forgive, and I know Wendle was worried how the crowd might act when they caught sight of
Hickock and Smith. He was afraid somebody might try to get at them. So I kind of had my heart in
my mouth when I saw the cars arrive, saw the reporters, all the newspaper fellows running and
pushing; but by then it was dark, after six, and bitter cold — more than half the crowd had given up
and gone home. The ones that stayed, they didn’t say boo. Only stared.
«Later, when they brought the boys upstairs, the first one I saw was Hickock. He had on light
summer pants and just an old cloth shirt. Surprised he didn’t catch pneumonia, considering how
cold it was. But he looked sick all right. White as a ghost. Well, it must be a terrible experience to be stared at by a horde of strangers, to have to walk among them, and them knowing who you
are and what you did. Then they brought up Smith. I had some supper ready to serve them in
their cells, hot soup and coffee and some
sandwiches and pie. Ordinarily, we feed just twice a day. Breakfast at seven-thirty, and at fourthirty we serve the main meal, I didn’t want those fellows going to bed on an empty stomach;
seemed to me they must be feeling bad enough without that. But when I took Smith his supper,
carried it in on a tray, he said he wasn’t hungry. He was looking out the window of the ladies’ cell.
Standing with his back to me. That window has the same view as my kitchen window: trees and
the Square and the tops of houses. I told him, ‘Just taste the soup, it’s vegetable, and not out of a
can. I made it myself. The pie, too.’ In about an hour I went back for the tray and he hadn’t
touched a crumb. He was still at the window. Like he hadn’t moved. It was snowing, and I
remember saying it was the first snow of the year, and how we’d had such a beautiful long
autumn right till then. And now the snow had come. And then I asked him if he had any special
dish he liked; if he did I’d try and fix it for him the next day. He turned around and looked at me.
Suspicious, like I might be mocking him. Then he said something about a movie — he had such a
quiet way of speaking, almost a whisper. Wanted to know if I had seen a movie. I forget the
name, anyway I hadn’t seen it: never have been much for picture shows. He said this show took
place in Biblical times, and there was a scene where a man was flung off a balcony, thrown to a
mob of men and women, who tore him to pieces. And he said that was what came to mind when
he saw the crowd on the Square. The man being torn apart. And the idea that maybe that was
what they might do to him. Said it scared him so bad his stomach still hurt. Which was why he
couldn’t eat. Course he was wrong, and I told him so — nobody was going to harm him, regardless
of what he’d done; folks around here aren’t like that.
«We talked some, he was very shy, but after a while he said, ‘One thing I really like is Spanish
rice.’ So I promised to make him some, and he smiled kind of, and I decided — well, he wasn’t the
worst young man I ever saw. That night, after I’d gone to bed, said as much to my husband. But
Wendle snorted. Wendle wasn’t of the first on the scene after the crime was discovered. He said
he wished I’d been out at the Clutter place when they found the bodies. Then I could’ve judged for
myself just how gentle Mr. Smith was. Him and his friend Hickock. He said they’d cut out your
heart and never bat an eye. There was no denying it — not with four people dead. And I lay awake
wondering if either one was bothered by it — the thought of those four graves.»
A month passed, and another, and it snowed some part of almost every day. Snow whitened the
wheat-tawny countryside, heaped the streets of the town, hushed them.
The topmost branches of a snow-laden elm brushed against the window of the ladies’ cell.
Squirrels lived in the tree, and after weeks of tempting them with leftover breakfast scraps, Perry
lured one off a branch onto the window sill and through the bars. It was a male squirrel with
auburn fur. He named it Red, and Red soon settled down, apparently content to share his friend’s
captivity. Perry taught him several tricks: to play with a paper ball, to beg, to perch on Perry’s
shoulder. All this helped to pass time, but still there were many long hours the prisoner had to
lose. He was not allowed to read newspapers, and he was bored by the magazines Mrs. Meier
lent him: old issues of Good Housekeeping and McCalls. But he found things to do: file his
fingernails with an emery board, buff them to a silky pink sheen; comb and comb his lotionsoaked and scented hair; brush his teeth three and four times a day; shave and shower almost as
often. And he kept the cell, which contained a toilet, a shower stall, a cot, a chair, a table, as neat
as his person. He was proud of a compliment Mrs. Meier had paid him. «Look!» she had said,
pointing at his bunk. «Look at that blanket! You could bounce dimes.» But it was at the table that
he spent most of his waking life; he ate his meals there, it was where he sat when he sketched
portraits of Red, drew flowers,
and the face of Jesus, and the faces and torsos of imaginary women; and it was where, on cheap
sheets of ruled paper, he made diary-like notes of day-to-day occurrences.
Thursday 7 January. Dewey here. Brought carton of cigarettes. Also typed copies of
Statement for my signature. I declined.
The «Statement,» a seventy-eight-page document which he had dictated to the Finney County
court stenographer, recounted admissions already made to Alvin Dewey and Clarence Duntz.
Dewey, speaking of his encounter with Perry Smith on this particular day, remembered that he
had been very surprised when Perry refused to sign the statement. «It wasn’t important: I could
always testify in court as to the oral confession he’d made to Duntz and myself. And of course
Hickock had given us a signed confession while we were still in Las Vegas — the one in which he
accused Smith of having committed all four murders. But I was curious. I asked Perry why he’d
changed his mind. And he said, ‘Everything in my statement is accurate except for two details. If
you’ll let me correct those items then I’ll sign it.’ Well, I could guess the items he meant. Because
the only serious difference between his story and Hickock’s was that he denied having executed
the Clutters single-handed. Until now he’d sworn Hickock killed Nancy and her mother.
«And I was right! — that’s just what he wanted to do: admit that Hickock had been telling the truth,
and that it was he, Perry Smith, who had shot and killed the whole family. He said he’d lied about
it because, in his words, ‘I wanted to fix Dick for being such a coward. Dropping his guts all over
the goddam floor.’ And the reason he’d decided to set the record straight wasn’t that he suddenly
felt any kinder toward Hickock. According to him he was doing it out of consideration for Hickock’s
parents — said he was sorry for Dick’s mother. Said, ‘She’s a real sweet person. It might be some
comfort to her to know Dick never pulled the trigger. None of it would have happened without him,
in a way it was mostly his fault, but the fact remains I’m the one who killed them.’ But I wasn’t
certain I believed it. Not to the extent of letting him alter his statement. As I say, we weren’t
dependent on a formal confession from Smith to prove any part of our case. With or without it, we
had enough to hang them ten times over.»
Among the elements contributing to Dewey’s confidence was the recovery of the radio and pair of
binoculars the murderers had stolen from the Clutter house and subsequently disposed of in
Mexico City (where, having flown there for the purpose, K.B.I. Agent Harold Nye traced them to a
pawnshop). Moreover, Smith, while dictating his statement, had revealed the where-abouts of
other potent evidence. «We hit the highway and drove east,» he’d said, in the process of
describing what he and Hickock had done after fleeing the murder scene. «Drove like hell, Dick
driving. I think we both felt very high. I did. Very high, and very relieved at the same time. Couldn’t
stop laughing, neither one of us; suddenly it all seemed very funny — I don’t know why, it just did.
But the gun was dripping blood, and my clothes were stained; there was even blood in my hair.
So we turned off onto a country road, and drove maybe eight miles till we were way out on the
prairie. You could hear coyotes. We smoked a cigarette, and Dick went on making jokes about
what had happened back there. I got out of the car, and siphoned some water out of the water
tank and washed the blood off the gun barrel. Then I scraped a hole in the ground with Dick’s
hunting knife, the one I used on Mr. Clutter, and buried in it the empty shells and all the left over
nylon cord and adhesive tape. After that we drove till we came to U.S. 83, and headed east
toward Kansas City and Olathe. Around dawn Dick stopped at one of those picnic
