in-cold-blood-truman-capote

KBI 97 093; FBI 859 273A. Address: Edgerton, Kansas. Birth-date 6-6-31. Birthplace:
K. C., Kans. Height: 5-10. Weight: 175. Hair: Blond. Eyes: Blue. Build: Stout. Comp:
Ruddy. Occup: Car Painter. Crime: Cheat & Defr. & Bad Checks. Paroled: 8-13-59. By:
So. K. C. K.
The second description read: Smith, Perry Edward (WM) 27-59. Birthplace:
Nevada. Height: 5-4. Weight: 156. Hair: D. Brn. Crime: B&E. Arrested:(blank). By:
(blank). Disposition: Sent KSP 3-13-56 from Phil-lips Co .5-10 yrs. Rec .3-14-56.
Paroled: 7-6-59.
Marie examined the front-view and profile photographs of Smith: an arrogant
face, tough, yet not entirely, for there was about it a peculiar refinement; the lips and
nose seemed nicely made, and she thought the eyes, with their moist, dreamy
expression, rather pretty - rather, in an actorish way, sensitive. Sensitive, and something
more: "mean." Though not as mean, as forbiddingly "criminal," as the eyes of Hickock,
Richard Eugene. Marie, transfixed by Hickock's eyes, was reminded of a childhood
incident - of a bobcat she'd once seen caught in a trap, and of how, though she'd wanted
to release it, the cat's eyes, radiant with pain and hatred, had drained her of pity and
filled her with terror. "Who are they?" Marie asked.
Dewey told her Floyd Wells' story, and at the end he said, "Funny. The past
three weeks, that's the angle we've concentrated on. Tracking down every man who ever
worked on the Clutter place. Now, the way it's turned out, it just seems like a piece of
luck. But a few days more and we would've hit this Wells. Found he was in prison. We
would've got the truth then. Hell, yes."
"Maybe it isn't the truth," Marie said. Dewey and the eighteen men assisting him
had pursued hundreds of leads to barren destinations, and she hoped to warn him against
another disappointment, for she was worried about his health. His state of mind was
bad; he was emaciated; and he was smoking sixty cigarettes a day. "No. Maybe not,"
Dewey said. "But I have a hunch." His tone impressed her; she looked again at the faces
on the kitchen table. "Think of him," she said, placing a finger against the front-view
portrait of the blond young man. "Think of those eyes. Coming toward you." Then she
pushed the pictures back into their envelope. "I wish you hadn't shown me."
Later that same evening, another woman, in another kitchen, put aside a sock she was
darning, removed a pair of plastic-rimmed spectacles, and leveling them at a visitor,
said, "I hope you find him, Mr. Nye. For his own sake. We have two sons, and he's one
of them, our first-born. We love him. But... Oh, I realized. I realized he wouldn't have
packed up. Run off. Without a word to anybody - his daddy or his brother. Unless he
was in trouble again. What makes him do it? Why?" She glanced across the small,
stove-warmed room at a gaunt figure hunched in a rocking chair - Walter Hickock, her
husband and the father of Richard Eugene. He was a man with faded, defeated eyes and
rough hands; when he spoke, his voice sounded as if it were seldom used. "Was nothing
wrong with my boy, Mr. Nye," Mr. Hickock said. "An outstanding athlete - always on
the first team at school. Basketball! Baseball! Football! Dick was always the star player.