Duke City

Season One Bible

LOGLINE

Human bones are discovered on the shore of the Rio Grande. Detective Rosa Ripley is blindsided when she’s newly partnered up with her long-lost, high-school sweetheart, Anna Sawyer. Now, as they hunt for a killer, they’re forced to face their complicated history and the secrets they’ve buried.

WHY ALBUQUERQUE?

Albuquerque (AL-bə-kur-kee), abbreviated as ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The city's nicknames are The Duke City and Burque, both of which reference its 1706 founding by Nuevo México governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés and named in honor of then Viceroy the 10th Duke of Alburquerque.

MARY KAY GREW UP IN ABQ!

Which means I have all the inside nitty gritty and know all the ins and outs and what nots of the 505. Creepy rivers and forests? Got em. Wide open spaces filled with nothing but giant skies, rattlesnakes, and shallow graves? Check.
I was told that you never, NEVER go down by the river alone...especially at night. If La Llorrona didn’t get you, there was a long list of creatures and terrifying humans that would. To this day, even as I shot the photos contained within this bible, a tiny voice in the back of my head whispered “RUN.”

ABQ TOPOGRAPHY

The Cibola Forest is a massive 1,633,783 acres, and the Albuquerque Basin has about 80 miles of Rio Grande shoreline.

In other words, Albuquerque is a great place to hide a body…or several bodies.

ABQ IS A MOOD

In a place where the landscape is as much a character as the diverse humans that inhabit it, ABQ is the perfect location for a dark, eerie thriller. The nights are black with a sea of stars above, yet in the many rural and deserted surrounding areas you find yourself filled with an inexplicable terror.

Sure, it looks beautiful…

…but there’s a serial killer in that tent.

NSFW: Not safe for women. Or anyone.

THE STORY

We begin our story at dawn, when DeeDee Hawkins, the local pastor’s wife, walks her dogs by the Rio Grande in the early morning hours. It’s beautiful until…

...one of her dogs brings her a stick to play fetch, which turns out to be a human bone, discovered under a creepy trestle.

CHARACTERS

ROSA RIPLEY:  (trans/30/s/Hispanic/Latinx) Rosa is an excellent detective. She loves her job. She’s solved the most cases not only in her department, but out of all the precincts in Albuquerque and surrounding counties.  We find her without a partner to open the series because her alcoholic, good-old-boy partner got yet another DUI. The commissioner has had it with him, and she unilaterally assigns Rosa a new partner, to whom we’ll get shortly.    

Rosa spent most of her childhood and teen years thinking she was “just a boy who felt wrong.” There weren’t many examples of transgender people, so she just thought she was gay. Like many “boys” who think they’re gay, Rosa tried really hard to have a girlfriend, because that’s what “normal boys” did.  When a 16-year-old Rosa and her 16- year-old girlfriend had sex for the first time, which neither of them really wanted to do, but had their own reasons for doing so, it was horrible in different ways for each of them.  For Rosa, it was to prove herself as a “normal” hetero, teenage boy, and of course to finish the deed.  There were a lot of failed fumblings until Rosa managed to finish, but none of it was satisfying. It just left more horrible emptiness and a feeling deep in her bones that something was terribly wrong. 

About a month later, her girlfriend, who also happened to be her best friend since childhood, and their family moved away, with no word or warning.  She was, as the kids say, “ghosted.” No phone call, no email, no nothing.  It wasn’t so much that she lost her girlfriend, but she also lost her best friend. It was painful and devastating, and she went into a depression. Her parents kept waiting for her to “get over it,” they aren’t the warmest of parents, but when she didn’t, they took her to their church’s evangelical Christian youth group, run by a young husband and wife, Harlan and DeeDee Hawkins, just 21 themselves.  In spite of their evangelicalism, they often worked with troubled youth.  They didn’t necessarily try to fix them, although a lot of private prayer went into hoping they’d change their sinful ways, but at the same time, they actually tried helping them figure out and accept who they are. Yeah, they’re an enigma, but they actually helped bring Rosa out of her darkness.

Rosa, then 17, and Harlan got close.  Very close.  They had one of those gray area  sexual affairs, but of course it could never last, since Harlan was a married, upstanding Christian man. After Harlan told her they couldn’t continue because DeeDee was getting suspicious, Rosa, rejected again, went in the complete opposite direction, deciding she was going to be the most manly man she could be, and maybe also to punish herself for not being able to “fix” herself, she enlisted in the Army and further decided to join one of the most elite military units: the Army Rangers.  It was hell on so many levels, and it took a toll mentally as she slowly learned that she’s transgender, and hiding who she was became more and more difficult.  But she stuck it out for a good while, using the Army’s money to take online college courses while serving, got a degree in criminal justice, then got commissioned as an officer, and got out as a 1st Lieutenant (I’ll have to check how many years this could take). It was all about saving as much money as she could, and she saved every penny.  

After she was honorably discharged, she moved to Thailand, but told her parents she was still serving. That’s where she began her transition, living as a woman, the therapists, the hormones, and after two years, she got her surgeries. To say her arrival home as “Rosa” was a shock to her family is an understatement. There’s still a lot of work to be done there, a lot, and it may never get done.  

Although we never want to frame women in the context of whether they are in a relationship or not, the truth about Rosa is that she really wants what many people want: to fall in love with the right man, get married, have kids, and snuggle on the couch with popcorn and wine and watch The Great British Baking Show with someone.
She almost had someone like that, until she realized she was settling.  Shortly before our story starts, Rosa broke off her engagement and her mother just can’t understand why. Her ex was handsome, had a stable IT job, and, as her mother Judy says, was also “tall.”  Rosa reminds her that he was boring. Judy, who went through a nasty divorce with Rosa’s dad Leo, thinks “boring is good.” To which Rosa replies, “boring is boring.”  This conversation happens while Rosa is FaceTiming Judy as she’s getting ready for a date with a guy she met online.  Rosa and her Mom talk often, but there’s still a lot of strain, resentment, and words left unsaid there.  Rosa is a person who is comfortable showing her emotions, whereas her mother never has been. 

Rosa goes on her date, and let’s just say it ends badly. Her date attacks her after Rosa tells him, very nicely, that they’re just not compatible, and, like often happens to women when they turn down a man, the man gets violent.  She ends up beating the shit out of him, because once an Army Ranger always an Army Ranger.  But something she’s not aware of also happened - the creepy valet who parked her car stole a Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon out of her car and sells it to the asshole date for $100.  There’s something weird going on there.

ANNA SAWYER: (lesbian/30s)  Anna was Rosa’s high school girlfriend. Two best friends since childhood who figured they should probably date, but deep down maybe they knew they needed to protect each other. The night they had sex is a little different from Anna’s persepective. As Rosa was having difficulties, Anna, after all the failed starts and fumbling, just wanted to stop the whole thing, but Rosa was determined to “finish” to “prove herself,” not aware of what Anna was thinking.  And because you have one heavy evangelical family (Rosa) and one heavily Catholic family (Anna) there’s not a lot of birth control discussion happening, so Anna got pregnant, which infuriated her dad. Of course an abortion was forbidden by her father, her body his choice, so he took a job down in Las Cruces with the DEA, forced his family to move, and Rosa never saw or heard from Anna again.  Anna was forced to give birth, and had a son.  With her Mom playing a huge part in raising her son, Anna was able to finish high school as valedictorian, and attended New Mexico State University, which isn’t the most highly ranked school to say the least. She would have loved to have gotten out of state, away from her controlling asshole father and mother who refused to stand up to him, but she needed to be close to home and needed her Mom to help with her child.  Because of Anna’s Dad, she was stripped of a lot of choices in her life, and you can believe she hates him for it.  She’s still working on her relationship with her Mom, because she thinks her Mom could have taken her for an abortion, like she begged her to.  It’s a resentment that’s never stopped simmering, and although she loves her son completely, sometimes he gets the brunt of that friction.

Anna’s dad took a job with the DEA in Las Cruces, and after Anna graduated college, also with a degree in criminal justice like Rosa, she eventually joined the Las Cruces Sheriff’s department, and she often had to work with her Dad with arrests, etc, when it came to stopping drug traffickers.  

Some years later, there was a substantial lead on the location of notorious drug trafficker, El Chapo.  There was a massive cooperation between the DEA and Sheriff’s department, which culminated in both Anna and her Dad being part of a team who was going to bust El Chapo and much of his crew just south of the border in Mexico.  The bust was ultimately successful, but after a massive, confusing, bloody gunfight in the middle of the night, her Dad ended up getting killed. They could never determine exactly who killed him.   

Her Dad was considered a hero, her mom got his benefits, and because they never wanted to move to fucking Las Cruces in the first place, they decided to move back to Albuquerque, again, not Anna first choice, but her Mom wanted to be close to family, and her son is really attached to his grandma.  She dreads seeing her ex “Brian” - because she told her son that his dad died.  Honestly, she never plans to tell him the truth.  

Anna has no idea about Rosa, and when she first meets Rosa in episode one, it never occurs to her that she might be her ex-high school boyfriend “Brian,” and her high school best friend.

CAPTAIN LEO GOMEZ:  Rosa’s Dad. He became a cop because his grandfather was a cop, and so was his Dad, so here he is, and he’s over it.  He has plenty of years under his belt to retire with full benefits, but he doesn’t know what else he’d do with himself and would have no purpose, so he just kind of skates along.  Before Rosa was Rosa, he pushed his “son” to be a tough kid. He pushed him in sports, never gave compliments, or hugs.  He wasn’t an asshole, he just thought men didn’t express emotions like that, because his father was never affectionate with him.  When Rosa came home from Thailand, he spent a lot of time in shock. In fact, he’s still probably in shock.  But one thing about Leo is that he’s a very “this is reality, you can’t change it, so let’s just trudge on.”  So he’s trudged on.  There hasn’t been a lot of talking about “it” between Rosa and Leo, and he messes up constantly. He always says the wrong thing, even if that may not be his intention.  We’re not giving away all our secrets about Leo’s arc here, but we will tell you this, Rosa just assumes Leo is ashamed that his “son” is a woman (Rosa has two older sisters).  But that’s not true.  He’s been shocked, confused, and whatever else you want to say about Leo, but he’s never been ashamed - he just doesn’t know how to communicate with Rosa, just like he’d never been able to communicate with her as a kid. The problem is, he’s never told her that, it’s much too vulnerable for him to go there. And the reason Rosa ended up at his precinct, which she also doesn’t know, is that he asked a favor of the higher up to have her stationed with him.  He’s not sure if it was the right decision, but he just wanted to make sure that if anyone gave her shit, he’d be there to nip it in the bud.  We have a lot of things, good and bad, in store for the Rosa/Leo arc.

JUDY RIPLEY: Rosa’s MOM, however, DOES have some shame of Rosa.  Rosa’s surprise return from Thailand may have played a part in that, because Judy wasn’t able to mentally and emotionally experience the whole process, but it’s hard to say if the outcome would have been any different.  She’s had a very hard time moving on from “before” Rosa.  She’s there for Rosa, sort of, although any conversation is usually initiated by Rosa, but she’s just stuck, and she doesn’t know how to unstick herself, and she refuses to try therapy.  There’s a lot slowly boiling under the surface between these two.

GWEN SAWYER: Gwen is Anna’s Mom. She’s been a rock and when it comes to helping raise her grandson, Henry, whom she adores.  She knows her daughter resents her for not supporting her in getting an abortion, and moving her to Las Cruces, and she’s disgusted with herself for her weakness for not standing up to her controlling husband.  She has resentment as well:  she was a beloved elementary school teacher, but had no choice but to put her career on hold to move and stay home to help raise Henry.  She also thinks that Anna doesn’t truly appreciate that sacrifice she made so Anna could still have some semblance of a normal last year of high school. Some good came out of that: Henry is a smart kid, and is a hard worker and is kind.  That’s because he had the best teacher for kids right off the bat with his grandma.  Gwen was upset her husband got killed, but not THAT upset.  He was a controlling asshole, and frankly, his death made her feel so much lighter.  She couldn’t wait to move back to Albuquerque where she can be close to family and now that Henry is older, maybe get back to teaching or tutoring. 

HENRY SAWYER:  Anna’s 16-year-old son.  Henry is a good kid who thinks his dad is dead.  He feels loved by his mom, though she can be closed off at times, but his grandmother makes up for it.  He’s pretending to be OK with being uprooted from his friends and moving from Las Cruces to Albuquerque, which is similar to what happened with Anna at the same age. Even good kids can act out, and we’ll see some bad decisions from Henry.  The BIG throughline is when will Rosa find out she has a son that was kept secret from her?  When that dam breaks, it could trigger floods of emotion from ALL involved.  Henry could be the key to unlocking so many things from so many people, which is a lot to put on a kid. How will everyone react? How will Henry react to having a trans parent? That his mom and grandma lied to him his entire young life?

PASTOR HARLAN HAWKINS: Harlan Hawkins is an evangelical Christian who is the pastor at the Calvary First Baptist Church and is liked by everyone, because he’s a very likeable guy.  His father was the pastor, then Harlan took over.  He started out as the youth group leader when he was 18, turning the group into a place where troubled youth, runaways, etc, could come find care and support.  This surprisingly turned into a haven for LGBTQ youth who have parents who are assholes and for those who ran away from abusive homes.  Harlan definitely thinks God speaks to him, and that everything that happens is “god’s will.” Harlan is a bit of an enigma, he thinks being LGBTQ is a sin, he does try to save them from burning in hell, but he also weirdly accepts them for who they are, helps them focus on school, get into college or a trade school and make sure they get the mental health help they need.  His motto is “convervative in God, liberal in love.”  And he is very liberal in his love, too liberal in all the wrong places.  So liberal he had an affair (again that she was 17 and he was 22 is a gray area - we’re doing that on purpose) with Rosa before she transitioned, when she found solace in the youth group and with Harlan in particular.  Let’s just assume that wasn’t his first and only “close interaction” with members of his LGBTQ youth groups.

DEEDEE HAWKINS: DeeDee is the wife of Harlan.  Junior High sweethearts who got married at 21.  DeeDee is also interesting.  She’s as passionate about helping troubled youth as Harlan is, also thinks LGBTQ people are going to hell, but ALSO makes sure they feel safe and loved and are sent to the right people to help them if they don’t have the resources through the youth group.  She’s not the typical Sally homemaker pastor’s wife, she’s a nurse and also helps with the books for her family’s successful construction business. She’s the breadwinner - by far. They have two kids, Matthew 16 and Rose 13, Matthew and Anna’s boy Henry will end up in the same class at school. 

JAIME CONTRERAS:  Jaime, 15, is our missing boy. He hasn’t quite figured out that he’s trans, and because of his disapproving father, he spends a lot of time staying over at his best girl friends’ homes, where he’s fully welcomed.  He’s heard that a certain motel, the Aztec Motel, is a place where trans sex workers sometimes use.  He goes there with his two girl friends, all of whom are good kids, but even good kids make bad decisions.  And Jaime is going to take more risks, purposefully not going back home because when his dad caught him dressing up in girls clothes with his girl friends, he beat him.  So Jaime wants to teach his parents a lesson by staying “missing” for a while longer.  

RHONDA GOODWIN:  50s. The owner of the Aztec Motel.  She knows there’s solicitation that goes on, but she keeps it to a minimum, and she makes sure to keep an eye on the trans sex workers.  She doesn’t put up with any shit, and will pull out her pump-action rifle if she has to in order to get bad apples to leave. The motel isn’t fancy, very 50s retro, but it’s very clean and safe. 

The reason Rhonda allows some of the sex work to go on at her hotel is because years ago, when her teen son came out as a trans girl, Rhonda handled it badly, very badly and her daughter ran away when she was 16, and she never saw her again.  She and her husband divorced over it, and she used the money from the divorce to buy the motel, and she’s turned it into a popular Route 66 tourist stop.   She carries this crippling guilt with her and still holds on hope that her daughter will one day come home. She bought the hotel to give herself purpose, but to also have something to pass on to her daughter when she comes back.  Keeping an eye on and protecting any trans sex workers that might use her hotel is her trying to do penance for the way she treated her daughter.  The motel is her way of “keeping a light on” for her daughter.  DeeDee has been there for Rhonda throughout all of this, and they’ve become good friends over the years.  Rhonda isn’t particularly religious, but DeeDee has pulled her out of some really dark times, and she considers DeeDee as one of her closest friends. 

FUTURE SEASONS

As of now, Duke City will have a three season arc, with a possible hybrid/flashback 4th. 

Each season deals with a different case, and a different topic threatening the people of New Mexico. Our detectives will be a constant, their relationship with each other evolving over the seasons. Storylines involving both detective’s families will be revealed, as will more information on the personal lives of each woman and their individual struggles. 

• Season Two : Indiginous Women, Missing and Murdered

• Season Three : Child Trafficking Over the Mexican Border

• Season Four: This is a very different type of season.  We will tell the stories of Rosa and Anna before they became partners, as separate/ parallel stories.  Their “prequel” if you will.  Anna’s story of being a young mom, becoming a Sheriff in Las Cruces, dealing with the drug trafficking (and child sex trafficking) and her Dad’s murder. Rosa’s story will track her joining the Army Rangers, how difficult that was, and her journey to herself in Thailand.

Written by :

Jeanette Scherrer — jscherrer9@hotmail.com

Mary Kay Holmes — marykayholmes@gmail.com