The Sound of Rain by Gregg Olsen

Author:Gregg Olsen [Olsen, Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503941960
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2016-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The drive to the prison outside of Shelton runs from the Seattle-to-Bremerton ferry through Belfair along Hood Canal. Portions of the roadway seem to be a mere scratch in the evergreens that had been the reason for most of the towns along the way. But as I drive Angela’s cast-off car along these stretches, I see gaps in the green. It’s almost as though the trees are a false front. A Hollywood set. A dark screen to hide the fact that beyond the wall of green is a denuded, logged-off landscape.

I’ve been to the prison once before. The police academy in Burien included site visits to all of the correctional facilities in Washington as part of the curriculum. I never thought I’d need to go back. My job was to put people there. Not for social calls.

I wonder how Danny felt when he first arrived.

Lousy as hell, I hope.

On the outskirts of Shelton, I pass by an enormous cross section of a Douglas fir tree that ticks off the history of the world since it germinated nearly seven hundred years ago. A sapling when the plague decimated Europe stands on the edge of an overlook that takes in the Shelton lumber mill below.

Danny Ford is my personal plague.

I pull off Highway 101 and onto the road that runs past a small airport, Sanderson Field. A sign points to the Olympic Grand Prix racetrack. I wonder how many inmates have fantasized about escape plans that involved either of those venues.

It’s 4:00 p.m. Visitation starts at 4:15 and lasts until 7:15. I wonder how long I’ll be able to sit there with him. He’s in an isolation unit, and our visit will be through a glass partition. None of the precautions are designed to protect me or any other visitor. Cops in prison are extremely vulnerable. They eat alone. Peruse the library without the distraction of another human being. They exercise alone. Racquetball, I’m told, is a favorite sport for those incarcerated solo. Danny wrote me a few times after he was locked up, but I didn’t answer. The letters were pleading, full of regret and promises that he’d make things right. I threw them away.

One line, however, stayed with me.

I did what I did because I love you, Nicole.

Ruining someone’s life. Such an act of love.

I queue up in a line of cars coming into the correctional institution. The minivan behind me is full of kids coming to spend time with their father, I guess. The voice on a speaker by the parking lot directs me where to park and what door to enter. I’m the only car that peels off to the left. Where I’m going, there are no tables to play cards or snacks to share from a vending machine.

The Alder isolation unit is an iceberg floating in the middle of the sea. It is for the most violent offenders. And, that rarity among all those incarcerated, the police officer. Danny Ford is like the last passenger pigeon at the Cincinnati Zoo that I wrote about in a high school paper.

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