Free Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel by Jeanine Pirro

strong, thick Arabic-style coffee. My parents were both extremely patriotic Americans, but like so many children of immigrant parents, they also paid homage to their heritage.
    As I started to sprinkle sugar over the fresh ma’amoul, Mom asked if I was thirsty.
    “Do you have any Dr Pepper?” I replied. She frowned. My mother didn’t care for carbonated drinks and she especially didn’t like them served with ma’amoul.
    “How about a glass of milk? Or coffee.”
    “I’d really rather have a Dr Pepper. I brought several bottles over last week. They should be in the back of the refrigerator on the second shelf—unless you drank them.”
    She knew I was teasing her and reluctantly fished a Dr Pepper from the refrigerator and handed me a bottle opener.
    I served her the first of the powdered ma’amoul after she had sat down at the kitchen table, and she poured herself a cup of fresh coffee.
    “I need advice, Mom.” I picked up a pastry and took a bite. The taste was delicious. “I’ve gotten involved in something.”
    I quickly explained about Hitchins and how he’d beaten and raped Mary Margaret. I told how I’d gotten Whitaker to file criminal charges against Hitchins. I then recounted the brutality that I’d witnessed outside O’Toole’s.
    I ended my story by saying, “When I get to work tomorrow, I know O’Brien will want Hitchins charged with resisting arrest and a long list of other criminal charges. But the police never gave him a chance to resist. That police officer named Carl threw the first punch and pistol-whipped Hitchins after he was handcuffed.”
    “This Rudy Hitchins, he had a gun?” she asked me.
    “Yes.”
    “Perhaps this Carl person knew this and felt he had no choice but to strike him first. This Hitchins sounds like a violent man. You choose a life of crime and you pay a price.”
    “There’s no question he is vicious. I can understand why they might have attacked him first. The truth is that I wanted to smack him, too, for what he did to Mary Margaret. As you said, he is a criminal. He deserves what he got. But do the police have a right to hit him after he has been handcuffed and disarmed, and then accuse him of attacking them?”
    My mother took a sip of her coffee and asked, “Have you told Detective O’Brien that you disagree with what happened?”
    “No.”
    “If you have a problem with this detective, you must tell him now. Otherwise, your silence is the same as approval and eventually becomes the norm and no one questions it.”
    My mother took another sip of coffee and added, “You also need to wipe your lips. You have powdered sugar on them.”

10
    O’Brien’s arrest paperwork for Hitchins was waiting on my desk when I reported to work the next morning. As I had anticipated, a slew of new charges had been lodged against him, including resisting arrest, criminal possession of a weapon, and assaulting a police officer. The only thing missing was a littering charge from the blood that he’d left behind on the sidewalk.
    I telephoned O’Brien, who sounded uncharacteristically pleased to hear from me. His tone did an immediate 180-degree spin after I told him that I was not comfortable pursuing any of the new charges that he’d sent over.
    “Not comfortable?” he snarled, mimicking me. “What the hell does that mean?”
    “It means that I am not going into court and lying.”
    My blunt answer got an immediate and angry response.
    “Lying? You’re accusing me of lying? What the hell are you talking about?”
    “I know what I saw. Hitchins never had a chance to resist arrest because your guys threw the first punch. And after he was handcuffed—well, do I really have to go into details here? You and I both know what happened.”
    “And what’s that, Counselor? What exactly do you believe you saw yesterday outside O’Toole’s?”
    “Your buddy Carl used Hitchins as a punching bag after he was handcuffed and smacked him in the side of his head with a pistol