Truman Capote - In Cold Blood - A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences

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—fluorescent-lighted 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. I don’t know, it seemed safer to get a job.”

Before his twenty-first birthday Hickock had worked as a railway trackman, an ambulance driver, a car painter, and a garage mechanic; he’d also married a girl sixteen years old. “Carol. Her father was a minister. He was dead against me. Said I was a full-time nobody. He made all the trouble he could. But I was nuts about Carol. Still am. There’s a real princess. Only—see, we had three kids. Boys. And we were too young to have three kids. Maybe if we hadn’t got so deep into debt. If I could’ve earned extra money. I tried.”

He tried gambling, and started forging checks and experimenting with other forms of theft. In 1958 he was convicted of house burglary in a Johnson County court and sentenced to five years in Kansas State Penitentiary. But by then Carol had departed and he’d taken as a bride another girl aged sixteen. “Mean as hell. Her and her whole family. She divorced me while I was inside. I’m not complaining. Last August, when I left The Walls, I figured I had every chance to start new. I got a job in Olathe, lived with my family, and stayed home nights. I was doing swell—“

“Until November twentieth,” said Nye, and Hickock seemed not to understand him. “The day you stopped doing swell and started hanging paper. Why?”

Hickock sighed, and said, “That would make a book.” Then, smoking a cigarette borrowed from Nye and lighted by the courteous Church, he said, “Perry—my buddy Perry Smith—was paroled in the spring. Later on, when I came out, he sent me a letter, Postmarked Idaho. He wrote reminding me of this deal we used to talk over. About Mexico. The idea was we would go to Acapulco, one of them places, buy a fishing boat, and run it ourselves—take tourists deep-sea fishing.”