Trace Of Doubt. Erica Orloff

means lots of white-outs, snow and fog blowing in off the water. It’s desolate and despairing. And in the midst of this harsh landscape, the stone prison rises, forbidding, like an evil queen’s torturous snow palace.

      In contrast, during the summer, the area around Dannemora is green and lush. But it’s still isolated. No one else lives in Clinton, New York, except the prison guards, workers and their families. I mean, others do, but the town mostly exists for the support of Little Siberia.

      I’ve spent much of my life visiting relatives in prison, including my grandfather. Each penitentiary has its own atmosphere and variations on the rules. My father and Mikey usually served at minimum-security facilities. I had uncles who served in Dannemora, Sing-Sing and Auburn. One of my more troubled cousins even got involved in a major drug-trafficking scheme and is serving in the escape-proof federal facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. He’ll be there a long time, thanks to minimum-sentencing guidelines. He’s gone practically mad from the lack of human contact there—his behavior’s earned him time in a lockdown section where no natural light ever makes its way in.

      Prison has sounds like no other place. An echoing roar of male voices, almost like a buzzing hive of killer bees. Bars clanging, buzzers sounding, shouts, screams, catcalls, whistles, televisions blaring. If you watch carefully, you can see men communicating with hand signals. Gang signs flash. When I arrived at Dannemora, I waited to be processed, identified as one of Marcus Hopkins’s defense-team members. Eventually I was shown to a meeting room where Marcus and I could talk.