I STRETCH AND try to wake myself up. The day is already hot, but the air is bone dry, nothing like the humidity of Central Texas. The lush green of the landscape back home has been replaced by the barren brown hills of the Chihuahuan Desert. Palm trees ring the parking lot but provide little shade. An irrigation system is spraying the lawn at the apartment complex with water, but it’s apparent by the brown patches in the grass that the sprinkler is fighting a losing battle.
A sheriff’s deputy lifts the crime scene tape for us to duck under as Ryan walks up the sidewalk to meet us, his pants getting misted from the sprinkler.
I introduce Carlos.
“We thought we’d stop by and see what we could do to help,” I say, trying to tread carefully around the questions of jurisdiction and hierarchy.
Ryan hesitates, deciding whether to let us in on what’s happening—or try to keep us out of it. I’m hoping our recent history at the gun competition will make him agreeable. But the opposite could be true. He hadn’t expected to walk out of the contest tied for first place, and he might hold a grudge about it.
“All right,” Ryan says, apparently deciding to be cooperative rather than competitive.
“What can you tell us about the case?” Carlos asks.
“This case?” he says, gesturing in the direction of the apartment, “or the case?” He grins as if he’s got a secret.
Carlos and I trade glances, not sure what Ryan’s getting at.
“This case,” he says, nodding toward the apartment complex. “Not much to say. Woman’s name is Fiona Martinez. College student. Works part-time at Whole Foods. Last seen two days ago, and she posted on social media just before midnight that night. Her mom expected a call from her yesterday. When the daughter didn’t call, Mom called the EPPD. They called me.”
“Any connection to the woman who went missing on the Tigua reservation recently?” I ask.
“Just that they’re both Indians.” He glances at Carlos and amends his statement. “Both Native Americans.”
“Tigua?” Carlos asks.
“This girl’s Navajo.”
“Any sign of a struggle in the apartment?” I ask. “Or evidence that she might have run away?”
“No,” he says. “Everything looks normal. Her car is here. No clothes missing as far as we can tell. Car keys and driver’s license are on the kitchen counter next to her cell phone.”
He tells us there’s nothing to see in the girl’s apartment but says we’re welcome to have a look.
“When you’re done looking around,” he says, patting the side of his operations van, “come see me in my office on wheels.”
We pass a tech dusting for prints at the front door.
It’s not a big apartment by any stretch of the imagination. But the woman who rented it—Fiona Martinez, Ryan said—took good care of it. Aside from a few dirty dishes soaking in the sink, the apartment is clean and picked up. Nothing seems particularly out of place.
The furniture is mismatched, probably purchased at thrift stores, which makes sense given that Fiona is a twenty-year-old college student. A small desk in the corner of the living room holds a stack of textbooks. An El Paso Community College student ID hangs from a lanyard draped over a pushpin sticking out of a corkboard.
Also pinned to the board are a handful of photographs. The images depict the same woman from the student ID posing with various people. Several of the pictures show Fiona in traditional Navajo clothes, with feathers and leather hides, at what must be powwows or other festivals.
“What do you make of this?” Carlos asks, gesturing to the kitchen table.
The surface of the wooden table is completely bare except for a single feather—brown with curved markings, and at least a foot long—lying directly in the center.
“Is that a hawk feather?” I ask.
“Too big.”
“Bald eagle?”
“Golden eagle,” Carlos says. “You can tell by the marbling.”
I should have guessed from the size of the feather that it came from a golden eagle. Their wingspans can be six or seven feet, and they are more likely to be found in this area. Bald eagles tend to live around lakes, eating fish, but golden eagles prey on rabbits and reptiles and scavenge in the desert.
None of the techs bagging evidence around us seem interested in the feather, which is surprising to me. I’m not certain off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal for a non–Native American to even own a feather like this. But it’s not as if Fiona Martinez’s apartment is full of Navajo artwork and decorations.
There are no baskets. No dreamcatchers. No pottery.
Just a single eagle feather sitting in the center of the table as if someone left it there for us to find.
I take a photograph of the feather and ask one of the techs if he can bag it into evidence. He gives me a look that says I know how to do my job. Still, I’m not so sure they would have given it much notice if we hadn’t said something.
Sometimes when you’re in law enforcement, you get hunches, and I can tell by the look on Carlos’s face that we both have a hunch about this—the eagle feather means something.