In Cold Blood - Truman Capote [86]
"He said he needed the money for a bus ticket. But you don't know where it was he wanted to go?" She pursed her lips, hung a cigarette between them, but her eyes stayed on Nye. "Play fair. Any money on the table? A reward?" She waited for an answer; when none arrived, she seemed to weigh the probabilities and decide in favor of proceeding. "Because I got the impression wherever he was going he didn't mean to stay long. That he meant to cut back here. Sorta been expecting him to turn up any day." She nodded toward the interior of the establishment. "Come along, and I'll show you why." Stairs. Gray halls. Nye sniffed the odors, separating one from another: lavatory disinfectant, alcohol, dead cigars. Beyond one door, a drunken tenant wailed and sang in the firm grip of either gladness or grief. "Boil down, Dutch! Turn it off or out you go!" the woman yelled. "Here," she said to Nye, leading him into a darkened storage room. She switched on a light. "Over there. That box. He asked would I keep it till he came back." It was a cardboard box, unwrapped but tied with cord. A declaration, a warning somewhat in the spirit of an Egyptian curse, was crayoned across the top: "Beware! Property of Perry E. Smith! Beware!" Nye undid the cord; the knot, he was unhappy to see, was not the same as the half hitch that the killers had used when binding the Clutter family. He parted the flaps. A cockroach emerged, and the landlady stepped on it, squashing it under the heel of her gold leather sandal. "Hey!" she said as he carefully extracted and slowly examined Smith's possessions. "The sneak. That's my towel." In addition to the towel, the meticulous Nye listed in his notebook: "One dirty pillow, 'Souvenir of Honolulu'; one pink baby blanket; one pair khaki trousers; one aluminum pan with pancake turner." Other oddments included a scrapbook thick with photographs clipped from physical-culture magazines (sweaty studies of weight-lifting weight-lifters) and, inside a shoebox, a collection of medicines: rinses and powders employed to combat trench mouth, and also a mystifying amount of aspirin - at least a dozen containers, several of them empty. "Junk," the landlady said. "Nothing but trash." True, it was valueless stuff even to a clue-hungry detective. Still, Nye was glad to have seen it; each item - the palliatives for sore gums, the greasy Honolulu pillow - gave him a clearer impression of the owner and his lonely, mean life. The next day in Reno, preparing his official notes, Nye wrote: "At 9:00 a.m. the reporting agent contacted Mr. Bill Driscoll, chief criminal investigator, Sheriff's Office, Washoe County, Reno, Nevada. After being briefed on the circumstances of this case, Mr. Driscoll was supplied with photographs, fingerprints and warrants for Hickock and Smith. Stops were placed in the files on both these individuals as well as the automobile. At 10:30a.m. the reporting agent contacted Sgt. Abe Feroah, Detective Division, Police Department, Reno, Nevada. Sgt. Feroah and the reporting agent checked the police files. Neither the name of Smith or Hickock was reflected in the felon registration file. A check of the pawnshop-ticket files failed to reflect any information about the missing radio. A permanent stop was placed in these files in the event the radio is pawned in Reno. The detective handling the pawnshop detail took photographs of Smith and Hickock to each of the pawnshops in town and also made a personal check of each shop for the radio. These pawnshops