The bags of clothing that I’d bought at Bergdorf Goodman barely fit in my car when we got back to Mom’s house. We hugged and I thanked her for providing me with a safe place to grieve. When I got home, there was a letter taped to the front door of my house with my name on it. I knew from the writing that it was from Bob.
Was he apologizing? Did he want me to take him back? Had he understood how he had ripped out my heart? I read his note while standing on the porch.
Bob wrote that he was sorry that I had caught him and Linda in bed. He’d wanted to tell me about her for several weeks, but hadn’t known how to do it without hurting me. He and Linda had not meant to fall in love. It simply had happened. He had fought it as long as he could, he wrote. “But we can’t control who we fall in love with. That’s part of the beauty of love.” He went on to write that he would always cherish the time that we had spent together and he even cited our Christmas Eve date at his grandfather’s farm as an example of how he would always “love” me. But he now was deeply in love with Linda. Someday, he hoped we would be friends. He ended his note by writing that I deserved someone better than him.
I crumpled his letter in my hand. At least his last sentence had been truthful.
I did deserve someone better than him.
PART THREE
IN THE
RING
Justice is blind; but, fortunately for
the sake of the welfare of society,
she can often see through
the bandage.
—ANONYMOUS
27
“Wow! what happened to you? I mean, you look sensational!”
That confused compliment came from Will Harris, who was standing in the doorway of my office. It was Monday morning and Harris had been sent by his editor to write a feature story about our unit and the dangers that women faced when they filed criminal charges against their husband. The paper’s reporter had written a story that weekend about Maya Lopez’s murder.
“So what’s with the new look?” he asked.
“I decided to make some changes.”
“Well, you look fabulous.”
He flopped down in a chair and we spent the next half hour talking about the Domestic Violence Unit. Next, Anne Marie took him on a tour and drove him to a women’s shelter where we’d arranged for him to interview a victim of domestic violence.
I had just begun doing paperwork when another figure appeared in my doorway.
“Why are you so gussied up?” Detective O’Brien asked.
Gussied up? Did people still use that idiom?
I ignored his question and asked, “What brings you here?”
“The chief told me that I could transfer here, if I wanted.”
“So do you want?”
“Let’s go for a ride. I got a couple of conditions and I need you to go somewhere with me.”
When we got inside his unmarked squad car, O’Brien said, “I got two conditions. First, I want my own office, so if being around all you broads all day gets under my skin, I’ll have somewhere to retreat.”
“I agree,” I said, adding, “I think all of us would like somewhere in our office for you to go when you’re not needed.”
He chuckled and said, “Second condition. If we’re going to be partners, you got to start carrying a gun.”
Actually, I’d already considered the idea, especially now that Juan Lopez was on the loose.
Ten minutes later, we were standing before a glass counter in O’Brien’s favorite gun shop. I chose a .38-caliber police model Smith & Wesson revolver. As an assistant district attorney, getting a full carry permit for a concealed weapon was not a problem. I tried it out in the shop’s indoor shooting range. It was therapeutic. At first, I pictured the male targets as Juan Lopez. But when I had fired a shot low and it struck the silhouette in the genital area, I pictured Bob.
While I liked the Smith & Wesson, it was a bit bulky and heavy in my purse. The gun dealer recommended that I buy a second handgun, a Smith & Wesson Model 19, a .357-caliber snub-nosed airweight that had more kick but with its smaller barrel was easier to hide. He suggested I keep the larger .38 next to my bed at night and never go anywhere without the .357 snub-nose in my purse.
After I had spent a good hour testing the guns by firing at targets, O’Brien drove me back to work.
“Does this mean you’re going to join us?” I asked him.
“I can start tomorrow, assuming you have my office ready. In fact, I already have a case for you to take on.”
“What’s the case?”
“A young girl. I’ll bring her in tomorrow.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment, and then I said, “Thank you, O’Brien, for agreeing to help us at the unit and for taking me to the gun shop.”
“Dani,” he said in a serious tone, “there’s something I need to tell you. We got a ballistics report back from that bullet that was recovered from your wall—the one that someone shot at you.”
“Did it match the gun that Juan Lopez used to shoot Maya?”
“No,” O’Brien said. “Actually, it matched the bullet that ended Mary Margaret’s life. Rudy Hitchins isn’t in Canada. He’s still here somewhere, and obviously, he’s out for revenge.”
The next morning when I walked into the center, Anne Marie greeted me with a huge grin, making a buzzing noise as if she were a bee. The other women in the office did the same, making it sound as if we all worked in a beehive.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Anne Marie said, “You haven’t read this morning’s paper, have you? Will Harris wrote his article about us.” She handed me a copy so I could read his front-page story.
Assistant District Attorney Dani Fox is a snappy dresser with a great pair of legs, a lush mop of curly black hair, scarlet nails painted to match her bee-stung lips and a penchant for ankle bracelets—a real looker. She’s also a smart, impassioned advocate for battered women …
I’d never read the term “bee-stung lips” before. When I was in grammar school, other kids used to call them “fat lips.” Now, apparently they were an attribute.
Anne Marie said, “It looks as if Will Harris might have a crush on you.”
I carried the paper into my office so I could read the rest in private. I’d just finished when O’Brien ducked his head through my door and said, “Miss Fox, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
Standing next to him was one of the prettiest teenagers I’ve ever seen. She had long black hair that fell past her shoulders, olive skin, and big eyes. Although she was at least five feet nine, I guessed she only weighed about 120 pounds.
O’Brien said, “This is Carmen Gonzales.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Fox,” she said. Despite her adult appearance, her voice was that of a child’s.
O’Brien had invited Anne Marie to join us, and as soon as all three of them were seated across from my desk, he began.
“Carmen’s father is currently locked up in the Metropolitan Correctional Center on charges that he distributed cocaine and laundered drug money at a high-end jewelry shop that he owned in Manhattan. His name is Carlos Gonzales and he’s a White Plains resident.”
He looked at Carmen and said, “Now that her father’s in jail, Carmen wants to tell you what he’s been doing to her for some time now.”
“What did your father do?” I asked.
“He raped me,” she said, casting her eyes toward the floor.
“Don’t be ashamed,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong if he raped you. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“The first time he did it?”
“Yes, but would you like something to drink first? Water—a soda?”
She shook her head, indicating no. With her eyes still locked on the floor, she began. “The first time he did it was a month after my stepmother died. My father—he called me into my parents’ bedroom. I’d just had my fourteenth birthday—that was two years ago. My father had photos of my dea
d stepmother spread out over his bed and he was snorting cocaine. I’d seen him use it before. We’d all hide when he got high because he’d get mean. He had a shotgun on the bed, too. At first, I thought he was going to kill himself. Or me. I was really, really afraid.”
Her voice cracked and Anne Marie quickly offered her a tissue. I picked up the ever-present candy dish that I kept on my desk and offered her some Junior Mints. When I was nervous or upset, I immediately reached for dark chocolate and found it comforting. She thanked me but refused.
“My father told me to sit on the corner of the bed and I did. I was in my pajamas. He put cocaine in his nose and then he grabbed the shotgun and he ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to shoot himself.’ I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there trembling. After about twenty minutes, he opened the door and he came out. I could tell from his eyes that he was really high and angry at me. I didn’t know why because I hadn’t done nothing wrong. I’d just been sitting there.”
She began to cry.
“Take your time,” O’Brien said.
She looked up from the chair at me. “My father told me, ‘I could have killed myself in there. I could’ve blown off my head. But you didn’t do nothing. You don’t care about me. You didn’t care about your mother, neither. You only care about yourself.’”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “My father took off his belt and he hit me across my back. It stung and I screamed. He said a good daughter would have come into the bathroom to check on him. A good daughter would have tried to stop him. But I didn’t care about him. I didn’t try to stop him. I wasn’t a good daughter. He said that’s why he hit me. That’s why he was going to beat me. He whipped me again with his belt and I fell on the floor on my stomach and tried to protect my head with my hands because he just kept hitting me with his belt. It hurt so much. I kept thinking, ‘Why is he doing this? It can’t be happening.’ I was screaming and that made him even madder. He yelled, ‘You want something to cry about? I’ll give you something to cry about!’ He hit me so many times that my back began bleeding and I was begging him to stop, but he just kept hitting me.”
The only sound in the room except for her voice was the noise of Anne Marie’s pen on her notepad.
“My father told me to go into his bathroom and take a shower because my back was bleeding. He said I was a dirty, rotten whore who didn’t care about anyone. I ran into the bathroom, and while the water was running, I cried and cried because I knew he couldn’t hear me. I stayed in there as long as I could. I didn’t know what else to do. Then I thought maybe the cocaine had worn off and maybe he’d fallen asleep and maybe I could get back to my room if I was real quiet. I dried off but I couldn’t put my pajamas on because they were bloody. I looked in the mirror and my back was covered with bruises and welts. I wrapped myself in two towels and opened the door. But he was waiting for me on the bed and he told me to come over to the bed. That’s when it happened.”
I said, “That’s when he raped you?”
She nodded.
“I just looked at the ceiling. I didn’t make noise because he told me that I could not cry, that I had no right to cry, but I was crying inside.”
“How many times did he sexually assault you that night?”
She held up three fingers. “When he was done, he told me I was sleeping in his bed from now on. He said, ‘Your stepmother slept here so now you have to sleep here.’ The next day he told me to put on my stepmother’s clothes. He told me I wasn’t going back to school ever again. He told me I was the family’s new mother and I had to take care of the younger kids. When he left for work at the jewelry store, he told me to clean the house and get dinner ready for him when he came home. I wanted to run away, but I didn’t know where to go and I didn’t want to leave my little brothers and sister behind. He said he would kill me or them if I said anything. That night, after I put the other kids to bed he took me into the bedroom and he told me to take cocaine with him. I didn’t want to so he began hitting me with his belt. When he got tired of hitting me, he made me take the cocaine in my nose and he put cocaine on his penis. He said it would make him like Superman. Then he raped me again two times that night. It was awful. I wanted to die. I wanted him to kill me.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No, I kept thinking someone would realize something was wrong. I kept thinking someone would stop him. My father made me dress in my stepmother’s evening clothes and he took me out at night. He’d take me to bars and tell people I was his girlfriend. No one said anything, even people who knew I was his daughter. They laughed and said it was great that he was spending time with me. Then I got pregnant.”
“Your father got you pregnant?”
“Yes. When he found out, he was so mad. He beat me with the belt. I think he was trying to kill the baby. But it didn’t work so he took me to one of those clinics. He went with me and paid to have it done.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Three months ago. He went with me when they did it. Not long after that, he met a woman. His new girlfriend. She was a lingerie model. He told me I could go back to my room after she moved in with us. He told me that if I ever said anything about what he’d done to me, he would kill me and kill my brothers and sister.”
I said to O’Brien, “Detective, I’d like you to step outside for a moment.” As soon as he did, I said, “I want you to show me your back, where he whipped you with his belt.”
Carmen stood up and took off her shirt, unsnapped her bra, and turned around.
Anne Marie let out a gasp.
The teen’s back was a road map of raised scar tissue, hundreds of linear slash marks.
“Thank you. You can put your shirt back on.”
Seeing Carmen’s scars substantiated her story. But we would need to do much more investigation to justify charges of forcible rape, sodomy, unlawful imprisonment, incest, and child endangerment—all potential counts that I was mulling over.
“Carmen, do you understand that if we file criminal charges against your father, you’ll have to testify against him in a courtroom?”
“Yes, Detective O’Brien already told me.”
“Are you going to be able to look him directly in the eyes and tell twelve jurors the same story that you just told us?”
“I think so.”
I didn’t want to frighten her, but I also knew a defense attorney was going to be relentless when she testified.
“You can’t think so. You have to know so.”
For the first time since she’d entered my office, I saw fire in her big brown eyes.
“Yes, I will tell them.”
Addressing Anne Marie, I said, “Take Carmen into your office and get color photos of the scars.” I turned to Carmen and asked, “Are you hungry?” It was nearly noon.
“Yes. I didn’t have any breakfast.”
“Anne Marie, get Carmen something to eat, too.”
“Maybe I could get something to take back to Hector, my brother. He and I are living with my mom’s best friend.”
“Anne Marie will do it.”
O’Brien returned as soon as Carmen and Anne Marie left.
“What kind of sick son of a bitch does this to his own daughter?” I asked. “What can you tell me about Carlos Gonzales?”
O’Brien removed the toothpick from between his lips and said, “Carlos is a real piece of work. The Feds got a drug case against him in Manhattan. He’s never been busted before and his arrest came as a real surprise to the Hispanic community.”
O’Brien said Carlos had come to America from Bogotá, Colombia, when he was a small child and had become a naturalized citizen. Through hard work, he’d learned the jewelry business and had eventually opened a high-end outlet in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood. He’d married his first wife, Rosita, and they’d settled in White Plains, where she gave birth to Carmen. Two years later, she’d died while having their second child, Hector. Carlos, mean
while, soon emerged as a powerful political figure in Westchester County’s Spanish-speaking communities. He attended church each Sunday, donated to Latino charities, and was president of the local Hispanic business council. He donated money from his store to buy sporting equipment for a local youth center. His second wife, Benita Archuleta, was from a respected Manhattan family, which owned more than a dozen profitable bodegas. She bore him two more children, Angel and Adolpho. According to a police report, Benita had committed suicide a few days before Christmas two years ago. Carlos’s newest love interest was Maria Hildago. She’d moved into the family house in White Plains about two weeks before the FBI arrested Carlos on charges that he was distributing drugs through his jewelry business.
I said, “So in public, he’s an upstanding, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps immigrant success story and Hispanic leader. In private, he’s distributing drugs, using cocaine, and beating and raping his own daughter.”
“That’s Carlos. He thinks he’s slick.”
“Where are the kids?”
“Carmen and Hector moved in with Yolanda Torres, in New Rochelle. Yolanda was their mother—Rosita’s—best friend. Angel and Adolpho are living with their grandmother.”
“Anything else I should know? What about the suicide—the stepmother?”
“You mean Carlos’s second wife, Benita. The medical examiner listed it as a suicide, but it was odd.”
“Why’s that?”
“Benita had a clean-cut reputation, came from a good family, and was popular. Then she OD’d right before Christmas on cocaine. According to the report, all the kids were in the house the night it happened, including Carmen.”
“Maybe she had secrets just like Carlos.”
28
It’s hard for defense attorneys to counter physical evidence. The scars on Carmen’s back proved she had been beaten. She’d also had an abortion—something I needed to confirm. Just the same, a good defense attorney would try to create reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds. Who had delivered those blows? Who had gotten her pregnant?
Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel Page 15