Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel by Jeanine Pirro

clenched-teeth responses. I’d just finished telling her about how I’d grown up in Elmira, New York, with one sister and had moved to White Plains immediately after I’d finished law school, when she asked, “Miss Fox, do you have a boyfriend?”
    “Yes, his name is Bob and he’s in medical school in Albany.”
    “Do you see him often?”
    “We try to get together every other weekend. It’s been tough lately. But we’re committed.”
    “Is he cute?”
    “He’s a hunk. Brown hair, long legs, great build. It was magic from the start.”
    “I’m glad. I thought Rudy was one of the sexiest men I’d ever met.”
    “Tell me about him and your relationship.”
    “Okay, but first, I want to hear just a little bit more about Bob. How’d you meet?”
    “I was still in high school, working weekends at a combination dairy and café that was attached to a creamery where they made ice cream and other milk products.”
    “Like an ice-cream shop?”
    “Yes, but we also sold sandwiches, and because it was on a main highway outside Elmira, a lot of truckers used to stop in.”
    “You were a waitress, like me at O’Toole’s? Truckers, they come on to you, right?”
    “I was pretty young and naive. I didn’t really know sometimes what they were saying. Anyway, Bob’s parents owned a farm and he used to bring milk into the creamery and I thought he was adorable, so one day, when he was unloading his truck, I made sure to walk by and he said hello. We’ve been a couple ever since. He was my first and is my only love.”
    “You going to marry him?”
    “If he asks after he finishes medical school. He hasn’t given me a ring, but he gave me a pig.”
    “A pig?” She tried to laugh but it came out more as a giggle through her wired jaw.
    “Yes, from his farm. I loved the book Charlotte’s Web and he gave me a piglet named Wilbur.”
    “I don’t read much. But I’m glad you are in love. I thought Rudy loved me when we first met. He made me feel so special.”
    In her guttural monotone, she described how they had met four years earlier in a Manhattan nightclub. They’d bumped into each other at the bar.
    “He came on strong, but I liked that.”
    “When did you become a couple?”
    “We clicked from that first night. But we kept seeing other people for about a month. That’s when I first saw his temper.”
    “Tell me what happened.”
    “We were in the same nightclub and a guy I used to date came over to talk to me. Rudy totally ignored him but I gave him a hug when he left. When we went outside to leave, Rudy accused me of disrespecting him. We were walking next to each other when he suddenly grabbed me and started choking me. He choked me to the point he lifted me off the ground, and I was trying to scramble with my feet to get some type of footing because I started seeing stars. I felt like I was about to lose my breath and pass out. I started to fight at him to break him off of me. I swung at him but missed. That’s when he released me and slapped me across the face. That was the first time he ever hit me. He said, ‘You’re my girl now. You don’t talk to and hug other men.’” She paused and then whispered, “That’s how I found out we were only dating each other from that point on.”
    “Why didn’t you run away from him at that point?” I knew that would be a question that jurors would wonder and I did, too.
    “’Cause I felt it was my fault. I mean, I’d hugged that guy and that’s what made Rudy angry. The next day after he choked me, he apologized. He was really, really sorry. He told me he was afraid that I was going to leave him and he even broke down and cried. It was so, so sweet. He went right out that same morning and he brought me flowers—not just a dozen, neither, he bought me sixteen red roses and a big box of chocolate-covered cherries. The next day, he done the same thing. He did it every day for a week and I said, ‘Rudy, you’re spoiling me. I’m going to get fat