was all about chain of command.
I picked up my phone and called Steinberg’s office. His secretary, Patti DeVries, answered. Our office had a strict policy when it came to addressing fellow employees. Everyone was required to call secretaries by their last name. The same was true about the male lawyers. But for some reason, which no one had ever bothered to explain, the secretaries and male attorneys usually called me by my first name and didn’t think anything of it.
“Hi, Mrs. DeVries,” I said. “This is Dani.”
I liked Patti DeVries. She had been a real pal when I was hired. I’d been shunned at noontime by my male counterparts. Not one of them had invited me to lunch—not even now. It might sound trivial, but their fraternity-brat tactics hurt my feelings. Of course, I’d refused to show it. Instead, I’d begun brown-bagging it, pretending I was too busy at work to take a break. And then one afternoon Patti DeVries had waltzed into our office and she’d spotted me eating a tuna sandwich at my desk. She’d invited me to join her and the other women for lunch.
The male attorneys thought it was hilarious that I had been relegated to eat with secretaries. But what their testosterone-drenched brains hadn’t realized was that my lunches with the secretaries quickly paid off. Any jealousy that the women felt toward me because I outranked them had vanished. I got to know them as peers and they got to know me. I asked them for advice about things that they talked about—mostly men, but also where to shop, office politics, and family problems. They began watching my back. Best of all, there was no better way to keep track of the latest gossip than by lunching with the girls. Nothing, and I mean nothing, escapes the eyes and ears of a good executive secretary. If a married judge groped his clerk, I heard about it. If a defense attorney had a drinking problem, I heard about it. There was only one secretary who stayed aloof from the rest of us. She was Hillary Potts, the personal secretary of our boss, Whitaker. I suspected she thought she was better than the other secretaries and me, too.
“I need a favor,” I told Patti on the phone. “Can you tell me when Mr. Steinberg is not going to be in his office?”
“Don’t you mean when is he going to be here?”
“No,” I replied. “I want to know when he will definitely not be in the building.”
Patti chuckled. “Well, hon, he has a dental appointment tomorrow morning. He’s taking the entire day off to get his wisdom teeth removed.”
I avoided making a crack about Steinberg and wisdom. Instead, I said, “Isn’t he a bit old for that?”
“Apparently not,” she replied. “They’re impacted. Actually, he’s going to be out for two days—at least. Why do you want to know?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow at lunch, okay? I’m buying.”
“Oh, this should be good, especially if you’re buying.”
We hung up, and for a second I thought about Patti DeVries and the other secretaries who worked in the courthouse. She’d gone directly from high school to a local two-year program for secretaries and had been hired by the county. Because she wasn’t a college graduate and was married to a blue-collar worker, the lawyers in our office looked down on her. But she was a fast learner, and after a year as Steinberg’s secretary, she knew more about how to navigate the county court system than any of the lawyers. Our office would have become paralyzed without her and the other secretaries, although their paychecks certainly didn’t reflect that.
5
Hillary Potts, a striking, but stern-looking woman in her fifties, always maintained a formal air at her desk directly next
to the double doors that opened into D.A. Whitaker’s massive office. She was more than his personal secretary. She was a gatekeeper. No one got in to see him without first getting by her. No one.
When I arrived first thing the next morning in Whitaker’s office, Miss Potts made it clear that she was in no mood for chitchat. Instead, she focused on a letter that she was typing until she got a call on her intercom from the Boss.
“District Attorney Carlton Whitaker III will see you now,” she announced solemnly as if I were being presented to the Queen of England. She opened one of the doors that led into his office.
As I approached the doorway, I recognized the voice of Paul Pisani, Westchester County’s “Mr. Invincible,” coming from inside. I had heard that Pisani made it a practice to meet most mornings with Whitaker to review that day’s court docket. I stepped inside just as Pisani was lowering a porcelain coffee mug from his lips.
“Jesus Christ,” Pisani declared, “why can’t our cops make some goddamn decent drug arrests? Rudy Giuliani began going after drug dealers three years ago and look where it’s gotten him. He’s a goddamn associate deputy attorney in the Justice Department going after mobsters now just like Bobby Kennedy did in the sixties. Mark my word, Giuliani has a bright political career ahead of him in New York and he’s only half the prosecutor that I am. Don’t we have any gangsters around here we can arrest? What the hell’s wrong with our cops?”
Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel Page 3
