Dear Readers
This is the first chapter of a new story. First I would like to thank Holly for her editing and guidance, as it is obvious that I did not pay as close of attention in English classes as I should have. Secondly, I would like to offer an advance warning that this story delves into a very dark world of human slavery and brutality. Though this story is completely fictional the inspiration for it comes from people that I have personally known, and listened to their stories. There will be no scenes of explicit brutality or sexual abuse included, except where they can’t be avoided, but reference to the effects that such activities have on others will be addressed. As with all of my stories, I will strive for a happy ending, and you may actually find this to be a love story. However, it is a love story that starts in the darkest corners where there is no limit of the evil that man will do to his fellow man for pleasure or gain.

The Princess of the Desert

By Melodie Thomas

Edited by Holly Hart

Chapter 1
Wednesday August 13, 2008
I filled my second cup of coffee for the morning and returned to my desk. The name plate on the desk read Daniel McNeil but I mostly go by Dan. I am a Special Agent with the FBI working out of the Residence Office in Tucson, Arizona. As for a description of myself, which I hate giving, I am 6’2” and 200 pounds. I have blue eyes and brown hair that stays combed but above my ears. As far as physical conditioning is concerned, I can pass the FBI physical requirements and I am not overweight. I will leave it at that. I am 32 years old and have been with the FBI for 8 years.

My partner, Tina Warline, was on the phone at her desk in an ongoing debate with her 14 year old daughter about what attire is proper to wear to school. At 5’6” and around 125 pounds (I never asked) Tina was a 36 year old mother of 2 and a 10 year veteran of the FBI. She was married to a very successful doctor and really did not need to work. However, she felt it was her duty to try to make an impact on society and felt the FBI was the place to accomplish that. I think she was just trying to get a break from the previously mentioned 14 year old daughter.

I was just about to sit down to the endless pile of paperwork on my desk when my cell phone rang.

“McNeil!” my standard warm greeting.

“Dan, Bob Mitchell” Bob is a Captain with the Arizona State Police based out of Tucson. We had worked together many times.

“Hey, Bob, what’s happening?”

“Lot of shit, all of it bad.” Bob responded. His voice sounded stressed. “We have another branded transsexual body drop.”

“Shit, where?” I responded as I wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at Tina, trying to get her attention.

“Off of South Madera Canyon road. The good news is this one is alive so far.”

Tina had gotten off of the phone and slid her chair over to my desk. “Hang on a sec, Bob, Tina is here and I want you on speaker”. I set my cell to speaker mode and set it on the desk.

“You said this one is alive?” I repeated

“Barely, but yes, alive. Air rescue is enroute with an ETA of 10 min.” Tina was grabbing her jacket and shield. “Seems, a couple local gun nuts were hunting rabbits out there on 4 wheelers. They came over a ridge and spotted a red pickup with 2 guys in the back dumping something out of a tarp. When the truck left, our two heroes went to investigate and found the body and called it in.”

“Is the scene secure?” I asked as I grabbed my jacket.

“Not really, but we are working on it. Of course the 4-wheelers ran over some of the tire marks of the truck and air rescue will trample things a little, but I have people on site and more on the way.”

“Thanks Bob. We are 2 hours out and rolling now.”

“Okay buddy, keep me posted.”

“You got it.” I ended the call and chased Tina out the door.

This was the second such body dump in Arizona in the last 6 months. The first body had been discovered about 100 miles out of Phoenix six months ago. Medical estimations were the body had been in the dessert about 3 weeks before it was found and was in pretty bad condition, thanks to weather and various animals. The Arizona State Police handled that case, for the most part, but were unable to develop any leads on a) who had dropped the body or b) who the body was. Finger prints were totally destroyed by the elements and dental records were a dead end. The only identifying mark that was recognizable on the body was a brand burned into the right buttocks that read ‘Slut21’.

The case was put on the national database for possible MO matching and got a hit almost immediately. There’d been a similar case in New Mexico about a year earlier with a similar brand, but with the same results at finding the culprit, or the identity of the victim. With multiple states involved and a theory developing that this might have something to do with a human trafficking activity, the FBI got involved. Tina and I were given the case from a research standpoint since there were no new leads in either Arizona or New Mexico. We summarized the cases and published to Interpol. We had three new hits within a week. There had been reported similar cases in France, Germany and Brazil, all with a male to female transsexual body found in some isolated location, and in every case, the time between when the body was dumped until it was found was quite large. However, in every case the body exhibited a brand on the right buttock that contained the word ‘slut’ followed by a number.

The consensus of opinion of the experts in the law enforcement agencies of the affected countries, and others that just wanted their opinion heard, was we were looking at an international human trafficking and/or slavery operation. Coincidences of this size in four different countries were hard to ignore. There was also a fear that the numbering on the brands had a sequential significance and if true, there were still a number of possible victims involved. So far we had accounted for numbers 9, 12, 16, 19 and 21. The latest victim, at least reported by the on scene officers, displayed the brand of ‘Slut24’. If the sequencing was a true counting method, then there were still 19 possible victims that either had not been found or were still being held captive somewhere.

During our 2 hour drive out to Madera Canyon we stayed in constant phone contact with the site commander, Sergeant Robert Mendez of the Arizona State Police. The Air Rescue team had arrived, stabilized the victim the best they could and were in the process of transporting the victim back to the University of Arizona Medical Center. The victim was not conscious, and based on the on-site team’s evaluation, was in very critical condition. There was nothing for us to gain by meeting the victim at the hospital, so we decided to continue to the dump site.

Two hours later we were on Madera Canyon Road. Finding the crime scene was not difficult. It looked like a police convention in the dessert. Yellow crime scene tape was stretched around the area, hanging from cactus, rocks and anything else tall enough to hold it. Our FBI credentials where hanging from lanyards around our necks and we wearing our FBI windbreakers as we searched for Sergeant Mendez. We were directed to an officer talking to two gentlemen in desert camouflage clothing sitting on two 4-wheelers.

“Sergeant Mendez?” Tina spoke first as we approached “Agents Warline and McNeil, FBI.”

Mendez reached to shake hands with Tina first and then me. “Bob Mendez. I was just talking with the gentlemen that saw the pickup.”

Turning back to the men on the 4-wheelers Mendez asked “Why don’t you repeat for the Agents what you just told me, along with your names.”

Both guys were young, probably in the mid to early 20’s. One was definitely of Mexican heritage the other was Caucasian. The Caucasian spoke first.

“I’m Skeeter Baines and this is my hunt’n partner Roberto Sanchez. We were actually out here hunt’n coyotes since really early this morning. Just run’n the bikes from ridge to ridge and glass’n. We came up over that ridge over there,” pointing off to the east, “and spotted the truck down here. At first we thought they was dump’n garbage, cause that happens around here a lot and it is illegal and ruins the country. We thought we would come down here and get his license number and turn him in. Then we saw them flip something out of a tarp and …”

“And I almost shouted,” Roberto cut in, “that was a body!”

“How did you know it was a body?” Tina asked.

“Cause I swear I saw arms and legs as it rolled out.”

“What did you do next?” Mendez asked.

“Shit,” Skeeter took over. “We quickly backed off the hill so they couldn’t see us.”

“Why didn’t you continue to try to get the license number?” I asked.

“Dude!” Skeeter continued “if they was dump’n a body in the desert. they weren’t no kind of people I wanted to screw with.” Skeeter looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “Those boys probably had guns!”

“Didn’t you have guns?” I continued to press the point

“Hell yea we had guns,” Roberto jumped in “But you Police are always rag’n on us not to get involved in these things. We’re supposed to observe and call you. That is what we did.”

Well, they had me there. That is exactly what we keep preaching to the gun toting public. Unless it is your life in danger, call the Police and let them handle it. They did just what they were supposed to do.

“Okay,” I said. “Good answer. Then what happened?”

“We sat up there,” Skeeter was back with the story, “and watched until they left. Then we hauled butt down there to see what was goin’ on. We drove up on the naked body of a chick lay’n face down in the dirt. At first we thought she was dead, but then Roberto noticed the sand moving away from her mouth.”

“Yea” Roberto jumped in “just faintly but I could see the sand move. She was still breath’n! So I told Skeeter to jump on the cell and called 911.”

“What did you do to help her?” Tina asked.

“Nothin I could do,” Skeeter stepped in. “I ain’t no doctor, and I would probably make things worse. Felt kind of helpless if you know what I mean.”

Even though they did not sound it, there were some pretty smart boys.

“First cop,” Roberto picked up the story, “showed up about 20 minutes later and he checked her then covered her with a blanket. About 15 minutes later more cops showed up. They finally decided to roll her onto another blanket to get her off the ground. That is when we first saw that she was not a she!”

“Yea,” Skeeter joined in. “Damnest thing to see a body like that with a wiener.”

We talked to Skeeter and Roberto for about another 15 minutes, but other than seeing a red pickup and calling 911 they didn’t really bring a lot more value. Mendez took us for a tour of the area which was not much value either. The tire tracks from the Pickup, no foot prints other than our coyote hunters and no other trace evidence picked up anywhere by the crime scene boys. Apparently whoever our dumpers were, they were smart enough not to leave anything behind. No foot prints meant they moved from the cab of the pickup to the bed and back again without touching the ground. Kind of sounded rehearsed.

We spent around 2 hours at the dump scene before starting back for Tucson. On the way back to town we called the University Medical Center to check on our victim. We found the attending Physician was Mathew Gibson MD, Our victim was still in surgery and not expected out until late this evening, the victim had not regained consciousness yet and if we could wait until morning we could meet with Dr. Gibson and get a full rundown. We made an appointment with Dr. Gibson for 9:00am the next morning and headed back to the office.

Thursday August 14, 2008
At 8:50am the next morning Tina and I entered the main entrance of the UAMC and got directions from the main receptionist on how to get to the Intensive Care Unit. After a short elevator ride we found ourselves at the ICU nurses’ station where we were directed to ICU #3. Opening the door to ICU #3 we found ourselves in sort of an anteroom that separated the hallway from the actual patient area. In the anteroom area we found a mid 50’s gentleman with balding gray hair sitting at a computer terminal. Standing next to him was a tall and slightly overweight nurse with salt and pepper hair.

“Dr. Gibson?” I asked.

Without turning around he slightly raised his right hand “I will be with you in a moment.”

The nurse stepped around towards us and extended her hand “Hi, I am Marsha Stewart, head ICU nurse. Please do not confuse me with Martha Stewart and no, we are not related.” She smiled as she spoke. Obviously it was an often used joke.

Tina shook Nurse Stewart’s hand while I looked through the window at the patient within.

“Is it going to live?” I asked almost absently.

“IT?” Nurse Stewart responded with a very sharp edge in her voice. Even Tina kind of nudged me with the ‘watch your language’ signal.

“I am sorry,” I tried to recover. “No disrespect meant. I am just not sure what gender reference to use in this case.”

“Well,” Dr. Gibson joined without looking up from his computer, “based on physical appearances I would say our victim is 98% female. There is only one obvious appendage that gives any indication that at one time ‘SHE’ was male and that appendage is much atrophied. Internally I would say ‘SHE’ is about 50% female. Obviously ‘SHE’ does not have the female reproductive organs, but much of ‘HER’ bone structure is very feminine as opposed to totally masculine. So, to rephrase your question in its proper context ‘Will SHE live?’ That answer is, I don’t know yet.”

Dr. Gibson pushed himself away from the computer and turned to face me. “I am assuming you caught the context there?”

“Yes sir, and I apologize.” I was really not sure if I meant that or not.

“I will tell you one thing,” Dr. Gibson continued, “somebody really didn’t like that girl in there very much.”

“What do you mean?” Tina asked.

“Come down to my office with me and I will catch you up on what we know.”

Dr. Gibson pulled a page off of a printer next to the computer and attached it to a clipboard. Handing the clipboard to Nurse Stewart “Please make sure someone is with her at all times and notify me of any changes. Also, please contact Psychiatric and have someone on standby, preferably Dr. Rienfelt.”

“Yes Doctor.”

Dr. Gibson stood and motioned us to follow him. We exited the anteroom and went down the hall past the nurses’ station. Dr. Gibson opened a door with his name painted on the glass and motioned us in. The room was quite small and cluttered. The was a large desk in the middle with a computer station, two chairs in front of the desk, and books and papers stacked everywhere. On one wall was a large white board with picture clips at the top. On another wall was a large lighted glass display for viewing x-rays.

“What was the request for Psychiatric?” I asked.

“Give me a minute and I will get to that.” Dr. Gibson walked over to the desk and grabbed a large folder from one of the piles.

“Let’s start with a physical tour of her body.” Dr. Gibson had pulled a stack of pictures out of the folder and walked up to the white board.

“First thing to note was her weight.” Dr. Gibson started while sorting out pictures “Her weight when she came in yesterday was 94 pounds. Based on her bone structure as a female her weight should have been closer to 120. However, as a male her weight would have been in the 150 to 160 range. As such, she was seriously underweight and malnourished.”

The first picture he put up on the board was that of a face, a very feminine face. Something inside of me seemed to tighten up as I looked at that picture. ‘That can’t be a guy; I would call that face pretty in its current state. That can’t be right.’

“As you can see, this is not the face of our normal transsexual. This face is very feminine. Notice the rounded structure, high cheek bones, soft chin and smallish nose. I checked very closely for any signs of surgical alterations and can find none. So I would have to say that other than the softer skin and lack of facial hair, this is what your victim as always looked like.”

The next picture was a frontal view of the upper torso. “The breasts do have implant augmentation, but about 50% of the overall tissue is hormonal growth. This is a very large percentage compared to what we have seen historically. Best that I can tell from various scans and test are the implants are of very high quality, which means they cost money, and were implanted by someone that knew what they were doing. Not a backroom bargain sale.”

Dr. Gibson then put two pictures of the victim’s back on the board.

“My God” Tina muttered with some shock in her voice.

“Yes Agent Warline, this poor girl’s back looks like a war zone. With just an initial review I have counted over 40 individual scar patterns,” Dr. Gibson explained as he pulled a laser pointer out of his pocket. “I am not an expert in this area, but these straight scars that angle across the back appear to be from a whip of some sort. These smaller individual spots appear to be a mix of puncture wounds and burns. I have no idea what caused them.”

Putting up pictures of the victim’s buttocks and frontal groin area Dr. Gibson continued “There is quite a bit of scarring on the buttocks besides the obvious branding that occurred. Many appear to be similar in pattern to what was seen on the back. The branding appears to be of a very vicious nature. Though the brand is only about 4” long and 1  ½ inches high, the burn was quite deep. You can see that from the concave formation of the buttock skin.”

Doctor Gibson turned his attention to the picture for the groin, “As you may or may not already know, our girl was castrated. The castration was not surgical in nature, but a rather brutal removal of the testes. The scarring in this area is quite extensive and gives the indication of a burn. I don’t even want to imagine how this was done but the process of doing so appears to have created significant nerve damage that is part of the resulting atrophy to the penis.”

I found myself becoming over whelmed with the pictures. How could someone inflict that much damage on another person? How could someone survive such treatment? That our victim was alive at all was beginning to look more like a miracle.

Dr. Gibson continued to put pictures up on the board. “I also did a fairly quick colonoscopy last night on a suspicion, and found that our girl suffered significant damage in that area. There was quite a bit of scarring and what appeared to be some burn marks as well. I can only guess at the cause.

“I found the legs to be relatively unremarkable compared to the rest of the body. There was some minor scarring but nothing major. The feet on the other hand had some interest.” Dr. Gibson pointed to a round scar on the top of each foot “Notice these scars; they are mirrored on the bottom of the foot giving the indication that the victim’s feet were completely pierced by something.”

“I have an unproven theory on that,” putting up pictures of the hands, “as both hands show a similar scar pattern in the palm and back. I will admit the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this was crucifixion. ”

Tina and I looked at each other in total disbelief.

Going back to the pictures of the feet, “The other thing of interest on the feet is both Achilles tendons have been surgically shortened”

“Shortened, why?” I asked

“She has to wear high heels” Tina responded in almost a whisper

“Correct, Agent Warline, if I was to guess based on comparative lengths, I would say our girl has to wear 3” to 4” heels just to be able to stand.”

Dr. Gibson walked across his office to the x-ray viewer and turned it on. Snapping a series of x-rays on the screen, “I didn’t see anything else interesting in the feet or the right hand. Whatever made the punctures did not appear to hit anything major. However, on the left hand there is a significant amount of calcium build up, indicating that the bones were hit and nerve damage occurred. If I were to guess, she is unable to close her left hand completely. “

Dr. Gibson started taking down some of the x-rays. “Are we done?” Tina asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Gibson responded and snapped up 2 more x-rays. “The final things I want to show you pictures of are her shoulders. Both shoulders show signs of repeated rotator cup injuries. We see this kind of injury a lot in gymnasts who work on the rings or parallel bar. However, since I am pretty sure our girl was not a gymnast, I would guess that she spent a lot of time hanging by her hands. I think you get the picture.”

Dr. Gibson walked back over to his desk and sat down. I stood looking back and forth between the pictures and the x-rays. All of this was just not within the reach of my comprehension. This was unreal. “Which of these got our victim dumped in the desert?”

“Actually, none of them.” Gibson grabbed another folder off of his desk and kicked back in his chair. “The final straw that had her left for dead was a massive blood clot in her right leg. The clot was pretty bad and her leg had to be in pain for some time. However, it appears some of the clot broke loose and traveled to her heart, causing a myocardial infarction, a heart attack. It was mild, by some standards, but still, a heart attack.

“We operated on her leg yesterday when she arrived and the clot has been removed and the artery has been repaired. Now we just have to wait to see what other issues we encounter. I need to wait for the rest of the blood work to come in, but I am pretty sure the clot was caused by excessive estrogen in her system.”

“Estrogen?” I asked.

“Yes, female hormones. The amount of estrogen in her system was about 10 times what a doctor would prescribe, and this was pharmaceutical grade stuff, not that cheap shit they get out Mexico or overseas. Someone with access to American pharmacies had to be giving it to her. I would guess she has been getting it for some time, so I would not be surprised to find she has liver problems by now as well.

“The other thing we found in her system was a high level of opioid drugs, most likely heroin, but I need the blood work to come back to be sure.” Gibson tossed the folder back on his desk. “Like I said earlier, someone did not like this girl very much”.

“This is just unbelievable,” Tina exclaimed. “How could one person suffer so much?”

“That is why I asked for psychiatric to be available. This girl, who ever she is, has experienced a significant amount of physical trauma. I think we will find she has been on heroin for a long time, probably as a control drug. So we are going to have a significant amount of emotional trauma added to the drug withdrawal, and she will need a lot of help both physically and mentally. If she ever wakes up, this is going to be a tough case.”.

“What if it was self-induced?” I asked.

Tina gave me a strange look but did not say anything.

Dr. Gibson sat in thought for a few minutes. Finally, “About 80% of the injuries sustained could not possibly be self-induced,” he stated while still in thought. “However, I guess we can’t rule out ‘willing participant’ but I don’t think so.”

“Why not? Why not something like those off the wall religious cults?”

Dr. Gibson leaned forward on his desk. “Like I said, I can’t rule it out, but for some reason it just does not feel right. I think our Desert Princess was a victim.”

“Desert Princess?” I ask surprised

“According to the newspaper, that is what she is being called.”

Dr. Gibson handed a newspaper to Tina and I walked up behind her, reading over her shoulder. There on the front page was a picture of our friend Skeeter with a big smile, sitting on his 4-wheeler. The caption on the pictures is ‘Local Heroes find Desert Princess”. ‘Great,’ I think. ‘Now she is everyone’s ”Princess”. What if she is part of all this?’

“Okay,” I replied as I walked over towards the pictures, “Is there a chance we can get copies of these?”

“I figured you would want them so I had an extra set made up.” Gibson handed a large envelope to Tina.

“Well, Dr. Gibson, we thank you for your time, and we are sure you will let us know if anything develops,” Tina stated as she rose from the chair with our copies of the pictures and x-rays.

“Of course, but right now I am going to get some sleep myself. Been up all night, and I don’t think she will wake in the next couple of hours.”

Tina and I left the doctor’s office and walked back toward the elevators. Just before reaching the elevators we passed the family waiting room which was empty. There was a large coffee urn on a table with cups and condiments. Tina leaned into me and herded me into the empty family waiting area.

“Let’s have a cup of coffee and chew on this one for a minute,” she stated.

Pouring a couple cups of coffee and choosing a couple of chairs towards the back of the room we sat.

“So you think this could be self-induced?” Tina asked me.

“I don’t know that if it is or isn’t. Just exploring the possibilities”

“Okay, that’s fair. But I don’t think so. Call it ‘gut feel’ if you want.” Tina took a sip of her coffee.

“Okay, maybe, maybe not”

Tina set her coffee down. “Let’s assume for a minute that this is not self-induced.”

“Fine,” I replied, “let’s assume that.”

“If we assume that someone did this to her and then either thought she was dead or soon to be dead, they dumped her in the desert to get rid of the body.”

“I follow, but why dump the body? Why not just bury it?”

“The prisons are full of serial killers who buried their victims and then the remains were found and used as evidence against them. In this case we assume, like past cases, if the body were not found for 3 or 4 weeks, the elements would take care of the evidence.”

“Okay, I’m not sure I follow you, Tina. Where are you going with this?”

“What do you think those same people would do if they read in this morning’s paper that their latest dump victim was still alive and in the hospital?”

“Ahhh, I see, they may well consider coming back to finish the job.”

“Kind of what I was thinking,” Tina said picking up her coffee again.

“So, are you thinking of using the victim as bait?”

“I thought of that, but don’t think that would be too good an idea. If we assume that all 6 cases that we know of are related, we are talking about an organization that can run a human trafficking operation in at least 4 countries. Any organization that big would simply hire a thug off of the street to be the shooter. We set a trap and catch the shooter, they probably can’t even tell us who hired them.”

Tina paused for a moment to sip her coffee “No, I think we stand a better chance of finding our way into this organization by hoping our ‘Desert Princess’ wakes up and gives us something to work with.”

“In that case we need to find a way to keep the vic alive,” I added.

“Or” Tina raised a finger, “convince the world she is really dead.”

I thought about that for a few minutes, sipping on my coffee. “Okay, you call Holiday,” (Mike Holiday, Special Agent in Charge, our boss up in Phoenix), “and fill him in on our thoughts and I will call Bob Mitchell and see if we can get a group of bosses together to sell this idea.”

We both spent the next hour on our cell phones back and forth between different agencies and people. Bob Mitchell called Gus Davis, the Pima County Sheriff, and arranged for 2 plain clothes deputies to stand watch over our victim. We went back and discussed the issues with Dr. Gibson and he agreed to move our victim to a more isolated room that could be watched better. Once we got the buzz started, phones seemed to be ringing all over Tucson, and our call waiting signals were driving us crazy.

That afternoon at, we were at City Hall, sitting in a very large and plush conference room with just about anyone that was on the ‘Who’s Who’ list of Tucson law enforcement and high enough in politics. All in all there were about 20 people present, and two or three more on the phone. Mike Holiday had called in from Phoenix, Gus Davis and Bob Mitchell was here along with 3 to 5 deputies and assistants each. Tucson chief of police, Stuart Roderman was present with his entourage. We even had the Mayor, Harlem Bridgler and both of his personal assistants as honored guests. I remember thinking that his personal assistants looked like they just came back from the Bunny Ranch up near Vegas.

All of the powers had jockeyed for the seats around the table in some form of unwritten pecking order, with all of the assistants relegated to the chairs along the walls, all sitting behind their respective bosses. Tina and I were seated in a corner between the assistants. Chief of Police Roderman had personally requested that Dr. Gibson join the meeting and update everyone on the condition of the victim.

I am guessing that Dr. Gibson had not gotten his nap, as he pretty much looked it. When you are a big shot ER surgeon you don’t need to worry about impressing the politicians. Gibson gave a very impressive color slide show of all of the information that he had given Tina and me earlier in the day. However, it took him quite a bit longer as he found it necessary to embellish more of his opinions on what happened to the victim. There was a continual stream of exclamations of shock, groans and other sounds coming from the audience as the various pictures and opinions were displayed.

I reached the conclusion that I had done something to upset the good Doctor earlier in the day, as near the end of his talk he spent 5 to 10 minutes refuting how none of this could be self-inflicted as I, yes he called me out by name, apparently believed. This resulted in my taking 10 minutes to explain that while I did not necessarily believe this was a self-infliction case, I was attempting to question all possibilities, since we really had no evidence one way or the other. By the time I had finished I saw about a third of the people present were thinking about my arguments with slight nods of their heads and the other two thirds were looking at me as if I came from Mars and had totally lost my mind. The latter group included our beloved Mayor, who was probably hoping that the newly crowned Desert Princess would become the poster child for the town along with another 3% of the gay/lesbian voters.

Sheriff Davis was quick to jump to the floor with the concern that the victim’s life could be in further danger, and how he had already taken the initiative to post deputies at the hospital to watch over her. The debate on how to manage the crisis went around the table for about 30 minutes, with the Mayor pointing out quite emphatically, that nothing was to happen to ‘his’ Desert Princess, or there would be hell to pay. I think every idea from putting him in a bomb shelter to flying him to moon was brought up at one point. Finally, Mike Holiday, on the phone, proposed that we listen to Tina’s idea about leaking a story to the press that our victim had died. The Mayor seemed to have the biggest problem with this idea as he claimed he had never lied to the press before. He also quickly pointed out that campaign promises don’t count, that was just part of politics, and the debate raged on.

I sat there for the better part of two hours wondering how a secret shared among 20 to 30 people was going to remain a secret very long, and which one of these high ranking officials would be the one to tell a reporter friend ‘off the record’, that he had a big secret. I was also totally amazed at the fact that not a single person in the room even raised the slightest question about the continual gender reference of ‘she’ or ‘her’. It seemed to be taken as a given fact that this was a woman victim. Was I the only one that was bothered by that?

Despite the comedy of high politics, a press release was issued by the University of Arizona Medical Center that evening that the un-named person who had been found in the desert the day before had succumbed to her injuries and passed away during the day. I really did not believe the subterfuge would last more than a week or two, but maybe would give us a little time. We did get a crime scene technician in to see our victim and collect finger prints. Maybe we could get a hit and at least find out who our John Doe really was.

That evening I was sitting home alone with a cold beer watching some noise on the TV, but my mind was still with what I had learned that day. Regardless of my opinion of transsexuals, which is pretty low for personal reasons, no one should have to put up with the kind of torture and abuse that our victim seems to have experienced. I also had a really hard time getting the picture of that face out of my mind and convincing myself that face belonged to a man.