In Cold Blood
Truman Capote
I. The Last to See Them Alive
The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome
area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado
border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere
that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie
twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier
trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the
views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators
rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.
Holcomb, too, can be seen from great distances. Not that there's much to see simply an aimless congregation of buildings divided in the center by the main-line
tracks of the Santa Fe Rail-road, a haphazard hamlet bounded on the south by a brown
stretch of the Arkansas (pronounced "Ar-kan-sas") River, on the north by a highway,
Route 50, and on the east and west by prairie lands and wheat fields. After rain, or when
snowfalls thaw, the streets, unnamed, unshaded, unpaved, turn from the thickest dust
into the direst mud. At one end of the town stands a stark old stucco structure, the roof
of which supports an electric sign - dance - but the dancing has ceased and the
advertisement has been dark for several years. Nearby is another building with an
irrelevant sign, this one in flaking gold on a dirty window - Holcomb bank. The bank
closed in 1933, and its former counting rooms have been converted into apartments. It is
one of the town's two "apartment houses," the second being a ramshackle mansion
known, because a good part of the local school's faculty lives there, as the Teacherage.
But the majority of Holcomb's homes are one-story frame affairs, with front porches.
Down by the depot, the postmistress, a gaunt woman who wears a rawhide
jacket and denims and cowboy boots, presides over a falling-apart post office. The
depot itself, with its peeling sulphur-colored paint, is equally melancholy; the Chief, the
Super-Chief, the El Capitan go by every day, but these celebrated expresses never pause
there. No passenger trains do - only an occasional freight. Up on the highway, there are
two filling stations, one of which doubles as a meagerly supplied grocery store, while
the other does extra duty as a cafe - Hartman's Cafe, where Mrs. Hartman, the
proprietress, dispenses sandwiches, coffee, soft drinks, and 3 .2 beer. (Holcomb, like all
the rest of Kansas, is "dry.")
And that, really, is all. Unless you include, as one must, the Holcomb School, a
good-looking establishment, which reveals a circumstance that the appearance of the
community otherwise camouflages: that the parents who send their children to this
modern and ably staffed "consolidated" school - the grades go from kindergarten
through senior high, and a fleet of buses transport the students, of which there are
usually around three hundred and sixty, from as far as sixteen miles away - are, in
general, a prosperous people. Farm ranchers, most of them, they are outdoor folk of
very varied stock - German, Irish, Norwegian, Mexican, Japanese. They raise cattle and
sheep, grow wheat, milo, grass seed, and sugar beets. Farming is always a chancy
business, but in west-era Kansas its practitioners consider themselves "born gamblers,"
for they must contend with an extremely shallow precipitation (the annual average is
eighteen inches) and anguishing irrigation problems. However, the last seven years have
been years of droughtless beneficence. The farm ranchers in Finney County, of which
Holcomb is a part, have done well; money has been made not from farming alone but
also from the exploitation of plentiful natural-gas resources, and its acquisition is
reflected in the new school, the comfortable interiors of the farmhouses, the steep and
swollen grain elevators.
Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few American - in fact, few
Kansans - had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on
the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in
the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there. The inhabitants of the
village, numbering two hundred and seventy, were satisfied that this should be so, quite
content to exist inside ordinary life - to work, to hunt, to watch television, to attend
school socials, choir practice, meetings of the 4-H Club. But then, in the earliest hours
of that morning in November, a Sunday morning, certain foreign sounds impinged on
the normal nightly Holcomb noises - on the keening hysteria of coyotes, the dry scrape
of scuttling tumbleweed, the racing, receding wail of locomotive whistles. At the time
not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them - four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six
human lives. But afterward the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each
other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy recreating them over and
again - those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which
many old neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers.
The master of River Valley Farm, Herbert William Clutter, was forty-eight years old,
and as result of a recent medical examination for an insurance policy, knew himself to
be in first-rate condition. Though he wore rimless glasses and was of but average height,
standing just under five feet ten, Mr. Clutter cut a man's-man figure. His shoulders were
broad, his hair had held its dark color, his square-jawed, confident face retained a
healthy-hued youthfulness, and his teeth, unstained and strong enough to shatter
walnuts, were still intact. He weighed a hundred and fifty-four - the same as he had the
day he graduated from Kansas State University, where he had majored in agriculture.
He was not as rich as the richest man in Holcomb - Mr. Taylor Jones, a neighboring
rancher. He was, however, the community's most widely known citizen, prominent both
there and in Garden City, the close-by county seat, where he hardheaded the building
committee for the newly completed First Methodist Church, an eight-hundred-thousanddollar edifice. He was currently chairman of the Kansas Conference of Farm
Organizations, and his name was everywhere respectfully recognized among
Midwestern agriculturists, as it was in certain Washington offices, where he had been a
member of the Federal Farm Credit Board during the Eisenhower administration.
Always certain of what he wanted from the world, Mr. Clutter had in large
measure obtained it. On his left hand, on what remained of a finger once mangled by a
piece of farm machinery, he wore a plain gold band, which was the symbol, a quartercentury old, of his marriage to the person he had wished to marry - the sister of a
college classmate, a timid, pious, delicate girl named Bonnie Fox, who was three years
younger than he. She had given him four children - a trio of daughters, then a son. The
eldest daughter, Eve Anna, married and the mother of a boy ten months old, lived in
northern Illinois but visited Holcomb frequently. Indeed, she and her family were
expected within the fortnight, former parents planned a sizable Thanksgiving reunion of
the Clutter clan (which had its beginnings in Germany; the first immigrant Clutter - or
Klotter, as the name was then spelled - arrived here in 1880); fifty-odd kinfolk had been
asked, several of whom would be traveling from places as far away as Palatka, Florida.
Nor did Beverly, the child next in age to Eve Anna, any longer reside at River Valley
Farm; she was in Kansas Qty, Kansas, studying to be a nurse. Beverly was engaged to a
young biology student, of whom her father very much approved; invitations to the
wedding, scheduled for Christmas week, were already printed. Which left, still living at
home, the boy, Kenyon, who at fifteen was taller than Mr. Clutter, and one sister, a year
older - the town darling, Nancy. In regard to his family, Mr. Clutter had just one serious
cause for disquiet - his wife's health. She was "nervous," she suffered "little spells" such were the sheltering expressions used by those close to her. Not that the truth
concerning "poor Bonnie's afflictions" was in the least a secret; everyone knew she had
been an on-and-off psychiatric patient the last half-dozen years. Yet even upon this
shadowed terrain sunlight had very lately sparkled. The past Wednesday, returning from
two weeks of treatment at the Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, her customary place
of retirement, Mrs. Clutter had brought scarcely credible tidings to tell her husband;
with joy she informed him that the source of her misery, so medical opinion had at last
decreed, was not in her head but in her spine - it was physical, a matter of misplaced
vertebrae. Of course, she must undergo an operation, and afterward - well, she would be
her "old self" again. Was it possible - the tension, the withdrawals, the pillow-muted
sobbing behind locked doors, all due to an out-of-order backbone? If so, then Mr.
Clutter could, when addressing his Thanksgiving table, recite a blessing of unmarred
gratitude.
Ordinarily, Mr. Clutter's mornings began at six-thirty; clanging milk pails and
the whispery chatter of the boys who brought them, two sons of a hired man named Vie
Irsik, usually roused him. But today he lingered, let Vie Irsik's sons come and leave, for
the previous evening, a Friday the thirteenth, had been a tiring one, though in part
exhilarating. Bonnie had resurrected her "old self"; as if serving up a preview of the
normality, the regained vigor, soon to be, she had rouged her lips, fussed with her hair,
and, wearing a new dress, accompanied him to the Holcomb School, where they
applauded a student production of Tom Sawyer, in which Nancy played Becky
Thatcher. He had enjoyed it, seeing Bonnie out in public, nervous but nonetheless
smiling, talking to people, and they both had been proud of Nancy; she had done so
well, remembering all her lines, and looking, as he had said to her in the course of
backstage congratulations, "Just beautiful, honey - a real Southern belle." Whereupon
Nancy had behaved like one; curtsying in her hoop-skirted costume, she had asked if
she might drive into Garden City. The State Theatre was having a special, eleven-thirty,
Friday-the-thirteenth "Spook Show," and all her friends were going. In other
circumstances Mr. Clutter would have refused. His laws were laws, and one of them
was: Nancy - and Kenyon, too - must be home by ten on week nights, by twelve on
Saturdays. But weakened by the genial events of the evening, he had consented. And
Nancy had not returned home until almost two. He had heard her come in, and had
called to her, for though he was not a man ever really to raise his voice, he had some
plain things to say to her, statements that concerned less the lateness of the hour than the
youngster who had driven her home - a school basketball hero, Bobby Rupp.
Mr. Clutter liked Bobby, and considered him, for a boy his age, which was
seventeen, most dependable and gentlemanly; however, in the three years she had been
permitted "dates," Nancy, popular and pretty as she was, had never gone out with
anyone else, and while Mr. Clutter understood that it was the present national
adolescent custom to form couples, to "go steady" and wear "engagement rings," he
disapproved, particularly since he had not long ago, by accident, surprised his daughter
and the Rupp boy kissing. He had then suggested that Nancy discontinue "seeing so
much of Bobby," advising her that a slow retreat now would hurt less than an abrupt
severance later - for, as he reminded her, it was a parting that must eventually take
place. The Rupp family were Roman Catholics, the Clutters, Methodist - a fact that
should in itself be sufficient to terminate whatever fancies she and this boy might have
of some day marrying. Nancy had been reasonable - at any rate, she had not argued and now, before saying good night, Mr. Clutter secured from her a promise to begin a
gradual breaking off with Bobby.
Still, the incident had lamentably put off his retiring time, which was ordinarily
eleven o'clock. As a consequence, it was well after seven when he awakened on
Saturday, November 14, 1959. His wife always slept as late as possible. However, while
Mr. Clutter was shaving, showering, and outfitting himself in whipcord trousers, a
cattleman's leather jacket, and soft stirrup boots, he had no fear of disturbing her; they
did not share the same bedroom. For several years he had slept alone in the master
bedroom, on the ground floor of the house - a two-story, fourteen room, frame-andbrick structure. Though Mrs. Clutter Stored her clothes in the closets of this room, and
kept her few cosmetics and her myriad medicines in the blue-tile-and-glass-brick
bathroom adjoining it, she had taken for serious occupancy Eveanna's former bedroom,
which, like Nancy's and Kenyon's rooms, was on the second floor.
The house - for the most part designed by Mr. Clutter, who thereby proved
himself a sensible and sedate, if not notably decorative, architect - had been built in
1048 for forty thousand dollars. (The resale value was now sixty thousand dollars.)
Situated at the end of a long, lane like driveway shaded by rows of Chinese elms, the
handsome white house, standing on an ample lawn of groomed Bermuda grass,
impressed Holcomb; it was a place people pointed out. As for the interior, there were
spongy displays of liver-colored carpet intermittently abolishing the glare of varnished,
resounding floors; an immense modernistic living-room couch covered in nubby fabric
interwoven with glittery strands of silver metal; a breakfast alcove featuring a banquette
upholstered in blue-and-white plastic. This sort of furnishing was what Mr. and Mrs.
Clutter liked, as did the majority of their acquaintances, whose homes, by and large,
were similarly furnished.
Other than a housekeeper who came in on weekdays, the Clutters employed no
household help, so since his wife's illness and the departure of the elder daughters, Mr.
Clutter had of necessity learned to cook; either he or Nancy, but principally Nancy,
prepared the family meals. Mr. Clutter enjoyed the chore, and was excellent at it - no
woman in Kansas baked a better loaf of salt-rising bread, and his celebrated coconut
cookies were the first item to go at charity cake sales - but he was not a hearty eater;
unlike his fellow ranchers, he even preferred Spartan breakfasts.
That morning an apple and a glass of milk were enough for him; because he
touched neither coffee or tea, he was accustomed to begin the day on a cold stomach.
The truth was he opposed all stimulants, however gentle. He did not smoke, and of
course he did not drink; indeed, he had never tasted spirits, and was inclined to avoid
people who had - a circumstance that did not shrink his social circle as much as might
be supposed, for the center of that circle was supplied by the members of Garden City's
First Methodist Church, a congregation totaling seventeen hundred, most of whom were
as abstemious as Mr. Clutter could desire. While he was careful to avoid making a
nuisance of his views, to adopt outside his realm an externally un-censoring manner, he
enforced them within his family and among the employees at River Valley Farm. "Are
you a drinking man?" was the first question he asked a job applicant, and even though
the fellow gave a negative answer, he still must sign a work contract containing a clause
that declared the agreement instantly void if the employee should be discovered
"harboring alcohol." A friend - an old pioneer rancher, Mr. Lynn Russell - had once told
him, "You've got no mercy. I swear, Herb, if you caught a hired man drinking, out he'd
go. And you wouldn't care if his family was starving." It was perhaps the only criticism
ever made of Mr. Clutter as an employer. Otherwise, he was known for his equanimity,
his charitableness, and the fact that he paid good wages and distributed frequent
bonuses; the men who worked for him - and there were sometimes as many as eighteen
- had small reason to complain.
After drinking the glass of milk and putting on a fleece-lined cap, Mr. Clutter
carried his apple with him when he went out-doors to examine the morning. It was ideal
apple-eating weather; the whitest sunlight descended from the purest sky, and an
easterly wind rustled, without ripping loose, the last of the leaves on the Chinese elms.
Autumns reward western Kansas for the evils that the remaining seasons impose:
winter's rough Colorado winds and hip-high, sheep-slaughtering snows; the slushes and
the strange land fogs of spring; and summer, when even crows seek the puny shade, and
the tawny infinitude of wheat stalks bristle, blaze. At last, after September, another
weather arrives, an Indian summer that occasionally endures until Christmas. As Mr.
Clutter contemplated this superior specimen of the season, he was joined by a part-collie
mongrel, and together they ambled off toward the livestock corral, which was adjacent
to one of three barns on the premises.
One of these barns was a mammoth Quonset hut; it brimmed with grain Westland sorghum - and one of them housed a dark, pungent hill of milo grain worth
considerable money - a hundred thousand dollars. That figure alone represented an
almost four-thousand-percent advance over Mr. Clutter's entire income in 1934 - the
year he married Bonnie Fox and moved with her from their home town of Rozel,
Kansas, to Garden City, where he had found work as an assistant to the Finney County
agricultural agent. Typically, it took him just seven months to be promoted; that is, to
install himself in the head man's job. The years during which he held the post - 1935 to
1939 - encompassed the dustiest, the down-and-outest the region had known since white
men settled there, and young Herb Clutter, having, as he did, a brain expertly racing
with the newest in streamlined agricultural practices, was quite qualified to serve as
middleman between the government and the despondent farm ranchers; these men could
well use the optimism and the educated instruction of a likable young fellow who
seemed to know his business. All the same, he was not doing what he wanted to do; the
son of a farmer, he had from the beginning aimed at operating a property of his own.
Facing up to it, he resigned as county agent after four years and, on land leased with
borrowed money, created, in embryo, River Valley Farm (a name justified by the
Arkansas River's meandering presence but not, certainly, by any evidence of valley). It
was an endeavor that several Finny County conservatives watched with show-us
amusement - old-timers who had been fond of baiting the youthful county agent on the
subject of his university notions: "That's fine, Herb. You always know what's best to do
on the other fellow's land. Plant this. Terrace that. But you might say a slight different if
the place was your own." They were mistaken; the upstart's experiments succeeded partly because, in the beginning years, he labored eighteen hours a day. Setbacks
occurred - twice the wheat crop failed, and one winter he lost several hundred head of
sheep in a blizzard; but after a decade Mr. Clutter's do-main consisted of over eight
hundred acres owned outright and three thousand more worked on a rental basis - and
that, as his colleagues admitted, was "a pretty good spread." Wheat, Milo seed, certified
grass seed - these were the crops the farm's prosperity depended upon. Animals were
also important - sheep, and especially cattle. A herd of several hundred Hereford bore
the Clutter brand, though one would not have suspected it from the scant contents of the
livestock corral, which was reserved for ailing steers, a few milking cows, Nancy's cats,
and Babe, the family favorite - an old fat workhorse who never objected to lumbering
about with three and four children astride her broad back.
Mr. Clutter now fed Babe the core of his apple, calling good morning to a man
raking debris inside the corral - Alfred Stoecklein, the sole resident employee. The
Stoeckleins and their three children lived in a house not a hundred yards from the main
house; except for them, the Clutters had no neighbors within half a mile. A long-faced
man with long brown teeth, Stoecklein asked, "Have you some particular work in mind
today? Cause we got a sick-un. The baby. Me and Missis been up and down with her
most the night I been thinking to carry her to doctor." And Mr. Clutter, expressing
sympathy, said by all means to take the morning off, and if there was any way he or his
wife could help, please let them know. Then, with the dog running ahead of him, he
moved southward toward the fields, lion-colored now, luminously golden with afterharvest stubble.
The river lay in this direction; near its bank stood a grove of fruit trees - peach,
pear, cherry, and apple. Fifty years ago, according to native memory, it would have
taken a lumberjack ten minutes to axe all the trees in western Kansas. Even today, only
cottonwoods and Chinese elms - perennials with a cactus like in-difference to thirst - are
commonly planted. However, as Mr. Clutter often remarked, "an inch more of rain and
this country would be paradise - Eden on earth." The little collection of fruit-bearers
growing by the river was his attempt to contrive, rain or no, a patch of the paradise, the
green, apple-scented Eden, he envisioned. His wife once said, "My husband cares more
for the trees than he does for his children," and everyone in Holcomb recalled the day a
small disabled plane crashed into the peach trees: "Herb was fit to be tied! Why, the
propeller hadn't stopped turning before he'd slapped a lawsuit on the pilot."
Passing through the orchard, Mr. Clutter proceeded along beside the river, which
was shallow here and strewn with islands - midstream beaches of soft sand, to which, on
Sundays gone by, hot-weather Sabbaths when Bonnie had still "felt up to things," picnic
baskets had been carted, family afternoons whiled away, waiting for a twitch at the end
of a fishline. Mr. Clutter seldom encountered trespassers on his property; a mile and a
half from the highway, and arrived at by obscure roads, it was not a place that strangers
came upon by chance. Now, suddenly a whole party of them appeared, and Teddy, the
dog, rushed forward tearing out a challenge. But it was odd about Teddy. Though he
was a good sentry, alert, ever ready to raise Cain, his valor had one flaw: let him
glimpse a gun, as he did now - for the intruders were armed - and his head dropped, his
tail turned in. No one understood why, for no one knew his history, other than that he
was a vagabond Kenyon had adopted years ago. The visitors proved to be five pheasant
hunters from Oklahoma. The pheasant season in, Kansas, a famed November event,
lures hordes of sportsmen from adjoining states, and during the past week plaid-hatted
regiments had paraded across the autumnal expanses, flushing and felling with rounds
of birdshot great coppery flights of the grain-fattened birds. By custom, the hunters, if
they are not invited guests, are supposed to pay the landowner a fee for letting them
pursue their quarry on his premises, but when the Oklahomans offered to hire hunting
rights, Mr. Clutter was amused. "I'm not as poor as I look. Go ahead, get all you can,"
he said. Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day's work,
unaware that it would be his last.
Like Mr. Clutter, the young man breakfasting in a cafe called the Little Jewel never
drank coffee. He preferred root beer. Three aspirin, cold root beer, and a chain of Pall
Mall cigarettes - that was his notion of a proper "chow-down." Sipping and smoking, he
studied a map spread on the counter before him - a Phillips 66 map of Mexico - but it
was difficult to concentrate, for he was expecting a friend, and the friend was late. He
looked out a window at the silent small-town street, a street he had never seen until
yesterday. Still no sign of Dick. But he was sure to show up; after all, the purpose of
their meeting was Dick's idea, his "score." And when it was settled - Mexico. The map
was ragged, so thumbed that it had grown as supple as a piece of chamois. Around the
corner, in his room at the hotel where he was staying, were hundreds more like it - worn
maps of every state in the Union, every Canadian province, every South American
country - for the young man was an incessant conceiver of voyages, not a few of which
he had actually taken: to Alaska, to Hawaii and Japan, to Hong Kong. Now, thanks to a
letter, an invitation to a "score," here he was with all his worldly belongings: one
cardboard suitcase, a guitar, and two big boxes of books and maps and songs, poems
and old letters, weighing a quarter of a ton. (Dick's face when he saw those boxes!
"Christ, Perry. You carry that junk everywhere?" And Perry had said, "What junk? One
of them books cost me thirty bucks.") Here he was in little Olathe, Kansas. Kind of
funny, if you thought about it; imagine being back in Kansas, when only four months
ago he had sworn, first to the State Parole Board, then to himself, that he would never
set foot within its boundaries again. Well, it wasn't for long.
Ink-circled names populated the map. Cozumel, an island off the coast of
Yucatan, where, so he had read in a men's magazine, you could "shed your clothes, put
on a relaxed grin, live like a Rajah, and have all the women you want for $50-a-month!"
From the same article he had memorized other appealing statements: "Cozumel is a
hold-out against social, economic, and political pressure. No official pushes any private
person around on this island," and "Every year flights of parrots come over from the
mainland to lay their eggs." Acapulco connoted deep-sea fishing, casinos, anxious rich
women; and sierra madre meant gold, meant Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a movie he
had seen eight times. (It was Bogart's best picture, but the old guy who played the
prospector, the one who reminded Perry of his father, was terrific, too. Walter Huston.
Yes, and what he had told Dick was true: He did know the ins and outs of hunting gold,
having been taught them by his father, who was a professional prospector. So why
shouldn't they, the two of them, buy a pair of pack horses and try their luck in the Sierra
Madre? But Dick, the practical Dick, had said, "Whoa, honey, whoa. I seen that show.
Ends up Everybody nuts. On account of fever and bloodsuckers, mean conditions all
around. Then, when they got the gold - remember, big wind came along and blew it all
away?") Perry folded the map. He paid for the root beer and stood up. Sitting, he had
seemed a more than normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms,
the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter, weight lifting was, in fact, his hobby. But
some sections of him were not in proportion to others. His tiny feet, encased in short
black boots with steel buckles, would have neatly fitted into a delicate lady's dancing
slippers; when he stood up, he was no taller than a twelve-year-old child, and suddenly
looked, strutting on stunted legs that seemed grotesquely inadequate to the grown-up
bulk they supported, not like a well-built truck driver but like a retired jockey,
overblown and muscle-bound, outside the drugstore, Perry stationed himself in the sun.
It was a quarter to nine, and Dick was a half hour late; however, if Dick had not
hammered home the every-minute importance of the next twenty-four hours, he would
not have noticed it. Time rarely weighed upon him, for he had many methods of passing
it - among them, mirror gazing. Dick had once observed, "Every time you see a mirror
you go into a trance, like. Like you was looking at some gorgeous piece of butt. I mean,
my God, don't you ever get tired?" Far from it; his own face enthralled him. Each angle
of it induced a different impression. It was a change-face, and mirror-guided
experiments had taught him how to ring the changes, how to look now ominous, now
impish, now soulful; a tilt of the head, a twist of the lips, and the corrupt gypsy became
the gentle romantic. His mother had been a full-blooded Cherokee; it was from her that
he had inherited his coloring - the iodine skin, the dark, moist eyes, the black hair,
which he kept brilliantined and was plentiful enough to provide him with sideburns and
a slippery spray of bangs. His mother's donation was apparent; that of his father, a
freckled, ginger-haired Irishman, was less so. It was as though the Indian blood had
routed every trace of the Celtic strain. Still, pink lips and a perky nose confirmed its
presence, as did a quality of roguish animation, of uppity Irish egotism, which often
activated the Cherokee mask and took control completely when he played the guitar and
sang. Singing, and the thought of doing so in front of an audience, was another
mesmeric way of whittling hours. He always used the same mental scenery - a night
club in Las Vegas, which happened to be his home town. It was an elegant room filled
with celebrities excitedly focused on the sensational new star rendering his famous,
backed-by-violins version of "I'll Be Seeing You" and encoring with his latest selfcomposed ballad: Every April flights of parrots Fly overhead, red and green, Green and
tangerine.
I see them fly, I hear them high,
Singing parrots bringing April spring...
(Dick, on first hearing this song, had commented, "Parrots don't sing. Talk,
maybe. Holler. But they sure as hell don't sing." Of course, Dick was very literalminded, very - he had no understanding of music, poetry - and yet when you got right
down toot, Dick's literalness, his pragmatic approach to every subject, was the primary
reason Perry had been attracted to him, for it made Dick seem, compared to himself, so
authentically tough, invulnerable, "totally masculine.")
Nevertheless, pleasant as this Las Vegas reverie was, it paled beside another of
his visions. Since childhood, for more than half his thirty-one years, he had been
sending off for literature ("fortunes in diving! Train at Home in Your Spare Time. Make
Big Money Fast in Skin and Lung Diving. free booklets...") answering advertisements
("sunken treasure! Fifty Genuine Maps! Amazing Offer...") that stoked a longing to
realize an adventure his imagination swiftly and over and over enabled him to
experience: the dream of drifting downward through strange waters, of plunging toward
a green sea-dusk, sliding past the scaly, savage-eyed protectors of a ship's hulk that
loomed ahead, a Spanish galleon - a drowned cargo of diamonds and pearls, heaping
caskets of gold. A car horn honked. At last - Dick.
"Good grief, Kenyon! I hear you."
As usual, the devil was in Kenyon. His shouts kept coming up the stairs:
"Nancy! Telephone!"
Barefoot, pajama-clad, Nancy scampered down the stairs. There were two
telephones in the house - one in the room her father used as an office, another in the
kitchen. She picked up the kitchen extension: "Hello? Oh, yes, good morning, Mrs.
Katz."
And Mrs. Clarence Katz, the wife of a farmer who lived on the highway, said, "I
told your daddy not to wake you up. I said Nancy must be tired after all that wonderful
acting she did last night. You were lovely, dear. Those white ribbons in your hair! And
that part when you thought Tom Sawyer was dead - you had real tears in your eyes.
Good as anything on TV. But your daddy said it was time you got up; well, it is going
on for nine. Now, what I wanted, dear - my little girl, my little Jolene, she's just dying to
bake a cherry pie, and seeing how you're a champion' cherry-pie maker, always winning
prizes, I wondered could I bring her over there this morning and you show her?"
Normally, Nancy would willingly have taught Jolene to prepare an entire turkey
dinner; she felt it her duty to be available when younger girls came to her wanting help
with their cooking, their sewing, or their music lessons - or, as often happened, to
confide. Where she found the time, and still managed to practically run that big house"
and be a straight-A student, the president of her class, a leader in the 4-H program and
the Young Methodists League, a skilled rider, an excellent musician (piano, clarinet), an
annual winner at the county fair (pastry, preserves, needlework, flower arrangement) how a girl not yet seventeen could haul such a wagonload, and do so without "brag,"
with, rather, merely a radiant jauntiness, was an enigma the community pondered, and
solved by saying, "She's got character. Gets it from her old man." Certainly her
strongest trait, the talent that gave support to all the others, derived from her father: a
fine-honed sense of organization. Each moment was assigned; she knew precisely, at
any hour, what she would be doing, how long it would require. And that was the trouble
with today: she had overscheduled it. She had committed herself to helping another
neighbor's child, Roxie Lee Smith, with a trumpet solo that Roxie Lee planned to play at
a school concert; had promised to run three complicated errands for her mother; and had
arranged to attend a 4-H meeting in Garden City with her father. And then there was
lunch to make and, after lunch, work to be done on the bridesmaids' dresses for
Beverly's wedding, which she had designed and was sewing herself. As matters stood,
there was no room for Jolene's cherry-pie lesson. Unless something could be canceled.
"Mrs. Katz? Will you hold the line a moment, please?" She walked the length of
the house to her father's office. The office, which had an outside entrance for ordinary
visitors, was separated from the parlor by a sliding door; though Mr. Clutter
occasionally shared the office with Gerald Van Vleet, a young man who assisted him
with the management of the farm, it was fundamentally his retreat - an orderly
sanctuary, paneled in walnut veneer, where, surrounded by weather barometers, rain
charts, a pair of binoculars, he sat like a captain in his cabin, a navigator piloting River
Valley's sometimes risky passage through the seasons.
"Never mind," he said, responding to Nancy's problem, "Skip 4-H. I'll take
Kenyon instead."
And so, lifting the office phone, Nancy told Mrs. Katz yes, fine, bring Jolene
right on over. But she hung up with a frown. "It's peculiar," she said as she looked
around the room and saw in it her father helping Kenyon add a column of figures, and,
at his desk by the window, Mr. Van Vleet, who had a kind of brooding, tugged good
looks that led her to call him Heathcliff behind hit back. "But I keep smelling cigarette
smoke."
"On your breath?" inquired Kenyon.
"No, funny one. Yours." That quieted him, for Kenyon, as he knew she knew,
did once in a while sneak a puff - but, then, so did Nancy. Mr. Clutter clapped his
hands. "That's all. This is an office." Now, upstairs, she changed into faded Levis and a
green sweater, and fastened round her wrist her third most valued belonging, a gold
watch; her closest cat friend, Evinrude, ranked above it, and surmounting even Evinrude
was Bobby's signet ring, cumbersome proof of her "going-steady" status, which she
wore (when she wore it; the least flare-up and off it came) on a thumb, for even with the
use of adhesive tape its man-size girth could not, be made to fit a more suitable finger.
Nancy was a pretty girl, lean and boyishly agile, and the prettiest things about her were
her short-bobbed, shining chestnut hair (brushed a hundred strokes each morning, the
same number at night) and her soap-polished complexion, still faintly freckled and rose-
brown from last summer's sun. But it was her eyes, wide apart, darkly translucent, like
ale held to the light, that made her immediately likable, that at once announced her lack
of suspicion, her considered and yet so easily triggered kindliness. "Nancy!" Kenyon
called. "Susan on the phone."
Susan Kidwell, her confidante. Again she answered in the kitchen.
"Tell," said Susan, who invariably launched a telephone session this command.
"And, to begin, tell why you were flirting with Jerry Roth." Like Bobby, Jerry Roth was
a school basket-ball star.
"Last night? Good grief, I wasn't flirting. You mean because we were holding
hands? He just came backstage during the show. And I was so nervous. So he held my
hand. To give me courage."
"Very sweet. Then what?"
"Bobby took me to the spook movie. And we held hands."
"Was it scary? Not Bobby. The movie."
"He didn't think so; he just laughed. But you know me. Boo! - and I fall off the
seat."
"What are you eating?"
"Nothing."
"I know - your fingernails," said Susan, guessing correctly. Much as Nancy
tried, she could not break the habit of nibbling her nails, and, whenever she was
troubled, chewing them right to the quick. "Tell. Something wrong?"
"No."
"Nancy. Cest moi..." Susan was studying French. "Well - Daddy. He's been in an
awful mood the last three weeks. Awful. At least, around me. And when I got home last
night he started that again."
"That needed no amplification; it was a subject that the two friends had
discussed completely, and upon which they agreed. Susan, summarizing the problem
from Nancy's viewpoint, had once said, "You love Bobby now, and you need him. But
deep down even Bobby knows there isn't any future in it. Later on, when we go off to
Manhattan, everything will seem a new world." Kansas State University is in
Manhattan, and the two girls planned to enroll there as art students, and to room
together. "Everything will change, whether you want it to or not. But you can't change it
now, living here in Holcomb, seeing Bobby everyday, sitting in the same classes - and
there's no reason to. Because you and Bobby are a very happy thing. And it will be
something happy to think back about - if you're left alone. Can't you make your father
understand that?" No, she could not. "Because," as he explained it to Susan, "whenever
I start to say something, he looks at me as though I must not love him. Or as though I
loved him less. And suddenly I'm tongue-tied; I just want to be his daughter and do as
he wishes." To this Susan had no reply it embodied emotions, a relationship, beyond her
experience. She lived alone with her mother, who taught music at the Holcomb School,
and she did not remember her own father very clearly, for years ago, in their native
California, Mr. Kidwell had one day left home and not come back.
"And, anyway," Nancy continued now, "I'm not sure it's me. That's making him
grouchy. Something else - he's really worried about something."
"Your mother?"
No other friend of Nancy's would have presumed to make such suggestion.
Susan, however, was privileged. When she had first appeared in Holcomb, a
melancholy, imaginative child, willowy, wan and sensitive, then eight, a year younger
than Nancy, the Clutters had so ardently adopted her that the fatherless little girl
California soon came to seem a member of the family. For years the two friends had
been inseparable, each, by virtue the rarity of similar and equal sensibilities,
irreplaceable to the other. But then, this past September, Susan had transferred from
local school to the vaster, supposedly superior one in Garden City. It was the usual
procedure for Holcomb students who intended going on to college, but Mr. Clutter, a
die-hard community booster, considered such defections an affront to community spirit;
the Holcomb School was good enough for his children, and there they would remain.
Thus, the girls were no longer always together, and Nancy deeply felt the daytime
absence of her friend, the one person with whom she need be neither brave nor reticent.
"Well. But we're all so happy about Mother - you heard the wonderful news."
Then Nancy said, "Listen," and hesitated, as if summoning nerve to make an outrageous
remark. "Why do I smelling smoke? Honestly, I think I'm losing my mind. I get into the
car, I walk into a room, and it's as though somebody had just been there, smoking a
cigarette. It isn't Mother, it can't be Kenyon. Kenyon wouldn't dare..."Nor, very likely,
would any visitor to the Clutter home, which was pointedly devoid of ashtrays. Slowly,
Susan grasped the implication, but it was ludicrous. Regardless of what his private
anxieties might be, she could not believe that Mr. Clutter was finding secret solace in
tobacco. Before she could ask if this was really what Nancy meant, Nancy cut her off:
"Sorry, Susie. I've got to go. Mrs. Katz is here."
Dick was driving a black 1949 Chevrolet sedan. As Perry got in, he checked the back
seat to see if his guitar was safely there; the previous night, after playing for a party of
Dick's friends, he had forgotten and left it in the car. It was an old Gibson guitar,
sandpapered and waxed to a honey-yellow finish. Another sort of instrument lay beside
it - a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun, brand-new, blue-barreled, and with a
sportsman's scene of pheasants in flight etched along the stock. A flashlight, a fishing
knife, a pair of leather gloves, and a hunting vest fully packed with shells contributed
further atmosphere to this curious still life.
"You wearing that?" Perry asked, indicating the vest.
Dick rapped his knuckles against the windshield. "Knock, knock. Excuse me,
sir. We've been out hunting and lost our way. If we could use the phone..."
"Si, senor. Yo comprendo"
"A cinch," said Dick. "I promise you, honey, we'll blast hair all over them
walls."
" 'Those' walls," said Perry. A dictionary buff, a devotee of obscure words, he
had been intent on improving his companion's grammar and expanding his vocabulary
ever since they had celled together at Kansas State Penitentiary. Far from resenting
these lessons, the pupil, to please his tutor, once composed a sheaf of poems, and
though the verses were very obscene, Perry, who thought them nevertheless hilarious,
had had the manuscript leather-bound in a prison shop and its title, Dirty Jokes, stamped
in gold.
Dick was wearing a blue jumper suit; lettering stitched across the back of it
advertised Bob Sands' Body Shop. He and Perry drove along the main street of Olathe
until they arrived at the Bob Sands establishment, an auto-repair garage, where Dick
had been employed since his release from the penitentiary in mid-August. A capable
mechanic, he earned sixty dollars a week. He deserved no salary for the work he
planned to do this morning, but Mr. Sands, who left him in charge on Saturdays, would
never know he had paid his hireling to overhaul his own car. With Perry assisting him,
he went to work. They changed the oil, adjusted the clutch, recharged the battery,
replaced a throw-outbearing, and put new tires on the rear wheels - all necessary
undertakings, for between today and tomorrow the aged Chevrolet was expected to
perform punishing feats.
"Because the old man was around," said Dick, answering Perry, who wanted to
know why he had been late in meeting him at the Little Jewel. "I didn't want him to see
me taking the gun out of the house. Christ, then he would have knowed I wasn't telling
the truth."
" 'Known.' But what did you say? Finally?"
"Like we said. I said we'd be gone overnight - said we was going to visit your
sister in Fort Scott. On account of she was holding money for you. Fifteen hundred
dollars." Perry had a sister, and had once had two, but the surviving one did not live in
Fort Scott, a Kansas town eighty-five miles from Olathe; in fact, he was uncertain of her
present address.
"And was he sore?"
"Why should he be sore?"
"Because he hates me," said Perry, whose voice was both gentle and prim - a
voice that, though soft, manufactured each word exactly, ejected it like a smoke ring
issuing from a parson's mouth. "So does your mother. I could see - the ineffable way
they looked at me. "Dick shrugged. "Nothing to do with you. As such. It's just they don't
like me seeing anybody from The Walls." Twice married, twice divorced, now twentyeight and the father of three boys, Dick had received his parole on the condition that he
reside with his parents; the family, which included a younger brother, lived on a small
farm near Olathe. "Anybody wearing the fraternity pin," he added, and touched a blue
dot tattooed under his left eye - an insigne, a visible password, by which certain former
prison inmates could identify him.
"I understand," said Perry. "I sympathize with that. They're good people. She's a
real sweet person, your mother."
Dick nodded; he thought so, too.
At noon they put down their tools, and Dick, racing the engine, listening to the
consistent hum, was satisfied that a thorough job had been done.
Nancy and her protegee, Jolene Katz, were also satisfied with their morning's work;
indeed, the latter, a thin thirteen-year-old, was agog with pride. For the longest while
she stared at the blue-ribbon winner, the oven-hot cherries simmering under the crisp
lattice crust, and then she was overcome, and hugging Nancy, asked, "Honest, did I
really make it myself?" Nancy laughed, returned the embrace, and assured her that she
had - with a little help.
Jolene urged that they sample the pie at once - no nonsense about leaving it to
cool. "Please, let's both have a piece. And you, too," she said to Mrs. Clutter, who had
come into the kitchen. Mrs. Clutter smiled - attempted to; her head ached - and said
thank you, but she hadn't the appetite. As for Nancy, she hadn't the time; Roxie Lee
Smith, and Roxie Lee's trumpet solo, awaited her, and afterward those errands for her
mother, one of which concerned a bridal shower that some Garden City girls were
organizing for Beverly, and another the Thanksgiving gala.
"You go, dear, I'll keep Jolene company until her mother comes for her," Mrs.
Clutter said, and then, addressing the child with unconquerable timidity, added, "If
Jolene doesn't mind keeping me company." As a girl she had won an elocution prize;
maturity, it seemed, had reduced her voice to a single tone, that of topology, and her
personality to a series of gestures blurred by the fear that she might give offense, in
some way displease. "I hope you understand," she continued after her daughter's
departure. "I hope you won't think Nancy rude?"
"Goodness, no. I just love her to death. Well, everybody does. There isn't
anybody like Nancy. Do you know what Mrs. Stringer says?" said Jolene, naming her
home-economics teacher.
"One day she told the class, 'Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, yet she always
has time. And that's one definition of a lady.' "
"Yes," replied Mrs. Clutter. "All my children are very efficient. They don't need
me." Jolene had never before been alone with Nancy's "strange" mother, but despite
discussions she had heard, she felt much at ease, for Mrs. Clutter, though unrelaxed
herself, had a relaxing quality, as is generally true of defenseless persons who present
no threat; even in Jolene, a very childlike child, Mrs. Clutter's heart-shaped,
missionary's face, her look of helpless, homespun ethereality aroused protective
compassion. But to think that she was Nancy's mother! An aunt - that seemed possible;
a visiting spinster aunt, slightly odd, but nice.
"No, they don't need me," she repeated, pouring herself a cup of coffee. Though
all the other members of the family observed her husband's boycott of this beverage, she
drank two cups every morning and often as not ate nothing else the rest of the day. She
weighed ninety-eight pounds; rings - a wedding band and one set with a diamond
modest to the point of meekness - wobbled on one of her bony hands.
Jolene cut a piece of pie. "Boy!" she said, wolfing it down. "I'm going to make
one of these every day seven days a week."
"Well, you have all those little brothers, and boys can eat a lot of pie. Mr. Clutter
and Kenyon, I know they never get tired of them. But the cook does - Nancy just turns
up her nose. It'll be the same with you. No, no - why do I say that?" Mrs. Clutter, who
wore rimless glasses, removed them and pressed her eyes. "Forgive me, dear. I'm sure
you'll never know what it is to be tired. I'm sure you'll always be happy..."
Jolene was silent. The note of panic in Mrs. Clutter's voice had caused her to
have a shift of feeling; Jolene was confused, and wished that her mother, who had
promised to call back for her at eleven, would come.
Presently, more calmly, Mrs. Clutter asked, "Do you like miniature things? Tiny
things?" and invited Jolene into the dining room to inspect the shelves of a whatnot on
which were arranged assorted Lilliputian gewgaws - scissors, thimbles, crystal flower
baskets, toy figurines, forks and knives. "I've had some of these since I was a child.
Daddy and Mama - all of us - spent part of most years in California. By the ocean. And
there was a shop that sold such precious little things. These cups." A set of doll-house
teacups, anchored to a diminutive tray, trembled in the palm of her hand. "Daddy gave
them to me; I had a lovely childhood."
The only daughter of a prosperous wheat grower named Fox, the adored sister of
three older brothers, she had not been spoiled but spared, led to suppose that life was a
sequence of agreeable events - Kansas autumns, California summers, a round of teacup
gifts. When she was eighteen, inflamed by a biography of Florence Nightingale, she
enrolled as a student nurse at St. Rose's Hospital in Great Bend, Kansas. She was not
meant to be a nurse, and after two years she confessed it: a hospital's realities - scenes,
odors - sickened her. Yet to this day she regretted not having completed the course and
received her diploma - "just to prove, "as she had told a friend, "that I once succeeded at
something. "Instead, she had met and married Herb, a college classmate of her oldest
brother, Glenn; actually, since the two families lived within twenty miles of each other,
she had long known him by sight, but the Clutters, plain farm people, were not on
visiting terms with the well-to-do and cultivated Foxes. However, Herb was handsome,
he was pious, he was strong-willed, he wanted her - and she was in love.
"Mr. Clutter travels a great deal," she said to Jolene. "Oh, he's always headed
somewhere. Washington and Chicago and Oklahoma and Kansas City - sometimes it
seems like he's never home. But wherever he goes, he remembers how I dote on tiny
things." She unfolded a little paper fan. "He brought me this from San Francisco. It only
cost a penny. But isn't it pretty?"
The second year of the marriage, Eveanna was born, and three years later,
Beverly; after each confinement the young mother had experienced an inexplicable
despondency - seizures of grief that sent her wandering from room to room in a hands
wringing daze. Between the births of Beverly and Nancy, three more years elapsed, and
these were the years of the Sunday picnics and of summer excursions to Colorado, the
years when she really ran her own home and was the happy center of it. But with Nancy
and then with Kenyon, the pattern of postnatal depression repeated itself, and following
the birth of her son, the mood of misery that descended never altogether lifted; it
lingered like a cloud that might rain or might not. She knew "good days," and
occasionally they accumulated into weeks, months, but even on the best of the good
days, those days when she was otherwise her "old self," the affectionate and charming
Bonnie her friends cherished, she could not summon the social vitality her husband's
pyramiding activities required. He was a "joiner," a "born leader"; she was not and
stopped attempting to be. And so, along paths bordered by tender regard, by total
fidelity, they began to go their semi-separate ways - his a public route, a march of
satisfying conquests, and hers a private one that eventually wound through hospital
corridors. But she was not without hope. Trust in God sustained her, and from time to
time secular sources supplemented her faith in His forthcoming mercy; she read of a
miracle medicine, heard of a new therapy, or, as most recently, decided to believe that a
"pinched nerve" was to blame.
"Little things really belong to you," she said, folding the fan. "They don't have to
be left behind. You can carry them in shoebox."
"Carry them where to?"
"Why, wherever you go. You might be gone for a long time."
Some years earlier Mrs. Clutter had traveled to Wichita for two weeks of
treatment and remained two months. On the advice of a doctor, who had thought the
experience would aid her to regain "a sense of adequacy and usefulness," she had taken
an apartment, then found a job - as a file clerk at the Y. W. C. A. Her husband, entirely
sympathetic, had encouraged the adventure, but she had liked it too well, so much that it
seemed to her unchristian, and the sense of guilt she in consequence developed
ultimately outweighed the experiment's therapeutic value.
"Or you might never go home. And - it's important always to have with you
something of your own. That's really yours."
The doorbell rang. It was Jolene's mother.
Mrs. Clutter said, "Goodbye, dear," and pressed into Jolene's hand the paper fan.
"It's only a penny thing - but it's pretty."
Afterward Mrs. Clutter was alone in the house. Kenyon and Mr. Clutter had
gone to Garden City; Gerald Van Vleet had left for the day; and the housekeeper, the
blessed Mrs. Helm to whom she could confide anything, did not come to work on
Saturdays. She might as well go back to bed - the bed she so rarely abandoned that poor
Mrs. Helm had to battle for the chance to change its linen twice a week.
There were four bedrooms on the second floor, and hers was the last at the end
of a spacious hall, which was bare except for a baby crib that had been bought for the
visits of her grandson. If cots were brought in and the hall was used as a dormitory, Mrs.
Clutter estimated, the house could accommodate twenty guests during the Thanksgiving
holidays; the others would have to lodge at motels or with neighbors. Among the Clutter
kinfolk the Thanksgiving get-together was an annual, turnabout to-do, and this year
Herb was the appointed host, so it had to be done, but coinciding, as it did, with the
preparations for Beverly's wedding, Mrs. Clutter despaired of surviving either project.
Both involved the necessity of making decisions - a process she had always disliked,
and had learned to dread, for when her husband was off on one of his business journeys
she was continually expected, in his absence, to supply snap judgments concerning the
affairs of the farm, and it was unendurable, a torment. What if she made a mistake?
What if Herb should be displeased? Better to lock the bedroom door and pretend not to
hear, or say, as she sometimes did, "I can't. I don't know. Please."
The room she so seldom left was austere; had the bed been made, a visitor might
have thought it permanently unoccupied. An oak bed, a walnut bureau, a bedside table nothing else except lamps, one curtained window, and a picture of Jesus walking on the
water. It was as though by keeping this room impersonal, by not importing her intimate
belongings but leaving them mingled with those of her husband, she lessened the
offense of not sharing his quarters. The only used drawer in the bureau contained a jar
of Vick's Vaporub, Kleenex, an electric heating pad, a number of white nightgowns, and
white cotton socks. She always wore a pair of these socks to bed, for she was always
cold. And, for the same reason, she habitually kept her windows closed. Summer before
last, on a sweltering August Sunday, when she was secluded here, a difficult incident
had taken place. There were guests that day, a party of friends who had been invited to
the farm to pick mulberries, and among them was Wilma Kidwell, Susan's mother. Like
most of the people who were often entertained by the Clutters, Mrs. Kidwell accepted
the absence of the hostess without comment, and assumed, as was the custom, that she
was either "indisposed" or "away in Wichita." In any event, when the hour came to go
to the fruit orchard, Mrs. Kidwell declined; a city-bred woman, easily fatigued, she
wished to remain indoors. Later, while she was awaiting the return of the mulberry
pickers, she heard the sound of weeping, heartbroken, heartbreaking. "Bonnie?" she
called, and ran up the stairs, ran down the hall to Bonnie's room. When she opened it,
the heat gathered inside the room was like a sudden, awful hand over her mouth; she
hurried to open a window. "Don't!" Bonnie cried. "I'm not hot. I'm cold. I'm freezing.
Lord, Lord, Lord!" She flailed her arms. "Please, Lord, don't let anybody see me this
way." Mrs. Kidwell sat down on the bed; she wanted to hold Bonnie in her arms, and
eventually Bonnie let herself be held. "Wilma," she said, "I've been listening to you,
Wilma. All of you. Laughing. Having a good time. I'm missing out on everything. The
best years, the children - everything. A little while, and even Kenyon will be grown up a man.
And how will he remember me? As a kind of ghost, Wilma." Now, on this final
day of her life, Mrs. Clutter hung in the closet the calico housedress she had been
wearing, and put on one of her trailing nightgowns and a fresh set of white socks. Then,
before retiring, she exchanged her ordinary glasses for a pair of reading spectacles.
Though she subscribed to several periodicals (the Ladies' Home Journal, McCalls,
Reader's Digest, and Together: Midmonth Magazine for Methodist Families'), none of
these rested on the bedside table - only a Bible. A bookmark lay between its pages, a
stiff piece of watered silk upon which an admonition had been embroidered: "Take ye
heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is."
The two young men had little in common, but they did not realize it, for they shared a
number of surface traits. Both, for example, were fastidious, very attentive to hygiene
and the condition of their fingernails. After their grease-monkey morning, they spent the
better part of an hour sprucing up in the lavatory of the garage. Dick stripped to his
briefs was not quite the same as Dick fully clothed. In the latter state, he seemed a
flimsy dingy-blond youth of medium height, fleshless and perhaps sunken-chested;
disrobing revealed that he was nothing of the sort, but, rather, an athlete constructed on
a welterweight scale. The tattooed face of a cat, blue and grinning, covered his right
hand; on one shoulder a blue rose blossomed. More markings, self-designed and selfexecuted, ornamented his arms and torso: the head of a dragon with a human skull
between its open jaws; bosomy nudes; a gremlin brandishing a pitchfork; the word
peace accompanied by a cross radiating, in the form of crude strokes, rays of holy light;
and two sentimental concoctions- one a bouquet of flowers dedicated to mother-dad, the
other a heart that celebrated the romance of Dick and Carol, whom he had married when
he was nineteen, and from whom he had separated six years later in order to "do the
right thing" by another young lady, the mother of his youngest child. ("I have three boys
who I will definitely take care of," he had written in applying for parole. "My wife is
remarried. I have been married twice, only I don't want anything to do with my second
wife. ") But neither Dick's physique nor the inky gallery adorning it made as remarkable
an impression as his face, which seemed composed of mismatching parts. It was as
though his head had been halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off center.
Something of the kind had happened; the imperfectly aligned features were the outcome
of a car collision in 1950 - an accident that left his long-jawed and narrow face tilted,
the left side rather lower than the right, with the results that the lips were slightly aslant,
the nose askew, and his eyes not only situated at uneven levels but of uneven size, the
left eye being truly serpentine, with venomous, sickly-blue squint that although it was
involuntarily acquired, seemed nevertheless to warn of bitter sediment at the bottom of
his nature. But Perry had told him, "The eye doesn't matter. Because you have a
wonderful smile. One of those smiles really work. " It was true that the tightening action
of a smile contracted his face into its correct proportions, and made it possible to discern
a less unnerving personality - an American-style "good kid" with an outgrown crew cut,
sane enough but not too bright. (Actually, he was very intelligent. An I. Q. test taken in
prison gave him a rating of 130; the average subject, in prison or out, scores between 90
and 110.)
Perry, too, had been maimed, and his injuries, received in a motorcycle wreck,
were severer than Dick's; he had spent half a year in a State of Washington hospital and
another six months on crutches, and though the accident had occurred in 1952, his
chunky, dwarfish legs, broken in five places and pitifully scarred, still pained him so
severely that he had become an aspirin addict. While he had fewer tattoos than his
companion, they were more elaborate - not the self-inflicted work of an amateur but
epics of art contrived by Honolulu and Yokohama masters. Cookie, the name of a nurse
who had been friendly to him when he was hospitalized, was tattooed on his right
biceps. Blue-furred, orange-eyed, red-fanged, a tiger snarled upon his left biceps; a
spitting snake, coiled around a dagger, slithered down his arm; and elsewhere skulls
gleamed, a tombstone loomed, a chrysanthemum flourished.
"O. K., beauty. Put away the comb," said Dick, dressed now and ready to go.
Having discarded his work uniform, he wore gray khakis, a matching shirt, and, like
Perry, ankle-high black boots. Perry, who could never find trousers to fit his truncated
lower half, wore blue jeans rolled up at the bottom and a leather windbreaker. Scrubbed,
combed, as tidy as two dudes setting off on a double date, they went out to the car.
The distance between Olathe, a suburb of Kansas City, and Holcomb, which might be
called a suburb of Garden City, is approximately four hundred miles.
A town of eleven thousand, Garden City began assembling its founders soon
after the Civil War. An itinerant buffalo hunter, Mr. C. J. (Buffalo) Jones, had much to
do with its subsequent expansion from a collection of huts and hitching posts into an
opulent ranching center with razzle-dazzle saloons, an opera house, and the plushiest
hotel anywhere between Kansas City and Denver - in brief, a specimen of frontier
fanciness that rivaled a more famous settlement fifty miles east of it, Dodge City. Along
with Buffalo Jones, who lost his money and then his mind (the last years of his life were
spent haranguing street groups against the wanton extermination of the beasts he
himself had so profitably slaughtered), the glamours of the past are today entombed.
Some souvenirs exist; a moderately colorful row of commercial buildings is known as
the Buffalo Block, and the once splendid Windsor Hotel, with its still splendid highceilinged saloon and its atmosphere of spittoons and potted palms, endures amid the
variety stores and supermarkets as a Main Street landmark - one comparatively unpatronized, for the Windsor's dark, huge chambers and echoing hallways, evocative as
they are, cannot compete with the air-conditioned amenities offered at the trim little
Hotel Warren, or with the Wheat Lands Motel's individual television sets and "Heated
Swimming Pool."
Anyone who has made the coast-to-coast journey across America, whether by
train or by car, has probably passed through Garden City, but it is reasonable to assume
that few travelers remember the event. It seems just another fair-sized town in the
middle - almost the exact middle - of the continental United States. Not that the
inhabitants would tolerate such an opinion - perhaps rightly. Though they may overstate
the case ("Look all over the world, and you won't find friendlier people or fresher air or
sweeter drinking water," and "I could go to Denver at triple the salary, but I've got five
kids, and I figure there's no better place to raise kids than right here. Swell schools with
every kind of sport. We even have a junior college," and "I came out here to practice
law. A temporary thing, I never planned to stay. But when the chance came to move, I
thought, Why go? What the hell for? Maybe it's not New York - but who wants New
York? Good neighbors, people who care about each other, that's what counts. And
everything else a decent man needs - we've got that, too. Beautiful churches. A golf
course"), the newcomer to Garden City, once he has adjusted to the nightly after eight
silence of Main Street, discovers much to support the defensive boastings of the
citizenry: a well run public library, a competent daily newspaper, green-lawned and
shady squares here and there, placid residential streets where animals and children are
safe to run free, a big, rambling park complete with a small menagerie ("See the Polar
Bears!"
"See Penny the Elephant!"), and a swimming pool that consumes several acres
("World's Largest FREE Swim-pool!"). Such accessories, and the dust and the winds
and the ever calling train whistles, add up to a "home town" that is probably
remembered with nostalgia by those who have left it, and that for those who have
remained, provides a sense of roots and contentment.
Without exception, Garden Citians deny that the population of the town can be
socially graded ("No, sir. Nothing like that here. All equal, regardless of wealth, color,
or creed. Everything the way it ought to be in a democracy; that's us"), but, of course,
class distinctions are as clearly observed, and as clearly observable, as in any other
human hive. A hundred miles west and one would be out of the "Bible Belt," that
gospel-haunted strip of American territory in which a man must, if only for business
reasons, take his religion with the straightest of faces, but in Finney County one is still
within the Bible Belt borders, and therefore a person's church affiliation is the most
important factor influencing his class status. A combination of Baptists, Methodists, and
Roman Catholics would account for eighty percent of the county's devout, yet among
the elite - the businessmen, bankers, lawyers, physicians, and more prominent ranchers
who tenant the top drawer - Presbyterians and Episcopalians predominate. An
occasional Methodist is welcomed, and once in a while a Democrat infiltrates, but on
the whole the Establishment is composed of right-wing Republicans of the Presbyterian
and Episcopalian faiths.
As an educated man successful in his profession, as an eminent Republican and
church leader - even though of the Methodist church - Mr. Clutter was entitled to rank
among the local patricians, but just as he had never joined the Garden City Country
Club, he had never sought to associate with the reigning coterie. Quite the contrary, for
their pleasures were not his; he had no use for card games, golf, cocktails, or buffet
suppers served at ten - or, indeed, for any pastime that he felt did not "accomplish
something." Which is why, instead of being part of a golfing foursome on this shining
Saturday, Mr. Clutter was acting as chairman of a meeting of the Finney County 4-H
Club. (4-H stands for "Head, Heart, Hands, Health," and the club motto claims "We
learn to do by doing." It is a national organization, with overseas branches, whose
purpose is to help those living in rural areas - and the children particularly - develop
practical abilities and moral character. Nancy and Kenyon had been conscientious
members from the age of six.) Toward the end of the meeting, Mr. Clutter said, "Now I
have something to say concerning one of our adult members." His eyes singled out a
chubby Japanese woman surrounded by four chubby Japanese children. "You all know
Mrs. Hulco Ashida. Know how the Ashidas moved here from Colorado - started
farming out to Holcomb two years ago. A fine family, the kind of people Holcomb's
lucky to have. As anyone will tell you. Anyone who has been sick and had Mrs. Ashida
walk nobody can calculate how many miles to bring them some of the wonderful soups
she makes. Or the flowers she grows where you wouldn't expect a flower could grow.
And last year at the county fair you will recall how much she contributed to the success
of the 4-H exhibits. So I want to suggest we honor Mrs. Ashida with an award at our
Achievement Banquet next Tuesday."
Her children tugged at her, punched her; the oldest boy shouted, "Hey, Ma, that's
you!" But Mrs. Ashida was bashful; she rubbed her eyes with her baby-plump hands
and laughed. She was the wife of a tenant farmer; the farm, an especially wind-swept
and lonesome one, was halfway between Garden City and Holcomb. After 4-H
conferences, Mr. Clutter usually drove the Ashidas home, and he did so today.
"Gosh, that was a jolt," said Mrs. Ashida as they rolled along Route 50 in Mr.
Clutter's pickup truck. "Seems like I'm always thanking you, Herb. But thanks." She had
met him on her second day in Finney County; it was the day before Halloween, and he
and Kenyon had come to call, bringing a load of pumpkins and squash. All through that
first hard year, gifts had arrived, of produce that the Ashidas had not yet planted baskets of asparagus, lettuce. And Nancy often brought Babe by for the children to ride.
"You know, in most ways, this is the best place we've ever lived. Hideo says the same.
We sure hate to think about leaving. Starting all over again."
"Leaving?" protested Mr. Clutter, and slowed the car.
"Well, Herb. The farm here, the people we're working for - Hideo thinks we
could do better. Maybe in Nebraska. But nothing's settled. It's just talk so far." Her
hearty voice, always on the verge of laughter, made the melancholy news sound
somehow cheerful, but seeing that she had saddened Mr. Clutter, she turned to other
matters. "Herb, give me a man's opinion," she said. "Me and the kids, we've been saving
up, we want to give Hideo something on the grand side for Christmas. What he needs is
teeth. Now, if your wife was to give you three gold teeth, would that strike you as a
wrong kind of present? I mean, asking a man to spend Christmas in the dentist's chair?"
"You beat all. Don't ever try to get away from here. We'll hogtie you," said Mr.
Clutter. "Yes, yes, by all means gold teeth. Was me, I'd be tickled."
His reaction delighted Mrs. Ashida, for she knew he would not approve her plan
unless he meant it; he was a gentleman. She had never known him to "act the Squire,"
or to take advantage or break a promise. She ventured to obtain a promise now. "Look,
Herb. At the banquet - no speeches, huh? Not for me. You, you're different. The way
you can stand up and talk to hundreds of people. Thousands. And be so easy - convince
anybody about whatever. Just nothing scares you," she said, commenting upon a
generally recognized quality of Mr. Clutter's: a fearless self-assurance that set him apart,
and while it created respect, also limited the affections of others a little. "I can't imagine
you afraid. No matter what happened, you'd talk your way out of it."
By midafternoon the black Chevrolet had reached Emporia, Kansas - a large town,
almost a city, and a safe place, so the occupants of the car had decided, to do a bit of
shopping. They parked on a side street, then wandered about until a suitably crowded
variety store presented itself.
The first purchase was a pair of rubber gloves; these were for Perry, who, unlike
Dick, had neglected to bring old gloves of his own.
They moved on to a counter displaying women's hosiery, a spell of indecisive
quibbling, Perry said, "I'm for it."
Dick was not. "What about my eye? They're all too light colored to hide that."
"Miss," said Perry, attracting a salesgirl's attention. "You got any black
stockings?" When she told him no, he proposed that they try another store. "Black's
foolproof."
But Dick had made up his mind: stockings of any shade were unnecessary, an
encumbrance, a useless expense ("I've already invested enough money in this
operation"), and, after all, anyone they encountered would not live to bear witness. "No
witnesses," he reminded Perry, for what seemed to Perry the millionth time. It rankled
in him, the way Dick mouthed those two words, as though they solved every problem; it
was stupid not to admit that there might be a witness they hadn't seen. "The ineffable
happens, things do take a turn," he said. But Dick, smiling boastfully, boyishly, did not
agree: "Get the bubbles out of your blood. Nothing can go wrong." No. Because the
plan was Dick's, and from first footfall to final silence, flawlessly devised.
Next they were interested in rope. Perry studied the stock, tested it. Having once
served in the Merchant Marine, he understood rope and was clever with knots. He chose
a white nylon cord, as strong as wire and not much thicker. They discussed how many
yards of it they required. The question irritated Dick, for it was part of a greater
quandary, and he could not, despite the alleged perfection of his over-all design, be
certain of the answer. Eventually, he said, "Christ, how the hell should I know?"
"You damn well better."
Dick tried. "There's him. Her. The kid and the girl. And maybe the other two.
But it's Saturday. They might have guests. Let's count on eight, or even twelve. The
only sure thing is everyone of them has got to go."
"Seems like a lot of it. To be so sure about."
"Ain't that what I promised you, honey - plenty of hair on them-those walls?"
Perry shrugged. "Then we'd better buy the whole roll."
It was a hundred yards long - quite enough for twelve.
Kenyon had built the chest himself: a mahogany hope chest, lined with cedar, which he
intended to give Beverly as a wedding present. Now, working on it in the so-called den
in the basement, he applied a last coat of varnish. The furniture of the den, a cementfloored room that ran the length of the house, consisted almost entirely of examples of
his carpentry (shelves, tables, stools, a ping-pong table) and Nancy's needlework (chintz
slip covers that rejuvenated a decrepit couch, curtains, pillows bearing legends: happy?
and You don't have to be crazy to live here but it helps). Together, Kenyon and Nancy
had made a paint-splattered attempt to deprive the basement room of its un-removable
dourness, and neither was aware of failure. In fact, they both thought their den a triumph
and a blessing - Nancy because it was a place where she could entertain "the gang"
without disturbing her mother, and Kenyon because here he could be alone, free to
bang, saw, and mess with his "inventions," the newest of which was an electric deepdish frying pan. Adjoining the den was a furnace room, which contained a tool-littered
table piled with some of his other works-in-progress - an amplifying unit, an elderly
wind-up Victrola that he was restoring to service.
Kenyon resembled neither of his parents physically; his crew-cut hair was hempcolored, and he was six feet tall and lanky, though hefty enough to have once rescued a
pair of full-grown sheep by carrying them two miles through a blizzard - sturdy, strong,
but cursed with a lanky boy's lack of muscular co-ordination. This defect, aggravated by
an inability to function without glasses, prevented him from taking more than a token
part in those team sports (basketball, baseball) that were the main occupation of most of
the boys who might have been his friends. He had only one close friend - Bob Jones, the
son of Taylor Jones, whose ranch was a mile west of the Clutter home. Out in rural
Kansas, boys start driving cars very young; Kenyon was eleven when his father allowed
him to buy, with money he had earned raising sheep, an old truck with a Model A
engine - the Coyote Wagon, he and Bob called it. Not far from River Valley Farm there
is a mysterious stretch of countryside known as the Sand Hills; it is like a beach without
an ocean, and at night coyotes slink among the dunes, assembling in hordes to howl. On
moonlit evenings the boys would descend upon them, set them running, and try to
outrace them in the wagon; they seldom did, for the scrawniest coyote can hit fifty miles
an hour, whereas the wagon's top speed was thirty-five, but it was a wild and beautiful
kind of fun, the wagon skidding across the sand, the fleeing coyotes framed against the
moon - as Bob said, it sure made your heart hurry.
Equally intoxicating, and more profitable, were the rabbit roundups the two boys
conducted: Kenyon was a good shot and his friend a better one, and between them they
sometimes delivered half a hundred rabbits to the "rabbit factory" - a Garden City
processing plant that paid ten cents a head for the animals, which were then quickfrozen and shipped to mink growers. But what meant most to Kenyon - and Bob, too was their weekend, overnight hunting hikes along the shores of the river: wandering,
wrapping up in blankets, listening at sunrise for the noise of wings, moving toward the
sound on tiptoe, and then, sweetest of all, swaggering homeward with a dozen duck
dinners swinging on their belts. But lately things had changed between Kenyon and his
friend. They had not quarreled, there had been no over falling-out, nothing had
happened except that Bob, who was sixteen, had started "going with a girl," which
meant that Kenyon, a year younger and still very much the adolescent bachelor, could
no longer count on his companionship. Bob told him, "When you're my age, you'll feel
different. I used to think the same as you: Women - so what? But then you get to talking
to some woman, and it's mighty nice. You'll see." Kenyon doubted it; he could not
conceive of ever wanting to waste an hour on any girl that might be spent with guns,
horses, tools, machinery, even a book. If Bob was unavailable, then he would rather be
alone, for in temperament he was not in the least Mr. Clutter's son but rather Bonnie's
child, a sensitive and reticent boy. His contemporaries thought him "stand-offish," yet
forgave him, saying, "Oh, Kenyon. It's just that he lives in a world of his own."
Leaving the varnish to dry, he went on to another chore - one that took him outof-doors. He wanted to tidy up his mother's flower garden, a treasured patch of
disheveled foliage that grew beneath her bedroom window. When he got there, he found
one of the hired men loosening earth with a spade - Paul Helm, the husband of the
housekeeper.
"Seen that car?" Mr. Helm asked.
Yes, Kenyon had seen a car in the driveway - a gray Buick, standing outside the
entrance to his father's office.
"Thought you might know who it was."
"Not unless it's Mr. Johnson. Dad said he was expecting him."
Mr. Helm (the late Mr. Helm; he died of a stroke the following March) was a
somber man in his late fifties whose withdrawn manner veiled a nature keenly curious
and watchful; he liked to know what was going on. "Which Johnson?"
"The insurance fellow."
Mr. Helm grunted. "Your dad must be laying in a stack of it. That car's been here
I'd say three hours."
The chill of oncoming dusk shivered through the air, and though the sky was
still deep blue, lengthening shadows emanated from the garden's tall chrysanthemum
stalks; Nancy's cat frolicked among them, catching its paws in the twine with which
Kenyon and the old man were now tying plants. Suddenly, Nancy herself came jogging
across the fields aboard fat Babe - Babe, returning from her Saturday treat, a bathe in
the river. Teddy, the dog, accompanied them, and all three were water-splashed and
shining.
"You'll catch cold," Mr. Helm said.
Nancy laughed; she had never been ill - not once. Sliding off Babe, she sprawled
on the grass at the edge of the garden and seized her cat, dangled him above her, and
kissed his nose and whiskers.
Kenyon was disgusted. "Kissing animals on the mouth."
"You used to kiss Skeeter," she reminded him.
"Skeeter was a horse" A beautiful horse, a strawberry stallion he had raised from
a foal. How that Skeeter could take a fence! "You use a horse too hard," his father had
cautioned him. "One day you'll ride the life out of Skeeter." And he had; while Skeeter
was streaking down a road with his master astride him, his heart failed, and he stumbled
and was dead. Now, a year later, Kenyon still mourned him, even though his father,
taking pity on him, had promised him the pick of next spring's foals.
"Kenyon?" Nancy said. "Do you think Tracy will be able to talk? By
Thanksgiving?" Tracy, not yet a year old, was her nephew, the son of Eveanna, the
sister to whom she felt particularly close. (Beverly was Kenyon's favorite.) "It would
thrill me to pieces to hear him say 'Aunt Nancy.' Or 'Uncle Kenyon. 'Wouldn't you like
to hear him say that? I mean, don't you love being an uncle? Kenyon? Good grief, why
can't you ever answer me?"
"Because you're silly," he said, tossing her the head of a flower, a wilted dahlia,
which she jammed into her hair.
Mr. Helm picked up his spade. Crows cawed, sundown was near, but his home
was not; the lane of Chinese elms had turned into a tunnel of darkening green, and he
lived at the end of it, half a mile away. "Evening," he said, and started his journey. But
once he looked back. "And that," he was to testify the next day, "was the last I seen
them. Nancy leading old Babe off to the barn. Like I said, nothing out of the ordinary."
The black Chevrolet was again parked, this time in front of a Catholic hospital on the
outskirts of Emporia. Under continued needling ("That's your trouble. You think there's
only one right way - Dick's way"), Dick had surrendered. While Perry waited in the car,
he had gone into the hospital to try and buy a pair of black stockings from a nun. This
rather unorthodox method of obtaining them had been Perry's inspiration; nuns, he had
argued, were certain to have a supply.
The notion presented one drawback, of course: nuns, and anything pertaining to
them, were bad luck, and Perry was most respectful of his superstitions. (Some others
were the number 15, red hair, white flowers, priests crossing a road, snakes appearing in
a dream.) Still, it couldn't be helped. The compulsively superstitious person is also very
often a serious believer in fate; that was the case with Perry. He was here, and embarked
on the present errand, not because he wished to be but because fate had arranged the
matter; he could prove it - though he had no intention of doing so, at least within Dick's
hearing, for the proof would involve his confessing the true and secret motive behind
his return to Kansas, a piece of parole violation he had decided upon for a reason quite
unrelated to Dick's "score" or Dick's summoning letter. The reason was that several
weeks earlier he had learned that on Thursday, November 12, another of his former
cellmates was being released from Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing, and "more than
anything in the world," he desired a reunion with this man, his "real and only friend,"
the "brilliant" Willie-Jay.
During the first of his three years in prison, Perry had observed Willie-Jay from
a distance, with interest but with apprehension; if one wished to be thought a tough
specimen, intimacy with Willie-Jay seemed unwise. He was the chaplain's clerk, a
slender Irishman with prematurely gray hair and gray, melancholy eyes. His tenor voice
was the glory of the prison's choir. Even Perry, though he was contemptuous of any
exhibition of piety, felt "upset" when he heard Willie-Jay sing "The Lord's Prayer"; the
hymn's grave language sung in so credulous a spirit moved him, made him wonder a
little at the justice of his contempt. Eventually, prodded by a slightly alerted religious
curiosity, he approached Willie-Jay, and the chaplain's clerk, at once responsive,
thought he divined in the cripple-legged body builder with the misty gaze and the prim,
smoky voice "a poet, something rare and savable." An ambition to "bring this boy to
God" engulfed him. His hopes of succeeding accelerated when one day Perry produced
a pastel drawing he had made - a large, in no way technically naive portrait of Jesus.
Lansing's Protestant chaplain, the Reverend James Post, so valued it that he hung it in
his office, where it hangs still: a slick and pretty Saviour, with full lips and grieving
eyes. The picture was the climax of Perry's never very earnest spiritual quest, and,
ironically, the termination of it; he adjudged his Jesus "a piece of hypocrisy," an attempt
to "fool and betray" Willie-Jay, for he was as unconvinced of God as ever. Yet should
he admit this and risk forfeiting the one friend who had ever "truly understood" him?
(Hod, Joe, Jesse, travelers straying through a world where last names were seldom
exchanged, these had been his "buddies" - never anyone like Willie-Jay, who was in
Perry's opinion, "way above average intellectually, perceptive as a well-trained
psychologist." How was it possible that so gifted a man had wound up in Lansing? That
was what amazed Perry. The answer, which he knew but rejected as "an evasion of the
deeper, the human question," was plain to simpler minds: the chaplain's clerk, then
thirty-eight, was a thief, a small-scale robber who over a period of twenty years had
served sentences in five different states.) Perry decided to speak out: he was sorry, but it
was not for him - heaven, hell, saints, divine mercy - and if Willie-Jay's affection was
founded on the prospect of Perry's some day joining him at the foot of the Cross, then
he was deceived and their friendship false, a counterfeit, like the portrait.
As usual, Willie-Jay understood; disheartened but not disenchanted, he had
persisted in courting Perry's soul until the day of its possessor's parole and departure, on
the eve of which he wrote Perry a farewell letter, whose last paragraph ran: "You are a
man of extreme passion, a hungry man not quite sure where his appetite lies, a deeply
frustrated man striving to project his individuality against a backdrop of rigid
conformity. You exist in a half-world suspended between two superstructures, one selfexpression and the other self-destruction. You are strong, but there is a flaw in your
strength, and unless you learn to control it the flaw "will prove stronger than your
strength and defeat you. The flaw? Explosive emotional reaction out of all proportion to
the occasion. Why? Why this unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or
content, this growing contempt for people and the desire to hurt them? All right, you
think they're fools, you despise them because their morals, their happiness is the source
of your frustration and resentment. But these are dreadful enemies you carry within
yourself - in time destructive as bullets. Mercifully, a bullet kills its victim. This other
bacteria, permitted to age, does not kill a man but leaves in its wake the hulk of a
creature torn and twisted; there is still fire within his being but it is kept alive by casting
upon it faggots of scorn and hate. He may successfully accumulate, but he does not
accumulate success, for he is his own enemy and is kept from truly enjoying his
achievements."
Perry, flattered to be the subject of this sermon, had let Dick read it, and Dick,
who took a dim view of Willie-Jay, had called the letter "just more of Billy Graham
cracker's hooey," adding, " 'Faggots of scorn!' He's the faggot." Of course, Perry had
expected this reaction, and secretly he welcomed it, for his friendship with Dick, whom
he had scarcely known until his final few months in Lansing, was an outgrowth of, and
counterbalance to, the intensity of his admiration for the chaplain's clerk. Perhaps Dick
was "shallow," or even, as Willie-Jay claimed, "a vicious blusterer." All the same, Dick
was full of fun, and he was shrewd, a realist, he "cut through things," there were no
clouds in his head or straw in his hair. Moreover, unlike Willie-Jay, he was not critical
of Perry's exotic aspirations; he was willing to listen, catch fire, share with him those
visions of "guaranteed treasure" lurking in Mexican seas, Brazilian jungles.
After Perry's parole, four months elapsed, months of rattling around in a fifthhand, hundred-dollar Ford, rolling from Reno to Las Vegas, from Bellingham,
Washington, to Buhl, Idaho, and it was in Buhl, where he had found temporary work as
a truck driver, that Dick's letter reached him: "Friend P., Came out in August, and after
you left I met Someone, you do not know him, but he put me on to something we could
bring off beautiful. A cinch, the Perfect score..." Until then Perry had not imagined that
he would ever see Dick again. Or Willie-Jay. But they had both been much in his
thoughts, and especially the latter, who in memory had grown ten feet tall, a gray-haired
wise man haunting the hallways of his mind. "You pursue the negative," Willie-Jay had
informed him once, in one of his lectures. "You want not to give a damn, to exist
without responsibility, without faith or friends or warmth."
In the solitary, comfortless course of his recent driftings, Perry had over and
over again reviewed this indictment, and had decided it was unjust. He did give a damn
- but who had ever given a damn about him? His father? Yes, up to a point. A girl or
two - but that was "a long story." No one else except Willie-Jay himself. And only
Willie-Jay had ever recognized his worth, his potentialities, had acknowledged that he
was not just an under-sized, over muscled half-breed, had seen him, for all the
moralizing, as he saw himself - "exceptional,"
"rare,"
"artistic." In Willie-Jay his vanity had found support, his sensibility shelter, and
the four-month exile from this high-carat appreciation had made it more alluring than
any dream of buried gold. So when he received Dick's invitation, and realized that the
date Dick proposed for his coming to Kansas more or less coincided with the time of
Willie-Jay's release, he knew what he must do. He drove to Las Vegas, sold his junkheap car, packed his collection of maps, old letters, manuscripts, and books, and bought
a ticket for a Greyhound bus. The journey's aftermath was up to fate; if (things didn't
"work out with Willie-Jay," then he might "consider Dick's proposition." As it turned
out, the choice was between Dick and nothing, for when Perry's bus reached Kansas
City, on the evening of November 12, Willie-Jay, whom he'd been unable to advise of
his coming, had already left town - left, in fact, only five hours earlier, from the same
terminal at which Perry arrived. That much he had learned by telephoning the Reverend
Mr. Post, who further discouraged him by declining to reveal his former clerk's exact
destination. "He's headed East," the chaplain said. "To fine opportunities. A decent job,
and a home with some good people who are willing to help him." And Perry, hanging
up, had felt "dizzy with anger and disappointment."
But what, he wondered when the anguish subsided, had he really expected from
a reunion (with Willie-Jay? Freedom had separated them; as free men, they had nothing
in common, were opposites, who could never have formed a "team" - certainly not one
capable of embarking on the skin-diving south-of-the-border adventures he and Dick
had plotted. Nevertheless, if he had not missed Willie-Jay, if they could have been
together for even an hour, Perry was quite convinced - just "knew" - that he would not
now be loitering outside a hospital waiting for Dick to emerge with a pair of black
stockings.
Dick returned empty-handed. "No go," he announced, with a furtive casualness
that made Perry suspicious.
"Are you sure? Sure you even asked?"
"Sure I did."
"I don't believe you. I think you went in there, hung around a couple of minutes,
and came out."
"O. K., sugar - whatever you say." Dick started the car. After they had traveled
in silence awhile, Dick patted Perry on the knee. "Aw, come on," he said. "It was a puky
idea. What the hell would they have thought? Me barging in there like it was a god-dam
five-'n'-dime..."
Perry said, "Maybe it's just as well. Nuns are a bad-luck bunch."
The Garden City representative of New York Life Insurance smiled as he watched Mr.
Clutter uncap a Parker pen and open a checkbook. He was reminded of a local jest:
"Know what they say about you, Herb? Say, 'Since haircuts went to a dollar-fifty, Herb
writes the barber a check.'"
"That's correct," replied Mr. Clutter. Like royalty, he was famous for never
carrying cash. "That's the way I do business. When those tax fellows come poking
around, canceled checks are your best friend."
With the check written but not yet signed, he swiveled back in his desk chair and
seemed to ponder. The agent, a stocky, somewhat bald, rather informal man named Bob
Johnson, hoped his client wasn't having last-minute doubts. Herb was hard-headed, a
slow man to make a deal; Johnson had worked over a year to clinch this sale. But, no,
his customer was merely experiencing what Johnson called the Solemn Moment - a
phenomenon familiar to insurance salesmen. The mood of a man insuring his life is not
unlike that of a man signing his will; thoughts of mortality must occur.
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Clutter, as though conversing with himself. "I've plenty to
be grateful for - wonderful things in my life." Framed documents commemorating
milestones in his career gleamed against the walnut walls of his office: a college
diploma, a map of River Valley Farm, agricultural awards, an ornate certificate bearing
the signatures of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, which cited his
services to the Federal Farm Credit Board. "The kids. We've been lucky there. Shouldn't
say it, but I'm real proud of them. Take Kenyon. Right now he kind of leans toward
being an engineer, or a scientist, but you can't tell me my boy's not a born rancher. God
willing, he'll run this place someday. You ever met Eveanna's husband? Don Jarchow?
Veterinarian. I can't tell you how much I think of that boy. Vere, too. Vere English - the
boy my girl Beverly had the good sense to settle on. If anything ever happened to me,
I'm sure I could trust those fellows to take responsibility; Bonnie by herself - Bonnie
wouldn't be able to carry on an operation like this..."
Johnson, a veteran at listening to ruminations of this sort, knew it was time to
intervene. "Why, Herb," he said. "You're a young man. Forty-eight. And from the looks
of you, from what the medical report tells us, we're likely to have you around a couple
of weeks more."
Mr. Clutter straightened, reached again for his pen. "Tell the truth, I feel pretty
good. And pretty optimistic. I've got an idea a man could make some real money around
here the next few years." While outlining his schemes for future financial betterment, he
signed the check and pushed it across his desk.
The time was ten past six, and the agent was anxious to go; his wife would be
waiting supper. "It's been a pleasure, Herb."
"Same here, fellow."
They shook hands. Then, with a merited sense of victory, Johnson picked up Mr.
Clutter's check and deposited it in his billfold. It was the first payment on a fortythousand-dollar policy that in the event of death by accidental means, paid double
indemnity.
"And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the
joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known..."
With the aid of his guitar, Perry had sung himself into a happier humor. He
knew the lyrics of some two hundred hymns and ballads - a repertoire ranging from
"The Old Rugged Cross" to Cole Porter - and, in addition to the guitar, he could play the
harmonica, the accordion, the banjo, and the xylophone. In one of his favorite theatrical
fantasies, his stage name was Perry O'Parsons, a star who billed himself as "The OneMan Symphony."
Dick said, "How about a cocktail?"
Personally, Perry didn't care what he drank, for he was not much of a drinker.
Dick, however, was choosy, and in bars his usual choice was an Orange Blossom. From
the car's glove compartment Perry fetched a pint bottle containing a ready-mixed
compound of orange flavoring and vodka. They passed the bottle to and fro. Though
dusk had established itself, Dick, doing a steady sixty miles an hour, was still driving
without headlights, but then the road was straight, the country was as level as a lake,
and other cars were seldom sighted. This was "out there" - or getting near it.
"Christ!" said Perry, glaring at the landscape, flat and limitless under the sky's
cold, lingering green - empty and lonesome except for the far between flickerings of
farmhouse lights. He hated it, as he hated the Texas plains, the Nevada desert; spaces
horizontal and sparsely inhabited had always induced in him a depression accompanied
by agoraphobic sensations. Seaports were his heart's delight - crowded, clanging, shipclogged, sewage-scented cities, like Yokohama, where as an American Army private
he'd spent summer during the Korean War. "Christ - and they told me to keep away
from Kansas! Never set my pretty foot here again. Although they were barring me from
heaven. And just look at it. Just feast your eyes."
Dick handed him the bottle, the contents reduced by half. "Save the rest," Dick
said. "We may need it."
"Remember, Dick? All that talk about getting a boat? I was thinking - we could
buy a boat in Mexico. Something cheap but sturdy. And we could go to Japan. Sail right
across the Pacific, been done - thousands of people have done it. I'm not conning you,
Dick - you'd go for Japan. Wonderful, gentle people, with manners like flowers. Really
considerate - not just out for your dough. And the women. You've never met a real
woman…"
"Yes, I have," said Dick, who claimed still to be in love with his honey-blond
first wife though she had remarried.
"There are these baths. One place called the Dream Pool. You stretch out, and
beautiful, knockout-type girls come and scrub you head to toe."
"You told me." Dick's tone was curt.
"So? Can't I repeat myself?"
"Later. Let's talk about it later. Hell, man, I've got plenty on my mind."
Dick switched on the radio; Perry switched it off. Ignoring Dick's protest, he
strummed his guitar: "I came to the garden alone, while the dew was still on the roses,
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses..."
A full moon was forming at the edge of the sky.
The following Monday, while giving evidence prior to taking a lie-detector test, young
Bobby Rupp described his last visit to the Clutter home: "There was a full moon, and I
thought maybe, if Nancy wanted to, we might go for a drive - drive out to McKinney
Lake. Or go to the movies in Garden City. But when I called her - it must have been
about ten of seven - she said she'd have to ask her father. Then she came back, and said
the answer was no - because we'd stayed out so late the night before. But said why
didn't I come over and watch television. I've spent a lot of time at the Clutters' watching
television. See, Nancy's the only girl I ever dated. I'd known her all my life; we'd gone
to school together from the first grade. Always, as long as I can remember, she was
pretty and popular - a person, even when she was a little kid. I mean, she just made
everybody feel good about themselves. The first time I dated her was when we were in
the eighth grade. Most of the boys in our class wanted to take her to the eighth-grade
graduation dance, and I was surprised, I was pretty proud - when she said she would go
with me. We were both twelve. My dad lent me the car, and I drove her to the dance.
The more I saw her, the more I liked her; the whole family, too - there wasn't any other
family like them, not around here, not that I know of. Mr. Clutter may have been more
strict about some things - religion, and so on - but he never tried to make you feel he
was right and you were wrong.
"We live three miles west of the Clutter place. I used to walk it back and forth,
but I always worked summers, and last year I'd saved enough to buy my own car, a '55
Ford. So I drove over there, got there a little after seven. I didn't see anybody on the
road or on the lane that leads up to the house, or anybody outside. Just old Teddy. He
barked at me. The lights were on downstairs in the living room and in Mr. Clutter's
office. The second floor was dark, and I figured Mrs. Clutter must be asleep - if she was
home. You never knew whether she was or not, and I never asked. But I found out I was
right, because later in the evening Kenyon wanted to practice his horn, he played
baritone horn in the school band - and Nancy told him not to, because he would wake up
Mrs. Clutter. Anyway, when I got there they had finished supper and Nancy had cleaned
up, put all the dishes in the dishwasher, and the three of them - the two kids and Mr.
Clutter - were in the living room. So we sat around like any other night-Nancy and I on
the couch, and Mr. Clutter in his chair, the stuffed rocker. He wasn't watching the
television so much as he was reading a book - a 'Rover Boy,' one of Kenyon's books.
Once he went out to the kitchen and came back with two apples; he offered one to me,
but I didn't want it, so he ate them both. He had very white teeth; he said apples were
why. Nancy - Nancy was wearing socks and soft slippers, blue jeans, I think a green
sweater; she was wearing a gold wristwatch and an I. D. bracelet I gave her last January
for her sixteenth birthday - with on one side and mine on the other - and she had on a
ring, some little silver thing she bought a summer ago, when she went to Colorado with
the Kidwells. It wasn't my ring - our ring. See, a couple of weeks back she got sore at
me and said she was going to take off our ring for a while. When your girl does that, it
means you're on probation. I mean, sure, we had fusses - everybody does, all the kids
that go steady. What happened was I went to this friend's wedding, the reception, and
drank a beer, one bottle of beer, and Nancy got to hear about it. Some tattle told her I
was roaring drunk. Well, she was stone, wouldn't say hello for a week. But lately we'd
been getting on good as ever, and I believe she was about ready to wear our ring again.
"O. K. The first show was called 'The Man and the Challenge.' Channel 11.
About some fellows in the Arctic. Then we saw a Western, and after that a spy
adventure - 'Five Fingers.'
'Mike Hammer' came on at nine-thirty. Then the news. But Kenyon didn't like
anything, mostly because we wouldn't let him pick the programs. He criticized
everything and Nancy kept telling him to hush up. They always quibbled, but actually
they were very close - closer than most brothers and sisters. I guess partly it was
because they'd been alone together so much, what with Mrs. Clutter away and Mr.
Clutter gone to Washington, or wherever. I know Nancy loved Kenyon very specially,
but I don't think even she, or anybody, exactly understood him. He seemed to be off
somewhere. You never knew what he was thinking, never even knew if he was looking
at you - on account of he was slightly cockeyed. Some people said he was a genius, and
maybe it was true. He sure did read a lot. But, like I say, he was restless; he didn't want
to watch the TV, he wanted to practice his horn, and when Nancy wouldn't let him, I
remember Mr. Clutter told him why didn't he go down to the basement, the recreation
room, where nobody could hear him. But he didn't want to do that, either.
"The phone rang once. Twice? Gosh, I can't remember. Except that once the
phone rang and Mr. Clutter answered it in his office. The door was open - that sliding
door between the living room and the office - and I heard him say 'Van,' so I knew he
was talking to his partner, Mr. Van Vleet, and I heard him say that he had a headache
but that it was getting better. And said he'd see Mr. Van Vleet on Monday. When he
came back - yes, the Mike Hammer was just over. Five minutes of news. Then the
weather report. Mr. Clutter always perked up when the weather report came on. It's all
he ever really waited for. Like the only thing that interested me was the sports - which
came on next. After the sports ended, that was ten-thirty, and I got up to go. Nancy
walked me out. We talked a while, and made a date to go to the movies Sunday night - a
picture all the girls were looking forward to, Blue Denim. Then she ran back in the
house, and I drove away. It was as clear as day - the moon was so bright - and cold and
kind of windy; a lot of tumbleweed blowing about. But that's all I saw. Only now when
I think back, I think somebody must have been hiding there. Maybe down among the
trees. Somebody just waiting for me to leave."
The travelers stopped for dinner at a restaurant in Great Bend. Perry, down to his last
fifteen dollars, was ready to settle for root beer and a sandwich, but Dick said no, they
needed a solid "tuck-in," and never mind the cost, the tab was his. They ordered two
steaks medium rare, baked potatoes, French fries, fried onions, succotash, side dish of
macaroni and hominy, salad with Thousand Island dressing, cinnamon rolls, apple pie
and ice cream, and coffee. To top it off, they visited a drugstore and selected cigars; in
the same drugstore, they also bought two thick rolls of adhesive tape.
As the black Chevrolet regained the highway and hurried on across a country
side imperceptibly ascending toward the colder, cracker-dry climate of the high wheat
plains, Perry closed his eyes and dozed off into a food-dazed semi-slumber, from which
he woke to hear a voice reading the eleven-o'clock news. He rolled down a window and
bathed his face in the flood of frosty air. Dick told him they were in Finney County.
"We crossed the line ten miles back," he said. The car was going very fast. Signs, their
messages ignited by the car's headlights, flared up, flew by: "See the Polar Bears,"
"Burris Motors,"
"World's Largest FREE Swim pool,"
"Wheat Lands Motel," and, finally, a bit before street lamps began, "Howdy,
Stranger! Welcome to Garden City. A Friendly Place."
They skirted the northern rim of the town. No one was abroad at this nearly
midnight hour, and nothing was open except a string of desolately brilliant service
stations. Dick turned into one - Kurd's Phillips 66. A youngster appeared, and asked,
"Fill her up?" Dick nodded, and Perry, getting out of the car, went inside the station,
where he locked himself in the men's room. His legs pained him, as they often did; they
hurt as though his old accident had happened five minutes before. He shook three
aspirins out of a bottle, chewed them slowly (for he liked the taste), and then drank
water from the basin tap. He sat down on the toilet, stretched out his legs and rubbed
them, massaging the almost unbendable knees. Dick had said they were almost there "only seven miles more." He unzippered a pocket of his windbreaker and brought out a
paper sack; inside it were the recently purchased rubber gloves. They were gluecovered, sticky and thin, and as he inched them on, one tore - not a dangerous tear, just
a split between the fingers, but it seemed to him an omen.
The doorknob turned, rattled. Dick said, "Want some candy? They got a candy
machine out here."
"No."
"You O. K.?"
"I'm fine."
"Don't be all night."
Dick dropped a dime in a vending machine, pulled the lever, and picked up a
bag of jelly beans; munching, he wandered back to the car and lounged there watching
the young attendant's efforts to rid the windshield of Kansas dust and the slime of
battered insects. The attendant, whose name was James Spor, felt uneasy. Dick's eyes
and sullen expression and Perry's strange, prolonged sojourn in the lavatory disturbed
him. (The next day he reported to his employer, "We had some tough customers in here
last night," but he did not think, then or for the longest while, to connect the visitors
with the tragedy in Holcomb.) Dick said, "Kind of slow around here."
"Sure is," James Spor said. "You're the only body stopped here since two hours.
Where you coming from?"
"Kansas City."
"Here to hunt?"
"Just passing through. On our way to Arizona. We got jobs waiting there.
Construction work. Any idea the mileage between here and Tucumcari, New Mexico?"
"Can't say I do. Three dollars six cents." He accepted Dick's money, made
change, and said, "You'll excuse me, sir? I'm doing a job. Putting a bumper on a truck."
Dick waited, ate some jelly beans, impatiently gunned the motor, sounded the
horn. Was it possible that he had misjudged Perry's character? That Perry, of all people,
was suffering a sudden case of "blood bubbles"? A year ago, when they first
encountered each other, he'd thought Perry "a good guy," if a bit stuck on himself,
"sentimental," too much "the dreamer." He had liked him but not considered him
especially worth cultivating until, one day, Perry described a murder, telling how,
simply for the hell of it," he had killed a colored man in Las Vegas - beaten him to death
with a bicycle chain. The anecdote elevated Dick's opinion of Little Perry; he began to
see more of him, and, like Willie-Jay, though for dissimilar reasons, gradually decided
that Perry possessed unusual and valuable qualities. Several murderers, or men who
boasted of murder or their willingness to commit it, circulated inside Lansing; but Dick
became convinced that Perry was that rarity, "a natural killer" - absolutely sane, but
conscienceless, and capable of dealing, with or without motive, the coldest-blooded
deathblows. It was Dick's theory that such a gift could, under his supervision, be
profitably exploited. Having reached this conclusion, he had proceeded to woo Perry,
flatter him - pretend, for example, that he believed all the buried-treasure stuff and
shared his beachcomber yearnings and seaport longings, none of which appealed to
Dick, who wanted "a regular life," with a business of his own, a house, a horse to ride, a
new car, and "plenty of blond chicken. "It was important, however, that Perry not
suspect this - not until Perry, with his gift, had helped further Dick's ambitions. But
perhaps it was Dick who had miscalculated, been duped; if so - if it developed that
Perry was, after all, only an "ordinary punk" - then "the party" was over, the months of
planning were wasted, there was nothing to do but turn and go. It mustn't happen; Dick
returned to the station.
The door to the men's room was still bolted. He banged on it: "For Christ sake,
Perry!"
"In a minute.".
"What's the matter? You sick?"
Perry gripped the edge of the wash basin and hauled himself to a standing
position. His legs trembled; the pain in his knees made him perspire. He wiped his face
with a paper towel. He unlocked the door and said, "O. K. Let's go."
Nancy's bedroom was the smallest, most personal room in the house - girlish, and as
frothy as a ballerina's tutu. Walls, ceiling, and everything else except a bureau and a
writing desk, were pink or blue or white. The white-and-pink bed, piled with blue
pillows, was dominated by a big pink-and-white Teddy bear - a shooting-gallery prize
that Bobby had won at the county fair. A cork bulletin board, painted pink, hung above
a white-skirted dressing table; dry gardenias, the remains of some ancient corsage, were
attached to it, and old valentines, newspaper recipes, and snapshots of her baby nephew
and of Susan Kidwell and of Bobby Rupp, Bobby caught in a dozen actions - swinging
a bat, dribbling a basketball, driving a tractor, wading, in bathing trunks, at the edge of
McKinney Lake (which was as far as he dared go, for he had never learned to swim).
And there were photographs of the two together - Nancy and Bobby. Of these, she liked
best one that showed them sitting in a leaf-dappled light amid picnic debris and looking
at one another with expressions that, though unsmiling, seemed mirthful and full of
delight. Other pictures, of horses, of cats deceased but unforgotten - like "poor Boobs,"
who had died not long ago and most mysteriously (she suspected poison) - encumbered
her desk.
Nancy was invariably the last of the family to retire; as she had once informed
her friend and home-economics teacher, Mrs. Polly Stringer, the midnight hours were
her "time to be selfish and vain." It was then that she went through her beauty routine, a
cleansing, creaming ritual, which on Saturday nights included washing her hair.
Tonight, having dried and brushed her hair and bound it in a gauzy bandanna, she set
out the clothes she intended to wear to church the next morning: nylons, black pumps, a
red velveteen dress - her prettiest, which she herself had made. It was the dress in which
she was to be buried.
Before saying her prayers, she always recorded in a diary a few occurrences
("Summer here. Forever, I hope. Sue over and we rode Babe down to the river. Sue
played her flute. Fireflies") and an occasional outburst ("I love him, I do"). It was a fiveyear diary; in the four years of its existence she had never neglected to make an entry,
though the splendor of several events (Eveanna's wedding, the birth of her nephew) and
the drama of others (her first REAL quarrel with Bobby" - a page literally tear-stained)
had caused her to usurp space allotted to the future. A different tinted ink identified each
year: 1956 was green and 1957 a ribbon of red, replaced the following year by bright
lavender, and now, in 1959, she had decided upon a dignified blue. But as in every
manifestation, she continued to tinker with her handwriting, slanting it to the right or to
the left, shaping it roundly or steeply, loosely or stingily - as though she were asking, "Is
this Nancy? Or that? Or that? Which is me?" (Once Mrs. Riggs, her English teacher,
had returned a theme with a scribbled comment: "Good. But why written in three styles
of script?" To which Nancy had replied: "Because I'm not grown-up enough to be one
person with one kind of signature.") Still, she had progressed in recent months, and it
was in a handwriting of emerging maturity that she wrote, "Jolene K. came over and I
showed her how to make a cherry pie. Practiced with Roxie. Bobby here and we
watched TV. Left at eleven."
This is it, this is it, this has to be it, there's the school, there's the garage, now we turn
south." To Perry, it seemed as though Dick were muttering jubilant mumbo-jumbo.
They left the highway, sped through a deserted Holcomb, and crossed the Santa Fe
tracks. "The bank, that must be the bank, now we turn west - see the trees? This is it,
this has to be it." The headlights disclosed a lane of Chinese elms; bundles of windblown thistle scurried across it. Dick doused the headlights, slowed down, and stopped
until his eyes were adjusted to the moon-illuminated night. Presently, the car crept
forward.
Holcomb is twelve miles east of the mountain time-zone border, a circumstance that
causes some grumbling, for it means that at seven in the morning, and in winter at eight
or after, the sky is still dark and the stars, if any, are still shining - as they were when the
two sons of Vie Irsik arrived to do their Sunday-morning chores. But by nine, when the
boys finished work - during which they noticed nothing amiss - the sun had risen,
delivering another day of pheasant-season perfection. As they left the property and ran
along the lane, they waved at an incoming car, and a girl waved back. She was a
classmate of Nancy Clutter's, and her name was also Nancy - Nancy Ewalt. She was the
only child of the man who was driving the car, Mr. Clarence Ewalt, a middle-aged
sugar-beet farmer. Mr. Ewalt was not himself a churchgoer, nor was his wife, but every
Sunday he dropped his daughter at River Valley Farm in order that she might
accompany the Clutter family to Methodist services in Garden City. The arrangement
saved him "making two back-and-forth trips to town." It was his custom to wait until he
had seen his daughter safely admitted to the house. Nancy, a clothes-conscious girl with
a film-star figure, a bespectacled countenance, and a coy, tiptoe way of walking, crossed
the lawn and pressed the front-door bell. The house had four entrances, and when, after
repeated knockings, there was no response at this one, she moved on to the next - that of
Mr. Clutter's office. Here the door was partly open; she opened it somewhat more enough to ascertain that the office was filled only with shadow - but she did not think
the Clutters would appreciate her "barging right in." She knocked, rang, and at last
walked around to the back of the house. The garage was there, and she noted that both
cars were in it: two Chevrolet sedans. Which meant they must be home. However,
having applied unavailingly at a third door, which led into a "utility room," and a fourth,
the door to the kitchen, she rejoined her father, who said, "Maybe they're asleep."
"But that's impossible. Can you imagine Mr. Clutter missing church? Just to
sleep?"
"Come on, then. We'll drive down to the Teacherage. Susan ought to know
what's happened."
The Teacherage, which stands opposite the up-to-date school, is an out-of-date
edifice, drab and poignant. Its twenty-odd rooms are separated into grace-and-favor
apartments for those members of the faculty unable to find, or afford, other quarters.
Nevertheless, Susan Kidwell and her mother had managed to sugar the pill and install a
cozy atmosphere in their apartment - three rooms on the ground floor. The very small
living room incredibly contained - aside from things to sit on - an organ, a piano, a
garden of flowering flowerpots, and usually a darting little dog and a large, drowsy cat.
Susan, on this Sunday morning, stood at the window of this room watching the street.
She is a tall, languid young lady with a pallid, oval face and beautiful pale-blue-gray
eyes; her hands are extraordinary - long-fingered, flexible, nervously elegant. She was
dressed for church, and expected momentarily to see the Clutters' Chevrolet, for she too,
always attended services chaperoned by the Clutter family. Instead, the Ewalts arrived
to tell their peculiar tale.
But Susan knew no explanation, nor did her mother, who said, if there was some
change of plan, why, I'm sure they would have telephoned. Susan, why don't you call
the house? They could be asleep - I suppose."
"So I did," said Susan, in a statement made at a later date. "I called the house and
let the phone ring - at least, I had the impression it was ringing - oh, a minute or more.
Nobody answered, so (Mr. Ewalt suggested that we go to the house and try to 'wake
them up.' But when we got there - I didn't want to do it. Go to the house. I was
frightened, and I don't know why, because it never occurred to me - well, something
like that just doesn't. But the sun was so bright, everything looked too bright and quiet.
And then I saw that all the cars were there, even Kenyon's old coyote wagon. Mr. Ewalt
was wearing work clothes; he had mud on his boots; he felt he wasn't properly dressed
to go calling on Clutters. Especially since he never had. Been in the house, I mean.
Finally, Nancy said she would go with me. We went around to the kitchen door, and, of
course, it wasn't locked; the only person who ever locked doors around there was Mrs.
Helm, the family never did. We walked in, and I saw right away that the Clutters hadn't
eaten breakfast; there were no dishes, nothing on the stove. Then I noticed something
funny: Nancy's purse. It was lying on the floor, sort of open. We passed on through the
dining room, and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Nancy's room is just at the top. I
called her name, and started up the stairs, and Nancy Ewalt followed. The sound of our
footsteps frightened me more than anything, they were so loud and everything else was
so silent. Nancy's door was open. The curtains hadn't been drawn, and the room was full
of sunlight. I don't remember screaming. Nancy Ewalt says I did - screamed and
screamed. I only remember Nancy's Teddy bear staring at me. And Nancy. And
running..."
In the interim, Mr. Ewalt had decided that perhaps he ought not to have allowed
the girls to enter the house alone. He was getting out of the car to go after them when he
heard the screams, but before he could reach the house, the girls were running toward
him. His daughter shouted, "She's dead!" and flung herself into his arms. "It's true,
Daddy! Nancy's dead!"
Susan turned on her. "No, she isn't. And don't you say it. Don't you dare. It's
only a nosebleed. She has them all the time, terrible nosebleed, and that's all it is."
"There's too much blood. There's blood on the walls. You didn't really look."
"I couldn't make head nor tails," Mr. Ewalt subsequently testified. "I thought
maybe the child was hurt. It seemed to me the first thing to do was call an ambulance.
Miss Kidwell - Susan - she told me there was a telephone in the kitchen. I found it, right
where she said. But the receiver was off the hook, and when I picked it up, I saw the
line had been cut."
Larry Hendricks, a teacher of English, aged twenty-seven, lived on the top floor of the
Teacherage. He wanted to write, but his apartment was not the ideal lair for a would-be
author. It was smaller than the Kidwell's, and, moreover, he shared it with a wife, three
active children, and a perpetually functioning television set. ("It's the only way we can
keep the kids pacified.") Though as yet unpublished, young Hendricks, a he-mannish
ex-sailor from Oklahoma who smokes a pipe and has a mustache and a crop of untamed
black hair, at least looks literary - in fact, remarkably like youthful photographs of the
writer he most admires, Ernest Hemingway. To supplement this teacher's salary, he also
drove a school bus.
"Sometimes I cover sixty miles a day," he said to an acquaintance. "Which
doesn't leave much time for writing. Except Sundays. Now, that Sunday, November
fifteenth, I was sitting up here in the apartment going through the papers. Most of my
ideas for stories, I get them out of the newspapers - you know? Well, the TV was on and
the kids were kind of lively, but even so I could hear voices. From downstairs. Down at
Mrs. Kidwell's. But I didn't figure it was my concern, since I was new here - only came
to Holcomb when school began. But then Shirley - she'd been out hanging up some
clothes - my wife, Shirley, rushed in and said, 'Honey, you better go downstairs. They're
all hysterical.' The two girls - now, they really were hysterical. Susan never has got over
it. Never will, ask me. And poor Mrs. Kidwell. Her health's not too good, she's highstrung to begin with. She kept saying - but it was only later I understood what she meant
- she kept saying, "Oh, Bonnie, Bonnie, what happened? You were so happy, you told
me it was all over, you said you'd never be sick again.' Words to that effect. Even Mr.
Ewalt, he was about as worked up as a man like that ever gets. He had the sheriff's
office on the phone - the Garden City sheriff - and he was telling him that there was
'something radically wrong over at the Clutter place.' The sheriff promised to come
straight out, and Mr. Ewalt said fine, he'd meet him on the highway. Shirley came
downstairs to sit with the women, try and calm them - as if anybody could. And I went
with Mr. Ewalt - drove with him out to the highway to wait for Sheriff Robinson. On
the way, he told me what had happened. When he came to the part about finding the
wires cut, right then I thought, Uh-uh, and decided I'd better keep my eyes open. Make a
note of every detail. In case I was ever called on to testify in court.
"The sheriff arrived; it was nine thirty-five - I looked at my watch. Mr. Ewalt
waved at him to follow our car, and we drove out to the Clutters'. I'd never been there
before, only seen it from a distance. Of course, I knew the family. Kenyon was in my
sophomore English class, and I'd directed Nancy in the 'Tom Sawyer' play. But they
were such exceptional, unassuming kids you wouldn't have known they were rich or
lived in such a big house - and the trees, the lawn, everything so tended and cared for.
After we got there, and the sheriff had heard Mr. Ewalt's story, he radioed his office and
told them to send reinforcements, and an ambulance. Said, 'There's been some kind of
accident.' Then we went in the house, the three of us. Went through the kitchen and saw
a lady's purse lying on the floor, and the phone where the wires had been cut. The
sheriff was wearing a hip pistol, and when we started up the stairs, going to Nancy's
room, I noticed he kept his hand on it, ready to draw.
"Well, it was pretty bad. That wonderful girl - but you would never have known
her. She'd been shot in the back of the head with a shotgun held maybe two inches
away. She was lying on her side, facing the wall, and the wall was covered with blood.
The bedcovers were drawn up to her shoulders. Sheriff Robinson, he pulled them back,
and we saw that she was wearing a bathrobe, pajamas, socks, and slippers - like,
whenever it happened, she hadn't gone to bed yet. Her hands were tied behind her, and
her ankles were roped together with the kind of cord you see on Venetian blinds. Sheriff
said, 'Is this Nancy Clutter?' - he'd never seen the child before. And I said, 'Yes. Yes,
that's Nancy.'
"We stepped back into the hall, and looked around. All the other doors were
closed. We opened one, and that turned out to be the bathroom. Something about it
seemed wrong. I decided it was because of the chair - a sort of dining-room chair, that
looked out of place in a bathroom. The next door - we all agreed it must be Kenyon's
room. A lot of boy-stuff scattered around. And I recognized Kenyon's glasses - saw
them on a bookshelf beside the bed. But the bed was empty, though it looked as if it had
been slept in. So we walked to the end of the hall, the last door, in there, on her bed,
that's where we found Mrs. Clutter. She'd been tied, too. But differently - with her hands
in front of her, in that she looked as though she were praying - and in one hand she was
holding, gripping, a handkerchief. Or was it Kleenex? The cord around her wrists ran
down to her ankles, which were bound together, and then ran on down to the bottom of
the bed, where it was tied to the footboard - a very complicated, artful piece of work.
Think how long it took to do! And her lying there, scared out of her wits. Well, she was
wearing some jewelry, two rings - which is one of the reasons why I've always
discounted robbery as a motive - and a robe, and a white nightgown, and white socks.
Her mouth had been taped with adhesive, but she'd been shot point-blank in the side of
the head, and the blast - the impact - had ripped the tape loose. Her eyes were open.
Wide open. As though she were still looking at the killer. Because she must have had to
watch him do it - aim the gun. Nobody said anything. We were too stunned. I remember
the sheriff searched around to see if he could find the discharged cartridge. But whoever
had done it was much too smart and cool to have left behind any clues like that.
"Naturally, we were wondering where was Mr. Clutter? And Kenyon? Sheriff
said, 'Let's try downstairs. ' The first place we tried was the master bedroom - the room
where Mr. Clutter slept. The bedcovers were drawn back, and lying there, toward the
foot of the bed, was a billfold with a mess of cards spilling out of it, like somebody had
shuffled through them hunting something particular - a note, an I. O. U., who knows?
The fact that there wasn't any money in it didn't signify one way or the other. It was Mr.
Clutter's billfold, and he never did carry cash. Even I knew that, and I'd only been in
Holcomb a little more than two months. Another thing I knew was that neither Mr.
Clutter nor Kenyon could see a darn without his glasses. And there were Mr. Clutter's
glasses sitting on a bureau. So I figured, wherever they were, they weren't there of their
own accord. We looked all over, and everything was just as it should be - no sign of a
struggle, nothing disturbed. Except the office, where the telephone was off the hook,
and the wires cut, same as in the kitchen. Sheriff Robinson, he found some shotguns in a
closet, and sniffed them to see if they had been fired recently. Said they hadn't, and - I
never saw a more bewildered man - said, 'Where the devil can Herb be?' About then we
heard footsteps. Coming up the stairs from the basement. 'Who's that?' said the sheriff,
like he was ready to shoot. And a voice said, 'It's me. Wendle.' Turned out to be Wendle
Meier, the undersheriff. Seems he had come to the house and hadn't seen us, so he'd
gone investigating down in the basement. The sheriff told him - and it was sort of
pitiful: 'Wendle, I don't know what to make of it. There's two bodies upstairs. "Well,' he
said, Wendle did, 'there's another one down here.' So we followed him down to the
basement. Or playroom, I guess you'd call it. It wasn't dark - there were windows that let
in plenty of light. Kenyon was over in a corner, lying on a couch. He was gagged with
adhesive tape and bound hand and foot, like the mother - the same intricate process of
the cord leading from the hands to the feet, and finally tied to an arm of the couch.
Somehow he haunts me the most, Kenyon does. I think it's because he was the most
recognizable, the one that looked the most like himself - even though he'd been shot in
the face, directly, head-on. He was wearing a T-shirt and blue jeans, and he was
barefoot - as though he'd dressed in a hurry, just put on the first thing that came to hand.
His head was propped by a couple of pillows, like they'd been stuffed under him to
make an easier target.
"Then the sheriff said, 'Where's this go to?' Meaning another door there in the
basement. Sheriff led the way, but inside you couldn't see your hand until Mr. Ewalt
found the light switch. It was a furnace room, and very warm. Around here, people just
install a gas furnace and pump the gas smack out of the ground. Doesn't cost them a
nickel - that's why all the houses are over-heated. Well, I took one look at Mr. Clutter,
and it was hard to look again. I knew plain shooting couldn't account for that much
blood. And I wasn't wrong. He'd been shot, all right, the same as Kenyon - with the gun
held right in front of his face. But probably he was dead before he was shot. Or,
anyway, dying. Because his throat had been cut, too. He was wearing striped pajamas nothing else. His mouth was taped; the tape had been wound plumb around his head.
His ankles were tied together, but not his hands - or, rather, he'd managed, God knows
how, maybe in rage or pain, to break the cord binding his hands. He was sprawled in
front of the furnace. On a big cardboard box that looked as though it had been laid there
specially. A mattress box. Sheriff said, 'Look here, Wendle.' What he was pointing at
was a blood-stained footprint. On the mattress box. A half-sole footprint with circles two holes in the center like a pair of eyes. Then one of us - Mr. Ewalt? I don't recall pointed out something else. A thing I can't get out of my mind. There was a steam pipe
overhead, and knotted to it, dangling from it, was a piece of cord - the kind of cord the
killer had used. Obviously, at some point Mr. Clutter had been tied there, strung up by
his hands, and then cut down. But why? To torture him? I don't guess we'll never know.
Ever know who did it, or why, or what went on in that house that night.
"After a bit, the house began to fill up. Ambulances arrived, and the coroner, and
the Methodist minister, a police photographer, state troopers, fellows from the radio and
the newspaper. Oh, a bunch. Most of them had been called out of church, and acted as
though they were still there. Very quiet. Whispery. It was like nobody could believe it.
A state trooper asked me did I have any official business there, and said if not, then I'd
better leave. Outside, on the lawn, I saw the undersheriff talking to a man - Alfred
Stoecklein, the hired man. Seems Stoecklein lived not a hundred yards from the Clutter
house, with nothing between his place and theirs except a barn. But he was saying as to
how he hadn't heard a sound - said, 'I didn't know a thing about it till five minutes ago,
when one of my kids come running in and told us the sheriff was here. The Missis and
me, we didn't sleep two hours last night, was up and down the whole time, on account
of we got a sick baby. But the only thing we heard, about ten-thirty, quarter to eleven, I
heard a car drive away, and I made the remark to Missis, "There goes Bob Rupp." ' I
started walking home, and on the way, about halfway down the lane, I saw Kenyon's old
collie and that dog was scared. Stood there with its tail between its legs, didn't bark or
move. And seeing the dog - somehow that made me feel again. I'd been too dazed, too
numb, to feel the full viciousness of it. The suffering. The horror. They were dead. A
whole family. Gentle, kindly people, people I knew - murdered. You had to believe it,
because it was really true."
Eight non-stop passenger trains hurry through Holcomb every twenty-four hours. Of
these, two pick up and deposit mail - an operation that, as the person in charge of it
fervently explains, has its tricky side. "Yessir, you've got to keep on your toes. Them
trains come through here, sometimes they're going a hundred miles an hour. The breeze
alone, why, it's enough to knock you down. And when those mail sacks come flying out
- sakes alive! It's like playing tackle on a football team: Wham! Wham! WHAM! Not
that I'm complaining, mind you. It's honest work, government work, and it keeps me
young." Holcomb's mail messenger, Mrs. Sadie Truitt - or Mother Truitt, as the
townspeople call her - does seem younger than her years, which amount to seventy-five.
A stocky, weathered widow who wears babushka bandannas and cowboy boots ("Most
comfortable things you can put on your feet, soft as a loon feather"), Mother Truitt is
the oldest native-born Holcombite. "Time was wasn't anybody here wasn't my kin.
Them days, we called this place Sherlock. Then along came this stranger. By the name
Holcomb. A hog raiser, he was. Made money, and decided the town ought to be called
after him. Soon as it was, what did he do? Sold out. Moved to California. Not us. I was
born here, my children was born here. And! Here! We! Are!" One of her children is
Mrs. Myrtle Clare, who happens to be the local postmistress. "Only, don't go thinking
that's how I got this position with the government. Myrt didn't even want me to have it.
But it's a job you bid for. Goes to whoever puts in the lowest bid. And I always do - so
low a caterpillar could peek over it. Ha-ha! That sure does rile the boys. Lots of boys
would like to be mail messenger, yessir. But I don't know how much they'd like it when
the snow's high as old Mr. Primo Camera, and the wind's blowing blue-hard, and those
sacks come sailing - Ugh! Wham!"
In Mother Truitt's profession, Sunday is a workday like any other. On November
15, while she was waiting for the west bound ten-thirty-two, she was astonished to see
two ambulances cross the railroad tracks and turn toward the Clutter property. The
incident provoked her into doing what she had never done before - abandon her duties.
Let the mail fall where it may, this was news. that Myrt must hear at once.
The people of Holcomb speak of their post office as "the Fed Building," which
seems rather too substantial a title to confer on a drafty and dusty shed. The ceiling
leaks, the floor boards wobble, the mailboxes won't shut, the light bulbs are broken, the
clock has stopped. "Yes, it's a disgrace," agrees the caustic, some-what original, and
entirely imposing lady who presides over this "But the stamps work, don't they?
Anyhow, what do I care? Back here in my part is real cozy. I've got my rocker, and a
nice wood stove, and a coffee pot, and plenty to read."
Mrs. Clare is a famous figure in Finney County. Her celebrity derives not from
her present occupation but a previous one - dance-hall hostess, an incarnation not
indicated by her appearance. She is a gaunt, trouser-wearing, woolen-shirted, cowboybooted, ginger-colored, gingery-tempered woman of unrevealed ("That's for me to
know, and you to guess") but promptly revealed opinions, most of which are announced
in a voice rooster-crow altitude and penetration. Until 1955 she and her late husband
operated the Holcomb Dance Pavilion, an enterprise that owing to its uniqueness in the
area, attracted from a hundred around a fast-drinking, fancy-stepping clientele, whose
behavior, in turn, attracted the interest of the sheriff now and then. "We had some tough
times, all right," says Mrs. Clare, reminiscing. "Some of those bowlegged country boys,
you give 'em a little hooch and they're like redskins - want to scalp everything in sight.
Course, we only sold setups, never the hard stuff itself. Wouldn't have, even if it was
legal. My husband, Homer Clare, he didn't hold with it; neither did I. One day Homer
Clare - he passed on seven months and twelve days ago today, after a five-hour
operation out in Oregon - he said to me, 'Myrt, we've lived all our lives in hell, now
we're going to die in heaven.' The next day we closed the dance hall. I've never regretted
it. Oh, along at first I missed being a night owl - the tunes, the jollity. But now that
Homer's gone, I'm just glad to do my work here at the Federal Building. Sit a spell.
Drink a cup of coffee."
In fact, on that Sunday morning Mrs. Clare had just poured herself a cup of
coffee from a freshly brewed pot when Mother Truitt returned. "Myrt!" she said, but
could say no more until she had caught her breath. "Myrt, there's two ambulances gone
to the Clutters'. "Her daughter said, "Where's the ten-thirty-two?"
"Ambulances. Gone to the Clutters' - "
"Well, what about it? It's only Bonnie. Having one of her spells. Where's the tenthirty-two?"
Mother Truitt subsided; as usual, Myrt knew the answer, was enjoying the last
word. Then a thought occurred to her. "But Myrt, if it's only Bonnie, why would there
be two ambulances? "A sensible question, as Mrs. Clare, an admirer of logic, though a
curious interpreter of it, was driven to admit. She said she would telephone Mrs. Helm.
"Mabel will know," she said.
The conversation with Mrs. Helm lasted several minutes, and was most
distressing to Mother Truitt, who could hear nothing of it except the noncommittal
monosyllabic responses of her daughter. Worse, when the daughter hung up, she did not
quench the old woman's curiosity; instead, she placidly drank her coffee, went to her
desk, and began to postmark a pile of letters.
"Myrt," Mother Truitt said. "For heaven's sake. What did Mabel say?"
"I'm not surprised," Mrs. Clare said. "When you think how Herb Clutter spent
his whole life in a hurry, rushing in here to get his mail with never a minute to say goodmorning-and-thank-you-dog, rushing around like a chicken with its head off - joining
clubs, running everything, getting jobs maybe other people wanted. And now look - it's
all caught up with him. Well, he won't be rushing any more."
"Why, Myrt? Why won't he?"
Mrs. Clare raised her voice. "BECAUSE HE'S DEAD. And Bonnie, too. And
Nancy. And the boy. Somebody shot them."
"Myrt - don't say things like that. Who shot them?" Without a pause in her
postmarking activities, Mrs. Clare replied, "The man in the airplane. The one Herb sued
for crashing into his fruit trees. If it wasn't him, maybe it was you. Or somebody across
the street. All the neighbors are rattlesnakes. Varmints looking for a chance to slam the
door in your face. It's the same the whole world over. You know that."
"I don't," said Mother Truitt, who put her hands over her ears. "I don't know any
such thing."
"Varmints."
"I'm scared, Myrt."
"Of what? When your time comes, it comes. And tears won't save you." She had
observed that her mother had begun to shed a few. "When Homer died, I used up all the
fear I had in me, and all the grief, too. If there's somebody loose around here that wants
to cut my throat, I wish him luck. What difference does it make? It's all the same in
eternity. Just remember: If one bird carried every grain of sand, grain by grain, across
the ocean, by the time he got them all on the other side, that would only be the
beginning of eternity. So blow your nose."
The grim information, announced from church pulpits, distributed over telephone wires,
publicized by Garden City's radio station, KIUL ("A tragedy, unbelievable and shocking
beyond words, struck four members of the Herb Clutter family late Saturday night or
early today. Death, brutal and without apparent motive..."), produced in the average
recipient a reaction nearer that of Mother Truitt than that of Mrs. Clare: amazement,
shading into dismay; a shallow horror sensation that cold springs of personal fear
swiftly deepened.
Hartman's Cafe, which contains four roughly made tables and a lunch counter,
could accommodate but a fraction of the frightened gossips, mostly male, who wished
to gather there. The owner, Mrs. Bess Hartman, a sparsely fleshed, un-foolish lady with
bobbed gray-and-gold hair and bright, authoritative green eyes, is a cousin of
Postmistress Clare, whose style of candor Mrs. Hartman can equal, perhaps surpass.
"Some people say I'm a tough old bird, but the Clutter business sure took the fly out of
me," she later said to a friend. "Imagine anybody pulling a stunt like that! Time I heard
it, when everybody was pouring in here talking all kinds of wild-eyed stuff, my first
thought was Bonnie. Course, it was silly, but we didn't know the facts, and a lot of
people thought maybe - on account of her spells. Now we don't know what to think. It
must have been a grudge killing. Done by somebody who knew the house inside out.
But who hated the Clutters? I never heard a word against them; they were about as
popular as a family can be, and if something like this could happen to them, then who's
safe, I ask you? One old man sitting here that Sunday, he put his finger right on it, the
reason nobody can sleep; he said, 'All we've got out here are our friends. There isn't
anything else.' In a way, that's the worst part of the crime. What a terrible thing when
neighbors can't look at each other without kind of wondering! Yes, it's a hard fact to live
with, but if they ever do find out who done it, I'm sure it'll be a bigger surprise than the
murders themselves."
Mrs. Bob Johnson, the wife of the New York Life Insurance agent, is an
excellent cook, but the Sunday dinner she had prepared was not eaten - at least, not
while it was warm - for just as her husband was plunging a knife into the roast pheasant,
he received a telephone call from a friend. "And that," he recalls, rather ruefully, "was
the first I heard of what had happened in Holcomb. I didn't believe it. I couldn't afford
to. Lord, I had Clutter's check right here in my pocket. A piece of paper worth eighty
thousand dollars. If what I'd heard was true. But I thought, It can't be, there must be
some mistake, things like that don't happen, you don't sell a man a big policy one
minute and he's dead the next. Murdered. Meaning double indemnity. I didn't know
what to do. I called the manager of our office in Wichita. Told him how I had the check
but hadn't put it through, and asked what was his advice? Well, it was a delicate
situation. It appeared that legally we weren't obliged to pay. But morally - that was
another matter. Naturally, we decided to do the moral thing."
The two persons who benefited by this honorable attitude - Eveanna Jarchow
and her sister Beverly, sole heirs to their father's estate - were, within a few hours of the
awful discovery, on their way to Garden City, Beverly traveling from Winfield, Kansas,
where she had been visiting her fiancé, and Eveanna from her home in Mount Carroll,
Illinois. Gradually, in the course of the day, other relatives were notified, among them
Mr. Clutter's father, his two brothers, Arthur and Clarence, and his sister, Mrs. Harry
Nelson, all of Larned, Kansas, and a second sister, Mrs. Elaine Selsor, of Palatka,
Florida. Also, the parents of Bonnie Clutter, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur B. Fox, who live in
Pasadena, California, and her three brothers - Harold, of Visalia, California; Howard, of
Oregon, Illinois; and Glenn, of Kansas City, Kansas. Indeed, the better part of those on
the Clutters' Thanksgiving guest list were either telephoned or telegraphed, and the
majority set forth at once for what was to be a family reunion not around a groaning
board but at the graveside of a mass burial.
At the Teacherage, Wilma Kidwell was forced to control herself in order to
control her daughter, for Susan, puffy-eyed, sickened by spasms of nausea, argued,
inconsolably insisted, that she must go - must run - the three miles to the Rupp farm.
"Don't you see, Mother?" she said. "If Bobby just hears it? He loved her. We both did. I
have to be the one to tell him."
But Bobby already knew. On his way home, Mr. Ewalt had stopped at the Rupp
farm and consulted with his friend Johnny Rupp, a father of eight, of whom Bobby is
the third. Together the two men went to the bunkhouse - a building separate from the
farmhouse proper, which is too small to shelter all the Rupp children. The boys live in
the bunkhouse, the girls "at home." They found Bobby making his bed. He listened to
Mr. Ewalt, asked no questions, and thanked him for coming. Afterward, he stood
outside in the sunshine. The Rupp property is on a rise, an exposed plateau, from which
he could see the harvested, glowing land of River Valley Farm - scenery that occupied
him for perhaps an hour. Those who tried to distract him could not. The dinner bell
sounded, and his mother called to him to come inside - called until finally her husband
said, "No. I'd leave him alone." Larry, a younger brother, also refused to obey the
summoning bell. He circled around Bobby, helpless to help but wanting to, even though
he was told to "go away." Later, when his brother stopped standing and started to walk,
heading down the road and across the fields toward Holcomb, Larry pursued him. "Hey,
Bobby. Listen. If we're going somewhere, why don't we go in the car?" His brother
wouldn't answer. He was walking with purpose, running, really, but Larry had no
difficulty keeping stride. Though only fourteen, he was the taller of the two, the deeperchested, the longer-legged, Bobby being, for all his athletic honors, rather less than
medium-size - compact but slender, a finely made boy with an open, homely-handsome
face. "Hey, Bobby. Listen. They won't let you see her. It won't do any good." Bobby
turned on him, and said, "Go back. Go home." The younger brother fell behind, then
followed at a distance. Despite the pumpkin-season temperature, the day's arid glitter,
both boys were sweating as they approached a barricade that state troopers had erected
at the entrance to River Valley Farm. Many friends of the Clutter family, and strangers
from all over Finney County as well, had assembled at the site, but none was allowed
past the barricade, which, soon after the arrival of the Rupp brothers, was briefly lifted
to permit the exit of four ambulances, the number finally required to remove the
victims, and a car filled with men from the sheriff's office - men who, even at that
moment, were mentioning the name of Bobby Rupp. For Bobby, as he was to learn
before nightfall, was their principal suspect.
From her parlor window, Susan Kidwell saw the white cortege glide past, and
watched until it had rounded the corner and the paved street's easily airborne dust had
landed again. She was still contemplating the view when Bobby, shadowed by his large
little brother, became a part of it, a wobbly figure headed her way. She went out on the
porch to meet him. She said, "I wanted so much to tell you." Bobby began to cry. Larry
lingered at the edge of the Teacherage yard, hunched against a tree. He couldn't
remember ever seeing Bobby cry, and he didn't want to, so he lowered his eyes.
Far off, in the town of Olathe, in a hotel room where window shades darkened the
midday sun. Perry lay sleeping, with a gray portable radio murmuring beside him.
Except for taking off his boots, he had not troubled to undress. He had merely fallen
face down across the bed, as though sleep were a weapon that had struck him from
behind. The boots, black and silver-buckled, were soaking in a washbasin filled with
warm, vaguely pink-tinted water.
A few miles north, in the pleasant kitchen of a modest farm-house, Dick was
consuming a Sunday dinner. The others at the table - his mother, his father, his younger
brother - were not conscious of anything uncommon in his manner. He had arrived
home at noon, kissed his mother, readily replied to questions his father put concerning
his supposed overnight trip to Fort Scott, and sat down to eat, seeming quite his
ordinary self. When the meal was over, the three male members of the family settled in
the parlor to watch a televised basketball game. The broadcast had only begun when the
father was startled to hear Dick snoring; as he remarked to the younger boy, he never
thought he'd live to see the day when Dick would rather sleep than watch basketball.
But, of course, he did not understand how very tired Dick was, did not know that his
dozing son had, among other things, driven over eight hundred miles in the past twentyfour hours.
II. PERSONS UNKNOWN
That Monday, the sixteenth of November, 1959, was still another fine specimen of
pheasant weather on the high wheat plains of western Kansas - a day gloriously brightskied, as glittery as mica. Often, on such days in years past, Andy Erhart had spent long
pheasant-hunting afternoons at River Valley Farm, the home of his good friend Herb
Clutter, and often, on these sporting expeditions, he'd been accompanied by three more
of Herb's closest friends: Dr. J. D. Dale, a veterinarian; Carl Myers, a dairy owner; and
Everett Ogburn, a businessman. Like Erhart, the superintendent of the Kansas State
University Agricultural Experiment Station, all were prominent citizens of Garden City.
Today this quartet of old hunting companions had once again gathered to make
the familiar journey, but in an unfamiliar spirit and armed with odd, non-sportive
equipment - mops and pails, scrubbing brushes, and a hamper heaped with rags and
strong detergents. They were wearing their oldest clothes. For, feeling it their duty, a
Christian task, these men had volunteered to clean certain of the fourteen rooms in the
main house at River Valley Farm: rooms in which four members of the Clutter family
had been murdered by, as their death certificates declared, "a person or persons
unknown."
Erhart and his partners drove in silence. One of them later remarked, "It just shut
you up. The strangeness of it. Going out there, where we'd always had such a welcome."
On the present occasion a highway patrolman welcomed them. The patrolman, guardian
of a barricade that the authorities had erected at the entrance to the farm, waved them
on, and they drove a half mile more, down the elm-shaded lane leading to the Clutter
house. Alfred Stoecklein, the only employee who actually lived on the property, was
waiting to admit them.
They went first to the furnace room in the basement, where the pajama-clad Mr.
Clutter had been found sprawled atop the card board mattress box. Finishing there, they
moved on to the playroom in which Kenyon had been shot to death. The couch, a relic
that Kenyon had rescued and mended and that Nancy had slip-covered and piled with
mottoed pillows, was a blood-splashed ruin; like the mattress box, it would have to be
burned. Gradually, as the cleaning party progressed from the basement to the secondfloor bedrooms where Nancy and her mother had been murdered in their beds, they
acquired additional fuel for the impending fire - blood-soiled bedclothes, mattresses, a
bedside rug, a Teddy-bear doll.
Alfred Stoecklein, not usually a talkative man, had much to say as he fetched hot
water and otherwise assisted in the cleaning-up. He wished "folks would stop yappin'
and try to understand" why he and his wife, though they lived scarcely a hundred yards
from the Clutter home, had heard "nary a nothin'" - not the slightest echo of gun thunder
- of the violence taking place. "Sheriff and all them fellas been out here finger printin'
and scratchin' around, they got good sense, they understand how it was. How come we
didn't hear. For one thing, the wind. A west wind, like it was, would carry the sound
t'other way. Another thing, there's that big milo barn 'tween this house and our'n. That
old barn 'ud soak up a lotta racket 'fore it reached us. And did you ever think of this?
Him that done it, he must've knowed we wouldn't hear. Else he wouldn't have took the
chance - shootin' off a shotgun four times in the middle of the night! Why, he'd be
crazy. Course, you might say he must be crazy anyhow. To go doing what he did. But
my opinion, him that done it had it figured out to the final T. He knowed. And there's
one thing I know, too. Me and the Missis, we've slept our last night on this place. We're
movin' out to a house alongside the highway."
The men worked from noon to dusk. When the time came to burn what they had
collected, they piled it on a pickup truck with Stoecklein at the wheel, drove deep into
the farm's north field, a flat place full of color, though a single color - the shimmering
tawny yellow of November wheat stubble. They unloaded the truck and made a pyramid
of Nancy's pillows, the bedclothes, the mattresses, the playroom couch; Stoecklein
sprinkled it with kerosene and struck a match.
Of those present, none had been closer to the Clutter family than Andy Erhart.
Gentle, genially dignified, a scholar with work-calloused hands and sunburned neck,
he'd been a classmate of Herb's at Kansas State University. "We were friends for thirty
years," he said some time afterward, and during those decades Erhart had seen his friend
evolve from a poorly paid County Agricultural Agent into one of the region's most
widely known and respected farm ranchers: "Everything Herb had, he earned - with the
help of God. He was a modest man but a proud man as he had a right to be. He raised a
fine family. He made something of his life." But that life, and what he'd made of it how could it happen, Erhart wondered as he watched the bonfire catch. How was it
possible that such effort, such plain virtue, could overnight be reduced to this - smoke,
thinning as it rose and was received by the big, annihilating sky?
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, a state-wide organization with headquarters in
Topeka, had a staff of nineteen experienced detectives scattered through the state, and
the services of these men are available whenever a case seems beyond the competence
of local authorities. The Bureau's Garden City representative, and the agent responsible
for a sizable portion of western Kansas, is a lean and handsome fourth-generation
Kansan of forty-seven named Alvin Adams Dewey. It was inevitable that Earl
Robinson, the sheriff of Finney County, should ask Al Dewey to take charge of the
Clutter case. Inevitable, and appropriate. For Dewey, himself a former sheriff of Finney
County (from 1947 to 1955) and, prior to that, a Special Agent of the F. B. I. (between
1940 and 1945 he had served in New Orleans, in San Antonio, in Denver, in Miami, and
in San Francisco), was professionally qualified to cope with even as intricate an affair as
the apparently motiveless, all but clueless Clutter murders. Moreover, his attitude
toward the crime made it, as he later said, "a personal proposition." He went on to say
that he and his wife "were real fond of Herb and Bonnie," and saw them every Sunday
at church, visited a lot back and forth," adding, "But even if I hadn't known the family,
and liked them so well, I wouldn't feel any different. Because I've seen some bad things,
I sure as hell have. But nothing so vicious as this. However long it takes, it maybe the
rest of my life, I'm going to know what happened in that house: the why and the who."
Toward the end, a total of eighteen men were assigned to the case full time,
among them three of the K. B. I.'s ablest investigators - Special Agents Harold Nye,
Roy Church, and Clarence Duntz. With the arrival in Garden City of this trio, Dewey
was satisfied that "a strong team" had been assembled. "Somebody better watch out," he
said.
The sheriff's office is on the third floor of the Finney County courthouse, an
ordinary stone-and-cement building standing in the center of an otherwise attractive
tree-filled square. Nowadays, Garden City, which was once a rather raucous frontier
town, is quite subdued. On the whole, the sheriff doesn't do much business, and his
office, three sparsely furnished rooms, is ordinarily a quiet place popular with
courthouse idlers; Mrs. Edna Richardton, his hospitable secretary, usually has a pot of
coffee going and plenty of time to "chew the fat." Or did, until, as she complained,
Clutter thing came along," bringing with it "all these out-of-towners, all this newspaper
fuss." The case, then commending headlines as far east as Chicago, as far west as
Denver, had indeed lured to Garden City a considerable press corps.
On Monday, at midday, Dewey held a press conference in the sheriff's office.
"I'll talk facts but not theories," he informed the assembled journalists. "Now, the big
fact here, the thing to remember, is we're not dealing with one murder but four. And we'
don't know which of the four was the main target. The primary victim. It could have
been Nancy or Kenyon, or either of their parents. Some people say, Well, it must have
been Mr. Clutter. Because his throat was cut; he was the most abused. But that's theory,
not fact. It would help if we knew in what order the family died, but the coroner can't
tell us that; he only knows the murders happened sometime between eleven p. m.
Saturday and two a. m. Sunday." Then, responding to questions, he said no, neither of
the women had been "sexually molested," and no, as far as was presently known,
nothing had been stolen from the house, and yes, he did think it a "queer coincidence"
that Mr. Clutter should have taken out a forty-thousand-dollar life-insurance policy,
with double indemnity, within eight hours of his death. However, Dewey was "pretty
darn sure" that no connection existed between this purchase and the crime; how could
there be one, when the only persons who benefited financially were Mr. Clutter's two
surviving children, the elder daughters, Mrs. Donald Jarchow and Miss Beverly Clutter?
And yes, he told the reporters, he did have an opinion on whether the murders were the
work of one man or two, but he preferred not to disclose it.
Actually, at this time, on this subject, Dewey was undecided. He still entertained
a pair of opinions - or, to use his word, "concepts" - and, in reconstructing the crime,
had developed both a "single-killer concept" and a "double-killer concept." In the
former, the murderer was thought to be a friend of the family, or, at any rate, a man with
more than casual knowledge of the house and its inhabitants - someone who knew that
the doors were seldom locked, that Mr. Clutter slept alone in the master bedroom on the
ground floor, that Mrs. Clutter and the children occupied separate bedrooms on the
second floor. This person, so Dewey imagined, approached the house on foot, probably
around midnight. The windows were dark, the Clutters asleep, and as for Teddy, the
farm's watchdog - well, Teddy was famously gun-shy. He would have cringed at the
sight of the intruder's weapon, whimpered, and crept away. On entering the house, the
killer first disposed of the telephone installations - one in Mr. Clutter's office, the other
in the kitchen - and then, after cutting the wires, he went to Mr. Clutter's bedroom and
awakened him. Mr. Clutter, at the mercy of the gun-bearing visitor, was forced to obey
instructions - forced to accompany him to the second floor, where they aroused the rest
of the family. Then, with cord and adhesive tape supplied by the killer, Mr. Clutter
bound and gagged his wife, bound his daughter (who, inexplicably, had not been
gagged), and roped them to their beds. Next, father and son were escorted to the
basement, and there Mr. Clutter was made to tape Kenyon and tie him to the playroom
couch. Then Mr. Clutter was taken into the furnace room, hit on the head, gagged, and
trussed. Now free to do as he pleased, the murderer killed them one by one, each time
carefully collecting the discharged shell. When he had finished, he turned out all the
lights and left.
It might have happened that way; if was just possible. But Dewey had doubts:
"If Herb had thought his family was in danger, mortal danger, he would have fought like
a tiger. And Herb was no ninny - a strong guy in top condition. Kenyon too - big as his
dad, bigger, a big-shouldered boy. It's hard to see how one man, armed or not, could
have handled the two of them." More over, there was reason to suppose that all four had
been bound by the same person: in all four instances the same type of knot, a half hitch,
was used.
Dewey - and the majority of his colleagues, as well - favored the second
hypothesis, which in many essentials followed the first, the important difference being
that the killer was not alone but had an accomplice, who helped subdue the family, tape,
and tie them. Still, as a theory, this, too, had its faults. Dewey, for example, found it
difficult to understand "how two individuals could reach the same degree of rage, the
kind of psychopathic rage it took to commit such a crime." He went on to explain:
"Assuming murderer was someone known to the family, a member of this community;
assuming that he was an ordinary man, ordinary except that he had a quirk, an insane
grudge against the Clutters, or of the Clutters - where did he find a partner, someone
crazy enough to help him? It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. But then, come right
down to it, nothing does."
After the news conference, Dewey retired to his office, a room the sheriff had
temporarily lent him. It contained a desk and straight chairs. The desk was littered with
what Dewey would some day constitute courtroom exhibits: the adhesive tape and the
yards of cord removed from the victims and sealed in plastic sacks (as clues, neither
item seemed very promising, for both were common-brand products, obtainable here in
the United States), and photographs taken at the scene of the crime by a police
photographer - twenty blown-up glossy-print pictures of Mr. Clutter's shattered skull,
his son's demolished face, Nancy's bound hands, her mother's death-dulled, staring eyes,
and so on. In days to come, Dewey was to spend hours examining these photographs,
hoping that he might suddenly see something," that a meaningful detail would declare
itself. "Like those puzzles. The ones that ask, 'How many animals can you find in this
picture?' In a way, that's what I'm trying to do. Find the hidden animals. I feel they must
be there - if only I could see them. " As a matter of fact, one of the photographs, a closeup of Mr. Clutter and the mattress box upon which he lay, already provided a valuable
surprise: footprints, the dusty trackings of shoes with diamond-patterned soles. The
prints, not noticeable to the naked eye, registered on film; indeed, the delineating glare
of a flashbulb had revealed their presence with superb exactness. These prints, together
with another footmark found on the same cardboard cover - the bold and bloody
impression of a Cat's Paw half sole - were the only "serious clues" the investigators
could claim. Not that they were claiming them; Dewey and his team had decided to
keep secret the existence of this evidence. Among the other articles on Dewey's desk
was Nancy Clutter's diary. He had glanced through it, no more than that, and now he
settled down to an earnest reading of the day-by-day entries, which began on her
thirteenth birthday and ended some two months short of her seventeenth; the
unsensational confidings of an intelligent child who adored animals, who liked to read,
cook, sew, dance, ride horseback - a popular, pretty, virginal girl who thought it "fun to
flirt" but was nevertheless "only really and truly in love with Bobby." Dewey read the
final entry first. It consisted of three lines written an hour or two before she died:
"Jolene K. came over and I showed her how to make a cherry pie. Practiced with Roxie.
Bobby here and we watched TV. Left at eleven."
Young Rupp, the last person known to have seen the family alive, had already
undergone one extensive interrogation, and although he'd told a straightforward story of
having passed "just an ordinary evening" with the Clutters, he was scheduled for a
second interview, at which time he was to be given a polygraph test. The plain fact was
that the police were not quite ready to dismiss him as a suspect. Dewey himself, did not
believe the boy had "anything to do with it"; still, it was true that at this early stage of
the investigation, Bobby was the only person to whom a motive, however feeble, could
be attributed. Here and there in the diary, Nancy referred to the situation that was
supposed to have created the motive: her father's insistence that she and Bobby "break
off, " stop "seeing so much of each other, " his objection being that the Clutters were
Methodist, the Rupps Catholic - a circumstance that in his view completely canceled
any hope the young couple might have of one day marrying. But the diary notation that
most tantalized Dewey was unrelated to the Clutter-Rupp, Methodist-Catholic impasse.
Rather, it concerned a cat, the mysterious demise of Nancy's favorite pet, Boobs, whom,
according to an entry dated two weeks prior to her own death, she'd found "lying in the
barn, " the victim, or so she suspected (without saying why), of a poisoner: "Poor
Boobs. I buried him in a special place." On reading this, Dewey felt it could be "very
important." If the cat had been poisoned, might not this act have been a small, malicious
prelude to the murders? He determined to find the "special place" where Nancy had
buried her pet, even though it meant combing the vast whole of River Valley Farm.
While Dewey was occupying himself with the diary, his principal assistants, the
Agents Church, Duntz, and Nye, were crisscrossing the countryside, talking, as Duntz
said, "to anyone who could tell us anything": the faculty of the Holcomb School, where
both Nancy and Kenyon had been honor-roll, straight-A students; the employees of
River Valley Farm (a staff that in spring and summer sometimes amounted to as many
as eighteen men but in the present fallow season consisted of Gerald Van Vleet and
three hired men, plus Mrs. Helm); friends of the victims; their neighbors; and, very
particularly, their relatives. From far and near, some twenty of the last had arrived to
attend the funeral services, which were to take place Wednesday morning.
The youngest of the K. B. I. group, Harold Nye, who was a peppy little man of
thirty-four with restless, distrustful eyes and a sharp nose, chin, and mind, had been
assigned what he called "the damned delicate business" of interviewing the Clutter
kinfolk: "It's painful for you and it's painful for them. When it comes to murder, you
can't respect grief. Or privacy. Or personal feelings. You've got to ask the questions.
And some of them cut deep, "But none of the persons he questioned, and none of the
questions he asked ("I was exploring the emotional background. I thought the answer
might be another woman - a triangle. Well, consider: Mr. Clutter was a fairly young,
very healthy man, but his wife, she was a semi-invalid, she slept in a separate
bedroom..."), produced useful information; not even the two surviving daughters could
suggest a cause for the crime. In brief, Nye learned only this: "Of all the people in all
the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered."
At the end of the day, when the three agents convened in Dewey's office, it
developed that Duntz and Church had had better luck than Nye - Brother Nye, as the
others called him. (Members of the K. B. I, are partial to nicknames; Duntz is known as
Old Man - unfairly, since he is not quite fifty, a burly but light-footed man with a broad,
tomcat face, and Church, who is sixty or so, pink-skinned and professorial looking, but
"tough" according to his colleagues, and "the fastest draw in Kansas," is called Curly,
because his head is partly hairless.) Both men, in the course of their inquiries, had
picked up "promising leads."
Duntz 's story concerned a father and son who shall here be known as John
Senior and John Junior. Some years earlier John had conducted with Mr. Clutter a minor
business transaction, the outcome of which angered John Senior, who felt that Clutter
had thrown him "a queer ball." Now, both John Senior and his son "boozed"; indeed,
John Junior was an often incarcerated alcoholic. One unfortunate day father and son,
full of whiskey courage, appeared at the Clutter home intending to "have it out with
Herb." They were denied the chance, for Mr. Clutter, an abstainer aggressively opposed
to drink and drunkards, seized a gun and marched them off his property. This
discourtesy the Johns had not forgiven; as recently as a month ago, John Senior had told
an acquaintance, "Every time I think of that bastard, my hands start to twitch. I just want
to choke him."
Church's lead was of a similar nature. He, too, had heard of someone admittedly
hostile to Mr. Clutter: a certain Mr. Smith (though that is not his true name), who
believed that the squire of River Valley Farm had shot and killed Smith's hunting dog.
Church had inspected Smith's farm home and seen there, hanging from a barn rafter, a
length of rope tied with the same kind of knot that was used to bind the four Clutters.
Dewey said, "One of those, maybe that's our deal. A personal thing - a grudge
that got out of hand."
"Unless it was robbery," said Nye, though robbery as the motive had been much
discussed and then more or less dismissed. The arguments against it were good, the
strongest being that Mr. Clutter's aversion to cash was a county legend; he had no safe
and never carried large sums of money. Also, if robbery were the explanation, why
hadn't the robber removed the jewelry that Mrs. Clutter was wearing - a gold wedding
band and a diamond ring? Yet Nye was not convinced: "The whole setup has that
robbery smell. What about Clutter's wallet? Someone left it open and empty on Clutter's
bed - I don't think it was the owner. And Nancy's purse. The purse was lying on the
kitchen floor. How did it get there? Yes, and not a dime in the house. Well - two dollars.
We found two dollars in an envelope on Nancy's desk. And we know Clutter cashed a
check for sixty bucks just the day before. We figure there ought to have been at least
fifty of that left. So some say, 'Nobody would kill four people for fifty bucks.' And say,
'Sure, maybe the killer did take the money - but just to try and mislead us, make us think
robbery was the reason. 'I wonder."
As darkness fell, Dewey interrupted the consultation to telephone his wife,
Marie, at their home, and warn her that he wouldn't be home for dinner. She said, "Yes.
All right, Alvin," but he noticed in her tone an uncharacteristic anxiety. The Deweys,
parents of two young boys, had been married seventeen years, and Marie, a Louisianaborn former F. B. I, stenographer, whom he'd met while he was stationed in New
Orleans, sympathized with the hardships of his profession - the eccentric hours, the
sudden calls summoning him to distant areas of the state.
He said, "Anything the matter?"
"Not a thing," she assured him. "Only, when you come home tonight, you'll have
to ring the bell. I've had all the locks changed."
Now he understood, and said, "Don't worry, honey. Just lock the doors and turn
on the porch light."
After he'd hung up, a colleague asked, "What's wrong? Marie scared?"
"Hell, yes," Dewey said. "Her, and everybody else."
Not everybody. Certainly not Holcomb's widowed postmistress, the intrepid Mrs.
Myrtle Clare, who scorned her fellow townsmen as "a lily-livered lot, shaking in their
boots afraid to shut their eyes," and said of herself, "This old girl, she's sleeping good as
ever. Anybody wants to play a trick on me, let 'em try." (Eleven months later a guntoting team of masked bandits took her at her word by invading the post office and
relieving the lady of nine hundred and fifty dollars.) As usual, Mrs. Clare's notions
conformed with those of very few. "Around here," according to the proprietor of one
Garden City hardware store, "locks and bolts are the fastest-going item. Folks ain't
particular what brand they buy; they just want them to hold." Imagination, of course,
can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in. Tuesday, at dawn, a carload
of pheasant hunters from Colorado - strangers, ignorant of the local disaster - were
startled by what they saw as they crossed the prairies and passed through Holcomb:
windows ablaze, almost every window in almost every house, and, in the brightly lit
rooms, fully clothed people, even entire families, who had sat the whole night wide
awake, watchful, listening. Of what were they frightened? "It might happen again."
That, with variations, was the customary response, however, one woman, a
schoolteacher, observed, "Feeling wouldn't run half so high if this had happened to
anyone except the Clutters. Anyone less admired. Prosperous. Secure. But that family
represented everything people hereabouts really value and respect, and that such a thing
could happen to them - well, it's like being told there is no God. It makes life seem
pointless. I don't think people are so much frightened as they are deeply depressed."
Another reason, the simplest, the ugliest, was that this hitherto peaceful
congregation of neighbors and old friends had suddenly to endure the unique experience
of distrusting each other; understandably, they believed that the murderer was among
themselves, and, to the last man, endorsed an opinion advanced by Arthur Clutter, a
brother of the deceased, who, while talking to journalists in the lobby of a Garden City
hotel on November 17, had said, "When this is cleared up, I'll wager whoever did it was
someone within ten miles of where we now stand."
Approximately four hundred miles east of where Arthur Clutter then stood, two young
men were sharing a booth in the Eagle Buffet, a Kansas City diner. One - narrow-faced,
and with a blue cat tattooed on his right hand - had polished off several chicken-salad
sandwiches and was now eying his companion's meal: an untouched hamburger and a
glass of root beer in which three aspirin were dissolving.
"Perry, baby," Dick said, "you don't want that burger. I'll take it."
Perry shoved the plate across the table. "Christ! Can't you let me concentrate?"
"You don't have to read it fifty times."
The reference was to a front-page article in the November 17 edition of the
Kansas City Star. Headlined Clues are few in slaying of 4, the article, which was a
follow-up of the previous day's initial announcement of the murders, ended with a
summarizing paragraph: The investigators are left faced with a search for a killer or
killers whose cunning is apparent if his (or their) motive is not. For this killer or killers:
'Carefully cut the telephone cords of the home's two telephones. Bound and gagged their
victims expertly, with no evidence of a struggle with any of them. Left nothing in the
house amiss, left no indication they had searched for anything with the possible
exception of [Clutter's] billfold. 'Shot four persons in different parts of the house, calmly
picking up the expended shotgun shells. Arrived and left the home, presumably with the
murder weapon, without being seen. Acted without a motive, if you care to discount an
abortive robbery attempt, which the investigators are wont to do.
" 'For this killer or killers,'" said Perry, reading aloud. "That's incorrect. The
grammar is. It ought to be 'For this killer or these killers.'" Sipping his aspirin-spiked
root beer, he went on, "Anyway, I don't believe it. Neither do you. Own up, Dick. Be
honest. You don't believe this no clue stuff?
Yesterday, after studying the papers, Perry had put the same question, and Dick,
who thought he'd disposed of it ("Look. If those cowboys could make the slightest
connection, we'd have heard the sound of hoofs a hundred miles off"), was bored at
hearing it again. Too bored to protest when Perry once more pursued the matter: "I've
always played my hunches. That's why I'm alive today. You know Willie-Jay? He said I
was a natural-born 'medium,' and he knew about things like that, he was interested. He
said I had a high degree of 'extrasensory perception.' Sort of like having built-in radar you see things before you see them. The outlines of coming events. Take, like, my
brother and his wife. Jimmy and his wife. They were crazy about each other, but he was
jealous as hell, and he made her so miserable, being jealous and always thinking she
was passing it out behind his back, that she shot herself, and the next day Jimmy put a
bullet through his head. When it happened - this was 1949, and I was in Alaska with
Dad up around Circle City - I told Dad, 'Jimmy's dead.' A week later we got the news.
Lord's truth. Another time, over in Japan, I was helping load a ship, and I sat down to
rest a minute. Suddenly a voice inside me said, 'Jump!' I jumped I guess maybe ten feet,
and just then, right where I'd been sitting, a ton of stuff came crashing down. I could
give you a hundred examples. I don't care if you believe me or not. For instance, right
before I had my motorcycle accident I saw the whole thing happen: saw it in my mind the rain, the skid tracks, me lying there bleeding and my legs broken. That's what I've
got now. A premonition. Something tells me this is a trap." He tapped the newspaper.
"A lot of prevarications."
Dick ordered another hamburger. During the past few days he'd known a hunger
that nothing - three successive steaks, a dozen Hershey bars, a pound of gumdrops seemed to interrupt. Perry, on the other hand, was without appetite; he subsisted on root
beer, aspirin, and cigarettes. "No wonder you got leaps," Dick told him. "Aw, come on,
baby. Get the bubbles out of your blood. We scored. It was perfect."
"I'm surprised to hear that, all things considered," Perry said. The quietness of
his tone italicized the malice of his reply. But Dick took it, even smiled - and his smile
was a skillful proposition. Here, it said, wearing a kid grin, was a very personable
character, clean-cut, affable, a fellow any man might trust to shave him. "O. K.," Dick
said. "Maybe I had some wrong information."
"Hallelujah."
"But on the whole it was perfect. We hit the ball right out of park. It's lost. And
it's gonna stay lost. There isn't a single connection."
"I can think of one."
Perry had gone too far. He went further: "Floyd - is that the name?" A bit below
the belt, but then Dick deserved it, his confidence was like a kite that needed reeling in.
Nevertheless, Perry observed with some misgiving the symptoms of fury rearranging
Dick's expression: jaw, lips, the whole face slackened; saliva bubbles appeared at the
corners of his mouth. Well, if it came to it Perry could defend himself. He was short,
several inches shorter than Dick, and his runty, damaged legs were unreliable, but he
outweighed his friend, was thicker, had arms that could squeeze the breath out of a bear.
To prove it, however - have a fight, a real falling-out - was far from desirable. Like Dick
or not (and he didn't dislike Dick, though once he'd liked him better, respected him
more), it was obvious they could not now safely separate. On that point they were in
accord, for Dick had said, "If we get caught, let's get caught together. Then we can back
each other up. When they start pulling the confession crap, saying you said and I said."
Moreover, if he broke with Dick, it meant the end of plans still attractive to Perry, and
still, despite recent reverses, deemed possible by both - a skin-diving, treasure-hunting
life lived together among islands or along coasts south of the border.
Dick said, "Mr. Wells!" He picked up a fork. "It'd be worth it. Like if I was
nabbed on a check charge, it'd be worth it. Just to get back in there." The fork came
down and stabbed the table. "Right through the heart, honey."
"I'm not saying he would," said Perry, willing to make a concession now that
Dick's anger had soared past him and struck elsewhere. "He'd be too scared."
"Sure," said Dick. "Sure. He'd be too scared." A marvel, really, the ease with
which Dick negotiated changes of mood; in a trice, all trace of meanness, of sullen
bravura, had evaporated. He said, "About that premonition stuff. Tell me this: If you
were so damn sure you were gonna crack up, why didn't you call it quits? It wouldn't
have happened if you'd stayed off your bike - right?"
That was a riddle that Perry had pondered. He felt he'd solved it, but the
solution, while simple, was also somewhat hazy: "No. Because once a thing is set to
happen, all you can do is hope it won't. Or will - depending. As long as you live, there's
always something waiting, and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do?
You can't stop living. Like my dream. Since I was a kid, I've had this same dream.
Where I'm in Africa. A jungle. I'm moving through the trees toward a tree standing all
alone. Jesus, it smells bad, that tree; it kind of makes me sick, the way it stinks. Only,
it's beautiful to look at - it has blue leaves and diamonds hanging everywhere.
Diamonds like oranges. That's why I'm there - to pick myself a bushel of diamonds. But
I know the minute I try to, the minute I reach up, a snake is gonna fall on me. A snake
that guards the tree. This fat son of a bitch living in the branches. I know this before
hand, see? And Jesus, I don't know how to fight a snake. But I figure, Well, I'll take my
chances. What it comes down to is I want the diamonds more than I'm afraid of the
snake. So I go to pick one, I have the diamond in my hand, I'm pulling at it, when the
snake lands on top of me. We wrestle around, but he's a slippery sonofabitch and I can't
get a hold, he's crushing me, you can hear my legs cracking. Now comes the part it
makes me sweat even to think about. See, he starts to swallow me. Feet first. Like going
down in quicksand. "Perry hesitated. He could not help noticing that Dick, busy
gouging under his fingernails with a fork prong, was uninterested in his dream. Dick
said, "So? The snake swallows you? Or what?"
"Never mind. It's not important." (But it was! The finale was of great
importance, a source of private joy. He'd once told it to his friend Willie-Jay; he had
described to him the towering bird, the yellow "sort of parrot." Of course, Willie-Jay
was different - -delicate-minded, "a saint." He'd understood. But Dick? Dick might
laugh. And that Perry could not abide: anyone's ridiculing the parrot, which had first
flown into his dreams when he was seven years old, a hated, hating half-breed child
living in a California orphanage run by nuns - shrouded disciplinarians who whipped
him for wetting his bed. It was after one of these beatings, one he could never forget
("She woke me up. She had a flashlight, and she hit me with it. Hit me and hit me. And
when the flashlight broke, she went on hitting me in the dark"), that the parrot appeared,
arrived while he slept, a bird "taller than Jesus, yellow like a sunflower," a warrior-angel
who blinded nuns with its beak, fed upon their eyes, slaughtered them as they "pleaded
for mercy," then so gently lifted him, enfolded him, winged him away to "paradise."
As the years went by, the particular torments from which the bird delivered him
altered; others - older children, his father, a faithless girl, a sergeant he'd known in the
Army - replaced the nuns, but the parrot remained, a hovering avenger. Thus, the snake,
that custodian of the diamond-bearing tree, never finished devouring him but was itself
always devoured. And afterward that blessed ascent! Ascension to a paradise that in one
version was merely "a feeling," a sense of power, of unassailable superiority-sensations
that in another version were transposed into "A red place. Like out of a movie. Maybe
that's where I did see it, remembered it from a movie. Because where else would I have
seen a garden like that? With white marble steps? Fountains? And away down below, if
you go to the edge of the garden, you can see the ocean. Terrific! Like around Carmel,
California. The worst thing, though - well, it's a long, long table. You never imagined
too much food. Oysters. Turkeys. Hot dogs. Fruit you could make into a million fruit
cups. And, listen - it's every bit free. I mean, I don't have to be afraid to touch it. I can
eat as much as I want, and it won't cost a cent. That's how I know where I am.")
Dick said, "I'm a normal. I only dream about blond chicken. Speaking of which,
you hear about the nanny goat's nightmare?" That was Dick - always ready with a dirty
joke on any subject. But he told the joke well, and Perry, though he was in some
measure a prude, could not help laughing, as always.
Speaking of her friendship with Nancy Clutter, Susan Kidwell said: "We were like
sisters. At least, that's how I felt about her - as though she were my sister. I couldn't go
to school - not those first few days. I stayed out of school until after the funeral. So did
Bobby Rupp. For a while Bobby and I were always together. He's a nice boy - he has a
good heart - but nothing very terrible had ever happened to him before. Like losing
anyone he'd loved. And then, on top of it, having to take a lie-detector test. I don't mean
he was bitter about that; he realized the police were doing what they had to do. Some
hard things, two or three, had already happened to me, but not to him, so it was a shock
when he found out maybe life isn't one long basketball game. Mostly, we just drove
around in his old Ford. Up and down the highway. Out to the airport and back. Or we'd
go to the Cree-Mee - that's a drive-in - and sit in the car, order a Coke, listen to the
radio. The radio was always playing; we didn't have anything to say ourselves. Except
once in a while Bobby said how much he'd loved Nancy, and how he could never care
about another girl. Well, I was sure Nancy wouldn't have wanted that, and I told him so.
I remember - I think it was Monday - we drove down to the river. We parked on the
bridge. You can see the home from there - the Clutter house. And part of the land - Mr.
Qutter's fruit orchard, and the wheat fields going away. Way off in one of the fields a
bonfire was burning; they were burning stuff from the house. Everywhere you looked,
there was something to remind you. Men with nets and poles were fishing along the
banks of the river, but not fishing for fish. Bobby said they were looking for the
weapons. The knife. The gun.
"Nancy loved the river. Summer nights we used to ride double on Nancy's horse,
Babe - that old fat gray? Ride straight to the river and right into the water. Then Babe
would wade along in the shallow part while we played our flutes and sang. Got cool. I
keep wondering, Gosh, what will become of her? Babe. A lady from Garden City took
Kenyon's dog. Took Teddy. He ran away - found his way back to Holcomb. But she
came and got him again. And I have Nancy's cat - Evinrude. But Babe. I suppose they'll
sell her. Wouldn't Nancy hate that? Wouldn't she be furious? Another day, the day
before the funeral, Bobby and I were sitting by the railroad tracks. Watching the trains
go by. Real stupid. Like sheep in a blizzard. When suddenly Bobby woke up and said,
'We ought to go see Nancy. We ought to be with her.' So we drove to Garden City went to the Phillip V Funeral Home, there on Main Street. I think Bobby's kid brother
was with us. Yes, I'm sure he was. Because I remember we picked him up after school.
And I remember he said how there wasn't going to be any school the next day, so all the
Holcomb kids could go to the funeral. And he kept telling us what the kids thought. He
said the kids were convinced it was the work of a hired killer.' I didn't want to hear
about it. Just gossip and talk - everything Nancy despised. Anyway, I don't much care
who did it. Somehow it seems beside the point. My friend is gone. Knowing who killed
her isn't going to bring her back. What else matters? They wouldn't let us. At the funeral
parlor, I mean. They said no one could view the family. Except the relatives. But Bobby
insisted, and finally the undertaker - he knew Bobby, and, I guess, felt sorry for him - he
said all right, be quiet about it, but come on in. Now I wish we hadn't."
The four coffins, which quite filled the small, flower-crowded parlor, were to be
sealed at the funeral services - very understandably, for despite the care taken with the
appearance of the victims, the effect achieved was disquieting. Nancy wore her dress of
cherry-red velvet, her brother a bright plaid shirt; the parents were more sedately attired,
Mr. Clutter in navy-blue flannel, his wife in navy-blue crepe; and - and it was this,
especially, that lent the scene an awful aura - the head of each was completely encased
in cotton, a swollen cocoon twice the size of an ordinary blown-up balloon, and the
cotton, because it had been sprayed with a glossy substance, twinkled like Christmastree snow.
Susan at once retreated. "I went outside and waited in the car," she recalled.
"Across the street a man was raking leaves. I kept looking at him. Because I didn't want
to close my eyes. I thought, if I do I'll faint. So I watched him rake leaves and burn
them. Watched, without really seeing him. Because all I could see was the dress. I knew
it so well. I helped her pick the material. It was her own design, and she sewed it
herself. I remember how excited she was the first time she wore it. At a party. All I
could see was Nancy's red velvet. And Nancy in it. Dancing."
The Kansas City Star printed a lengthy account of the Clutter funeral, but the edition
containing the article was two days old before Perry, lying abed in a hotel room, got
around to reading it. Even so, he merely skimmed through, skipped about among the
paragraphs: "A thousand persons, the largest crowd in the five-year history of the First
Methodist Church, attended services for the four victims today. . . . Several classmates
of Nancy's from Holcomb High School wept as the Reverend Leonard Cowan said:
'God offers us courage, love and hope even though we walk through the shadows of the
valley of death. I'm sure he was with them in their last hours. Jesus has never promised
us we would not suffer pain or sorrow but He has always said He would be there to help
us bear the sorrow and the pain.'... On the unseasonably warm day, about six hundred
persons went to the Valley View Cemetery on the north edge of this city. There, at
graveside services, they recited the Lord's Prayer. Their voices, massed together in a
low whisper, could be heard throughout the cemetery."
A thousand people! Perry was impressed. He wondered how much the funeral
had cost. Money was greatly on his mind, though not as relentlessly as it had been
earlier in the day - a day he'd begun "without the price of a cat's miaow." The situation
had improved since then; thanks to Dick, he and Dick now possessed "a pretty fair
stake" - enough to get them to Mexico.
Dick! Smooth. Smart. Yes, you had to hand it to him. Christ, it was incredible
how he could "con a guy. " Like the clerk in the Kansas City, Missouri, clothing store,
the first of the places Dick had decided to "hit. " As for Perry, he'd never tried to "pass a
check. " He was nervous, but Dick told him, "All I want you to do is stand there. Don't
laugh, and don't be surprised at anything I say. You got to play these things by ear. " For
the task proposed, it seemed, Dick had perfect pitch. He breezed in, breezily introduced
Perry to the clerk as "a friend of mine about to get married," and went on, "I'm his best
man. Helping him kind of shop around for the clothes he'll want. Ha-ha, what you might
say his - ha-ha - trousseau. " The salesman "ate it up," and soon Perry, stripped of his
denim trousers, was trying on a gloomy suit that the clerk considered "ideal for an
informal ceremony. " After commenting on the customer's oddly proportioned figure the oversized torso supported by the undersized legs - he added, "I'm afraid we haven't
anything that would fit without alteration. " Oh, said Dick, that was O. K., there was
plenty of time - the wedding was "a week tomorrow." That settled, they then selected a
gaudy array of jackets and slacks regarded as appropriate for what was to be, according
to Dick, a Florida honeymoon. "You know the Eden Roc?" Dick said to the salesman.
"In Miami Beach? They got reservations. A present from her folks - two weeks at forty
bucks a day. How about that? An ugly runt like him, he's making it with a honey she's
not only built but loaded. While guys like you and me, good-lookin' guys..." The clerk
presented the bill. Dick reached in his hip pocket, frowned, snapped his fingers, and
said, "Hot damn! I forgot my wallet." Which to his partner seemed a ploy so feeble that
it couldn't possibly "fool a day-old nigger." The clerk, apparently, was not of that
opinion, for he produced a blank check, and when Dick made it out for eighty dollars
more than the bill totaled, instantly paid over the difference in cash.
Outside, Dick said, "So you're going to get married next week? Well, you'll need
a ring." Moments later, riding in Dick's aged Chevrolet, they arrived at a store named
Best Jewelry. From there, after purchasing by check a diamond engagement ring and
diamond wedding band, they drove to a pawnshop to dispose of these items. Perry was
sorry to see them go. He'd begun to half credit the make-believe bride, though in his
conception of her, as opposed to Dick's, she was not rich, not beautiful; rather, she was
nicely groomed, gently spoken, was conceivably "a college graduate," in any event "a
very intellectual type" - a sort of girl he'd always wanted to meet but in fact never had.
Unless you counted Cookie, the nurse he'd known when he was hospitalized as a
result of his motorcycle accident. A swell kid, Cookie, and she had liked him, pitied
him, babied him, inspired him to read "serious literature" - Gone with the Wind, This Is
My Beloved. Sexual episodes of a strange and stealthy nature had occurred, and love
had been mentioned, and marriage, too, but eventually, when his injuries had mended,
he'd told her goodbye and given her, by way of explanation, a poem he pretended to
have written: There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; So they
break the hearts of kith and kin; And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
He had not seen her again, or ever heard from or of her, yet several years later
he'd had her name tattooed on his arm, and once, when Dick asked who "Cookie" was,
he'd said, "Nobody. A girl I almost married." (That Dick had been married - married
twice - and had fathered three sons was something he envied. A wife, children - those
were experiences "a man ought to have," even if, as with Dick, they didn't "make him
happy or do him any good.")
The rings were pawned for a hundred and fifty dollars. They visited another
jewelry store, Goldman's, and sauntered out of there with a man's gold wristwatch. Next
stop, an Elko Camera Store, where they "bought" an elaborate motion-picture camera."
Cameras are your best investment," Dick informed Perry. "Easiest thing to hock or sell.
Cameras and TV sets." This being the case, they decided to obtain several of the latter,
and, having completed the mission, went on to attack a few more clothing emporiums Sheperd & Foster's, Rothschild's, Shopper's Paradise. By sundown, when the stores
were closing, their pockets were filled with cash and the car was heaped with salable,
pawnable wares. Surveying this harvest of shirts and cigarette lighters, expensive
machinery and cheap cuff links, Perry felt elatedly tall - now Mexico, a new chance, a
"really living" life. But Dick seemed depressed. He shrugged off Perry's praises ("I
mean it, Dick. You were amazing. Half the time I believed you myself"). And Perry was
puzzled; he could not fathom why Dick, usually so full of himself, should suddenly,
when he had good cause to gloat, be meek, look wilted and sad. Perry said, "I'll stand
you a drink."
They stopped at a bar. Dick drank three Orange Blossoms. After the third, he
abruptly asked, "What about Dad? I feel - oh, Jesus, he's such a good old guy. And my
mother - well, you saw her. What about them? Me, I'll be off in Mexico. Or wherever.
But they'll be right here when those checks start to bounce. I know Dad. He'll want to
make them good. Like he tried to before. And he can't - he's old and he's sick, he ain't
got anything."
"I sympathize with that," said Perry truthfully. Without being kind, he was
sentimental, and Dick's affection for his parents, his professed concern for them, did
indeed touch him. "But hell, Dick. It's very simple," Perry said. "We can pay off the
checks. Once we're in Mexico, once we get started down there, we'll make money. Lots
of it."
"How?"
"How?" - what could Dick mean? The question dazed Perry. After all, such a
rich assortment of ventures had been discussed. Prospecting for gold, skin-diving for
sunken treasure - these were but two of the projects Perry had ardently proposed. And
there were others. The boat, for instance. They had often talked of a deep-sea-fishing
boat, which they would buy, man themselves, and rent to vacationers - this though
neither had ever skippered a canoe or hooked a guppy. Then, too. there was quick
money to be made chauffeuring stolen cars across South American borders.("You get
paid five hundred bucks a trip or so Perry had read somewhere.) But of the many replies
he might have made, he chose to remind Dick of the fortune awaiting them on Cocos
Island, a land speck off the coast of Costa Rica. "No fooling, Dick," Perry said. "This is
authentic. I've got a map. I've got the whole history. It was buried there back in 1821 Peruvian bullion, jewelry. Sixty million dollars - that's what they say it's worth. Even if
we didn't find all of it, even if we found only some of it - Are you with me, Dick?"
Heretofore, Dick had always encouraged him, listened attentively to his talk of maps,
tales of treasure, but now - and it had not occurred to him before - he wondered if all
along Dick had only been pretending, just kidding him.
The thought, acutely painful, passed, for Dick, with a wink and a playful jab,
said, "Sure, honey. I'm with you. All the way."
It was three in the morning, and the telephone rang again. Not that the hour mattered. Al
Dewey was wide awake anyway, and so were Marie and their sons, nine-year-old Paul
and twelve-year-old Alvin Adams Dewey, Jr. For who could sleep in a house - a modest
one-story house - where all night the telephone had been sounding every few minutes?
As he got out of bed, Dewey promised his wife, "This time I'll leave it off the hook."
But it was not a promise he dared keep. True, many of the calls came from newshunting journalists, or would-be humorists, or theorists ("Al? Listen, fella, I've got this
deal figured. It's suicide and murder. I happen to know Herb was in a bad way
financially. He was spread pretty thin. So what does he do? He takes out this big
insurance policy, shoots Bonnie and the kids, and kills himself with a bomb. A hand
grenade stuffed with buckshot"), or anonymous persons with poison-pen minds ("Know
them Ls? Foreigners? Don't work? Give parties? Serve cocktails? Where's the money
come from? Wouldn't surprise me a darn if they ain't at the roots of this Clutter
trouble"), or nervous ladies alarmed by the gossip going around, rumors that knew
neither ceiling nor cellar ("Alvin, now, I've known you since you were a boy. And I
want you to tell me straight out whether it's so. I loved and respected Mr. Clutter, and I
refuse to believe that that man, that Christian - I refuse to believe he was chasing after
women...").
But most of those who telephoned were responsible citizens wanting to be
helpful ("I wonder if you've interviewed Nancy's friend, Sue Kidwell? I was talking to
the child, and she said something that struck me. She said the last time she ever spoke to
Nancy, Nancy told her Mr. Clutter was in a real bad mood. Had been the past three
weeks. That she thought he was very worried about something, so worried he'd taken to
smoking cigarettes..."). Either that or the callers were people officially concerned - law
officers and sheriffs from other parts of the state ("This may be something, may not, but
a bartender here says he over heard two fellows discussing the case in terms made it
sound like they had a lot to do with it..."). And while none of these conversations had as
yet done more than make extra work for the investigators, it was always possible that
the next one might be, as Dewey put it, "the break that brings down the curtain."
On answering the present call, Dewey immediately heard "I want to confess."
He said, "To whom am I speaking, please?"
The caller, a man, repeated his original assertion, and added, "I did it. I killed
them all."
"Yes," said Dewey. "Now, if I could have your name and address..."
"Oh, no, you don't," said the man, his voice thick with inebriated indignation.
"I'm not going to tell you anything. Not till I get the reward. You send the reward, then
I'll tell you who I am. That's final."
Dewey went back to bed. "No, honey," he said. "Nothing important. Just another
drunk."
"What did he want?"
"Wanted to confess. Provided we sent the reward first." (Akansas paper, the
Hutchinson News, had offered a thousand dollars for information leading to the solution
of the crime.)
"Alvin, are you lighting another cigarette? Honestly, Alvin, can't you at least try
to sleep?"
He was too tense to sleep, even if the telephone could be silenced - too fretful
and frustrated. None of his "leads" had led anywhere, except, perhaps, down a blind
alley toward the blankest of walls. Bobby Rupp? The polygraph machine had eliminated
Bobby. And Mr. Smith, the farmer who tied rope knots identical with those used by the
murderer - he, too, was a discarded suspect, having established that on the night of the
crime he'd been "off in Oklahoma." Which left the Johns, father and son, but they had
also submitted provable alibis. "So," to quote Harold Nye, "it all adds up to a nice round
number. Zero." Even the hunt for the grave of Nancy's cat had come to nothing.
Nevertheless, there had been one or two meaningful developments. First, while
sorting Nancy's clothes, Mrs. Elaine Selsor, her aunt, had found tucked in the toe of a
shoe a gold wristwatch. Second, accompanied by a K. B. I. agent, Mrs. Helm had
explored every room at River Valley Farm, toured the house in the expectation that she
might notice something awry or absent, and she had. It happened in Kenyon's room.
Mrs. Helm looked and looked, paced round and round the room with pursed lips,
touching this and that - Kenyon's old baseball mitt, Kenyon's mud-spattered work boots,
his pathetic abandoned spectacles. All the while she kept whispering, "Something here
is wrong, I feel it, I know it, but I don't know what it is." And then she did know. "It's
the radio! Where is Kenyon's little radio?"
Taken together, these discoveries forced Dewey to consider again the possibility
of "plain robbery" as a motive. Surely that watch had not tumbled into Nancy's shoe by
accident? She must, lying there in the dark, have heard sounds - footfalls, perhaps
voices - that led her to suppose thieves were in the house, and so believing must have
hurriedly hidden the watch, a gift from her father that she treasured. As for the radio, a
gray portable made by Zenith - no doubt about it, the radio was gone. All the same,
Dewey could not accept the theory that the family had been slaughtered for paltry profit
- "a few dollars and a radio. " To accept it would obliterate his image of the killer - or,
rather, killers. He and his associates had definitely decided to pluralize the term. The
expert execution of the crimes was proof enough that at least one of the pair
commanded an immoderate amount of cool-headed slyness, and was - must be - a
person too clever to have done such a deed without calculated motive. Then, too,
Dewey had become aware of several particulars that reinforced his conviction that at
least one of the murderers was emotionally involved with the victims, and felt for them,
even as he destroyed them, a certain twisted tenderness. How else explain the mattress
box?
The business of the mattress box was one of the things that most tantalized
Dewey. Why had the murderers taken the trouble to move the box from the far end of
the basement room and lay it on the floor in front of the furnace, unless the intention
had been to make Mr. Clutter more comfortable - to provide him, while he contemplated
the approaching knife, with a couch less rigid than cold cement? And in studying the
death-scene photographs Dewey had distinguished other details that seemed to support
his notion of a murderer now and again moved by considerate impulses. "Or" - he could
never quite find the word he wanted - "something fussy. And soft. Those bedcovers.
Now, what kind of person would do that - tie up two women, the way Bonnie and the
girl were tied, and then draw up the bedcovers, tuck them in, like sweet dreams and
good night? Or the pillow under Kenyon's head. At first I thought maybe the pillow was
put there to make his head a simpler target. Now I think, No, it was done for the same
reason the mattress box was spread on the floor - to make the victim more comfortable."
But speculation such as these, though they absorbed Dewey, did not gratify him
or give him a sense of "getting somewhere." A case was seldom solved by "fancy
theories"; he put his faith in facts - "sweated for and sworn to." The quantity of facts to
be sought and sifted, and the agenda planned to obtain them, promised perspiration a
plenty, entailing, as it did, the tracking down, the "checking out," of hundreds of people,
among them all former River Valley Farm employees, friends and family, anyone with
whom Mr. Clutter had done business, much or little - a tortoise crawl into the past. For,
as Dewey had told his team, "we have to keep going till we know the Clutters better
than they ever knew themselves. Until we see the connection between what we found
last Sunday morning and something that happened maybe five years ago. The link. Got
to be one. Got to."
Dewey's wife dozed, but she awakened when she felt him leave their bed, heard
him once more answering the telephone, and heard, from the nearby room where her
sons slept, sobs, a small boy crying. "Paul?" Ordinarily, Paul was neither troubled nor
troublesome - not a whiner, ever. He was too busy digging tunnels in the backyard or
practicing to be "the fastest runner in Finney County." But at breakfast that morning
he'd burst into tears. His mother had not needed to ask him why; she knew that although
he understood only hazily the reasons for the uproar around him, he felt endangered by
it - by the harassing telephone, and the strangers at the door, and his father's worrywearied eyes. She went to comfort Paul. His brother, three years older, helped. "Paul,"
he said, "you take it easy now, and tomorrow I'll teach you to play poker."
Dewey was in the kitchen; Marie, searching for him, found him there, waiting
for a pot of coffee to percolate and with the murder-scene photographs spread before
him on the kitchen table - bleak stains, spoiling the table's pretty fruit-patterned oil
cloth. (Once he had offered to let her look at the pictures. She had declined. She had
said, "I want to remember Bonnie the way Bonnie was - and all of them.") He said,
"Maybe the boys ought to stay with Mother." His mother, a widow, lived not far off, in
a house she thought too spacious and silent; the grandchildren were always welcome.
"For just a few days. Until - well, until."
"Alvin, do you think we'll ever get back to normal living?" Mrs. Dewey asked.
Their normal life was like this: both worked, Mrs. Dewey as an office secretary,
and they divided between them the household chores, taking turns at the stove and the
sink. ("When Alvin was sheriff, I know some of the boys teased him. Used to say, 'Look
over yonder! Here comes Sheriff Dewey! Tough guy! Totes a six-shooter! But once he
gets home, off comes the gun and on goes the apron!'") At that time they were saving to
build a home on a farm that Dewey had bought in 1951 - two hundred and forty acres
several miles north of Garden City. If the weather was fine, and especially when the
days were hot and the wheat was high and ripe, he liked to drive out there and practice
his draw - shoot crows, tin cans - or in his imagination roam through the house he hoped
to have, and through the garden he meant to plant, and under trees yet to be seeded. He
was very certain that some day his own oasis of oaks and elms would stand upon those
shadeless plains: "Some day. God willing."
A belief in God and the rituals surrounding that belief - church every Sunday,
grace before meals, prayers before bed - were an important part of the Deweys'
existence. "I don't see how anyone can sit down to table without wanting to bless it,"
Mrs. Dewey once said. "Sometimes, when I come home from work - well, I'm tired. But
there's always coffee on the stove, and sometimes a steak in the icebox. The boys make
a fire to cook the steak, and we talk, and tell each other our day, and by the time
supper's ready I know we have good cause to be happy and grateful. So I say, Thank
you, Lord. Not just because I should - because I want to."
Now Mrs. Dewey said, "Alvin, answer me. Do you think we'll ever have a
normal life again?" He started to reply, but the telephone stopped him.
The old Chevrolet left Kansas City November 21, Saturday night. Luggage was lashed
to the fenders and roped to the roof; the trunk was so stuffed it could not be shut; inside,
on the back seat, two television sets stood, one atop the other. It was a tight fit for the
passengers: Dick, who was driving, and Perry, who sat clutching the old Gibson guitar,
his most beloved possession. As for Perry's other belongings - a card-board suitcase, a
gray Zenith portable radio, a gallon jug of root-beer syrup (he feared that his favorite
beverage might not be available in Mexico), and two big boxes containing books,
manuscripts, cherished memorabilia (and hadn't Dick raised hell! Cursed, kicked the
boxes, called them "five hundred pounds of pig slop!") - these, too, were part of the
car's untidy interior.
Around midnight they crossed the border into Oklahoma. Perry, glad to be out of
Kansas, at last relaxed. Now it was true - they were on their way. On their way, and
never coming back - without regret, as far as he was concerned, for he was leaving
nothing behind, and no one who might deeply wonder into what thin air he'd spiraled.
The same could not be said of Dick. There were those Dick claimed to love: three sons,
a mother, a father, a brother - persons he hadn't dared confide his plans to, or bid
goodbye, though he never expected to see them again - not in this life.
Clutter - English Vows given in Saturday ceremony: that headline, appearing on the
social page of the Garden City Telegram for November 23, surprised many of its
readers. It seemed that Beverly, the second of Mr. Clutter's surviving daughters, had
married Mr. Vere Edward English, the young biology student to whom she had long
been engaged. Miss Clutter had worn white, and the wedding, a full-scale affair ("Mrs.
Leonard Cowan was soloist, and Mrs. Howard Blanchard organist"), had been
"solemnized at the First Methodist Church" - the church in which, three days earlier, the
bride had formally mourned her parents, her brother, and her younger sister. However,
according to the Telegram's account, "Vere and Beverly had planned to be married at
Christmas time. The invitations were printed and her father had reserved the church for
that date. Due to the unexpected tragedy and because of the many relatives being here
from distant places, the young couple decided to have their wedding Saturday."
The wedding over, the Clutter kinfolk dispersed. On Monday, the day the last of
them left Garden City, the Telegram featured on its front page a letter written by Mr.
Howard Fox, of Oregon, Illinois, a brother of Bonnie Clutter. The letter, after
expressing gratitude to the townspeople for having opened their "homes and hearts" to
the bereaved family, turned into a plea. "There is much resentment in this community
[that is, Garden City]," wrote Mr. Fox. "I have even heard on more than one occasion
that the man, when found, should be hanged from the nearest tree. Let us not feel this
way. The deed is done and taking another life cannot change it. Instead, let us forgive as
God would have us do. It is not right that we should hold a grudge in our hearts. The
doer of this act is going to find it very difficult indeed to live with himself. His only
peace of mind will be when he goes to God for forgiveness. Let us not stand in the way
but instead give prayers that he may find his peace."
The car was parked on a promontory where Perry and Dick had stopped to picnic. It was
noon. Dick scanned the view through a pair of binoculars. Mountains. Hawks wheeling
in a white sky. A dusty road winding into and out of a white and dusty village. Today
was his second day in Mexico, and so far he liked it fine - even the food. (At this very
moment he was eating a cold, oily tortilla.) They had crossed the border at Laredo,
Texas, the morning of November 23, and spent the first night in a San Luis Potosi
brothel. They were now two hundred miles north of their next destination, Mexico City.
"Know what I think?" said Perry. "I think there must be something wrong with
us. To do what we did."'
"Did what?"
"Out there."
Dick dropped the binoculars into a leather case, a luxurious receptacle initialed
H. W. C. He was annoyed. Annoyed as hell. Why the hell couldn't Perry shut up? Christ
Jesus, what damn good did it do, always dragging the goddam thing up? It really was
annoying. Especially since they'd agreed, sort of, not to talk about the goddam thing.
Just forget it.
"There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that,"
Perry said.
"Deal me out, baby," Dick said. "I'm a normal." And Dick meant what he said.
He thought himself as balanced, as sane as anyone - maybe a bit smarter than the
average fellow, that's all. But Perry - there was, in Dick's opinion, "something wrong"
with Little Perry. To say the least. Last spring, when they had celled together at Kansas
State Penitentiary, he'd learned most of Perry's lesser peculiarities: Perry could be "such
a kid," always wetting his bed and crying in his sleep ("Dad, I been looking everywhere,
where you been, Dad?"), and often Dick had seen him "sit for hours just sucking his
thumb and poring over them phony damn treasure guides." Which was one side; there
were others. In some ways old Perry was "spooky as hell." Take, for instance, that
temper of his. He could slide into a fury "quicker than ten drunk Indians." And yet you
wouldn't know it. "He might be ready to kill you, but you'd never know it, not to look at
or listen to," Dick once said. For however extreme the inward rage, outwardly Perry
remained a cool young tough, with eyes serene and slightly sleepy. The time had been
when Dick had thought he could control, could regulate the temperature of the sudden
cold fevers that burned and chilled his friend, he had been mistaken, and in the
aftermath of that discovery, had grown very unsure of Perry, not at all certain what to
think - except that he felt he ought to be afraid of him, and wondered really why he
wasn't.
"Deep down," Perry continued, "way, way rock-bottom, I never thought I could
do it. A thing like that."
"How about the nigger?" Dick said. Silence. Dick realized that Perry was staring
at him. A week ago, in Kansas City, Perry had bought a pair of dark glasses - fancy ones
with silver-lacquered rims and mirrored lenses. Dick disliked them; he'd told Perry he
was ashamed to be seen with "anyone who'd wear that kind of flit stuff." Actually, what
irked him was the mirrored lenses; it was unpleasant having Perry's eyes hidden behind
the privacy of those tinted, reflecting surfaces.
"But a nigger," said Perry. "That's different." The comment, the reluctance with
which it was pronounced, made Dick ask, "Or did you? Kill him like you said?" It was a
significant question, for his original interest in Perry, his assessment of Perry's character
and potentialities, was founded on the story Perry had once told him of how he had
beaten a colored man to death.
"Sure I did. Only - a nigger. It's not the same." Then Perry said, "Know what it is
that really bugs me? About the other thing? It's just I don't believe it - that anyone can
get away with a thing like that. Because I don't see how it's possible. To do what we did.
And just one hundred percent get away with it. I mean, that's what bugs me - I can't get
it out of my head that something's got to happen."
Though as a child he had attended church, Dick had never "come near" a belief
in God; nor was he troubled by superstitions. Unlike Perry, he was not convinced that a
broken mirror meant seven years' misfortune, or that a young moon if glimpsed through
glass portended evil. But Perry, with his sharp and scratchy intuitions, had hit upon
Dick's one abiding doubt. Dick, too, suffered moments when that question circled inside
his head: Was it possible - were the two of them "honest to God going to get away with
doing a thing like that"? Suddenly, he said to Perry, "Now, just shut up!" Then he
gunned the motor and backed the car off the promontory. Ahead of him, on the dusty
road, he saw a dog trotting along in the warm sunshine.
Mountains. Hawks. Wheeling in a white sky.
When Perry asked Dick, "Know what I think?" he knew he was beginning a
conversation that would displease Dick, and one that, for that matter, he himself would
just as soon avoid. He agreed with Dick: Why go on talking about it? But he could not
always stop himself. Spells of helplessness occurred, moments when he "remembered
things" - blue light exploding in a black room, the glass eyes of a big toy bear - and
when voices, a particular few words, started nagging his mind: "Oh, no! Oh, please! No!
No! No! No! Don't! Oh, please don't, please!" And certain sounds returned - a silver
dollar rolling across a floor, boot steps on hardwood stairs, and the sounds of breathing,
the gasps, the hysterical inhalations of a man with a severed windpipe.
When Perry said, "I think there must be something wrong with us," he was
making an admission he "hated to make." After all, it was "painful" to imagine that one
might be "not just right" - particularly if whatever was wrong was not your own fault
but "maybe a thing you were born with." Look at his family! Look at what had
happened there! His mother, an alcoholic, had strangled to death on her own vomit. Of
her children, two sons and two daughters, only the younger girl, Barbara, had entered
ordinary life, married, begun raising a family. Fern, the other daughter, jumped out of a
window of a San Francisco hotel. (Perry had ever since "tried to believe she slipped,"
for he'd loved Fern. She was "such a sweet person," so "artistic," a "terrific" dancer, and
she could sing, too. "If she'd ever had any luck at all, with her looks and all, she could
have got somewhere, been somebody" It was sad to think of her climbing over a
window sill and falling fifteen floors.) And there was Jimmy, the older boy - Jimmy,
who had one day driven his wife to suicide and killed himself the next.
Then he heard Dick say, "Deal me out, baby. I'm a normal. " Wasn't that a
horse's laugh? But never mind, let it pass. "Deep down," Perry continued, "way, way
rock-bottom, I never thought I could do it. A thing like that. " And at once he
recognized his error: Dick would, of course, answer by asking, "How about the nigger?"
When he'd told Dick that story, it was because he'd wanted Dick's friendship, wanted
Dick to "respect" him, think him "hard," as much "the masculine type" as he had
considered Dick to be. And so one day after they had both read and were discussing a
Reader's Digest article entitled "How Good a Character Detective Are You?" ("As you
wait in a dentist's office or a railway station, try studying the give-away signs in people
around you. Watch the way they walk, for example. A stiff-legged gait can reveal a
rigid, unbending personality; a shambling walk a lack of determination"), Perry had said
"I've always been an outstanding character detective, otherwise I'd be dead today. Like
if I couldn't judge when to trust somebody. You never can much. But I've come to trust
you, Dick. You'll see I do, because I'm going to put myself in your power. I'm going to
tell you something I never told anybody. Not even Willie-Jay. About the time I fixed a
guy. " And Perry saw, as he went on, that Dick was interested; he was really listening.
"It was a couple of summers ago. Out in Vegas. I was living in this old boarding house it used to be a fancy cathouse. But all the fancy was gone. It was a place they should
have torn down ten years back; anyway, it was sort of coming down by itself. The
cheapest rooms were in the attic, and I lived up there. So did this nigger. His name was
King; he was a transient. We were the only two up there - us and a million cucarachas.
King, he wasn't too young, but he'd done roadwork and other outdoor stuff - he had a
good build. He wore glasses, and he read a lot. He never shut his door, time I passed by,
he was always lying there buck-naked, was out of work, and said he'd saved a few
dollars from his job, said he wanted to stay in bed awhile, read and fan himself and
drink beer. The stuff he read, it was just junk - comic books and cowboy junk. He was
O. K. Sometimes we'd have a beer together, and once he lent me ten dollars. I had no
cause to hurt him. But one night we were sitting in the attic, it was so hot you couldn't
sleep, so I said, 'Come on, King, let's go for a drive.' I had an old car I'd stripped and
souped and painted silver - the Silver Ghost, I called it. We went for a long drive. Drove
way out in the desert. Out there it was cool. We parked and drank a few more beers.
King got out of the car, and I followed after him. He didn't see I'd picked up this chain.
A bicycle chain I kept under the seat. Actually, I had no real idea to do it till I did it. I
hit him across the face. Broke his glasses. I kept right on. Afterward, I didn't feel a
thing. I left him there, and never heard a word about it. Maybe nobody ever found him.
Just buzzards."
There was some truth in the story. Perry had known, under the circumstances
stated, a Negro named King. But if the man was dead today it was none of Perry's
doing; he'd never raised a hand against him. For all he knew, King might still be lying a
bed some-where, fanning himself and sipping beer.
"Or did you? Kill him like you said?" Dick asked.
Perry was not a gifted liar, or a prolific one; however, once he had told a fiction
he usually stuck by it. "Sure I did. Only - a nigger. It's not the same." Presently, he said,
"Know what it is that really bugs me? About that other thing? It's just I don't believe it that anyone can get away with a thing like that." And he suspected that Dick didn't,
either. For Dick was at least partly inhabited by Perry's mystical-moral apprehensions.
Thus: "Now, just shut up!"
The car was moving. A hundred feet ahead, a dog trotted along the side of the
road. Dick swerved toward it. It was an old half-dead mongrel, brittle-boned and
mangy, and the impact, as it met the car, was little more than what a bird might make.
But Dick was satisfied. "Boy!" he said - and it was what he always said after running
down a dog, which was something he did whenever the opportunity arose. "Boy! We
sure splattered him!"
Thanksgiving passed, and the pheasant season came to a halt, but not the beautiful
Indian summer, with its flow of clear, pure days. The last of the out-of-town newsmen,
convinced that the case was never going to be solved, left Garden City. But the case was
by no means closed for the people of Finney County, and least of all for those who
patronized Holcomb's favorite meeting place, Hartman's Cafe.
"Since the trouble started, we've been doing all the business we can handle,"
Mrs. Hartman said, gazing around her snug domain, every scrap of which was being sat
or stood or leaned upon by tobacco-scented, coffee-drinking farmers, farm helpers, and
ranch hands. "Just a bunch of old women," added Mrs. Hartman's cousin, Postmistress
Clare, who happened to be on the premises. "If it was spring and work to be done, they
wouldn't be here. But wheat's winter's on the way, they got nothing to do but sit around
and scare each other. You know Bill Brown, down to the Telegram? See the editorial he
wrote? That one he called it 'Another Crime'? Said, 'It's time for everyone to stop
wagging loose tongues.' Because that's a crime, too - telling plain-out lies. But what can
you expect? Look around you. Rattlesnakes. Varmints. Rumor-mongers. See anything
else? Ha! Like dash you do."
One rumor originating in Hartman's Cafe involved Taylor Jones, a rancher
whose property adjoins River Valley Farm. In the opinion of a good part of the cafe's
clientele, Mr. Jones and his family, not the Clutters, were the murderer's intended
victims. "It makes harder sense," argued one of those who held this view." Taylor Jones,
he's a richer man than Herb Clutter ever was. Now, pretend the fellow who done it
wasn't anyone from here-abouts. Pretend he'd been maybe hired to kill, and all he had
was instructions on how to get to the house. Well, it would be mighty easy to make a
mistake - take a wrong turn - and end up at Herb's place 'stead of Taylor's." The "Jones
Theory" was much repeated - especially to the Joneses, a dignified and sensible family,
who refused to be flustered.
A lunch counter, a few tables, an alcove harboring a hot grill, and an icebox and
a radio - that's all there is to Hartman's Cafe. "But our customers like it," says the
proprietress. "Got to. Nowhere else for them to go. 'Less they drive seven miles one
direction or fifteen the other. Anyway, we run a friendly place, and the coffee's good
since Mable came to work" - Mabel being Mrs. Helm. "After the tragedy, I said, 'Mabel,
now that you're out of a job, why don't you come give me a hand at the cafe? Cook a
little. Wait counter.' How it turned out - the only bad feature is, everybody comes in
here, they pester her with questions. About the tragedy. But Mabel's not like Cousin
Myrt. Or me. She's shy. Besides, she doesn't know anything special. No more than
anybody else." But by and large the Hartman congregation continued to suspect that
Mabel Helm knew a thing or two that she was holding back. And, of course, she did.
Dewey had had several conversations with her and had requested that everything they
said be kept secret. Particularly, she was not to mention the missing radio or the watch
found in Nancy's shoe. Which is why she said to Mrs. Archibald William WarrenBrowne, "Anybody reads the papers knows as much as I do. More. Because I don't read
them."
Square, squat, in the earlier forties, an English woman fitted out with an accent
almost incoherently upper-class, Mrs. Archibald William Warren-Browne did not at all
resemble the cafe's other frequenters, and seemed, within that setting, like a peacock
trapped in a turkey pen. Once, explaining to an acquaintance why she and her husband
had abandoned "family estates in the North of England," exchanging the hereditary
home - "the jolliest, oh, the prettiest old priory" - for an old and highly un-jolly farmhouse on the plains of western Kansas, Mrs. Warren-Browne said: "Taxes, my dear.
Death duties. Enormous, criminal death duties. That's what drove us out of England.
Yes, we left a year ago. Without regrets. None. We love it here, Just adore it. Though,
of course, it's very different from our other life. The life we've always known. Paris and
Rome. Monte. London. I do - occasionally - think of London. Oh, I don't really miss it the frenzy, and never a cab, and always worrying how one looks. Positively not. We
love it here. I suppose some people - those aware of our past, the life we've led - wonder
aren't we the tiniest bit lonely, out there in the wheat fields. Out West is where we
meant to settle. Wyoming or Neveda - la vraie chose. We hoped when we got there
some oil might stick to us. But on our way we stopped to visit friends in Garden City friends of friends, actually. But they couldn't have been kinder. Insisted we linger on.
And we thought, Well, why not? Why not hire a bit of land and start ranching? Or
farming. Which is a decision we still haven't come to - whether to ranch or farm. Dr.
Austin asked if we didn't find it perhaps too quiet. Actually, no. Actually, I've never
known such bedlam. It's noisier than a bomb raid. Train whistles. Coyotes. Monsters
howling the bloody night long. A horrid racket. And since the murders it seems to
bother me more. So many things do. Our house - what an old creaker it is! Mark you,
I'm not complaining. Really, it's quite a serviceable house - has all the mod. cons. - but,
oh, how it coughs and grunts! And after dark, when the wind commences, that hateful
prairie wind, one hears the most appalling moans. I mean, if one's a bit nervy, one can't
help imagining - silly things. Dear God! That poor family! No, we never met them. I
saw Mr. Clutter once. In the Federal Building."
Early in December, in the course of a single afternoon, two of the cafe's steadiest
customers announced plans to pack up and leave not merely Finney County but the
state. The first was a tenant farmer who worked for Lester McCoy, a well-known
western-Kansas landowner and businessman. He said, "I had my-self a talk with Mr.
McCoy. Tried to let him know what's going on out here in Holcomb and here abouts.
How a body can't sleep. My wife can't sleep, and she won't allow me. So I told Mr.
McCoy I like his place fine but he better hunt up another man.
'Count if we're movin' on. Down to east Colorado. Maybe then I'll get some
rest."
The second announcement was made by Mrs. Hideo Ashida, who stopped by the
cafe" with three of her four red-cheeked children. She lined them up at the counter and
told Mrs. Hartman, "Give Bruce a box of Cracker Jack. Bobby wants a Coke. Bonnie
Jean? We know how you feel, Bonnie Jean, but come on, have a treat." Bonnie Jean
shook her head, and Mrs. Ashida said, "Bonnie Jean's sort of blue. She don't want to
leave here. The school here. And all her friends."
"Why, say," said Mrs. Hartman, smiling at Bonnie Jean. "That's nothing to be
sad over. Transferring from Holcomb to Garden City High. Lots more boys - "
Bonnie Jean said, "You don't understand. Daddy's taking us away. To
Nebraska."
Bess Hartman looked at the mother, as if expecting her to deny the daughter's
allegation. "It's true, Bess," Mrs. Ashida said.
"I don't know what to say," said Mrs. Hartman, her voice indignantly astonished,
and also despairing. The Ashidas were a part of the Holcomb community everyone
appreciated - a family likably high-spirited, yet hard-working and neighborly and
generous, though they didn't have much to be generous with.
Mrs. Ashida said, "We've been talking on it a long time. Hideo, he thinks we can
do better somewhere else."
"When you plan to go?"
"Soon as we sell up. But anyway not before Christmas. On account of a deal
we've worked out with the dentist. About Hideo's Christmas present. Me and the kids,
we're giving him three gold teeth. For Christmas."
Mrs. Hartman sighed. "I don't know what to say. Except I wish you wouldn't.
Just up and leave us." She sighed again. "Seems like we're losing everybody. One way
and another."
"Gosh, you think I want to leave?" Mrs. Ashida said. "Far as people go, this is
the nicest place we ever lived. But Hideo, he's the man, and he says we can get a better
farm in Nebraska. And I'll tell you something, Bess. " Mrs. Ashida attempted a frown,
but her plump, round, smooth face could not quite manage It. "We used to argue about
it. Then one night I said, 'O. K., you're the boss, let's go. ' After what happened to Herb
and his family, I felt something around here had come to an end. I mean personally. For
me. And so I quit arguing. I said O. K." She dipped a hand into Bruce's box of Cracker
Jack. "Gosh, I can't get over it. I can't get it off my mind. I liked Herb. Did you know I
was one of the last to see him alive? Uh-huh. Me and the kids. We been to the 4-H
meeting in Garden City and he gave us a ride home. The last thing I said to Herb, I told
him how I couldn't imagine his ever being afraid. That no matter what the situation was,
he could talk his way out of it." Thoughtfully she nibbled a kernel of Cracker Jack, took
a swig of Bobby's Coke, then said, "Funny, but you know, Bess, I'll bet he wasn't afraid.
I mean, however it happened, I'll bet right up to the last he didn't believe it would.
Because it couldn't. Not to him."
The sun was blazing. A small boat was riding at anchor in a mild sea: the Estrellita, with
four persons aboard - Dick, Perry, a young Mexican, and Otto, a rich middle-aged
German.
"Please. Again," said Otto, and Perry, strumming his guitar, sang in a husky
sweet voice a Smoky Mountains song: "In this world today while we're living Some
folks say the worst of us they can, But when we're dead and in our caskets, They always
slip some lilies in our hand.
Won't you give me flowers while I'm living..."
A week in Mexico City, and then he and Dick had driven south - Cuernavaca,
Taxco, Acapulco. And it was in Acapulco, in a "jukebox honky-tonk," that they had met
the hairy-legged and hearty Otto. Dick had "picked him up." But the gentleman, a
vacationing Hamburg lawyer, "already had a friend" - a young native Acapulcan who
called himself the Cowboy.* "He proved to be a trustworthy person," Perry once said of
the Cowboy. "Mean as Judas, some ways, but oh, man, a funny boy, a real fast jockey.
Dick liked him, too. We got on great."
The Cowboy found for the tattooed drifters a room in the house of an uncle,
undertook to improve Perry's Spanish, and shared the benefits of his liaison with the
holiday maker from Hamburg, in whose company and at whose expense they drank and
ate and bought women. The host seemed to think his pesos well spent, if only because
he relished Dick's jokes. Each day Otto hired the Estrellita, a deep-sea-fishing craft, and
the four friends went trolling along the coast. The Cowboy skippered the boat; Otto
sketched and fished; Perry baited hooks, daydreamed, sang, and sometimes fished; Dick
did nothing - only moaned, complained of the motion, lay about sun-drugged and
listless, like a lizard at siesta. But Perry said, "This is finally it. The way it ought to be."
Still, he knew that it couldn't continue - that it was, in fact, destined to stop that very
day. The next day Otto was returning to Germany, and Perry and Dick were driving
back to Mexico City - at Dick's insistence. "Sure, baby," he'd said when they were
debating the matter. "It's nice and all. With the sun on your back. But the dough's goinggoing-gone. And after we've sold the car, what have we got left?"
The answer was that they had very little, for they had by now mostly disposed of
the stuff acquired the day of the Kansas City check-passing spree - the camera, the cuff
links, the television sets. Also, they had sold, to a Mexico City policeman with whom
Dick had got acquainted, a pair of binoculars and a gray Zenith portable radio. "What
we'll do is, we'll go back to Mex, sell the car, and maybe I can get a garage job.
Anyway, it's a better deal up there. Better opportunities. Christ, I sure could use some
more of that Inez." Inez was a prostitute who had accosted Dick on the steps of the
Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City (the visit was part of a sightseeing tour taken to
please Perry). She was eighteen, and Dick had promised to marry her. But he had also
promised to marry Maria, a woman of fifty, who was the widow of a "very prominent
Mexican banker." They had met in a bar, and the next morning she had paid him the
equivalent of seven dollars. "So how about it?" Dick said to Perry. "We'll sell the
wagon. Find a job. Save our dough. And see what happens." As though Perry couldn't
predict precisely what would happen.
Suppose they got two or three hundred for the old Chevrolet. Dick, if he knew
Dick, and he did - now he did - would spend it right away on vodka and women.
While Perry sang, Otto sketched him in a sketchbook. It was a passable likeness,
and the artist perceived one not very obvious aspect of the sitter's countenance - its
mischief, an amused, babyish malice that suggested some unkind cupid aiming
envenomed arrows. He was naked to the waist. (Perry was "ashamed" to take off his
trousers, "ashamed" to wear swimming trunks, for he was afraid that the sight of his
injured legs would "disgust people," and so, despite his underwater reveries, all the talk
about skin-diving, he hadn't once gone into the water.) Otto reproduced a number of the
tattoos ornamenting the subject's over muscled chest, arms, and small and calloused but
girlish hands. The sketch-book, which Otto gave Perry as a parting gift, contained
several drawings of Dick - "nude studies."
Otto shut his sketchbook, Perry put down his guitar, and the Cowboy raised
anchor, started the engine. It was time to go. They were ten miles out, and the water was
darkening.
Perry urged Dick to fish. "We may never have another chance," he said.
"Chance?"
"To catch a big one."
"Jesus, I've got the bastard kind," Dick said. "I'm sick." Dick often had
headaches of migraine intensity - "the bastard kind. "He thought they were the result of
his automobile accident. "Please, baby. Let's be very, very quiet."
Moments later Dick had forgotten his pain. He was on his feet, shouting with
excitement. Otto and the Cowboy were shouting, too. Perry had hooked "a big one."
Ten feet of soaring, plunging sailfish, it leaped, arched like a rainbow, dived, sank deep,
tugged the line taut, rose, flew, fell, rose. An hour passed, and part of another, before
the sweat-soaked sportsman reeled it in.
There is an old man with an ancient wooden box camera who hangs around the
harbor in Acapulco, and when the Estrellita docked, Otto commissioned him to do six
portraits of Perry posed beside his catch. Technically, the old man's work turned out
badly - brown and streaked. Still, they were remarkable photographs, and what made
them so was Perry's expression, his look of unflawed fulfillment, of beatitude, as though
at last, and as in one of his dreams, a tall yellow bird had hauled him to heaven.
One December afternoon Paul Helm was pruning the patch of floral odds and ends that
had entitled Bonnie Clutter to membership in the Garden City Garden Club. It was a
melancholy task, for he was reminded of another afternoon when he'd done the same
chore. Kenyon had helped him that day, and it was the last time he'd seen Kenyon alive,
or Nancy, or any of them. The weeks between had been hard on Mr. Helm. He was "in
poor health" (poorer than he knew; he had less than four months to live), and he was
worried about a lot of things. His job, for one. He doubted he would have it much
longer. Nobody seemed really to know, but he understood that "the girls," Beverly and
Eveanna, intended to sell the property - though, as he'd heard one of the boys at the cafe
remark, "ain't nobody gonna buy that spread, long as the mystery lasts." It "didn't do" to
think about strangers here, harvesting "our" land. Mr. Helm minded - he minded for
Herb's sake. This was a place, he said, that "ought to be kept in a man's family." Once
Herb had said to him, "I hope there'll always be a Clutter here, and a Helm, too." It was
only a year ago Herb had said that. Lord, what was he to do if the farm got sold? He felt
"too old to fit in somewhere different."
Still, he must work, and he wanted to. He wasn't, he said, the kind to kick off his
shoes and sit by the stove. And yet it was true that the farm nowadays made him uneasy:
the locked house, Nancy's horse forlornly waiting in a field, the odor of windfall apples
rotting under the apple trees, and the absence of voices - Kenyon calling Nancy to the
telephone, Herb whistling, his glad "Good morning, Paul." He and Herb had "got along
grand" - never a cross word between them. Why, then, did the men from the sheriff's
office continue to question him? Unless they thought he had "something to hide"?
Maybe he ought never to have mentioned the Mexicans. He had informed Al Dewey
that at approximately four o'clock on Saturday, November 14, the day of the murders, a
pair of Mexicans, one mustachioed and the other pockmarked, appeared at River Valley
Farm. Mr. Helm had seen them knock on the door of "the office," seen Herb step
outside and talk to them on the lawn, and, possibly ten minutes later, watched the
strangers walk away, "looking sulky." Mr. Helm figured that they had come asking for
work and had been told there was none. Unfortunately, though he'd been called upon to
recount his version of that day's events many times, he had not spoken of the incident
until two weeks after the crime, because, as he explained to Dewey, "I just suddenly
recalled it." But Dewey, and some of the other investigators, seemed not to credit his
story, and behaved as though it were a tale he'd invented to mislead them. They
preferred to believe Bob Johnson, the insurance salesman, who had spent all of Saturday
afternoon conferring with Mr. Clutter in the latter's office, and who was "absolutely
positive" that from two to ten past six he had been Herb's sole visitor. Mr. Helm was
equally definite: Mexicans, a mustache, pockmarks, four o'clock. Herb would have told
them that he was speaking the truth, convinced them that he, Paul Helm, was a man who
"said his prayers and earned his bread." But Herb was gone.
Gone. And Bonnie, too. Her bedroom window overlooked the garden, and now
and then, usually when she was "having a bad spell," Mr. Helm had seen her stand long
hours gazing into the garden, as though what she saw bewitched her. ("When I was a
girl," she had once told a friend, "I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as
birds or people. That they thought things, and talked among themselves. And we could
hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other
sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one
can never get quiet enough...")
Remembering Bonnie at the window, Mr. Helm looked up, as though he
expected to see her, a ghost behind the glass. If he had, it could not have amazed him
more than what he did in fact discern - a hand holding back a curtain, and eyes. "But,"
as he subsequently described it, "the sun was hitting that side of the house" - it made the
window glass waver, shimmeringly twisted what hung beyond it - and by the time Mr.
Helm had shielded his eyes, then looked again, the curtains had swung closed, the
window was vacant. "My eyes aren't too good, and I wondered if they had played me a
trick," he recalled. "But I was pretty darn certain that they hadn't. And I was pretty darn
certain it wasn't any spook. Because I don't believe in spooks. So who could it be?
Sneaking around in there. Where nobody's got a right to go, except the law. And how
did they get in? With everything locked up like the radio was advertising tornadoes.
That's what I wondered. But I wasn't expecting to find out - not by myself. I dropped
what I was doing, and cut across the fields to Holcomb. Soon as I got there, I phoned
Sheriff Robinson. Explained that there was somebody, prowling around inside the
Clutter house. Well, they came raring right on out. State troopers. The sheriff and his
bunch. The K. B. I. fellows. Al Dewey. Just as they were stringing themselves around
the place, sort of getting ready for action, the front door opened. " Out walked a person
no one present had ever seen before - a man in his middle thirties, dull-eyed, wildhaired, and wearing a hip holster stocked with a .38-caliper pistol. "I guess all of us
there had the identical idea - this was him, the one who came and killed them," Mr.
Helm continued. "He didn't make a move. Stood quiet. Kind of blinking. They took the
gun away, and started asking questions."
The man's name was Adrian - Jonathan Daniel Adrian. He was on his way to
New Mexico, and at present had no fixed address. For what purpose had he broken into
the Clutter house, and how, incidentally, had he managed it? He showed them how. (He
had lifted a lid off a water well and crawled through a pipe tunnel that led into the
basement.) As for why, he had read about the case and was curious, just wanted to see
what the place looked like. "And then," according to Mr. Helm's memory of the episode,
"somebody asked him was he a hitchhiker? Hitchhiking his way to New Mexico? No,
he said, he was driving his own car. And it was parked down the lane a piece. So
everybody went to look at the car. When they found what was inside it, one of the men maybe it was Al Dewey - said to him, told this Jonathan Daniel Adrian, 'Well, mister,
seems like we've got something to discuss. ' Because, inside the car, what they'd found
was a .12-gauge shotgun. And a hunting knife."
A room in a hotel in Mexico City. In the room was an ugly modern bureau with
a lavender-tinted mirror, and tucked into a corner of the mirror was a printed warning
from the Management: Su dia termina a las 2 p. m.
Your day ends at 2 p. m.
Guests, in other words, must vacate the room by the stated hour or expect to be
charged another day's rent - a luxury that the present occupants were not contemplating.
They wondered only whether they could settle the sum already owed. For everything
had evolved as Perry had prophesied: Dick had sold the car, and three days later the
money, slightly less than two hundred dollars, had largely vanished. On the fourth day
Dick had gone out hunting honest work, and that night he had announced to Perry,
"Nuts! You know what they pay? What the wages are? For an expert mechanic? Two
bucks a day. Mexico! Honey, I've had it. We got to make it out of here. Back to the
States. No, now, I'm not going to listen. Diamonds. Buried treasure. Wakeup, little boy.
There ain't no caskets of gold. No sunken ship. And even if there was - hell, you can't
even swim." And the next day, having borrowed money from the richer of his two
fiancés, the banker's widow, Dick bought bus tickets that would take them, via San
Diego, as far as Barstow, California. "After that," he said, "we walk."
Of course, Perry could have struck out on his own, stayed in Mexico, let Dick go
where he damn well wanted. Why not? Hadn't he always been "a loner," and without
any "real friends" (except the gray-haired, gray-eyed, and "brilliant" Willie-Jay)? But he
was afraid to leave Dick; merely to consider it made him feel "sort of sick," as though
he were trying to make up his mind to "jump off a train going ninety-nine miles an
hour." The basis of his fear, or so he himself seemed to believe, was a newly grown
superstitious certainty that "whatever had to happen won't happen" as long as he and
Dick "stick together." Then, too, the severity of Dick's "wake-up" speech, the
belligerence with which he proclaimed his theretofore concealed opinion of Perry's
dreams and hopes - all this, perversity being what it is, appealed to Perry, hurt and
shocked him but charmed him, almost revived his former faith in the tough, the "totally
masculine," the pragmatic, the decisive Dick he'd once allowed to boss him. And so,
since a sunrise hour on a chilly Mexico City morning in early December, Perry had been
prowling about the unheated hotel room assembling and packing his possessions stealthily, lest he waken the two sleeping shapes lying on one of the room's twin beds:
Dick, and the younger of his betrotheds, Inez.
There was one belonging of his that need no longer concern him. On their last
night in Acapulco, a thief had stolen the Gibson guitar - absconded with it from a
waterfront cafe" where he, Otto, Dick, and the Cowboy had been bidding one another a
highly alcoholic goodbye. And Perry was bitter about it. He felt, he later said, "real
mean and low," explaining, "You have a guitar long enough, like I had that one, wax
and shine it, fit your voice to it, treat it like it was a girl you really had some use for well, it gets to be kind of holy." But while the purloined guitar presented no ownership
problem, his remaining property did. As he and Dick would now be traveling by foot or
thumb, they clearly could not carry with them more than a few shirts and socks. The rest
of their clothing would have to be shipped - and, indeed, Perry had already filled a
cardboard carton (putting into it - along with some bits of unlaundered laundry - two
pairs of boots, one pair with soles that left a Cat's Paw print, the other pair with
diamond-pattern soles) and addressed it to himself, care of General Delivery, Las
Vegas, Nevada.
But the big question, and source of heartache, was what to do with his muchloved memorabilia - the two huge boxes heavy with books and maps, yellowing letters,
song lyrics, poems, and unusual souvenirs (suspenders and a belt fabricated from the
skins of Nevada rattlers he himself had slain; an erotic netsuke bought in Kyoto; a
petrified dwarf tree, also from Japan; the foot of an Alaskan bear). Probably the best
solution - at least, the best Perry could devise - was to leave the stuff with "Jesus." The
"Jesus" he had in mind tended bar in a cafe across the street from the hotel, and was,
Perry thought, muy simpatico, definitely someone he could trust to return the boxes on
demand. (He intended to send for them as soon as he had a "fixed address.")
Still, there were some things too precious to chance losing, and while the lovers
drowsed and time dawdled on toward 2: 00 p. m., Perry looked through old letters,
photographs, clippings, and selected from them those mementos he meant to take with
him. Among them was a badly typed composition entitled "A History of My Boy's
Life." The author of this manuscript was Perry's father, who in an effort to help his son
obtain a parole from Kansas State Penitentiary, had written it the previous December
and mailed it to the Kansas State Parole Board. It was a document that Perry had read at
least a hundred times, never with indifference: Childhood - Be glad to tell you, as I see
it, both good and bad. Yes, Perry birth was normal. Healthy - yes. Yea, I was able to
care for him properly until my wife turned out to be a disgraceful drunkard when my
children were at school age. Happy disposition - yes and no, very serious if mistreated
he never forgets. I also keep my promises and make him do so. My wife was different.
We lived in the country. We are all truly outdoor people. I taught my children the
Golden Rule. Live & let live and in many cases my children would tell on each other
when doing wrong and the guilty one would always admit, and come forward, willing
for a spanking. And promise to be good, and always done their work quickly and
willing so they could be free to play. Always wash themselves first thing in the
morning, dress in clean clothes, I was very strict about that, and wrong doings to others,
and if wrong was done to them by other kids I made them quit playing with them. Our
children were no trouble to us as long as we were together. It all started when my wife
wanted to go to the City and live a wild life - and ran away to do so. I let her go and said
goodbye as she took the car and left me behind (this was during depression). My
children all cryed at the top of their voices. She only cussed them saying they would run
away to come to me later. She got mad and then said she would turn the children to hate
me, which she did, all but Perry. For the love of my children after several months I went
to find them, located them in San Francisco, my wife not knowing. I tryed to see them
in school. My wife had given orders to the teacher not to let me see them. However, I
managed to see them while playing in the school yard and was surprised when they told
me, "Mama told us not to talk to you." All but Perry. He was different. He put his arms
around me and wanted to run away with me rite then. I told him No. But rite after
school was out, he ran away to my lawyers office Mr. Rinso Turco. I took my boy back
to his mother and left the City. Perry later told me, his mother told him to find a new
home. While my children were with her they run around as they pleased, I understand
Perry got into trouble. I wanted her to ask for divorce, which she did after about a year
or so. Her drinkin and stepin out, living with a young man. I contested the divorce and
was granted full custody of the children. I took Perry to my home to live with me. The
other children were put in homes as I could not manage to take them all in my home and
them being part indian blood and welfare took care of them as I requested.
This was during depression time. I was working on W. P. A. very small wages. I
owned some property and small home at the time. Perry and I lived together peacefully.
My heart was hurt, as I still loved my other children also. So I took to roaming to forget
it all. I made a livin for us both. I sold my property and we lived in a "house car." Perry
went to school often as possible. He didn't like school very well. He learns quick and
never got into trouble with the other kids. Only when the Bully Kid picked on him. He
was short and stocky a new kid in school they tried to mistreat him. They found him
willing to fight for his rights. That was the way I raised my kids. I always told them
dont start a fight, if you do, I'll give you a beaten when I find out. But if the other kids
start a fight, do your best. One time a kid twice his age at school, run up and hit him, to
his surprise Perry got him down and give him a good beating. I had given him some
advice in wrestling. As I once used to Box & Wrestle. The lady principal of the school
and all the kids watched this fight. The lady principal loved the big kid. To see him get
whipped by my little boy Perry was more than she could take. After that Perry was King
of the Kids at school. If any big kid tried to mistreat a small one, Perry would settle that
rite now. Even the Big Bully was afraid of Perry now, and had to be good. But that hurt
the lady principal so she came to me complaining about Perry fighting in school. I told
her I knew all about it and that I didnt intend to let my boy get beat up by kids twice his
size. I also asked her why they let that Bully Kid beat up on other kids. I told her that
Perry had a rite to defend himself. Perry never started the trouble and that I would take a
hand in this affair myself. I told her my son was well liked by all the neighbors, and
their kids. I also told her I was going to take Perry out of her school real soon, move
away to another state. Which I did. Perry is no angel he has done wrong many times
same as so many other kids. Rite is Rite and wrong is wrong. I dont stick up for his
wrong doings. He must pay the Hardioay when he does wrong, law is Boss he knows
that by now.
Youth - Perry joined the merchant Marines in second war. I went to Alaska, he
came later and joined me there. I trapped furs and Perry worked with the Alaska Road
Commission the first winter then he got work on the railroad for a short while. He
couldn't get the work he liked to do. Yes - he give me $ now and then when he had it.
He also sent me $30 .00 a month while in Korea war while he was there from beginning
until the end and was dischard in Seattle, Wash. Honorable as far as I know. He is
mechanically inclined. Bulldozers, draglines, shovels, heavy duty trucks of all type is
his desire. For the experience he has had he is real good. Somewhat reckless and speed
crazy with motorcycles and light cars. But since he has had a good taste of what speed
will do, and his both legs Broke & hip injury he now has slowed down on that I'm sure.
Recreation - interests. Yes he had several girl friends, soon as he found a girl to
mistreat him or trifle, he would quit her. He never was married as far as I know. My
troubles with his mother made him afraid of marriage somewhat. Im a Sober man and as
far as I know Perry is also a person that dont like drunks. Perry is like myself a great
deal. He likes company of decent type - outdoors people, he like myself, likes to be by
himself also he likes best to work for himself. As I do. I'm a jack of all trades, so to
speak, master of few and so is Perry. I showed him how to make a living working for
himself as a fur trapper, prospector, carpenter, woodsman, horses, etc. I know how to
cook and so does he, not a professional cook just plane cooking for himself. Bake bread,
etc. hunt, and fish, trap, do most anything else. As I said before, Perry likes to be his
own Boss & if he is given a chance to work at a job he likes, tell him how you want it
done, then leave him alone, he will take great pride in doing his work. If he sees the
Boss appreciates his work he will go out of his way for him. But dont get tuff with him.
Tell him in a pleasant way how you want to have it done. He is very touchy, his feeling
is very easily hurt, and so are mine. I have quit several jobs & so has Perry on account
of Bully Bosses. Perry does not have much schooling I dont either, I only had second
reader. But dont let that make you think we are not sharp. Im a self taught man & so is
Perry. A White Colar job is not for Perry or me. But outdoors jobs we can master & if
we cant, show him or me how its done & in just a couple of days we can master a job or
machine. Books are out. Actual experience we both catch on rite now, if we like to work
at it. First of all we must like the job. But now hes a cripple and almost middle-aged
man. Perry knows he is not wanted now by Contractors, cripples can't get jobs on heavy
equiptment, unless you are well know to the Contracter. He is beginning to realize that,
he is beginning to think of a more easier way of supporting himself in line with my life.
Im sure Im correct. I also think speed is no longer his desire. I notice all that now in his
letters to me. He says "be careful Dad. Don't drive if you feel sleepy, better stop & rest
by the road side." These are the same words I used to tell him. Now he's telling me. He's
learned a lesson.
As I see it - Perry has learned a lesson he will never forget. Freedom means
everything to him you will never get him behind bars again. Im quite sure Im rite. I
notice a big change in the way he talks. He deeply regrets his mistake he told me. I also
know he feels ashamed to meet people he knows he will not tell them he was behind
bars. He asked me not to mention where he is to his friends. When he wrote & told me
he was behind bars, I told him let that be a lesson - that I was glad that it happened that
way when it could have been worse. Someone could have shot him. I also told him to
take his term behind bars with a smile U done it yourself. U know better. I didn't raise
you to steal from others, so dont complain to me how tuff it is in prison. Be a good boy
in prison. & he promised that he would. I hope he is a good prisoner. Im sure no one
will talk him into stealing anymore. The law is boss, he knows that. He loves his
Freedom.
How well I know that Perry is good hearted if you treat him rite. Treat him mean
& you got a buzz saw to fight. You can trust him with any amount of $ if your his
friend. He will do as you say he wont steal a cent from a friend or anyone else. Before
this happened. And I sincerely hope he will live the rest of his life a honest man. He did
steal something in Company with others when he was a little kid. Just ask Perry if I was
a good father to him ask him if his mother was good to him in Frisco. Perry knows
whats good for him. U got him whipped forever. He knows when he's beat. He's not a
dunce. He knows life is too short to sweet to spend behind bars ever again. relatives.
One sister Bobo married, and me his father is all that is living of Perry. Bobo & her
husband are self-supporting. Own their own home & I'm able & active to take care of
myself also. I sold my lodge in Alaska two years ago. I intend to have another small
place of my own next year. I located several mineral claims & hope to get something
out of them. Besides that I have not given up prospecting. I am also asked to write a
book on artistic wood carving, and the famous Trappers Den Lodge I build in Alaska
once my homestead known by all tourists that travel by car to Anchorage and maybe I
will. I'll share all I have with Perry. Anytime Ieat he eats. As long as Im alive & when I
die Ive got life insurance that will be paid to him so he can start life Anew when he gets
free again. In case Im not alive then.
This biography always set racing a stable of emotions - self-pity in the lead, love
and hate running evenly at first, the latter ultimately pulling ahead. And most of the
memories it released were unwanted, though not all. In fact, the first part of his life that
Perry could remember was treasurable - a fragment composed of applause, glamour. He
was perhaps three, and he was seated with his sisters and his older brother in the
grandstand at an open-air rodeo; in the ring, a lean Cherokee girl rode a wild horse, a
"bucking bronc," and her loosened hair whipped back and forth, flew about like a
flamenco dancer's. Her name was Flo Buckskin, and she was a professional rodeo
performer, a "champion bronc-rider." So was her husband, Tex John Smith; it was while
touring the Western rodeo circuit that the handsome Indian girl and the homelyhandsome Irish cowboy had met, married, and had the four children sitting in the
grandstand. (And Perry could remember many another rodeo spectacle - see again his
father skipping about inside a circle of spinning lassos, or his mother, with silver and
turquoise bangles jangling on her wrists, trick-riding at a desperado speed that thrilled
her youngest child and caused crowds in towns from Texas to Oregon to "stand up and
clap.")
Until Perry was five, the team of "Tex & Flo" continued to work the rodeo
circuit. As a way of life, it wasn't "any gallon of ice cream," Perry once recalled: "Six of
us riding in an old truck, sleeping in it, too, sometimes, living off mush and Hershey
kisses and condensed milk. Hawks Brand condensed milk it was called, which is what
weakened my kidneys - the sugar content - which is why I was always wetting the bed."
Yet it was not an unhappy existence, especially for a little boy proud of his parents,
admiring of their showmanship and courage - a happier life, certainly, than what
replaced it. For Tex and Flo, both forced by ailments to retire from their occupation,
settled near Reno, Nevada. They fought, and Flo "took to whiskey," and then, when
Perry was six, she departed for San Francisco, taking the children with her. It was
exactly as the old man had written: "I let her go and said goodby as she took the car and
left me behind (this was during depression). My children all cryed at the top of their
voices. She only cursed them saying they would run away to come to me later." And,
indeed, over the course of the next three years Perry had on several occasions run off,
set out to find his lost father, for he had lost his mother as well, learned to "despise" her;
liquor had blurred the face, swollen the figure of the once sinewy, limber Cherokee girl,
had "soured her soul," honed her tongue to the wickedest point, so dissolved her selfrespect that generally she did not bother to ask the names of the stevedores and trolleycar conductors and such persons who accepted what she offered without charge (except
that she insisted they drink with her first, and dance to the tunes of a wind-up Victrola).
Consequently, as Perry recalled, "I was always thinking about Dad, hoping he
could come take me away, and I remember, like as second ago, the time I saw him
again. Standing in the schoolyard. It was like when the ball hits the bat really solid. Di
Maggio. Only Dad wouldn't help me. Told me to be good and hugged me and went
away. It was not long afterward my mother put me to stay in a Catholic orphanage. The
one where the Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the
bed. Which is one reason I have an aversion to nuns. And God. And religion. But later
on I found there are people even more evil. Because, after a couple of months, they
tossed me out of the orphanage, and she [his mother] put me some place worse. A
children's shelter operated by the Salvation Army. They hated me, too. For wetting the
bed. And being half-Indian. There was this one nurse, she used to call me 'nigger' and
say there wasn't any difference between niggers and Indians. Oh, Jesus, was she an Evil
Bastard! Incarnate. What she used to do, she'd fill a tub with ice-cold water, put me in it,
and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned. But she got found out, the bitch.
Because I caught pneumonia. I almost conked. I was in the hospital two months. It was
while I was so sick that Dad came back. When I got well, he took me away."
For almost a year father and son lived together in the house near Reno, and Perry
went to school. "I finished the third grade," Perry recalled. "Which was the finish. I
never went back. Because that summer Dad built a primitive sort of trailer, what he
called a 'house car.' It had two bunks and a little cooking galley. The stove was good.
You could cook anything on it. Baked our own bread. I used to put up preserves pickled apples, crab-apple jelly. Anyway, for the next six years we shifted around the
country. Never stayed nowhere too long. When we stayed some place too long, people
would begin to look at Dad, act like he was a character, and I hated that, it hurt me.
Because I loved Dad then. Even though he could be rough on me. Bossy as hell. But I
loved Dad then. So I was always glad when we moved on." Moved on - to Wyoming,
Idaho, Oregon, eventually Alaska. In Alaska, Tex taught his son to dream of gold, to
hunt for it in the sandy beds of snow-water streams, and there, too, Perry learned to use
a gun, skin a bear, track wolves and deer.
"Christ, it was cold," Perry remembered. "Dad and I slept hugged together,
rolled up in blankets and bearskins. Morning, before daylight, I'd hustle our breakfast,
biscuits and syrup, fried meat, and off we went to scratch a living. It would have been
O. K. if only I hadn't grown up; the older I got, the less I was able to appreciate Dad. He
knew everything, one way, but he didn't know anything, another way. Whole sections of
me Dad was ignorant of. Didn't understand an iota of. Like I could play a harmonica
first time I picked one up. Guitar, too. I had this great natural musical ability. Which
Dad didn't recognize. Or care about. I liked to read, too. Improve my vocabulary. Make
up songs. And I could draw. But I never got any encouragement - from him or anybody
else. Nights I used to lie awake - trying to control my bladder, partly, and partly because
I couldn't stop thinking. Always, when it was too cold hardly to breathe, I'd think about
Hawaii. About a movie I'd seen. With Dorothy Lamour. I wanted to go there. Where the
sun was. And all you wore was grass and flowers."
Wearing considerably more, Perry, one balmy evening in war-time 1945, found
himself inside a Honolulu tattoo parlor having a snake-and-dagger design applied to his
left forearm. He had got there by the following route: a row with his father, a hitchhike
journey from Anchorage to Seattle, a visit to the recruiting offices of the Merchant
Marine. "But I never would have joined if I'd known what I was going up against,"
Perry once said. "I never minded the work, and I liked being a sailor - seaports, and all
that. But the queens on ship wouldn't leave me alone. A sixteen-year-old kid, and a
small kid. I could handle myself, sure. But a lot of queens aren't effeminate, you know.
Hell, I've known queens could toss a pool table out the window. And the piano after it.
Those kind of girls, they can give you an evil time, especially when there's a couple of
them, they get together and gang up on you, and you're just a kid. It can make you
practically want to kill yourself. Years later, when I went into the Army - when I was
stationed in Korea - the same problem came up. I had a good record in the Army, good
as anybody; they gave me the Bronze Star. But I never got promoted. After four years,
and fighting through the whole goddam Korean war, I ought at least to have made
corporal. But I never did. Know why? Because the sergeant we had was tough. Because
I wouldn't roll over. Jesus, I hate that stuff. I can't stand it. Though - I don't know. Some
queers I've really liked. As long as they didn't try anything. The most worth-while friend
I ever had, really sensitive and intelligent, he turned out to be queer."
In the interval between quitting the Merchant Marine and entering the Army,
Perry had made peace with his father, who, when his son left him, drifted down to
Nevada, then back to Alaska. In 1952, the year Perry completed his military service, the
old man was in the midst of plans meant to end his travels forever. "Dad was in a fever,"
Perry recalled. "Wrote me he had bought some land on the highway outside Anchorage.
Said he was going to have a hunting lodge, a place for tourists. 'Trapper's Den Lodge' that was to be the name. And asked me to hurry on up there and help him build it. He
was sure we'd make a fortune. Well, while I was still in the Army, stationed at Fort
Lewis, Washington, I'd bought a motorcycle (murdercycles, they ought to call them),
and as soon as I got discharged I headed for Alaska. Got as far as Bellingham. Up there
on the border. It was raining. My bike went into a skid."
The skid delayed for a year the reunion with his father. Surgery and
hospitalization account for six months of that year; the remainder he spent recuperating
in the forest home, near Bellingham, of a young Indian logger and fisherman. "Joe
James. He and his wife befriended me. The difference in our age was only two or three
years, but they took me into their home and treated me like I was one of their kids.
Which was O. K. Because they took trouble with their kids and liked them. At the time
they had four; the number finally went to seven. They were very good to me, Joe and
his family. I was on crutches, I was pretty helpless. Just had to sit around. So to give me
something to do, try to make myself useful, I started what became a sort of school. The
pupils were Joe's kids, along with some of their friends, and we held classes in the
parlor. I was teaching harmonica and guitar. Drawing. And penmanship. Everybody
always remarks what a beautiful handwriting I have. I do, and it's because once I bought
a book on the subject and practiced till I could write same as in the book. Also, we used
to read stories - the kids did, each one in turn, and I'd correct them as we went along. It
was fun. I like kids. Little kids. And that was a nice time. But then the spring came. It
hurt me to walk, but I could walk. And Dad was still waiting for me." Waiting, but not
idly. By the time Perry arrived at the site of the proposed hunting lodge, his father,
working alone, had finished the hardest chores - had cleared the ground, logged the
necessary timber, cracked and carted wagonloads of native rock. "But he didn't
commence to build till I got there. We did every damn piece of it ourselves. With once
in a while an Indian helper. Dad was like a maniac. It didn't matter what was happening
- snowstorms, rainstorms, winds that could split a tree - we kept right at it. The day the
roof was finished, Dad danced all over it, shouting and laughing, doing a regular jig.
Well, it turned out quite an exceptional place. That could sleep twenty people. Had a big
fireplace in the dining room. And there was a cocktail lounge. The Totem Pole Cocktail
Lounge. Where I was to entertain the customers. Singing and so forth. We opened for
business end of I953-"
But the expected huntsmen did not materialize, and though ordinary tourists the few that trickle along the highway - now and again paused to photograph the
beyond-belief rusticity of Trapper's Den Lodge, they seldom stopped overnight. "For
awhile we fooled ourselves. Kept thinking it would catch on. Dad tried to trick up the
place. Made a Garden of Memories. With a Wishing Well. Put painted signs up and
down the highway. But none of it meant a nickel more. When Dad realized that - saw it
wasn't any use, all we'd done was waste ourselves and all our money - he began to take
it out on me. Boss me around. Be spiteful. Say I didn't do my proper share of the work.
It wasn't his fault, any more than it was mine. A situation like that, with no money and
the grub getting low, we couldn't help but be on each other's nerves. The point came we
were downright hungry. Which is what we fell out over. Ostensibly. A biscuit. Dad
snatched a biscuit out of my hand, and said I ate too much, what a greedy, selfish
bastard I was, and why didn't I get out, he didn't want me there no more. He carried on
like that till I couldn't stand it. My hands got hold of his throat. My hands - but I
couldn't control them. They wanted to choke him to death. Dad, though, he's slippery, a
smart wrestler. He tore loose and ran to get his gun. Came back pointing it at me. He
said, 'Look at me, Perry. I'm the last thing living you're ever gonna see.' I just stood my
ground. But then he realized the gun wasn't even loaded, and he started to cry. Sat down
and bawled like a kid. Then I guess I wasn't mad at him any more. I was sorry for him.
For both of us. But it wasn't a bit of use - there wasn't anything I could say. I went out
for a walk. This was April, but the woods were still deep in snow. I walked till it was
almost night. When I got back, the lodge was dark, and all the doors were locked. And
everything I owned was lying out there in the snow. Where Dad had thrown it. Books.
Clothes. Everything. I just let it lie. Except my guitar. I picked up my guitar and started
on down the highway. Not a dollar in my pocket. Around midnight a truck stopped to
give me a lift. The driver asked where I was going. I told him, 'Wherever you're headed,
that's where I'm going.' "
Several weeks later, after again sheltering with the James family, Perry decided
on a definite destination - Worcester, Massachusetts, the home town of an "Army
buddy" he thought might welcome him and help him find "a good-paying job. " Various
detours prolonged the eastward journey; he washed dishes in an Omaha restaurant,
pumped gas at an Oklahoma garage, worked a month on a ranch in Texas. By July of
1955 he had reached, on the trek to Worcester, a small Kansas town, Phillipsburg, and
there "fate," in the form of "bad company," asserted itself. "His name was Smith," Perry
said. "Same as me. I don't even recall his first name. He was just somebody I'd picked
up with somewhere, and he had a car, and he said he'd give me a ride as far as Chicago.
Anyway, driving through Kansas we came to this little Phillipsburg place and stopped to
look at a map. Seems to me like it was a Sunday. Stores shut. Streets quiet. My friend
there, bless his heart, he looked around and made a suggestion. " The suggestion was
that they burglarize a nearby building, the Chandler Sales Company. Perry agreed, and
they broke into the deserted premises and removed a quantity of office equipment
(typewriters, adding machines). That might have been that if only, some days afterward,
the thieves hadn't ignored a traffic signal in the city of Saint Joseph, Missouri. "The junk
was still in the car. The cop that stopped us wanted to know where we got it. A little
checking was done, and, as they say, we were 'returned' to Phillipsburg, Kansas. Where
the folks have a real cute jail. If you like jails. " Within forty-eight hours Perry and his
companion had discovered an open window, climbed out of it, stolen a car, and driven
northwest to McCook, Nebraska. "Pretty soon we broke up, me and Mr. Smith. I don't
know what ever became of him. We both made the F. B. I.'s Wanted list. But far as I
know, they never caught up with him."
One wet afternoon the following November, a Greyhound bus deposited Perry in
Worcester, a Massachusetts factory town of steep, up-and-down streets that even in the
best of weathers seem cheerless and hostile. "I found the house where my friend was
supposed to live. My Army friend from Korea. But the people there said he'd left six
months back and they had no idea where he'd gone. Too bad, big disappointment, end of
the world, all that So I found a liquor store and bought a half gallon of red wop and
went back to the bus depot and sat there drinking my wine and getting a little warmer. I
was really enjoying myself till a man came along and arrested me for vagrancy. " The
police booked him as "Bob Turner" - a name he'd adopted because of being listed by the
F. B. I. He spent fourteen days in jail, was fined ten dollars, and departed from
Worcester on another wet November afternoon. "I went down to New York and took a
room in a hotel on Eighth Avenue," Perry said. "Near Forty-second Street. Finally, I got
a night job. Doing odd jobs around a penny arcade. Right there on Forty-second Street,
next to an Automat. Which is where I ate - when I ate. In over three months I practically
never left the Broadway area. For one thing, I didn't have the right clothes. Just Western
clothes - jeans and boots. But there on Forty-second Street nobody cares, it all rides anything. My whole life, I never met so many freaks."
He lived out the winter in that ugly, neon-lit neighborhood, with its air full of the
scent of popcorn, simmering hot dogs, and orange drink. But then, one bright March
morning on the edge of spring, as he remembered it, "two F. B. I, bastards woke me up.
Arrested me at the hotel. Bang! - I was extradited back to Kansas. To Phillipsburg. That
same cute jail. They nailed me to the cross - larceny, jailbreak, car theft. I got five to ten
years in Lansing. After I'd been there awhile, I wrote Dad. Let him know the news. And
wrote Barbara, my sister. By now, over the years, that was all I had left me. Jimmy a
suicide. Fern out the window. My mother dead. Been dead eight years. Everybody gone
but Dad and Barbara."
A letter from Barbara was among the sheaf of selected matter that Perry
preferred not to leave behind in the Mexico City hotel room. The letter, written in a
pleasingly legible script, was dated April 28, 1958, at which time the recipient had been
imprisoned for approximately two years:
Dearest Bro. Perry,
We got your 2nd letter today & forgive me for not writing sooner. Our weather
here, as yours is, is turning warmer & maybe I am getting spring fever but I am going to
try and do better. Your first letter was very disturbing, as I'm sure you must have
suspected but that was not the reason I haven't written - it's true the children do keep
me busy & it's hard to find time to sit and concentrate on a letter as I have wanted to
write you for some time. Donnie has learned to open the-doors and climb on the chairs
& other furniture & he worries me constantly about falling.
I have been able to let the children play in the yard now &then - but I always
have to go out with them as they can hurt themselves if I don't pay attention. But nothing
is forever & I know I will be sorry when they start running the block and I don't know
where they're at. Here are some statistics if you're interested - Height
Weight
Shoe Size Freddie
36-1/2"
26-1/2 Ibs.
7-1/2
narrow Baby 37-1/2"
29-1/2 Ibs.
8 narrow Donnie
34"
26
Ibs.
6-1/2 wide You can see that Donnie is a pretty big boy for 15 months with his 16
teeth and his sparkling personality - people just can't help loving him. He wears the
same size clothes as Baby and Freddie but the pants are too long as yet.
I am going to try & make this letter a long one so it will probably have a lot of
interruptions such as right now it's time for Donnie's bath - Baby & Freddie had theirs
this a. m. as it's quite cold today & I have had them inside. Be back soon - About my
typing - First - I cannot tell a lie! I am not a typist, I use from 1 to 5 fingers & although
I can manage & do help Big Fred with his business affairs, what it takes me 1 hr. to do
would probably take someone with the Know How - 15 minutes - Seriously, I do not
have the time nor the will to learn professionally. But I think it is wonderful how you
have stuck with it and become such an excellent typist. I do believe we all were very
adaptable (Jimmy, Fern, you and myself) & we had all been blessed with a basic flair
for the artistic - among other things. Even Mother & Dad were artistic.
I truthfully feel none of us have anyone to blame for whatever we have done with
our own personal lives. It has been proven that at the age of 7 most of us have reached
the age of reason - which means we do, at this age, understand & know the difference
between right & wrong. Of course - environment plays an awfully important part in our
lives such as the Convent in mine & in my case I am grateful for that influence. In
Jimmy's case - he was the strongest of us all. I remember how he worked & went to
school when there was no one to tell him & it was his own WILL to make something of
himself. We will never know the reasons for what eventually happened, why he did what
he did, but I still hurt thinking of it. It was such a waste. But we have very little control
over our human weaknesses, & this applies also to Fern & the hundreds of thousands of
other people including ourselves - for we all have weaknesses. In your case - I don't
know what your weakness is but I do feel - IT IS NO SHAME TO HAVE A DIRTY FACE
- THE SHAME COMES WHEN YOU KEEP IT DIRTY.
In all truthfulness & with love for you Perry, for you are my only living brother
and the uncle of my children, I cannot say or feel your attitude towards our father or
your imprisonment just or healthy. If you are getting your back up - better simmer down
as I realize there are none of us who take criticism cheerfully & it is natural to feel a
certain amount of resentment towards the one giving this criticism so I am prepared for
one or two things - a) Not to hear from you at all, or b) a letter telling me exactly what
you think of me.
I hope I'm wrong & I sincerely hope you will give this letter a lot of thought &
try to see - how someone else feels. Please understand I know I am not an authority & I
do not boast great intelligence or education but I do believe I am a normal individual
with basic reasoning powers & the will to live my life according to the laws of God &
Man. It is also true that I have "fallen" at times, as is normal - for as I said I am human
& therefore I too have human weaknesses but the point is, again, There is no shame having a dirty face - the shame comes when you keep it dirty. No one is more aware of
my shortcomings and mistakes than myself so I won't bore you further.
Now, first, & most important - Dad is not responsible for your wrong doings or
your good deeds. What you have done, whether right or wrong, is your own doing.
From what I personally know, you have lived your life exactly as you pleased without
regard to circumstances or persons who loved you - who might be hurt. Whether you
realize it or not - your present confinement is embarrassing to me well as Dad - not
because of what you did but the fact that you don't show me any signs of SINCERE
regret and seem to show no respect for any laws, people or anything. Your letter implies
that the blame of all your problems is that of someone else, but never you. I do admit
that you are intelligent and your vocabulary is excellent & I do feel you can do anything
you decide to do & do it well but what exactly do you want to do & are you willing to
work & make an honest effort to attain whatever it is you choose to do? Nothing good
comes easy and I'm sure you've heard this many times but once more won't hurt.
In case you want the truth about Dad - his heart is broken because of you. He
would give anything to get you out so he can have his son back - but I am afraid you
would only hurt him worse if you could. He is not well and is getting older &, as the
saying goes, he cannot "Cut the Mustard" as in the old days. He has been wrong at
times & he realizes this but whatever he had and wherever he went he shared his life &
belongings with you when he wouldn't do this for anyone else. Now I don't say you owe
him undying gratitude or your life but you do owe him RESPECT and COMMON
DECENCY. I, personally, am proud of Dad. I love him & Respect him as my Dad & I
am only sorry he chose to be the Lone Wolf with his son, or he might be living with us
and share our love instead of alone in his little trailer & longing & waiting & lonesome
for you, his son. I worry for him & when I say I, I mean my husband too for my husband
respects our Dad. Because he is a MAN. It's true that Dad did not have a great
extensive education but in school we only learn to recognize the words and to spell but
the application of these words to real life is another thing that only LIFE & LIVING can
give us. Dad has lived & you show ignorance in calling him uneducated and unable to
understand "the scientific meaning etc" of life's problems. A mother is still the only one
who can kiss a boo-boo and make it all well - explain that scientifically.
I'm sorry to let you have it so strong but I feel I must speak my piece. I am sorry
that this must be censored [by the prison authorities], & I sincerely hope this letter is
not detrimental towards your eventual release but I feel you should know & realize what
terrible hurt you have done. Dad is the important one as I am dedicated to my family
but you are the only one Dad loves - in short, his "family." He knows I love him, of
course, but the closeness is not there, as you know.
Your confinement is nothing to be proud of and you will have to live with it & try
& live it down & it can be done but not with your attitude of feeling everyone is stupid
& uneducated & un-understanding. You are a human being with a free will. Which puts
you above the animal level. But if you live your life without feeling and compassion for
your fellowman - you are as an animal - "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" &
happiness & peace of mind is not attained by living thus.
As far as responsibility goes, no one really wants it - but all of us are
responsible to the community we live in & its laws. When the time comes to assume the
responsibility of a home and children or business, this is the seeding of the boys from
the Men - for surely you can realize what a mess the world would be if everyone in it
said, "I want to be an individual, without responsibilities, & be able to speak my mind
freely &do as I alone will." We are all free to speak & do as we individually will providing this "freedom" of Speech & Deed are not injurious to our fellow-man.
Think about it, Perry. You are above average in intelligence, but somehow your
reasoning is off the beam. Maybe it's the strain of your confinement. Whatever it is remember - you & only you are responsible and it is up to you and you alone to
overcome this part of your life. Hoping to hear from you soon.
With Love & Prayers,
Your sister & Bro. in Law Barbara & Frederic & Family
In preserving this letter, and including it in his collection of particular treasures,
Perry was not moved by affection. Far from it. He "loathed" Barbara, and just the other
day he had told Dick, "The only real regret I have - I wish the hell my sister hid been in
that house." (Dick had laughed, and confessed to a similar yearning: "I keep thinking
what fun if my second wife had been there. Her, and all her goddam family.") No, he
valued the letter merely because his prison friend, the "super-intelligent" Willie-Jay, had
written for him a "very sensitive" analysis of it, occupying two single-spaced
typewritten pages, with the title "Impressions I Garnered from the Letter" at the top:
Impressions I Garnered from the Letter 1.) When she began this letter, she intended that
it should be a compassionate demonstration of Christian principles. That is to say that in
return for your letter to her, which apparently annoyed her, she meant to turn the other
cheek hoping in this way to incite regret for your previous letter and to place you on the
defensive in your next.
However few people can successfully demonstrate a principle in common ethics
when their deliberation is festered with emotionalism. Your sister substantiates this
failing for as her letter progresses her judgment gives way to temper - her thoughts are
good, lucid the products of intelligence, but it is not now an unbiased, impersonal
intelligence. It is a mind propelled by emotional response to memory and frustration;
consequently, however wise her admonishments might be, they fail to inspire resolve,
unless it would be the resolve to retaliate by hurting her in your next letter. Thus
commencing a cycle that can only culminate in further anger and distress.
2.) It is a foolish letter, but born of human failing.
Your letter to her, and this, her answer to you, failed in their objectives. Your
letter was an attempt to explain your outlook on life, as you are necessarily affected by
it. It was destined to be misunderstood, or taken too literally because your ideas are
opposed to conventionalism. What could be more conventional than a housewife with
three children, who is "dedicated" to her family???? What could be more unnatural than
that she would resent an unconventional person There is considerable hypocrisy in
conventionalism. Any thinking person is aware of this paradox; but in dealing with
conventional people it is advantageous to treat them as though they were not hypocrites.
It isn't a question of faithfulness to your own concepts; it is a matter of compromise so
that you can remain an individual without the constant threat of conventional pressures.
Her letter failed because she couldn't conceive of the profundity of your problem - she
couldn't fathom the pressures brought to bear upon you because of environment,
intellectual frustration and a growing tendency toward isolationism.
3.) She feels that: a) You are leaning too heavily towards self-pity. b) That you
are too calculating. c) That you are really undeserving of an 8 page letter written in
between motherly duties.
4.) On page 3 she writes: "I truthfully feel none of us has anyone to blame etc."
Thus vindicating those who bore influence in her formative years. But is this the whole
truth? She is a wife and mother. Respectable and more or less secure. It is easy to ignore
the rain if you have a raincoat. But how would she feel if she were compelled to hustle
her living on the streets? Would she still be all-forgiving about the people in her past?
Absolutely not. Nothing is more usual than to feel that others have shared in our
failures, just as it is an ordinary reaction to forget those who have shared in our
achievements.
5.) Your sister respects your Dad. She also resents the fact that you have been
preferred. Her jealousy takes a subtle form in this letter. Between the lines she is
registering a question: "I love Dad and have tried to live so he could be proud to own
me as his daughter. But I have had to content myself with the crumbs of his affection.
Because it is you he loves, and why should it be so?"
Obviously over the years your Dad has taken advantage of your sister's
emotional nature via the mails. Painting a picture that justifies her opinion of him - an
underdog cursed with an ungrateful son upon whom he has showered love and concern,
only to be infamously treated by that son in return.
On page 7 she says she is sorry that her letter must be censored. But she is really
not sorry at all. She is glad it passes through a censor. Subconsciously she has written it
with the censor in mind, hoping to convey the idea that the Smith family is really a wellordered unit: "Please do not judge all by Perry?
About the mother kissing away her child's boo-boo. This was a woman's form of
sarcasm.
6.) You write to her because: a) You love her after a fashion. b) You feel a need
for this contact with the outside world. c) You can use her.
Prognosis: Correspondence between you and your sister cannot serve anything
but a purely social function. Keep the theme of your letters within the scope of her
understanding. Do not unburden your private conclusions. Do not put her on the
defensive and do not permit her to put you on the defensive. Respect her limitations to
comprehend your objectives, and remember that she is touchy towards criticism of your
Dad. Be consistent in your attitude towards her and do not add anything to the
impression she has that you are weak, not because you need her good-will but because
you can expect more letters like this, and they can only serve to increase your already
dangerous anti-social instincts. finish As Perry continued to sort and choose, the pile of
material he thought too dear to part with, even temporarily, assumed a tottering height.
But what was he to do? He couldn't risk losing the Bronze Medal earned in Korea, or
his high-school diploma (issued by the Leavenworth County Board of Education as a
result of his having, while in prison, resumed his long-recessed studies). Nor did he care
to chance the loss of a manila envelope fat with photo-graphs - primarily of himself, and
ranging in time from a pretty- little-boy portrait made when he was in the Merchant
Marine (and on the back of which he had scribbled, "16 yrs. old. Young, happy-golucky & Innocent") to the recent Acapulco pictures. And there were half a hundred other
items he had decided he must take with him, among them his treasure maps, Otto's
sketchbook, and two thick notebooks, the thicker of which constituted his personal
dictionary, a non-alphabetically listed miscellany of words he believed "beautiful" or
"useful," or at least "worth memorizing." (Sample page: "Thanatoid = deathlike;
Omnilingual =versed in languages; Amerce = punishment, amount fixed by court;
Nescient = ignorance; Facinorous = atrociously wicked; Hagiophobia = a morbid fear of
holy places & things; Lapidicolous = living under stones, as certain blind beetles;
Dyspathy = lack of sympathy, fellow feeling; Psilopher = a fellow who fain would pass
as a philosopher; Omophagia = eating raw flesh, the rite of some savage tribes;
Depredate = to pillage, rob, and prey upon; Aphrodisiac = a drug or the like which
excites sexual desire; Megaloda Citylous = having abnormally large fingers;
Myrtophobia =fear of night and darkness.")
Oil the cover of the second notebook, the handwriting of which he was so proud,
a script abounding in curly, feminine flourishes, proclaimed the contents to be "The
Private Diary of Perry Edward Smith" - an inaccurate description, for it was not in the
least a diary but, rather, a form of anthology consisting of obscure facts ("Every fifteen
years Mars gets closer .1958 is a close year"), poems and literary quotations ("No man
is an island, Entire of itself), and passages for newspapers and books paraphrased or
quoted. For example: My acquaintances are many, my friends are few; those who really
know me fewer still.
Heard about a new rat poison on the market. Extremely potent, odorless,
tasteless, is so completely absorbed once swallowed that no trace could ever be found in
a dead body.
If called upon to make a speech: "I can't remember what I was going to say for
the life of me - I don't think that ever before in my life have so many people been so
directly responsible for my being so very, very glad. It's a wonderful moment and a rare
one and I'm certainly indebted. Thank you!"
Read interesting article Feb. issue of Man to Mtn: "I Knifed My Way to a
Diamond Pit."
"It is almost impossible for a man who enjoys freedom with all its prerogatives,
to realize what it means to be deprived of that freedom." - Said by Erie Stanley Gardner.
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is breath of a buffalo in
the wintertime. It is as the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the
sunset." - Said by Chief Crowfoot, Blackfoot Indian Chief.
This last entry was written in red ink and decorated with a border of green-ink
stars; the anthologist wished to emphasize its "personal significance."
"A breath of a buffalo in the wintertime" - that exactly evoked his view of life.
Why worry? What was thereto "sweat about"? Man was nothing, a mist, a shadow
absorbed by shadows.
But, damn it, you do worry, scheme, fret over your finger nails and the warnings
of hotel managements: "Su dia termina a las 2 p. m."
"Dick? You hear me?" Perry said. "It's almost one o'clock." Dick was awake. He
was rather more than that; he and Inez were making love. As though reciting a rosary,
Dick incessantly whispered: "Is it good, baby? Is it good?" But Inez, smoking a
cigarette, remained silent. The previous midnight, when Dick had brought her to the
room and told Perry that she was going to sleep there, Perry, though disapproving, had
acquiesced, but if they imagined that their conduct stimulated him, or seemed to him
anything other than a "nuisance," they were wrong. Nevertheless, Perry felt sorry for
Inez. She was such a "stupid kid" - she really believed that Dick meant to marry her, and
had no idea he was planning to leave Mexico that very afternoon. "Is it good, baby? Is it
good?"
Perry said: "For Christsake, Dick. Hurry it up, will you? Our day ends at two p.
m."
It was Saturday, Christmas was near, and the traffic crept along Main Street. Dewey,
caught in the traffic, looked up at the holly garlands that hung above the street - swags
of gala greenery trimmed with scarlet paper bells - and was reminded that he had not yet
bought a single gift for his wife or his sons. His mind automatically rejected problems
not concerned with the Clutter case. Marie and many of their friends had begun to
wonder at the completeness of his fixation.
One close friend, the young lawyer Clifford R. Hope, Jr., had spoken plainly:
"Do you know what's happening to you, Al? Do you realize you never talk about
anything else?"
"Well," Dewey had replied, "that's all I think about. And there's the chance that
just while talking the thing over, I'll hit on something I haven't thought of before. Some
new angle. Or maybe you will. Damn it, Cliff, what do you suppose my life will be if
this thing stays in the Open File? Years from now I'll still be running down tips, and
every time there's a murder, a case anywhere in the country even remotely similar, I'll
have to horn right in, check, see if there could be any possible connection. But it isn't
only that. The real thing is I've come to feel I know Herb and the family better than they
ever knew themselves. I'm haunted by them. I guess I always will be. Until I know what
happened."
Dewey's dedication to the puzzle had resulted in an uncharacteristic absentmindedness. Only that morning Marie had asked him please, would he please, please,
not forget to... But he couldn't remember, or didn't, until, free of the shopping day traffic
and racing along Route 50 toward Holcomb, he passed Dr. I. E. Dale's veterinarian
establishment. Of course. His wife had asked him to be sure and collect the family cat,
Courthouse Pete. Pete, a tiger striped torn weighing fifteen pounds, is a well-known
character around Garden City, famous for his pugnacity, which was the cause of his
current hospitalization; a battle lost to a boxer dog had left him with wounds
necessitating both stitches and antibiotics. Released by Dr. Dale, Pete settled down on
the front seat of his owner's automobile and purred all the way to Holcomb.
The detective's destination was River Valley Farm, but wanting something warm
- a cup of hot coffee - he stopped off at Hartman's Cafe.
"Hello, handsome," said Mrs. Hartman. "What can I do for you?"
"Just coffee, ma'am."
She poured a cup. "Am I wrong? Or have you lost a lot of weight?"
"Some." In fact, during the past three weeks Dewey had dropped twenty pounds.
His suits fitted as though he had borrowed them from a stout friend, and his face,
seldom suggestive of his profession, was now not at all so; it could have been that of an
ascetic absorbed in occult pursuits. "How do you feel?"
"Mighty fine."
"You look awful."
Unarguably. But no worse than the other members of the K.. B. I. entourage Agents Duntz, Church, and Nye. Certainly he was in better shape than Harold Nye,
who, though full of flu and fever, kept reporting for duty. Among them, the four tired
men had "checked out" some seven hundred tips and rumors. Dewey, for example, had
spent two wearying and wasted days trying to trace that phantom pair, the Mexicans
sworn by Paul Helm to have visited Mr. Clutter on the eve of the murders. "Another
cup, Alvin?"
"Don't guess I will. Thank you, ma'am."
But she had already fetched the pot. "It's on the house, Sheriff. How you look,
you need it."
At a corner table two whiskery ranch hands were playing checkers. One of them
got up and came over to the counter where Dewey was seated. He said, "Is it true what
we heard?"
"Depends."
"About that fellow you caught? Prowling in the Clutter house? He's the one
responsible. That's what we heard."
"I think you heard wrong, old man. Yes, sir, I do." Although the past life of
Jonathan Daniel Adrian, who was then being held in the county jail on a charge of
carrying a concealed weapon, included a period of confinement as a mental patient in
Topeka State Hospital, the data assembled by the investigators indicated that in relation
to the Clutter case he was guilty only of an unhappy curiosity.
"Well, if he's the wrong un, why the hell don't you find the right un? I got a
houseful of women won't go to the bathroom alone."
Dewey had become accustomed to this brand of abuse; it was a routine part of
his existence. He swallowed the second cup of coffee, sighed, smiled.
"Hell, I'm not cracking jokes. I mean it. Why don't you arrest somebody? That's
what you're paid for."
"Hush your meanness," said Mrs. Hartman. "We're all in the same boat. Alvin's
doing good as he can."
Dewey winked at her. "You tell him, ma'am. And much obliged for the coffee."
The ranch hand waited until his quarry had reached the door, then fired a
farewell volley: "If you ever run for sheriff again, just forget my vote. 'Cause you ain't
gonna get it."
"Hush your meanness," said Mrs. Hartman.
A mile separates River Valley Farm from Hartman's Cafe. Dewey decided to
walk it. He enjoyed hiking across wheat fields. Normally, once or twice a week he went
for long walks on his own land, the well-loved piece of prairie where he had always
hoped to build a house, plant trees, eventually entertain great-grandchildren. That was
the dream, but it was one his wife had lately warned him she no longer shared; she had
told him that never now would she consider living all alone "way out there in the
country." Dewey knew that even if he were to snare the murderers the next day, Marie
would not change her mind - for once an awful fate had befallen friends who lived in a
lonely country house.
Of course, the Clutter family were not the first persons ever murdered in Finney
County, or even in Holcomb. Senior members of that small community can recall "a
wild goings-on" of more than forty years ago - the Hefner Slaying. Mrs. Sadie Truitt,
the hamlet's septuagenarian mail messenger, who is the mother of Postmistress Clare, is
expert on this fabled affair: "August, it was .1920. Hot as Hades. A fellow called Tunif
was working on the Finnup ranch. Walter Tunif. He had a car, turned out to be stolen.
Turned out he was a soldier AWOL from Fort Bliss, over there in Texas. He was a
rascal, sure enough, and a lot of people suspected him. So one evening the sheriff - them
days that was Orlie Hefner, such a fine singer, don't you know he's part of the Heavenly
Choir? - one evening he rode out to the Finnup ranch to ask Tunif a few straight forward
questions. Third of August. Hot as Hades. Outcome of it was, Walter Tunif shot the
sheriff right through the heart. Poor Orlie was gone 'fore he hit the ground. The devil
who done it, he lit out of there on one of the Finnup horses, rode east along the river.
Word spread, and men for miles around made up a posse. Along about the next
morning, they caught up with him; old Walter Tunif. He didn't get the chance to say
how d'you do? On account of the boys were pretty irate. They just let the buckshot fly."
Dewey's own initial contact with foul play in Finney County occurred in 1947.
The incident is noted in his files as follows: "John Carlyle Polk, a Creek Indian, 32
years of age, resident Muskogee, Okla., killed Mary Kay Finley, white female, 40 years
of age, a waitress residing in Garden City. Polk stabbed her with the jagged neck of a
beer bottle in a room in the Copeland Hotel, Garden City, Kansas, 5-9-47." A cut-anddried description of an open-and-shut case. Of three other murders Dewey had since
investigated, two were equally obvious (a pair of railroad workers robbed and killed an
elderly farmer, 11-1-52; a drunken husband beat and kicked his wife to death, 6-17-56),
but the third case, as it was once conversationally narrated by Dewey, was not without
several original touches: "It all started out at Stevens Park. Where they have a
bandstand, and under the bandstand a men's room. Well, this man named Mooney was
walking around the park. He was from North Carolina somewhere, just a stranger
passing through town. Anyway, he went to the rest room, and somebody followed him
inside - a boy from here abouts, Wilmer Lee Stebbins, twenty years old. Afterward,
Wilmer Lee always claimed Mr. Mooney made him an unnatural suggestion. And that
was why he robbed Mr. Mooney, and knocked him down, and banged his head on the
cement floor, and why, when that didn't finish him, he stuck Mr. Mooney's head in a
toilet bowl and kept on flushing till he drowned him. Maybe so. But nothing can explain
the rest of Wilmer Lee's behavior. First off, he buried the body a couple of miles
northeast of Garden City. Next day he dug it up and put it down fourteen miles the other
direction. Well, it went on like that, burying and reburying. Wilmer Lee was like a dog
with a bone - he just wouldn't let Mr. Mooney rest in peace. Finally, he dug one grave
too many; somebody saw him." Prior to the Clutter mystery, the four cases cited were
the sum of Dewey's experience with murder, and measured against the case confronting
him, were as squalls preceding a hurricane.
Dewey fitted a key into the front door of the Clutter house. Inside, the house was warm,
for the heat had not been turned off, and the shiny-floored rooms, smelling of a lemonscented polish, seemed only temporarily untenanted; it was as though today were
Sunday and the family might at any moment return from church. The heirs, Mrs.
English and Mrs. Jarchow, had removed a van load of clothing and furniture, yet the
atmosphere of a house still humanly inhabited had not thereby been diminished. In the
parlor, a sheet of music, "Comin' Thro' the Rye," stood open on the piano rack. In the
hall, a sweat-stained gray Stetson hat - Herb's - hung on a hat peg. Upstairs in Kenyon's
room, on a shelf above his bed, the lenses of the dead boy's spectacles gleamed with
reflected light.
The detective moved from room to room. He had toured the house many times;
indeed, he went out there almost every day, and, in one sense, could be said to find
these visits pleasurable, for the place, unlike his own home, or the sheriff's office, with
its hullabaloo, was peaceful. The telephones, their wires still severed, were silent. The
great quiet of the prairies surrounded him. He could sit in Herb's parlor rocking chair,
and rock and think. A few of his conclusions were unshakable: he believed that the
death of Herb Clutter had been the criminals' main objective. The motive being a
psychopathic hatred, or possibly a combination of hatred and thievery, and he believed
that the commission of the murders had been a leisurely labor, with perhaps two or more
hours elapsing between the entrance of the killers and their exit. (The coroner, Dr.
Robert Fenton, reported an appreciable difference in the body temperatures of the
victims, and, on this basis, theorized that the order of execution had been: Mrs. Clutter,
Nancy, Kenyon, and Mr. Clutter.) Attendant upon these beliefs was his conviction that
the family had known very well the persons who destroyed them.
During this visit Dewey paused at an upstairs window, his attention caught by
something seen in the near distance - a scare-crow amid the wheat stubble. The
scarecrow wore a man's hunting-cap and a dress of weather-faded flowered calico.
(Surely an old dress of Bonnie Clutter's?) Wind frolicked the skirt and made the
scarecrow sway - made it seem a creature forlornly dancing in the cold December field.
And Dewey was somehow reminded of Marie's dream. One recent morning she had
served him a bungled breakfast of sugared eggs and salted coffee, then blamed it all on
"a silly dream" - but a dream the power of daylight had not dispersed. "It was so real,
Alvin," she said. "As real as this kitchen. That's where I was. Here in the kitchen. I was
cooking supper, and suddenly Bonnie walked through the door. She was wearing a blue
angora sweater, and she looked so sweet and pretty. And I said, 'Oh, Bonnie... Bonnie,
dear... I haven't seen you since that terrible thing happened.' But she didn't answer, only
looked at me in that shy way of hers, and I didn't know how to go on. Under the
circumstances. So I said, 'Honey, come see what I'm making Alvin for his supper. A pot
of gumbo. With shrimp and fresh crabs. It's just about ready. Come on, honey, have a
taste.' But she wouldn't. She stayed by the door looking at me. And then - I don't know
how to tell you exactly, but she shut her eyes, she began to shake her head, very slowly,
and wring her hands, very slowly, and to whimper, or whisper. I couldn't understand
what she was saying. But it broke my heart, I never felt so sorry for anyone, and I
hugged her. I said, 'Please, Bonnie! Oh, don't, darling, don't! If ever anyone was
prepared to go to God, it was you, Bonnie.' But I couldn't comfort her. She shook her
head, and wrung her hands, and then I heard what she was saying. She was saying, 'To
be murdered. To be murdered. No. No. There's nothing worse. Nothing worse than that.
Nothing."
It was midday deep in the Mojave Desert. Perry, sitting on a straw suitcase, was playing
a harmonica. Dick was standing at the side of a black-surfaced high-way, Route 66, his
eyes fixed upon the immaculate emptiness as though the fervor of his gaze could force
motorists to materialize. Few did, and none of those stopped for the hitchhikers. One
truck driver, bound for Needles, California, had offered a lift, but Dick had declined.
That was not the sort of "setup" he and Perry wanted. They were waiting for some
solitary traveler in a decent car and with money in his billfold - a stranger to rob,
strangle, discard on the desert.
In the desert, sound often precedes sight. Dick heard the dim vibrations of an
oncoming, not yet visible car. Perry heard it, too; he put the harmonica in his pocket,
picked up the straw suitcase (this, their only luggage, bulged and sagged with the weight
of Perry's souvenirs, plus three shirts, five pairs of white socks, a box of aspirin, a bottle
of tequila, scissors, a safety razor, and a finger-nail file; all their other belongings had
either been pawned or been left with the Mexican bartender or been shipped to Las
Vegas), and joined Dick at the side of the road. They watched. Now the car appeared,
and grew until it became a blue Dodge sedan with a single passenger, a bald, skinny
man. Perfect. Dick raised his hand and waved. The Dodge slowed down, and Dick gave
the man a sumptuous smile. The car almost, but not quite, came to a stop, and the driver
leaned out the window, looking them up and down. The impression they made was
evidently alarming (after a fifty-hour bus ride from Mexico City to Barstow, California,
and half a day of trekking across the Mojave, both hikers were bearded, stark, dusty
figures.) The car leaped forward and sped on. Dick cupped his hands around his mouth
and called out, "You're a lucky bastard!" Then he laughed and hoisted the suit-case to
his shoulder. Nothing could get him really angry, because, as he later recalled, he was
"too glad to be back in the good ol U. S. A." Anyway, another man in another car would
come along.
Perry produced his harmonica (his since yesterday, when he stole it from a
Barstow variety store) and played the opening bars of what had come to be their
"marching music"; the song was one of Perry's favorites, and he had taught Dick all five
stanzas. In step, and side by side, they swung along the highway, singing, "Mine eyes
have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the
grapes of wrath are stored." Through the silence of the desert, their hard, young voices
rang: "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!"
III. ANSWER
The young mans name was Floyd Wells, and he was short and nearly chinless. He had
attempted several careers, as soldier, ranch hand, mechanic, thief, the last of which had
earned him a sentence of three to five years in Kansas State Penitentiary. On the
evening of Tuesday, November 17, 1959, he was lying in his cell with a pair of radio
earphones clamped to his head. He was listening to a news broad-cast, but the
announcer's voice and the drabness of the day's events ("Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
arrived in London today for talks with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. . . . President
Eisenhower put in seventy minutes going over space problems and the budget for space
exploration with Dr. T. Keith Glennan") were luring him toward sleep. His drowsiness
instantly vanished when he heard, "Officers investigating the tragic slaying of four
members of the Herbert W. Clutter family have appealed to the public for any
information which might aid in solving this baffling crime. Clutter, his wife, and their
two teen-age children were found murdered in their farm home near Garden City early
last Sunday morning. Each had been bound, gagged, and shot through the head with a
.12-gauge shotgun. Investigating officials admit they can discover no motive for the
crime, termed by Logan Sanford, Director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, as the
most vicious in the history of Kansas. Clutter, a prominent wheat grower and former
Eisenhower appointee to the Federal Farm Credit Board..."
Wells was stunned. As he was eventually to describe his reaction, he "didn't
hardly believe it." Yet he had good reason to, for not only had he known the murdered
family, he knew very well who had murdered them.
It had begun a long time ago - eleven years ago, in the autumn of 1948, when
Wells was nineteen. He was "sort of drifting around the country, taking jobs as they
came, " as he recalled it. "One way and another, I found myself out there in western
Kansas. Near the Colorado border. I was hunting work, and asking round, I heard
maybe they could use a hand over to River Valley Farm - that's how he called his place,
Mr. Clutter did. Sure enough, he put me on. I stayed there I guess a year - all that
winter, anyway - and when I left it was just 'cause I was feeling kind of footy. Wanted
to move on. Not account of any quarrel with Mr. Clutter. He treated me fine, same as he
treated everybody that worked for him; like, if you was a little short before payday, he'd
always hand you a ten or a five. He paid good wages, and if you deserved it he was
quick to give you a bonus. The fact is, I liked Mr. Clutter much as any man I ever met.
The whole family. Mrs. Clutter and the four kids. When I knew them, the youngest two,
the ones that got killed - Nancy and the little boy what wore glasses - they were only
babies, maybe five or six years old. The other two - one was called Beverly, the other
girl I don't remember her name - they were already in high school. A nice family, real
nice. I never forgot them. When I left there, it was sometime in 1949. I got married, I
got divorced, the Army took me, other stuff happened, time went by, you might say, and
in 1959 - June, 1959, ten years since I last seen Mr. Clutter - I got sent to Lansing.
Because of breaking into this appliance store. Electrical appliances. What I had in mind
was, I wanted to get hold of some electrical lawn mowers. Not to sell. I was going to
start a lawn-mower rental service. That way, see, I'd have had my own permanent little
business. Course nothing come of it - 'cept I drew a three-to-five. If I hadn't, then I
never would have met Dick, and maybe Mr. Clutter wouldn't be in his grave. But there
you are. There it is. I come to meet Dick.
"He was the first fellow I celled with. We celled together I guess a month. June
and part of July. He was just finishing a three-to-five - due for parole in August. He
talked a lot about what he planned to do when he got out. Said he thought he might go
to Nevada, one of them missile-base towns, buy hisself a uniform, and pass hisself off
as a Air Force officer. So he could hang out a regular washline of hot paper. That was
one idea he told me. (Never thought much of it myself. He was smart, I don't deny, but
he didn't look the part like no Air Force officer.) Other times, he mentioned this friend
of his. Perry. A half-Indian fellow he used to cell with. And the big deals him and Perry
might pull when they got together again. I never met him - Perry. Never saw him. He'd
already left Lansing, was out on parole. But Dick always said if the chance of a real big
score came up, he could rely on Perry Smith to go partners.
"I don't exactly recall how Mr. Clutter first got mentioned. It must have been
when we were discussing jobs, different kinds of work we'd done. Dick, he was a
trained car mechanic, and mostly that was the work he'd done. Only, once he'd had a job
driving a hospital ambulance. He was full of brag about that. About nurses, and all what
he'd done with them in the back of the ambulance. Anyway, I informed him how I'd
worked a year on a considerable wheat spread in western Kansas. For Mr. Clutter. He
wanted to know if Mr. Clutter was a wealthy man. Yes, I said. Yes, he was. In fact, I
said, Mr. Clutter had once told me that he got rid often thousand dollars in one week. I
mean, said it sometimes cost him ten thousand dollars a week to run his operation. After
that, Dick never stopped asking me about the family. How many was they? What ages
would the kids be now? Exactly how did you get to the house? How was it laid out? Did
Mr. Clutter keep a safe? I won't deny it - I told him he did. Because I seemed to
remember a sort of cabinet, or safe, or something, right behind the desk in the room Mr.
Clutter used as an office. Next thing I knew, Dick was talking about killing Mr. Clutter.
Said him and Perry was gonna go out there and rob the place, and they was gonna kill
all witnesses - the Clutters, and anybody else that happened to be around. He described
to me a dozen times how he was gonna do it, how him and Perry was gonna tie them
people up and gun them down. I told him, 'Dick, you'll never get by with it.' But I can't
honestly say I tried to persuade him different. Because I never for a minute believed he
meant to carry it out. I thought it was just talk. Like you hear plenty of in Lansing.
That's about all you do hear: what a fellow's gonna do when he gets out - the holdups
and robberies and so forth. It's nothing but brag, mostly. Nobody takes it serious. That's
why, when I heard what I heard on the earphones - well, I didn't hardly believe it. Still
and all, it happened. Just like Dick said it would."
That was Floyd Wells' story, though as yet he was far from telling it. He was
afraid to, for if the other prisoners heard of his bearing tales to the warden, then his life,
as he put it, "wouldn't be worth a dead coyote." A week passed. He monitored the radio,
he followed the newspaper accounts - and in one of them read that a Kansas paper, the
Hutchinson News, was offering a reward of one thousand dollars for any information
leading to the capture and conviction of the person or persons guilty of the Clutter
murders. An interesting item; it almost inspired Wells to speak. But he was still too
much afraid, and his fear was not solely of the other prisoners. There was also the
chance that the authorities might charge him with being an accessory to the crime. After
all, it was he who had guided Dick to the Clutters' door; certainly it could be claimed
that he had been aware of Dick's intentions. However one viewed it, his situation was
curious, his excuses questionable. So he said nothing, and ten more days went by.
December replaced November, and those investigating the case remained, according to
increasingly brief newspaper reports (radio newscasters had ceased to mention the
subject), as bewildered, as virtually clueless, as they had been the morning of the tragic
discovery.
But he knew. Presently, tortured by a need to "tell somebody," he confided in
another prisoner. "A particular friend. A Catholic. Kind of very religious. He asked me,
'Well, what are you gonna do, Floyd?' I said, Well, I didn't rightly know - what did he
think I ought to do? Well, he was all for me going to the proper people. Said he didn't
think I ought to live with something like on my mind. And he said I could do it without
anybody inside guessing I was the one told. Said he'd fix it. So the next day he got word
to the deputy warden - told him I wanted to be 'called out." Told the deputy if he called
me to his office on some pretext or other, maybe I could tell him who killed the
Clutters. Sure enough, the deputy sent for me. I was scared, but I remembered Mr.
Clutter, and how he'd never done me no harm, how at Christmas he'd give me a little
purse with fifty dollars in it. I talked to the deputy. Then I told the warden hisself. And
while I was still sitting there, right there in Warden Hand's office, he picked up the
telephone - "
The person to whom Warden Hand telephoned was Logan Sanford. Sanford listened,
hung up, issued several orders, then placed a call of his own to Alvin Dewey. That
evening, when Dewey left his office in the courthouse at Garden City, he took home
with him a manila envelope.
When Dewey got home, Marie was in the kitchen preparing supper. The moment
he appeared, she launched into an account of household upsets. The family cat had
attacked the cocker spaniel that lived across the street, and now it seemed as if one of
the spaniel's eyes might be seriously damaged. And Paul, their nine-year-old, had fallen
out of a tree. It was a wonder he was alive. And then their twelve-year-old, Dewey's
namesake, had gone into the yard to burn rubbish and started a blaze that had threatened
the neighborhood. Someone - she didn't know who - had actually called the Fire
Department.
While his wife described these unhappy episodes, Dewey poured two cups of
coffee. Suddenly, Marie stopped in the middle of a sentence and stared at him. His face
was flushed, and she could tell that he was elated. She said, "Alvin. Oh, honey. Is it
good news?" Without comment, he gave her the manila envelope. Her hands were wet;
she dried them, sat down at the kitchen table, sipped her coffee, opened the envelope,
and took out photographs of a blond young man and a dark-haired, dark-skinned young
man - police-made "mug shots." A pair of semi-coded dossiers accompanied the
photographs. The one for the fair-headed man read: Hickock, Richard Eugene (WM) 28.
KBI 97 093; FBI 859 273A. Address: Edgerton, Kansas. Birth-date 6-6-31. Birthplace:
K. C., Kans. Height: 5-10. Weight: 175. Hair: Blond. Eyes: Blue. Build: Stout. Comp:
Ruddy. Occup: Car Painter. Crime: Cheat & Defr. & Bad Checks. Paroled: 8-13-59. By:
So. K. C. K.
The second description read: Smith, Perry Edward (WM) 27-59. Birthplace:
Nevada. Height: 5-4. Weight: 156. Hair: D. Brn. Crime: B&E. Arrested:(blank). By:
(blank). Disposition: Sent KSP 3-13-56 from Phil-lips Co .5-10 yrs. Rec .3-14-56.
Paroled: 7-6-59.
Marie examined the front-view and profile photographs of Smith: an arrogant
face, tough, yet not entirely, for there was about it a peculiar refinement; the lips and
nose seemed nicely made, and she thought the eyes, with their moist, dreamy
expression, rather pretty - rather, in an actorish way, sensitive. Sensitive, and something
more: "mean." Though not as mean, as forbiddingly "criminal," as the eyes of Hickock,
Richard Eugene. Marie, transfixed by Hickock's eyes, was reminded of a childhood
incident - of a bobcat she'd once seen caught in a trap, and of how, though she'd wanted
to release it, the cat's eyes, radiant with pain and hatred, had drained her of pity and
filled her with terror. "Who are they?" Marie asked.
Dewey told her Floyd Wells' story, and at the end he said, "Funny. The past
three weeks, that's the angle we've concentrated on. Tracking down every man who ever
worked on the Clutter place. Now, the way it's turned out, it just seems like a piece of
luck. But a few days more and we would've hit this Wells. Found he was in prison. We
would've got the truth then. Hell, yes."
"Maybe it isn't the truth," Marie said. Dewey and the eighteen men assisting him
had pursued hundreds of leads to barren destinations, and she hoped to warn him against
another disappointment, for she was worried about his health. His state of mind was
bad; he was emaciated; and he was smoking sixty cigarettes a day. "No. Maybe not,"
Dewey said. "But I have a hunch." His tone impressed her; she looked again at the faces
on the kitchen table. "Think of him," she said, placing a finger against the front-view
portrait of the blond young man. "Think of those eyes. Coming toward you." Then she
pushed the pictures back into their envelope. "I wish you hadn't shown me."
Later that same evening, another woman, in another kitchen, put aside a sock she was
darning, removed a pair of plastic-rimmed spectacles, and leveling them at a visitor,
said, "I hope you find him, Mr. Nye. For his own sake. We have two sons, and he's one
of them, our first-born. We love him. But... Oh, I realized. I realized he wouldn't have
packed up. Run off. Without a word to anybody - his daddy or his brother. Unless he
was in trouble again. What makes him do it? Why?" She glanced across the small,
stove-warmed room at a gaunt figure hunched in a rocking chair - Walter Hickock, her
husband and the father of Richard Eugene. He was a man with faded, defeated eyes and
rough hands; when he spoke, his voice sounded as if it were seldom used. "Was nothing
wrong with my boy, Mr. Nye," Mr. Hickock said. "An outstanding athlete - always on
the first team at school. Basketball! Baseball! Football! Dick was always the star player.
A pretty good student, too, with A marks in several subjects. History. Mechanical
drawing. After he graduated from high school June, 1949 - he wanted to go on to
college. Study to be an engineer. But we couldn't do it. Plain didn't have the money.
Never have had any money. Our farm here, it's only forty-four acres - we hardly can
scratch a living. I guess Dick resented it, not getting to college. The first job he had was
with Santa Fe Railways, in Kansas City. Made seventy-five dollars a week. He figured
that was enough to get married on, so him and Carol got married. She wasn't but
sixteen; he wasn't but nineteen hisself. I never thought nothing good would come of it.
Didn't, neither."
Mrs. Hickock, a plump woman with a soft, round face un-marred by a lifetime
of dawn-to-dark endeavor, reproached him. "Three precious little boys, our
grandchildren - there, that's what came of it. And Carol is a lovely girl. She's not to
blame."
Mr. Hickock continued, "Him and Carol rented a good-size house, bought a
fancy car - they was in debt all the time. Even though pretty soon Dick was making
better money driving a hospital ambulance. Later on, the Mark Buick Company, a big
outfit there in Kansas City, they hired him. As a mechanic and car painter. But him and
Carol lived too high, kept buying stuff they couldn't no how afford, and Dick got to
writing checks. I still think the reason he started doing stunts such as that was connected
with the smash-up. Concussed his head in a car smash-up. After that, he wasn't the same
boy. Gambling, writing bad checks. I never knew him to do them things before. And it
was along about then he took up with this other gal. The one he divorced Carol for, and
was his second wife."
Mrs. Hickock said, "Dick couldn't help that. You remember how Margaret Edna
was attracted to him."
" 'Cause a woman likes you, does that mean you got to get caught?" Mr.
Hickock said. "Well, Mr. Nye, I expect you know as much about it as we do. Why our
boy was sent to prison. Locked away seventeen months, and all he done was borrow a
hunting rifle. From the house of a neighbor here. He had no idea to steal it, I don't give a
damn what nobody says. And that was the ruination of him. When he came out of
Lansing, he was a plain stranger to me. You couldn't talk to him. The whole world was
against Dick Hickock - that's how he figured. Even the second wife, she left him - filed
for divorce while he was in prison. Just the same, lately there, he seemed to be settling
down. Working for the Bob Sands Body Shop, over in Olathe. Living here at home with
us, getting to bed early, not violating his parole any shape or fashion. I'll tell you, Mr.
Nye, I've not got long, I'm with cancer, and Dick knowed that - least ways, he knowed
I'm sickly - and not a month ago, right before he took off, he told me, 'Dad, you've been
a pretty good old dad to me. I'm not ever gonna do nothing more to hurt you.' He meant
it, too. That boy has plenty of good inside him. If ever you seen him on a football field,
if ever you seen him play with his children, you wouldn't doubt me. Lord, I wish the
Lord could tell me, because I don't know what happened."
His wife said, "I do," resumed her darning, and was forced by tears to stop.
"That friend of his. That's what happened."
The visitor, K. B. I. Agent Harold Nye, busied himself scribbling in a shorthand
notebook - a notebook already well filled with the results of a long day spent probing
the accusations of Floyd Wells. Thus far the facts ascertained corroborated Wells' story
most persuasively. On November 20 the suspect Richard Eugene Hickock had gone on a
Kansas City shopping spree during which he had passed not fewer than "seven pieces of
hot paper." Nye had called on all the reported victims - salesmen of cameras and of
radio and television equipment, the proprietor of a jewelry shop, a clerk in a clothing
store - and when in each instance the witness was shown photographs of Hickock and
Perry Edward Smith, he had identified the former as the author of the spurious checks,
the latter as his "silent" accomplice. (One deceived salesman said, "He [Hickock] did
the work. A very smooth talker, very convincing. The other one - I thought he might be
a foreigner, a Mexican maybe - he never opened his mouth.")
Nye had next driven to the suburban village of Olathe, where he interviewed
Hickock's last employer, the owner of the Bob Sands Body Shop. "Yes, he worked
here," said Mr. Sands. "From August until - Well, I never saw him after the nineteenth
of November, or maybe it was the twentieth. He left without giving me any notice
whatever. Just took off - I don't know where to, and neither does his dad. Surprised?
Well, yes. Yes, I was. We were on a fairly friendly basis. Dick kind of has a way with
him, you know. He can be very likable. Once in a while he used to come to our house.
Fact is, a week before he left, we had some people over, a little party, and Dick brought
this friend he had visiting him, a boy from Nevada - Perry Smith was his name. He
could play the guitar real nice. He played the guitar and sang some songs, and him and
Dick entertained everybody with a weight-lifting act. Perry Smith, he's a little fellow,
not much over five feet high, but he could just about pick up a horse. No, they didn't
seem nervous, neither one. I'd say they were enjoying themselves. The exact date? Sure
I remember. It was the thirteenth. Friday, the thirteenth of November."
From there, Nye steered his car northward along raw country roads. As he
neared the Hickock farm, he stopped at several neighboring homesteads, ostensibly to
ask directions, actually to make inquiries concerning the suspect. One farmer's wife
said, "Dick Hickock! Don't talk to me about Dick Hickock! If ever I met the devil!
Steal? Steal the weights off a dead man's eyes! His mother, though, Eunice, she's a fine
woman. Heart big as a barn. His daddy, too. Both of them plain, honest people. Dick
would've gone to jail more times than you can count, except nobody around here ever
wanted to prosecute. Out of respect for his folks."
Dusk had fallen when Nye knocked at the door of Walter Hickock's weathergrayed four-room farmhouse. It was as though some such visit had been expected. Mr.
Hickock invited the detective into the kitchen, and Mrs. Hickock offered him coffee.
Perhaps if they had known the true meaning of the caller's presence, the reception
tendered him would have been less gracious, more guarded. But they did not know, and
during the hours the three sat conversing, the name Clutter was never mentioned, or the
word murder. The parents accepted what Nye implied - that parole violation and
financial fraud were all that motivated his pursuit of their son.
"Dick brought him [Perry] home one evening, and told us he was a friend just
off a bus from Las Vegas, and he wanted to know couldn't he sleep here, stay here
awhile," Mrs. Hickock said. "No, sir, I wouldn't have him in the house. One look and I
saw what he was. With his perfume. And his oily hair. It was clear as day where Dick
had met him. According to the conditions of his parole, he wasn't supposed to associate
with anybody he'd met up there [Lansing]. I warned Dick, but he wouldn't listen. He
found a room for his friend at the Hotel Olathe, in Olathe, and after that Dick was with
him every spare minute. Once they went off on a weekend trip. Mr. Nye, certain as I'm
sitting here, Perry Smith was the one put him up to writing them checks."
Nye shut his notebook and put his pen in his pocket, and both his hands as well,
for his hands were shaking from excitement. "Now, on this weekend trip. Where did
they go?"
"Fort Scott," Mr. Hickock said, naming a Kansas town with a military history.
"The way I understood it, Perry Smith has a sister lives in Fort Scott. She was supposed
to be holding a piece of money belonged to him. Fifteen hundred dollars was the sum
mentioned. That was the main reason he'd come to Kansas, to collect this money his
sister was holding. So Dick drove him down there to get it. It was only a overnight trip.
He was back home a little before noon Sunday. Time for Sunday dinner."
"I see," said Nye. "An overnight trip. Which means they left here sometime
Saturday. That would be Saturday, November fourteenth?"
The old man agreed.
"And returned Sunday, November fifteenth?"
"Sunday noon."
Nye pondered the mathematics involved, and was encouraged by the conclusion
he came to: that within a time span of twenty or twenty-four hours, the suspects could
have made a round-trip journey of rather more than eight hundred miles, and, in the
process, murder four people.
"Now, Mr. Hickock," Nye said. "On Sunday, when your son came home, was he
alone? Or was Perry Smith with him?"
"No, he was alone. He said he'd left Perry off at the Hotel Olathe."
Nye, whose normal voice is cuttingly nasal and naturally intimidating, was
attempting a subdued timbre, a disarming, throw-away style. "And do you remember did anything in his manner strike you as unusual? Different?"
"Who?"
"Your son."
"When?"
"When he returned from Fort Scott."
Mr. Hickock ruminated. Then he said, "He seemed the same as ever. Soon as he
came in, we sat down to dinner. He was mighty hungry. Started piling his plate before
I'd finished the blessing. I remarked on it, said, 'Dick, you're shoveling it in as fast as
you can work your elbow. Don't you mean to leave nothing for the rest of us?' Course,
he's always been a big eater. Pickles. He can eat a whole tub of pickles."
"And after dinner what did he do?"
"Fell asleep," said Mr. Hickock, and appeared to be moderately taken aback by
his own reply. "Fell fast asleep. And I guess you could say that was unusual. We'd
gathered round to watch a basketball game. On the TV. Me and Dick and our other boy,
David. Pretty soon Dick was snoring like a buzz saw, and I said to his brother, 'Lord, I
never thought I'd live to see the day Dick would go to sleep at a basketball game.' Did,
though. Slept straight through it. Only woke up long enough to eat some cold supper,
and right after went off to bed."
Mrs. Hickock rethreaded her darning needle; her husband rocked his rocker and
sucked on an unlit pipe. The detective's trained eyes roamed the scrubbed and humble
room. In a corner, a gun stood propped against the wall; he had noticed it before. Rising,
reaching for it, he said, "You do much hunting, Mr. Hickock?"
"That's his gun. Dick's. Him and David go out once in a while. After rabbits,
mostly."
It was a .12-gauge Savage shotgun, Model 300; a delicately etched scene of
pheasants in flight ornamented the handle. "How long has Dick had it?"
The question aroused Mrs. Hickock. "That gun cost me over a hundred dollars.
Dick bought it on credit, and now the store won't have it back, even though it's not
hardly a month old and only been used the one time - the start of November, when him
and David went to Grinnell on a pheasant shoot. He used ours names to buy it - his
daddy let him - so here we are, liable for the payments, and when you think of Walter,
sick as he is, and all the things we need, all we do without..." She held her breath, as
though trying to halt an attack of hiccups. "Are you sure you won't have a cup of coffee,
Mr. Nye? It's no trouble."
The detective leaned the gun against the wall, relinquishing it, although he felt
certain it was the weapon that had killed the Clutter family. "Thank you, but it's late,
and I have to drive to Topeka," he said, and then, consulting his notebook, "Now, I'll
just run through this, see if I have it straight. Perry Smith arrived in Kansas Thursday,
the twelfth of November. Your son claimed this person came here to collect a sum of
money from a sister residing in Fort Scott. That Saturday the two drove to Fort Scott,
where they remained overnight - I assume in the home of the sister?"
Mr. Hickock said, "No. They never could find her. Seems like she'd moved."
Nye smiled. "Nevertheless, they stayed away overnight. And during the week
that followed - that is, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first - Dick continued to see his
friend Perry Smith, but otherwise, or as far as you know, he maintained a normal
routine, lived at home and reported to work every day. On the twenty-first he
disappeared, and so did Perry Smith. And since then you've not heard from him? He
hasn't written you?"
"He's afraid to," said Mrs. Hickock. "Ashamed and afraid."
"Ashamed?"
"Of what he's done. Of how he's hurt us again. And afraid because he thinks we
won't forgive him. Like we always have. I And will. You have children, Mr. Nye?"
He nodded.
"Then you know how it is."
"One thing more. Have you any idea, any at all, where your son might have
gone?"
"Open a map," said Mr. Hickock, "Point your finger - maybe that's it."
It was late afternoon, and the driver of the car, a middle-aged traveling salesman who
shall here be known as Mr. Bell, was tired. He longed to stop for a short nap. However,
he was only a hundred miles from his destination - Omaha; Nebraska, the headquarters
of the large meat packing company for which he worked. A company rule forbade its
salesmen to pick up hitchhikers, but Mr. Bell often disobeyed it, particularly if he was
bored and drowsy, so when he saw the two young men standing by the side of the road,
he immediately braked his car.
They looked to him like "O. K. boys." The taller of the two, a wiry type with
dirty-blond, crew-cut hair, had an engaging grin and a polite manner, and his partner,
the "runty" one, holding a harmonica in his right hand and, in his left, a swollen straw
suit-case, seemed "nice enough," shy but amiable. In any event, Mr. Bell, entirely
unaware of his guests' intentions, which included throttling him with a belt and leaving
him, robbed of his car, his money, and his life, concealed in a prairie grave, was glad to
have company, somebody to talk to and keep him awake until he arrived at Omaha.
He introduced himself, then asked them their names. The affable young man
with whom he was sharing the front seat said his name was Dick. "And that's Perry," he
said, winking at Perry, who was seated directly behind the driver. "I can ride you boys
as far as Omaha."
Dick said, "Thank you, sir. Omaha's where we were headed. Hoped we might
find some work."
What kind of work were they hunting? The salesman thought perhaps he could
help.
Dick said, "I'm a first-class car painter. Mechanic, too. I'm used to making real
money. My buddy and me, we just been down in old Mexico. Our idea was, we wanted
to live there. But hell, they won't pay any wages. Nothing a white man could live off.
"Ah, Mexico. Mr. Bell explained that he had honeymooned in Cuernavaca. "We always
wanted to go back. But it's hard to move around when you've got five kids."
Perry, as he later recalled, thought, Five kids - well, too bad. And listening to
Dick's conceited chatter, hearing him start to describe his Mexican "amorous
conquests," he thought how "queer" it was, "egomaniacal." Imagine going all out to
impress a man you were going to kill, a man who wouldn't be alive ten minutes from
now - not if the plan he and Dick had devised went smoothly. And why shouldn't it?
The setup was ideal - exactly what they had been looking for during the three days it
had taken them to hitchhike from California to Nevada and across Nevada and
Wyoming into Nebraska. Until now, however, a suitable victim had eluded them. Mr.
Bell was the first prosperous-seeming solitary traveler to offer them a lift. Their other
hosts had been either truck drivers or soldiers - and, once, a pair of Negro prize fighters
driving a lavender Cadillac. But Mr. Bell was perfect. Perry felt inside a pocket of the
leather windbreaker he was wearing. The pocket bulged with a bottle of Bayer aspirin
and with a jagged, fist-size rock wrapped in a yellow cotton cowboy hand-kerchief. He
unfastened his belt, a Navajo belt, silver-buckled and studded with turquoise beads; he
took it off, flexed it, placed it across his knees. He waited. He watched the Nebraska
prairie rolling by, and fooled with his harmonica - made up a tune and played it and
waited for Dick to pronounce the agreed-upon signal: "Hey, Perry, pass me a match."
Whereupon Dick was supposed to seize the steering wheel, while Perry, wielding his
hand-kerchief-wrapped rock, belabored the salesman's head - "opened it up." Later,
along some quiet side road, use would be made of the belt with the sky-blue beads.
Meanwhile, Dick and the condemned man were trading dirty jokes. Their
laughter irritated Perry; he especially disliked Mr. Bell's outbursts - hearty barks that
sounded very much like the laughter of Tex John Smith, Perry's father. The memory of
his father's laughter increased his tension; his head hurt, his knees ached. He chewed
three aspirin and swallowed them dry. Jesus! He thought he might vomit, or faint; he
felt certain he would if Dick delayed "the party" much longer. The light was dimming,
the road was straight, with neither house nor human being in view - nothing but land
winter-stripped and as somber as sheet iron. Now was the time, now. He stared at Dick,
as though to communicate this realization, and a few small signs - a twitching eyelid, a
mustache of sweat drops - told him that Dick had already reached the same conclusion.
And yet when Dick next spoke, it was only to launch another joke. "Here's a
riddle. The riddle is: What's the similarity between a trip to the bathroom and a trip to
the cemetery?" He grinned. "Give up?"
"Give up."
"When you gotta go, you gotta go!"
Mr. Bell barked.
"Hey, Perry, pass me a match."
But just as Perry raised his hand, and the rock was on the verge of descent,
something extraordinary occurred - what Perry later called "a goddam miracle." The
miracle was the sudden appearance of a third hitchhiker, a Negro soldier, for whom the
charitable salesman stopped. "Say, that's pretty cute," he said as his savior ran toward
the car. "When you gotta go, you gotta go!"
December 16, 1959, Las Vegas, Nevada. Age and weather had removed the first letter
and the last - an R and an S - thereby coining a somewhat ominous word: OOM. The
word, faintly present upon a sun-warped sign, seemed appropriate to the place it
publicized, which was, as Harold Nye wrote in his official K. B. I. report, "run-down
and shabby, the lowest type of hotel or rooming house. " The report continued: "Until a
few years ago (according to information supplied by the Las Vegas police), it was one
of the biggest cathouses in the West. Then fire destroyed the main building, and the
remaining portion was converted into a cheap-rent rooming house. " The "lobby" was
unfurnished, except for a cactus plant six feet tall and a make shift reception desk; it
was also uninhabited. The detective clapped his hands. Eventually, a voice, female, but
not very feminine, shouted, "I'm coming," but it was five minutes before the woman
appeared. She wore a soiled housecoat and high-heeled gold leather sandals. Curlers
pinioned her thinning yellowish hair. Her face was broad, muscular, rouged, powdered.
She was carrying a can of Miller High Life beer; she smelled of beer and tobacco and
recently applied nail varnish. She was seventy-four years old, but in Nye's opinion,
"looked younger - maybe ten minutes younger. " She stared at him, his trim brown suit,
his brown snap brim hat. When he displayed his badge, she was amused; her lips parted,
and Nye glimpsed two rows of fake teeth. "Uh-huh. That's what I figured," she said. "O.
K. Let's hear it. "He handed her a photograph of Richard Hickock. "Know him?"
A negative grunt.
"Or him?"
She said, "Uh-huh. He's stayed here a coupla times. But he's not here now.
Checked out over a month ago. You wanna see the register?"
Nye leaned against the desk and watched the landlady's long and lacquered
fingernails search a page of pencil-scribbled names. Las Vegas was the first of three
places that his employers wished him to visit. Each had been chosen because of its
connection with the history of Perry Smith. The two others were Reno, where it was
thought that Smith's father lived, and San Francisco, the home of Smith's sister, who
shall here be known as Mrs. Frederic Johnson. Though Nye planned to interview these
relatives, and anyone else who might have knowledge of the suspect's where-abouts, his
main objective was to obtain the aid of the local law agencies. On arriving in Las Vegas,
for example, he had discussed the Clutter case with Lieutenant B. J. Handlon, Chief of
the Detective Division of the Las Vegas Police Department. The lieutenant had then
written a memorandum ordering all police personnel to be on the alert for Hickock and
Smith: "Wanted in Kansas for parole violation, and said to be driving a 1949 Chevrolet
bearing Kansas license JO-58269. These men are probably armed and should be
considered dangerous." Also, Handlon had assigned a detective to help Nye "case the
pawnbrokers"; as he said, there was "always a pack of them in any gambling town."
Together, Nye and the Las Vegas detective had checked every pawn ticket issued during
the past month. Specifically, Nye hoped to find a Zenith portable radio believed to have
been stolen from the Clutter house on the night of the crime, but he had no luck with
that. One broker, though, remembered Smith ("He's been in and out of here going on a
good ten years"), and was able to produce a ticket for a bearskin rug pawned during the
first week in November. It was from this ticket that Nye had obtained the address of the
rooming house.
"Registered October thirtieth," the landlady said. "Pulled out November
eleventh." Nye glanced at Smith's signature. The ornateness of it, the mannered swoops
and swirls, surprised him - a reaction that the landlady apparently divined, for she said,
"Uh-huh. And you oughta hear him talk. Big, long words coming at you in this kinda
lispy, whispery voice. Quite a personality. What you got against him - a nice little punk
like that?"
"Parole violation."
"Uh-huh. Came all the way from Kansas on a parole case. Well, I'm just a dizzy
blonde. I believe you. But I wouldn't tell that tale to any brunettes." She raised the beer
can, emptied it, then thoughtfully rolled the empty can between her veined and freckled
hands. "Whatever it is, it ain't nothing big-big. Couldn't be. I never saw the man yet I
couldn't gauge his shoe size. This one, be only a punk. Little punk tried to sweet-talk me
out of paying rent the last week he was here." She chuckled, presumably at the absurdity
of such an ambition.
The detective asked how much Smith's room had cost. "Regular rate. Nine bucks
a week. Plus a fifty-cent key deposit. Strictly cash. Strictly in advance."
"While he was here, what did he do with himself? Does he have any friends?"
Nye asked.
"You think I keep an eye on every crawly that comes in here?" the landlady
retorted. "Bums. Punks. I'm not interested. I got a daughter married big-big." Then she
said, "No, he doesn't have any friends. Least, I never noticed him run around with
anybody special. This last time he was here, he spent most every day tinkering with his
car. Had it parked out front there. An old Ford. Looked like it was made before he was
born. He gave it a paint job. Painted the top part black and the rest silver. Then he wrote
'For Sale' on the windshield. One day I heard a sucker stop and offer him forty bucks that's forty more than it was worth. But he allowed he couldn't take less than ninety.
Said he needed the money for a bus ticket. Just before he left I heard some colored man
bought it."
"He said he needed the money for a bus ticket. But you don't know where it was
he wanted to go?"
She pursed her lips, hung a cigarette between them, but her eyes stayed on Nye.
"Play fair. Any money on the table? A reward?" She waited for an answer; when none
arrived, she seemed to weigh the probabilities and decide in favor of proceeding.
"Because I got the impression wherever he was going he didn't mean to stay long. That
he meant to cut back here. Sorta been expecting him to turn up any day." She nodded
toward the interior of the establishment. "Come along, and I'll show you why."
Stairs. Gray halls. Nye sniffed the odors, separating one from another: lavatory
disinfectant, alcohol, dead cigars. Beyond one door, a drunken tenant wailed and sang in
the firm grip of either gladness or grief. "Boil down, Dutch! Turn it off or out you go!"
the woman yelled. "Here," she said to Nye, leading him into a darkened storage room.
She switched on a light. "Over there. That box. He asked would I keep it till he came
back."
It was a cardboard box, unwrapped but tied with cord. A declaration, a warning
somewhat in the spirit of an Egyptian curse, was crayoned across the top: "Beware!
Property of Perry E. Smith! Beware!" Nye undid the cord; the knot, he was unhappy to
see, was not the same as the half hitch that the killers had used when binding the Clutter
family. He parted the flaps. A cockroach emerged, and the landlady stepped on it,
squashing it under the heel of her gold leather sandal. "Hey!" she said as he carefully
extracted and slowly examined Smith's possessions. "The sneak. That's my towel." In
addition to the towel, the meticulous Nye listed in his notebook: "One dirty pillow,
'Souvenir of Honolulu'; one pink baby blanket; one pair khaki trousers; one aluminum
pan with pancake turner." Other oddments included a scrapbook thick with photographs
clipped from physical-culture magazines (sweaty studies of weight-lifting weightlifters) and, inside a shoebox, a collection of medicines: rinses and powders employed
to combat trench mouth, and also a mystifying amount of aspirin - at least a dozen
containers, several of them empty. "Junk," the landlady said. "Nothing but trash." True,
it was valueless stuff even to a clue-hungry detective. Still, Nye was glad to have seen
it; each item - the palliatives for sore gums, the greasy Honolulu pillow - gave him a
clearer impression of the owner and his lonely, mean life.
The next day in Reno, preparing his official notes, Nye wrote: "At 9: 00 a. m.
the reporting agent contacted Mr. Bill Driscoll, chief criminal investigator, Sheriff's
Office, Washoe County, Reno, Nevada. After being briefed on the circumstances of this
case, Mr. Driscoll was supplied with photographs, fingerprints and warrants for Hickock
and Smith. Stops were placed in the files on both these individuals as well as the
automobile. At 10: 30a. m. the reporting agent contacted Sgt. Abe Feroah, Detective
Division, Police Department, Reno, Nevada. Sgt. Feroah and the reporting agent
checked the police files. Neither the name of Smith or Hickock was reflected in the
felon registration file. A check of the pawnshop-ticket files failed to reflect any
information about the missing radio. A permanent stop was placed in these files in the
event the radio is pawned in Reno. The detective handling the pawnshop detail took
photographs of Smith and Hickock to each of the pawnshops in town and also made a
personal check of each shop for the radio. These pawnshops made an identification of
Smith as being familiar, but were unable to furnish any further information."
Thus the morning. That afternoon Nye set forth in search of Tex John Smith. But
at his first stop, the post office, a clerk at a General Delivery window told him he need
look no farther not in Nevada - for "the individual" had left there the previous August
and now lived in the vicinity of Circle City, Alaska. That, anyway, was where his mail
was being forwarded.
"Gosh! Now, there's a tall order," said the clerk in response to Nye's request for
a description of the elder Smith. "The guy's out of a book. He calls himself the Lone
Wolf. A lot of his mail comes addressed that way - the Lone Wolf. He doesn't receive
many letters, no, but bales of catalogues and advertising pamphlets. You'd be surprised
the number of people send away for that stuff - just to get some mail, must be. How old?
I'd say sixty. Dresses Western - cowboy boots and a big ten-gallon hat. He told me he
used to be with the rodeo. I've talked to him quite a bit. He's been in here almost every
day the last few years. Once in a while he'd disappear, stay away a month or so - always
claimed he'd been off prospecting. One day last August a young man came here to the
window. He said he was looking for his father, Tex John Smith, and did I know where
he could find him. He didn't look much like his dad; the Wolf is so thin-lipped and Irish,
and this boy looked almost pure Indian - hair black as boot polish, with eyes to match.
But next morning in walks the Wolf and confirms it; he told me his son had just got out
of the Army and that they were going to Alaska. He's an old Alaska hand. I think he
once owned a hotel there, or some kind of hunting lodge. He said he expected to be
gone about two years. Nope, never seen him since, him or his boy."
The Johnson family were recent arrivals in their San Francisco community - a middleclass, middle-income realestate development high in the hills north of the city. On the
afternoon of December 18, 1959, young Mrs. Johnson was expecting guests; three
women of the neighborhood were coming by for coffee and cake and perhaps a game of
cards. The hostess was tense; it would be the first time she had entertained in her new
home. Now, while she was listening for the doorbell, she made a final tour, pausing to
dispose of a speck of lint or alter an arrangement of Christmas poinsettias. The house,
like the others on the slanting hillside street, was a conventional suburban ranch house,
pleasant and common place. Mrs. Johnson loved it; she was in love with the redwood
paneling, the wall-to-wall carpeting, the picture windows fore and aft, the view that the
rear window provided - hills, a valley, then sky and ocean. And she was proud of the
small back garden; her husband - by profession an insurance salesman, by inclination a
carpenter - had built around it a white picket fence, and inside it a house for the family
dog, and a sand-box and swings for the children. At the moment, all four - dog, two
little boys, and a girl - were playing there under a mild sky; she hoped they would be
happy in the garden until the guests had gone. When the doorbell sounded and Mrs.
Johnson went to the door, she was wearing what she considered her most becoming
dress, a yellow knit that hugged her figure and heightened the pale-tea shine of her
Cherokee coloring and the blackness of her feather-bobbed hair. She opened the door,
prepared to admit three neighbors; instead, she discovered two strangers - men who
tipped their hats and flipped open badge-studded billfolds. "Mrs. Johnson?" one of them
said. "My name is Nye. This is Inspector Guthrie. We're attached to the San Francisco
police, and we've just received an inquiry from Kansas concerning your brother, Perry
Edward Smith. It seems he hasn't been reporting to his parole officer, and we wondered
if you could tell us anything of his present whereabouts."
Mrs. Johnson was not distressed - and definitely not surprised to learn that the
police were once more interested in her brother's activities. What did upset her was the
prospect of having guests arrive to find her being questioned by detectives. She said,
"No. Nothing. I haven't seen Perry in four years."
"This is a serious matter, Mrs. Johnson," Nye said. "We'd like to talk it over."
Having surrendered, having asked them in and offered them coffee (which was
accepted), Mrs. Johnson said, "I haven't seen Perry in four years. Or heard from him
since he was paroled. Last summer, when he came out of prison, he visited my father in
Reno. In a letter, my father told me he was returning to Atlanta and taking Perry with
him. Then he wrote again, I think in September, and he was very angry. He and Perry
had quarreled and separated before they reached the border. Perry turned back, my
father went on to Alaska alone."
"And he hasn't written you since?"
"No."
"Then it's possible your brother may have joined him recently, within the last
month."
"I don't know. I don't care."
"On bad terms?"
"With Perry? Yes. I'm afraid of him."
"But while he was in Lansing you wrote him frequently. Or so the Kansas
authorities tell us," Nye said. The second man, Inspector Guthrie seemed content to
occupy the sidelines.
"I wanted to help him. I hoped I might change a few of his ideas. Now I know
better. The rights of other people mean nothing to Perry. He has no respect for anyone."
"About friends. Do you know of any with whom he might be staying?"
"Joe James," she said, and explained that James was a young Indian logger and
fisherman who lived in the forest near Bellingham, Washington. No, she was not
personally acquainted with him, but she understood that he and his family were
generous people who had often been kind to Perry in the past. The only friend of Perry's
she had ever met was a young lady who had appeared on the Johnsons' doorstep in June,
1955, bringing with her a letter from Perry in which he introduced her as his wife.
"He said he was in trouble, and asked if I would take care of his wife until he
could send for her. The girl looked twenty; it turned out she was fourteen. And of course
she wasn't anyone's wife. But at the time I was taken in. I felt sorry for her, and asked
her to stay with us. She did, though not for long. Less than a week. And when she left,
she took our suitcases and everything they could hold - most of my clothes and most of
my husband's, the silver, even the kitchen clock."
"When this happened, where were you living?"
"Denver."
"Have you ever lived in Fort Scott, Kansas?"
"Never. I've never been to Kansas."
"Have you a sister who lives in Fort Scott?"
"My sister is dead. My only sister."
Nye smiled. He said, "You understand, Mrs. Johnson, we're working on the
assumption that your brother will contact you. Write or call. Or come to see you."
"I hope not. As a matter of fact, he doesn't know we've moved. He thinks I'm
still in Denver. Please, if you do find him, don't give him my address. I'm afraid."
"When you say that, is it because you think he might harm you? Hurt you
physically?"
She considered, and unable to decide, said she didn't know. "But I'm afraid of
him. I always have been. He can seem so warm-hearted and sympathetic. Gentle. He
cries so easily. Sometimes music sets him off, and when he was a little boy he used to
cry because he thought a sunset was beautiful. Or the moon. Oh, he can fool you. He
can make you feel so sorry for him - "
The doorbell rang. Mrs. Johnson's reluctance to answer conveyed her dilemma,
and Nye (who later wrote of her, "Through-out the interview she remained composed
and most gracious. A person of exceptional character") reached for his brown snapbrim. "Sorry to have troubled you, Mrs. Johnson. But if you hear from Perry, we hope
you'll have the good sense to call us. Ask for Inspector Guthrie."
After the departure of the detectives, the composure that had impressed Nye
faltered; a familiar despair impended. She fought it, delayed its full impact until the
party was done and the guests had gone, until she'd fed the children and bathed them
and heard their prayers. Then the mood, like the evening ocean fog now clouding the
street lamps, closed round her. She had said she was afraid of Perry, and she was, but
was it simply Perry she feared, or was it a configuration of which he was part - the
terrible destinies that seemed promised the four children of Florence Buckskin and Tex
John Smith? The eldest, the brother she loved, had shot himself; Fern had fallen out of a
window, or jumped; and Perry was committed to violence, a criminal. So, in a sense,
she was the only survivor; and what tormented her was the thought that in time she, too,
would be overwhelmed: go mad, or contract an incurable illness, or in a fire lose all she
valued - home, husband, children.
Her husband was away on a business trip, and when she was alone, she never
thought of having a drink. But tonight she fixed a strong one, then lay down on the
living-room couch, a picture album propped against her knees.
A photograph of her father dominated the first page - a studio portrait taken in
1922, the year of his marriage to the young Indian rodeo rider Miss Florence Buckskin.
It was a photograph that invariably transfixed Mrs. Johnson. Because of it, she could
understand why, when essentially they were so mismatched, her mother had married her
father. The young man in the picture exuded virile allure. Everything - the cocky tilt of
his ginger-haired head, the squint in his left eye (as though he were sighting a target),
the tiny cowboy scarf knotted round his throat - was abundantly attractive. On the
whole, Mrs. Johnson's attitude toward her father was ambivalent, but one aspect of him
she had always respected - his fortitude. She well knew how eccentric he seemed to
others; he seemed so to her, for that matter. All the same, he was "a real man." He did
things, did them easily. He could make a tree fall precisely where he wished. He could
skin a bear, repair a watch, build a house, bake a cake, darn a sock, or catch a trout with
a bent pin and a piece of string. Once he had survived a winter alone in the Alaskan
wilderness.
Alone: in Mrs. Johnson's opinion, that was how such men should live. Wives,
children, a timid life are not for them. She turned over some pages of childhood
snapshots - pictures made in Utah and Nevada and Idaho and Oregon. The rodeo careers
of "Tex & Flo" were finished, and the family, living in an old truck, roamed the country
hunting work, a hard thing to find in 1933. "Tex John Smith Family picking berries in
Oregon, 1933" was the caption under a snapshot of four barefooted children wearing
overalls and cranky, uniformly fatigued expressions. Berries or stale bread soaked in
sweet condensed milk was often all they had to eat. Barbara Johnson remembered that
once the family had lived for days on rotten bananas, and that, as a result, Perry had got
colic; he had screamed all night, while Bobo, as Barbara was called, wept for fear he
was dying.
Bobo was three years older than Perry, and she adored him; he was her only toy,
a doll she scrubbed and combed and kissed and sometimes spanked. Here was a picture
of the two together bathing naked in a diamond-watered Colorado creek, the brother, a
pot-bellied, sun-blackened cupid, clutching his sister's hand and giggling, as though the
tumbling stream contained ghostly tickling fingers. In another snapshot (Mrs. Johnson
was unsure, but she thought probably it was taken at a remote Nevada ranch where the
family was staying when a final battle between the parents, a terrifying contest in which
horsewhips and scalding water and kerosene lamps were used as weapons, had brought
the marriage to a stop), she and Perry are astride a pony, their heads are together, their
cheeks touch; beyond them dry mountains burn.
Later, when the children and their mother had gone to live in San Francisco,
Bobo's love for the little boy weakened until it went quite away. He wasn't her baby any
more but a wild thing, a thief, a robber. His first recorded arrest was on October 27,
1936 - his eighth birthday. Ultimately, after several confinements in institutions and
children's detention centers, he was returned to the custody of his father, and it was
many years before Bobo saw him again, except in photographs that Tex John
occasionally sent his other children - pictures that, pasted above white-ink captions,
were part of the album's contents. There was "Perry, Dad, and their Husky Dog,"
"Perry and Dad Panning for Gold,"
"Perry Bear-Hunting in Alaska." In this last, he was a fur-capped boy of fifteen
standing on snowshoes among snow-weighted trees, a rifle hooked under his arm; the
face was drawn and the eyes were sad and very tired, and Mrs. Johnson, looking at the
picture, was reminded of a "scene" that Perry had made once when he had visited her in
Denver. Indeed, it was the last time she had ever seen him - the spring of 1955. They
were discussing his childhood with Tex John, and suddenly Perry, who had too much
drink inside him, pushed her against a wall and held her there. "I was his nigger," Perry
said. "That's all. Somebody he could work their guts out and never have to pay them one
hot dime. No, Bobo, I'm talking. Shut up, or I'll throw you in the river. Like once when I
was walking across a bridge in Japan, and a guy was standing there, I never saw him
before, I just picked him up and threw him in the river.
"Please, Bobo. Please listen. You think I like myself? Oh, the man I could have
been! But that bastard never gave me a chance. He wouldn't let me go to school. O. K.
O. K. I was a bad kid. But the time came I begged to go to school. I happen to have a
brilliant mind. In case you don't know. A brilliant mind and talent plus. But no
education, because he didn't want me to learn anything, only how to tote and carry for
him. Dumb. That's the way he wanted me to be. So that I could never escape him. But
you, Bobo. You went to school. You and Jimmy and Fern. Every damn one of you got
an education. Everybody but me. And I hate you, all of you - Dad and everybody."
As though for his brother and sisters life had been a bed of roses! Maybe so, if
that meant cleaning up Mama's drunken vomit, if it meant never anything nice to wear
or enough to eat. Still, it was true, all three had finished high school. Jimmy, in fact, had
graduated at the top of his class - an honor he owed entirely to his own will power. That,
Barbara Johnson felt, was what made his suicide so ominous. Strong character, high
courage, hard work - -it seemed that none of these were determining facto in the fates of
Tex John's children. They shared a doom against which virtue was no defense. Not that
Perry was virtuous, or Fern. When Fern was fourteen, she changed her name, and for
the rest of her short life she tried to justify the replacement: Joy. She was an easy going
girl, "everybody's sweetheart" - rather too much everybody's, for she was partial to men,
though somehow she hadn't much luck with them. Somehow, the kind of man she liked
always let her down. Her mother had died in an alcoholic coma, and she was afraid of
drink - yet she drank. Before she was twenty, Fern-Joy was beginning the day with a
bottle of beer. Then, one summer night, she fell from the window of a hotel room.
Falling she struck a theater marquee, bounced off it, and rolled under the wheels of a
taxi. Above, in the vacated room, police found her shoes, a moneyless purse, an empty
whiskey bottle.
One could understand Fern and forgive her, but Jimmy was a different matter.
Mrs. Johnson was looking at a picture of him in which he was dressed as a sailor; during
the war he had served in the Navy. Slender, a pale young seafarer with an elongated
face of slightly dour saintliness, he stood with an arm around the waist of the girl he had
married and, in Mrs. Johnson's estimation, ought not to have, for they had nothing in
common - the serious Jimmy and this teen-age San Diego fleet-follower whose glass
beads reflected a now long-faded sun. And yet what Jimmy had felt for her was beyond
normal love; it was passion - a passion that was in part pathological. As for the girl, she
must have loved him, and loved him completely, or she would not have done as she did.
If only Jimmy had believed that! Or been capable of believing it. But jealousy
imprisoned him. He was mortified by thoughts of the men she had slept with before
their marriage; he was convinced, moreover, that she remained promiscuous - that every
time he went to sea, or even left her alone for the day, she betrayed him with a multitude
of lovers, whose existence he unendingly demanded that she admit. Then she aimed a
shotgun at a point between her eyes and pressed the trigger with her toe. When Jimmy
found her, he didn't call the police. He picked her up and put her on the bed and lay
down beside her. Sometime around dawn of the next day, he reloaded the gun and killed
himself.
Opposite the picture of Jimmy and his wife was a photograph of Perry in
uniform. It had been clipped from a newspaper, and was accompanied by a paragraph of
text: "Headquarters, United States Army, Alaska. Pvt. Perry E. Smith, 23, first Army
Korean combat veteran to return to the Anchorage, Alaska, area, greeted by Captain
Mason, Public Information Officer, upon arrival at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Smith
served 15 months with the 24th Division as a combat engineer. His trip from Seattle to
Anchorage was a gift from Pacific Northern Airlines. Miss Lynn Marquis, airline
hostess, smiles approval at welcome. (Official U. S. Army Photo)." Captain Mason,
with hand extended, is looking at Private Smith, but Private Smith is looking at the
camera, in his expression Mrs. Johnson saw, or imagined she saw, not gratitude but
arrogance, and, in place of pride, immense conceit, it wasn't incredible that he had met a
man on a bridge and thrown him off it. Of course he had. She had never doubted it.
She shut the album and switched on the television, bur it did not console her.
Suppose he did come? The detectives had found her; why shouldn't Perry? He need not
expect her to help him, she wouldn't even let him in. The front door was locked, but not
the door to the garden. The garden was white with sea-fog; It might have been an
assembly of spirits: Mama and Jimmy and Fern. When Mrs. Johnson bolted the door,
she had in mind the dead as well as the living.
A cloudburst. Rain. Buckets of it. Dick ran. Perry ran too, but he could not run as fast;
his legs were shorter, and he was lugging the suitcase. Dick reached shelter - a barn near
the highway - long before him. On leaving Omaha, after a night spent in a Salvation
Army dormitory, a truck driver had given them a ride across the Nebraska border into
Iowa. The past several hours, however, had found them afoot. The rain came when they
were sixteen miles north of an Iowa settlement called Tenville Junction.
The barn was dark.
"Dick?" Perry said.
"Over here," Dick said. He was sprawled on a bed of hay.
Perry, drenched and shaking, dropped beside him. "I'm so cold," he said,
burrowing in the hay, "I'm so cold I wouldn't give a damn if this caught fire and burned
me alive." He was hungry, too. Starved. Last night they had dined on bowls of Salvation
Army soup, and today the only nourishment they'd had was some chocolate bars and
chewing gum that Dick had stolen from a drugstore candy counter. "Any more
Hershey?" Perry asked.
No, but there was still a pack of chewing gum. They divided it, then settled
down to chewing it, each chomping on two and a half sticks of Doublemint, Dick's
favorite flavor (Perry preferred Juicy Fruit). Money was the problem. Their utter lack of
it had led Dick to decide that their next move should be what Perry considered "a crazyman stunt" - a return to Kansas City. When Dick had first urged the return, Perry said,
"You ought to see a doctor." Now, huddled together in the cold darkness, listening to
the dark, cold rain, they resumed the argument, Perry once more listing the dangers of
such a move, for surely by this time Dick was wanted for parole violation - "if nothing
more." But Dick was not to be dissuaded. Kansas City, he again insisted, was the one
place he was certain he could successfully "hang a lot of hot paper. Hell, I know we've
got to be careful. I know they've got a warrant out. Because of the paper we hung
before. But we'll move fast. One day - that'll do it. If we grab enough, maybe we ought
to try Florida. Spend Christmas in Miami - stay the winter if it looks good." But Perry
chewed his gum and shivered and sulked. Dick said, "What is it, honey? That other
deal? Why the hell can't you forget it? They never made any connection. They never
will."
Perry said, "You could be wrong. And if you are, it means The Corner." Neither
one had ever before referred to the ultimate penalty in the State of Kansas - the gallows,
or death in The Corner, as the inmates of Kansas State Penitentiary have named the fad
that houses the equipment required to hang a man.
Dick said, "The comedian. You kill me." He struck a match, intending to smoke
a cigarette, but something seen by the light of the flaring match brought him to his feet
and carried him across the barn to a cow stall. A car was parked inside the stall, a blackand-white two-door 1956 Chevrolet. The key was in the ignition.
Dewey was determined to conceal from "the civilian population" any knowledge of a
major break in the Clutter case - so determined that he decided to take into his
confidence Garden City's two professional town criers: Bill Brown, editor of the Garden
City Telegram, and Rob Wells, manager of the local radio station. KlUL. In outlining
the situation, Dewey emphasized his reasons for considering secrecy of the first
importance: "Remember, there's a possibility these men are innocent."
It was a possibility too valid to dismiss. The informer, Floyd Wells, might easily
have invented his story; such tale-telling was not infrequently undertaken by prisoners
who hoped to win favor or attract official notice. But even if the man's every word was
gospel, Dewey and his colleagues had not yet unearthed one bit of solid supporting
evidence - "courtroom evidence." What had they discovered that could not be
interpreted as plausible, though exceptional, coincidence? Just because Smith had
traveled to Kansas to visit his friend Hickock, and just because Hickock possessed a gun
of the caliber used to commit the crime, and just because the suspects had arranged a
false alibi to account for their whereabouts the night of November 14, they were not
necessarily mass murderers. "But we're pretty sure this is it. We all think so. If we
didn't, we wouldn't have set up a seventeen-state alarm, from Arkansas to Oregon. But
keep in mind: It could be years before we catch them. They may have separated. Or left
the country. There's a chance they've gone to Alaska - not hard to get lost in Alaska. The
longer they're free, the less of a case we'll have. Frankly, as matters stand, we don't have
much of a case anyhow. We could nab those sonsabitches tomorrow, and never be able
to prove spit."
Dewey did not exaggerate. Except for two sets of boot prints, one bearing a
diamond pattern and the other a Cat's Paw design, the slayers had left not a single clue.
Since they seemed to take such care, they had undoubtedly got rid of the boots long ago.
And the radio, too - assuming that it was they who had stolen it, which was something
Dewey still hesitated to do, for it appeared to him "ludicrously inconsistent" with the
magnitude of the crime and the manifest cunning of the criminals, and "inconceivable"
that these men had entered a house expecting to find a money-filled safe, and then, not
finding it, had thought it expedient to slaughter the family for perhaps a few dollars and
a small portable radio. "Without a confession, we'll never get a conviction," he said.
"That's my opinion. And that's why we can't be too cautious. They think they've got
away with it. Well, we don't want them to know any different. The safer they feel, the
sooner we'll grab them."
But secrets are an unusual commodity in a town the size of Garden City. Anyone
visiting the sheriff's office, three under-furnished, overcrowded rooms on the third floor
of the county courthouse, could detect an odd, almost sinister atmosphere. The hurryscurry, the angry hum of recent weeks had departed; a quivering stillness now
permeated the premises. Mrs. Richardson, the office secretary and a very down-to-earth
person, had acquired overnight a dainty lot of whispery, tiptoe mannerisms, and the men
she served, the sheriff and his staff, Dewey and the imported team of K. B. I. agents,
crept about conversing in hushed tones. It was as though, like huntsmen hiding in a
forest, they were afraid that any abrupt sound or movement would warn away
approaching beasts.
People talked. The Trail Room of the Warren Hotel, a coffee shop that Garden
City businessmen treat as though it were a private club, was a murmuring cave of
speculation and rumor. An eminent citizen, so one heard, was on the point of arrest. Or
it was known that the crime was the work of killers hired by enemies of the Kansas
Wheat Growers' Association, a progressive organization in which Mr. Clutter had
played a large role. Of the many stories circulating, the most nearly accurate was
contributed by a prominent car dealer (who refused to disclose his source): "Seems there
was a man who worked for Herb way back yonder around '47 or '48. Ordinary ranch
hand. Seem he went to prison, state prison, and while he was there he got to thinking
what a rich man Herb was. So about a month ago, when they let him loose, the first
thing he did was come on out here to rob and kill those people."
But seven miles westward, in the village of Holcomb, not a hint was heard of
impending sensations, one reason being that for some while the Clutter tragedy had
been a banned topic at both of the community's principal gossip-dispensaries - the post
office and Hartman's Cafe. "Myself, I don't want to hear another word," said Mrs.
Hartman. "I told them, We can't go on like this. Distrusting everybody, scaring each
other to death. What I say is, if you want to talk about it, stay out of my place." Myrt
Clare took quite as strong a stand. "Folks come in here to buy a nickel's worth of
postage and think they can spend the next three hours and thirty-three minutes turning
the Clutters inside out. Pickin' the wings off other people. Rattlesnakes, that's all they
are. I don't have the time to listen. I'm in business - I'm a representative of the
government of the United States. Anyway, it's morbid. Al Dewey and those hot-shot
cops from Topeka and Kansas City - supposed to be sharp as turpentine. But I don't
know a soul who still thinks they've got hell's chance of catching the one done it. So I
say the sane thing to do is shut up. You live until you die, and it doesn't matter how you
go; dead's dead. So why carry on like a sackful of sick cats just because Herb Clutter
got his throat cut? Anyway, it's morbid. Polly Stringer, from over at the school-house?
Polly Stringer was in here this morning. She said it's only now, after over a month, only
now those kids are beginning to quiet down. Which made me think: What if they do
arrest somebody? If they do, it's bound to be somebody everybody knows. And that
would fan the fire for sure, get the pot boiling just when it had started to cool off. Ask
me, we've had enough excitement."
It was early, not yet nine, and Perry was the first customer at the Washateria, a selfservice laundry. He opened his fat straw suitcase, extracted a wad of briefs and socks
and shirts (some his, some Dick's), tossed them into a washer, and fed the machine a
lead slug - one of many bought in Mexico.
Perry was well acquainted with the workings of such emporiums, having often
patronized them, and happily, since usually he found it "so relaxing" to sit quietly and
watch clothes get clean. Not today. He was too apprehensive. Despite his warnings,
Dick had won out. Here they were, back in Kansas City - dead broke, to boot, and
driving a stolen car! All night they had raced the Iowa Chevrolet through thick rain,
stopping twice to siphon gas, both times from vehicles parked on the empty streets of
small sleeping towns. (This was Perry's job, one at which he judged himself "absolutely
tops. Just a short piece of rubber hose, that's my cross-country credit card.") On
reaching Kansas City at sunrise, the travelers had gone first to the airport, where in the
men's lavatory they washed and shaved and brushed their teeth; two hours later, after a
nap in the airport lounge, they returned to the city. It was then that Dick had dropped his
partner at the Washateria, promising to come back for him within the hour.
When the laundry was clean and dry, Perry repacked the suit-case. It was past
ten. Dick, supposedly off somewhere "hanging paper," was overdue. He sat down to
wait, choosing a bench on which, an arm's length away, a woman's purse rested tempting him to snake his hand around inside it. But the appearance of its owner, the
burliest of several women now employing the establishment's facilities, deterred him.
Once, when he was a running-wild child in San Francisco, he and a "Chink kid"
(Tommy Chan? Tommy Lee?) had worked together as a "purse-snatching team." It
amused Perry - cheered him up - to remember some of their escapades. "Like one time
we sneaked up on an old lady, really old, and Tommy grabbed her handbag, but she
wouldn't let go, she was a regular tiger. The harder he tugged one way, the harder she
tugged the other. Then she saw me, and said, 'Help me! Help me!' and I said, 'Hell, lady,
I'm helping him? - and I bopped her good. Put her on the pavement. Ninety cents was all
we got - I remember exactly. We went to a Chink restaurant and ate ourselves under the
table."
Things hadn't changed much. Perry was twenty-odd years older and a hundred
pounds heavier, and yet his material situation had improved not at all. He was still (and
wasn't it incredible, a person of his intelligence, his talents?) an urchin dependent, so to
say, on stolen coins.
A clock on the wall kept catching his eye. At half past ten he began to worry; by
eleven his legs were pulsing with pain, which was always, with him, a sign of
approaching panic - "bubbles in my blood." He ate an aspirin, and tried to blot out blur, at least - the brilliantly vivid cavalcade gliding across his mind, a procession of
dire visions: Dick in the hands of the law, perhaps arrested while writing a phony check,
or for committing a minor traffic violation (and found to be driving a "hot" car). Very
likely, at this very instant Dick sat trapped inside a circle of red-necked detectives. And
they weren't discussing trivialities - bad checks or stolen automobiles. Murder, that was
the topic, for somehow the connection that Dick had been so certain no one could make
had been made. And right now a carload of Kansas City police were on their way to the
Washateria.
But, no, he was imagining too much. Dick would never do that - "spill his guts."
Think of how often he had heard him say, "They can beat me blind, I'll never tell them
anything." Of course, Dick was a "blowhard"; his toughness, as Perry had come to
know, existed solely in situations where he unarguably had the upper hand. Suddenly,
gratefully, he thought of a less desperate reason for Dick's prolonged absence. He'd
gone to visit his parents. A risky thing to do, but Dick was "devoted" to them, or
claimed to be, and last night during the long rainy ride he had told Perry, "I'd sure like
to see my folks. They wouldn't mention it. I mean, they wouldn't tell the parole officer do anything to get us into trouble. Only I'm ashamed to. I'm afraid of what my mother
would say. About the checks. And going off like we did. But I wish I could call them,
hear how they are." However, that was not possible, for the Hickock home was without
a telephone; otherwise, Perry would have rung up to see if Dick was there.
Another few minutes, and he was again convinced that Dick was under arrest.
His leg pains flared up, flashed through his body, and the laundry odors, the steamy
stench, all at once sickened him, picked him up and propelled him out the door. He
stood at the curb retching like "a drunk with the dry heaves." Kansas City! Hadn't he
known Kansas City was bad luck, and begged Dick to keep away? Now, maybe now,
Dick was sorry he hadn't listened. And he wondered: But what about me, "with a dime
or two and a bunch of lead slugs in my pocket"? Where could he go? Who would help
him? Bobo? Fat chance! But her husband might. If Fred Johnson had followed his own
inclination, he would have guaranteed employment for Perry after he left prison, thus
helping him obtain a parole. But Bobo wouldn't permit it; she had said it would only
lead to trouble, and possibly danger. Then she had written to Perry to tell him precisely
that. One fine day he'd pay her back, have a little fun - talk to her, advertise his abilities,
spell out in detail the things he was capable of doing to people like her, respectable
people, safe and smug people, exactly like Bobo. Yes, let her know just how dangerous
he could be, and watch her eyes. Surely that was worth a trip to Denver? Which was
what he'd do - go to Denver and visit the Johnsons. Fred Johnson would stake him to a
new start in life; he'd have to, if he wanted ever to be rid of him.
Then Dick came up to him at the curb. "Hey, Perry," he said. "You sick?"
The sound of Dick's voice was like an injection of some potent narcotic, a drug
that, invading his veins, produced a delirium of colliding sensations: tension and relief,
fury and affection. He advanced toward Dick with clenched fists. "You sonofabitch," he
said.
Dick grinned, and said, "Come on. We're eating again."
But explanations were in order - apologies, too - and over a bowl of chili at the
Kansas City hash house that Dick liked best, the Eagle Buffet, Dick supplied them. "I'm
sorry, honey. I knew you'd get the bends. Think I'd tangled with a bull. But I was having
such a run of luck it seemed like I ought to let it ride." He explained that after leaving
Perry he had gone to the Markl Buick Company, the firm that had once employed him,
hoping to find a set of license plates to substitute for the hazardous Iowa plates on the
abducted Chevrolet. "Nobody saw me come or go. Markl used to do a considerable
wrecked-car trade. Sure enough, out back there was a smashed-up De Soto with Kansas
tags." And where were they now? "On our buggy, pal." Having made the switch, Dick
had dropped the Iowa plates in a Municipal reservoir. Then he'd stopped at a filling
station where a friend worked, a former high-school classmate named Steve, and
persuaded Steve to cash a check for fifty dollars, which was something he'd not done
before - "rob a buddy." Well, he'd never see Steve again. He was "cutting out" of
Kansas City tonight, this is really forever. So why not fleece a few old friends? With
that in mind, he'd called on another ex-classmate, a drugstore clerk. The take was
thereby increased to seventy-five dollars. Now, this afternoon, we'll roll that up to a
couple hundred. I've made a list of places to hit. Six or seven, starting right here," he
said, meaning the Eagle Buffet, where everybody - the bartender and waiters - knew and
liked him, and called him Pickles (in honor of his favorite food). "Then Florida, here we
come. How' about it, honey? Didn't I promise you we'd spend Christmas in Miami? Just
like all the millionaires?"
Dewey and his colleague K. B. I. Agent Clarence Duntz stood waiting for a free table in
the Trail Room. Looking around at the customary exhibit of lunch-hour faces - softfleshed businessmen and ranchers with sun-branded, coarse complexions - Dewey
acknowledged particular acquaintances: the county coroner, Dr. Fenton; the manager of
the Warren, Tom Mahar; Harrison Smith, who had run for county attorney last year and
lost the election to Duane West; and also Herbert W. Clutter, the owner of River Valley
Farm and a member of Dewey's Sunday School class. Wait a minute! Wasn't Herb
Clutter dead? And hadn't Dewey attended his funeral? Yet there he was, sitting in the
Trail Room's circular corner booth, his lively brown eyes, his square-jawed, genial good
looks unchanged by death. But Herb was not alone. Sharing the table were two young
men, and Dewey, recognizing them, nudged Agent Duntz.
"Look."
"Where?"
"The corner."
"I'll be damned."
Hickock and Smith! But the moment of recognition was mutual. Those boys
smelled danger. Feet first, they crashed through the Trail Room's plate-glass window,
and with Duntz and Dewey leaping after them, sped along Main Street, past Palmer
Jewelry, Norris Drugs, the Garden Cafe, then around the corner and down to the depot
and in and out, hide-and-seek, among a congregation of white grain-storage towers.
Dewey drew a pistol, and so did Duntz, but as they took aim, the supernatural
intervened. Abruptly, mysteriously (it was like a dream!), everyone was swimming - the
pursued, the pursuers - stroking the awesome width of water that the Garden City
Chamber of Commerce claims is the "World's Largest FREE Swim-pool." As the
detectives drew abreast of their quarry, why, once more (How did it happen? Could he
be dreaming?) the scene faded out, and faded in upon another landscape: Valley View
Cemetery, that gray-and-green island of tombs and trees and flowered paths a restful,
leafy, whispering oasis lying like a cool piece of cloud shade on the luminous wheat
plains north of town. But now Duntz had disappeared, and Dewey was alone with the
hunted men. Though he could not see them, he was certain they were hiding among the
dead, crouching there behind a headstone, perhaps the headstone of his own father:
"Alvin Adams Dewey, September 6, 1879 - January 26, 1948." Gun drawn, he crept
along the solemn lanes until, hearing laughter and tracing its sound, he saw that Hickock
and Smith were not hiding at all but standing astride the as yet unmarked mass grave of
Herb and Bonnie and Nancy and Ken - standing legs apart, hands on hips, heads flung
back, laughing. Dewey fired... and again... and again... Neither man fell, though each
had been shot through the heart three times; they simply rather slowly turned
transparent, by degrees grew invisible, evaporated, though the loud laughter expanded
until Dewey bowed before it, ran from it, filled with a despair so mournfully intense that
it awakened him.
When he awoke, it was as though he were a feverish, frightened ten-year-old; his
hair was wet, his shirt cold-damp and clinging. The room - a room in the sheriff's office,
into which he'd locked himself before falling asleep at a desk - was dull with neardarkness. Listening, he could hear Mrs. Richardson's telephone ringing in the adjacent
office. But she was not there to answer it; the office was closed. On his way out he
walked past the ringing phone with determined indifference, and then hesitated. It might
be Marie, calling to ask if he was still working and should she wait dinner.
"Mr. A. A. Dewey, please. Kansas City calling."
"This is Mr. Dewey."
"Go ahead, Kansas City. Your party is on the line."
"Al? Brother Nye."
"Yes, Brother."
"Get ready for some very big news."
"I'm ready."
"Our friends are here. Right here in Kansas City."
"How do you know?"
"Well, they aren't exactly keeping it a secret. Hickock's written checks from one
side of town to the other. Using his own name."
"His own name. That must mean he doesn't plan to hang around long - either
that or he's feeling awful damn sure of himself. So Smith's still with him?"
"Oh, they're together O. K. But driving a different car. A 1956 Chevy black-andwhite two-door job."
"Kansas tags?"
"Kansas tags. And listen, Al - are we lucky! They bought a television set, see?
Hickock gave the salesman a check. Just as they were driving off, the guy had the sense
to write down the license number. Jot it on the back of the check. Johnson County
License16212."
"Checked the registration?"
"Guess what?"
"It's a stolen car."
"Undoubtedly. But the tags were definitely lifted. Our friends took them off a
wrecked De Soto in a K. C. garage."
"Know when?"
"Yesterday morning. The boss [Logan Sanford] sent out an alert with the new
license number and a description of the car."
"How about the Hickock farm? If they're still in the area, it seems to me sooner
or later they'll go there."
"Don't worry. We're watching it. Al - "
"I'm here."
"That's what I want for Christmas. All I want. To wrap this up. Wrap it up and
sleep till New Year's. Wouldn't that be one hell of a present?"
"Well, I hope you get it."
"Well, I hope we both do."
Afterward, as he crossed the darkening courthouse square, pensively scuffing
through dry mounds of un-raked leaves, Dewey wondered at his lack of elation. Why,
when he now knew that the suspects were not forever lost in Alaska or Mexico or
Timbuctoo, when the next second an arrest might be made - why was it he felt none of
the excitement he ought to feel? The dream was at fault, for the treadmill mood of it had
lingered, making him question Nye's assertions - in a sense, disbelieve them. He did not
believe that Hickock and Smith would be caught in Kansas City. They were
invulnerable.
In Miami Beach, 335 Ocean Drive is the address of the Somerset Hotel, a small, square
building painted more or less white, with many lavender touches, among them a
lavender sign that reads, "VACANCY - LOWEST RATES - BEACH FACILITIES ALWAYS A SEABREEZE." It is one of a row of little stucco-and-cement hotels lining
a white, melancholy street. In December, 1959, the Somerset's "beach facilities"
consisted of two beach umbrellas stuck in a strip of sand at the rear of-the hotel. One
umbrella, pink, had written upon it, "We Serve Valentine Ice-Cream." At noon on
Christmas Day, a quartet of women lay under and around it, a transistor radio
serenading them. The second umbrella, blue and bearing the command "Tan with
Coppertone," sheltered Dick and Perry, who for five days had been living at the
Somerset, in a double room renting for eighteen dollars weekly.
Perry said, "You never wished me a Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, honey. And a Happy New Year. " Dick wore bathing trunks,
but Perry, as in Acapulco, refused to expose his injured legs - he feared the sight might
"offend" other beach-goers - and therefore sat fully clothed, wearing even socks and
shoes. Still, he was comparatively content, and when Dick stood up and started
performing exercises - handstands, meant to impress the ladies beneath the pink
umbrella - he occupied himself with the Miami Herald. Presently he came across an
inner-page story that won his entire attention. It concerned murder, the slaying of a
Florida family, a Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Walker, their four-year-old son, and their twoyear-old daughter. Each of the victims, though not bound or gagged, had been shot
through the head with a .22 weapon. The crime, clueless and apparently motiveless, had
taken place Saturday night, December19, at the Walker home, on a cattle-raising ranch
not far from Tallahassee.
Perry interrupted Dick's athletics to read the story aloud, and said, "Where were
we last Saturday night?"
"Tallahassee?"
"I'm asking you."
Dick concentrated. On Thursday night, taking turns at the wheel, they had driven
out of Kansas and through Missouri into Arkansas and over the Ozarks, "up" to
Louisiana, where a burned-out generator stopped them early Friday morning. (A
second-hand replacement, bought in Shreveport, cost twenty-two fifty.) That night
they'd slept parked by the side of the road somewhere near the Alabama-Florida border.
The next day's journey was an un-hurried affair, had included several touristic
diversions - visits to an alligator farm and a rattlesnake ranch, a ride in a glass-bottomed
boat over a silvery-clear swamp lake, a late and long and costly broiled-lobster lunch at
a roadside seafood restaurant. Delightful day! But both were exhausted when they
arrived at Tallahassee, and decided to spend the night there. "Yes, Tallahassee," Dick
said.
"Amazing!" Perry glanced through the article again. "Know what I wouldn't be
surprised? If this wasn't done by a lunatic. Some nut that read about what happened out
in Kansas."
Dick, because he didn't care to hear Perry "get going on that subject," shrugged
and grinned and trotted down to the ocean's edge, where he ambled awhile over the surfdrenched sand, here and there stooping to collect a seashell. As a boy he'd so envied the
son of a neighbor who had gone to the Gulf Coast on holiday and returned with a box
full of shells - so hated him - that he'd stolen the shells and one by one crushed them
with a hammer. Envy was constantly with him; the Enemy was anyone who was
someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have.
For instance, the man he had seen by the pool at the Fontaine-bleau. Miles away,
shrouded in a summery veil of heat-haze and sea-sparkle, he could see the towers of the
pale, expensive hotels - the Fontaine bleau, the Eden Roc, the Roney Plaza. On their
second day in Miami he had suggested to Perry that they invade these pleasure-domes.
"Maybe pick up a coupla rich women," he had said. Perry had been most reluctant; he
felt people would stare at them because of their khaki trousers and T-shirts. Actually,
their tour, of the Fontaine bleau's gaudy premises went unnoticed, amid the men striding
about in Bermuda shorts of candy-striped raw silk, and the women wearing bathing suits
and mink simultaneously. The trespassers had loitered in the lobby, in the garden,
lounged by the swimming pool. It was there that Dick saw the man, who was his own
age - twenty-eight or thirty. He could have been a "gambler or lawyer or maybe a
gangster from Chicago." Whatever he was, he looked as though he knew the glories of
money and power. A blonde who resembled Marilyn Monroe was kneading him with
suntan oil, and his lazy, beringed hand reached for a tumbler of iced orange juice. All
that belonged to him, Dick, but he would never have it. Why should that sonofabitch
have everything, while he had nothing? Why should that "big-shot bastard" have all the
luck? With a knife in his hand, he, Dick, had power. Big-shot bastards like that had
better be careful or he might "open them up and let a little of their hick spill on the floor
" But Dick's day was ruined. The beautiful blonde rubbing on the suntan oil had ruined
it. He'd said to Perry, "Let's pull the hell out of here."
Now a young girl, probably twelve, was drawing figures in the sand, carving out
big, crude faces with a piece of driftwood. Dick, pausing to admire her art, offered the
shells he had gathered. "They make good eyes," he said. The child accepted the gift,
where upon Dick smiled and winked at her, He was sorry he felt as he did about her, for
his sexual interest in female children was a failing of which he was "sincerely ashamed"
- a secret he'd not confessed to anyone and hoped no one suspected (though he was
aware that Perry had reason to), because other people might not think it "normal." That,
to be sure, was something he was certain he was - "a normal." Seducing pubescent girls,
as he had done "eight or nine" times in the last several years, did not disprove it, for if
the truth were known, most real men had the same desires he had. He took the child's
hand and said, "You're my baby girl. My little sweetheart." But she objected. Her hand,
held by his, twitched like a fish on a hook, and he recognized the astounded expression
in her eyes from earlier incidents in his career. He let go, laughed lightly, and said, "Just
a game. Don't you like games?"
Perry, still reclining under the blue umbrella, had observed the scene and
realized Dick's purpose at once, and despised him for it; he had "no respect for people
who can't control themselves sexually," especially when the lack of control involved
what he called "pervertiness" - "bothering kids,"
"queer stuff," rape. And he thought he had made his views obvious to Dick;
indeed, hadn't they almost had a fist fight when quite recently he had prevented Dick
from raping a terrified young girl? However, he wouldn't care to repeat that particular
test of strength. He was relieved when he saw the child walk away from Dick.
Christmas carols were in the air; they issued from the radio of the four women
and mixed strangely with Miami's sunshine and the cries of the querulous, never
thoroughly silent seagulls. "Oh, come let us adore Him, Oh, come let us adore Him": a
cathedral choir, an exalted music that moved Perry to tears - which refused to stop, even
after the music did. And as was not uncommon when he was thus afflicted, he dwelt
upon a possibility that had for him "tremendous fascination": suicide. As a child he had
often thought of killing himself, but those were sentimental reveries born of a wish to
punish his father and mother and other enemies. From young manhood onward,
however, the prospect of ending his life had more and more lost its fantastic quality.
That, he must remember, was Jimmy's "solution," and Fern's, too. And lately it had
come to seem not just an alternative but the specific death awaiting him.
Anyway, he couldn't see that he had "a lot to live for." Hot islands and buried
gold, diving deep in fire-blue seas toward sunken treasure - such dreams were gone.
Gone, too, was "Perry O'Parsons," the name invented for the singing sensation of stage
and screen that he'd half-seriously hoped some day to be. Perry O'Parsons had died
without having ever lived. What was there to look forward to? He and Dick were
"running a race without a finish line" - that was how it struck him. And now, after not
quite a week in Miami, the long ride was to resume. Dick, who had worked one day at
the ABC auto-service company for sixty-five cents an hour, had told him, "Miami's
worse than Mexico. Sixty-five cents! Not me. I'm white." So tomorrow, with only
twenty-seven dollars left of the money raised in Kansas City, they were heading west
again, to Texas, to Nevada - "nowhere definite."
Dick, who had waded into the surf, returned. He fell, wet and breathless, face
down on the sticky sand. "How was the water?"
"Wonderful."
The closeness of Christmas to Nancy Clutter's birthday, which was right after New
Year's, had always created problems for her boy friend, Bobby Rupp. It had strained his
imagination to think of two suitable gifts in such quick succession. But each year, with
money made working summers on his father's sugar-beet farm, he had done the best he
could, and on Christmas morning he had always hurried to the Clutter house carrying a
package that his sisters had helped him wrap and that he hoped would surprise Nancy
and delight her. Last year he had given her a small heart-shaped gold locket. This year,
as forehanded as ever, he'd been wavering between the imported perfumes on sale at
Norris Drugs and a pair of riding boots. But then Nancy had died.
On Christmas morning, instead of racing off to River Valley Farm, he remained
at home, and later in the day he shared with his family the splendid dinner his mother
had been a week preparing. Everybody - his parents and every one of his seven brothers
and sisters - had treated him gently since the tragedy. All the same, at meal times he was
told again and again that he must please eat. No one comprehended that really he was
ill, that grief had made him so, that grief had drawn a circle around him he could not
escape from and others could not enter - except possibly Sue. Until Nancy's death he
had not appreciated Sue, never felt altogether comfortable with her. She was too
different - took seriously things that even girls ought not to take very seriously:
paintings, poems, the music she played on the piano. And, of course, he was jealous of
her; her position in Nancy's esteem, though of another order, had been at least equal to
his. But that was why she was able to understand his loss. Without Sue, without her
almost constant presence, how could he have withstood such an avalanche of shocks the crime itself, his interviews with Mr. Dewey, the pathetic irony of being for a while
the principal suspect?
Then, after about a month, the friendship waned. Bobby went less frequently to
sit in the Kidwells' tiny, cozy parlor, and when he did go, Sue seemed not as
welcoming. The trouble was that they were forcing each other to mourn and remember
what in fact they wanted to forget. Sometimes Bobby could: when he was playing
basketball or driving his car over country roads at eighty miles an hour, or when, as part
of a self-imposed athletic program (his ambition was to be a high-school gymnastics
instructor), he took long-distance jog-trots across flat yellow fields. And now, after
helping clear the dining table of all its holiday dishes, that was what he decided to do put on a sweatshirt and go for a run.
The weather was remarkable. Even for western Kansas, renowned for the
longevity of its Indian summers, the current sample seemed far-fetched - dry air, bold
sun, azure sky. Optimistic ranchers were predicting an "open winter" - a season so bland
that cattle could graze during the whole of it. Such winters are rare, but Bobby could
remember one - the year he had started to court Nancy. They were both twelve, and
after school he used to carry her book satchel the mile separating the Holcomb schoolhouse from her father's farm ranch. Often, if the day was warm and sun-kindled, they
stopped along the way and sat by the river, a snaky, slow-moving, brown piece of the
Arkansas.
Once Nancy had said to him, "One summer, when we were in Colorado, I saw
where the Arkansas begins. The exact place. You wouldn't believe it, though. That it
was our river. It's not the same color. But pure as drinking water. And fast. And full of
rocks. Whirlpools. Daddy caught a trout." It had stayed with Bobby, her memory of the
river's source, and since her death... Well, he couldn't explain it, but whenever he looked
at the Arkansas, it was for an instant transformed, and what he saw was not a muddy
stream meandering across the Kansas plains, but what Nancy had described - a
Colorado torrent, a chilly, crystal trout river speeding down a mountain valley. That was
how Nancy had been: like young water - energetic, joyous.
Usually, though, western Kansas winters are imprisoning, and usually frost on
the fields and razory winds have altered the climate before Christmas. Some years back
snow had fallen on Christmas Eve and continued falling, and when Bobby set out the
next morning for the Clutter property, a three-mile walk, he had had to fight through
deep drifts. It was worth it, for though he was numbed and scarlet, the welcome he got
thawed him thoroughly. Nancy was amazed and proud, and her mother, often so timid
and distant, had hugged and kissed him, insisting that he wrap up in a quilt and sit close
to the parlor fire. While the women worked in the kitchen, he and Kenyon and Mr.
Clutter had sat around the fire cracking walnuts and pecans, and Mr. Clutter said he was
reminded of another Christmas, when he was Kenyon's age: "There were seven of us.
Mother, my father, the two girls, and us three boys. We lived on a farm a good ways
from town. For that reason it was the custom to do our Christmas buying in a bunch make the trip once and do it all together. The year I'm thinking of, the morning we were
supposed to go, the snow was high as today, higher, and still coming down - flakes like
saucers. Looked like we were in for a snowbound Christmas with no presents under the
tree. Mother and the girls were heart-broken. Then I had an idea." He would saddle their
huskiest plow horse, ride into town, and shop for everybody. The family agreed. All of
them gave him their Christmas savings and a list of the things they wished him to buy:
four yards of calico, a foot-ball, a pincushion, shotgun shells - an assortment of orders
that took until nightfall to fill. Heading homeward, the purchases secure inside a
tarpaulin sack, he was grateful that his father had forced him to carry a lantern, and
glad, too, that the horse's harness was strung with bells, for both their jaunty racket and
the careening light of the kerosene lantern were a comfort to him.
"The ride in, that was easy, a piece of cake. But now the road was gone, and
every landmark." Earth and air - all was snow. The horse, up to his haunches in it,
slipped sidewise. "I dropped our lamp. We were lost in the night. It was just a question
of time before we fell asleep and froze. Yes, I was afraid. But I prayed. And I felt God's
presence..." Dogs howled. He followed the noise until he saw the windows of a
neighboring farmhouse. "I ought to have stopped there. But I thought of the family imagined my mother in tears, Dad and the boys getting up a search party, and I pushed
on. So, naturally, I wasn't too happy when finally I reached home and found the house
dark. Doors locked. Found everybody had gone to bed and plain forgot me. None of
them could understand why I was so put out. Dad said, 'We were sure you'd stay the
night in town. Good grief, boy! Who'd have thought you hadn't better sense than to start
home in a perfect blizzard?'"
The cider-tart odor of spoiling apples. Apple trees and pear trees, peach and cherry: Mr.
Clutter's orchard, the treasured assembly of fruit trees he had planted. Bobby, running
mindlessly, had not meant to come here, or to any other part of River Valley Farm. It
was inexplicable, and he turned to leave, but he turned again and wandered toward the
house - white and solid and spacious. He had always been impressed by it, and pleased
to think that his girl friend lived there. But now that it was deprived of the late owner's
dedicated attention, the first threads of decay's cobweb were being spun. A gravel rake
lay rusting in the driveway; the lawn was parched and shabby. That fateful Sunday,
when the sheriff summoned ambulances to remove the murdered family, the
ambulances had driven across the grass straight to the front door, and the tire tracks
were still visible.
The hired man's house was empty, too; he had found new quarters for his family
nearer Holcomb - to no one's surprise, for nowadays, though the weather was glittering,
the Clutter place seemed shadowed, and hushed, and motionless. But as Bobby passed a
storage barn and, beyond that, a livestock corral, he heard a horse's tail swish. It was
Nancy's Babe, the obedient old dappled mare with flaxen mane and dark-purple eyes
like magnificent pansy blossoms. Clutching her mane, Bobby rubbed his cheek along
Babe's neck - something Nancy used to do. And Babe whinnied. Last Sunday, the last
time he had visited the Kidwells, Sue's mother had mentioned Babe. Mrs. Kidwell, a
fanciful woman, had been standing at a window watching dusk tint the outdoors, the
sprawling prairie. And out of the blue she had said, "Susan? You know what I keep
seeing? Nancy. On Babe. Coming this way."
Perry noticed them first - hitch-hikers, a boy and an old man, both carrying
homemade knap-sacks, and despite the blowy weather, a gritty and bitter Texas wind,
wearing only overalls and a thin denim shirt. "Let's give them a lift," Perry said. Dick
was reluctant; he had no objection to assisting hitchhikers, provided they looked as if
they could pay their way - at least "chip in a couple of gallons of gas." But Perry, little
old big-hearted Perry, was always pestering Dick to pick up the damnedest, sorriestlooking people. Finally Dick agreed, and stopped the car.
The boy - a stocky, sharp-eyed, talkative towhead of about twelve - was
exuberantly grateful, but the old man, whose face was seamed and yellow, feebly
crawled into the back seat and slumped there silently. The boy said, "We sure do
appreciate this. Johnny was ready to drop. We ain't had a ride since Galveston."
Perry and Dick had left that port city an hour earlier, having spent a morning
there applying at various shipping offices for jobs as able-bodied seamen. One company
offered them immediate work on a tanker bound for Brazil, and, indeed, the two would
now have been at sea if their prospective employer had not discovered that neither man
possessed union papers or a passport. Strangely, Dick's disappointment exceeded
Perry's: "Brazil! That's where they're building a whole new capital city. Right from
scratch. Imagine getting in on the ground floor of something like that! Any fool could
make a fortune."
"Where you headed?" Perry asked the boy.
"Sweetwater."
"Where's Sweetwater?"
"Well, it's along in this direction somewhere. It's somewhere in Texas. Johnny,
here, he's my gramp. And he's got a sister lives in Sweetwater. Least, I sure Jesus hope
she does. We thought she lived in Jasper, Texas. But when we got to Jasper, folks told
us her and her people moved to Galveston. But she wasn't in Galveston - lady there said
she was gone to Sweetwater. I sure Jesus hope we find her. Johnny," he said, rubbing
the old man's hands, as if to thaw them, "you hear me, Johnny? We're riding in a nice
warm Chevrolet - '56 model."
The old man coughed, rolled his head slightly, opened and closed his eyes, and
coughed again.
Dick said, "Hey, listen. What's wrong with him?"
"It's the change," the boy said. "And the walking. We been walking since before
Christmas. Seems to me we covered the better part of Texas." In the most matter-of-fact
voice, and while continuing to massage the old man's hands, the boy told them that up
to the start of the present journey he and his grandfather and an aunt had lived alone on
a farm near Shreveport, Louisiana. Not long ago the aunt had died. "Johnny's been
poorly about a year, and Auntie had all the work to do. With only me to help. We were
chopping firewood. Chopping up a stump. Right in the middle of it, Auntie said she was
wore out. Ever seen a horse just lay down and never get up? I have. And that's like what
Auntie did." A few days before Christmas the man from whom his grandfather rented
the farm "turned us off the place," the boy continued. "That's how come we started out
for Texas. Looking to find Mrs. Jackson. I never seen her, but she's Johnny's own blood
sister. And somebody's got to take us in. Least ways, him. He can't go a lot more. Last
night it rained on us."
The car stopped. Perry asked Dick why he had stopped it.
"That man's very sick," Dick said.
"Well? What do you want to do? Put him out?"
"Use your head. Just for once."
"You really are a mean bastard."
"Suppose he dies?"
The boy said, "He won't die. We've got this far, he'll wait now."
Dick persisted. "Suppose he dies? Think of what could happen. The questions."
"Frankly, I don't give a damn. You want to put them out? Then by all means."
Perry looked at the invalid, still somnolent, dazed, deaf, and he looked at the boy, who
returned his gaze calmly, not begging, not "asking for anything," and Perry remembered
himself at that age, his own wanderings with an old man. "Go ahead. Put them out. But
I'll be getting out, too."
"O. K. O. K. O. K. Only don't forget," said Dick. "It's your damn fault."
Dick shifted gears. Suddenly, as the car began to move again, the boy hollered,
"Hold it!" Hopping out, he hurried along the edge of the road, stopped, stooped, picked
up one, two, three, four empty Coca-Cola bottles, ran back, and hopped in, happy and
grinning. "There's plenty of money in bottles," he said to Dick. "Why, mister, if you was
to drive kind of slow, I guarantee you we can pick us up a big piece of change. That's
what me and Johnny been eating off. Refund money."
Dick was amused, but he was also interested, and when next the boy
commanded him to halt, he at once obeyed. The commands came so frequently that it
took them an hour to travel five miles, but it was worth it. The kid had an "honest-toGod genius" for spotting, amid the roadside rocks and grassy rubble, and the brown
glow of thrown-away beer bottles, the emerald daubs that had once held 7-Up and
Canada Dry. Perry soon developed his own personal gift for spying out bottles. At first
he merely indicated to the boy the whereabouts of his finds; he thought it too
undignified to scurry about collecting them himself. It was all "pretty silly," just "kid
stuff." Nevertheless, the game generated a treasure-hunt excitement, and presently he,
too, succumbed to the fun, the fervor of this quest for refundable empties. Dick, too, but
Dick was in dead earnest. Screwy as it seemed, maybe this was a way to make some
money - or, at any rate, a few bucks. Lord knows, he and Perry could use them; their
combined finances amounted at the moment to less than five dollars.
Now all three - Dick and the boy and Perry - were piling out of the car and
shamelessly, though amiably, competing with one another. Once Dick located a cache
of wine and whiskey bottles at the bottom of a ditch, and was chagrined to learn that his
discovery was valueless. "They don't give no refund on liquor empties," the boy
informed him. "Even some of the beers ain't no good. I don't mess with them usually.
Just stick with the sure fire things. Dr. Pepper. Pepsi. Coke. White Rock. Nehi."
Dick said, "What's your name?"
"Bill," the boy said.
"Well, Bill. You're a regular education."
Nightfall came, and forced the hunters to quit - that, and lack of space, for they
had amassed as many bottles as the car could contain. The trunk was filled, the back
seat seemed a glittering dump heap; unnoticed, unmentioned by even his grandson, the
ailing old man was all but hidden under the shifting, dangerously chiming cargo.
Dick said, "Be funny if we had a smash-up."
A bunch of lights publicized the New Motel, which proved to be, as the travelers
neared it, an impressive compound consisting of bungalows, a garage, a restaurant, and
a cocktail lounge. Taking charge, the boy said to Dick, "Pull in there. Maybe we can
make a deal. Only let me talk. I've had the experience. Sometimes they try to cheat."
Perry could not imagine "anyone smart enough to cheat that kid," he said later. "It didn't
shame him a bit there with all those bottles. Me, I never could've. I'd have felt so
ashamed. But the people at the motel were nice about it; they just laughed. Turned out
the bottles were worth twelve dollars and sixty cents."
The boy divided the money evenly, giving half to himself, the rest to his
partners, and said, "Know what? I'm gonna blow me and Johnny to a good feed. Ain't
you fellows hungry?"
As always, Dick was. And after so much activity, even Perry felt starved. As he
later told about it, "We carted the old man into the restaurant and propped him up at a
table. He looked exactly the same - thanatoid. And he never said one word. But you
should have seen him shovel it in. The kid ordered him pancakes; he said that was what
Johnny liked best. I swear he ate something like thirty pancakes. With maybe two
pounds of butter, and a quart of syrup. The kid could put it down himself. Potato chips
and ice cream, that was all he wanted, but he sure ate a lot of them. I wonder it didn't
make him sick."
During the dinner party, Dick, who had consulted a map, announced that
Sweetwater was a hundred or more miles west of the route he was driving - the route
that would take him across New Mexico and Arizona to Nevada - to Las Vegas. Though
this was true, it was clear to Perry that Dick simply wanted to rid himself of the boy and
the old man. Dick's purpose was obvious to the boy, top, but he was polite and said,
"Oh, don't you worry about us. Plenty of traffic must stop here. We'll get a ride."
The boy walked with them to the car, leaving the old man to devour a fresh stack
of pancakes. He shook hands with Dick and with Perry, wished them a Happy New
Year, and waved them away into the dark.
The evening of Wednesday, December 30, was a memorable one in the household of
Agent A. A. Dewey. Remembering it later, his wife said, "Alvin was singing in the bath.
'The Yellow Rose of Texas.' The kids were watching TV. And I was setting the diningroom table. For a buffet. I'm from New Orleans; I love to cook and entertain, and my
mother had just sent us a crate of avocados and black-eyed peas, and - oh, a heap of real
nice things. So I decided: We're going to have a buffet, invite some friends over - the
Murrays, and Cliff and Dodie Hope. Alvin didn't want to, but I was determined. My
goodness! The case could go on forever, and he hadn't taken hardly a minute off since it
began. Well, I was setting the table, so when I heard the phone I asked one of the boys
to answer it - Paul. Paul said it was for Daddy, and I said, 'You tell them he's in the
bath,' but Paul said he wondered if he ought to do that, because it was Mr. Sanford
calling from Topeka. Alvin's boss. Alvin took the call with just a towel around him.
Made me so mad - dripping puddles everywhere. But when I went to get a mop I saw
something worse - that cat, that fool Pete, up on the kitchen table gorging crabmeat
salad. My avocado stuffing.
"The next thing was, suddenly Alvin had hold of me, he was hugging me, and I
said, 'Alvin Dewey, have you lost your mind?' Fun's fun, but the man was wet as a
pond, he was ruining my dress, and I was already dressed for company. Of course, when
I understood why he was hugging me I hugged him right back. You can imagine what it
meant to Alvin to know those men had been arrested. Out in Las Vegas. He said he had
to leave for Las Vegas straightaway, and I asked him hadn't he ought to put on some
clothes first, and Alvin, he was so excited, he said, 'Gosh, honey, I guess I've spoiled
your party!' I couldn't think of a happier way of having it spoiled - not if this meant that
maybe one day soon we'd be back living an ordinary life. Alvin laughed - it was just
beautiful to hear him. I mean, the past two weeks had been the worst of all. Because the
week before Christmas those men turned up in Kansas City - came and went without
getting caught - and I never saw Alvin more depressed, except once when young Alvin
was in the hospital, had encephalitis, we thought we might lose him. But I don't want to
talk about that.
"Anyway, I made coffee for him and took it to the bedroom, where he was
supposed to be getting dressed. But he wasn't. He was sitting on the edge of our bed
holding his head, as if he had a headache. Hadn't put on even a sock. So I said, 'What do
you want to do, get pneumonia?' And he looked at me and said, 'Marie, listen, it's got to
be these guys, has to, that's the only logical solution.' Alvin's funny. Like the first time
he ran for Finney County Sheriff. Election Night, when practically every vote had been
counted and it was plain as plain he'd won, he said - I could have strangled him - said
over and over, 'Well, we won't know till the last return.'
"I told him, 'Now, Alvin, don't start that. Of course they did it. ' He said,
'Where's our proof? We can't prove either of them ever set foot inside the Clutter house!'
But that seemed to me exactly what he could prove: footprints - weren't footprints the
one thing those animals left behind? Alvin said, 'Yes, and a big lot of good they are unless those boys still happen to be wearing the boots that made them. Just footprints by
themselves aren't worth a Dixie dollar. ' I said, 'All right, honey, drink your coffee and
I'll help you pack. ' Sometimes you can't reason with Alvin. The way he kept on, he had
me almost convinced Hickock and Smith were innocent, and if they weren't innocent
they would never confess, and if they didn't confess they could never be convicted - the
evidence was too circumstantial. What bothered him most, though - he was afraid that
the story would leak, that the men would learn the truth before the K. B. I, could
question them. As it was, they thought they'd been picked up for parole violation.
Passing bad checks. And Alvin felt it was very important they keep thinking that. He
said, 'The name Clutter has to hit them like a hammer, a blow they never knew was
coming.'
"Paul - I'd sent him out to the washline for some of Alvin's socks - Paul came
back and stood around watching me pack. He wanted to know where Alvin was going.
Alvin lifted him up in his arms. He said, 'Can you keep a secret, Pauly?' Not that he
needed to ask. Both boys know they mustn't talk about Alvin's work - the bits and pieces
they hear around the house. So he said, 'Pauly, you remember those two fellows we've
been looking for? Well, now we know where they are, and Daddy's going to go get
them and bring them here to Garden City. ' But Paul begged him, 'Don't do that, Daddy,
don't bring them here. ' He was frightened - any nine-year-old might've been. Alvin
kissed him. He said, 'Now that's O. K., Pauly, we won't let them hurt anybody. They're
not going to hurt anybody ever again.' "
At five that afternoon, some twenty minutes after the stolen Chevrolet rolled off the
Nevada desert into Las Vegas, the long ride came to an end. But not before Perry had
visited the Las Vegas post office, where he claimed a package addressed to himself in
care of General Delivery - the large cardboard box he had mailed from Mexico, and had
insured for a hundred dollars, a sum exceeding to an impertinent extent the value of the
contents, which were suntans and denim pants, worn shirts, underwear, and two pairs of
steel-buckled boots. Waiting for Perry outside the post office, Dick was in excellent
spirits; he had reached a decision that he was certain would eradicate his current
difficulties and start him on a new road, with a new rainbow in view. The decision
involved impersonating an Air Force officer. It was a project that had long fascinated
him, and Las Vegas was the ideal place to try it out. He'd already selected the officer's
rank and name, the latter borrowed from a former acquaintance, the then warden of
Kansas State Penitentiary: Tracy Hand. As Captain Tracy Hand, smartly clothed in a
made-to-order uniform, Dick intended to "crawl the strip," Las Vegas's street of never-
closed casinos. Small-time, big-time, the Sands, the Stardust - he meant to hit them all,
distributing en route "a bundle of confetti." By writing worthless checks right around
the clock, he expected to haul in three, maybe four thousand dollars within a twentyfour-hour period. That was half the plot; the second half was: Goodbye, Perry. Dick was
sick of him - his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly
eyes, the nagging, whispering voice. Suspicious, self-righteous, spiteful, he was like a
wife that must be got rid of. And there was but one way to do it: Say nothing - just go.
Absorbed in his plans, Dick did not notice a patrol car pan him, slow down,
reconnoiter. Nor did Perry, descending the post-office steps with the Mexican box
balanced on a shoulder, observe the prowling car and the policemen in it.
Officers Ocie Pigford and Francis Macauley carried in their heads pages of
memorized data, including a description of a black-and-white 1956 Chevrolet bearing
Kansas license plate No. Jo16212. Neither Perry nor Dick was aware of the police
vehicle trailing them as they pulled away from the post office, and with Dick driving
and Perry directing, they traveled five blocks north, turned left, then right, drove a
quarter mile more, and stopped in front of a dying palm tree and a weather-wrecked sign
from which all calligraphy had faded except the word "OOM."
"This it? "Dick asked.
Perry, as the patrol car drew alongside, nodded.
The Detective Division of the Las Vegas City Jail contains two interrogation rooms fluorescent-lighted chambers measuring ten by twelve, with walls and ceilings of
Celotex. In each room, in addition to an electric fan, a metal table, and folding metal
chairs, there are camouflaged microphones, concealed tape recorders, and, set into the
door, a mirrored one-way observation window. On Saturday, the second day of 1960,
both rooms were booked for 2: 00 p. m. - the hour that four detectives from Kansas had
selected for their first confrontation of Hickock and Smith.
Shortly before the appointed moment, the quartet of K. B. I. agents - Harold
Nye, Roy Church, Alvin Dewey, and Clarence Duntz - gathered in a corridor outside the
interrogation rooms. Nye was running a temperature. "Part flu. But mostly sheerexcitement," he subsequently informed a journalist. "By then I'd already been waiting in
Las Vegas two days - took the next plane out after news of the arrest reached our
headquarters in Topeka. The rest of the team, Al and Roy and Clarence, came on by car
- had a lousy trip, too. Lousy weather. Spent New Year's Eve snowed up in a motel in
Albuquerque. Boy, when they finally hit Vegas, they needed good whiskey and good
news. I was ready with both. Our young men had signed waivers of extradition. Better
yet: We had the boots, both pairs, and the soles - the Cat's Paw and the diamond pattern
- matched perfectly life-size photo-graphs of the footprints found in the Clutter house.
The boots were in a box of stuff the boys picked up at the post office just before the
curtain fell. Like I told Al Dewey, suppose the squeeze had come five minutes sooner!
"Even so, our case was very shaky - nothing that couldn't be pulled apart. But I
remember, while we were waiting in the corridor - I remember being feverish and
nervous as hell, but confident. We all were; we felt we were on the edge of the truth.
My job, mine and Church's, was to pressure it out of Hickock. Smith belonged to Al and
Old Man Duntz. At that time I hadn't seen the suspects - just examined their possessions
and arranged the extradition waivers. I'd never laid eyes on Hickock until he was
brought down to the interrogation room. I'd imagined a bigger guy. Brawnier. Not some
skinny kid. He was twenty-eight, but he looked like a kid. Hungry - right down to the
bone. He was wearing a blue shirt and suntans and white socks and black shoes. We
shook hands; his hand was drier than mine. Clean, polite, nice voice, good diction, a
pretty decent-looking fellow, with a very disarming smile - and in the beginning he
smiled quite a lot.
"I said, 'Mr. Hickock, my name is Harold Nye, and this other gentleman is Mr.
Roy Church. We're Special Agents of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and we've
come here to discuss your parole violation. Of course, you're under no obligation to
answer our questions, and anything you say may be used against you in evidence.
You're entitled to a lawyer at all times. We'll use no force, no threats, and we'll make
you no promises.' He was calm as could be."
"I know the form," Dick said. "I've been questioned before."
"Now, Mr. Hickock - "
"Dick."
"Dick, we want to talk to you about your activities since your parole. To our
knowledge, you've gone on at least two big check sprees in the Kansas City area."
"Uh-huh. Hung out quite a few."
"Could you give us a list?"
The prisoner, evidently proud of his one authentic gift, a brilliant memory,
recited the names and addresses of twenty Kansas City stores, cafes, and garages, and
recalled, accurately, the "purchase" made at each and the amount of the check passed.
"I'm curious, Dick. Why do these people accept your checks? I'd like to know
the secret."
"The secret is: People are dumb."
Roy Church said, "Fine, Dick. Very funny. But just for the moment let's forget
these checks." Though he sounds as if his throat were lined with hog bristle, and has
hands so hardened that he can punch stone walls (his favorite stunt, in fact), persons
have been known to mistake Church for a kindly little man, some-body's bald-headed,
pink-cheeked uncle. "Dick," he said, "suppose you tell us something about your family
background."
The prisoner reminisced. Once, when he was nine or ten, his father had fallen ill.
"It was rabbit fever," and the illness lasted many months, during which the family had
depended upon church assistance and the charity of neighbors - "otherwise we would've
starved." That episode aside, his childhood had been O. K. "We never had much money,
but we were never really down-and-out," Hickock said. "We always had clean clothes
and something to eat. My dad was strict, though. He wasn't happy unless he had me
doing chores. But we got along O. K. - no serious arguments. My parents never argued,
either. I can't recall a single quarrel. She's wonderful, my mother. Dad's a good guy, too.
I'd say they did the best for me they could." School? Well, he felt he might have been
more than an average student if he had contributed to books a fraction of the time he'd
"wasted" on sports. "Baseball. Football. I made all the teams. After high school I could
have gone to college on a football scholarship. I wanted to study engineering, but even
with a scholarship, deals like that cost plenty. I don't know, it seemed safer to get a job."
Before his twenty-first birthday Hickock had worked as a railway trackman, an
ambulance driver, a car painter, and a garage mechanic; he'd also married a girl sixteen
years old. "Carol. Her father was a minister. He was dead against me. Said I was a fulltime nobody. He made all the trouble he could. But I was nuts about Carol. Still am.
There's a real princess. Only - see, we had three kids. Boys. And we were too young to
have three kids. Maybe if we hadn't got so deep into debt. If I could've earned extra
money. I tried."
He tried gambling, and started forging checks and experimenting with other
forms of theft. In 1958 he was convicted of house burglary in a Johnson County court
and sentenced to five years in Kansas State Penitentiary. But by then Carol had departed
and he'd taken as a bride another girl aged sixteen. "Mean as hell. Her and her whole
family. She divorced me while I was inside. I'm not complaining. Last August, when I
left The Walls, I figured I had every chance to start new. I got a job in Olathe, lived with
my family, and stayed home nights. I was doing swell - "
"Until November twentieth," said Nye, and Hickock seemed not to understand
him. "The day you stopped doing swell and started hanging paper. Why?"
Hickock sighed, and said, "That would make a book." Then, smoking a cigarette
borrowed from Nye and lighted by the courteous Church, he said, "Perry - my buddy
Perry Smith - was paroled in the spring. Later on, when I came out, he sent me a letter,
Postmarked Idaho. He wrote reminding me of this deal we used to talk over. About
Mexico. The idea was we would go to Acapulco, one of them places, buy a fishing boat,
and run it ourselves - take tourists deep-sea fishing."
Nye said, "This boat. How did you plan to pay for it?"
"I'm coming to that," Hickock said. "See, Perry wrote me he had a sister living
in Fort Scott. And she was holding some heavy change for him. Several thousand
dollars. Money his dad owed him from the sale of some property up in Alaska. He said
he was coming to Kansas to get the dough."
"And the two of you would use it to buy a boat."
"Correct."
"But it didn't work out that way."
"What happened was, Perry showed up maybe a month later. I met him at the
bus station in Kansas City - "
"When?" said Church. "The day of the week."
"A Thursday."
"And when did you go to Fort Scott?"
"Saturday."
"November fourteenth."
Hickock's eyes flashed with surprise. One could see that he was asking himself
why Church should be so certain of the date; and hurriedly - for it was too soon to stir
suspicions - the detective said, "What time did you leave for Fort Scott?"
"That afternoon. We did some work on my car, and had a bowl of chili at the
West Side Cafe. It must have been around three."
"Around three. Was Perry Smith's sister expecting you?"
"No. Because, see, Perry lost her address. And she didn't have a telephone."
"Then how did you expect to find her?"
"By inquiring at the post office."
"Did you?"
"Perry did. They said she'd moved away. To Oregon, they thought. But she
hadn't left any forwarding address."
"Must have been quite a blow. After you'd been counting on a big piece of
money like that."
Hickock agreed. "Because - well, we'd definitely decided to go to Mexico.
Otherwise, I never would've cashed them checks. But I hoped... Now listen to me; I'm
telling the truth. I thought once we got to Mexico and began making money, then I'd be
able to pay them off. The checks."
Nye took over. "One minute, Dick." Nye is a short, short-tempered man who has
difficulty moderating his aggressive vigor, his talent for language both sharp and
outspoken. "I'd like to hear a little more about the trip to Fort Scott," he said, softpedaling. "When you found Smith's sister no longer there, what did you do then?"
"Walked around. Had a beer. Drove back."
"You mean you went home?"
"No. To Kansas City. We stopped at the Zesto Drive-in. Ate hamburgers. We
tried Cherry Row."
Neither Nye nor Church was familiar with Cherry Row.
Hickock said, "You kiddin'? Every cop in Kansas knows it. "When the
detectives again pleaded ignorance, he explained that it was a stretch of park where one
encountered "hustlers mostly," adding, "but plenty of amateurs, too. Nurses. Secretaries.
I've had a lot of luck there."
"And this particular evening. Have any luck?"
"The bad kind. We ended up with a pair of rollers."
"Named?"
"Mildred. The other one, Perry's girl, I think she was called Joan."
"Describe them."
"Maybe they were sisters. Both blond. Plump. I'm not too clear about it. See,
we'd bought a bottle of ready-mix Orange Blossoms - that's orange pop and vodka - and
I was getting stiff. We gave the girls a few drinks and drove them out to Fun Haven. I
imagine you gentlemen never heard of Fun Haven?"
They hadn't.
Hickock grinned and shrugged. "It's on the Blue Ridge Road. Eight miles south
of Kansas City. A combination night-club-motel. You pay ten bucks for the key to a
cabin."
Continuing, he described the cabin in which he claimed that the foursome had
stayed the night: twin beds, an old Coca-Cola calendar, a radio that wouldn't play unless
the customer deposited a quarter. His poise, his explicitness, the assured presentation of
verifiable detail impressed Nye - though, of course, the boy was lying. Well, wasn't he?
Whether because of flu and fever or an abrupt lessening in the warmth of his
confidence, Nye exuded an icy sweat.
"Next morning we woke up to find they'd rolled us and beat it," said Hickock.
"Didn't get much off me. But Perry lost his wallet, with forty or fifty dollars."
"What did you do about it?"
"There wasn't nothing to do."
"You could've notified the police."
"Aw, come on. Quit it. Notify the police. For your information, a guy on parole's
not allowed to booze. Or associate with another Old Grad - "
"All right, Dick. It's Sunday. The fifteenth of November. Tell us what you did
that day from the moment you checked out of Fun Haven."
"Well, we ate breakfast at a truck stop near Happy Hill. Then we drove to
Olathe, and I dropped Perry off at the hotel where he was living. I'd say that was around
eleven. Afterward, I went home and had dinner with the family. Same as every SundayWatched TV - a basketball game, or maybe it was football. I was pretty tired."
"When did you next see Perry Smith?"
"Monday. He came by where I worked. Bob Sands' Body Shop."
"And what did you talk about? Mexico?"
"Well, we still liked the idea, even if we hadn't got hold of the money to do all
we had in mind - put ourselves in business down there. But we wanted to go, and it
seemed worth the risk."
"Worth another stretch in Lansing?"
"That didn't figure. See, we never intended coming Stateside again."
Nye, who had been jotting notes in a notebook, said, "On the day following the
check spree - that would be the twenty-first - you and your friend Smith disappeared.
Now, Dick, please out-line your movements between then and the time of your arrest
here in Las Vegas. Just a rough idea." Hickock whistled and rolled his eyes. "Wow!" he
said, and then, then, summoning his talent for something very like total recall, he began
an account of the long ride - the approximately ten thousand miles he and Smith had
covered in the past six weeks. He talked for an hour and twenty-five minutes - from
two-fifty to four-fifteen - and told, while Nye attempted to list them, of highways and
hotels, motels, rivers, towns, and cities, a chorus of entwining names: Apache, El Paso,
Corpus Christi, Santillo, San Luis Potosi, Acapulco, San Diego, Dallas, Omaha,
Sweetwater, Stillwater, Tenville Junction, Tallahassee, Needles, Miami, Hotel Nuevo
Waldorf, Somerset Hotel, Hotel Simone, Arrowhead Motel, Cherokee Motel, and many,
many more. He gave them the name of the man in Mexico to whom he'd sold his own
old 1949 Chevrolet, and confessed that he had stolen a newer model in Iowa. He
described persons he and his partner had met: a Mexican widow, rich and sexy; Otto, a
German "millionaire"; a "swish" pair of Negro prizefighters driving a "swish" lavender
Cadillac; the blind proprietor of a Florida rattlesnake farm; a dying old man and his
grandson; and others. And when he had finished he sat with folded arms and a pleased
smile, as though waiting to be commended for the humor, the clarity, and the candor of
his traveler's tale.
But Nye, in pursuit of the narrative, raced his pen, and Church, lazily slamming
a shut hand against an open palm, said nothing - until suddenly he said. "I guess you
know why we're here."
Hickock's mouth straightened - his posture, too.
"I guess you realize we wouldn't have come all the way to Nevada just to chat
with a couple of two-bit check chiselers."
Nye had closed the notebook. He, too, stared at the prisoner, and observed that a
cluster of veins had appeared in his left temple.
"Would we, Dick?"
"What?"
"Come this far to talk about a bunch of checks."
"I can't think of any other reason."
Nye drew a dagger on the cover of his notebook. While doing so, he said, "Tell
me, Dick. Have you ever heard of the Clutter murder case?" Whereupon, he later wrote
in a formal report of the interview, "Suspect underwent an intense visible reaction. He
turned gray. His eyes twitched."
Hickock said, "Whoa, now. Hold on here. I'm no goddam killer."
"The question asked," Church reminded him, "was whether you'd heard of the
Clutter murders."
"I may have read something," Hickock said.
"A vicious crime. Vicious. Cowardly."
"And almost perfect," Nye said. "But you made two mistakes, Dick. One was,
you left a witness. A living witness. Who'll testify in court. Who'll stand in the witness
box and tell a jury how Richard Hickock and Perry Smith bound and gagged and
slaughtered four helpless people."
Hickock's face reddened with returning color. "Living witness! There can't be!"
"Because you thought you'd got rid of everyone?"
"I said whoa! There ain't anybody can connect me with any goddam murder.
Checks. A little petty thievery. But I'm no goddam killer."
"Then why," Nye asked hotly, "have you been lying to us?"
"I've been telling you the goddam truth."
"Now and then. Not always. For instance, what about Saturday afternoon,
November fourteenth? You say you drove to Fort Scott."
"Yes."
"And when you got there you went to the post office."
"Yes."
"To obtain the address of Perry Smith's sister."
"That's right."
Nye rose. He walked around to the rear of Hickock's chair, and placing his hands
on the back of the chair, leaned down as though to whisper in the prisoner's ear. "Perry
Smith has no sister living in Fort Scott," he said. "He never has had. And on Saturday
afternoons the Fort Scott post office happens to be closed." Then he said, "Think it over,
Dick. That's all for now. We'll talk to you later."
After Hickock's dismissal, Nye and Church crossed the corridor, and looking
through the one-way observation window set in the door of the interrogation room,
watched the questioning of Perry Smith - a scene visible though not audible. Nye, who
was seeing Smith for the first time, was fascinated by his feet - by the fact that his legs
were so short that his feet, as small as a child's, couldn't quite make the floor. Smith's
head - the stiff Indian hair, the Irish-Indian blending of dark skip and pert, impish
features - reminded him of the suspect's pretty sister, the nice Mrs. Johnson. But this
chunky, misshapen child-man was not pretty; the pink end of his tongue darted forth,
flickering like the tongue of a lizard. He was smoking a cigarette, and from the evenness
of his exhalations Nye deduced that he was still a "virgin" - that is, still uninformed
about the real purpose of the interview.
Nye was right. For Dewey and Duntz, patient professionals, had gradually narrowed the
prisoner's life story to the events of the last seven weeks, then reduced those to a
concentrated recapitulation of the crucial week-end - Saturday noon to Sunday noon,
November 14 to 15. Now, having spent three hours preparing the way, they were not far
from coming to the point.
Dewey said, "Perry, let's review our position. Now, when you received parole, it
was on condition that you never return to Kansas.
"The Sunflower State. I cried my eyes out."
"Feeling that way, why did you go back? You must have had some very strong
reason."
"I told you. To see my sister. To get the money she was holding for me."
"Oh, yes. The sister you and Hickock tried to find in Fort Scott. Perry, how far is
Fort Scott from Kansas City?"
Smith shook his head. He didn't know.
"Well, how long did it take you to drive there?"
No response.
"One hour? Two? Three? Four?"
The prisoner said he couldn't remember.
"Of course you can't. Because you've never in your life been to Fort Scott."
Until then, neither of the detectives had challenged any part of Smith's
statement. He shifted in his chair; with the tip of his tongue he wet his lips.
"The fact is, nothing you've told us is true. You never set foot in Fort Scott. You
never picked up any two girls and never took them to any motel - "
"We did. No kidding."
"What were their names?"
"I never asked."
"You and Hickock spent the night with these women and never asked their
names?"
"They were just prostitutes."
"Tell us the name of the motel."
"Ask Dick. He'll know. I never remember junk like that."
Dewey addressed his colleague. "Clarence, I think it's time we straightened
Perry out."
Duntz hunched forward. He is a heavyweight with a welter-weight's spontaneous
agility, but his eyes are hooded and lazy. He drawls; each word, formed reluctantly and
framed in a cattle-country accent, lasts awhile. "Yes, sir," he said. " 'Bout time."
"Listen good, Perry. Because Mr. Duntz is going to tell you where you really
were that Saturday night. Where you were and what you were doing."
Duntz said, "You were killing the Clutter family."
Smith swallowed. He began to rub his knees.
"You were out in Holcomb, Kansas. In the home of Mr. Herbert W. Clutter. And
before you left that house you killed all the people in it."
"Never. I never."
"Never what?"
"Knew anybody by that name. Clutter."
Dewey called him a liar, and then, conjuring a card that in prior consultation the
four detectives had agreed to play face down, told him, "We have a living witness,
Perry. Somebody you boys overlooked."
A full minute elapsed, and Dewey exulted in Smith's silence, for an innocent
man would ask who was this witness, and who were these Clutters, and why did they
think he'd murdered them - would, at any rate, say something. But Smith sat quiet,
squeezing his knees.
"Well, Perry?"
"You got an aspirin? They took away my aspirin.".
"Feeling bad?"
"My legs do."
It was five-thirty. Dewey, intentionally abrupt, terminated the interview. "We'll
take this up again tomorrow," he said. "By the way, do you know what tomorrow is?
Nancy Clutter's birthday. She would have been seventeen."
"She would have been seventeen." Perry, sleepless in the dawn hours, wondered (he
later recalled) if it was true that today was the girl's birthday, and decided no, that it was
just another way of getting under his skin, like that phony business about a witness - "a
living witness." There couldn't be. Or did they mean - If only he could talk to Dick! But
he and Dick were being kept apart; Dick was locked in a cell on another floor. "Listen
good, Perry. Because Mr. Duntz is going to tell you where you really were..." Midway
in the questioning, after he'd begun to notice the number of allusions to a particular
November weekend, he'd nerved himself for what he knew was coming, yet when it did,
when the big cowboy with the sleepy voice said, "You were killing the Clutter family" well, he'd damn near died, that's all. He must have lost ten pounds in two seconds.
Thank God he hadn't let them see it. Or hoped he hadn't. And Dick? Presumably they'd
pulled the same stunt on him. Dick was smart, a convincing performer, but his "guts"
were unreliable, he panicked too easily. Even so, and however much they pressured
him, Perry was sure Dick would hold out. Unless he wanted to hang. "And before you
left that house you killed all the people in it." It wouldn't amaze him if every Old Grad
in Kansas had heard that line. They must have questioned hundreds of men, and no
doubt accused dozens; he and Dick were merely two more. On the other hand - well,
would Kansas send four Special Agents a thousand miles to pick up a small-time pair of
parole violators? Maybe somehow they had stumbled on something, somebody - "a
living witness." But that was impossible. Except - He'd give an arm, a leg to talk to Dick
for just five minutes.
And Dick, awake in a cell on the floor below, was (he later recalled) equally
eager to converse with Perry - find out what the punk had told them. Christ, you
couldn't trust him to remember even the outline of the Fun Haven alibi - though they
had discussed it often enough. And when those bastards threatened him with a witness!
Ten to one the little spook had thought they meant an eyewitness. Whereas he, Dick,
had known at once who the so-called witness must be: Floyd Wells, his old friend and
former cellmate. While serving the last weeks of his sentence, Dick had plotted to knife
Floyd - stab him through the heart with a handmade "shiv" - and what a fool he was not
to have done it. Except for Perry, Floyd Wells was the one human being who could link
the names Hickock and Clutter. Floyd, with his sloping shoulders and inclining chin Dick had thought he'd be too afraid. The sonofabitch was probably expecting some
fancy reward - a parole or money, or both. But hell would freeze before he got it.
Because a convict's tattle wasn't proof. Proof is foot-prints, fingerprints, witnesses, a
confession. Hell, if all those cowboys had to go on was some story Floyd Wells had
told, then there wasn't a lot to worry about. Come right down to it, Floyd wasn't half as
dangerous as Perry. Perry, if he lost his nerve and let fly, could put them both in The
Corner. And suddenly he saw the truth: It was Perry he ought to have silenced. On a
mountain road in Mexico. Or while walking across the Mojave. Why had it never
occurred to him until now? For now, now was much too late.
Ultimately, at five minutes past three that afternoon, Smith admitted the falsity of the
Fort Scott tale. " That was only something Dick told his family. So he could stay out
overnight. Do some drinking. See, Dick's dad watched him pretty close - afraid he'd
break parole. So we made up an excuse about my sister. It was just to pacify Mr.
Hickock." Otherwise, he repeated the same story again and again, and Duntz and
Dewey, regardless of how often they corrected him and accused him of lying, could not
make him change it - except to add fresh details. The names of the prostitutes, he
recalled today, were Mildred and Jane (or Joan). "They rolled us," he now remembered.
"Walked off with all our dough while we were asleep." And though even Duntz had
forfeited his composure - had shed, along with tie and coat, his enigmatic drowsy
dignity - the suspect seemed content and serene; he refused to budge. He'd never heard
of the Clutters or Holcomb, or even Garden City.
Across the hall, in the smoke-choked room where Hickock was undergoing his
second interrogation, Church and Nye were methodically applying a more roundabout
strategy. Not once during this interview, now almost three hours old, had either of them
mentioned murder - an omission that kept the prisoner edgy, expectant. They talked of
everything else: Hickock's religious philosophy ("I know about hell. I been there.
Maybe there's a heaven, too. Lots of rich people think so"); his sexual history ("I've
always behaved like a one-hundred-percent normal"); and, once more, the history of his
recent cross-country hegira ("Why we kept going like that, the only reason was we were
looking for jobs. Couldn't find anything decent, though. I worked one day digging a
ditch..."). But things unspoken were the center of interest - the cause, the detectives
were convinced, of Hickock's escalating distress. Presently, he shut his eyes and
touched the lids with trembling fingertips. And Church said, "Something wrong?"
"A headache. I get real bastards."
Then Nye said, "Look at me, Dick." Hickock obeyed, with an expression that the
detective interpreted as a pleading with him to speak, to accuse, and let the prisoner
escape into the sanctuary of steadfast denial. "When we discussed the matter yesterday,
you may recall my saying that the Clutter murders were almost a perfect crime. The
killers made only two mistakes. The first one was they left a witness. The second - well,
I'll show you." Rising, he retrieved from a corner a box and a briefcase, both of which
he'd brought into the room at the start of the interview. Out of the briefcase came a large
photograph. "This," he said, leaving it on the table, "is a one-to-one reproduction of
certain footprints found near Mr. Clutter's body. And here" - he opened the box - "are
the boots that made them. Your boots, Dick." Hickock looked, and looked away. He
rested his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his hands. "Smith," said Nye,
"was even more careless. We have his boots, too, and they exactly fit another set of
prints. Bloody ones."
Church closed in. "Here's what's going to happen to you, Hickock," he said.
"You'll be taken back to Kansas. You'll be charged on four counts of first-degree
murder. Count One: That on or about the fifteenth day of November, 1959, one Richard
Eugene Hickock did unlawfully, feloniously, willfully and with deliberation and
premeditation, and while being engaged in the perpetration of a felony, kill and take the
life of Herbert W. Clutter. Count Two: That on or about the fifteenth day of November
.1959, the same Richard Eugene Hickock did unlawfully - "
Hickock said, "Perry Smith killed the Clutters." He lifted his head, and slowly
straightened up in the chair, like a fighter staggering to his feet. "It was Perry. I couldn't
stop him. He killed them all."
Postmistress Clare, enjoying a coffee break at Hartman's Cafe, complained of the low
volume of the cafe's radio. "Turn it up," she demanded.
The radio was tuned to Garden City's Station KIUL. She heard the words ". . .
after sobbing out his dramatic confession, Hickock emerged from the interrogation
room and fainted in a hallway. K. B. I. agents caught him as he fell to the floor. The
agents quoted Hickock as saying he and Smith invaded the Clutter home expecting to
find a safe containing at least ten thousand dollars. But there was no safe, so they tied
the family up and shot them one by one. Smith has neither confirmed nor denied taking
part in the crime. When told that Hickock had signed a confession, Smith said, 'I'd like
to see my buddy's statement. ' But the request was rejected. Officers have declined to
reveal whether it was Hickock or Smith who actually shot the members of the family.
They emphasized that the statement was only Hickock's version. K. B. I. personnel,
returning the two men to Kansas, have already left Las Vegas by car. It is expected the
party will arrive in Garden City late Wednesday. Meanwhile, County Attorney Duane
West..."
"One by one," said Mrs. Hartman. "Just imagine. I don't wonder the varmint
fainted."
Others in the cafe - Mrs. Clare and Mabel Helm and a husky young farmer who
had stopped to buy a plug of Brown's Mule chewing tobacco - muttered and mumbled.
Mrs. Helm dabbed at her eyes with a paper napkin. "I won't listen," she said. "I mustn't.
I won't."
"... news of a break in the case has met with little reaction in the town of
Holcomb, a half mile from the Clutter home. Generally, townspeople in the community
of two hundred and seventy expressed relief..."
The young farmer hooted. "Relief! Last night, after we heard it on the TV, know
what my wife did? Bawled like a baby."
"Shush," said Mrs. Clare. "That's me."
"... and Holcomb's postmistress, Mrs. Myrtle Clare, said the residents are glad
the case has been solved, but some of them still feel others may be involved. She said
plenty of folks are still keeping their doors locked and their guns ready..."
Mrs. Hartman laughed. "Oh, Myrt!" she said. "Who'd you tell that to?"
"A reporter from the Telegram."
The men of her acquaintance, many of them, treat Mrs. Clare as though she were
another man. The farmer slapped her on the back and said, "Gosh, Myrt. Gee, fella. You
don't still think one of us - anybody round here - had something to do with it?"
But that, of course, was what Mrs. Clare did think, and though she was usually
alone in her opinions, this time she was not without company, for the majority of
Holcomb's population, having lived for seven weeks amid unwholesome rumors,
general mistrust, and suspicion, appeared to feel disappointed at being told that the
murderer was not someone among themselves. Indeed, a sizable faction refused to
accept the fact that two unknown men, two thieving strangers, were solely responsible.
As Mrs. Clare now remarked, "Maybe they did it, these fellows. But there's more to it
than that. Wait. Some day they'll get to the bottom, and when they do they'll find the
one behind it. The one wanted Clutter out of the way. The brains."
Mrs. Hartman sighed. She hoped Myrt was wrong. And Mrs. Helm, said, "What
I hope is, I hope they keep 'em locked up good. I won't feel easy knowing they're in our
vicinity."
"Oh, I don't think you got to worry, ma'am," said the young farmer. "Right now
those boys are a lot more scared of us than we are of them."
On an Arizona highway, a two-car caravan is flashing across sagebrush country - the
mesa country of hawks and rattlesnakes and towering red rocks. Dewey is driving the
lead car, Perry Smith sits beside him, and Duntz is sitting in the back seat. Smith is
handcuffed, and the handcuffs are attached to a security belt by a short length of chain an arrangement so restricting his movements that he cannot smoke unaided. When he
wants a cigarette, Dewey must light it for him and place it between his lips, a task that
the detective finds "repellent," for it seems such an intimate action - the kind of thing
he'd done while he was courting his wife.
On the whole, the prisoner ignores his guardians and their sporadic attempts to
goad him by repeating parts of Hickock's hour-long tape-recorded confession: "He says
he tried to stop you, Perry. But says he couldn't. Says he was scared you'd shoot him
too," and "Yes, sir, Perry. It's all your fault. Hickock himself, he says he wouldn't harm
the fleas on a dog." None of this - outwardly, at any rate - agitates Smith. He continues
to contemplate the scenery, to read Burma-Shave doggerel, and to count the carcasses of
shotgunned coyotes festooning ranch fences.
Dewey, not anticipating any exceptional response, says, "Hickock tells us you're
a natural-born killer. Says it doesn't bother you a bit. Says one time out there in Las
Vegas you went after a colored man with a bicycle chain. Whipped him to death. For
fun."
To Dewey's surprise, the prisoner gasps. He twists around in his seat until he can
see, through the rear window, the motorcade's second car, see inside it: "The tough
boy!" Turning back, he stares at the dark streak of desert highway. "I thought it was a
stunt. I didn't believe you. That Dick let fly. The tough boy! Oh, a real brass boy.
Wouldn't harm the fleas on a dog. Just run over the dog." He spits. "I never killed any
nigger." Duntz agrees with him; having studied the files on unsolved Las Vegas
homicides, he knows Smith to be innocent of this particular deed. "I never killed any
niggers. But he thought so. I always knew if we ever got caught, if Dick ever really let
fly, dropped his guts all over the goddam floor - I knew he'd tell about the nigger." He
spits again. "So Dick was afraid of me? That's amusing. I'm very amused. What he don't
know is, I almost did shoot him."
Dewey lights two cigarettes, one for himself, one for the prisoner. "Tell us about
it, Perry."
Smith smokes with closed eyes, and explains, "I'm thinking. I want to remember
this just the way it was." He pauses for quite a while. "Well, it all started with a letter I
got while I was out in Buhl, Idaho. That was September or October. The letter was from
Dick, and he said he was on to a cinch. The perfect score. I didn't answer him, but he
wrote again, urging me to come back to Kansas and go partners with him. He never said
what kind of score it was. Just that it was a 'sure-fire cinch.' Now, as it happened, I had
another reason for wanting to be in Kansas around about that time. A personal matter I'd
just as soon keep to myself ? t's got nothing to do with this deal. Only that otherwise I
wouldn't have gone back there. But I did. And Dick met me at the bus station in Kansas
City. We drove out to the farm, his parents' place. But they didn't want me there. I'm
very sensitive; I usually know what people are feeling.
"Like you." He means Dewey, but does not look at him. "You hate handing me a
butt. That's your business. I don't blame you.. Any more than I blamed Dick's mother.
The fact is, she's a very sweet person. But she knew what I was - a friend from The
Walls and she didn't want me in her house. Christ, I was glad to get out, go to a hotel.
Dick took me to a hotel in Olathe. We bought some beer and carried it up to the room,
and that's when Dick outlined what he had in mind. He said after I'd left Lansing he
celled with someone who'd once worked for a wealthy wheat grower out in western
Kansas. Mr. Clutter. Dick drew me a diagram of the Clutter house. He knew where
everything was - doors, halls, bedrooms. He said one of the ground-floor rooms was
used as an office, and in the office there was a safe - a wall safe. He said Mr. Clutter
needed it because he always kept on hand large sums of cash. Never less than ten
thousand dollars. The plan was to rob the safe, and if we were seen - well, whoever saw
us would have to go. Dick must have said it a million times: 'No witnesses.'"
Dewey says, "How many of these witnesses did he think there might be? I mean,
how many people did he expect to find in the Clutter house?"
"That's what I wanted to know. But he wasn't sure. At least four. Probably six.
And it was possible the family might have guests. He thought we ought to be ready to
handle up to a dozen."
Dewey groans, Duntz whistles, and Smith, smiling wanly, adds, "Me, too.
Seemed to me that was a little off. Twelve people. But Dick said it was a cinch. He said,
'We're gonna go in there and splatter those walls with hair.' The mood I was in, I let
myself be carried along. But also - I'll be honest - I had faith in Dick; he struck me as
being very practical, the masculine type, and I wanted the money as much as he did. I
wanted to get it and go to Mexico. But I hoped we could do it without violence. Seemed
to me we could if we wore masks. We argued about it. On the way out there, out to
Holcomb, I wanted to stop and buy some black silk stockings to wear over our heads.
But Dick felt that even with a stocking he could still be identified. Because of his bad
eye. All the same, when we got to Emporia - "
Duntz says, "Hold on, Perry. You're jumping ahead. Go back to Olathe. What
time did you leave there?" - "One. One-thirty. We left just after lunch and drove to
Emporia. Where we bought some rubber gloves and a roll of cord. The knife and
shotgun, the shells - Dick had brought all that from home. But he didn't want to look for
black stockings. It got to be quite an argument. Somewhere on the outskirts of Emporia,
we passed a Catholic hospital, and I persuaded him to stop and go inside and try and
buy some black stockings from the nuns. I knew nuns wear them. But he only made
believe. Came out and said they wouldn't sell him any. I was sure he hadn't even asked,
and he confessed it; he said it was a puky idea - the nuns would've thought he was
crazy. So we didn't stop again till Great Bend. That's where we bought the tape. Had
dinner there, a big dinner. It put me to sleep. When I woke up, we were just coming into
Garden City. Seemed like a real dead-dog town. We stopped for gas at a filling station "
Dewey asks if he remembers which one.
"Believe it was a Phillips 66."
"What time was this?"
"Around midnight. Dick said it was seven miles more to Holcomb. All the rest
of the way, he kept talking to himself, saying this ought to be here and that ought to be
there - according to the instructions he'd memorized. I hardly realized it when we went,
through Holcomb, it was such a little settlement. We crossed a railroad track. Suddenly
Dick said, 'This is it, this has to be it.' It was the entrance to a private road, lined with
trees. We slowed down and turned off the lights. Didn't need them. Account of the
moon. There wasn't nothing else up there - not a cloud, nothing. Just that full moon. It
was like broad day, and when we started up the road, Dick said, 'Look at this spread!
The barns! That house! Don't tell me this guy ain't loaded.' But I didn't like the setup,
the, atmosphere; it was sort of too impressive. We parked in the shadows of a tree.
While we were sitting there, a light came on - not In the main house but a house maybe
a hundred yards to the left. Dick said it was the hired man's house; he knew because of
the diagram. But he said it was a damn sight nearer the Clutter house than it was
supposed to be. Then the light went off. Mr. Dewey - the witness you mentioned. Is that
who you meant - the hired man?"
"No. He never heard a sound. But his wife was nursing a sick baby. He said they
were up and down the whole night."
"A sick baby. Well, I wondered. While we were still sitting there, it happened
again - a light flashed on and off. And that really put bubbles in my blood. I told Dick to
count me out. If he was determined to go ahead with it, he'd have to do it alone. He
started the car, we were leaving, and I thought, Bless Jesus. I've always trusted my
intuitions; they've saved my life more than once. But halfway down the road Dick
stopped. He was sore as hell. I could see he was thinking, Here I've set up this big score,
here we've come all this way, and now this punk wants to chicken out. He said, 'Maybe
you think I ain't got the guts to do it alone. But, by God, I'll show you who's got guts. '
There was some liquor in the car. We each had a drink, and I told him, 'O. K., Dick. I'm
with you.' So we turned back. Parked where we had before. In the shadows of a tree.
Dick put on gloves; I'd already put on mine. He carried the knife and a flashlight. I had
the gun. The house looked tremendous in the moonlight. Looked empty. I remember
hoping there was nobody home - "
Dewey says, "But you saw a dog?"
"No."
"The family had an old gun-shy dog. We couldn't understand why he didn't bark.
Unless he'd seen a gun and bolted."
"Well, I didn't see anything or nobody. That's why I never believed it. About an
eyewitness."
"Not eyewitness. Witness. Someone whose testimony associates you and
Hickock with this case."
"Oh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Him. And Dick always said he'd be too scared. Ha!"
Duntz, not to be diverted, reminds him, "Hickock had the knife. You had the
gun. How did you get into the house?"
"The door was unlocked. A side door. It took us into Mr. Clutter's office. Then
we waited in the dark. Listening. But the only sound was the wind. There was quite a
little wind outside. It made the trees move, and you could hear the leaves. The one
window was curtained with Venetian blinds, but moonlight was coming through. I
closed the blinds, and Dick turned on his flashlight. We saw the desk. The safe was
supposed to be in the wall directly behind the desk, but we couldn't find it. It was a
paneled wall, and there were books and framed maps, and I noticed, on a shelf, a terrific
pair of binoculars. I decided I was going to take them with me when we left there."
"Did you?" asks Dewey, for the binoculars had not been missed.
Smith nods. "We sold them in Mexico."
"Sorry. Go on."
"Well, when we couldn't find the safe, Dick doused the flashlight and we moved
in darkness out of the office and across a parlor, a living room. Dick whispered to me
couldn't I walk quieter. But he was just as bad. Every step we took made a racket. We
came to a hall and a door, and Dick, remembering the diagram, said it was a bedroom.
He shined the flashlight and opened the door. A man said, 'Honey?' He'd been asleep,
and he blinked and said, 'Is that you, honey?' Dick asked him, 'Are you Mr. Clutter?' He
was wide awake now; he sat up and said, 'Who is it? What do you want?' Dick told him,
very polite, like we were a couple of door-to-door salesmen, 'We want to talk to you,
sir. In your office, please.' And Mr. Clutter, barefoot, just wearing pajamas, he went
with us to the office and we turned on the office lights.
"Up till then he hadn't been able to see us very good. I think what he saw hit him
hard. Dick says, 'Now, sir, all we want you to do is show us where you keep that safe.'
But Mr. Clutter says, 'What safe?' He says he don't have any safe. I knew right then it
was true. He had that kind of face. You just knew whatever he told you was pretty much
the truth. But Dick shouted at him, 'Don't lie to me, you sonofabitch! I know goddam
well you got a safe!' My feeling was nobody had ever spoken to Mr. Clutter like that.
But he looked Dick straight in the eye and told him, being very mild about it - said,
well, he was sorry but he just didn't have any safe. Dick tapped him on the chest with
the knife, says, 'Show us where that safe is or you're gonna be a good bit sorrier.' But
Mr. Clutter - oh, you could see he was scared, but his voice stayed mild and steady - he
went on denying he had a safe.
"Sometime along in there, I fixed the telephone. The one in the office. I ripped
out the wires. And I asked Mr. Clutter if there were any other telephones in the house.
He said yes, there was one in the kitchen. So I took the flashlight and went to the
kitchen - it was quite a distance from the office. When I found the telephone, I removed
the receiver and cut the line with a pair of pliers. Then, heading back, I heard a noise. A
creaking over-head. I stopped at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor. It was
dark, and I didn't dare use the flashlight. But I could tell there was someone there. At
the top of the stairs, silhouetted; against a window. A figure. Then it moved away."
Dewey imagines it must have been Nancy. He'd often theorized, on the basis of
the gold wristwatch found tucked in the toe of a shoe in her closet, that Nancy had
awakened, heard persons in the house, thought they might be thieves, and prudently
hidden the watch, her most valuable property.
"For all I knew, maybe it was somebody with a gun. But Dick wouldn't even
listen to me. He was so busy playing tough boy. Bossing Mr. Clutter around. Now he'd
brought him back to the bedroom. He was counting the money in Mr. Clutter's billfold.
There was about thirty dollars. He threw the billfold on the bed and told him, 'You've
got more money in this house than that. A rich man like you. Living on a spread like
this.' Mr. Clutter said that was all the cash he had, and explained he always did business
by check. He offered to write us a check. Dick just blew up - 'What kind of Mongolians
do you think we are?' - and I thought Dick was ready to smash him, so I said, 'Dick.
Listen to me. There's somebody awake upstairs.' Mr. Clutter told us the only people
upstairs were his wife and a son and daughter. Dick wanted to know if the wife had any
money, and Mr. Clutter said if she did, it would be very little, a few dollars, and he
asked us - really kind of broke down - please not to bother her, because she was an
invalid, she'd been very ill for a long time. But Dick insisted on going upstairs. He made
Mr. Clutter lead the way.
"At the foot of the stairs, Mr. Clutter switched on lights that lighted the hall
above, and as we were going up, he said, 'I don't know why you boys want to do this.
I've never done you any harm. I never saw you before.' That's when Dick told him, 'Shut
up! When we want you to talk, we'll tell you.' Wasn't anybody in the upstairs hall, and
all the doors were shut. Mr. Clutter pointed out the rooms where the boy and girl were
supposed to be sleeping, then opened his wife's door. He lighted a lamp beside the bed
and told her, 'It's all right, sweetheart. Don't be afraid. These men, they just want some
money.' She was a thin, frail sort of woman in a long white nightgown. The minute she
opened her eyes, she started to cry. She says, talking to her husband, 'Sweetheart, I don't
have any money.' He was holding her hand, patting it. He said, 'Now, don't cry, honey.
It's nothing to be afraid of. It's just I gave these men all the money I had, but they want
some more. They believe we have a safe somewhere in the house. I told them we don't.'
Dick raised his hand, like he was going to crack him across the mouth. Says, 'Didn't I
tell you to shut up?' Mrs. Clutter said, 'But my husband's telling you the God's truth.
There isn't any safe.' And Dick answers back, 'I know goddam well you got a safe. And
I'll find it before I leave here. Needn't worry that I won't.' Then he asked her where she
kept her purse. The purse was in a bureau drawer. Dick turned it inside out. Found just
some change and a dollar or two. I motioned to him to come into the hall. I wanted to
discuss the situation. So we stepped outside, and I said - "
Duntz interrupts him to ask if Mr. and Mrs. Clutter could over-hear the
conversation.
"No. We were just outside the door, where we could keep an eye on them. But
we were whispering. I told Dick, 'These people are telling the truth. The one who lied is
your friend Floyd Wells. There isn't any safe, so let's get the hell out of here.' But Dick
was too ashamed to face it. He said he wouldn't believe it till we searched the whole
house. He said the thing to do was tie them all up, then take our time looking around.
You couldn't argue with him, he was so excited. The glory of having everybody at his
mercy, that's what excited him. Well, there was a bathroom next door to Mrs. Clutter's
room. The idea was to lock the parents in the bathroom, and wake the kids and put them
there, then bring them out one by one and tie them up in different parts of the house.
And then, says Dick, after we've found the safe, we'll cut their throats. Can't shoot them,
he says - that would make too much noise."
Perry frowns, rubs his knees with his manacled hands. "Let me think a minute.
Because along in here things begin to get a little complicated. I remember. Yes. Yes, I
took a chair out of the hall and stuck it in the bathroom. So Mrs. Clutter could sit down.
Seeing she was said to be an invalid. When we locked them up, Mrs. Clutter was crying
and telling us, 'Please don't hurt anybody. Please don't hurt my children.' And her
husband had his arms around her, saying, like, 'Sweetheart, these fellows don't mean to
hurt anybody. All they want is some money.'
"We went to the boy's room. He was awake. Lying there like he was too scared
to move. Dick told him to get up, but be didn't move, or move fast enough, so Dick
punched him, pulled him out of bed, and I said, 'You don't have to hit him, Dick.' And I
told the boy - he was only wearing a T-shirt - to put on his pants. He put on a pair of
blue jeans, and we'd just locked him in the bathroom when the girl appeared - came out
of her room. She was all dressed, like she'd been awake some while. I mean, she had on
socks and slippers, and a kimono, and her hair was wrapped in a bandanna. She was
trying to smile. She said, 'Good grief, what is this? Some kind of joke?' I don't guess she
thought it was much of a joke, though. Not after Dick opened the bathroom door and
shoved her in..."
Dewey envisions them: the captive family, meek and frightened but without any
premonition of their destiny. Herb couldn't have suspected, or he would have fought. He
was a gentle man but strong and no coward. Herb, his friend Alvin Dewey felt certain,
would have fought to the death defending Bonnie's life and the lives of his children.
"Dick stood guard outside the bathroom door while I reconnoitered. I frisked the
girl's room, and I found a little purse - like a doll's purse. Inside it was a silver dollar. I
dropped it somehow, and it rolled across the floor. Rolled under a chair. I had to get
down on my knees. And just then it was like I was outside myself. Watching myself in
some nutty movie. It made me sick. I was just disgusted. Dick, and all his talk about a
rich man's safe, and here I am crawling on my belly to steal a child's silver dollar. One
dollar. And I'm crawling on my belly to get it."
Perry squeezes his knees, asks the detectives for aspirin, thanks Duntz for giving
him one, chews it, and resumes talking. "But that's what you do. You get what you can.
I frisked the boy's room, too. Not a dime. But there was a little portable radio, and I
decided to take it. Then I remembered the binoculars I'd seen in Mr. Clutter's office. I
went downstairs to get them. I carried the binoculars and the radio out to the car. It was
cold, and the wind and the cold felt good. The moon was so bright you could see for
miles. And I thought, Why don't I walk off? Walk to the highway, hitch a ride. I sure
Jesus didn't want to go back in that house. And yet - How can I explain this? It was like
I wasn't part of it. More as though I was reading a story. And I had to know what was
going to happen. The end. So I went back upstairs. And now, let's see - uh-huh, that's
when we tied them up. Mr. Clutter first. We called him out of the bathroom, and I tied
his hands together. Then I marched him all the way down to the basement - "
Dewey says, "Alone and unarmed?"
"I had the knife."
Dewey says, "But Hickock stayed guard upstairs?"
"To keep them quiet. Anyway, I didn't need help. I've worked with rope all my
life."
Dewey says, "Were you using the flashlight or did you turn on the basement
lights?"
"The lights. The basement was divided into two sections. One part seemed to be
a playroom. Took him to the other section, the furnace room. I saw a big cardboard box
leaning against the wall. A mattress box. Well, I didn't feel I ought to ask him to stretch
out on the cold floor, so I dragged the mattress box over, flattened it, and told him to lie
down."
The driver, via the rear-view mirror, glances at his colleague, attracts his eye,
and Duntz slightly nods, as if in tribute. All along Dewey had argued that the mattress
box had been placed on the floor for the comfort of Mr. Clutter, and taking heed of
similar hints, other fragmentary indications of ironic, erratic compassion, the detective
had conjectured that at least one of the killers was not altogether uncharitable.
"I tied his feet, then tied his hands to his feet. I asked him was it too tight, and he
said no, but said would we please leave his wife alone. There was no need to tie her up she wasn't going to holler or try to run out of the house. He said she'd been sick for
years and years, and she was just beginning to get a little better, but an incident like this
might cause her to have a setback. I know it's nothing to laugh over, only I couldn't help
it - him talking about a 'setback.'
"Next thing, I brought the boy down. First I put him in the room with his dad.
Tied his hands to an overhead steam pipe.
Then I figured that wasn't very safe. He might somehow get loose and undo the
old man, or vice versa. So I cut him down and I took him to the playroom, where there
was a comfortable looking couch. I roped his feet to the foot of the couch, roped his
hands, then carried the rope up and made a loop around his neck, so if he struggled he'd
choke himself. Once, while I was working, I put the knife down on this - well, it was a
freshly varnished cedar chest; the whole cellar smelled of varnish - and he asked me not
to put my knife there. The chest was a wedding present he'd built for somebody. A
sister, I believe he said. Just as I was leaving, he had a coughing fit, so I stuffed a pillow
under his head. Then I turned off the lights - "
Dewey says, "But you hadn't taped their mouths?"
"No. The taping came later, after I'd tied both the women in their bedrooms.
Mrs. Clutter was still crying, at the same time she was asking me about Dick. She didn't
trust him, but said she felt I was a decent young man. I'm sure you are, she says, and
made me promise I wouldn't let Dick hurt anybody. I think what she really had in mind
was her daughter. I was worried about that myself. I suspected Dick was plotting
something, something I wouldn't stand for. When I finished tying Mrs. Clutter, sure
enough, I found he'd taken the girl to her bedroom. She was in the bed, and he was
sitting on the edge of it talking to her. I stopped that; I told him to go look for the safe
while I tied her up. After he'd gone, I roped her feet together and tied her hands behind
her back. Then I pulled up the covers, tucked her in till just her head showed. There was
a little easy chair near the bed, and I thought I'd rest a minute; my legs were on fire - all
that climbing and kneeling. I asked Nancy if she had a boy friend. She said yes, she did.
She was trying hard to act casual and friendly. I really liked her. She was really nice. A
very pretty girl, and not spoiled or anything. She told me quite a lot about herself. About
school, and how she was going to go to a university to study music and art. Horses. Said
next to dancing what she liked best was to gallop a horse, so I mentioned my mother
had been a champion rodeo rider.
"And we talked about Dick; I was curious, see, what he'd been saying to her.
Seems she'd asked him why he did things like this. Rob people. And, wow, did he toss
her a tear jerker - said he'd been raised an orphan in an orphanage, and how nobody had
ever loved him, and his only relative was a sister who lived with men without marrying
them. All the time we were talking, we could hear the lunatic roaming around below,
looking for the safe. Looking behind pictures. Tapping the walls. Tap tap tap. Like some
nutty woodpecker. When he came back, just to be a real bastard I asked had he found it.
Course he hadn't, but he said he'd come across another purse in the kitchen. With seven
dollars."
Duntz says, "How long now had you been in the house?"
"Maybe an hour."
Duntz says, "And when did you do the taping?"
"Right then. Started with Mrs. Clutter. I made Dick help me - because I didn't
want to leave him alone with the girl. I cut the tape in long strips, and Dick wrapped
them around Mrs. Clutter's head like you'd wrap a mummy. He asked her, 'How come
you keep on crying? Nobody's hurting you,' and he turned off the bedside lamp and said,
'Good night, Mrs. Clutter. Go to sleep. ' Then he says to me, as we're heading along the
hall toward Nancy's room, I'm gonna bust that little girl. ' And I said, 'Uh-huh. But
you'll have to kill me first. ' He looked like he didn't believe he'd heard right. He says,
'What do you care? Hell, you can bust her, too. ' Now, that's something I despise.
Anybody that can't control themselves sexually. Christ, I hate that kind of stuff. I told
him straight, 'Leave her alone. Else you've got a buzz saw to fight. ' That really burned
him, but he realized it wasn't the time to have a flat-out free-for-all. So he says, 'O. K.,
honey. If that's the way you feel.' The end of it was we never even taped her. We
switched off the hall light and went down to the basement."
Perry hesitates. He has a question but phrases it as a statement: "I'll bet he never
said anything about wanting to rape the girl."
Dewey admits it, but he adds that except for an apparently somewhat expurgated
version of his own conduct, Hickock's story supports Smith's. The details vary, the
dialogue is not identical, but in substance the two accounts - thus far, at least corroborate one another.
"Maybe. But I knew he hadn't told about the girl. I'd have bet my shirt."
Duntz says, "Perry, I've been keeping track of the lights. The way I calculate it,
when you turned off the upstairs light, that left the house completely dark."
"Did. And we never used the lights again. Except the flashlight. Dick carried the
flashlight when we went to tape Mr. Clutter and the boy. Just before I taped him, Mr.
Clutter asked me - and these were his last words - wanted to know how his wife was, if
she was all right, and I said she was fine, she was ready to go to sleep, and I told him it
wasn't long till morning, and how in the morning somebody would find them, and then
all of it, me and Dick and all, would seem like something they dreamed. I wasn't
kidding him. I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman.
Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.
"Wait. I'm not telling it the way it was." Perry scowls. He rubs his legs; the
handcuffs rattle. "After, see, after we'd taped them, Dick and I went off in a corner. To
talk it over. Remember, now, there were hard feelings between us. Just then it made my
stomach turn to think I'd ever admired him, lapped up all that brag. I said, 'Well, Dick.
Any qualms?' He didn't answer me. I said, 'Leave them alive, and this won't be any
small rap. Ten years the very least.' He still didn't say anything. He was holding the
knife. I asked him for it, and he gave it to me, and I said, 'All right, Dick. Here goes.'
But I didn't mean it. I meant to call his bluff, make him argue me out of it, make him
admit he was a phony and a coward. See, it was something between me and Dick. I
knelt down beside Mr. Clutter, and the pain of kneeling - I thought of that goddam
dollar. Silver dollar. The shame. Disgust. And they'd told me never to come back to
Kansas. But I didn't realize what I'd done till I heard the sound. Like somebody
drowning. Screaming under water. I handed the knife to Dick. I said, 'Finish him. You'll
feel better.' Dick tried - or pretended to. But the man had the strength of ten men - he
was half out of his ropes, his hands were free. Dick panicked. Dick wanted to get the
hell out of there. But I wouldn't let him go. The man would have died anyway, I know
that, but I couldn't leave him like he was. I told Dick to hold the flashlight, focus it.
Then I aimed the gun. The room just exploded. Went blue. Just blazed up. Jesus, I'll
never understand why they didn't hear the noise twenty miles around."
Dewey's ears ring with it - a ringing that almost deafens him to the whispery
rush of Smith's soft voice. But the voice plunges on, ejecting a fusillade of sounds and
images: Hickock hunting the discharged shell; hurrying, hurrying, and Kenyon's head in
a circle of light, the murmur of muffled pleadings, then Hickock again scrambling after
a used cartridge; Nancy's room, Nancy listening to boots on hardwood stairs, the creak
of the steps as they climb toward her, Nancy's eyes, Nancy watching the flashlight's
shine seek the target ("She said, 'Oh, no! Oh, please. No! No! No! No! Don't! Oh, please
don't! Please!' I gave the gun to Dick. I told him I'd done all I could do. He took aim,
and she turned her face to the wall"); the dark hall, the assassins hastening toward the
final door. Perhaps, having heard all she had, Bonnie welcomed their swift approach.
"That last shell was a bitch to locate. Dick wiggled under the bed to get it. Then
we closed Mrs. Clutter's door and went downstairs to the office. We waited there, like
we had when we first came. Looked through the blinds to see if the hired man was
poking around, or anybody else who might have heard the gunfire. But it was just the
same - not a sound. Just the wind - and Dick panting like wolves were after him. Right
there, in those few seconds before we ran out to the car and drove away, that's when I
decided I'd better shoot Dick. He'd said over and over, he'd drummed it into me: No
witnesses. And I thought, He's a witness. I don't know what stopped me. God knows I
should've done it. Shot him dead. Got in the car and kept on going till I lost myself in
Mexico."
A hush. For ten miles and more, the three men ride without speaking.
Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his
ambition to learn "exactly what happened in that house that night." Twice now he'd
been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy
being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that
Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered
questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime
was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well
have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged
terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he
found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure
of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and
lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was
not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry
and his partner hanged - hanged back to back.
Dunn asks Smith, "Added up, how much money did you get from the Clutters?"
"Between forty and fifty dollars."
Among Garden City's animals are two gray tomcats who are always together - thin,
dirty strays with strange and clever habits. The chief ceremony of their day is performed
at twilight. First they trot the length of Main Street, stopping to scrutinize the engine
grilles of parked automobiles, particularly those stationed in front of the two hotels, the
Windsor and Warren, for these cars, usually the property of travelers from afar, often
yield what the bony, methodical creatures are hunting: slaughtered birds - crows,
chickadees, and sparrows foolhardy enough to have flown into the path of oncoming
motorists. Using their paws as though they are surgical instruments, the cats extract
from the grilles every feathery particle. Having cruised Main Street, they invariably turn
the corner at Main and Grant, then lope along toward Courthouse Square, another of
their hunting grounds - and a highly promising one on the afternoon of Wednesday,
January 6, for the area swarmed with Finney County vehicles that had brought to town
part of the crowd populating the square. The crowd started forming at four o'clock, the
hour that the county attorney had given as the probable arrival rime of Hickock and
Smith. Since the announcement of Hickock's confession on Sunday evening, newsmen
of every style had assembled in Garden City: representatives of the major wire services,
photographers, newsreel and television cameramen, reporters from Missouri, Nebraska,
Oklahoma, Texas, and, of course, all the principal Kansas papers - twenty or twentyfive men altogether. Many of them had been waiting three days without much to do
except interview the service-station attendant James Spor, who, after seeing published
photographs of the accused killers, had identified them as customers to whom he'd sold
three dollars and six cents worth of gas the night of the Holcomb tragedy.
It was the return of Hickock and Smith that these professional spectators were
on hand to record, and Captain Gerald Murray, of the Highway Patrol, had reserved for
them ample space on the sidewalk fronting the courthouse steps - the steps the prisoners
must mount on their way to the county jail, an institution that occupies the top floor of
the four-story limestone structure. One reporter, Richard Parr, of the Kansas City Star,
had obtained a copy of Monday's Las Vegas Sun. The paper's headline raised grounds of
laughter: fear lynch mob awaiting return or; killer suspects. Captain Murray remarked,
"Don't look much like a necktie party to me."
Indeed, the congregation in the square might have been expecting a parade, or
attending a political rally. High-school students, among them former classmates of
Nancy and Kenyon Clutter, chanted cheerleader rhymes, bubbled bubble gum, gobbled
hotdogs and soda pop. Mothers soothed wailing babies. Men strolled about with young
children perched on their shoulders. The Boy Scouts were present - an entire troop. And
the middle-aged membership of a women's bridge club arrived en masse. Mr. J. P. (Jap)
Adams, head of the local Veterans Commission office, appeared, attired in a tweed
garment so oddly tailored that a friend yelled, "Hey, Jap! What ya doin' wearin' ladies'
clothes?" - for Mr. Adams, in his haste to reach the scene, had unwittingly donned his
secretary's coat. A roving radio reporter interviewed sundry other townsfolk, asking
them what, in their opinion, the proper retribution would be for "the doers of such a
dastardly deed," and while most of his subjects said gosh or gee whiz, one student
replied, "I think they ought to be locked in the same cell for the rest of their lives. Never
allowed any visitors. Just sit there staring at each other till the day they die." And a
tough, strutty little man said, "I believe in capital punishment. It's like the Bible says an eye for an eye. And even so we're two pair short!"
As long as the sun lasted, the day had been dry and warm - October weather in
January. But when the sun descended, when the shadows of the square's giant shade
trees met and combined, the coldness as well as darkness numbed the crowd. Numbed
and pruned it; by six o'clock, fewer than three hundred persons remained. Newsmen,
cursing the undue delay, stamped their feet and slapped frozen ears with ungloved,
freezing hands. Suddenly, a murmuring arose on the south side of the square. The cars
were coming.
Although none of the journalists anticipated violence, several had predicted
shouted abuse. But when the crowd caught sight of the murderers, with their escort of
blue-coated highway patrol-men, it fell silent, as though amazed to find them humanly
shaped. The handcuffed men, white-faced and blinking blindly, glistened in the glare of
flashbulbs and floodlights. The cameramen, pursuing the prisoners and the police into
the courthouse and up three flights of stairs, photographed the door of the county jail
slamming shut.
No one lingered, neither the press corps nor any of the townspeople. Warm
rooms and warm suppers beckoned them, and as they hurried away, leaving the cold
square to the two gray cats, the miraculous autumn departed too; the year's first snow
began to fall.
IV. THE CORNER
Institutional dourness and cheerful domesticity coexist on the fourth floor of the Finney
County Courthouse. The presence of the county jail supplies the first quality, while the
so-called Sheriff's Residence, a pleasant apartment separated from the jail proper by
steel doors and a short corridor, accounts for the second.
In January, 1960, the Sheriff's Residence was not in fact occupied by the sheriff,
Earl Robinson, but by the undersheriff and his wife, Wendle and Josephine ("Josie")
Meier. The Meiers, who had been married more than twenty years, were very much
alike: tall people with weight and strength to spare, with wide hands, square and calm
and kindly faces - the last being most true of Mrs. Meier, a direct and practical woman
who nevertheless seems illuminated by a mystical serenity. As the undersheriff's
helpmate her hours are long; between five in the morning, when she begins the day by
reading a chapter in the Bible, and 10: 00p. m., her bedtime, she cooks and sews for the
prisoners!, darns, does their laundry, takes splendid care of her husband, and looks after
their five-room apartment, with its gemutlich melange of plump hassocks and squashy
chairs and cream-colored lace window curtains. The Meiers have a daughter, an only
child, who is married and lives in Kansas City, so the couple live alone - or, as Mrs.
Meier more correctly puts it: "Alone except for whoever happens to be in the ladies'
cell."
The jail contains six cells; the sixth, the one reserved for female prisoners, is
actually an isolated unit situated inside the Sheriff's Residence - indeed, it adjoins the
Meiers' kitchen. "But," says Josie Meier, "that don't worry me. I enjoy the company.
Having somebody to talk to while I'm doing my kitchen work. Most of these women,
you got to feel sorry for them. Just met up with Old Man Trouble is all. Course Hickock
and Smith was a different matter. Far as I know, Perry Smith was the first man ever
stayed in the ladies' cell. The reason was, the sheriff wanted to keep him and Hickock
separated from each other until after their trial. The afternoon they brought them in, I
made six apple pies and baked some bread and all the while kept track of the goings-on
down there on the Square. My kitchen window overlooks the Square; you couldn't want
a better view. I'm no judge of crowds, but I'd guess there were several hundred people
waiting to see the boys that killed the Clutter family. I never met any of the Clutters
myself, but from everything I've ever heard about them they must have been very fine
people. What happened to them is hard to forgive, and I know Wendle was worried how
the crowd might act when they caught sight of Hickock and Smith. He was afraid
somebody might try to get at them. So I kind of had my heart in my mouth when I saw
the cars arrive, saw the reporters, all the newspaper fellows running and pushing; but by
then it was dark, after six, and bitter cold - more than half the crowd had given up and
gone home. The ones that stayed, they didn't say boo. Only stared.
"Later, when they brought the boys upstairs, the first one I saw was Hickock. He
had on light summer pants and just an old cloth shirt. Surprised he didn't catch
pneumonia, considering how cold it was. But he looked sick all right. White as a ghost.
Well, it must be a terrible experience - to be stared at by a horde of strangers, to have to
walk among them, and them knowing who you are and what you did. Then they brought
up Smith. I had some supper ready to serve them in their cells, hot soup and coffee and
some sandwiches and pie. Ordinarily, we feed just twice a day. Breakfast at seventhirty, and at four-thirty we serve the main meal, I didn't want those fellows going to
bed on an empty stomach; seemed to me they must be feeling bad enough without that.
But when I took Smith his supper, carried it in on a tray, he said he wasn't hungry. He
was looking out the window of the ladies' cell. Standing with his back to me. That
window has the same view as my kitchen window: trees and the Square and the tops of
houses. I told him, 'Just taste the soup, it's vegetable, and not out of a can. I made it
myself. The pie, too.' In about an hour I went back for the tray and he hadn't touched a
crumb. He was still at the window. Like he hadn't moved. It was snowing, and I
remember saying it was the first snow of the year, and how we'd had such a beautiful
long autumn right till then. And now the snow had come. And then I asked him if he
had any special dish he liked; if he did I'd try and fix it for him the next day. He turned
around and looked at me. Suspicious, like I might be mocking him. Then he said
something about a movie - he had such a quiet way of speaking, almost a whisper.
Wanted to know if I had seen a movie. I forget the name, anyway I hadn't seen it: never
have been much for picture shows. He said this show took place in Biblical times, and
there was a scene where a man was flung off a balcony, thrown to a mob of men and
women, who tore him to pieces. And he said that was what came to mind when he saw
the crowd on the Square. The man being torn apart. And the idea that maybe that was
what they might do to him. Said it scared him so bad his stomach still hurt. Which was
why he couldn't eat. Course he was wrong, and I told him so - nobody was going to
harm him, regardless of what he'd done; folks around here aren't like that.
"We talked some, he was very shy, but after a while he said, 'One thing I really
like is Spanish rice.' So I promised to make him some, and he smiled kind of, and I
decided - well, he wasn't the worst young man I ever saw. That night, after I'd gone to
bed, said as much to my husband. But Wendle snorted. Wendle wasn't of the first on the
scene after the crime was discovered. He said he wished I'd been out at the Clutter place
when they found the bodies. Then I could've judged for myself just how gentle Mr.
Smith was. Him and his friend Hickock. He said they'd cut out your heart and never bat
an eye. There was no denying it - not with four people dead. And I lay awake
wondering if either one was bothered by it - the thought of those four graves."
A month passed, and another, and it snowed some part of almost every day. Snow
whitened the wheat-tawny countryside, heaped the streets of the town, hushed them.
The topmost branches of a snow-laden elm brushed against the window of the
ladies' cell. Squirrels lived in the tree, and after weeks of tempting them with leftover
breakfast scraps, Perry lured one off a branch onto the window sill and through the bars.
It was a male squirrel with auburn fur. He named it Red, and Red soon settled down,
apparently content to share his friend's captivity. Perry taught him several tricks: to play
with a paper ball, to beg, to perch on Perry's shoulder. All this helped to pass time, but
still there were many long hours the prisoner had to lose. He was not allowed to read
newspapers, and he was bored by the magazines Mrs. Meier lent him: old issues of
Good Housekeeping and McCalls. But he found things to do: file his fingernails with an
emery board, buff them to a silky pink sheen; comb and comb his lotion-soaked and
scented hair; brush his teeth three and four times a day; shave and shower almost as
often. And he kept the cell, which contained a toilet, a shower stall, a cot, a chair, a
table, as neat as his person. He was proud of a compliment Mrs. Meier had paid him.
"Look!" she had said, pointing at his bunk. "Look at that blanket! You could bounce
dimes." But it was at the table that he spent most of his waking life; he ate his meals
there, it was where he sat when he sketched portraits of Red, drew flowers, and the face
of Jesus, and the faces and torsos of imaginary women; and it was where, on cheap
sheets of ruled paper, he made diary-like notes of day-to-day occurrences.
Thursday 7 January. Dewey here. Brought carton of cigarettes. Also typed
copies of Statement for my signature. I declined.
The "Statement," a seventy-eight-page document which he had dictated to the
Finney County court stenographer, recounted admissions already made to Alvin Dewey
and Clarence Duntz. Dewey, speaking of his encounter with Perry Smith on this
particular day, remembered that he had been very surprised when Perry refused to sign
the statement. "It wasn't important: I could always testify in court as to the oral
confession he'd made to Duntz and myself. And of course Hickock had given us a
signed confession while we were still in Las Vegas - the one in which he accused Smith
of having committed all four murders. But I was curious. I asked Perry why he'd
changed his mind. And he said, 'Everything in my statement is accurate except for two
details. If you'll let me correct those items then I'll sign it.' Well, I could guess the items
he meant. Because the only serious difference between his story and Hickock's was that
he denied having executed the Clutters single-handed. Until now he'd sworn Hickock
killed Nancy and her mother.
"And I was right! - that's just what he wanted to do: admit that Hickock had been
telling the truth, and that it was he, Perry Smith, who had shot and killed the whole
family. He said he'd lied about it because, in his words, 'I wanted to fix Dick for being
such a coward. Dropping his guts all over the goddam floor.' And the reason he'd
decided to set the record straight wasn't that he suddenly felt any kinder toward
Hickock. According to him he was doing it out of consideration for Hickock's parents said he was sorry for Dick's mother. Said, 'She's a real sweet person. It might be some
comfort to her to know Dick never pulled the trigger. None of it would have happened
without him, in a way it was mostly his fault, but the fact remains I'm the one who
killed them.' But I wasn't certain I believed it. Not to the extent of letting him alter his
statement. As I say, we weren't dependent on a formal confession from Smith to prove
any part of our case. With or without it, we had enough to hang them ten times over."
Among the elements contributing to Dewey's confidence was the recovery of the
radio and pair of binoculars the murderers had stolen from the Clutter house and
subsequently disposed of in Mexico City (where, having flown there for the purpose, K.
B. I. Agent Harold Nye traced them to a pawnshop). Moreover, Smith, while dictating
his statement, had revealed the where-abouts of other potent evidence. "We hit the
highway and drove east," he'd said, in the process of describing what he and Hickock
had done after fleeing the murder scene. "Drove like hell, Dick driving. I think we both
felt very high. I did. Very high, and very relieved at the same time. Couldn't stop
laughing, neither one of us; suddenly it all seemed very funny - I don't know why, it just
did. But the gun was dripping blood, and my clothes were stained; there was even blood
in my hair. So we turned off onto a country road, and drove maybe eight miles till we
were way out on the prairie. You could hear coyotes. We smoked a cigarette, and Dick
went on making jokes about what had happened back there. I got out of the car, and
siphoned some water out of the water tank and washed the blood off the gun barrel.
Then I scraped a hole in the ground with Dick's hunting knife, the one I used on Mr.
Clutter, and buried in it the empty shells and all the left over nylon cord and adhesive
tape. After that we drove till we came to U. S .83, and headed east toward Kansas City
and Olathe. Around dawn Dick stopped at one of those picnic places: what they call rest
areas - where they have open fireplaces. We built a fire and burned stuff. The gloves
we'd worn, and my shirt. Dick said he wished we had an ox to roast; he said he'd never
been so hungry. It was almost noon when we got to Olathe. Dick dropped me at my
hotel, and went on home to have Sunday dinner with his family. Yes, he took the knife
with him. The gun, too."
K. B. I. agents, dispatched to Hickock's home, found the knife inside a fishingtackle box and the shotgun still casually propped against a kitchen wall. (Hickock's
father, who refused to believe his "boy" could have taken part in such a "horrible
crime," insisted the gun hadn't been out of the house since the first week in November,
and therefore could not be the death weapon). As for the empty cartridge shells, the cord
and tape, these were retrieved with the aid of Virgil Pietz, a county-highway employee,
who, working with a road grader in the area pinpointed by Perry Smith, shaved away
the earth inch by inch until the buried articles were uncovered. Thus the last loose
strings were tied, the K. B. I. had now assembled an unshakable case, for tests
established that the shells had been discharged by Hickock's shotgun, and remnants of
cord and tape were of a piece with the material to bind and silence the victims.
Monday 11 January, Have a lawyer. Mr. Fleming. Old man with red tie.
Informed by the defendants that they were without funds to hire legal counsel,
the court, in the person of Judge Roland H. Tate, appointed as their representatives two
local lawyers, Mr. Arthur Fleming and Mr. Harrison Smith. Fleming, seventy-one, a
former mayor of Garden City, a short man who enlivens an unsensational appearance
with rather conspicuous neckwear, resisted the assignment. "I do not desire to serve," he
told the judge. "But if the court sees fit to appoint me, then of course I have no choice."
Hickock's attorney, Harrison Smith, forty-five, six feet tall, a golfer, an Elk of exalted
degree, accepted the task with resigned grace: "Someone has to do it. And I'll do my
best. Though I doubt that'll make me too popular around here."
Friday 15 January. Mrs. Meter playing radio in her kitchen and I heard man say
the county attorney -will seek Death Penalty. "The rich never hang. Only the poor and
friendless."
In making his announcement, the county attorney, Duane West, an ambitious,
portly young man of twenty-eight who looks forty and sometimes fifty, told newsmen,
"If the case goes before a jury, I will request the jury, upon finding them guilty, to
sentence them to the death penalty. If the defendants waive right to jury trial and enter a
plea of guilty before the judge, I will request the judge to set the death penalty. This was
a matter I knew I would be called upon to decide, and my decision has not been arrived
at lightly. I feel that due to the violence of the crime and the apparent utter lack of
mercy shown the victims, the only way the public can be absolutely protected is to have
the death penalty set against these defendants. This is especially true since in Kansas
there is no such thing as life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Persons
sentenced to life imprisonment actually serve, on the average, less then fifteen years."
Wednesday 20 January. Asked to take lie-detector in regards to this Walker deal.
A case like the Clutter case, crimes of that magnitude, arouse the interest of
lawmen everywhere, particularly those investigators burdened with unsolved but similar
crimes, for it is always possible that the solution to one mystery will solve another.
Among the many officers intrigued by events in Garden City was the sheriff of Sarasota
County, Florida, which includes Osprey, a fishing settlement not far from Tampa, and
the scene, slightly more than a month after the Clutter tragedy, of the quadruple slaying
on an isolated cattle ranch which Smith had read about in a Miami newspaper on
Christmas Day. The victims were again four members of a family: a young couple, Mr.
and Mrs. Clifford Walker, and their two children, a boy and a girl, all of whom had been
shot in the head with a rifle. Since the Clutter murderers had spent the night of
December 19, the date of the murders, in a Tallahassee hotel, Osprey's sheriff, who had
no other leads whatever, was understandably anxious to have the two men questioned
and a polygraph examination administered. Hickock consented to take the test and so
did Smith, who told Kansas authorities, "I remarked at the time, I said to Dick, I'll bet
whoever did this must be somebody that read about what happened out here in Kansas.
A nut." The results of the test, to the dismay of Osprey's sheriff as well as Alvin Dewey,
who does not believe in exceptional coincidences, were decisively negative. The
murderer of the Walker family remains unknown.
Sunday 31 January. Dick's dad here to visit Dick. Said hello when I saw him go
past [the cell door] but he kept going. Could be he never heard me. Understand from
Mrs. At [Meier] that Mrs. H [Hickock] didn't come because she felt too bad to. Snowing
like a bitch. Dreamed last night I was up in Alaska with Dad - woke up in a puddle of
cold urine!!!
Mr. Hickock spent three hours with his son. Afterward he walked through the
snow to the Garden City depot, a work-worn old man, stooped and thinned-down by the
cancer that would kill him a few months hence. At the station, while waiting for a
homeward-bound train, he spoke to a reporter: "I seen Dirk uh-huh. We had a long talk.
And I can guarantee you it's not like people say. Or what's put in the papers. Those boys
didn't go to that house planning to do violence. My boy didn't. He may have had some
bad sides, but he's nowhere near bad as that. Smitty's the one. Dick told me he didn't
even know it when Smitty attacked the man [Mr. Clutter], cut his throat. Dick wasn't
even in the same room. He only run in when he heard them struggling. Dick was
carrying his shotgun, and how he described how Smitty took my shotgun and just blew
that man's head off,' And he says, 'Dad, I ought to have grabbed back the gun and shot
Smitty dead. Killed him 'fore he killed the rest of that family. If I'd done it I'd be better
off than I am now.' I guess he would, too. How it is, the way folks feel, he don't stand no
chance, They'll hang them both. And," he added, fatigue and defeat glazing his eyes,
"having your boy hang, knowing he will, nothing worse can happen to a man."
Neither Perry Smith's father nor sister wrote him or came to see him. Tex John
Smith was presumed to be prospecting for somewhere in Alaska - though lawmen,
despite great effort, been unable to locate him. The sister had told investigators she was
afraid of her brother, and requested that they please not let him know her present
address. (When informed of this, Smith smiled slightly and said, "I wish she'd been in
that house that night. What a sweet scene!")
Except for the squirrel, except for the Meiers and an occasional consultation
with his lawyer, Mr. Fleming, Perry was very much alone. He missed Dick. Many
thoughts of Dick, he wrote one day in his make shift diary. Since their arrest they had
not been allowed to communicate, and that, freedom aside, was what he most desired to talk to Dick, be with him again. Dick was not the "hard rock" he'd once thought him:
"pragmatic,"
"virile,"
"a real brass boy"; he'd proven himself to be "pretty weak and shallow,"
"a coward." Still, of everyone in all the world, this was the person to whom he
was closest at that moment, for they at least were of the same species, brothers in the
breed of Cain; separated from him, Perry felt "all by myself. Like somebody covered
with sores. Somebody only a big nut would have anything to do with. "But then one
mid-February morning Perry received a letter. It was postmarked Reading, Mass., and it
read: Dear Perry, I was sorry to hear about the trouble you are in and I decided to write
and let you know that I remember you and would like to help you in any way that I can.
In case you don't remember my name, Don Cullivan, I've enclosed a picture taken at
about the time we met. When I first read about you in the news recently I was startled
and then I began to think back to those days when I knew you. While we were never
close personal friends I can remember you a lot more clearly than most fellows I met in
the Army. It must have been about the fall of 1951 when you were assigned to the 761st
Engineer Light Equipment Company at Fort Lewis, Washington. You were short (I'm
not much taller), solidly built, dark with a heavy shock of black hair and a grin on your
face almost all the time. Since you had lived in Alaska quite a few of the fellows used to
call you "Eskimo." One of my first recollections of you was at a Company inspection in
which all the footlockers were open for inspection. As I recall it all the footlockers were
in order, even yours, except that the inside cover of your footlocker was plastered with
pictures of pin-up girls. The rest of us were sure you were in for trouble. But the
inspecting officer took it in stride and when it was all over and he let it pass I think we
all felt you were a nervy guy. I remember that you were a fairly good pool player and I
can picture you quite clearly in the Company day room at the pool table. You were one
of the best truck drivers in the outfit. Remember the Army field problems we went out
on? On one trip that took place in the winter I remember that we each were assigned to a
truck for the duration of the problem. In our outfit, Army trucks had no heaters and it
used to get pretty cold in those cabs. I remember you cutting a hole in the floor-boards
of your truck in order to let the heat from the engine come into the cab. The reason I
remember this so well is the impression it made on me because "mutilation" of Army
property was a crime for which you could get severely punished. Of course I was pretty
green in the Army and probably afraid to stretch the rules even a little bit, but I can
remember you grinning about it (and keeping warm) while I worried about it (and
froze). I recall that you bought a motorcycle, and vaguely remember you had some
trouble with it - chased by the police? - crackup? Whatever it was, it was the first time I
realized the wild streak in you. Some of my recollections may be wrong; this was over
eight years ago and I only knew you for a period of about eight months. From what I
remember, though, I got along with you very well and rather liked you. You always
seemed cheerful and cocky, you were good at your Army work and I can't remember
that you did much griping. Of course you were apparently quite wild but I never knew
too much about that. But now you are in real trouble. I try to imagine what you are like
now. What you think about. When first I read about you I was stunned. I really was. But
then I put the paper down and turned to something else. But the thought of you returned.
I wasn't satisfied, just to forget. I am, or try to be, fairly religious [Catholic]. I wasn't
always. I used to just drift along with little thought about the only important thing there
is. I never considered death or the possibility of a life hereafter. I was too much alive:
car, college, dating, etc. But my kid brother died of leukemia when he was just 17 years
old. He knew he was dying and afterwards I used to wonder what he thought about. And
now I think of you, and wonder what you think about. I didn't know what to say to my
brother in the last weeks before he died. But I know what I'd say now. And this is why I
am writing you: because God made you as well as me and He loves you just as He loves
me, and for the little we know of God's will what has happened to you could have
happened to me.
Your friend, Don Cullivan.
The name meant nothing, but Perry at once recognized the face in the
photograph of a young soldier with crew-cut hair and round, very earnest eyes. He read
the letter many times; though he found the religious allusions unpersuasive ("I've tried
to believe, but I don't, I can't, and there's no use pretending"), he was thrilled by it. Here
was someone offering help, a sane and respectable man who had once known and liked
him, a man who signed himself friend. Gratefully, in great haste, he started a reply:
"Dear Don, Hell yes I remember Don Cullivan..."
Hickock's cell had no window; he faced a wide corridor and the faces of other
cells. But he was not isolated, there were people to talk to, a plentiful turnover of
drunkards, forgers, wife-beaters, and Mexican vagrants; and Dick, with his light-hearted
"con-man" patter, his sex anecdotes and gamy jokes, was popular with the inmates
(though there was one who had no use for him whatever - an old man who hissed at
him: "Killer! Killer!" and who once drenched him with a bucketful of dirty scrub water).
Outwardly, Hickock seemed to one and all an unusually untroubled young man.
When he was not socializing or sleeping, he lay on his cot smoking or chewing gum and
reading sports magazines or paperback thrillers. Often he simply lay there whistling old
favorites ("You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby,"
"Shuffle Off to Buffalo"), and staring at an un-shaded light bulb that burned day
and night in the ceiling of the cell. He hated the light bulb's monotonous surveillance; it
disturbed his sleep and, more explicitly, endangered the success of a private project escape. For the prisoner was not as unconcerned as he appeared to be, or as resigned; he
intended taking every step possible to avoid "a ride on the Big Swing." Convinced that
such a ceremony would be the outcome of any trial - certainly any trial held in the State
of Kansas - he had decided to "bust jail. Grab a car and raise dust." But first he must
have a weapon; and over a period of weeks he'd been making one: a "shiv," an
instrument very like an ice pick - something that would fit with lethal niceness between
the shoulder-blades of Undersheriff Meier. The weapon's components, a piece of wood
and a length of hard wire, were originally part of a toilet brush he'd confiscated,
dismantled and hidden under his mattress. Late at night, when the only noises were
snores and coughs and the mournful whistle-wailings of Santa Fe trains rumbling
through the darkened town, he honed the wire against the cell's concrete floor. And
while he worked he schemed.
Once, the first winter after he had finished high school, Hickock had hitchhiked
across Kansas and Colorado: "This was when I was looking for a job. Well, I was riding
in a truck, and the driver, me and him got into a little argument, no reason exactly, but
he beat up on me. Shoved me out. Just left me there. High the hell up in the Rockies. It
was sleeting like, and I walked miles, my nose bleeding like fifteen pigs. Then I come to
a bunch of cabins on a wooded slope. Summer cabins, all locked up and empty that time
of year. And I broke into one of them. There was firewood and canned goods, even
some whiskey. I laid up there over a week, and it was one of the best times I ever knew.
Despite the fact my nose hurt so and my eyes were green and yellow. And when the
snow stopped the sun came out. You never saw such skies. Like Mexico. If Mexico was
in a cold climate. I hunted through the other cabins and found some smoked hams and a
radio and a rifle. It was great. Out all day with a gun. With the sun in my face. Boy, I
felt good. I felt like Tarzan. And every night I ate beans and fried ham and rolled up in a
blanket by the fire and fell asleep listening to music on the radio. Nobody came near the
place. I bet I could've stayed till spring." If the escape succeeded, that was the course
Dick had determined upon - to head for the Colorado mountains, and find there a cabin
where he could hide until spring (alone, of course; Perry's future did not concern him).
The prospect of so idyllic an interim added to the inspired stealth with which he whetted
his wire, filed it to a Umber stiletto fineness.
Thursday 10 March. Sheriff had a, shake-out. Searched through all the cells and found a
shiv tucked under D's mattress. Wonder what he had in mind (smile).
Not that Perry really considered it a smiling matter, for Dick, flourishing a
dangerous weapon, could have played a decisive role in plans he himself was forming.
As the weeks went by he had become familiar with life on Courthouse Square, its
habitués and their habits. The cats, for example: the two thin gray toms who appeared
with every twilight and prowled the Square, stopping to examine the cars parked around
its periphery - behavior puzzling to him until Mrs. Meier explained that the cats were
hunting for dead birds caught in the vehicles' engine grilles. Thereafter it pained him to
watch their maneuvers: "Because most of my life I've done what they're doing. The
equivalent."
And there was one man of whom Perry had grown especially aware, a robust,
upright gentleman with hair like a gray-and-silver skullcap; his face, filled out, firmjawed, was somewhat cantankerous in repose, the mouth down-curved, the eyes
downcast as though in mirthless reverie - a picture of unsparing sternness. And yet this
was at least a partially inaccurate impression, for now and again the prisoner glimpsed
him as he paused to talk to other men, joke with them and laugh, and then he seemed
carefree, jovial, generous: "The kind of person who might see the human side" - an
important attribute, for the man was Roland H. Tate, Judge of the 32nd Judicial District,
the jurist who would preside at the trial of the State of Kansas versus Smith and
Hickock. Tate, as Perry soon learned, was an old and awesome name in western Kansas.
The judge was rich, he raised horses, he owned much land, and his wife was said to be
very beautiful. He was the father of two sons, but the younger had died, a tragedy that
greatly affected the parents and led them to adopt a small boy who had appeared in
court as an abandoned, homeless child. "He sounds soft-hearted to me," Perry once said
to Mrs. Meier. "Maybe he'll give us a break."
But that was not what Perry really believed; he believed what he'd written Don
Cullivan, with whom he now corresponded regularly: his crime was "unforgivable," and
he fully expected to "climb those thirteen steps." However, he was not altogether
without hope, for he too had plotted an escape. It depended upon a pair of young men
that he had often observed observing him. One was red-haired, the other dark.
Sometimes, standing in the Square under the tree that touched the cell window, they
smiled and signaled to him - or so he imagined. Nothing was ever said, and always,
after perhaps a minute, they drifted away. But the prisoner had convinced himself that
the young men, possibly motivated by a desire for adventure, meant to help him escape.
Accordingly, he drew a map of the Square, indicating the points at which a "getaway
car" could most advantageously be stationed. Beneath the map he wrote: I need a
Hacksaw Blade. Nothing else. But do you realize the consequences if you get caught
(nod your head if you do)? It could mean a long stretch in prison. Or you might get
killed. All for someone you don't know. YOU BETTER THINK IT OVER!! Seriously!
Besides, how do I know I can trust you? How do I know it isn't a trick to get me out
there and gun me down? What about Hickock? All preparations must include him.
Perry kept this document on his desk, wadded and ready to drop out the window
the next time the young men appeared. But they never did; he never saw them again.
Eventually, he wondered if perhaps he had invented them (a notion that he "might not
be normal, maybe insane" had troubled him " even when I was little, and my sisters
laughed because I liked moonlight. To hide in the shadows and watch the moon").
Phantoms or not, he ceased to think of the young men. Another method of escape,
suicide, replaced them in his musings; and despite the jailer's precautions (no mirror, no
belt or tie or shoelaces), he had devised a way to do it. For he also was furnished with a
ceiling bulb that burned eternally, but, unlike Hickock, he had in his cell a broom, and
by pressing the broom-brush against the bulb he could unscrew it. One night he
dreamed that he'd unscrewed the bulb, broken it, and with the broken glass cut his wrists
and ankles. "I felt ill breath and light leaving me," he said, in a subsequent description
of his sensations. "The walls of the cell fell away, the sky came down, I saw the big
yellow bird."
Throughout his life - as a child, poor and meanly treated, as a foot-loose youth,
as an imprisoned man - the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soared across
Perry's dreams, an avenging angel who savaged his enemies or, as now, rescued him in
moments of mortal danger: "She lifted me, I could have been light as a mouse, we went
up, up, I could see the Square below, men running, yelling, the sheriff shooting at us,
everybody sore as hell because I was free, I was flying, I was better than any of them"
The trial was scheduled to start on March 22, 1960. In the weeks preceding that date the
defense attorneys frequently consulted the defendants. The advisability of requesting a
change of venue was discussed, but as the elderly Mr. Fleming warned his client, "It
wouldn't matter where in Kansas the trial was held. Sentiment's the same all over the
state. We're probably better off in Garden City. This is a religious community. Eleven
thousand population and twenty-two churches. And most of the ministers are opposed to
capital punishment, say it's immoral, unchristian; even the Reverend Cowan, the
Clutters' own minister and a close friend of the family, he's been preaching against the
death penalty in this very case. Re-member, all we can hope is to save your lives. I think
we stand as good a chance here as anywhere."
Soon after the original arraignment of Smith and Hickock, their advocates
appeared before Judge Tate to argue a motion urging comprehensive psychiatric
examinations for the accused. Specifically, the court was asked to permit the state
hospital in Larned, Kansas, a mental institution with maximum-security facilities, to
take custody of the prisoners for the purpose of ascertaining whether either or both were
"insane, imbeciles or idiots, unable to comprehend their position and aid in their
defense."
Larned is a hundred miles east of Garden City; Hickock's attorney, Harrison
Smith, informed the court that he had driven there the previous day and conferred with
several of the hospital's staff; "We have no qualified psychiatrists in our own
community. In fact, Larned is the only place within a radius of two hundred and twentyfive miles where you'll find such men - doctors trained to make serious psychiatric
evaluations. That takes time. Four to eight weeks. But the personnel with whom I
discussed the matter said they were willing to start work at once; and, of course, being a
state institution it won't cost the county a nickel."
This plan was opposed by the special assistant prosecuting attorney, Logan
Green, who, certain that "temporary insanity" was the defense his antagonists would
attempt to sustain in the forth-coming trial, feared that the ultimate outcome of the
proposal would be, as he predicted in private conversation, the appearance on the
witness stand of a "pack of head-healers" sympathetic to the defendants ("Those
fellows, they're always crying over the killers. Never a thought for the victims"). Short,
pugnacious, a Kentuckian by birth, Green began by pointing out to the court that
Kansas' law, in regard to sanity, adheres to the M'Naghten Rule, the ancient British
importation which contends that if the accused knew the nature of his act, and knew it
was wrong, then he is mentally competent and responsible for his actions. Furthermore,
said, Green, there was nothing in the Kansas statutes indicating that the physicians
chosen to determine a defendant's mental condition must be of any particular
qualification: "Just plain doctors. Medical doctors in general practice. That's all the law
requires. We have sanity hearings in this county every year for the purpose of
committing people to the institution. We never call anybody in from Larned or
psychiatric institutions of any kind. Our own local physicians attend to the matter. It's
no great job to find whether a man is insane or an idiot or an imbecile... It is entirely
unnecessary, a waste of time to send the defendants to Larned."
In rebuttal, Counsel Smith suggested that the present situation was "far graver
than a simple sanity hearing in probate court. Two lives are at stake. Whatever their
crime, these men are entitled to examination by persons of training and experience.
Psychiatry," he added, pleading with the judge quite directly, "has matured rapidly in
the past twenty years. The Federal courts are beginning to keep in tune with this science
as related to people charged with criminal offenses. It just seems to me we have a
golden opportunity to face up to the new concepts in this field."
It was an opportunity the judge preferred to reject, for as a fellow jurist once
remarked, "Tate is what you might call a law-book lawyer, he never experiments, he
goes strictly by the text"; but the same critic also said of him, "If I were innocent, he's
the first man I'd want on the bench; if I was guilty, the last." Judge Tate did not entirely
deny the motion; rather, he did exactly all the law demanded by appointing a
commission of three Garden City doctors and directing them to pronounce a verdict
upon the mental capacities of the prisoners. (In due course the medical trio met the
accused and, after an hour or so of conversational prying, announced that neither man
suffered from any mental disorder. When told of their diagnosis, Perry Smith said,
"How would they know? They just wanted to be entertained. Hear all the morbid details
from the killer's own terrible lips. Oh, their eyes were shining." Hickock's attorney was
also angry; once more he traveled to Lamed State Hospital, where he appealed for the
unpaid services of a psychiatrist willing to go to Garden City and interview the
defendants. The one man who volunteered, Dr. W. Mitchell Jones, was exceptionally
competent; not yet thirty, a sophisticated specialist in criminal psychology and the
criminally insane who had worked and studied in Europe and the United States, he
agreed to examine Smith and Hickock, and, should his findings warrant it, testify in
their behalf.)
On the morning of March 14 counsels for the defense again stood before Judge
Tate, there on this occasion to plead for a postponement of the trial, which was then
eight days distant. Two reasons were given, the first was that a "most material witness,"
Hickock's father, was at present too ill to testify. The second was a subtler matter.
During the past week a boldly lettered notice had begun to appear in the town's shop
windows, and in banks, restaurants, and at the railroad station; and it read: H. W.
CLUTTER ESTATE AUCTION SALE 21 MARCH 1960 AT THE CLUTTER
HOMESTEAD. "Now," said Harrison Smith, addressing the bench, "I realize it is
almost impossible to prove prejudice. But this sale, an auction of the victim's estate,
occurs one week from today - in other words, the very day before the trial begins.
Whether that's prejudicial to the defendants I'm not able to state. But these signs,
coupled with newspaper advertisements, and advertisements on the radio, will be a
constant reminder to every citizen in the community, among whom one hundred and
fifty have been called as prospective jurors." Judge Tate was not impressed. He denied
the motion without comment.
Earlier in the year Mr. Clutter's Japanese neighbor, Hideo Ashida, had auctioned his
farming equipment and moved to Nebraska. The Ashida sale, which was considered a
success, attracted not quite a hundred customers. Slightly more than five thousand
people attended the Clutter auction. Holcomb's citizenry expected an unusual turnout the Ladies' Circle of the Holcomb Community Church had converted one of the Clutter
barns into a cafeteria stocked with two hundred homemade pies, two hundred and fifty
pounds of hamburger meat, and sixty pounds of sliced ham - but no one was prepared
for the largest auction crowd in the history of western Kansas. Cars converged on
Holcomb from half the counties in the state, and from Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas,
Nebraska. They came bumper to bumper down the lane leading to River Valley Farm. It
was the first time the public had been permitted to visit the Clutter place since the
discovery of the murders, a circumstance which explained the presence of perhaps a
third of the immense congregation - those who had come out of curiosity. And of course
the weather was an aid to attendance, for by mid-March winter's high snows have
dissolved, and the earth beneath, thoroughly thawed, has emerged as acre upon acre of
ankle-deep mud; there is not much a farmer can do until the ground hardens. "Land's so
wet and nasty," said Mrs. Bill Ramsey, the wife of a farmer. "Can't work no how. We
figured we might as well drive on out to the sale." Actually, it was a beautiful day.
Spring. Though mud abounded underfoot, the sun, so long shrouded by snow and cloud,
seemed an object freshly made, and the trees - Mr. Clutter's orchard of pear and apple
trees, the elms shading the lane - were lightly veiled in a haze of virginal green. The fine
lawn surrounding the Clutter house was also newly green, and trespassers upon it,
women anxious to have a closer look at the uninhabited home, crept across the grass and
peered through the windows as though hopeful but fearful of discerning, in the gloom
beyond the pleasant flower-print curtains, grim apparitions.
Shouting, the auctioneer praised his wares - tractors, trucks, wheelbarrows, nail
kegs and sledgehammers and unused lumber, milk buckets, branding irons, horses,
horseshoes, everything needed to run a ranch from rope and harness to sheep dip and tin
washtubs - it was the prospect of buying this merchandise at bargain prices that had
lured most of the crowd. But the hands of bidders flickered shyly - work-roughened
hands timid of parting with hard-earned cash; yet nothing went unsold, there was even
someone keen to acquire a bunch of rusty keys, and a youthful cowboy sporting paleyellow boots bought Kenyon Clutter's "coyote wagon," the dilapidated vehicle the dead
boy had used to harass coyotes, chase them on moonlit nights.
The stagehands, the men who hauled the smaller items on and off the
auctioneer's podium, were Paul Helm, Vie Irsik, and Alfred Stoecklein, each of them an
old, still-faithful employee of the late Herbert W. Clutter. Assisting at the disposal of his
possessions was their final service, for today was their last day at River Valley Farm;
the property had been leased to an Oklahoma rancher, and hence forward strangers
would live and work there. As the auction progressed, and Mr. Clutter's worldly domain
dwindled, gradually vanished, Paul Helm, remembering the burial of the murdered
family, said, "It's like a second funeral."
The last thing to go was the contents of the livestock corral, mostly horses,
including Nancy's horse, big, fat Babe, who was much beyond her prime. It was late
afternoon, school was out, and several schoolmates of Nancy's were among the
spectators when bidding on the horse began; Susan Kidwell was there. Sue, who had
adopted another of Nancy's orphaned pets, a cat, wished she could give Babe a home,
for she loved the old horse and knew how much Nancy had loved her. The two girls had
often gone riding together aboard Babe's wide back, jogged through the wheat fields on
hot summer evenings down to the river and into the water, the mare wading against the
current until, as Sue once described it, "the three of us were cool as fish." But Sue had
no place to keep a horse.
"I hear fifty... sixty-five... seventy...": the bidding was laggardly, nobody seemed
really to want Babe, and the man who got her, a Mennonite farmer who said he might
use her for plowing, paid seventy-five dollars. As he led her out of the corral, Sue
Kidwell ran forward; she raised her hand as though to wave goodbye, but instead
clasped it over her mouth.
The Garden City Telegram, on the eve of the trial's start, printed the following editorial:
"Some may think the eyes of the entire nation are on Garden City during this sensational
murder trial. But they are not. Even a hundred miles west of here in Colorado few
persons are even acquainted with the case - other than just remembering some members
of a prominent family were slain. This is a sad commentary on the state of crime in our
nation. Since the four members of the Clutter family were killed last fall, several other
such multiple murders have occurred in various parts of the country. Just during the few
days leading up to this trial at least three mass murder cases broke into the headlines. As
a result, this crime and trial are just one of many such cases people have read about and
forgotten...."
Although the eyes of the nation were not upon them, the demeanor of the event's
main participants, from the court recorder to the judge himself, was markedly self-aware
on the morning of the court's first convening. All four of the lawyers sported new suits;
the new shoes of the big-footed county attorney creaked and squealed with every step.
Hickock, too, was sharply dressed in clothes provided by his parents: trim blue-serge
trousers, a white shirt, a narrow dark-blue tie. Only Perry Smith, who owned neither
jacket nor tie, seemed sartorially misplaced. Wearing an open-necked shirt (borrowed
from Mr. Meier) and blue jeans rolled up at the cuffs, he looked as lonely and
inappropriate as a seagull in a wheat field.
The courtroom, an unpretentious chamber situated on the third floor of the
Finney County Courthouse, has dull white walls and furnishings of darkly varnished
wood. The spectator benches can seat perhaps one hundred and sixty persons. On
Tuesday morning, March 22, the benches were occupied exclusively by the all-male
venire of Finney County residents from which a jury was to be selected. Not many of
the summoned citizenry seemed anxious to serve (one potential juror, in conversation
with another, said, "They can't use me. I can't hear well enough." To which his friend,
after a bit of sly reflection, replied, "Come to think of it, my hearing's not too good
either"), and it was generally thought that the choosing of the jury would take several
days. As it turned out, the process was completed within four hours; moreover, the jury,
including two alternative members, was extracted from the first forty-four candidates.
Seven were rejected on pre-emptory challenge by the defense, and three were excused at
the request of the prosecution; another twenty won dismissal either because they
opposed capital punishment or because they admitted to having already formed a firm
opinion regarding the guilt of the defendants.
The fourteen men ultimately elected consisted of half a dozen farmers, a
pharmacist, a nursery manager, an airport employee, a well driller, two salesmen, a
machinist, and the manager of Ray's Bowling Alley. They were all family men (several
had five children or more), and were seriously affiliated with one or another of the local
churches. During the voir dire examination, four of them told the court that they had
been personally, though not intimately, acquainted with Mr. Clutter; but upon further
questioning, each said he did not feel this circumstance would hinder his ability to reach
an impartial verdict. The airport employee, a middle-aged man named N. L. Dunnan,
said, when asked his opinion of capital punishment, "Ordinarily I'm against it. But in
this case, no" - a declaration which, to some who heard it, seemed clearly indicative of
prejudice. Dunnan was nevertheless accepted as a juror.
The defendants were inattentive observers of the voir dire proceedings. The
previous day, Dr. Jones, the psychiatrist who had volunteered to examine them, had
interviewed them separately for approximately two hours: at the end of the interviews,
he had suggested that they each write for him an autobiographical statement, and it was
the act of composing these statements that occupied the accused throughout the hours
spent assembling a jury. Seated at opposite ends of their counsels' table, Hickock
worked with a pen and Smith with a pencil.
Smith wrote: I was born Perry Edward Smith Oct .27 1928 in Huntington, Elko
County, Nevada, which is situated way out in the boon docks, so to speak. I recall that
in 1929 our family had ventured to Juneau, Alaska. In my family were my brother Tex
Jr. (he later changed his name to James because of the ridicule of the name "Tex" & also
I believe he hated my father in his early years - my mother's doing). My sister Fern (She
also changed her name - to Joy). My sister Barbara. And myself. In Juneau, my father
was making bootleg hooch. I believe it was during this period my mother became
acquainted with alcohol. Mom & Dad began having quarrel. I remember my mother was
"entertaining" some sailors while my father was away. When he came home a fight
ensued, and my father, after a violent struggle, threw the sailors out & proceeded to beat
my mother. I was frightfully scared, in fact all us children were terrified. Crying. I was
scared because I thought my father was going to hurt me, also because he was beating
my mother. I really didn't understand why he was beating her but I felt she must have
done something dreadfully wrong. . . . The next thing I can vaguely recall is living in
Fort Bragg, Calif. My brother had been presented a B. B. gun. He had shot a
hummingbird, and after he had shot it he was sorry. I asked him to let me shoot the B.
B. gun. He pushed me away, telling me I was too small. It made me so mad I started to
cry. After I finished crying, my anger mounted again, and during the evening when the
B. B. gun was behind the chair my brother was sitting in, I grabbed it & held it to my
brother's ear & hollered BANG! My father (or mother) beat me and made me apologize.
My brother used to shoot at a big white horse ridden by a neighbor who went by our
place on his way to town. The neighbor caught my brother and I hiding in the bushes
and took us to Dad & we got a beating & brother had his B. B. gun taken away & I was
glad he had hit gun taken away!... This is about all I remember when we lived in Fort
Bragg (Oh! We kids used to jump from a hay-loft, holding an umbrella, onto a pile of
hay on the ground).... My next recollection is several years later when we were living in
Calif.? Nevada? I recall a very odious episode between my mother and a Negro. We
children slept on a porch in the summertime. One of our beds was directly under my
mother and father's room. Everyone of us kids had taken a good look through the partly
open curtain and seen what was going on. Dad had hired a Negro(Sam) to do odd jobs
around the farm, or ranch, while he was working somewhere down the road. He used to
come home late in the evening in his Model A truck. I do not recall the chain of events
but assumed Dad had known or suspected what was happening. It ended in a separation
between Mom & Dad & Mom took us kids to San Francisco. She run off with Dad's
truck & all of the many souvenirs he brought from Alaska. I believe this was in 1935
(?).... In Frisco I was continuously in trouble. I had started to run around with a gang, all
of which were older than myself. My mother was always drunk, never in a fit condition
to properly provide and care for us. I run as free & wild as a coyote. Their was no rule
or discipline, or anyone to show me right from wrong I came & went as I pleased - until
my first encounter with Trouble. I was in & out of Detention Homes many times for
running away from home & stealing. I remember one place I was sent to. I had weak
kidneys & wet the bed every night. This was very humiliating to me, but I couldn't
control myself. I was very severely beaten by the cottage mistress, who had called me
names and made fun of me in front of all the boys. She used to come around at all hours
of the night to see if I wet the bed. She would throw back the covers & furiously beat
me with a large black leather belt - pull me out of bed by my hair & drag me to the
bathroom & throw me in the tub & turn the cold water on & tell me to wash myself and
the sheets. Every night was a nightmare. Later on she thought it was very funny to put
some ointment on my penis. This was almost unbearable. It burned something terrible.
She was later discharged from her job. But this never changed my mind about her &
what I could have done to her & all the people who made fun of me.
Then, because Dr. Jones had told him he must have the statement that very
afternoon, Smith skipped forward to early adolescence and the years he and his father
had lived together, the two of them wandering all over the West and Far West,
prospecting, trapping, doing odd jobs: I loved my father but there were times when this
love and affection I had for him drained from my heart like wasted water. Whenever he
would not try to understand my problems. Give me a little consideration & voice &
responsibility. I had to get away from him. When I was sixteen I joined the Merchant
Marine. In 1948 I joined the army - the recruiting officer gave me a break and upped my
test. From this time on I started to realize the importance of an education. This only
added to the hatred and bitterness I held for others. I began to get into fights. I threw a
Japanese policeman off a bridge into the water. I was court-martialed for demolishing a
Japanese cafe. I was court-martialed again in Kyoto, Japan, for stealing a Japanese
taxicab. I was in the army almost four years. I had many violent outbursts of anger
while I served time in Japan & Korea. I was in Korea 15 months, was rotated and sent
back to the states - and was given special recognition as being the first Korean Vet to
come back to the territory of Alaska. Big write up, picture in paper, paid trip to Alaska
by air, all the trimmings.... I finished my army service in Ft. Lewis, Washington.
Smith's pencil sped almost indecipherably as he hurried toward more recent
history: the motorcycle accident that had crippled him, the burglary in Phillipsburg,
Kansas, that had led to his first prison sentence: ... I was sentenced to 5 to 10 years for
grand larceny, burglary and jailbreak. I felt I was very unjustly dealt with. I became
very bitter while I was in prison. Upon my release I was supposed to go to Alaska with
my father - I didn't go - I worked for a while in Nevada and Idaho - went to Las Vegas
and continued to Kansas where got into the situation I'm in now. No time for more.
He signed his name, and added a postscript: "Would like to speak to you again.
There's much I haven't said that may interest you. I have always felt a remarkable
exhilaration being among people with a purpose and sense of dedication to carry out
that purpose. I felt this about you in your presence."
Hickock did not write with his companion's intensity. He often stopped to listen
to the questioning of a prospective juror, or to stare at the faces around him particularly, and with plain displeasure, the muscular face of the county attorney, Duane
Wen, who was his own age, twenty-eight. But his statement, written in a stylized script
that looked like slanting rain, was finished before the court adjourned for the day: I will
try to tell you all I can about myself, though most of my early life is vague to me - up
until about my tenth birthday. My school years went quite the same as most other boy
my own age. I had my share of fights, girls, and other things that go with a growing boy.
My home life was also normal, but as I told you before, I was hardly ever allowed to
leave my yard and visit with playmates. My father was always strict about us boys [his
brother and him] in that line. Also I had to help my dad quite a lot around the house.... I
can only remember my mother and dad having one argument that amounted to anything.
What it was about, I don't know.... My dad bought me a bicycle once, and I believe that
I was the proudest boy in town. It was a girl's bike and he changed it over to a boy's. He
painted it all up and it looked like new. But I had a lot of toys when I was little, a lot for
the financial condition that my folks were in. We were always what you would call
semi-poor. Never down and out, but several times on the verge of it. My dad was a hard
worker and did his best to provide for us. My mother also was always a hard worker.
Her house was always neat, and we had clean clothes aplenty. I remember my dad used
to wear those old fashioned flat crown caps, and he would make me wear them too, and
I didn't like them.... In high-school I did real well, made above average grades the first
year or two. But then started falling off a little. I had a girl friend. She was a nice girl,
and I never once tried to touch her anyway but just kissing. It was a real clean
courtship.... While in school I participated in all the sports, and received 9 letters in all.
Basketball, football, track and baseball. My senior year was best. I never had any steady
girl, just played the field. That was when I had my first relationship with a girl. Of
course I told the boys that I'd had a lot of girls.... I got offers from two colleges to play
ball, but never attended any of them. After I graduated from school I went to work for
the Santa Fe railroad, and stayed until the following winter when I got laid off. The
following spring I got a job with the Roark Motor Company. I had been working there
about four months when I had an automobile wreck with a company car. I was in the
hospital several days with extensive head injuries. While I was in the condition I was in
I couldn't find another job, so I was unemployed most of the winter. Meantime, I had
met a girl and fallen in love. Her dad was a Baptist preacher and resented me going with
her. In July we were married. All hell broke loose from her dad until he learned she was
pregnant. But still he never wished me good luck and that has always gone against the
grain. After we were married, I worked at a service-station near Kansas City. I worked
from 8 at night till 8 in the morning. Sometimes my wife stayed with me all night - she
was afraid I couldn't keep awake, so she came to help me. Then I got an offer to work at
Perry Pontiac, which I gladly accepted. It was very satisfactory, though I didn't make a
lot of money - $75 a week. I got along good with the other men, and was well liked by
my boss. I worked there five years.... During my employment there was the beginning
of some of the lowest things I have ever done.
Here Hickock revealed his pedophiliac tendencies, and after describing several
sample experiences, wrote: I know it is wrong. But at the time I never give any thought
to whether it is right or wrong. The same with stealing. It seems to be an impulse. One
thing I never told you about the Clutter deal is this. Before I ever went to their house I
knew there would be a girl there. I think the main reason I went there was not to rob
them but to rape the girl. Because I thought a lot about it. That is one reason why I
never wanted to turn back when we started to. Even when I saw there was no safe. I did
make some advances toward the Clutter girl when I was there. But Perry never gave me
a chance. I hope no one finds this out but you, as I haven't even told my lawyer. There
were other things I should have told you, but I'm afraid of my people finding them out.
Because I am more ashamed of them (these things I did) than hanging.... I have had
sickness. I think caused from the car wreck I had. Spells of passing out, and sometimes I
would hemorrhage at the nose and left ear. I had one at some people's house by the
name of Crist - they live south of my parents. Not long ago I had a piece of glass work
out of my head. It came out the corner of my eye. My dad helped me to get it out.... I
figure I should tell you the things that led to my divorce, and things that caused me to
go to prison. It started the early part of 1957. My wife and I were living in an apartment
in Kansas City. I had quit my job at the auto-mobile company, and went into the garage
business for myself. I was renting the garage from a woman who had a daughter-in-law
named Margaret. I met this girl one day while I was at work, and we went to have a cup
of coffee. Her husband was away in the Marine Corps. To make a long story short, I
started going out with her. My wife sued for divorce. I began thinking I never really
loved my wife. Because if I had, I wouldn't have done all the things I'd done. So I never
fought the divorce. I started drinking, and was drunk for almost a month. I neglected my
business, spent more money than I earned, wrote bad checks, and in the end became a
thief. For this last I was sent to the penitentiary.... My lawyer said I should be truthful
with you as you can help me. And I need help, as you know.
The next day, Wednesday, was the proper start of the trial; it was also the first time
ordinary spectators were admitted into the courtroom, an area too small to accommodate
more than a modest percentage of those who applied at the door. The best seats had
been reserved for twenty members of the press, and for such special personages as
Hickock's parents and Donald Cullivan (who, at the request of Perry Smith's lawyer, had
traveled from Massachusetts to appear as a character witness in behalf of his former
Army friend). It had been rumored that the two surviving Clutter daughters would be
present; they were not, nor did they attend any subsequent session. The family was
represented by Mr. Clutter's younger brother, Arthur, who had driven a hundred miles to
be there. He told newsmen: "I just want to get a good look at them [Smith and Hickock].
I just want to see what kind of animals they are. The way I feel, I could tear them apart."
He took a seat directly behind the defendants, and fixed them with a gaze of unique
persistence, as though he planned to paint their portraits from memory. Presently, and it
was as if Arthur Clutter had willed him to do it, Perry Smith turned and looked at him and recognized a face very like the face of the man he had killed: the same mild eyes,
narrow lips, firm chin. Perry, who was chewing gum, stopped chewing; he lowered his
eyes, a minute elapsed, then slowly his jaws began to move again. Except for this
moment, Smith, and Hickock too, affected a courtroom attitude that was simultaneously
uninterested and disinterested; they chewed gum and tapped their feet with languid
impatience as the state summoned its first witness.
Nancy Ewalt. And after Nancy, Susan Kidwell. The young girls described what
they saw upon entering the Clutter house on Sunday, November 15: the quiet rooms, an
empty purse on a kitchen floor, sunshine in a bedroom, and their schoolmate, Nancy
Clutter, surrounded by her own blood. The defense waived cross-examination, a policy
they pursued with the next three witnesses (Nancy Ewalt's father, Clarence, and Sheriff
Earl Robinson, and the county coroner, Dr. Robert Fenton), each of whom added to the
narrative of events that sunny November morning: the discovery, finally, of all four
victims, and accounts of how they looked, and, from Dr. Fenton, a clinical diagnosis of
why - "Severe traumas to brain and vital cranial structures inflicted by a shotgun."
Then Richard G. Rohleder took the stand.
Rohleder is Chief Investigator of the Garden City Police Department. His hobby
is photography, and he is good at it. It was Rohleder who took the pictures that, when
developed, revealed Hickock's dusty footprints in the Clutter cellar, prints the camera
could discern, though not the human eye. And it was he who had photographed the
corpses, those death-scene images Alvin Dewey had continuously pondered while the
murders were still unsolved. The point of Rohleder's testimony was to establish the fact
of his having made these pictures, which the prosecution proposed to put into evidence.
But Hickock's attorney objected: "The sole reason the pictures are being introduced is to
prejudice and inflame the minds of the jurors." Judge Tate overruled the objection and
allowed the photographs into evidence, which meant they must be shown to the jury.
While this was being done, Hickock's father, addressing a journalist seated near
him, said, "The judge up there! I never seen a man so prejudiced. Just no sense having a
trial. Not with him in charge. Why, that man was a pallbearer at the funeral!" (Actually,
Tate was but slightly acquainted with the victims, and was not present at their funeral in
any capacity.) But Mr. Hickock's was the only voice raised in an exceedingly silent
courtroom. Altogether, there were seventeen prints, and as they were passed from hand
to hand, the jurors' expressions reflected the impact the pictures made: one man's cheeks
reddened, as if he had been slapped, and a few, after the first distressing glance,
obviously had no heart for the task; it was as though the photographs had pried open
their mind's eye, and forced them to at last really see the true and pitiful thing that had
happened to a neighbor and his wife and children. It amazed them, it made them angry,
and several of them - the pharmacist, the manager of the bowling alley - stared at the
defendants with total contempt.
The elder Mr. Hickock, wearily wagging his head, again and again murmured,
"No sense. Just no sense having a trial."
As the day's final witness, the prosecution had promised to pro-duce a "mystery
man." It was the man who had supplied the information that led to the arrest of the
accused: Floyd Wells, Hickock's former cellmate. Because he was still serving a
sentence at Kansas State Penitentiary, and therefore was in danger of retaliation from
other inmates, Wells had never been publicly identified as the informer. Now, in order
that he might safely testify at the trial, he had been removed from the prison and lodged
in a small jail in an adjacent county. Nevertheless, Wells' passage across the courtroom
toward the witness stand was oddly stealthy - as though he expected to encounter an
assassin along the way - and, as he walked past Hickock, Hickock's lips writhed as he
whispered a few atrocious words. Wells pretended not to notice; but like a horse that has
heard the hum of a rattlesnake, he shied away from the betrayed man's venomous
vicinity. Taking the stand, he stared straight ahead, a somewhat chinless little farm
boyish fellow wearing a very decent dark-blue suit which the State of Kansas had
bought for the occasion - the state being concerned that its most important witness
should look respectable, and consequently trustworthy.
Wells' testimony, perfected by pre-trial rehearsal, was as tidy as his appearance.
Encouraged by the sympathetic promptings of Logan Green, the witness acknowledged
that he had once, for approximately a year, worked as a hired hand at River Valley
Farm; he went on to say that some ten years later, following his conviction on a
burglary charge, he had become friendly with another imprisoned burglar, Richard
Hickock, and had described to him the Clutter farm and family.
"Now," Green asked, "during your conversations with Mr. Hickock what was
said about Mr. Clutter by either of you?"
"Well, we talked quite a bit about Mr. Clutter. Hickock said he was about to be
paroled, and he was going to go West looking for a job; he might stop to see Mr. Clutter
to get a job. I was telling him how wealthy Mr. Clutter was."
"Did that seem to interest Mr. Hickock?"
"Well, he wanted to know if Mr. Clutter had a safe around there."
"Mr. Wells, did you think at the time there was a safe in the Clutter house?"
"Well, it has been so long since I worked out there. I thought there was a safe. I
knew there was a cabinet of some kind. . . . The next thing I knew he [Hickock] was
talking about robbing Mr. Clutter."
"Did he tell you anything about how he was going to commit the robbery?"
"He told me if he done anything like that he wouldn't leave no witnesses."
"Did he actually say what he was going to do with the witnesses?"
"Yes. He told me he would probably tie them up and then rob them and then kill
them."
Having established premeditation of great degree, Green left the witness to the
ministrations of the defense. Old Mr. Fleming. a classic country lawyer more happily at
home with land deeds than ill deeds, opened the cross-examination. The intent of his
queries as he soon established, was to introduce a subject the prosecution had
emphatically avoided: the question of Wells' own role in the murder plot, and his own
moral liability.
"You didn't," Fleming said, hastening to the heart of the matter, "say anything at
all to Mr. Hickock to discourage him from coming out here to rob and kill the Clutter
family?"
"No. Anybody tells you anything about that up there [ Kansas State
Penitentiary], you don't pay any attention to it because you think they are just talking
anyway."
"You mean you talked that way and didn't mean anything? Didn't you mean to
convey to him [Hickock] the idea that Mr. Clutter had a safe? You wanted Mr. Hickock
to believe that, did you not?'
In his quiet way, Fleming was giving the witness a rough time Wells plucked at
his tie, as though the knot was suddenly too tight.
"And you meant for Mr. Hickock to believe that Mr. Clutter had a lot of money,
didn't you?"
"I told him Mr. Clutter had a lot of money, yes."
Fleming once more elicited an account of how Hickock had fully informed
Wells of his violent plans for the Clutter family. Then, as though veiled in a private
grief, the lawyer wistfully said, "And even after all of that you did nothing to discourage
him?"
"I didn't believe he'd do it."
"You didn't believe him. Then why, when you heard about the thing that
happened out here, why did you think he was the one that was guilty?"
Wells cockily replied, "Because it was done just like he said he was going to
do!"
Harrison Smith, the younger half of the defense team, took charge. Assuming an
aggressive, sneering manner that seemed forced, for really he is a mild and lenient man,
Smith asked the witness if he had a nickname.
"No. I just go by 'Floyd.'"
The lawyer snorted. "Don't they call you 'Squealer' now? Or do they call you
'Snitch'?"
"I just go by 'Floyd,' " Wells repeated, rather hangdog.
"How many times have you been in jail?"
"About three times."
"Some of those times for lying, were they?"
Denying it, the witness said that once he'd gone to jail for driving without an
operator's license, that burglary was the reason for his second incarceration, and the
third, a ninety-day hitch in an Army stockade, had been the outcome of something that
happened while he was a soldier: "We was on a train trip guard. We got a little
intoxicated on the train, done a little extra shooting at some windows and lights."
Everyone laughed; everyone except the defendants (Hickock spat on the floor)
and Harrison Smith, who now asked Wells why, after learning of the Holcomb tragedy,
he had tarried several weeks before telling the authorities what he knew. "Weren't you,"
he said, "waiting for something to come out? Maybe like a reward?"
"No."
"You didn't hear anything about a reward?" The lawyer was referring to the
reward of one thousand dollars that had been offered by the Hutchinson News, for
information resulting in the arrest and conviction of the Clutter murderers.
"I seen it in the paper."
"That was before you went to the authorities, wasn't it?" And when the witness
admitted that this was true, Smith triumphantly continued by asking, "What kind of
immunity did the county attorney offer you for coming up here today and testifying?"
But Logan Green protested: "We object to the form of the question, Your Honor.
There's been no testimony about immunity to anybody." The objection was sustained,
and the witness dismissed; as he left the stand, Hickock announced to everyone within
earshot, "Sonofabitch. Anybody ought to hang, he to hang. Look at him. Gonna walk
out of here and get that money and go scot-free."
This prediction proved correct, for not long afterward Wells collected both the
reward and a parole. But his good fortune was short-lived. He was soon in trouble again,
and, over the years, experienced many vicissitudes. At present he is a resident of
Mississippi State Prison in Parchman, Mississippi, where he is serving a thirty-year
sentence for armed robbery.
By Friday, when the court recessed for the weekend, the state had completed its case,
which included the appearance of four Special Agents of the Bureau of Investigation in
Washington, D. C. These men, laboratory technicians skilled in various categories of
scientific crime detection, had studied the physical evidence connecting the accused to
the murders (blood samples, footprints, cartridge shells, rope and tape), and each of
them certified the validity of the exhibits. Finally, the four K. B. I. agents provided
accounts of interviews with the prisoners, and of the confessions eventually made by
them. In cross-examining the K. B. I. personnel, the defense attorneys, a beleaguered
pair, argued that the admissions of guilt had been obtained by improper means - brutal
interrogation in sweltering, brightly lighted, closet-like rooms. The allegation, which
was untrue, irritated the detectives into expounding very convincing denials. (Later, in
reply to a reporter who asked him why he had dogged this artificial scent at such length,
Hickock's lawyer snapped. "What am I supposed to do? Hell, I'm playing without any
cards. But I can't just sit here like a dummy. I've got to sound off once in a while")'
The prosecution's most damaging witness proved to be Alvin Dewey; his
testimony, the first public rendering of the events detailed in Perry Smith's confession,
earned large headlines (UNVEIL MUTE MURDER HORROR - COLD, CHILLING
FACTS TOLD), and shocked his listeners - none more so than Richard Hickock, who
came to a startled and chagrined attention when, in the course of Dewey's commentary,
the agent said, "There is one incident Smith related to me that I haven't as yet
mentioned. And that was that after the Clutter family was tied up, Hickock said to him
how well built he thought Nancy Clutter was, and that he was going to rape her. Smith
said he told Hickock there wasn't going to be anything like that go on. Smith told me he
had no respect for anyone who couldn't control their sexual desires, and that he would
have fought Hickock before allowing him to rape the Clutter girl. "Heretofore, Hickock
had not known that his partner had informed police of the proposed assault; nor was he
aware that, in a friendlier spirit, Perry had altered his original story to claim that he
alone had shot the four victims - a fact revealed by Dewey as he neared the end of his
testimony: "Perry Smith told me he wished to change two things in the statement he had
given us. He said everything else in that statement was true and correct. Except these
two things. And that was that he wanted to say he killed Mrs. Clutter and Nancy Clutter
- not Hickock. He told me that Hickock... didn't want to die with his mother thinking he
had killed any members of the Clutter family. And he said the Hickocks were good
people. So why not have it that way."
Hearing this, Mrs. Hickock wept. Throughout the trial she had sat quietly beside
her husband, her hands worrying a rumpled handkerchief. As often as she could she
caught her son's eye, nodded at him and simulated a smile which, though flimsily
constructed, affirmed her loyalty. But clearly the woman's control was exhausted; she
began to cry. A few spectators glanced at her, and glanced away, embarrassed; the rest
seemed oblivious of the raw dirge counter pointing Dewey's continuing recitation; even
her husband, perhaps because he believed it unmanly to take notice, remained aloof. At
last a woman reporter, the only one present, led Mrs. Hickock out of the courtroom and
into the privacy of a ladies' room.
Once her anguish had subsided, Mrs. Hickock expressed a need to confide.
"There's nobody much I can talk to," she told her companion. "I don't mean people
haven't been kind, neighbors and all. And strangers, too - strangers have wrote letters to
say they know how hard it must be and how sorry they are. Nobody's said a mean word,
either to Walter or me. Not even here, where you might expect it. Everybody here has
gone out of their way to be friendly. The waitress over at the place where we take our
meals, she puts ice cream on the pie and don't charge for it. I tell her don't, I can't eat it.
Used to be I could eat anything didn't eat me first. But she puts it on. To be nice. Sheila,
that's her, she says it's not our fault what happened. But it seems to me like people are
looking at me and thinking, Well, she must be to blame somehow. The way I raised
Dick. Maybe I did do something wrong. Only I don't know what it could have been; I
get headaches trying to remember. We're plain people, just country people, getting
along the same as everybody else. We had some good times, at our house. I taught Dick
the foxtrot. Dancing, I was always crazy about it, it was my whole life when I was a
girl; and there was a boy, gosh, he could dance like Christmas - we won a silver cup
waltzing together. For a long time we planned to run away and go on the stage.
Vaudeville. It was just a dream. Children dreaming. He left town, and one day I married
Walter, and Walter Hickock couldn't do step one. He said if I wanted a hoofer I
should've married a horse. Nobody ever danced with me again until I learned Dick, and
he didn't take to it exactly, but he was sweet, Dick was the best-natured little kid."
Mrs. Hickock removed the spectacles she was wearing, polished the smeared
lenses and resettled them on her pudgy, agreeable face. "There's lots more to Dick than
what you hear back there in the courtroom. The lawyers jabbering how terrible he is no good at all. I can't make any excuses for what he did, his part in it. I'm not forgetting
that family; I pray for them every night. But I pray for Dick, too. And this boy Perry. It
was wrong of me to hate him; I've got nothing but pity for him now. And you know - I
believe Mrs. Clutter would feel pity, too. Being the kind of woman they say she was."
Court had adjourned; the noises of the departing audience clattered in the
corridor beyond the lavatory door. Mrs. Hickock said she must go and meet her
husband. "He's dying. I don't think he minds any more."
Many observers of the trial scene were baffled by the visitor from Boston, Donald
Cullivan. They could not quite understand why this staid young Catholic, a successful
engineer who had taken his degree at Harvard, a husband and the father of three
children, should choose to befriend an uneducated, homicidal half-breed whom he knew
but slightly and had not seen for nine years. Cullivan himself said, "My wife doesn't
understand it either. Coming out here was something I couldn't afford to do - it meant
using a week of my vacation, and money we really need for other things. On the other
hand, it was something I couldn't afford not to do. Perry's lawyer wrote me asking if I
would be a character witness; the moment I read the letter I knew I had to do it. Because
I'd offered this man my friendship. And because - well, I believe in the life everlasting.
All souls can be saved for God."
The salvation of a soul, namely Perry Smith's, was an enterprise the deeply
Catholic undersheriff and his wife were eager to assist - although Mrs. Meier had been
rebuffed by Perry when she had suggested a consultation with Father Goubeaux, a local
priest. (Perry said, "Priests and nuns have had their chance with me. I'm still wearing the
scars to prove it.") And so, during the weekend recess, the Meiers invited Cullivan to
eat Sunday dinner with the prisoner in his cell.
The opportunity to entertain his friend, play host as it were, delighted Perry, and
the planning of the menu - wild goose, stuffed and roasted, with gravy and creamed
potatoes and string beans, aspic salad, hot biscuits, cold milk, freshly baked cherry tarts,
cheese, and coffee - seemed to concern him more than the outcome of the trial (which,
to be sure, he did not consider a suspenseful matter: "Those prairiebillys, they'll vote to
hang fast as pigs eat slop. Look at their eyes. I'll be damned if I'm the only killer in the
courtroom"). All Sunday morning he prepared to receive his guest. The day was warm,
a little windy, and leaf shadows, supple emanations from the tree boughs that brushed
the cell's barred window, tantalized Perry's tamed squirrel. Big Red chased the swaying
patterns while his master swept and dusted, scrubbed the floor and scoured the toilet and
cleared the desk of literary accumulations. The desk was to be the dining table, and once
Perry had finished setting it, it looked most inviting, for Mrs. Meier had donated a linen
tablecloth, starched napkins, and her best china and silver.
Cullivan was impressed - he whistled when the feast, arriving on trays, was
placed upon the table - and before sitting down, he asked the host if he might offer a
blessing. The host, head unbowed, cracked his knuckles as Cullivan, with bowed head
and palms together, intoned, "Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about
to receive from thy bounty, through the mercy of Christ, our Lord. Amen." Perry
murmuringly remarked that in his opinion any credit due belonged to Mrs. Meier. "She
did all the work. Well," he said, heaping his guest's plate, "it's good to see you, Don.
You look just the same. Haven't changed a bit."
Cullivan, in appearance a cautious bank clerk with depleted hair and a face
rather difficult to recall, agreed that outwardly he hadn't changed much. But his interior
self, the invisible man, was another matter: "I was coasting along. Not knowing God is
the only reality. Once you realize that, then everything falls into place. Life has meaning
- and so does death. Boy, do you always eat like this?"
Perry laughed. "She's really a terrific cook, Mrs. Meier. You ought to taste her
Spanish rice. I've gained fifteen pounds since I got here. Course I was on the thin side.
I'd lost a lot of weight while Dick and me were out on the road riding all to hell and
gone - hardly ever eating a square meal, hungry as hell most of the time. Mostly, we
lived like animals. Dick was always stealing canned stuff out of grocery stores. Baked
beans and canned spaghetti. We'd open it up in the car and gobble it cold. Animals.
Dick loves to steal. It's an emotional thing with him - a sickness. I'm a thief too, but only
if I don't have the money to pay. Dick, if he was carrying a hundred dollars in his
pocket, he'd steal a stick of chewing gum."
Later, over cigarettes and coffee, Perry returned to the subject of thievery. "My
friend Willie-Jay used to talk about it. He used to say that all crimes were only varieties
of theft.' Murder included. When you kill a man you steal his life. I guess that makes me
a pretty big thief. See, Don - I did kill them. Down there in court, old Dewey made it
sound like I was prevaricating - on account of Dick's mother. Well, I wasn't. Dick
helped me, he held the flashlight and picked up the shells. And it was his idea, too. But
Dick didn't shoot them, he never could've - though he's damn quick when it comes to
running down an old dog. I wonder why I did it." He scowled, as though the problem
was new to him, a newly unearthed stone of surprising, unclassified color. "I don't know
why," he said, as if holding it to the light, and angling it now here, now there. "I was
sore at Dick. The tough brass boy. But it wasn't Dick. Or the fear of being identified. I
was willing to take that gamble. And it wasn't because of anything the Clutters did.
They never hurt me. Like other people. Like people have all my life. Maybe it's just that
the Clutters were the ones who had to pay for it."
Cullivan probed, trying to gauge the depth of what he assumed would be Perry's
contrition. Surely he must be experiencing a remorse sufficiently profound to summon a
desire for God's mercy and forgiveness? Perry said, "Am I sorry? If that's what you
mean - I'm not. I don't feel anything about it. I wish I did. But nothing about it bothers
me a bit. Half an hour after it happened, Dick was making jokes and I was laughing at
them. Maybe we're not human. I'm human enough to feel sorry for myself. Sorry I can't
walk out of here when you walk out. But that's all." Cullivan could scarcely credit so
detached an attitude; Perry was confused, mistaken, it was not possible for any man to
be that devoid of conscience or compassion. Perry said, "Why? Soldiers don't lose much
sleep. They murder, and get medals for doing it. The good people of Kansas want to
murder me - and some hang-man will be glad to get the work. It's easy to kill - a lot
easier than passing a bad check. Just remember: I only knew the Clutters maybe an
hour. If I'd really known them, I guess I'd feel different. I don't think I could live with
myself. But the way it was, it was like picking off targets in a shooting gallery."
Cullivan was silent, and his silence upset Perry, who seemed to interpret it as
implying disapproval. "Hell, Don, don't make me act the hypocrite with you. Throw a
load of bull - how sorry I am, how all I want to do now is crawl on my knees and pray.
That stuff don't ring with me. I can't accept overnight what I've always denied. The truth
is, you've done more for me than any what you call God ever has. Or ever will. By
writing to me, by signing yourself 'friend.' When I had no friends. Except Joe James."
Joe James, he explained to Cullivan, was a young Indian logger with whom he had once
lived in a forest near Bellingham, Washington. "That's a long way from Garden City. A
good two thousand miles. I sent word to Joe about the trouble I'm in. Joe's a poor guy,
he's got seven kids to feed, but he promised to come here if he had to walk. He hasn't
shown up yet, and maybe he won't, only I think he will. Joe always liked me. Do you,
Don?"
"Yes. I like you."
Cullivan's softly emphatic answer pleased and rather flustered Perry. He smiled
and said, "Then you must be some kind of nut. "Suddenly rising, he crossed the cell and
picked up a broom. "I don't know why I should die among strangers. Let a bunch of
prairiebillys stand around and watch me strangle. Shit. I ought to kill myself first." He
lifted the broom and pressed the bristles against the light bulb that burned in the ceiling.
"Just unscrew the bulb and smash it and cut my wrists. That's what I ought to do. While
you're still here. Somebody who cares about me a little bit."
The trial resumed on Monday morning at ten o'clock. Ninety minutes later the court
adjourned, the case for the defense having been completed in that brief time. The
defendants declined to testify in their own behalf, and therefore the question of whether
Hickock or Smith had been the actual executioner of the Clutter family did not arise.
Of the five witnesses who did appear, the first was the hollow-eyed Mr.
Hickock. Though he spoke with a dignified and mournful clarity, he had but one
contribution to make that was relevant to a claim of temporary insanity. His son, he
said, had suffered head injuries in a car accident in July, 1950. Prior to the accident,
Dick had been a "happy-go-lucky boy," had done well in school, been popular with his
classmates and considerate of his parents - "No trouble to anybody."
Harrison Smith, gently guiding the witness, said, "I will ask you if, after July,
1950, you observed any change in the personality and habits and actions of your son,
Richard?"
"He just didn't act like the same boy."
"What were the changes you observed?"
Mr. Hickock, between pensive hesitations, listed several: Dick was sulky and
restless, he ran around with older men, drank and gambled. "He just wasn't the same
boy."
The last assertion was promptly challenged by Logan Green, who undertook the
cross-examination. "Mr. Hickock, you say you never had any trouble with your son
until after 1950?"
"... I think he got arrested in 1949."
A citric smile bent Green's tiny lips. "Remember what he was arrested for?"
"He was accused of breaking into a drugstore."
"Accused? Didn't he admit that he broke into the store?"
"That's right, he did."
"And that was in 1949. Yet now you tell us your son had a change in his attitude
and conduct after 1950?"
"I would say so, yes."
"You mean that after 1950 he became a good boy?"
Hard coughs agitated the old man; he spat into a handkerchief. "No," he said,
studying the discharge. "I wouldn't say that."
"Then what was the change that took place?"
"Well, that would be pretty hard to explain. He just didn't act like the same boy."
"You mean he lost his criminal tendencies?"
The lawyer's sally induced guffaws, a courtroom flare-up that Judge Tate's dour
gaze soon extinguished. Mr. Hickock, presently set free, was replaced on the stand by
Dr. W. Mitchell Jones.
Dr. Jones identified himself to the court as a "physician specializing in the field
of psychiatry," and in support of his qualifications, added that he had attended perhaps
fifteen hundred patients since 1956, the year he had entered a psychiatric residency at
Topeka State Hospital in Topeka, Kansas. For the past two years he had served on the
staff of Larned State Hospital, where he was in charge of the Dillon Building, a section
reserved for the criminally insane.
Harrison Smith asked the witness, "Approximately how many murderers have
you dealt with?"
"About twenty-five."
"Doctor, I would like to ask you if you know my client, Richard Eugene
Hickock?"
"I do."
"Have you had occasion to examine him professionally?"
"Yes, sir... I made a psychiatric evaluation of Mr., Hickock."
"Based upon your examination, do you have an opinion as to whether or not
Richard Eugene Hickock knew right from wrong at the time of the commission of the
crime?"
The witness, a stout man of twenty-eight with a moon-shaped but intelligent,
subtly delicate face, took a deep breath, as though to equip himself for a prolonged reply
- which the judge then cautioned him he must not make: "You may answer the question
yes or no, Doctor. Limit your answer to yes or no."
"Yes."
"And what is your opinion?"
"I think that within the usual definitions Mr. Hickock did know right from
wrong."
Confined as he was by the M'Naghten Rule ("the usual definitions"), a formula
quite color-blind to any gradations between black and white, Dr. Jones was impotent to
answer otherwise. But of course the response was a letdown for Hickock's attorney, who
hopelessly asked, "Can you qualify that answer?"
It was hopeless because though Dr. Jones agreed to elaborate, the prosecution
was entitled to object - and did, citing the fact that Kansas law allowed nothing more
than a yes or no reply to the pertinent question. The objection was upheld, and the
witness dismissed. However, had Dr. Jones been allowed to speak further, here is what
he would have testified: "Richard Hickock is above average in intelligence, grasps new
ideas easily and has a wide fund of information. He is alert to what is happening around
him, and he shows no sign of mental confusion or disorientation. His thinking is well
organized and logical and he seems to be in good contact with reality. Although I did
not find the usual signs of organic brain damage - memory loss, concrete concept
formation, intellectual deterioration - this cannot be completely ruled out. He had a
serious head injury with concussion and several hours of unconsciousness in 1950 - this
was verified by me by checking hospital records. He says he has had blackout spells,
periods of amnesia, and headaches ever since that time, and a major portion of his
antisocial behavior has occurred since that time. He has never had the medical tests
which would definitely prove or disprove the existence of residual brain damage.
Definitive medical tests are indicated before a complete evaluation can be said to
exist.... Hickock does show signs of emotional abnormality. That he knew what he was
doing and still went ahead with it is possibly the most clear-cut demonstration of this
fact. He is a person who is impulsive in action, likely to do things without thought of
consequences or future discomfort to himself or to others. He does not seem to be
capable of learning from experience, and he shows an unusual pattern of intermittent
periods of productive activity followed by patently irresponsible actions. He cannot
tolerate feelings of frustration as a more normal person can, and he is poorly able to rid
himself of those feelings except through antisocial activity.... His selfesteem is very
low, and he secretly feels inferior to others and sexually inadequate. These feelings
seem to be overcompensated for by dreams of being rich and powerful, a tendency to
brag about his exploits, spending sprees when he has money, and dissatisfaction with
only the normal slow advancement he could expect from his job.... He is uncomfortable
in his relationships to other people, and has a pathological inability to form and hold
enduring personal attachments. Although he professes usual moral standards he seems
obviously uninfluenced by them in his actions. In summary, he shows fairly typical
characteristics of what would psychiatrically be called a severe character disorder. It is
important that steps be taken to rule out the possibility of organic brain damage, since, if
present, it might have substantially influenced his behavior during the past several years
and at the time of the crime."
Aside from a formal plea to the jury, which would not take place until the
morrow, the psychiatrist's testimony terminated Hickock's planned defense. Next it was
the turn of Arthur Fleming, Smith's elderly counselor. He presented four witnesses: the
Reverend James E. Post, the Protestant chaplain at Kansas State Penitentiary; Perry's
Indian friend, Joe James, who after all had arrived by bus that morning, having traveled
a day and two nights from his wilderness home in the Far Northwest; Donald Cullivan;
and, once again, Dr. Jones. Except for the latter, these men were offered as "character
witnesses" - persons expected to attribute to the accused a few human virtues. They did
not fare very well, though each of them negotiated some skimpily favorable remark
before the protesting prosecution, which contended that personal comments of this
nature were "incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial," hushed and banished them. For
example, Joe James, dark-haired, even darker-skinned than Perry, a lithe figure who
with his faded huntsman's shirt and moccasined feet looked as though he had that
instant mysteriously emerged from woodland shadows, told the court that the defendant
had lived with him off and on for over two years. "Perry was a likable kid, well liked
around the neighborhood - he never done one thing out of the way to my knowledge."
The state stopped him there; and stopped Cullivan, too, when he said, "During the time I
knew him in the Army, Perry was a very likable fellow."
The Reverend Post survived somewhat longer, for he made no direct attempt to
compliment the prisoner, but described sympathetically an encounter with him at
Lansing. "I first met Perry Smith when he came to my office in the prison chapel with a
picture he had painted - a head-and-shoulders portrait of Jesus Christ done in pastel
crayon. He wanted to give it to me for use in the chapel. It's been hanging on the walls
of my office ever since."
Fleming said, "Do you have a photograph of that painting?" The minister had an
envelope full; but when he produced them, ostensibly for distribution among the jurors,
an exasperated Logan Green leaped to his feet: "If Your Honor please, this is going too
far..." His Honor saw that it went no further.
Dr. Jones was now recalled, and following the preliminaries that had
accompanied his original appearance, Fleming put to him the crucial query: "From your
conversations and examination of Perry Edward Smith, do you have an opinion as to
whether he knew right from wrong at the time of the offense involved in this action?"
And once more the court admonished the witness: "Answer yes or no, do you have an
opinion?"
"No."
Amid surprised mutters, Fleming, surprised himself, said, "You may state to the
jury why you have no opinion."
Green objected: "The man has no opinion, and that's it" Which it was, legally
speaking.
But had Dr. Jones been permitted to discourse on the cause of his indecision, he
would have testified: "Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental illness. His
childhood, related to me and verified by portions of the prison records, was marked by
brutality and lack of concern on the part of both parents. He seems to have grown up
without direction, without love, and without ever having absorbed any fixed sense of
moral values.... He is oriented, hyper alert to things going on about him, and shows no
sign of confusion. He is above average in intelligence, and has a good range of
information considering his poor educational background.... Two features in his
personality make-up stand out as particularly pathological. The first is his 'paranoid'
orientation toward the world. He is suspicious and distrustful of others, tends to feel that
others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not
understand him. He is overly sensitive to criticisms that others make of him, and cannot
tolerate being made fun of. He is quick to sense slight or insult in things others say, and
frequently may misinterpret well-meant communications. He feels he has great need of
friendship and understanding, but he is reluctant to confide in others, and when he does,
expects to be misunderstood or even betrayed. In evaluating the intentions and feelings
of others, his ability to separate the real situation from his own mental projections is
very poor. He not infrequently groups all people together as being hypocritical, hostile,
and deserving of whatever he is able to do to them. Akin to this first trait is the second,
an ever-present, poorly controlled rage - easily triggered by any feeling of being tricked,
slighted, or labeled inferior by others. For the most part, his rages in the, past have been
directed at authority figures - father, brother, Army sergeant, state parole officer - and
have led to violent assaultive behavior on several occasions. Both he and his
acquaintances have been aware of these rages, which he says 'mount up' in him, and of
the poor control he has over them. When turned toward himself his anger has
precipitated ideas of suicide. The inappropriate force of his anger and lack of ability to
control or channel it reflect a primary weakness of personality structure.... In addition to
these traits, the subject shows mild early signs of a disorder of his thought processes. He
has poor ability to organize his thinking, he seems unable to scan or summarize his
thought, becoming involved and sometimes lost in detail, and some of his thinking
reflects a 'magical' quality, a disregard of reality. He has had few close emotional
relationships with other people, and these have not been able to stand small crises. He
has little feeling for others outside a very small circle of friends, and attaches little real
value to human life. This emotional detachment and blandness in certain areas is other
evidence of his mental abnormality. More extensive evaluation would be necessary to
make an exact psychiatric diagnosis, but his present personality structure is very nearly
that of a paranoid schizophrenic reaction."
It is significant that a widely respected veteran in the field of forensic psychiatry,
Dr. Joseph Satten of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, consulted with Dr. Jones
and endorsed his evaluations of Hickock and Smith. Dr. Satten, who afterward gave the
case close attention, suggests that though the crime would not have occurred except for
a certain frictional interplay between the perpetrators, it was essentially the act of Perry
Smith, who, he feels, represents a type of murderer described by him in an article:
"Murder Without Apparent Motive - A Study in Personality Disorganization."
The article, printed in The American Journal of Psychiatry (July, 1960), and
written in collaboration with three colleagues, Karl Menninger, Irwin Rosen, and Martin
Mayman, states its aim at the outset: "In attempting to assess the criminal responsibility
of murderers, the law tries to divide them (as it does all offenders) into two groups, the
'sane' and the 'insane.' The 'sane' murderer is thought of as acting upon rational motives
that can be understood, though condemned, and the 'insane' one as being driven by
irrational senseless motives. When rational motives are conspicuous (for example, when
a man kills for personal gain) or when the irrational motives are accompanied by
delusions or hallucinations (for example, a paranoid patient who kills his fantasied
persecutor), the situation presents little problem to the psychiatrist. But murderers who
seem rational, coherent, and controlled, and yet whose homicidal acts have a bizarre,
apparently senseless quality, pose a difficult problem, if courtroom disagreements and
contradictory reports about the same offender are an index. It is our thesis that the
psychopathology of such murderers forms at least one specific syndrome which we shall
describe. In general, these individuals are predisposed to severe lapses in ego-control
which makes possible the open expression of primitive violence, born out of previous,
and now unconscious, traumatic experiences."
The authors, as part of an appeals process, had examined four men convicted of
seemingly unmotivated murders. All had been examined prior to their trials, and found
to be "without psychosis" and "sane." Three of the men were under death sentence, and
the fourth was serving a long prison sentence. In each of these cases, further psychiatric
investigation had been requested because someone - either the lawyer, a relative, or a
friend - was dissatisfied with the psychiatric explanations previously given, and in effect
had asked, "How can a person as sane as this man seems to be commit an act as crazy as
the one he was convicted of?" After describing the four criminals and their crimes (a
Negro soldier who mutilated and dismembered a prostitute, a laborer who strangled a
fourteen-year-old boy when the boy rejected his sexual advances, an Army corporal
who bludgeoned to death another young boy because he imagined the victim was
making fun of him, and a hospital employee who drowned a girl of nine by holding her
head under water), the authors surveyed the areas of similarity. The men themselves,
they wrote, were puzzled as to why they killed their victims, who were relatively
unknown to them, and in each instance the murderer appears to have lapsed into a
dreamlike dissociative trance from which he awakened to "suddenly discover" himself
assaulting his victim. "The most uniform, and perhaps the most significant, historical
finding was a long-standing, sometimes lifelong, history of erratic control over
aggressive impulses. For example, three of the men, throughout their lives, had been
frequently involved in fights which were not ordinary altercations, and which would
have become homicidal assaults if not stopped by others."
Here, in excerpt, are a number of other observations contained in the study:
"Despite the violence in their lives, all of the men had ego-images of themselves as
physically inferior, weak, and inadequate. The histories revealed in each a severe degree
of sexual inhibition. To all of them, adult women were threatening creatures, and in two
cases there was overt sexual perversion. All of them, too, had been concerned
throughout their early years about being considered 'sissies,' physically undersized or
sickly.... In all four cases, there was historical evidence of altered states of
consciousness, frequently in connection with the outbursts of violence. Two of the men
reported severe dissociative trance like states during which violent and bizarre behavior
was seen, while the other two reported less severe, and perhaps less well-organized,
amnesiac episodes. During moments of actual violence, they often felt separated or
isolated from themselves, as if they were watching someone else. Also seen in the
historical back-ground of all the cases was the occurrence of extreme parental violence
during childhood.... One man said he was 'whipped every time I turned around.'...
Another of the men had many violent beatings in order to 'break' him of his stammering
and 'fits,' as well as to correct him for his allegedly 'bad' behavior. The history relating
to extreme violence, whether fantasied, observed in reality, or actually experienced by
the child, fits in with the psychoanalytic hypothesis that the child's exposure to
overwhelming stimuli, before he can master them, is closely linked to early defects in
ego formation and later severe disturbances in impulse control. In all of these cases,
there was evidence of severe emotional deprivation in early life. This deprivation may
have involved prolonged or recurrent absence of one or both parents, a chaotic family
life in which the parents were unknown, or an outright rejection of the child by one or
both parents with the child being raised by others.... Evidence of disturbances in affect
organization was seen. Most typically the men displayed a tendency not to experience
anger or rage in association with violent aggressive action. None reported feelings of
rage in connection with the murders, nor did they experience anger in any strong or
pronounced way, although each of them was capable of enormous and brutal
aggression.... Their relationships with others were of a shallow, cold nature, lending a
quality of loneliness and isolation to these men. People were scarcely real to them, in
the sense of being warmly or positively (or even angrily) felt about.... The three men
under sentence of death had shallow emotions regarding their own fate and that of their
victims. Guilt, depression, and remorse were strikingly absent. Such individuals can be
considered to be murder-prone in the sense of either carrying a surcharge of aggressive
energy or having an unstable ego defense system that periodically allows the naked and
archaic expression of such energy. The murderous potential can become activated,
especially if some disequilibrium is already present, when the victim-to-be is
unconsciously perceived as a key figure in some past traumatic configuration. The
behavior, or even the mere presence, of this figure adds a stress to the unstable balance
of forces that results in a sudden extreme discharge of violence, similar to the explosion
that takes place when a percussion cap ignites a charge of dynamite.... The hypothesis of
unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively
unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression. But why
murder? Most people, fortunately, do not respond with murderous out-bursts even under
extreme provocation. The cases described, on the other hand, were predisposed to gross
lapses in reality contact and extreme weakness in impulse control during periods of
heightened tension and disorganization. At such times, a chance acquaintance or even a
stranger was easily able to lose his 'real' meaning and assume an identity in the
unconscious traumatic con-figuration. The 'old' conflict was reactivated and aggression
swiftly mounted to murderous proportions.... When such senseless murders occur, they
are seen to be an end result of a period of increasing tension and disorganization in the
murderer starting before the contact with the victim who, by fitting into the unconscious
conflicts of the murderer, unwittingly serves to set into motion his homicidal potential."
Because of the many parallels between the background and personality of Perry
Smith and the subjects of his study, Dr. Satten feels secure in assigning him to a
position among their ranks. Moreover, the circumstances of the crime seem to him to fit
exactly the concept of "murder without apparent motive." Obviously, three of the
murders Smith committed were logically motivated - Nancy, Kenyon, and their mother
had to be killed because Mr. Clutter had been killed. But it is Dr. Satten's contention
that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when Smith attacked Mr.
Clutter he was under a mental eclipse; deep inside a schizophrenic darkness, for it was
not entirely a flesh-and-blood man he "suddenly discovered" himself destroying, but "a
key figure in some past traumatic configuration": his father? the orphanage nuns who
had derided and beaten him? the hated Army sergeant? the parole officer who had
ordered him to "stay out of Kansas"? One of them, or all of them.
In his confession, Smith said, "I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a
very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat."
While talking to Donald Cullivan, Smith said, "They [the Clutters] never hurt me. Like
other people. Like people have all my life. Maybe it's just that the Clutters were the
ones who had to pay for it."
So it would appear that by independent paths, both the professional and the
amateur analyst reached conclusions not dissimilar.
The aristocracy of Finney County had snubbed the trial. "It doesn't do," announced the
wife of one rich rancher, "to seem curious about that sort of thing." Nevertheless, the
trial's last session found a fair segment of the local Establishment seated alongside the
plainer citizenry. Their presence was a courteous gesture toward Judge Tate and Logan
Green, esteemed members of their own order. Also, a large contingent of out-of-town
lawyers, many of whom had journeyed great distances, filled several benches;
specifically, they were on hand to hear Green's final address to the jury. Green, a
suavely tough little septuagenarian, has an imposing reputation among his peers, who
admire his stage craft - a repertoire of actorish gifts that includes a sense of timing acute
as a night-club comedian's. An expert criminal lawyer, his usual role is that of defender,
but in this instance the state had retained him as a special assistant to Duane West, for it
was felt that the young county attorney was too unseasoned to prosecute the case
without experienced support.
But like most star turns, Green was the last act on the program. Judge Tate's
level-headed instructions to the jury preceded him, as did the county attorney's
summation: "Can there be a single doubt in your minds regarding the guilt of these
defendants? No! Regardless of who pulled the trigger on Richard Eugene Hickock's
shotgun, both men are equally guilty. There is only one way to assure that these men
will never again roam the towns and cities of this land. We request the maximum
penalty - death. This request is made not in vengeance, but in all humbleness...."
Then the pleas of the defense attorneys had to be heard. Fleming's speech,
described by one journalist as "soft-sell," amounted to a mild churchly sermon: "Man is
not an animal. He has a body, and he has a soul that lives forever. I don't believe man
has the right to destroy that house, a temple, in which the soul dwells...." Harrison
Smith, though he too appealed to the jurors' presumed Christianity, took as his main
theme the evils of capital punishment: "It is a relic of human barbarism. The law tells us
that the taking of human life is wrong, then goes ahead and sets the example. Which is
almost as wicked as the crime it punished. The state has no right to inflict it. It isn't
effective. It doesn't deter crime, but merely cheapens human life and gives rise to more
murders. All we ask is mercy. Surely life imprisonment is small mercy to ask...." Not
everyone was attentive; one juror, as though poisoned by the numerous spring-fever
yawns weighting the air, sat with drugged eyes and jaws so utterly ajar bees could have
buzzed in and out.
Green woke them up. "Gentlemen," he said, speaking without notes, "you have
just heard two energetic pleas for mercy in behalf of the defendants. It seems to me
fortunate that these admirable attorneys, Mr. Fleming and Mr. Smith, were not at the
Clutter house that fateful night - very fortunate for them that they were not present to
plead mercy for the doomed family. Because had they been there - well, come next
morning we would have had more than four corpses to count."
As a boy in his native Kentucky, Green was called Pinky, a nickname he owed
to his freckled coloring; now, as he strutted before the jury, the stress of his assignment
warmed his face and splotched it with patches of pink. "I have no intention of engaging
in theological debate. But I anticipated that defense counsel would use the Holy Bible as
an argument against the death penalty. You have heard the Bible quoted. But I can read,
too." He slapped open a copy of the Old Testament. "And here are a few things the
Good Book has to say on the subject. In Exodus Twenty, Verse Thirteen, we have one
of the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not kill.' This refers to unlawful killing. Of
course it does, because in the next chapter, Verse Twelve, the penalty for disobedience
of that Commandment reads: 'He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put
to death.' Now, Mr. Fleming would have you believe that all this was changed by the
coming of Christ. Not so. For Christ says, 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law,
or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.' And finally - " Green fumbled,
and seemed to accidentally shut the Bible, whereupon the visiting legal dignitaries
grinned and nudged each other, for this was a venerable court-room ploy - the lawyer
who while reading from the Scriptures pretends to lose his place, and then remarks, as
Green now did, "Never mind. I think I can quote from memory. Genesis Nine, Verse
Six: 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.'
"But," Green went on, "I see nothing to be gained by arguing the Bible. Our state
provides that the punishment for murder in the first degree shall be imprisonment for
life or death by hanging. That is the law. You, gentlemen, are here to enforce it. And if
ever there was a case in which the maximum penalty was justified, this is it. These were
strange, ferocious murders. Four of your fellow citizens were slaughtered like hogs in a
pen. And for what reason? Not out of vengeance or hatred. But for money. Money. It
was the cold and calculated weighing of so many ounces of silver against so many
ounces of blood. And how cheaply those lives were bought! For forty dollars' worth of
loot! Ten dollars a life!" He whirled, and pointed a finger that moved back and forth
between Hickock and Smith. "They went armed with a shotgun and a dagger. They
went to rob and kill - " His voice trembled, toppled, disappeared, as though strangled by
the intensity of his own loathing for the debonair, gum-chewing defendants. Turning
again to the jury, he hoarsely asked, "What are you going to do? What are you going to
do with these men that bind a man hand and foot and cut his throat and blow out his
brains? Give them the minimum penalty? Yes, and that's only one of four counts. What
about Kenyon Clutter, a young boy with his whole life before him, tied helplessly in
sight of his father's death struggle. Or young Nancy Clutter, hearing the gunshots and
knowing her time was next. Nancy, begging for her life: 'Don't. Oh, please don't. Please.
Please.' What agony! What unspeakable torture! And there remains the mother, bound
and gagged and having to listen as her husband, her beloved children died one by one.
Listen until at last the killers, these defendants before you, entered her room, focused a
flashlight in her eyes, and let the blast of a shotgun end the existence of an entire
household."
Pausing, Green gingerly touched a boil on the back of his neck, a mature
inflammation that seemed, like its angry wearer, about to burst. -"So, gentlemen, what
are you going to do? Give them the minimum? Send them back to the penitentiary, and
take the chance of their escaping or being paroled? The next time they go slaughtering it
may be your family. I say to you," he solemnly said, staring at the panel in a manner
that encompassed and challenged them all, "some of our enormous crimes only happen
because once upon a time a pack of chicken-hearted jurors refused to do their duty.
Now, gentlemen, I leave it to you and your consciences."
He sat down. West whispered to him, "That was masterly, sir. "But a few of
Green's auditors were less enthusiastic; and after the jury retired to discuss the verdict,
one of them, a young reporter from Oklahoma, exchanged sharp words with another
newsman, Richard Parr of the Kansas City Star. To the Oklahoman, Green's address had
seemed "rabble-rousing, brutal."
"He was just telling the truth," Parr said. "The truth can be brutal. To coin a
phrase."
"But he didn't have to hit that hard. It's unfair."
"What's unfair?"
"The whole trial. These guys don't stand a chance."
"Fat chance they gave Nancy Clutter."
"Perry Smith. My God. He's had such a rotten life - "
Parr said, "Many a man can match sob stories with that little bastard. Me
included. Maybe I drink too much, but I sure as hell never killed four people in cold
blood."
"Yeah, and how about hanging the bastard? That's pretty goddam cold-blooded
too."
The Reverend Post, overhearing the conversation, joined in. "Well," he said,
passing around a snapshot reproduction of Perry Smith's portrait of Jesus, "any man
who could paint this picture can't be one hundred percent bad. All the same it's hard to
know what to do. Capital punishment is no answer: it doesn't give the sinner time
enough to come to God. Sometimes I despair." A jovial fellow with gold-filled teeth and
a silvery widow's peak, he jovially repeated, "Sometimes I despair. Sometimes I think
old Doc Savage had the right idea." The Doc Savage to whom he referred was a
fictional hero popular among adolescent readers of pulp magazines a generation ago. "If
you boys remember, Doc Savage was a kind of superman. He'd made himself proficient
in every field - medicine, science, philosophy, art. There wasn't much old Doc didn't
know or couldn't do. One of his projects was, he decided to rid the world of criminals.
First he bought a big island out in the ocean. Then he and his assistants - he had an army
of trained assistants - kidnapped all the world's criminals and brought them to the island.
And Doc Savage operated on their brains. He removed the part that holds wicked
thoughts. And when they recovered they were all decent citizens. They couldn't commit
crimes because that part of their brain was out. Now it strikes me that surgery of this
nature might really be the answer to - "
A bell, the signal that the jury was returning, interrupted him.
The jury's deliberations had lasted forty minutes. Many spectators, anticipating a
swift decision, had never left their seats. Judge Tate, however, had to be fetched from
his farm, where he had gone to feed his horses. A hurriedly donned black robe billowed
about him when at last he arrived, but it was with impressive sedateness and dignity that
he asked, "Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached your verdicts?" Their foreman
replied: "We have, Your Honor." The court bailiff carried the sealed verdicts to the
bench.
Train whistles, the fanfare of an approaching Santa Fe express, penetrated the
courtroom. Tale's bass voice interlaced with the locomotive's cries as he read: " 'Count
One. We the jury find the defendant, Richard Eugene Hickock, guilty of murder in the
first degree, and the punishment is death.' " Then, as though interested in their reaction,
he looked down upon the prisoners, who stood before him handcuffed to guards; they
stared back impassively until he resumed and read the seven counts that followed: three
more convictions for Hickock, and four for Smith.
" - and the punishment is death"; each time he came to the sentence, Tate
enunciated it with a dark-toned hollowness that seemed to echo the train's mournful,
now fading call. Then he dismissed the jury ("You have performed a courageous
service"), and the condemned men were led away. At the door, Smith said to Hickock,
"No chicken-hearted jurors, they!" They both laughed loudly, and a cameraman
photographed them. The picture appeared in a Kansas paper above a caption entitled:
"The Last Laugh?"
A week later Mrs. Meier was sitting in her parlor talking to a friend. "Yes, it's turned
quiet around here," she said. "I guess we ought to be grateful things have settled down.
But I still feel bad about it. I never had much truck with Dick, but Perry and I got to
know each other real well. That afternoon, after he heard the verdict and they brought
him back up here - I shut myself in the kitchen to keep from having to see him. I sat by
the kitchen window and watched the crowd leaving the courthouse. Mr. Cullivan - he
looked up and saw me and waved. The Hickocks. All going away. Just this morning I
had a lovely letter from Mrs. Hickock; she visited with me several times while the trial
was going on, and I wished I could have helped her, only what can you say to someone
in a situation like that? But after everybody had gone, and I'd started to wash some
dishes - I heard him crying. I turned on the radio. Not to hear him. But I could. Crying
like a child. He'd never broke down before, shown any sign of it. Well, I went to him.
The door of his cell. He reached out his hand. He wanted me to hold his hand, and I did,
I held his hand, and all he said was, 'I'm embraced by shame.' I wanted to send for
Father Goubeaux - I said first thing tomorrow I'd make him Spanish rice - but he just
held my hand tighter.
"And that night, of all nights, we had to leave him alone. Wendle and I almost
never go out, but we had a long-standing engagement, and Wendle didn't think we
ought to break it. But I'll always be sorry we left him alone. Next day I did fix the rice.
He wouldn't touch it. Or hardly speak to me. He hated the whole world. But the morning
the men came to take him to the penitentiary, he thanked me and gave me a picture of
himself. A little Kodak made when he was sixteen years old. He said it was how he
wanted me to remember him, like the boy in the picture.
"The bad part was saying goodbye. When you knew where he was going, and
what would happen to him. That squirrel of his, he sure misses Perry. Keeps coming to
the cell looking for him. I've tried to feed him, but he won't have anything to do with
me. It was just Perry he liked."
Prisons are important to the economy of Leavenworth County, Kansas. The two state
penitentiaries, one for each sex, are situated there; so is Leavenworth, the largest
Federal prison, and, at Fort Leavenworth, the country's principal military prison, the
grim United States Army and Air Force Disciplinary Barracks. If all the inmates in
these institutions were let free, they could populate a small city.
The oldest of the prisons is the Kansas State Penitentiary for Men, a turreted
black-and-white palace that visually distinguishes an otherwise ordinary rural town,
Lansing. Built during the Civil War, it received its first resident in 1864. Nowadays the
convict population averages around two thousand; the present warden, Sherman H.
Grouse, keeps a chart which lists the daily total according to race (for example, White
1405, Colored 360, Mexicans 12, Indians 6). Whatever his race, each convict is a citizen
of a stony village that exists within the prison's steep, machine-gun-guarded walls twelve gray acres of cement streets and cellblocks and workshops.
In a south section of the prison compound there stands a curious little building: a
dark two-storied building shaped like a coffin. This establishment, officially called the
Segregation and Isolation Building, constitutes a prison inside a prison. Among the
inmates, the lower floor is known as The Hole - the place to which difficult prisoners,
the "hard rock" troublemakers, are now and then banished. The upper story is reached
by climbing a circular iron staircase; at the top is Death Row.
The first time the Clutter murderers ascended the staircase was late one rainy
April afternoon. Having arrived at Lansing after an eight-hour, four-hundred-mile car
ride from Garden City, the newcomers had been stripped, showered, given close
haircuts, and supplied with coarse denim uniforms and soft slippers (in most American
prisons such slippers are a condemned man's customary footwear); then armed escorts
marched them through a wet twilight to the coffin-shaped edifice, hustled them up the
spiral stairs and into two of the twelve side-by-side cells that comprise Lansing's Death
Row.
The cells are identical. They measure seven by ten feet, and are unfurnished
except for a cot, a toilet, a basin, and an overhead light bulb that is never extinguished
night or day. The cell windows are very narrow, and not only barred but covered with a
wire mesh black as a widow's veil; thus the faces of those sentenced to hang can be but
hazily discerned by passers-by. The doomed themselves can see out well enough; what
they see is an empty dirt lot that serves in summer as a baseball diamond, beyond the lot
a piece of prison wall, and above that, a piece of sky.
The wall is made of rough stone; pigeons nest inside its crevices. A rusty iron
door, set into the part of the wall visible to the Row's occupants, rouses the pigeons
whenever it is opened, puts them in a flap, for the hinges creak so, scream. The door
leads into a cavernous storage room, where on even the warmest day the air is moist and
chilly. A number of things are kept there: stockpiles of metal used by the convicts to
manufacture automobile license plates, lumber, old machinery, baseball paraphernalia and also an unpainted wooden gallows that smells faintly of pine. For this is the state's
execution chamber; when a man is brought here to be hanged, the prisoners say he has
"gone to The Corner," or, alternatively, "paid a visit to the warehouse."
In accordance with the sentence of the court, Smith and Hickock were scheduled
to visit the warehouse six weeks hence: at one minute after midnight on Friday, May 13,
1960.
Kansas abolished capital punishment in 1907; in 1935, due to a sudden prevalence in
the Midwest of rampaging professional criminals (Alvin "Old Creepy" Karpis, Charles
"Pretty Boy" Floyd, Clyde Barrow and his homicidal sweetheart, Bonnie Parker), the
state legislators voted to restore it. However, it was not until 1944 that an executioner
had a chance to employ his craft; over the next ten years he was given nine additional
opportunities. But for six years, or since 1954, there had been no pay checks for a
hangman in Kansas (except at the Army and Air Force Disciplinary Barracks, which
also has a gallows). The late George Docking, Governor of Kansas from1957 through
1060, was responsible for this hiatus, for he was unreservedly opposed to the death
penalty ("I just don't like killing people").
Now, at that time - April, 1960 - there were in United States prisons one hundred
and ninety persons awaiting civil execution; five, the Clutter killers included, were
among the lodgers at Lansing. Occasionally, important visitors to the prison are invited
to take what one high official calls "a little peek at Death Row." Those who accept are
assigned a guard who, as he leads the tourist along the iron walkway fronting the death
cells, is likely to identify the condemned with what he must consider comic formality.
"And this," he said to a visitor in 1960, "this is Mr. Perry Edward Smith. Now next
door, that's Mr. Smith's buddy, Mr. Richard Eugene Hickock. And over here we have
Mr. Earl Wilson. And after Mr. Wilson - meet Mr. Bobby Joe Spencer. And as for this
last gentleman, I'm sure you recognize the famous Mr. Lowell Lee Andrews."
Earl Wilson, a husky, hymn-singing Negro, had been sentenced to die for the
kidnapping, rape, and torture of a young white woman; the victim, though she survived,
was left severely disabled. Bobby Joe Spencer, white, an effeminate youth, had
confessed to murdering an elderly Kansas City woman, the owner of a rooming house
where he lived. Prior to leaving office in January, 1961, Governor Docking, who had
been defeated for re-election (in large measure because of his attitude toward capital
punishment), commuted the sentences of both these men to life imprisonment, which
generally meant that they could apply for parole in seven years. However, Bobby Joe
Spencer soon killed again: stabbed with a shiv another young convict, his rival for the
affections of an older inmate (as one prison officer said, "Just two punks fighting over a
jocker"). This deed earned Spencer a second life sentence. But the public was not much
aware of either Wilson or Spencer; compared to Smith and Hickock, or the fifth man on
the Row, Lowell Lee Andrews, the press had rather slighted them.
Two years earlier Lowell Lee Andrews, an enormous, weak-eyed boy of
eighteen who wore horn-rimmed glasses and weighed almost three hundred pounds, had
been a sophomore at the University of Kansas, an honor student majoring in biology.
Though he was a solitary creature, withdrawn and seldom communicative, his
acquaintances, both at the university and in his home town of Wolcott, Kansas, regarded
him as exceptionally gentle and "sweet-natured" (later one Kansas paper printed an
article about him entitled: "The Nicest Boy in Wolcott"). But inside the quiet young
scholar there existed a second, unsuspected personality, one with stunted emotions and a
distorted mind through which cold thoughts flowed in cruel directions. His family - his
parents and a slightly older sister, Jennie Marie - would have been astounded had they
known the daydreams Lowell Lee dreamed throughout the summer and autumn of 1958;
the brilliant son, the adored brother, was planning to poison them all.
The elder Andrews was a prosperous farmer; he had not much money in the
bank, but he owned land valued at approximately two hundred thousand dollars. A
desire to inherit this estate was ostensibly the motivation behind Lowell Lee's plot to
destroy his family. For the secret Lowell Lee, the one concealed inside the shy church
going biology student, fancied himself an ice-hearted master criminal: he wanted to
wear gangsterish silk shirts and drive scarlet sports cars; he wanted to be recognized as
no mere bespectacled, bookish, overweight, virginal schoolboy; and while he did not
dislike any member of his family, at least not consciously, murdering them seemed the
swiftest, most sensible way of implementing the fantasies that possessed him. Arsenic
was the weapon he decided upon; after poisoning the victims, he meant to tuck them in
their beds and burn down the house, in the hope that investigators would believe the
deaths accidental. However, one detail perturbed him: suppose autopsies revealed the
presence of arsenic? And suppose the purchase of the poison could be traced to him?
Toward the end of summer he evolved another plan. He spent three months polishing it.
Finally, there came a near-zero November night when he was ready to act.
It was Thanksgiving week, and Lowell Lee was home for the holidays, as was
Jennie Marie, an intelligent but rather plain girl who attended a college in Oklahoma.
On the evening of November 28, somewhere around seven, Jennie Marie was sitting
with her parents in the parlor watching television; Lowell Lee was locked in his
bedroom reading the last chapter of The Brothers Karamazov. That task completed, he
shaved, changed into his best suit, and proceeded to load both a semi-automatic .22caliber rifle and a Ruger .22-caliber revolver. He fitted the revolver into a hip holster,
shouldered the rifle, and ambled down a hall to the parlor, which was dark except for
the flickering television screen. He switched on a light, aimed the rifle, pulled the
trigger, and hit his sister between the eyes, killing her instantly. He shot his mother three
times, and his father twice. The mother, eyes gaping, arms outstretched, staggered
toward him; she tried to speak, her mouth opened, closed, but Lowell Lee said: "Shut
up." To be certain she obeyed him, he shot her three times more. Mr. Andrews,
however, was still alive; sobbing, whimpering, he thrashed along the floor toward the
kitchen, but at the kitchen's threshold the son unholstered his revolver and discharged
every chamber, then re-loaded the weapon and emptied it again; altogether, his father
absorbed seventeen bullets.
Andrews, according to statements credited to him, "didn't feel anything about it.
The time came, and I was doing what I had to do. That's all there was to it." After the
shootings he raised a window in his bedroom and removed the screen, then roamed the
house rifling dresser drawers and scattering the contents: it was his intention to blame
the crime on thieves. Later, driving his father's car, he traveled forty miles over snowslippery roads to Lawrence, the town where the University of Kansas is located; en
route, he parked on a bridge, dismantled his lethal artillery, and disposed of it by
dropping the parts into the Kansas River. But of course the journey's true purpose was
to arrange an alibi. First he stopped at the campus house where he roomed; he talked
with the landlady, told her that he had come to pick up his typewriter, and that because
of the bad weather the trip from Wolcott to Lawrence had taken two hours. Departing,
he visited a movie theater, where, uncharacteristically, he chatted with an usher and a
candy vendor. At eleven, when the movie let out, he returned to Wolcott. The family's
mongrel dog was waiting on the front porch; it was whining with hunger, so Lowell
Lee, entering the house and stepping across his father's corpse, prepared a bowl of warm
milk and mush; then, while the dog was lapping it up, he telephoned the sheriff's office
and said, "My name is Lowell Lee Andrews. I live at 6040 Wolcott Drive, and I want to
report a robbery - "
Four officers of the Wyandotte County Sheriff's Patrol responded. One of the
group, Patrolman Meyers, described the scene as follows: "Well, it was one in the
morning when we got there. All the lights in the house was on. And this big dark-haired
boy, Lowell Lee, he was sitting on the porch petting his dog. Patting it on the head.
Lieutenant At eleven, they asked the boy what happened, and he pointed to the door,
real casual, and said, 'Look in there.'" Having looked, the astonished officers summoned
the county coroner, a gentleman who was also impressed by young Andrews' callous
nonchalance, for when the coroner asked him what funeral arrangements he wished to
have made, Andrews replied with a shrug, "I don't care what you do with them."
Shortly, two senior detectives appeared and began to question the family's lone
survivor. Though convinced he was lying, the detectives listened respectfully to the tale
of how he had driven to Lawrence to fetch a typewriter, gone to a movie, and arrived
home after midnight to find the bedrooms ransacked and his family slain. He stayed
with the story, and might never have altered it if, subsequent to his arrest and removal to
the county jail, the authorities had not obtained the aid of the Reverend Mr. Virto C.
Dameron.
The Reverend Dameron, a Dickensian personage, an unctuous and jolly
brimstone-and-damnation orator, was minister of the Grandview Baptist Church in
Kansas City, Kansas, the church the Andrews family attended regularly. Awakened by
an urgent call from the county coroner, Dameron presented himself at the jail around 3:
00 a. m., whereupon detectives, who had been strenuously but abortively interrogating
the suspect, withdrew to another room, leaving the minister to consult privately with his
parishioner. It proved a fatal interview for the latter, who many months afterward gave
this account of it to a friend: "Mr. Dameron said, 'Now, Lee, I've known you all your
life. Since you were just a little tadpole. And I knew your daddy all his life, we grew up
together, we were childhood friends. And that's why I'm here - not just because I'm your
minister, but because I feel like you're a member of my own family. And because you
need a friend that you can talk to and trust. And I feel terrible about this terrible event,
and I'm every bit as anxious as you are to see the guilty party caught and punished.'
"He wanted to know was I thirsty, and I was, so he got me a Coke, and after that
he's going on about the Thanksgiving vacation and how do I like school, when all of a
sudden he says, 'Now, Lee, there seems to be some doubt among the people here
regarding your innocence. I'm sure you'd be willing to take a lie detector and convince
these men of your innocence so they can get busy and catch the guilty party.' Then he
said, 'Lee, you didn't do this terrible thing, did you? If you did, now is the time to purge
your soul.' The next thing was, I thought what difference does it make, and I told him
the truth, most everything about it. He kept wagging his head and rolling his eyes and
rubbing his hands together, and he said it was a terrible thing, and I would have to
answer to the Almighty, have to purge my soul by telling the officers what I'd told him,
and would I?" Receiving an affirmative nod, the prisoner's spiritual adviser stepped into
an adjacent room, which was crowded with expectant policemen, and elatedly issued an
invitation: "Come on in. The boy's ready to make a statement."
The Andrews case became the basis for a legal and medical crusade. Prior to the
trial, at which Andrews pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, the psychiatric staff of
the Menninger Clinic conducted an exhaustive examination of the accused; this
produced a diagnosis of "schizophrenia, simple type." By "simple," the diagnosticians
meant that Andrews suffered no delusions, no false perceptions, no hallucinations, but
the primary illness of separation of thinking from feeling. He understood the nature of
his acts, and that they were prohibited, and that he was subject to punishment. "But," to
quote Dr. Joseph Satten, one of the examiners, "Lowell Lee Andrews felt no emotions
whatsoever. He considered himself the only important, only significant person in the
world. And in his own seclusive world it seemed to him just as right to kill his mother
as to kill an animal or a fly."
In the opinion of Dr. Satten and his colleagues, Andrews' crime amounted to
such an un-debatable example of diminished responsibility that the case offered an ideal
chance to challenge the M'Naghten Rule in Kansas courts. The M'Naghten Rule, as has
been previously stated, recognizes no form of insanity provided the defendant has the
capacity to discriminate between right and wrong - legally, not morally. Much to the
distress of psychiatrists and liberal jurists, the Rule prevails in the courts of the British
Commonwealth and, in the United States, in the courts of all but half a dozen or so of
the states and the District of Columbia, which abide by the more lenient, though to some
minds impractical, Durham Rule, which is simply that an accused is not criminally
responsible if his unlawful act is the product of mental disease or mental defect.
In short, what Andrews' defenders, a team composed of Menninger Clinic
psychiatrists and two first-class attorneys, hoped to achieve was a victory of legallandmark stature. The great essential was to persuade the court to substitute the Durham
Rule for the M'Naghten Rule. If that happened, then Andrews, because of the abundant
evidence concerning his schizophrenic condition, would certainly be sentenced not to
the gallows, or even to prison, but to confinement in the State Hospital for the
Criminally Insane.
However, the defense reckoned without the defendant's religious counselor, the
tireless Reverend Mr. Dameron, who appeared at the trial as the chief witness for the
prosecution, and who, in the overwrought, rococo style of a tent-show revivalist, told
the court he had often warned his former Sunday School pupil of God's impending
wrath: "I says, there isn't anything in this world that is worth more than your soul, and
you have acknowledged to me a number of times in our conversations that your faith is
weak, that you have no faith in God. You know that all sin is against God and God is
your final judge, and you have got to answer to Him. That is what I said to make him
feel the terribleness of the thing he'd done, and that he had to answer to the Almighty
for this crime."
Apparently the Reverend Dameron was determined young Andrews should
answer not only to the Almighty, but also to more temporal powers, for it was his
testimony, added to the defendant's confession, that settled matters. The presiding judge
upheld the M'Naghten Rule, and the jury gave the state the death penalty it demanded.
Friday, May 13, the first date set for the execution of Smith and Hickock, passed
harmlessly, the Kansas Supreme Court having granted them a stay pending the outcome
of appeals for a new trial filed by their lawyers. At that time the Andrews verdict was
under review by the same court.
Perry's cell adjoined Dick's; though invisible to each other, they could easily
converse, yet Perry seldom spoke to Dick, and it wasn't because of any declared
animosity between them (after the exchange of a few tepid reproaches, their relationship
had turned into one of mutual toleration: the acceptance of uncongenial but helpless
Siamese twins); it was because Perry, cautious as always, secretive, suspicious, disliked
having the guards and other inmates overhear his "private business" - especially
Andrews, or Andy, as he was called on the Row. Andrews' educated accent and the
formal quality of his college-trained intelligence were anathema to Perry, who though
he had not gone beyond third grade, imagined himself more learned than most of his
acquaintances, and enjoyed correcting them, especially their grammar and
pronunciation. But here suddenly was someone - "just a kid!" - constantly correcting
him. Was it any wonder he never opened his mouth? Better to keep your mouth shut
than to risk one of the college kid's snotty lines, like: "Don't say disinterested. When
what you mean is un-interested." Andrews meant well, he was without malice, but Perry
could have boiled him in oil - yet he never admitted it, never let anyone there guess
why, after one of these humiliating incidents, he sat and sulked and ignored the meals
that were delivered to him three times a day. At the beginning of June he stopped eating
altogether - he told Dick, "You can wait around for the rope. But not me" - and from
that moment he refused to touch food or water, or say one word to anybody.
The fast lasted five days before the warden took it seriously. On the sixth day he
ordered Smith transferred to the prison hospital, but the move did not lessen Perry's
resolve; when attempts were made to force-feed him he fought back, tossed his head
and clenched his jaws until they were rigid as horseshoes. Eventually, he had to be
pinioned and fed intravenously or through a tube inserted in a nostril. Even so, over the
next nine weeks his weight fell from 168 to 115 pounds, and the warden was warned
that forced-feeding alone could not keep the patient alive indefinitely.
Dick, though impressed by Perry's will power, would not concede that his
purpose was suicide; even when Perry was reported to be in a coma, he told Andrews,
with whom he had become friendly, that his former confederate was faking. "He just
wants them to think he's crazy."
Andrews, a compulsive eater (he had filled a scrapbook with illustrated edibles,
everything from strawberry shortcake to roasted pig), said, "Maybe he is crazy. Starving
himself like that."
"He just wants to get out of here. Play-acting. So they'll say he's crazy and put
him in the crazy house."
Dick afterward grew fond of quoting Andrews' reply, for it seemed to him a fine
specimen of the boy's "funny thinking," his "off on a cloud" complacency. "Well,"
Andrews allegedly said, "it sure strikes me a hard way to do it. Starving yourself.
Because sooner or later we'll all get out of here. Either walk out - or be carried out in a
coffin. Myself, I don't care whether I walk or get carried. It's all the same in the end."
Dick said, "The trouble with you, Andy, you've got no respect for human life.
Including your own."
Andrews agreed. "And," he said, "I'll tell you something else. If ever I do get out
of here alive, I mean over the walls and clear out - well, maybe nobody will know
where Andy went, but they'll sure hell know where Andy's been."
All summer Perry undulated between half-awake stupors and sickly, sweatdrenched sleep. Voices roared through his head; one voice persistently asked him,
"Where is Jesus? Where?" And once he woke up shouting, "The bird is Jesus! The bird
is Jesus!" His favorite old theatrical fantasy, the one in which he thought of himself as
"Perry O'Parsons, The One-Man Symphony,"-returned in the guise of a recurrent dream.
The dream's geographical center was a Las Vegas night club where, wearing a white top
hat and a white tuxedo, he strutted about a spotlighted stage playing in turn a
harmonica, a guitar, a banjo, drums, sang "You Are My Sunshine," and tap-danced up a
short flight of gold-painted prop steps; at the top, standing on a platform, he took a bow.
There was no applause, none, and yet thousands of patrons packed the vast and gaudy
room - a strange audience, mostly men and mostly Negroes. Staring at them, the
perspiring entertainer at last understood their silence, for suddenly he knew that these
were phantoms, the ghosts of the legally annihilated, the hanged, the gassed, the
electrocuted - and in the same instant he realized that he was there to join them, that the
gold-painted steps had led to a scaffold, that the platform on which he stood was
opening beneath him. His top hat tumbled; urinating, defecating, Perry O'Parsons
entered eternity.
One afternoon he escaped from a dream and wakened to find the warden
standing beside his bed. The warden said, "Sounds like you were having a little
nightmare?" But Perry wouldn't answer him, and the warden, who on several occasions
had visited the hospital and tried to persuade the prisoner to cease his fast, said, "I have
something here. From your father. I thought you might want to see it." Perry, his eyes
glitteringly immense in a face now almost phosphorescently pale, studied the ceiling;
and presently, after placing a picture postcard on the patient's bedside table, the rebuffed
visitor departed.
That night Perry looked at the card. It was addressed to the warden, and
postmarked Blue Lake, California; the message, written in a familiar stubby script, said:
"Dear Sir, I understand you have my boy Perry back in custody. Write me please what
did he do wrong and if I come there could I see him. Alls well with me and trust the
same with you. Tex J. Smith." Perry destroyed the card, but his mind preserved it, for
the few crude words had resurrected him emotionally, revived love and hate, and
reminded him that he was still what he had tried not to be - alive. "And I just decided,"
he later informed a friend, "that I ought to stay that way. Anybody wanted my life
wasn't going to get any more help from me. They'd have to fight for it."
The next morning he asked for a glass of milk, the first sustenance he had
volunteered to accept in fourteen weeks. Gradually, on a diet of eggnogs and orange
juice, he regained weight; by October the prison physician, Dr. Robert Moore,
considered him strong enough to be returned to the Row. When he arrived there, Dick
laughed and said, "Welcome home, honey."
Two years passed.
The departures of Wilson and Spencer left Smith and Hickock and Andrews
alone with the Row's burning lights and veiled windows. The privileges granted
ordinary prisoners were denied them; no radios or card games, not even an exercise
period - indeed, they were never allowed out of their cells, except each Saturday when
they were taken to a shower room, then given a once weekly change of clothing; the
only other occasions for momentary release were the far between visits of lawyers or
relatives. Mrs. Hickock came once a month; her husband had died, she had lost the
farm, and, as she told Dick, lived now with one relative, now another.
It seemed to Perry as though he existed "deep underwater" - perhaps because the
Row usually was as gray and quiet as ocean depths, soundless except for snores,
coughs, the whisper of slippered feet, the feathery racket of the pigeons nesting in the
prison walls. But not always. "Sometimes," Dick wrote in a letter to his mother, "you
can't hear yourself think. They throw men in the cells downstairs, what they call the
hole, and plenty of them are fighting mad and crazy to boot. Curse and scream the
whole time. It's intolerable, so everybody starts yelling shut up. I wish you'd send me
earplugs. Only they wouldn't allow me to have them. No rest for the wicked, I guess."
The little building had been standing for more than a century, and seasonal
changes provoked different symptoms of its antiquity: winter cold saturated the stoneand-iron fixtures, and in summer, when temperatures often hurtled over the hundred
mark, the old cells were malodorous cauldrons. "So hot my skin stings," Dick wrote in a
letter dated July 5, 1961. "I try not to move much. I just sit on the floor. My bed's too
sweaty to lie down, and the smell makes me sick because of only the one bath a week
and always wearing the same clothes. No ventilation whatever and the light bulbs make
everything hotter. Bugs keep bumping on the walls."
Unlike conventional prisoners, the condemned are not subjected to a work
routine; they can do with their time what they like - sleep all day, as Perry frequently
did ("I pretend I'm a tiny little baby that can't keep its eyes open"); or, as was Andrews'
habit, read all night. Andrews averaged fifteen to twenty books a week; his taste
encompassed both trash and belle-lettres, and he liked poetry, Robert Frost's
particularly, but he also admired Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and the comic poems of
Ogden Nash. Though the quenchless quality of his literary thirst had soon depleted the
shelves of the prison library, the prison chaplain and others sympathetic to Andrews
kept him supplied with parcels from the Kansas City public library.
Dick was rather a bookworm, too; but his interest was restricted to two themes sex, as represented in the novels of Harold Robbins and Irving Wallace (Perry, after
being lent one of these by Dick, returned it with an indignant note: "Degenerate filth for
filthy degenerate minds!"), and law literature.
He consumed hours each day leafing through law books, compiling research that
he hoped would help reverse his conviction. Also, in pursuit of the same cause he fired
off a cannonade of letters to such organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union
and the Kansas State Bar Association - letters attacking his trial as a "travesty of due
process," and urging the recipients to aid him in his quest for a new trial. Perry was
persuaded to draft similar pleas, but when Dick suggested that Andy follow their
example by writing protests in his own behalf, Andrews replied, "I'll worry about my
neck and you worry about yours." (Actually, Dick's neck was not the part of his
anatomy that most immediately troubled him. "My hair is coming out by the handfuls,"
he confided in yet another letter to his mother. "I'm frantic. Nobody in our family was
bald headed as I can recall, and it makes me frantic the idea of being an ugly old
baldhead.")
The Row's two night guards, arriving at work on an autumn evening in 1961,
had a piece of news. "Well," one of them announced, "seems like you boys can expect
company." The import of the remark was clear to his audience: it meant that two young
soldiers, who had been standing trial for the murder of a Kansas railroad worker, had
received the ultimate sentence. "Yessir," the guard said, confirming this, "they got the
death penalty." Dick said, "Sure. It's very popular in Kansas. Juries hand it out like they
were giving candy to kids."
One of the soldiers, George Ronald York, was eighteen; his companion, James
Douglas Latham, was a year older. They were both exceptionally personable, which
perhaps explains why hordes of teen-aged girls had attended their trial. Though
convicted of a single slaying, the pair had claimed seven victims in the course of a
cross-country murder spree.
Ronnie York, blond and blue-eyed, had been born and raised in Florida, where
his father was a well-known, well-paid deep-sea diver. The Yorks had a pleasantly
comfortable home life, and Ronnie, overloved and overpraised by his parents and a
worshipful younger sister, was the adored center of it. Latham's back-ground was at the
opposite extreme, being every bit as bleak as Perry Smith's. Born in Texas, he was the
youngest child of fertile, moneyless, embattled parents who, when finally they
separated, left their progeny to fend for themselves, to scatter hither and thither, loose
and unwanted as bundles of Panhandle tumbleweed. At seventeen, in need of a refuge,
Latham enlisted in the Army; two years later, found guilty of an AWOL offense, he was
imprisoned in the stockade at Fort Hood, Texas. It was there that he met Ronnie York,
who was also under sentence for having gone AWOL. Though they were very unlike even physically, York being tall and phlegmatic, whereas the Texan was a short young
man with foxy brown eyes animating a compact, cute little face - they found they shared
at least one firm opinion: the world was hateful, and everybody in it would be better off
dead. "It's a rotten world," Latham said. "There's no answer to it but meanness. That's
all anybody understands - meanness. Burn down the man's barn - he'll understand that.
Poison his dog. Kill him." Ronnie said Latham was "one hundred percent correct,"
adding, "Anyway, anybody you kill, you're doing them a favor."
The first person they chose to so favor were two Georgia women, respectable
housewives who had the misfortune to encounter York and Latham not long after the
murderous pair escaped from the Fort Hood stockade, stole a pickup truck, and drove to
Jacksonville, Florida, York's home town. The scene of the encounter was an Esso
station on the dark outskirts of Jacksonville; the date was the night of May 29, 1961.
Originally, the absconding soldiers had traveled to the Florida city with the intention of
visiting York's family; once there, however, York decided it might be unwise to contact
his parents; his father sometimes had quite a temper. He and Latham talked it over, and
New Orleans was their new destination when they stopped at the Esso station to buy
gas. Along side them another car was imbibing fuel; it contained the two matronly
victims-to-be, who, after a day of shopping and pleasure in Jacksonville, were returning
to their homes in a small town near the Florida-Georgia border. Alas, they had lost their
way. York, from whom they asked directions, was most obliging: "You just follow us.
We'll put you on the right road." But the road to which he led them was very wrong
indeed: a narrow side-turning that petered off into swamp.
The ladies followed along faithfully until the lead halted, and they saw, in the
shine of their headlights, the helpful young men approaching them on foot, and saw, but
too late, that each was armed with a black bullwhip. The whips were the property of the
stolen truck's rightful custodian, a cattleman; it had been Latham's notion to use them as
garrotes - which, after robbing the women, is what they did. In New Orleans the boys
bought a pistol and carved two notches in the handle.
During the next ten days notches were added in Tullahoma, Tennessee, where
they acquired a snappy red Dodge convertible by shooting the owner, a traveling
salesman; and in an Illinois suburb of St. Louis, where two more men were slain. The
Kansas victim, who followed the preceding five, was a grandfather; his name was Otto
Ziegler, he was sixty-two, a robust, friendly fellow, the sort not likely to pass distressed
motorists without offering assistance. While spinning along a Kansas highway one fine
June morning, Mr. Ziegler spied a red convertible parked by the roadside, its hood up,
and a couple of nice-looking youngsters fiddling with the motor. How was the goodhearted Mr. Ziegler to know that nothing ailed the machine - that this was a ruse devised
to rob and kill would-be Samaritans? His last words were, "Anything I can do?" York,
at a distance of twenty feet, sent a bullet crashing through the old man's skull, then
turned to Latham and said, "Pretty good shootin', huh?"
Their final victim was the most pathetic. It was a girl, only eighteen; she was
employed as a maid in a Colorado motel where the rampaging pair spent a night, during
which she let them make love to her. Then they told her they were on their way to
California, and invited her to come along. "Come on," Latham urged her, "maybe we'll
all end up movie stars." The girl and her hastily packed cardboard suitcase ended up as
blood-soaked wreckage at the bottom of a ravine near Craig, Colorado; but not many
hours after she had been shot and thrown there, her assassins were in fact performing
before motion-picture cameras.
Descriptions of the red car's occupants, provided by witnesses who had noticed
them loitering in the area where Otto Ziegler's body was discovered, had been circulated
through the Midwest and Western states. Roadblocks were erected, and helicopters
patrolled the highways; it was a roadblock in Utah that caught York and Latham. Later,
at Police Headquarters in Salt Lake City, a local television company was allowed to
film an interview with them. The result, if viewed without sound, would seem to
concern two cheerful, milk fed athletes discussing hockey or baseball - anything but
murder and the roles, boastfully confessed, they had played in the deaths of seven
people. "Why," the interviewer asks, "why did you do it?" And York, with a selfcongratulatory grin, answers, "We hate the world."
All five of the states that vied for the right to prosecute York and Latham
endorse judicial homicide: Florida (electrocution), Tennessee (electrocution), Illinois
(electrocution), Kansas (hanging), and Colorado (lethal gas). But because it had the
firmest evidence, Kansas was victorious.
The men on the Row first met their new companions November 2, 1961. A
guard, escorting the arrivals to their cells, introduced them: "Mr. York, Mr. Latham, I'd
like you to know Mr. Smith here. And Mr. Hickock. And Mr. Lowell Lee Andrews 'the nicest boy in Wolcott!'"
When the parade had passed, Hickock heard Andrews chuckling, and said,
"What's so funny about that sonofabitch?"
"Nothing," Andrews said. "But I was thinking: when you count my three and
your four and their seven, that makes fourteen of them and five of us. Now five into
fourteen averages out - "
"Four into fourteen," Hickock curtly corrected him. "There are four killers up
here and one railroaded man. I'm no goddam killer. I never touched a hair on a human
head."
Hickock continued writing letters protesting his conviction, and one of these at last bore
fruit. The recipient, Everett Steerman, Chairman of the Legal Aid Committee of the
Kansas State Bar Association, was disturbed by the allegations of the sender, who
insisted that he and his co-defendant had not had a fair trial. According to Hickock, the
"hostile atmosphere" in Garden City had made it impossible to empanel an unbiased
jury, and therefore a change of venue should have been granted. As for the jurors that
were chosen, at least two had clearly indicated a presumption of guilt during the voir
dire examination ("When asked to state his opinion of capital punishment, one man said
that ordinarily he was against it, but in this case no"); unfortunately, the voir dire had
not been recorded because Kansas law does not require it unless a specific demand is
made. Many of the jurors, moreover, were "well acquainted with the deceased. So was
the judge. Judge Tate was an intimate friend of Mr. Clutter."
But the bulkiest of Hickock's mud pies was aimed at the two defense attorneys,
Arthur Fleming and Harrison Smith, whose "incompetence and inadequacy" were the
chief cause of the correspondent's present predicament, for no real defense had been
prepared or offered by them, and this lack of effort, it was implied, had been deliberate an act of collusion between the defense and the prosecution.
These were grave assertions, reflecting upon the integrity of two respected
lawyers and a distinguished district judge, but if even partially true, then the
constitutional rights of the defendants had been abused. Prompted by Mr. Steerman, the
Bar Association undertook a course of action without precedent in Kansas legal history:
it appointed a young Wichita attorney, Russell Shultz, to investigate the charges and,
should evidence warrant it, challenge the validity of the conviction by bringing habeas
corpus proceedings in the Kansas Supreme Court, which had recently upheld the
verdict.
It would appear that Shultz's investigation was rather one-sided, since it
consisted of little more than an interview with Smith and Hickock, from which the
lawyer emerged with crusading phrases for the press: "The question is this - do poor,
plainly guilty defendants have a right to a complete defense? I do not believe that the
State of Kansas would be either greatly or for long harmed by the death of these
appellants. But I do not believe it could ever recover from the death of due process."
Shultz filed his habeas corpus petition, and the Kansas Supreme Court
commissioned one of its own retired justices, the Honorable Walter G. Thiele, to
conduct a full-scale hearing. And so it came to pass that almost two years after the trial,
the whole cast reassembled in the courtroom at Garden City. The only important
participants absent were the original defendants; in their stead, as it were, stood Judge
Tate, old Mr. Fleming, and Harrison Smith, whose careers were imperiled - not because
of the appellant's allegations per se, but because of the apparent credit the Bar
Association bestowed upon them.
The hearing, which at one point was transferred to Lansing, where Judge Thiele
heard Smith and Hickock testify, took six days to complete; ultimately, every point was
covered. Eight jurors swore they had never known any member of the slain family; four
admitted some slight acquaintance with Mr. Clutter, but each, including N. L. Dunnan,
the airport operator who had made the controversial reply during the voir dire, testified
that he had entered the jury box with an unprejudiced mind. Shultz challenged Dunnan:
"Do you feel, sir, that you would have been willing to go to trial with a juror whose
state of mind was the same as yours?" Dunnan said yes, he would; and Shultz then said,
"Do you recall being asked whether or not you were averse to capital punishment?"
Nodding, the witness answered, "I told them under normal conditions I would probably
be averse to it. But with the magnitude of this crime I could probably vote in favor."
Tangling with Tate was more difficult: Shultz soon realized he had a tiger by the
tail. Responding to questions relevant to his supposed intimacy with Mr. Clutter, the
judge said, "He [Clutter] was once a litigant in this court, a case over which I presided, a
damage action involving an airplane falling on his property; he was suing for damages
to - I believe some fruit trees. Other than that, I had no occasion to associate with him.
None whatever. I saw him perhaps once or twice in the course of a year..."Shultz,
floundering, switched the subject.
"Do you know," he asked, "what the attitude of the people was in this
community after the apprehension of these two men?"
"I believe I do," the judge told him with scathing confidence. "It is my opinion
that the attitude toward them was that of anyone else charged with a criminal offense that they should be tried as the law provides; that if they were guilty they should be
convicted; that they should be given the same fair treatment as any other person. There
was no prejudice against them because they were accused of crime."
"You mean," Shultz slyly said, "you saw no reason for the court on its own
motion to grant a change of venue?" Tate's lips curved downward, his eyes blazed. "Mr.
Shultz," he said, as though the name was a prolonged hiss, "the court cannot on its own
grant a change of venue. That would be contrary to Kansas law. I couldn't grant a
change unless it was properly requested. "But why had such a request not been made by
the defendants' attorneys? Shultz now pursued this question with the attorneys
themselves, for to discredit them and prove that they had not supplied their clients with
the minimum protection was, from the Wichita lawyer's viewpoint, the hearing's
principal objective. Fleming and Smith withstood the onslaught in good style,
particularly Fleming, who, wearing a bold red tie and an abiding smile, endured Shultz
with gentlemanly resignation. Explaining why he had not applied for a change of venue,
he said, "I felt that since the Reverend Cowan, the minister of the Methodist church, and
a man of substance here, a man of high standing, as well as many other ministers here,
had expressed themselves against capital punishment, that at least the leaven had been
cast in the area, and there were likely more people here inclined to be lenient in the
matter of the penalty than perhaps in other parts of the state. Then I believe it was a
brother of Mrs. Clutter's who made a statement that appeared in the press indicating he
did not feel the defendants should be put to death."
Shultz had a score of charges, but underlying them all was the implication that
because of community pressure, Fleming and Smith had deliberately neglected their
duties. Both men, Shultz maintained, had betrayed their clients by not consulting with
them sufficiently (Mr. Fleming replied, "I worked on the case to the very best of my
ability, giving it more time than I do most cases"); by waiving a preliminary hearing
(Smith answered, "But sir, neither Mr. Fleming nor I had been appointed counsel at the
time of the waiver"); by making remarks to newsmen damaging to the defendants
(Shultz to Smith: "Are you aware that a reporter, Ron Kull of the Topeka Daily Capital,
quoted you, on the second day of the trial, as saying there was no doubt of Mr.
Hickock's guilt, but that you were concerned only with obtaining life imprisonment
rather than the death penalty?" Smith to Shultz: "No, sir. If I was quoted as saying that it
was incorrect"); and by failing to prepare a proper defense.
This last proposition was the one Shultz pedaled hardest; it is relevant, therefore,
to reproduce an opinion of it written by three Federal judges as the result of a
subsequent appeal to the United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit: "We think,
however, that those viewing the situation in retrospect have lost sight of the problems
which confronted Attorneys Smith and Fleming when they undertook the defense of
these petitioners. When they accepted the appointments each petitioner had made a full
confession, and they did not then contend, nor did they seriously contend at any time in
the state courts, that these confessions were not voluntary. A radio taken from the
Clutter home and sold by the petitioners in Mexico City had been recovered, and the
attorneys knew of other evidence of their guilt then in the possession of the prosecution.
When called upon to plead to the charges against them they stood mute, and it was
necessary for the court to enter a plea of not guilty for them. There was no substantial
evidence then, and none has been produced since the trial, to substantiate a defense of
insanity. The attempt to establish insanity as a defense because of serious injuries in
accidents years before, and headaches and occasional fainting spells of Hickock, was
like grasping at the proverbial straw. The attorneys were faced with a situation where
outrageous crimes committed on innocent persons had been admitted. Under these
circumstances, they would have been justified in advising that petitioners enter pleas of
guilty and throw themselves on the mercy of the court. Their only hope was through
some turn of fate the lives of these misguided individuals might be spared."
In the report he submitted to the Kansas Supreme Court, Judge Thiele found that
the petitioners had received a constitutionally fair trial; the court thereupon denied the
writ to abolish the verdict, and set a new date of execution - October 25, 1962. As it
happened, Lowell Lee Andrews, whose case had twice traveled all the way to the
United States Supreme Court, was scheduled to hang one month later.
The Clutter slayers, granted a reprieve by a Federal judge, evaded their date.
Andrews kept his.
ln the disposition of capital cases in the United States, the median elapsed time
between sentence and execution is approximately seventeen months. Recently, in Texas,
an armed robber was electrocuted one month after his conviction; but in Louisiana, at
the present writing, two rapists have been waiting for a record twelve years. The
variance depends a little on luck and a great deal on the extent of litigation. The
majority of the lawyers handling these cases are court-appointed and work without
recompense; but more often than not the courts, in order to avoid future appeals based
on complaints of inadequate representation, appoint men of first quality who defend
with commendable vigor. However, even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone
doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American
jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat
fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably, first in the
state courts, then through the Federal courts until the ultimate tribunal is reached - the
United States Supreme Court. But even defeat there does not signify if petitioner's
counsel can discover or invent new grounds for appeal; usually they can, and so once
more the wheel turns, and turns until, perhaps some years later, the prisoner arrives back
at the nation's highest court, probably only to begin again the slow cruel contest. But at
intervals the wheel does pause to declare a winner - or, though with increasing rarity, a
loser: Andrews' lawyers fought to the final moment, but their client went to the gallows
on Friday, November 30, 1962.
"That was a cold night," Hickock said, talking to a journalist with whom he
corresponded and who was periodically allowed to visit him. "Cold and wet. It had been
raining like a bastard, and the baseball field was mud up to your cojones. So when they
took Andy out to the warehouse, they had to walk him along the path. We were all at
our windows watching - Perry and me, Ronnie York, Jimmy Latham. It was just after
midnight, and the warehouse was lit up like a Halloween pumpkin. The doors wide
open. We could see the witnesses, a lot of guards, the doctor and the warden - every
damn thing but the gallows. It was off at an angle, but we could see its shadow. A
shadow on the wall like the shadow of a boxing ring.
"The chaplain and four guards had charge of Andy, and when they got to the
door they stopped a second. Andy was looking at the gallows - you could sense he was.
His arms were tied in front of him. All of a sudden the chaplain reached out and took off
Andy's glasses. Which was kind of pitiful, Andy without his glasses. They led him on
inside, and I wondered he could see to climb the steps. It was real quiet, just nothing but
this dog barking way off. Some town dog. Then we heard it, the sound, and Jimmy
Latham said, "What was that?"; and I told him what it was - the trap door.
"Then it was real quiet again. Except that dog. Old Andy, he danced a long time.
They must have had a real mess to clean up.
Every few minutes the doctor came to the door and stepped outside, and stood
there with this stethoscope in his hand. I wouldn't say he was enjoying his work - kept
gasping, like he was gasping for breath, and he was crying, too. Jimmy said, 'Get a load
of that nance.' I guess the reason he stepped outside was so the others wouldn't see he
was crying. Then he'd go back and listen to hear if Andy's heart had stopped. Seemed
like it never would. The fact is, his heart kept bearing for nineteen minutes.
"Andy was a funny kid," Hickock said, smiling lopsidedly as he propped a
cigarette between his lips. "It was like I told him: he had no respect for human life, not
even his own. Right before they hanged him, he sat down and ate two fried chickens.
And that last afternoon he was smoking cigars and drinking Coke and writing poetry.
When they came to get him, and we said our goodbye, I said, 'I'll be seeing you soon,
Andy. 'Cause I'm sure we're going to the same place. So scout around and see if you
can't find a cool shady spot for us Down There.' He laughed, and said he didn't believe
in heaven or hell, just dust unto dust. And he said an aunt and uncle had been to see
him, and told him they had a coffin waiting to carry him to some little cemetery in north
Missouri. The same place where the three he disposed of were buried. They planned to
put Andy right alongside them. He said when they told him that he could hardly keep a
straight face. I said, 'Well, you're lucky to have a grave. Most likely they'll give Perry
and me to the vivisectionist.' We joked on like that till it was time to go, and just as he
was going he handed me a piece of paper with a poem on it. I don't know if he wrote it.
Or copied it out of a book. My impression was he wrote it. If you're interested, I'll send
it to you."
He later did so, and Andrews' farewell message turned out to be the ninth stanza
of Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard": The boasts of heraldry, the pomp of
pow'r, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour: The
paths of glory lead but to the grave.
"I really liked Andy. He was a nut - not a real nut, like they kept hollering; but,
you know, just goofy. He was always talking about breaking out of here and making his
living as a hired gun. He liked to imagine himself roaming around Chicago or Los
Angeles with a machine gun inside a violin case. Cooling guys. Said he'd charge a
thousand bucks per stiff."
Hickock laughed, presumably at the absurdity of his friend's ambitions, sighed,
and shook his head. "But for someone his age he was the smartest person I ever come
across. A human library. When that boy read a book it stayed read. Course he didn't
know a dumb-darn thing about life. Me, I'm an ignoramus except when it comes to what
I know about life. I've walked along a lot of mean streets. I've seen a white man flogged.
I've watched babies born. I've seen a girl, and her no more than fourteen, take on three
guys at the same time and give them all their money's worth. Fell off a ship once five
miles out to sea. Swam five miles with my life passing before me with every stroke.
Once I shook hands with President Truman in the lobby of the Hotel Muehlebach. Harry
S Truman. When I was working for the hospital, driving an ambulance, I saw every side
of life there is - things that would make a dog vomit. But Andy. He didn't know one
dumb-damn-darn thing except what he'd read in books.
"He was innocent as a little child, some kid with a box of Cracker Jack. He'd
never once been with a woman, Man or mule. He said so himself. Maybe that's what I
liked about him most. How he wouldn't prevaricate. The rest of us on the Row, we're all
a bunch of bull-artists. I'm one of the worst. Shoot, you've got to talk about something.
Brag. Otherwise you're nobody, nothing, a potato vegetating in your seven-by-ten
limbo. But Andy never would partake. He said what's the use telling a lot of stuff that
never happened.
"Old Perry, though, he wasn't sorry to see the last of Andy. Andy was the one
thing in the world Perry wants to be - educated. And Perry couldn't forgive him for it.
You know how Perry's always using hundred-dollar words he doesn't half know the
meaning of? Sounds like one of them college niggers? Boy, it burned his bottom to have
Andy catch up on him and haul him to the curb. Course Andy was just trying to give
him what he wanted - an education. The truth is, can't anybody get along with Perry. He
hasn't got a single friend on the premises. I mean, just who the hell does he think he is?
Sneering at everybody. Calling people perverts and degenerates. Going on about what
low I. Q.'s they have. It's too bad we can't all be such sensitive souls like little Perry.
Saints. Boy, but I know some hard rocks who'd gladly go to The Corner if they could
get him alone in the shower room for just one hot minute. The way he high-hats York
and Latham! Ronnie says he sure wishes he knew where he could lay hold of a
bullwhip. Says he'd like to squeeze Perry a little. I don't blame him. After all, we're all
in the same fix, and they're pretty good boys."
Hickock chuckled ruefully, shrugged, and said, "You know what I mean. Good considering. Ronnie York's mother has been here to visit him several times. One day,
out in the waiting room, she met my mother, and now they've come to be each other's
number-one buddy. Mrs. York wants my mother to come visit her home in Florida,
maybe even live there. Jesus, I wish she would. Then she wouldn't have to go through
this ordeal. Once a month riding the bus here to see me. Smiling, trying to find
something to say, make me feel good. The poor lady. I don't know how she stands it. I
wonder she isn't crazy."
Hickock's uneven eyes turned toward a window in the visiting room; his face,
puffy, pallid as a funeral lily, gleamed in the weak winter sunshine filtering through the
bar-shrouded glass.
"The poor lady. She wrote the warden, and asked him if she could speak to Perry
the next time she came here. She wanted to hear from Perry himself how he killed those
people, how I never fired shot one. All I can hope is that some day we'll get a new trial,
and Perry will testify and tell the truth. Only I doubt it. He's plain determined that if he
goes I go. Back to back. It's not right. Many a man has killed and never seen the inside
of a death cell. And I never killed anybody. If you've got fifty thousand dollars to spend,
you could bump off half of Kansas City and just laugh ha ha." A sudden grin obliterated
his woeful indignation. "Uh-oh. There I go again. Old cry baby. You'd think I'd learn.
But honest to God, I've done my damnedest to get along with Perry. Only he's so
critical. Two-faced. So jealous of every little thing. Every letter I get, every visit.
Nobody ever comes to see him except you," he said, nodding at the journalist, who was
as equally well acquainted with Smith as he was with Hickock. "Or his lawyer.
Remember when he was in the hospital? With that phony starvation routine? And his
dad sent the postcard? Well, the warden wrote Perry's dad and said he was welcome to
come here any time. But he never has showed up. I don't know. Sometimes you got to
feel sorry for Perry. He must be one of the most alone people there ever was. But. Aw,
the hell with him. It's mostly every bit his own fault."
Hickock slipped another cigarette away from a package of Pall Malls, wrinkled
his nose, and said, "I've tried to quit smoking. Then I figure what difference does it
make under the circumstances. With a little luck, maybe I'll get cancer and beat the state
at its own game. For a while there I was smoking cigars. Andy's. The morning after they
hanged him, I woke up and called to him, 'Andy?' - the way I usually did. Then I
remembered he was on his way to Missouri. With the aunt and uncle. I looked out in the
corridor. His cell had been cleaned out, and all his junk was piled there. The mattress
off his bunk, his slippers, and the scrapbook with all the food pictures - he called it his
icebox. And this box of 'Macbeth' cigars. I told the guard Andy wanted me to have
them, left them to me in his will. Actually, I never smoked them all. Maybe it was the
idea of Andy, but somehow they gave me indigestion.
"Well, what's there to say about capital punishment? I'm not against it. Revenge
is all it is, but what's wrong with revenge? It's very important. If I was kin to the
Clutters, or any of the parties York and Latham dispensed with, I couldn't rest in peace
till the ones responsible had taken that ride on the Big Swing. These people that write
letters to the newspapers. There were two in a Topeka paper the other day - one from a
minister. Saying, in effect, what is all this legal farce, why haven't those sonsabitches
Smith and Hickock got it in the neck, how come those murdering sonsabitches are still
eating up the taxpayers' money? Well, I can see their side. They're mad 'cause they're
not getting what they want - revenge. And they're not going to get it if I can help it. I
believe in hanging. Just so long as I'm not the one being hanged."
But then he was.
Another three years passed, and during those years two exceptionally skillful
Kansas City lawyers, Joseph P. Jenkins and Robert Bingham, replaced Shultz, the latter
having resigned from the case. Appointed by a Federal judge, and working without
compensation (but motivated by a hard-held opinion that the defendants had been the
victims of a "nightmarishly unfair trial"), Jenkins and Bingham filed numerous appeals
within the framework of the Federal court system, thereby avoiding three execution
dates: October 25, 1962, August 8, 1963, and February 18, 1965. The attorneys
contended that their clients had been unjustly convicted because legal counsel had not
been appointed them until after they had confessed and had waived preliminary
hearings; and because they were not competently represented at their trial, were
convicted with the help of evidence seized without a search warrant (the shotgun and
knife taken from the Hickock home), were not granted a change of venue even though
the environs of the trial had been "saturated" with publicity prejudicial to the accused.
With these arguments, Jenkins and Bingham succeeded in carrying the case
three times to the United States Supreme Court - the Big Boy, as many litigating
prisoners refer to it - but on each occasion the Court, which never comments on its
decisions in such instances, denied the appeals by refusing to grant the writs of
certiorari that would have entitled the appellants to a full hearing before the Court. In
March, 1965, after Smith and Hickock had been confined in their Death Row cells
almost two thousand days, the Kansas Supreme Court decreed that their lives must end
between midnight and 2: 00 a. m., Wednesday, April 14, 1965. Subsequently, a
clemency appeal was presented to the newly elected Governor of Kansas, William
Avery; but Avery, a rich farmer sensitive to public opinion, refused to intervene - a
decision he felt to be in the "best interest of the people of Kansas." (Two months later,
Avery also denied the clemency appeals of York and Latham, who were hanged on June
22, 1965.)
And so it happened that in the daylight hours of that Wednesday morning, Alvin
Dewey, breakfasting in the coffee shop of a Topeka hotel, read, on the first page of the
Kansas City Star, a headline he had long awaited: die on rope for bloody crime. The
story, written by an Associated Press reporter, began: "Richard Eugene Hickock and
Perry Edward Smith, partners in crime, died on the gallows at the state prison early
today for one of the bloodiest murders in Kansas criminal annals. Hickock, 33years old,
died first, at 12: 41 a. m.; Smith, 36, died at 1: 19..."
Dewey had watched them die, for he had been among the twenty-odd witnesses invited
to the ceremony. He had never attended an execution, and when on the midnight past he
entered the cold warehouse, the scenery had surprised him: he had anticipated a setting
of suitable dignity, not this bleakly lighted cavern cluttered with lumber and other
debris. But the gallows itself, with its two pale nooses attached to a crossbeam, was
imposing enough; and so, in an unexpected style, was the hangman, who cast a long
shadow from his perch on the platform at the top of the wooden instrument's thirteen
steps. The hangman, an anonymous, leathery gentleman who had been imported from
Missouri for the event, for which he was paid six hundred dollars, was attired in an aged
double-breasted pinstriped suit overly commodious for the narrow figure inside it - the
coat came nearly to his knees; and on his head he wore a cowboy hat which, when first
bought, had perhaps been bright green, but was now a weathered, sweat-stained oddity.
Also, Dewey found the self-consciously casual conversation of his fellow
witnesses, as they stood awaiting the start of what one witness termed "the festivities,"
disconcerting.
"What I heard was, they was gonna let them draw straws to see who dropped
first. Or flip a coin. But Smith says why not do it alphabetically. Guess 'cause S comes
after H. Ha!"
"Read in the paper, afternoon paper, what they ordered for their last meal?
Ordered the same menu. Shrimp. French fries. Garlic bread. Ice cream and strawberries
and whipped cream. Understand Smith didn't touch his much."
"That Hickock's got a sense of humor. They was telling me how, about an hour
ago, one of the guards says to him, 'This must be the longest night of your life.' And
Hickock, he laughs and says, 'No. The shortest.'"
"Did you hear about Hickock's eyes? He left them to an eye doctor. Soon as they
cut him down, this doctor's gonna yank out his eyes and stick them in somebody else's
head. Can't say I'd want to be that somebody. I'd feel peculiar with them eyes in my
head."
"Christ! Is that rain? All the windows down! My new Chevy. Christ!"
The sudden rain rapped the high warehouse roof. The sound, not unlike the rata-tat-tat of parade drums, heralded Hickock's arrival. Accompanied by six guards and a
prayer-murmuring chaplain, he entered the death place handcuffed and wearing an ugly
harness of leather straps that bound his arms to his torso. At the foot of the gallows the
warden read to him the official order of execution, a two-page document; and as the
warden read, Hickock's eyes, enfeebled by half a decade of cell shadows, roamed the
little audience until, not seeing what he sought, he asked the nearest guard, in a whisper,
if any member of the Clutter family was present. When he was told no, the prisoner
seemed disappointed, as though he thought the protocol surrounding this ritual of
vengeance was not being properly observed.
As is customary, the warden, having finished his recitation, asked the
condemned man whether he had any last statement to make. Hickock nodded. "I just
want to say I hold no hard feelings. You people are sending me to a better world than
this ever was"; then, as if to emphasize the point, he shook hands with the four men
mainly responsible for his capture and conviction, all of whom had requested
permission to attend the executions: K. B. I. Agents Roy Church, Clarence Duntz,
Harold Nye, and Dewey himself. "Nice to see you," Hickock said with his most
charming smile; it was as if he were greeting guests at his own funeral.
The hangman coughed - impatiently lifted his cowboy hat and settled it again, a
gesture somehow reminiscent of a turkey buzzard huffing, then smoothing its neck
feathers - and Hickock, nudged by an attendant, mounted the scaffold steps. "The Lord
giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed is the name of the Lord," the chaplain intoned, as
the rain sound accelerated, as the noose was fitted, and as a delicate black mask was tied
round the prisoner's eyes. "May the Lord have mercy on your soul." The trapdoor
opened, and Hickock hung for all to see a full twenty minutes before the prison doctor
at last said, "I pronounce this man dead." A hearse, its blazing headlights beaded with
rain, drove into the warehouse, and the body, placed on a litter and shrouded under a
blanket, was carried to the hearse and out into the night. Staring after it, Roy Church
shook his head: "I never would have believed he had the guts. To take it like he did. I
had him tagged a coward."
The man to whom he spoke, another detective, said, "Aw, Roy. The guy was a
punk. A mean bastard. He deserved it." Church, with thoughtful eyes, continued to
shake his head. While waiting for the second execution, a reporter and a guard
conversed. The reporter said, "This your first hanging?"
"I seen Lee Andrews."
"This here's my first."
"Yeah. How'd you like it?"
The reporter pursed his lips. "Nobody in our office wanted the assignment. Me
either. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just like jumping off a diving board.
Only with a rope around your neck."
"They don't feel nothing. Drop, snap, and that's it. They don't feel nothing."
"Are you sure? I was standing right close. I could hear him gasping for breath."
"Uh-huh, but he don't feel nothing. Wouldn't be humane if he did."
"Well. And I suppose they feed them a lot of pills. Sedatives."
"Hell, no. Against the rules. Here comes Smith."
"Gosh, I didn't know he was such a shrimp."
'Yeah, he's little. But so is a tarantula."
As he was brought into the warehouse, Smith recognized his old foe, Dewey; he
stopped chewing a hunk of Doublemint gum he had in his mouth, and grinned and
winked at Dewey, jaunty and mischievous. But after the warden asked if he had
anything to say, his expression was sober. His sensitive eyes gazed gravely at the
surrounding faces, swerved up to the shadowy hangman, then downward to his own
manacled hands. He looked at his fingers, which were stained with ink and paint, for
he'd spent his final three years on Death Row painting self-portraits and pictures of
children, usually the children of inmates who supplied him with photographs of their
seldom-seen progeny. "I think," he said, "it's a helluva thing to take a life in this
manner. I don't believe in capital punishment, morally or legally. Maybe I had
something to contribute, something - " His assurance faltered; shyness blurred his voice,
lowered it to a just audible level. "It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did.
Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize."
Steps, noose, mask; but before the mask was adjusted, the prisoner spat his
chewing gum into the chaplain's outstretched palm. Dewey shut his eyes; he kept them
shut until he heard the thud-snap that announces a rope-broken neck. Like the majority
of American law-enforcement officials, Dewey is certain that capital punishment is a
deterrent to violent crime, and he felt that if ever the penalty had been earned, the
present instance was it. The preceding execution had not disturbed him, he had never
had much use for Hickock, who seemed to him "a small-time chiseler who got out of his
depth, empty and worthless." But Smith, though he was the true murderer, aroused
another response, for Perry possessed a quality, the aura of an exiled animal, a creature
walking wounded, that the detective could not disregard. He remembered his first
meeting with Perry in the interrogation room at Police Headquarters in Las Vegas - the
dwarfish boy-man seated in the metal chair, his small booted feet not quite brushing the
floor. And when Dewey now opened his eyes, that is what he saw: the same childish
feet, tilted, dangling.
Dewey had imagined that with the deaths of Smith and Hickock, he would
experience a sense of climax, release, of a design justly completed. Instead, he
discovered himself recalling an incident of almost a year ago, a casual encounter in
Valley View Cemetery, which, in retrospect, had somehow for him more or less ended
the Clutter case.
The pioneers who founded Garden City were necessarily a Spartan people, but
when the time came to establish a formal cemetery, they were determined, despite arid
soil and the troubles of transporting water, to create a rich contrast to the dusty streets,
the austere plains. The result, which they named Valley View, is situated above the
town on a plateau of modest altitude. Seen today, it is a dark island lapped by the
undulating surf of surrounding wheat fields - a good refuge from a hot day, for there are
many cool paths unbrokenly shaded by trees planted generations ago.
One afternoon the previous May, a month when the fields blaze with the greengold fire of half-grown wheat, Dewey had spent several hours at Valley View weeding
his father's grave, an obligation he had too long neglected. Dewey was fifty-one, four
years older than when he had supervised the Clutter investigation; but he was still lean
and agile, and still the K. B. I.'s principal agent in western Kansas; only a week earlier
he had caught a pair of cattle rustlers. The dream of settling on his farm had not come
true, for his wife's fear of living in that sort of isolation had never lessened. Instead, the
Deweys had built a new house in town; they were proud of it, and proud, too, of both
their sons, who were deep-voiced now and as tall as their father. The older boy was
headed for college in the autumn.
When he had finished weeding, Dewey strolled along the quiet paths. He
stopped at a tombstone marked with a recently carved name: Tate. Judge Tate had died
of pneumonia the past November; wreaths, brown roses, and rain-faded ribbons still lay
upon the raw earth. Close by, fresher petals spilled across a newer mound - the grave of
Bonnie Jean Ashida, the Ashidas' elder daughter, who while visiting Garden City had
been killed in a car collision. Deaths, births, marriages - why, just the other day he'd
heard that Nancy Clutter's boy friend, young Bobby Rupp, had gone and got married.
The graves of the Clutter family, four graves gathered under a single gray stone,
lie in a far corner of the cemetery - beyond the trees, out in the sun, almost at the wheat
field's bright edge. As Dewey approached them, he saw that another visitor was already
there: a willowy girl with white-gloved hands, a smooth cap of dark-honey hair, and
long, elegant legs. She smiled at him, and he wondered who she was.
"Have you forgotten me, Mr. Dewey? Susan Kidwell." He laughed; she joined
him. "Sue Kidwell. I'll be darned." He hadn't seen her since the trial; she had been a
child then. "How are you? How's your mother?"
"Fine, thank you. She's still teaching music at the Holcomb School."
"Haven't been that way lately. Any changes?"
"Oh, there's some talk about paving the streets. But you know Holcomb.
Actually, I don't spend much time there. This is my junior year at K. U.," she said,
meaning the University of Kansas. "I'm just home for a few days."
"That's wonderful, Sue. What are you studying?"
"Everything. Art, mostly. I love it. I'm really happy." She glanced across the
prairie. "Nancy and I planned to go to college together. We were going to be
roommates. I think about it sometimes. Suddenly, when I'm very happy, I think of all
the plans we made."
Dewey looked at the gray stone inscribed with four names, and the date of their
death: November 15, 1959. "Do you come here often?"
"Once in a while. Gosh, the sun's strong." She covered her eyes with tinted
glasses. "Remember Bobby Rupp? He married a beautiful girl."
"So I heard."
"Colleen Whitehurst. She's really beautiful. And very nice, too."
"Good for Bobby." And to tease her, Dewey added, "But how about you? You
must have a lot of beaus."
"Well. Nothing serious. But that reminds me. Do you have the time? Oh," she
cried, when he told her it was past four, "I've gotta run! But it was nice to have seen
you, Mr. Dewey."
"And nice to have seen you, Sue. Good luck," he called after her as she
disappeared down the path, a pretty girl in a hurry, her smooth hair swinging, shining just such a young woman as Nancy might have been. Then, starting home, he walked
toward the trees, and under them, leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind
voices in the wind-bent wheat.
The End