Vasquez smiles, a wry sort of gesture. "I like your style. Do we have enough to blow the lid off of much of anything yet? No, I'm afraid not. But we have a lot. And depending on what step we take next...well, let's get there first, shall we?"
He slides some folders across the desk. Inside are sheafs of paper and several photographs. He appears to know all the material by heart as he goes through it. "Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Interestingly enough, that's not the organs...the organ thefts are at the end. The beginning starts with Ms. Witney von Vaam.
She disappears shortly after her welcome gala hosted by a Mr. Charles Morgan. I believe you were there, no? Anyway, that night she vanishes, and her car turns up at Casa Legno, supposedly crashed. I checked her cell phone records for that night...they're in this folder, here. A few calls irrelevant to the case, setting up a trip home, etc. But this one here...to the Douglas Police department...30 seconds, and they have no record of a call. She must have been cut off. Sound like a call for help?
Four hours later, a call is made from her phone to an all Topa-bar in Farpoint. Nothing strictly discriminatory, but the locals all know if you're not Topa, you don't go. They weren't happy to see me, I can tell you, nor were they terribly cooperative. I had to spread out a whole lot of Ducks to get one to open up. Eventually he told me about some guy they called "the Poser". Now, they called him a lot of other things too, but this was the most complimentary term. Apparently he was very concerned with looking 'old-school Topan'. Spoke only in the resurgent old dialect, dressed in the traditional fashion...and just sat there by the pay phone chewing Topa root the whole time.
At some point in the night, he gets a call, and just goes ballistic. Screams a blue streak of profanity into the receiver, forgetting all about his stilted Topan language, and slams the thing down before stalking out. Does that sound to you like the reaction a man has when a wealthy, and dare I say lovely, young woman calls? Or perhaps the reaction of a kidnapper responding to his incompetent stooges calling him on the victim's cell phone.
Fast forward a bit. Von Vaam's famous jewel turns up on a hustler who gets nabbed by the police. Did you hear about this guy, "Lucky" Malloy? I knew him...and I can guarantee he never pulled a robbery like this himself. Nope, he beat up some kid who was walking around flaunting it, and took it from them. Who was the kid? A student at Farpoint High school, our second Farpoint connection. Hmmm. The student's name, according to the NewsLink, was Yeosh'Ua Aktari. Topan. So he gets caught trying to fence this thing, but he's also the best lead on Von Vaam. Then...this."
Vasquez reaches across the table and pulls out several photographs of Malloy, in bed, throat cut, several organs removed, and pictographs and symbols painted on the walls in his blood. "Good morning sunshine! Someone was not happy with this at all. They took out his liver, kidneys, and heart, and painted these things on the wall. Look like a ritual to you? It is. I talked to just about every cultural expert I could find, and guess what...those symbols are Topan. And ancient. They pre-date the modern Topa language. In general, they mean things like vengeance, blood feud, and this one here is for a particularly vicious underworld.
Whoever whacked Malloy didn't want to just send a message. They also wanted to send him to Hell. I checked up on it, and apparently the Topans are very reluctant to desecrate a body like this. It happens rarely, particularly to bring closure to a blood feud. And this was important to whoever did it, because to do this kind of handiwork...it takes a lot of time.
Now then, what other big stories have we heard of involving organ removal? Remember Lt. Hanson, and how he was murdered in Iraq by Jack Teano's nephew? Remember what Teano and his Topa companion did to Hanson? They cut his organs out, right there, and were still lingering over the body when they were caught. Was Topa root involved there too? In fact, have we been reading dozens of reports of teenage Topa root use with almost no response from the government or adult community in general? And now we have Topa root chewing teenagers breaking into hospitals to steal organs and blood. Sounds like a connection to me.
So, lets get right into the organ thefts, shall we? After the creation of the organ banks, those very banks get broken into. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you set those up, no? I think you inadvertantly created a 'one-stop shop' for our little friends to get all the body parts they needed. Then, after the security around these places increases, Ms. Von Vaam disappears, and someone's waltzing around with her diamond. Perhaps they wanted to sell it to pay for that which they could no longer steal?
So, what do we have here? It appears we have a group, mostly of teenagers but apparently with some older people at the head, operating out of Farpoint, or somewhere near there. Mostly, if not entirely, Topan, and very into ancient Topan culture...and lots of Topa root. There's some sort of non-Topan influence at work here, leading to the desecration of bodies, but I don't know what it is. These people could be kidnapping heiress' and stealing organs, for what reason we don't know, but I have a theory.
Supposition time. Lets play make-believe. An old-school Topan back-to-the-earth type gathers up a bunch of teenagers in the wilderness near Farpoint. He hooks them with Topa root, and there they engage in some sort of wild voodoo rituals with their organs. Maybe there's more ancient Topan organ rituals I don't know about. But this cult starts gathering steam...and so they kidnap a wealthy heiress, give her the same cult treatment, and bring her in. Or kill her. But my gut says the former, since there's been no body. But for their rituals, they need organs...so they knock over ambulances and organ banks.
Well, that's all I have." He leans back, and takes a long pull at his drink. "Where to go with it from here, I don't know. But I have a feeling that whatever we're looking for is somewhere in the woods near Farpoint."
