Hard Truth- Pigeon 13 by Nevada Barr

inherited by one of the founders of the community from what I gather."

"Why am I thinking of David Koresh and Jim Jones?" Anna said.

Lorraine laughed.

The "town" was laid out in a neat grid, as were some of the main-stream Mormon towns Anna had seen in Utah-Cedar City, St. George- but that was where the resemblance ended. This grid was laid out with an optimism that had yet to bear fruit. Like a number of the sorry "ranchette" developments carved out of Nevada's Smoke Creek Desert never to be populated, here the graveled roads were laid down in a tic-tac-toe pattern but only the intersections at the center had been developed, eight homes total. No trees or lawns, flower beds or foundation plantings graced these graceless houses. All were more or less alike, two-story unornamented structures that looked more like miniature low-income apartment buildings than individual homes. Each had a door at either end. There were no awnings, no porches, no swing sets or jungle gyms in the yards.

There were plenty of children. The girls, like Mrs. Dwayne and Mrs. Sheppard, in long dresses. The boys wore dark trousers and long-sleeved shirts despite the eighty-degree-plus enticements of summer's end.

"I can make a pretty good guess as to why the families are no friend to law enforcement," Anna said. "I've been through towns like this on the Utah-Arizona border."

"Polygamists," Lorraine said. The investigative part of the search would have uncovered that possibility.

"Has that look about it. Too many kids, too few houses, all too big."

"Hard to prosecute," the chief ranger said. "It's not illegal to live in sin, only to actually marry more than one of your fellow sinners at a time." She pulled the car over and parked neatly parallel to a curb that didn't exist. The children stopped their play-a desultory game that seemed based on a circle of dirt undoubtedly inhabited by some unfortunate insect. They didn't run over to the car or laugh or chatter. They just stared. It gave Anna a creepy feeling.

Neither Alexis nor Beth was among them.

The tableau of stupefied children held for a moment. Curtains in the house behind them flittered. A door opened and Mr. Sheppard emerged dressed, like the male children, in dark trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. Sheppard was bearded as the prophets from the Old Testament and his hair curled at the collar of his shirt. His face was pasty for a man who lived in a state with more sunny days than not. He didn't look welcoming. As he approached the car he tried to force his stern features into a joyous cast. The effect was more alarming than the original scowl.

The clot of children broke apart to drift along in his wake. A bark, a wave of his hand, and they turned and filed back into the house as orderly as good children at a grade school fire drill.

'Any word on Candace?" he asked as Anna and Lorraine got out of the car. Whether he was astute enough to have planned it or not, the ques-tion subtly shifted the balance of power in his favor. Before they'd had time to establish themselves, he'd put them on the defensive.

'Afraid not, Mr. Sheppard," Lorraine said, ignoring the shift if she'd felt it. "We'd like to have another talk with the girls and Robert Proffit. See if anything that might help us find Candace has been overlooked."

"They're being schooled right now. We're real conscientious about that."

Anna adjusted her face into a pleasant expectant mask and leaned against the fender of the patrol car. If the girls were at their lessons they were the only children in New Canaan who were. The curtains in the house behind Sheppard were fairly dancing with peeps and pushes from those within.

A short wordless battle of wills was fought between Sheppard and the chief ranger. "I'll get Robert," he compromised after a moment.

"That's okay," Lorraine said. "Just point out his house."

Sheppard ignored her request. "Wait here." He went back into the house he'd come out of. Curtains stopped moving. Anna was