Albuquerque, New Mexico (2013)

We were in El Paso working an investigation conducting interviews and we had to drive up to Albuquerque to interview the alleged perpetrators, who, as I suspected, were actually the victims.

We passed through the pecan fields outside of Las Cruces and had a real New Mexico lunch in an old west town where Billy the Kid had passed through and then continued north on I-25 until we were on the outskirts of town.

Since we had an extra 15 minutes before we were supposed to meet our interview subjects, I asked my partner if we could swing by the now defunct Desert Sands Motel, which is where our putative hero from “No Country For Old Men,” Llewelyn Moss, is killed by Mexican gangsters in room 114 in one of the most shocking twists in recent cinematic history.

(It wasn’t for me as I’d read the book (twice) before the movie even came out.)

I asked my partner to take a picture of me in my typical formal interview attire and I used to show this picture to my students to show what a cool job this could be, except for the fact that my tie knot is slightly askew, which really bothers me.

On the way back to El Paso we got pulled over for speeding by a New Mexico State Trooper who let us go with a wave as soon as we told him who we were. I wasn’t driving.