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 Sunday-Watched 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
