Three
Deputy Sandra Dean drove the squad car, with Lydia Alvarez in the front seat next to her. I was in the back with Sylvie Brubaker Smith who was handcuffed to the back of the driver’s seat. I was glad for that. I didn’t want to worry about a paranoid schizophrenic going off on me.
Sylvie whistled or hummed under her breath while we raced down SR14 toward Carson, heading east, sirens blaring, following Sheriff Gunderson. The tall Douglas firs were a blur on either side, but the Columbia River—which I could see beyond the trees on my right—seemed calm, as usual, green even though the sky was blue today. The Big River was more lake than river, at least here, pinned in by dam after dam. Less than a hundred years ago, I had been told, the river ran so thick with salmon you could run acros
