by Dale Roberts
“I think it helps to talk about things. That way people don’t think you have secrets. I guess that’s why I talk so openly about my childhood. Even though I was made to believe it was my fault.”
“So, what happened exactly?” Carmen asked. “If it’s not too personal.”
“Not at all. My father used to rape me on a regular basis, three, four times a week. He would even allow his friends, poker buddies, to have their way with me. I had an older sister but, as far as I know, he never messed with her. When I tried to tell my mother, she would call me a liar. It went on for years, until one of my teachers noticed bruises on my arms.” Janet made a ring around her wrist with her thumb and finger. “She started asking questions. I told her what was going on and she called the police. My dad was arrested.”
“Did he go to prison?”
“He spent one night in jail.” Janet said as she pulled in the drive thru to place their order. “He was released on bond. Everything continued while he was awaiting trial. Seven months.”
“I can’t imagine. I get upset if my dad gets called away on his off duty time, even though he’s just doing his job.” Carmen said.
“When the trial started, I guess my mom realized it was true. Either that, or she was embarrassed about what everyone would think of the family. Either way, she would never testify. She committed suicide. The case was dismissed for lack of evidence.” Janet feigned a small laugh. “Who would take the word of an emotionally disturbed child? That’s what the lawyers called me.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Anyway, my dad blamed me for mom’s death. He said if I hadn’t told my teacher, everything would’ve been fine.”
“How old were you?”
“I was fourteen. I went to live with an aunt, my mother’s sister. She believed me. I never saw my father again. Bastard eventually drank himself to death, or so I’m told.”
“So, how did you turn out so…normal?”
Janet laughed, “Normal?”
“I mean, you’re so nice. If you didn’t tell, no one would know anything like that ever happened.”
“I did go to therapy when I lived with my aunt.” Janet explained, “I learned about the ways abusers control their victims. I learned that I was a victim, that it wasn’t my fault. They thought I felt guilty for my mom’s death, but I didn’t. She blamed me for everything, said I made the whole thing up. She can rot in hell for all I care.”
“So what did you do?”
“I finished high school while living with my aunt, then went to college, nursing school. I guess I became a SANE nurse because of what happened to me. I wanted to make sure no more rapists got away with it.”
“What’s a sane nurse?”
“Sexual assault nurse examiner. I’m kind of a forensic investigator, you know, like CSI, but my crime scene is the victim. I do exams and collect evidence.”
“So that’s how you know my dad so well.” Carmen said.
“That’s how.” Janet paid for the food and pulled away from the window. She handed the sack to Carmen. “So how was the prom?”
“It actually turned out good. I had fun.” Carmen removed her food from the bag and gave it back to Janet. “I was afraid I would be in trouble because I got home late but, my dad got home after I did. He looked like he’d been crying, but I didn’t want to ask.”
“Maybe he felt bad for having to leave you.”
“Maybe, but he wouldn’t cry about something like that.” she said then took a bite out of the taco.
“So, the boy you went with, is he a boyfriend?”
“He’s just a friend.” She tried to catch a piece of shell that fell but she missed and it landed between the seat and the console. “Sorry about that.”
Janet didn’t acknowledge the accident. “So is he a close friend?”
“Well, I do like him, a lot, but we aren’t going steady or anything.” Carmen stared at her taco, “He’s very popular. Some of the other girls gave me a hard time. I think they were jealous.”
“You don’t need that kind of headache. You’re too young to get caught up in all that. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“Get caught up in what?” Carmen asked.
“Boys. They’ll break your heart.” Janet took a bite of her taco. “I’m trying to figure out how to get out of a relationship now. My bastard boyfriend has been cheating on me.”
“That sucks.”
“Yea, I can’t prove it though. I guess I really don’t have to prove it to anyone. I know, so that’s really all that matters.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I’m not sure yet, but when I figure it out, he’ll wish he had never looked at another woman.”
Carmen looked at her, then out the window. “I should get back to school.”
“Okay. Well, thanks for having lunch with me.”
“Thanks for buying.” Carmen smiled.
Janet pulled into the circle drive. “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 Ale
x 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 move, but it’s even harder when you try to do it in a way that doesn’t get attention.”
“How do you mean?”
“We need to get DNA from the employees at the dealership. How do we do that without revealing that the cases are related? We wouldn’t need DNA for a computer hacking case.”
“I see what you mean.”
“And then there’s the added pressure that, if you don’t make an arrest soon enough, you’re accused of being apathetic and unprofessional. Last time a woman died, and the police department was held accountable by the press. They said if we had done a better job, and found the rapist sooner, that woman would still be alive. They don’t understand or just don’t care that sometimes their hunger for a story can actually interfere with an investigation. It’s hard to set a trap if everyone knows about it.” Alex shuffled through the pile of folders on his desk.
“Well, not to change the subject, but I’ve done the background checks on the two victims we have.”
“Okay,” he sighed, “let’s hear it.”
Samuels opened a file folder and sat on the corner of his desk. “Victim number one is Amanda Dixon. She’s thirty six…”
“Don’t sit on my desk.” Alex pointed to her desk, “There’s a chair right there.”
“I’m sorry.” Samuels moved from the desk and sat in her chair, rolling it across the isle to Alex’s desk. “Amanda Dixon is a thirty six year old real estate broker. Single, never married. She is the CEO/owner of Paradise Homes. She has evidently sold a large percentage of the homes in The Cove. Born in Olympia Washington, June sixth, nineteen seventy five. College at FSU. Graduated class of two thousand with MBA. Worked as a buyer’s agent for Kerns Realty in Saratoga until o-three when she got her broker’s license and opened her current company. She employs eight agents and just bought a new car. Guess what kind.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?”
“A Lexus.”
“Anything else on her?”
“That’s about it. Number two is Monica Brashears. Born Monica Lynn Newberry, in Orlando, October seventeenth, nineteen seventy three. Married to Richard Wayne Brashears in ninety seven, divorced in o-six. No children. Did her undergrad work at FSU and got her law degree at Texas Wesleyan in Fort Worth in ninety-nine. Guess what her specialty is.”
Alex looked up at her, but said nothing.
“Real estate law. She handles complex contractual issues in sales of high end properties. And, she just bought a new car. I know you don’t feel like guessing, so I’ll just tell you. She bought a new Mercedes from the same dealership.”
“So, what have you learned?”
“Well, they have a few things in common. They both attended Florida State, both are involved in real estate, and both just bought new cars from the same dealership, which just happened to have a security breach involving both their files.”
“Okay, you’ve got both feet on the ground. What direction do you start walking?” he asked.
“I want to look at the other names on the list from the dealership.”
“There you go. Find as much background on each as you can. If the names are of men, find out if they’re married and research the wives. I want to find anything else these people share in common.” Alex did need the information, but he also needed to give Samuels something to keep her occupied. She was beginning to irritate him.
Alex studied the computer screen. He sipped his long since cold coffee as he tried to make sense of things.
“What if…?”
Alex looked at Samuels. “I thought you were gone.”
“How do we know our perp’s a man?”
He didn’t try to hide the laugh. “Unless I missed something in biology class, women don’t typically produce semen.” He returned his attention to the computer screen.
“I have a theory.” Samuels rolled her chair next to Alex. “Hear me out.”
Alex leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, let’s hear this theory.”
“None of the victims can identify their attacker. There’s no physical evidence to indicate it’s a man, other than the semen.”
“So, we just throw out the semen? Pretend it was never there?” Alex had heard enough. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please ignore this big, pink elephant in the room. The rapist is a woman.” He shook his head and returned to the computer.
“These women weren’t brutalized enough for it to have been a man.” Samuels said. “The exam reports only document the injuries from the fall when they were knocked down. If it had been a man, committing a real rape, there should be evidence of forceful penetration, but there’s not. Whoever did this couldn’t bring themselves to really hurt the victims.”
“Okay, if you insist on going there, how do you explain the semen? Just out of curiosity.”
“I don’t know yet.” Samuels looked at the floor for several seconds, seeming to be in deep thought. “It could have been planted.”
“By who? Why?” Alex was beginning to raise his voice. “You want to be a detective right? Maybe we should have explained the job description a little better. Our job isn’t to come up with wildly imaginative theories. It’s to find evidence, evaluate that evidence and generate leads.” He jabbed the top of his desk with his index finger to emphasize the point. “Those leads generate suspects. Once we have suspects, we build a solid case against them with the evidence that we’ve gathered.”
Samuels was un-phased. “It wouldn’t take that much force to knock a woman to the ground from behind, especially if she was jogging.” She looked at him, waiting for a response, but got none. “Take me, for example. I could easily overpower most women. Is it that far of a stretch to imagine someone like me being capable of doing something like that?”
Alex looked at her, but said nothing. Of course she could. She had more testosterone than most of the guys.
“Maybe you can’t picture it, but others here certainly could. I’ve heard people talk.”
“I’ve never heard any comments about your masc…”
Samuels held up her hand, cutting him off. “Hey, it’s okay. I am what I am. I’m just saying if you could look at things with an open mind and not see everything as black and white, you might find that what I say makes sense.”
She did actually have a valid argument, but Alex couldn’t let her see him resign to the fact that he may have misjudged her. “Okay,” he said, “Let’s just assume, for a minute, that you’re right. What motive would a woman have to attack other women?”
“Revenge, maybe?”
“For what?” Alex turned his chair toward her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, interlocking his fingers.
“I don’t know. Maybe she was jilted by a lover and wants to get even.”
“Jilted by all three of ‘em? So, you’re assuming the rapist is a lesbian”
“No, I‘m not. Maybe these women are the mistresses that her lover had affairs with.”<
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“Okay, maybe you could check into that. Look at both of their backgrounds. See if you can tie them to one man. While you’re at it, see what else you can dig up on them. Lord knows they haven’t been through enough, with the rapes and all. Let’s see if you can really drag them through the dirt.”
“I should have expected as much.” Samuels said, as she got up to leave.
“These women are not the suspects.” Alex said as Samuels walked away. “They’re the victims!”
“Mendez!” Phelps shouted from his office.
Alex, rolling his eyes, stood and walked toward the barking voice. “What?”
“Okay. Prepare a statement. The best way to go is to get it out in the open. At least they can’t accuse us of trying to hide anything.”
“I’ll work something up.”
“I want to see it before you go public.”
_________
The Old Towne diner, one of the last surviving original businesses in the downtown area, was always busy for lunch. Even with the rain, today was no exception. Samantha Stone waited, just inside the door, for Samuels and an open booth.
The small brass bell at the top of the antique wood door added to the charm of the old place. It served as a reminder of the simpler times from the diner’s past. Its small tinkling sound announced the arrival of new customers. This time, it was Samuels.
“Sorry I’m late.” she said as she fumbled with her umbrella which refused to cooperate, insisting instead to remain in the full open position. She shook it violently, causing a small rain shower to fall on herself and Samantha. “This piece of crap.” Samuels gave up and tossed it on the floor next to the door.
“I think there’s an open booth.” Samantha said, as two men made their way past them toward the end of the counter to the vintage cash register. She made a sour face as the aroma, from what was obviously several days’ accumulation of body odor, reached her nose.
As the couple negotiated the narrow isle toward the empty booth, Samuels noticed an older couple watching her with a disapproving look. “Can I help you?” She leaned over the end of their table.