YSLETA DEL SUR PUEBLO might have once stood off on its own, away from El Paso, but the reservation has been subsumed by the growth of the El Paso suburbs. As Carlos and I drive to meet Ava Cruz in the morning, I can’t tell where the federally designated tribal land even begins. The neighborhoods don’t look demonstrably different from those in the surrounding areas: brick houses with mortared stone fences and juniper and cypress trees growing in the patchy yards.
We pass a beautiful old Spanish-style mission. Next door is a large building with a sign reading SPEAKING ROCK ENTERTAINMENT CENTER, which Carlos says used to be a full-fledged tribal casino but has since been downgraded to just slots and bingo. There’s a billboard advertising an upcoming concert for a heavy metal band I’ve never heard of.
Down the street, we drive past an old, boarded-up community center. Workers driving heavy machinery are digging up the lot across the street, with a sign advertising a new community center scheduled to open next year.
A minute later, I pull my truck into the parking lot of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Judicial Facility, one of the bigger adobe structures on the Pueblo, containing both the police department and the courthouse. The front lawn is green and well maintained, a sharp contrast to the mostly brown yards in the Pueblo and surrounding city. The words TRIBAL POLICE DEPARTMENT are stenciled in large red letters above the door of the left wing of the building. I park next to a tribal police SUV. The Ysleta del Sur logo is displayed on the vehicle’s white door, showing a star, a bald eagle head, and two feathers, which—unlike the feathers found at the crime scene—are white with black tips.
We tell the receptionist who we’re here to see, and Ava doesn’t leave us waiting for long. She comes out to greet us wearing her blue uniform and her hair pulled back in a braid, exactly how I saw her at the shooting competition.
She gestures for us to follow her, and she leads us to an investigation room, where photos and notes are pinned to the walls, stacks of paperwork and file folders cover a table, and evidence boxes fill one corner. An older-model box TV sits on a rolling metal stand. The garbage can by the door is full of paper coffee cups and discarded take-out boxes—giving me the impression that Ava has been working day and night on this case.
Ava points to an eight-by-eleven photograph taped to the wall of a young Native American woman with a bright, enthusiastic smile. Her long straight hair cascades down her shoulders and out of the frame. The picture looks like a senior high school portrait.
“This is Marta Rivera,” she says. “Age nineteen. Lives with her mom here on the Pueblo. Went missing ten days ago. No sign of struggle. No witnesses who noticed anything suspicious. Nothing to suggest she ran away, either. No clothes missing or anything like that. It’s like she just vanished,” Ava adds, snapping her finger loudly, “into thin air.”
“Does she go to college?” I ask.
“She works full-time at the rec center and takes some classes online from Arizona State.”
There goes my idea that maybe she and Fiona Martinez, who attends El Paso Community College, are classmates.
Ava tells us that since we called her yesterday, she’s asked Marta’s mom if she saw any out-of-place eagle feathers after her daughter went missing.
The answer was no.
“But,” Ava adds, “I also looked into your blue panel van.”
She explains that she didn’t find anyone who remembered seeing a vehicle that fit the description. However, she had already obtained security camera footage from the Speaking Rock casino on the day Marta went missing. One outdoor camera has a good view of one of the main roads through the Pueblo.
The footage has been saved onto a DVD, and Ava picks up a remote and turns on the TV. She plays a few seconds showing cars going up and down the roadway.
“That’s the way we came in today,” I say.
“There,” Ava says, pausing the screen.
The image is grainy, but a van is definitely visible, and it seems to have the same color as Llewellyn Carpenter’s vehicle.
“Looks like the one,” I say.
We’re all quiet for a moment as it sinks in what this might mean.
“The good news,” Carlos says to Ava, “is that the FBI knows who that guy is and they’re taking steps to rescue at least some of the women he’s abducted.”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to find Marta Rivera and bring her home,” I say.
Ava looks dubious.
“You said that was the good news,” she says to Carlos. “Does that mean there’s bad news?”
Carlos nods. I already know what he’s going to say.
“The bad news is that I think our eagle feather victims are a different case entirely. I don’t think either Fiona Martinez or Rebecca Trujillo will turn up when the feds conduct their raid. And,” he adds, “I wonder if there might be more eagle feather victims we don’t know about yet.”