At Yells Back Butte near Black Mesa, Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee finds Officer Kinsman nearly dead, bashed in the head. Robert Jano, a Hopi man, stands close by, with blood on him, and an eagle in a cage. Chee arrests Jano for murdering the police officer. Jano protests his innocence. Kinsman dies in the hospital. Jano is assigned an attorney from the Department of Justice, as the charge carries the death penalty. Attorney Janet Pete is back in Phoenix; she is given his case. She believes he is innocent. Mrs. Vanders hires Joe Leaphorn to find her niece, Catherine Pollard. She has not returned from her work as a vector control specialist, a flea catcher, nor left any word of her plans, since early July. Mrs. Vanders thinks graduate student Victor Hammer might be the problem.