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. Birthdate 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 Phillips 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