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 cattlecountry 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