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By Root 405 0

dollars. Dick bought it on credit, and now the store won't have it back, even though it's not hardly a month old and only been used the one time - the start of November, when him and David went to Grinnell on a pheasant shoot. He used ours names to buy it - his daddy let him - so here we are, liable for the payments, and when you think of Walter, sick as he is, and all the things we need, all we do without . . ." She held her breath, as though trying to halt an attack of hiccups. "Are you sure you won't have a cup of coffee, Mr. Nye? It's no trouble." The detective leaned the gun against the wall, relinquishing it, although he felt certain it was the weapon that had killed the Clutter family. "Thank you, but it's late, and I have to drive to Topeka," he said, and then, consulting his notebook, "Now, I'll just run through this, see if I have it straight. Perry Smith arrived in Kansas Thursday, the twelfth of November. Your son claimed this person came here to collect a sum of money from a sister residing in Fort Scott. That Saturday the two drove to Fort Scott, where they remained overnight - I assume in the home of the sister?" Mr. Hickock said, "No. They never could find her. Seems like she'd moved." Nye smiled. "Nevertheless, they stayed away overnight. And during the week that followed - that is, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first - Dick continued to see his friend Perry Smith, but otherwise, or as far as you know, he maintained a normal routine, lived at home and reported to work every day. On the twenty-first he disappeared, and so did Perry Smith. And since then you've not heard from him? He hasn't written you?"

"He's afraid to," said Mrs. Hickock. "Ashamed and afraid."

"Ashamed?"

"Of what he's done. Of how he's hurt us again. And afraid because he thinks we won't forgive him. Like we always have. I And will. You have children, Mr. Nye?" He nodded.

"Then you know how it is."

"One thing more. Have you any idea, any at all, where your son might have gone?"

"Open a map," said Mr. Hickock, "Point your finger - maybe that's it."

It was late afternoon, and the driver of the car, a middle-aged traveling salesman who shall here be known as Mr. Bell, was tired. He longed to stop for a short nap. However, he was only a hundred miles from his destination - Omaha; Nebraska, the headquarters of the large meat packing company for which he worked. A company rule forbade its salesmen to pick up hitchhikers, but Mr. Bell often disobeyed it, particularly if he was bored and drowsy, so when he saw the two young men standing by the side of the road, he immediately braked his car. They looked to him like "O.K. boys." The taller of the two, a wiry type with dirty-blond, crew-cut hair, had an engaging grin and a polite manner, and his partner, the "runty" one, holding a harmonica in his right hand and, in his left, a swollen straw suit-case, seemed "nice enough," shy but amiable. In any event, Mr. Bell, entirely unaware of his guests' intentions, which included throttling him with a belt and leaving him, robbed of his car, his money, and his life, concealed in a prairie grave, was glad to have company, somebody to talk to and keep him awake until he arrived at Omaha. He introduced himself, then asked them their names. The affable young man with whom he was sharing the front seat said his name was Dick. "And that's Perry," he said, winking at Perry, who was seated directly behind the driver. "I can ride you boys as far as Omaha." Dick said, "Thank you, sir. Omaha's where we were headed. Hoped we might find some work." What kind of work were they hunting? The salesman thought perhaps he could help. Dick said, "I'm a first-class car painter. Mechanic, too. I'm used to making real money. My buddy and me, we just been down in old Mexico. Our idea was, we wanted to live there. But hell, they won't pay any wages. Nothing a white man could live off. "Ah, Mexico. Mr. Bell explained that he had honeymooned in Cuernavaca. "We always wanted to go back. But it's hard to move around when you've got five kids." Perry, as he later recalled, thought,