In Cold Blood - Truman Capote [126]
whatever, was understandably anxious to have the two men questioned and a polygraph examination administered. Hickock consented to take the test and so did Smith, who told Kansas authorities, "I remarked at the time, I said to Dick, I'll bet whoever did this must be somebody that read about what happened out here in Kansas. A nut." The results of the test, to the dismay of Osprey's sheriff as well as Alvin Dewey, who does not believe in exceptional coincidences, were decisively negative. The murderer of the Walker family remains unknown. Sunday 31 January. Dick's dad here to visit Dick. Said hello when I saw him go past [the cell door] but he kept going. Could be he never heard me. Understand from Mrs. At [Meier] that Mrs. H [Hickock] didn't come because she felt too bad to. Snowing like a bitch. Dreamed last night I was up in Alaska with Dad - woke up in a puddle of cold urine! ! ! Mr. Hickock spent three hours with his son. Afterward he walked through the snow to the Garden City depot, a work-worn old man, stooped and thinned-down by the cancer that would kill him a few months hence. At the station, while waiting for a homeward-bound train, he spoke to a reporter: "I seen Dirk uh-huh. We had a long talk. And I can guarantee you it's not like people say. Or what's put in the papers. Those boys didn't go to that house planning to do violence. My boy didn't. He may have had some bad sides, but he's nowhere near bad as that. Smitty’s the one. Dick told me he didn't even know it when Smitty attacked the man [Mr. Clutter], cut his throat. Dick wasn’t even in the same room. He only run in when he heard them struggling. Dick was carrying his shotgun, and how he described how Smitty took my shotgun and just blew that man's head off,' And he says, 'Dad, I ought to have grabbed back the gun and shot Smitty dead. Killed him 'fore he killed the rest of that family. If I'd done it I'd be better off than I am now.' I guess he would, too. How it is, the way folks feel, he don't stand no chance, They’ll hang them both. And," he added, fatigue and defeat glazing his eyes, "having your boy hang, knowing he will, nothing worse can happen to a man." Neither Perry Smith's father nor sister wrote him or came to see him. Tex John Smith was presumed to be prospecting for somewhere in Alaska - though lawmen, despite great effort, been unable to locate him. The sister had told investigators she was afraid of her brother, and requested that they please not let him know her present address. (When informed of this, Smith smiled slightly and said, "I wish she'd been in that house that night. What a sweet scene!") Except for the squirrel, except for the Meiers and an occasional consultation with his lawyer, Mr. Fleming, Perry was very much alone. He missed Dick. Many thoughts of Dick, he wrote one day in his make shift diary. Since their arrest they had not been allowed to communicate, and that, freedom aside, was what he most desired - to talk to Dick, be with him again. Dick was not the "hard rock" he'd once thought him: "pragmatic," "virile," "a real brass boy"; he'd proven himself to be "pretty weak and shallow," "a coward." Still, of everyone in all the world, this was the person to whom he was closest at that moment, for they at least were of the same species, brothers in the breed of Cain; separated from him, Perry felt "all by myself. Like somebody covered with sores. Somebody only a big nut would have anything to do with. "But then one mid-February morning Perry received a letter. It was postmarked Reading, Mass., and it read: Dear Perry, I was sorry to hear about the trouble you are in and I decided to write and let you know that I remember you and would like to help you in any way that I can. In case you don't remember my name, Don Cullivan, I've enclosed a picture taken at about the time we met. When I first read about you in the news recently I was startled and then I began to think back to those days when I knew you. While we were never close personal friends I can remember you a lot more clearly than most fellows I met in the Army. It