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By Root 479 0

You can imagine what it meant to Alvin to know those men had been arrested. Out in Las Vegas. He said he had to leave for Las Vegas straightaway, and I asked him hadn't he ought to put on some clothes first, and Alvin, he was so excited, he said, 'Gosh, honey, I guess I've spoiled your party!' I couldn't think of a happier way of having it spoiled - not if this meant that maybe one day soon we'd be back living an ordinary life. Alvin laughed - it was just beautiful to hear him. I mean, the past two weeks had been the worst of all. Because the week before Christmas those men turned up in Kansas City - came and went without getting caught - and I never saw Alvin more depressed, except once when young Alvin was in the hospital, had encephalitis, we thought we might lose him. But I don't want to talk about that.

"Anyway, I made coffee for him and took it to the bedroom, where he was supposed to be getting dressed. But he wasn't. He was sitting on the edge of our bed holding his head, as if he had a headache. Hadn't put on even a sock. So I said, 'What do you want to do, get pneumonia?' And he looked at me and said, 'Marie, listen, it's got to be these guys, has to, that's the only logical solution.' Alvin's funny. Like the first time he ran for Finney County Sheriff. Election Night, when practically every vote had been counted and it was plain as plain he'd won, he said - I could have strangled him - said over and over, 'Well, we won't know till the last return.'

"I told him, 'Now, Alvin, don't start that. Of course they did it.' He said, 'Where's our proof? We can't prove either of them ever set foot inside the Clutter house!' But that seemed to me exactly what he could prove: footprints - weren't footprints the one thing those animals left behind? Alvin said, 'Yes, and a big lot of good they are - unless those boys still happen to be wearing the boots that made them. Just footprints by themselves aren't worth a Dixie dollar.' I said, 'All right, honey, drink your coffee and I'll help you pack.' Sometimes you can't reason with Alvin. The way he kept on, he had me almost convinced Hickock and Smith were innocent, and if they weren't innocent they would never confess, and if they didn't confess they could never be convicted - the evidence was too circumstantial. What bothered him most, though - he was afraid that the story would leak, that the men would learn the truth before the K.B.I, could question them. As it was, they thought they'd been picked up for parole violation. Passing bad checks. And Alvin felt it was very important they keep thinking that. He said, 'The name Clutter has to hit them like a hammer, a blow they never knew was coming.'

"Paul - I'd sent him out to the washline for some of Alvin's socks - Paul came back and stood around watching me pack. He wanted to know where Alvin was going. Alvin lifted him up in his arms. He said, 'Can you keep a secret, Pauly?' Not that he needed to ask. Both boys know they mustn't talk about Alvin's work - the bits and pieces they hear around the house. So he said, 'Pauly, you remember those two fellows we've been looking for? Well, now we know where they are, and Daddy's going to go get them and bring them here to Garden City.' But Paul begged him, 'Don't do that, Daddy, don't bring them here.' He was frightened - any nine-year-old might've been. Alvin kissed him. He said, 'Now that's O.K., Pauly, we won't let them hurt anybody. They're not going to hurt anybody ever again.' "

At five that afternoon, some twenty minutes after the stolen Chevrolet rolled off the Nevada desert into Las Vegas, the long ride came to an end. But not before Perry had visited the Las Vegas post office, where he claimed a package addressed to himself in care of General Delivery - the large cardboard box he had mailed from Mexico, and had insured for a hundred dollars, a sum exceeding to an impertinent extent the value of the contents, which were suntans and denim pants, worn shirts, underwear, and two pairs of steel-buckled boots. Waiting for Perry outside the post office, Dick was in excellent spirits;