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appeals bureau?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “The last time I checked, attorneys assigned to the appeals bureau don’t try criminal cases, or has someone changed my office policy without telling me?”
    Pisani smirked again. He was enjoying this.
    “Sir, I’d like to prosecute this case, just the same. It’s important to me.”
    Whitaker glanced at Pisani, who decided to join the conversation. “Ms. Fox, what makes you think you can prosecute a case if you’ve never tried one before?”
    I turned my head so I was looking directly at Pisani. “But I have tried cases in court, Mr. Pisani. Actually, I’ve tried thirteen misdemeanor jury cases in Westchester County.”
    “Ms. Fox,” Pisani said, “each morning when I come to work, I review all the criminal matters this office has prosecuted in county court and in our other forty-three jurisdictions in Westchester County. I do the same before I go home each night, and I have never read your name as the assistant district attorney of record on a single criminal case.”
    “That’s correct, sir. The cases I prosecuted were all night cases assigned to other assistant district attorneys. The men couldn’t keep up so I helped them out.”
    “The men in this office couldn’t keep it up, so you helped them? You gave them a hand?” Pisani asked, making yet another sexual entendre. “And who gave you permission to do this? Does your division chief know?”
    Whitaker interrupted. “Are you saying you volunteered to take other attorneys’ night court cases?”
    “That’s correct, sir. Most were DWIs but there were also assaults and burglaries reduced to misdemeanors at the local court level.”
    “And were any of these defendants represented by counsel or did you simply work out plea deals?”
    “All of the accused in the thirteen cases that I tried were represented by legal counsel. They had defense attorneys.”
    “Really,” Pisani sniffed, lifting an eyebrow as a clear sign of his skepticism. “And how many of these thirteen cases did you actually win?”
    “All of them.”
    Whitaker liked my response. “So what you’re telling us, Miss Fox, is that you tried the cases but your colleagues claimed credit for it on the paperwork?”
    I thought he might be trying to get me to criticize my coworkers, something I was not going to do. “Whether or not my fellow assistant district attorneys gave me credit on the paperwork is something you’d have to ask them. I’ve never bothered to check. But I showed up in night court and I did my job as a prosecutor. That’s why I am confident I could prosecute Rudy Hitchins and win.”
    I couldn’t tell if Whitaker was impressed or amused by my reply, but Pisani was neither. He said, “Ms. Fox, you didn’t lose a single case that you prosecuted? Is that correct?” It suddenly sounded as if he were interrogating me on the witness stand. And, in fact, he was interrogating me.
    “That’s right, sir.”
    “Tell me, Ms. Fox, how does someone in the appeals bureau who came to us without any trial experience win every case she has ever tried? Are you claiming to be some sort of legal prodigy?”
    Again my eyes locked with his. “No, sir, but I had an excellent teacher and I am absolutely certain that you, yourself, would call him a prodigy. In fact, you might describe him as a genius in the courtroom.”
    “At Albany Law School?” he replied dismissively. “I hardly think so!”
    “No, sir, to the best of my knowledge, he’s never taught at a law school.”
    “Then who is this genius?”
    “You. My teacher was you.”
    Whitaker laughed out loud.
    I explained that I had studied every major transcript of criminal cases that Pisani had tried in the past five years in Westchester County. I’d read every opening statement that he’d given, every direct examination that he’d performed, every cross-examination, and every closing argument.
    “That’s the fucking funniest thing I’ve heard all morning,” Whitaker said,