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By Root 495 0

he had reached a decision that he was certain would eradicate his current difficulties and start him on a new road, with a new rainbow in view. The decision involved impersonating an Air Force officer. It was a project that had long fascinated him, and Las Vegas was the ideal place to try it out. He'd already selected the officer's rank and name, the latter borrowed from a former acquaintance, the then warden of Kansas State Penitentiary: Tracy Hand. As Captain Tracy Hand, smartly clothed in a made-to-order uniform, Dick intended to "crawl the strip," Las Vegas's street of never-closed casinos. Small-time, big-time, the Sands, the Stardust - he meant to hit them all, distributing en route "a bundle of confetti." By writing worthless checks right around the clock, he expected to haul in three, maybe four thousand dollars within a twenty-four-hour period. That was half the plot; the second half was: Goodbye, Perry. Dick was sick of him - his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly eyes, the nagging, whispering voice. Suspicious, self-righteous, spiteful, he was like a wife that must be got rid of. And there was but one way to do it: Say nothing - just go. 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