Irrefutable by Dale Roberts

“We ought to go out sometime, you know, just to dinner or something.”
    “Sure, that would be cool.”
    Carmen thanked her again and went inside the school.
__________
     
     
    Alex sat quietly, enduring the rant of Lt. Phelps. “This is exactly what I didn’t want.” Phelps threw the news paper on his desk. “The press is having a field day.”
    The headline told the story of the two women, brutally raped at the hands of a serial rapist. He even had a nickname, The Trailside Stalker . “There is one other thing.” Alex hated to say it.
    “What the hell else could there be?”
    “It seems there has been a security breach at the Lexus/Mercedes dealer. Some hacker stole some financial files. Some of the people on the list are, shall we say, high profile.”
    “What the hell does that have to do with this?” Phelps growled.
    “As it turns out, the two rape victims are on that list.”
    “You gotta be shit’n me.”
    “No sir. One of them is a real estate broker and the other is a lawyer.” Alex crossed his arms. “We haven’t been able to figure out the connection to the dealership but we’re working on it.”
    “Who else is on that list?”
    Alex paused for a moment, dreading the reaction. “Senator William Hawley and District Court Judge Charles Pittman. The troubling thing is… both of their wives fit the general description of the first two victims.”
    “You say that like you expect more.”
    “I think there’s a possibility that their wives may become targets. I think they should be warned.”
    “We can’t warn them. The media will get wind of it and things will get ugly. We can’t draw any more attention to this than there already is. We’ll increase patrol in their area, try to discourage anything like that.”
    “How will you get patrol division to do that without questions being asked?”
    “You let me worry about that. The two victims live in the same area so I would think extra patrol would be the natural police response.”
    “The only thing is, neither one of them were attacked anywhere near their home. We think the suspect had been watching them for a while, waiting for the right time. Not warning them would be an awfully big risk to take and that liability would fall squarely in your lap.” Alex said. “If you’re so worried about the press, that’s certainly not the kind of attention you want.”
    “You know what happened last time the press got involved,” Phelps said.
    “But, I don’t see how we can do a thorough investigation if we’re dancing around the press. I think we need to make a statement.”
    Phelps was silent for a few moments. “Let me think on it for a while.”
    Alex left Phelps’ office and walked toward his desk.
    Samuels met Alex in the hall. “What was all that about?”
    “There’s been a new development. Our rapes appear to be connected to another case the DA’s office is working on.”
    “What’s that?” She followed Alex to his desk.
    “Some financial files were stolen from a car dealership. Our two victims are among them.” Alex sat behind his desk and retrieved a file from a drawer.
    “You’re kidding.” Samuels said, looking surprised. “That’s interesting. So the cases are connected?”
    “I’m not sure, but we may have another problem.”
    “What’s that?”
    “The media has already reported on the two attacks. They’ve even given him a nickname. If they get wind that the cases are connected to the dealership, it could make things much more difficult.”
    “How’s that?”
    Alex drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, making no effort to hide his frustration. “It’s hard to do a good investigation when reporters are following you and reporting your every move, especially in a high profile case like this one.” he explained. “You end up spending more time answering their questions that you do on the case. And if you try to keep things from them, you hinder yourself. It’s hard enough to figure your next