R Is for Ricochet

than to serve their separate bids in this area, which has the California Youth Authority, the California Institution for Men, and the California Institution for Women all within shooting range of one another. The land was flat and dusty, interrupted by power lines and water towers, parcels separated by low barbed-wire fences. A thin line of trees appeared at intervals, but it was hard to see the point. They provided no shade and only the sparsest screening from the cars speeding by. The houses had flat roofs and looked shabby, with dilapidated outbuildings. There were thick, knobby trees, whose amputated branches were, if not dead, devoid of foliage. As is true of most raw acreage in California, housing developments were taking root like a slew of weeds.
    By 8:30 I found myself sitting in my car in the parking lot adjacent to the Processing Center at the California Institution for Women. For years, the CIW was known as Frontera, the feminine derivative of the word frontier. The 120-acre campus (as they referred to it back then) opened in 1952, and until this year, 1987, it was the only facility in California housing female felons. I'd already been inside the building where I showed the officer my photo ID and told him I was there to pick up Reba Lafferty, whose CDC number was, by an amusing coincidence, the same as my birthdate. The officer checked his roster, found her name, and then called Receiving and Release.
    He'd suggested that I wait in the parking lot, so I'd hoofed it back to my VW. So far, the community of Corona seemed a bit grim for my taste. A trail of yellow smog hung on the horizon like something a crop-dusting plane might have left in its wake. The mid-July heat was as thick as soured milk and smelled of feedlots. A buffeting wind was blowing and there were flies everywhere. My T-shirt was sticking to my back and I could feel a sheen of moisture on my face – the sort of clamminess that wakes you from a dead sleep when you've just come down with the flu.
    The view through the ten-foot chain-link fences was an improvement. I could see green lawns, walkways, and hibiscus plants with showy red and yellow blossoms. Most of the buildings were dun-colored and built close to the ground. Female inmates strolled the yards in groups of two and three. I knew from reading I'd done that construction had just been completed on a 110-bed Special Housing Unit. Total staff was 500, give or take a few, while the prison population varied between 900 and 1,200. Whites were in the majority, with ages bunched in the thirty-to-forty range. The prison provided both academic and vocational programs, including computer programming. Prison industries, largely textiles, produced shirts, shorts, smocks, aprons, handkerchiefs, bandannas, and fire-fighting clothing. Frontera also served as a hub for the selection and training of firefighters, who would be assigned work in the forty-some conservation camps across the state.
    For the umpteenth time, I looked at the snapshot of Reba Lafferty taken before her legal ills and her felony quarantine. If she'd abused alcohol and drugs, the excess didn't show. Restlessly, I returned the photo to my shoulder bag and fiddled with the tuner on the radio. The morning news was the usual disheartening mixture of murder, political shenanigans, and dire economic predictions. By the time the news anchor cut to the station break, I was ready to cut my own throat.
    At 9:00 A.M. I glanced up and caught sight of activity near the vehicle sally port. The gates had been rolled back and an outbound sheriffs department van now idled while the driver presented his paperwork to the sally port officer. The two of them exchanged pleasantries. I got out of my car. The van pulled through the gate, made a wide right-hand turn, and then slowed to a stop. I could see a number of women onboard, parolees headed for the real world, their faces turned to the window like a row of plants seeking light. The doors to the van hissed open and closed, and then the vehicle moved off.
    Reba Lafferty stood on the pavement in prison-issue tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a plain white T-shirt without benefit of a brassiere. All inmates are obliged to surrender their personal clothing on arrival at the prison, but I was surprised her father hadn't sent her something of her own to wear home. I knew she'd been compelled to purchase the outfit she wore since the articles were considered government property. She'd apparently declined the