Page 21 of The Texas Murders

WE SPEND ANOTHER hour signing paperwork and sitting down at a computer with one of Ryan’s agents, who walks us through how to use a few federal databases we didn’t have access to before. When Carlos and I finally step outside into the bright sunlight, I’m just about asleep on my feet. I need either a cup of coffee or a nap. Maybe both.

We stop at a place called Mesa Street Grill and eat lunch while we talk.

“What do you think?” I ask, remembering what he said on the drive about how the federal task force might add another layer of red tape to investigations, cluttering things up rather than streamlining them. “Seems like their coordination of cases is paying off.”

He agrees but adds that it also appeared as if Ryan only cared about the big trafficking operation.

“He was so excited to show off his plans about raidingthe warehouse that he hardly seemed to care about Fiona Martinez.”

Ryan had offered us space to work in the FBI office, but I’m barely awake and need to take a quick nap, so we decide to check into a hotel. As Carlos sits at the desk, leaning over his laptop, attempting to navigate the FBI databases, I dial Ava Cruz of the Tigua Tribal Police.

When I reintroduce myself, she says, “I remember who you are,” her tone suggesting that she has better things to do than to talk to me. “Another Ranger called the other day. Carlos Castillo. I haven’t had a chance to return his call yet.”

I explain that Carlos and I are in the El Paso area—close to the Tigua Pueblo—and that we’re investigating another missing Native American woman.

“We found a golden eagle feather at the woman’s apartment,” I explain. “I was wondering if in your case, the one you told me about, something similar might have been found.”

“A Native American with an eagle feather? That doesn’t sound unusual.”

“It seemed out of place here, though,” I say. “There weren’t any decorations with feathers or anything like that. And it was on the kitchen table, laid out with nothing else around it. Like a calling card.”

She says she didn’t find anything like that in the home of the woman she’s searching for. I also ask her about any sightings of a blue panel van, and she says that she’ll have to ask the neighbors of the missing woman. That’s a specific detail that she wouldn’t have known to ask about before.

“Would have been nice if the feds had mentioned that,” she says.

Even though my phone call hasn’t amounted to any leads, at least Ava Cruz’s tone has changed. She doesn’t sound put out by my call anymore. She sounds intrigued.

When I end the call, Carlos says without looking up from his computer, “It was worth a try.”

I tell him I’m going to take a quick nap, and I pull my boots off and stretch out on my bed, still wearing my shirt and tie. I drift off to the sound of Carlos’s fingers clicking away on the keyboard.

I expect to be down only for a quick power nap—thirty minutes, tops—but when my phone buzzes, waking me up, the light coming in through the window has changed. Evening is approaching.

“Hell,” I say, groggy. “I slept too long.”

Now I won’t sleep worth a damn tonight. I wish Carlos would have woken me up earlier, but of course that’s what he probably thought while I was driving to El Paso. Now we’re even, I guess.

“I got some dinner,” he says, gesturing to a pizza box sitting on the table. He’s eating a slice while still typing away at the computer.

I check my phone and see that I missed a call from Ava Cruz. “Find anything out?” I ask Carlos as I call Ava back and wait as the phone rings.

He says that he’s just now getting the hang of navigating these federal databases.

“I feel like a mouse in a maze,” he says. “Or a tribal elder trying to use a smartphone.”

When Ava picks up, she says, “What you said got me to thinking, so I looked back through some of our old cases to see if there was any mention of eagle feathers.”

“And?”

“Another woman went missing off the Pueblo last year,” she says. “Rebecca Trujillo. Twenty-one years old. The notes mentioned a feather lying across the woman’s pillow.”

I motion to get Carlos’s attention. He stops what he is doing on the computer, and I put the phone on speaker so he can hear better.

“Any mention in the report of what kind of feather?” I ask Ava.

“No,” she says, “but I went through the evidence room and found it. It’s here in a plastic baggie on my desk.”

“And?”

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