Chapter 5: Shelton

The state corrections center at Shelton stood in a wet green valley behind three fences.

I had not been in a prison before.

I sat in the passenger seat of Niko's car with the heater on my feet and looked at the wire.

"You can say no," Niko said.

"You have said no to everything else."

"I'm here."

"You are here," he agreed.

He parked.

He turned off the engine and sat with his hands on the wheel.

He had not said a word since the freeway, and I had counted the silence by the mile markers.

"What does he know about me?" I said.

"That you wrote the report.

"That your name is on it.

"He asked me once if you had a kind face."

I waited.

"What did you say?" I said.

"I said I had never seen it."

I looked at him.

He did not look away.

It was the first time I had seen him look like a man who had been caught at something.

The visiting room had a long counter and a pane of glass and a row of stools bolted to the floor.

A guard walked me down the row.

I sat with my back to the wall, which was not allowed, and then the guard saw my face and let me.

Niko stood against the cinderblock behind me.

He stood where I could see him, to my right, with his shoulder to the wall.

The door at the far side of the glass opened.

A thin young man in tan walked in.

He had dark curly hair cropped short and hazel eyes and Niko's mouth, but his mouth was quick and his mouth smiled.

"You're taller than your handwriting," Davor Matkovic said.

He sat down on the other side of the glass and picked up the phone.

I picked up mine.

"That's the first thing you say to me?" I said.