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 prettylittle-boy portrait made when he was in the Merchant Marine (and on the back of which he had
scribbled, «16 yrs. old. Young, happy-go-lucky & 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 absent-mindedness. 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