THE NEXT DAY, we head north. On the drive, we spot pronghorns grazing in the high plains. The land is desolate and beautiful, with occasional signs telling us we’re passing through one reservation or another. When scanning through the radio stations, we hear a DJ speaking to the audience in Navajo.
When we cross over the border to Colorado, the landscape becomes greener, tall mountains spring up around us, and the hills fill with pine and spruce trees. We pull into Durango around noon, crossing a bridge over the rushing waters of the Animas River and making our way toward the center of town. We wait at a railroad crossing while an old narrow gauge locomotive whistles and chugs smoke into the air before pulling out of town to carry tourists into the mountains. Down Main Avenue, the adobe architecture of Santa Fe has been replaced by big brick buildings that preserve the look of what the mountain town might have been like a hundred years ago.
We stop by the police station first, where the officer I talked to on the phone has already photocopied the whole case file for us. We spend some time talking with him, learning very little, and I take only a moment to flip through the folder, glancing at the photos. I’ll have time to scrutinize the file later, but for now I want to interview the woman’s father, who owns a jewelry store down the street.
When we enter the store, a fiftyish white woman is working behind the counter. Ava asks to see Frank Tavaci, the owner, and as she heads into the back room to find him, I take a moment to look around.
The store specializes in Ute and Navajo jewelry, with display cases full of silver bracelets, necklaces, and rings adorned with turquoise and other colorful stones. Other items decorate the walls: an alabaster pipe, a beaded horse bag, and ornamental dreamcatchers with stars and moons as their centerpieces—but no feathers, eagle or otherwise.
Frank Tavaci walks into the showroom and introduces himself. He has short black hair and is a walking advertisement for the store, stylishly wearing several items of jewelry. We explain what we want to talk to him about, and he says that he’d rather speak at his house, which is only a few blocks away.
“You could see my daughter’s bedroom,” he says. His voice shakes a little with the words, and I can tell that even though it’s been two years, the wounds caused by his daughter’s disappearance are fresh.
We say we’d like that, and the three of us set out on foot. Only a couple of blocks off Main Street is a strip of historic-looking houses, and Frank leads us to one. The interior is decorated with the same artist’s sensibilities as the jewelry store. A bull skull with everything except the horns covered in colorful stones hangs on one wall. A display of vibrant beaded lanyards hangs from another. Beautiful pottery adorns the mantel of a large stone fireplace.
I notice that one of the items is a beautifully decorated urn. When Frank notices where my gaze is, he says, “My wife’s remains. Breast cancer.” He nods toward an empty space next to it. “I pray that my daughter is still alive, but if she isn’t…” His voice cracks before he finishes. “I wish they could find her so that I might put her next to her mother.”
We sit on a leather couch, and Frank sits opposite us on a matching love seat.
“What can I tell you about my little Chipeta?” he asks, his voice quavering.
He pulls himself together as he describes a young, energetic girl. She’d been a regular at powwows and festivals through her teenage years—competing in various art competitions—but she’d recently outgrown those events and had become focused on her studies. She’d been living at home, taking classes at nearby Fort Lewis College while working a few hours at the store. She was nineteen at the time of her disappearance.
He opens a drawer in the end table next to the couch and pulls out a framed picture.
“I used to keep this out,” he says, handing the frame to me, “but it hurt too much to see her all the time.”
The image shows a pretty girl standing in a mountain meadow, with a simple white sundress exposing her shoulders. She wears a silver necklace. Her features resemble her father’s, and her hair, probably as naturally black as his, is augmented with russet and gold highlights.
“She is beautiful,” Ava tells him, and I’m glad she’s careful to use the present tense—she is beautiful—rather than the past.
We ask for him to tell us about the circumstances of her disappearance, which sound eerily similar to those of Fiona Martinez’s.
Nothing missing.
No signs of struggle.
No packed bags.
Even her phone and her wallet were found in the house.
“She was living here at the time,” Frank explains. “The cops came and took a bunch of pictures, but nothing ever came of it.”
We go through various questions about whether she’d noticed anyone following her, whether a person watching her at a powwow might have left an impression, any customers at the jewelry store who showed special interest in her.
The answers are always no.
Frank shows us Chipeta’s bedroom, which he says he hasn’t touched since her disappearance. There are posters of bands, shelves full of books, a closet of dresses and shoes. There are plenty of examples of artwork—paintings, pottery, beaded blankets—that are good but don’t seem quite as professionally polished as what we saw in the living room. Frank confirms my suspicion that these were created by Chipeta.
I look around, then stop to pay particular attention to a display of photographs of the girl with friends. Some show Chipeta dressed in Native regalia, clearly taken at powwows or festivals. Others show her hiking or skiing or dressed for a high school dance, some of these with Native friends but others with white and Latina girls.
“In one of the police photographs,” Ava says to Frank, “there was a picture of an eagle feather. Does this ring a bell?”
Frank has a puzzled look on his face, then he seems to remember.
“When I say I haven’t touched anything, that’s not entirely true,” he says, opening the closet door and pulling out a box. “I did clean up. My daughter didn’t always keep her room tidy.”
I recall the crime scene photos and remember that the room did look a bit messier than it does now. Frank opens the box and rummages around inside. He stands up holding an eagle feather by the quill.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” he asks.