Firestorm-pigeon 4 by Nevada Barr

remote, he muted the television. He didn't turn it off. Whenever he was home the TV was on. Sound, color, the electronic simulation of life kept him company. Over the years he'd grown so used to it the place felt cold, haunted without it.

He dialed the Bureau's number from memory. Timmy Spinks answered and Frederick was relieved. Spinks was young but he was sharp and, Stanton hoped, just inexperienced enough not to realize Frederick was about to use Bureau equipment and personnel to his own ends.

"Timmy, Frederick Stanton. Get me everything you can on the firefighters caught in that burn out in California. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes, sir. It was all over the news."

"That's the one. I want to know what anybody else knows. Who is missing. If anybody's dead and who. What's being done. Everything."

"Yes, sir."

Sir. Timmy made Stanton feel old but since it was old and revered the FBI agent let it pass. "Call me at home. I'll be in all evening."

Stanton hung up and looked at pictures of beautiful women and shiny cars move silently across the television.

The San Juan Plateau crew would be out of the Colorado/New Mexico area. That much was obvious. Anna had mentioned in her letter that half the rangers in the park were fighting fires out west. What were the odds Anna was on a fire? On the Jackknife?

A thousand to one. With Anna those odds didn't settle Stan-ton's nerves.

He could always phone her. There couldn't be too many Pigeons in southern Colorado. Information should have no trouble tracking her down.

I'm curious, not concerned, he told himself. If I reached her I wouldn't have much to say. But it was the specter of saying it badly that stayed his hand.

He fixed himself supper and ate in front of the TV, placing bits of food on the edge of his plate for Daniel to share. The little bird kept up a running conversation in a low and liquid warble but Frederick was lousy company.

Until the phone rang, and it occurred to him he had no recollection of what he had eaten or what he was watching, he didn't realize he had been waiting.

"Agent Stanton," he said as if he were at his desk in the office.

"Hi, Dad. It's Candice."

Frederick forced the disappointment from his voice. "Hiya, sweetheart. What's up?"

There followed a long and rambling account of triumphs and political coups on the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. After she hung up, Frederick scanned his memory. He was relatively sure he'd made all the right noises but he hadn't really been paying attention. Parental guilt prodded. A gentle poke: Candice was his one success out of three children. Through the divorces and the moves the two of them had managed to stay close.

"I love my girl," he said to Daniel.

The bird cocked its head and looked up out of one bright beady eye expecting attention, but the exchange was over. Frederick's eyes were back on the television, his mind in neutral.

When the phone rang a second time half an hour later he answered "Hello," cognizant of where he was.

"Agent Stanton? It's Timmy. Tim."

Stanton felt a familiar tightness in his belly. He'd first noticed it after he'd become a father for the second time. Driving home late—back in the days when home was populated by more than a bird and TV set—the last block before he turned onto Oakland Avenue where he could see his house, he'd get a slight clutch wondering if good news or bad news or no news awaited.

The house had always been standing, no burned-out shell, no roofless statistic in the wake of a tornado, no children with scarlet fever or black plague. But the tightening was there till he'd closed the door behind him. It was a game he played with himself.

"What've you got for me?"

"Not a whole lot. Events conspired, you might say."

Frederick crushed mounting impatience. "Begin at the beginning."

"Evidently the fire was a bit of a sleeper. It'd just been creeping along for several days. Pretty routine. About two this afternoon a