Windtalker And The Borderlands (Open)

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Windtalker And The Borderlands (Open) Jun 16, 2018 5:16:36 GMT

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Post by Hollis Wright on Jun 16, 2018 5:16:36 GMT

Border road along the US-Mexico border within the territory of the Tohono O'odham Nation Indian Reservation - Pima County, Az. (facing west: to the left of the barrier is Mexico, to the right is the United States)

"Chief Wright, come in. Chief Wright, this is Dispatch, come in." The radios inside his Ford F-250 let out a screechy tin but otherwise he could hear them just fine; opening the driver's side door, he reached in and picked up the radio. "Yeah, go ahead, Dispatch," he said, taking off his Stetson and tossing it inside.

"Hollis, Unit 107 has a dead body along Tribal Road 61," came the Dispatch call; Hollis groaned. The location, along one of the TON (Tohono O'odham Nation) tribal roads put it right square next to the US-Mexico border; if one of Tribal Police were there, odds were, he mused, that CBP - Customs & Border Protection - were also either en-route or already there and he - along with most tribesmen - despised the federales' with a capital F. After letting out a few muttered swear words, Hollis keyed the mic and spoke. "Tell 107 to stay with the body and tell him to not let the Feds' have a look until I get there, understood?" tossing the radio back in and climbing aboard before the dispatcher could reply...

15 minutes later
Pulling up to a stop along the barricades, Hollis could already see that the crime scene splayed out before him was a madhouse - multiple Tribal Police cars, an ambulance from the TON EMS service and at least two CBP trucks were parked outside the frozen zone and numerous people were standing on either side of the crime scene yellow tape. Switching off the truck, he hopped out and put his Stetson on, walking over to the yellow tape. "Alright, what do we got?" he asked as someone raised the tape up to let him through.

"We got a dead body, sir, up almost within touching distance of the border over here," said one of the Tribal Police, pointing towards the death scene; as he walked over, Hollis could see the chalk outline around what did indeed appear to be a dead body, lying at an unnatural angle, as if someone had cut the puppet strings connecting them to this life all at once. Seeing the Tribal Coroner knelt down examining the body along with a coroner's technician, Hollis said, "Alright, we got a dead body; tell me something I don't know."

'Well, for starters, he ain't human," the coroner replied for starters, nodding to the tech, who lifted the corpse up so that Hollis, now kneeling on his haunches, could see what looked like discolored skin underneath the man's shirt. It wasn't blood but mutant blue skin, so Hollis's first thoughts were of why here, why leave a body out here within sight of the border - within touching distance, as the tribal officer had said. "See that blue skin? This guy was a shapeshifter."

"How do you know?" Hollis asked, nodding as the coroner's tech - who also had mutant blue skin like the victim's - lowered the body. "Never mind; I can see," pointing towards the tech, who nodded solemnly back at Hollis. Noticing blood - well, dried blood - underneath and along the back of the deceased's neck, Hollis pointed to it and the coroner replied, "I won't go for certain until we get him back to Sells, Hollis, but my guess right now, based on liver temp, rigor and appearance of body when we got here? Someone dumped him - killed him, back of the head, I'm betting, but don't hold me to it just yet - out here for tribal authorities - or the Feds'," pausing to point towards the federales', "to find."

"Any sign of drugs on him or anything..." Hollis asked.

"None that we could find," the coroner said, adding, "of course, if he was dumped here, Hollis, whoever did it could've taken--"

"Got a wallet and an ID!" called out a tribal cop, sprinting over and handing Hollis both items; standing back, he nodded to the coroner that he'd be back and looked at the ID. "American, Arizona DL.....Alfonso Riarte, New Merida," Hollis whispered. "This guy was American, Tohono. He'll get a tribal burial but first," tapping the officer on the shoulder, "go tell the Feds' over this guy's American, so they can kindly fuck off now," adding a sly grin as he caught sight of the CBP agents and waved. As the patrolman headed over, Hollis looked at the ID and thought to himself, What happened for you to end up out here, Alfonso? What gives? looking at the DL and asking that question several time...

No human being should ever have to fear for his own life because of political or religious beliefs. We are all in this together, my friends, the rich, the poor, the red, white, black, brown and yellow. We share responsibility for Mother Earth and those who live and breathe upon her ..never forget that. - Leonard Peltier

Hollis Wright

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Windtalker And The Borderlands (Open) Jun 29, 2018 19:25:27 GMT

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Post by Hollis Wright on Jun 29, 2018 19:25:27 GMT

If crime scenes were one of the places Hollis Wright hated, at the absolute top of the list was the TON Morgue. Its' sterlile appearance, the smell of sterilizing chemicals and antiseptics provided a morbid sense of health to a place where death was studied, where bodies were cut open and examined by medical examiners who someday - like the rest of us, Hollis mused, as he entered the morgue - would lie atop the stainless steel tables. Looking over, Hollis saw a plaque and stopped to read it. It said, Hoc est ubi mors gaudet, qui ad auxilium vivunt. (This is the place where death rejoices to help those who live.)

After studying the plaque for several minutes, he heard a slight cough behind him. "Chief Wright?" the receptionist said. "Doc said you can come back now; they're just starting to Riarte post-mortem." Doc was a reference to the Tohono O'odham Nation's chief medical examiner, Dr. Susan Cato-Chapman, one of the rare paleface on the expansive reservation. Hollis also knew that nothing ever got by her; if there was something amiss during the post-mortem, she'd find it or die trying. That alone gave Hollis comfort in finding out who killed Alfonso Riarte and left his body out on the border.

Acknowleding the receptionist, Hollis headed down the hallway and made his way to the warren of mortuary suites where the medical examiners and coroner's technicians (the coroner is a Pinal County official, unrelated to the reservation). Seeing a sign with Riarte's name underneath the sign for Suite #1, Hollis entered. "You're late," said Dr. Cato-Cahpman, not even looking up from her examination of the decedent ; when Hollis started to say something, she pointed up at a bank of microphones and held up a finger as if to say, "Wait." Moments later, she said, "Mike's off." All ME's examinations of deceased individuals in the state of Arizona required audio, video (in the presence of a coroner's tech w/a camera) and paper documentation in case of a criminal trial down the road. "Alright, what have you got?" Hollis asked.

"Plenty," she replied, going over the preliminary examination and detailing her findings to the tribal police chief; Hollis listened, nodding at a few items of interest as she spoke... "..bottom line: your victim was taken by force out to that kill spot and shot twice in the back of the head," pausing as she switched the microphones back on.

"Witnesses reported no gunshots," Hollis said, to which Dr. Cato-Chapman came back with, "And I think I know why," motioning to one of the coroner's techs, who brought several empty 20oz soda bottles over. "I dug out a pair of .25 rounds form your victim's skull; I also - well, Davie here," pointing to the tech, "noticed what looked like blood stains all over the vic's neck and hairline..."

"Wasn't blood, was it?" Hollis said.

"Bingo," the medical examiner replied. "We've still got to do chemical analysis but if I were on the stand, I'd say that was soda we found." She went on to explain. "Davie, hand me that small pipe," pointing at one of the ME stands; taking the pipe from the tech, she explained, "This has about the right circumference, Chief, to the barrel of a .25 handgun, say...something like a Beretta Bobcat or a small-caliber Glock, something like that." Placing the end of the pipe inside the opening of one of the bottles, she added, "You place the end of the bottle over the barrel, securing it just enough so that when you fire..."

"The bottle cuts down immensely on the sound coming from the gun....hence, why no one heard gunshots," Hollis said, to which Dr. Cato-Chapman replied, "Bingo. The bottle acts as a crude but effective sound suppressor, not a silencer. I'd ask your wits, Hollis, if they heard something along the lines of a car backfiring; if they did, that might be your sound."

Ninety minutes later...
After an exhaustive examination of the victim, Dr. Cato-Chapman stepped back and motioned for the coroner's techs to begin prepping the decedent for temporary storage in the ME's mortuary. "Alright, Doc, your verdict?" Hollis asked as he watched her strip her protective gowns and gloves off, tossing them into an industrial-size biohazard barrel.

"Verdict?" she said, putting on a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses on and standing, lips pursed in a false frown, arms crossed over her chest. "If I had to testify in court as to what happened to Alfonso Riarte, I'd testify that someone put two rounds into the back of his head, execution-style, within walking distance of the U.S. - Mexico border. You said he was Tohono, correct?" referring to Riarte's tribal ethnicity.

"That's right," Hollis replied.

'Well, during the examination, I found a tattoo on him," pausing as she placed a large photo, taken with one of the medical examiner's wide-angle camera, onto a back-lit whiteboard. "See that tattoo there, the one with the numbering?" Hollis leaned in and looked at the tattoo; it read GADEM Detroit MN #003659. "This guy was a mutant; was he trying to escape..."

"If he was, he got to about 50 feet of freedom," Dr. Cato-Chapman replied. "Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to kill him...tell you what, Hollis; let me do some digging and I'll get back to you on this, alright? Six o-clock, the Windtalker?" referring to a local tribal restaurant and bar that was the frequent haunt of tribal authorities.

"Fair enough," Hollis replied. "See you then." Without waiting on a reply Hollis turned and headed out, the familiar rush of blood an investigation brings surging through him; something about Riarte's killing didn't seem right and now that he had the bit in his teeth, he wanted to know exactly what went down...