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of open desert. But then again, I wasn’t really looking, you know? The eagle got me all excited, and that’s where my mind was.” She grinned. “He was quite a sight.”
    “And nothing had changed out there when you went out again with Jim Bergin? Other than that the eagle had left the scene.”
    “Not that I saw. The body was still there. I was going to try for a picture when he buzzed the spot, but it went by too fast. Sorry. Do you know how long it had been out there? The body, I mean? Is it something that just happened, or what?”
    “There are still lots of questions to answer, Miss Keenan. Nobody is sure of anything yet. It may just be someone who got caught unprepared, out in the cold, after dark. It’ll take a while to sort things out.”
    Terri Keenan looked skeptical as she opened a fresh package of film and reloaded the camera. “That’s a long way from anywhere just to be out hiking around in February, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it is,” Estelle said.
    When Estelle didn’t elaborate, Terri shot her a wry smile. She handed the undersheriff a business card, unadorned embossed gold lettering on ivory stock that announced the practice of Terri W. Keenan, DDS. “In case you need to reach me,” she said. “First thing in the morning is always easiest, before I’m up to my elbows in someone’s mouth.”
    “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, Dr. Keenan,” Estelle said. “We’ll want to get the film back to you, and if you should think of anything else that might be important to us, I’d appreciate a call.” She extended one of her own cards to the pilot. Terri Keenan frowned as she read it, then looked up at Estelle with a bright smile.
    “When your deputy said that the undersheriff wanted to talk to me, I pictured some big guy with a potbelly and bad teeth. I don’t know why. I mean, I’ve been told about a thousand times that I don’t look like your average dentist, either.”
    “And I’m sure you’re not,” Estelle said, and extended her hand. “Thanks for your help this morning. We’ll be in touch.”
    She left Terri Keenan to her preflight chores, and ducked her head inside Bergin’s office on the way out. “Thanks, Jim.”
    “Don’t mention it. Interesting gal, isn’t she?”
    “Yes.”
    “Looks too young to be a dentist, though. She talks more like a high school kid…and stuff.” He grinned. “Makes me want to go to Las Cruces for a checkup.”
    “Win the lottery first, sir.”
    Bergin nodded slowly, pencil poised over his weather station log.
    “That’s the impression I got, too,” he said.

Chapter Three
    By the time Estelle Reyes-Guzman reached the Public Safety Building on Bustos Avenue, she was sure that someone had rapped both knees with a ball-peen hammer after first clamping her elbow joints in a steel-jawed vise. She forced herself to concentrate as she filled out the evidence tag and tracking slip for Dr. Terri Keenan’s roll of film, and then double-checked to make sure that she had put the film and paperwork in Linda Real’s drawer.
    She closed the cabinet and turned to find Gayle Torrez, the sheriff’s wife and chief dispatcher, watching her with sympathetic eyes.
    “You need to go home,” Gayle said.
    “Yes, I do.” She shook her head in frustration. “Go home and join the rest of
los miserables
. If you see Linda before she finds my note, would you ask her to process that roll of film as soon as she can?”
    “Sure. You’ll be home, then?”
    Estelle nodded. “A nap and I’ll be fine.”
    “How’s your mom?”
    “Yuck,” Estelle said. “She and Carlos are a pair. But I think they’re over the hump now.”
    “And now you?”
    “Don’t say that. I’m just tired.”
    “Well, take your tired self home, and stop breathing on the rest of us.” Gayle smiled. “Jackie said that she’s going to spend some more time out at the scene. Widen the search circle a little.”
    Estelle nodded and then rocked her head from side to side to remove