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told her that he was flying a charter and she didn’t know when he’d be back. So the two women came on down.” He gestured off toward the parking lot. “They saw your vehicle.”
    “What a goddam mess,” I muttered, and walked to the terminal.
    Janice Holman was standing with Estelle in the small pilots’ lounge, looking at a wall map of New Mexico. Linda was behind the desk, radio and telephone at her elbow. The door to the rest room was closed, and I assumed that Vivian Camp was in there.
    The sheriff’s wife turned as I entered, and when she saw my face, she wilted, putting out a hand against the wall for support.
    “Bill…” she started to say. Estelle put an arm around her shoulders.
    “It doesn’t look good, Jan,” I said, and took her left hand. “What about the chopper?” I asked Estelle. “Any word?”
    “We expect a departure from Las Cruces within the hour. Apparently there was some problem finding a flight crew.”
    I nodded and took a deep breath, still holding Janice Holman’s hand. “One of the deputies is at the site now,” I said. The door of the rest room opened and a dark-haired, chubby woman appeared, her face puffy, her eyes hollow and dark-rimmed. Vivian was younger than her sister, less angular, dressed in an expensive gray pantsuit.
    “Was there any…any sign…” Janice Holman tried to say, and I brought up my other hand to hold hers in both of mine. Tom Pasquale had seen the remains of one body. If he hadn’t been able to identify the man for whom he’d worked for three years, then the crash impact had been devastating.
    “We’re going to get out there just as soon as we can, Jan.”
    “But did he see anything? Anything at all?”
    “It’s going to be hard,” I said. “That’s rough country, and in the dark…” I shook my head. It wasn’t the answer Janice Holman wanted to hear.
    “Maybe it wasn’t their plane,” the sister said. She had slumped in one of the overstuffed chairs beneath the wall chart.
    The sheriff’s wife gripped my hands harder. “Is that a possibility, Bill?”
    I looked at her for a minute and she could read the answer in my eyes before I said, “Jim Bergin recognized the registration of the aircraft, Jan.”
    “But there wasn’t a fire?”
    “It didn’t appear so,” I said.
    “Then there’s always hope,” Janice Holman said. She drew herself up, dropped my hands and covered her eyes with both hands.
    “Why don’t you sit down?” I asked gently, and Estelle ushered her to one of the other chairs.
    Then Estelle stepped back and indicated the map on the wall. “Bob’s on the way up with the other Bronco. He knows the country and said he thinks he can get within a few hundred yards of the crash site by driving all the way in to the Boyds’ ranch, then cutting the fence here”—she tapped the map—“and following one of the cattle trails past the windmill, back east to the site.” She looked at me. “He was going to stop at the ranch headquarters and pick up Johnny, if he’s home. That way, the two of them can find the fastest route in.”
    “Did you get ahold of the Boyds on the phone?”
    “Gayle said she’d keep trying. No one’s been answering.”
    Looking outside, I saw Jim Bergin crossing the tarmac under the harsh light of the sodium vapors. He glanced skyward just as I heard the heavy drone of an airplane.
    The radio came alive with the rapid, clipped lingo peculiar to pilots. I’d lived for forty years depending on radio communication and they still left me behind half the time.
    “Bonanza niner-seven Gulf Alpha entering downwind zero-niner, Posadas.”
    Janice Holman and her sister reacted as if someone had slid a cattle prod under their seats. I guessed that they’d heard three magic words—Bonanza, Gulf, and Alpha. The plane was the right type, and the two letters began and ended with Philip Camp’s registration.
    “Oh, God,” Vivian Camp said. She was on her feet and headed for the door, colliding