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, bigtime, 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 twenty-four-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 — fluorescentlighted 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 sheer-excitement,» 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.