In Cold Blood

Sheriff Robinson turns the murder case over to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI). The KBI’s Garden City agent, Alvin Adams Dewey, believes that the crime was likely personal. However, the crime scene implies the involvement of two killers, and Dewey can’t understand how two separate people could hold a murderous grudge against the Clutters. Bobby is an early suspect, but Dewey doubts his involvement.

Dewey’s fellow agents—Church, Duntz, and Nye—question the residents of Holcomb, but turn up only a few minor grievances against the Clutters. Robbery also seems unlikely as a motive, given how little is missing from the house; what’s more, it was common knowledge that Clutter didn’t keep large amounts of cash at home. The apparent senselessness of the crime leaves much of Holcomb on edge.

The Tuesday following the murders, Perry and Dick stop at a Kansas City diner, where Perry reads an article about the murders and reminds Dick of a potential loose end: Floyd Wells, who first told Dick about the Clutter family. Irritated, Dick asks Perry why he agreed to a scheme he believed would end badly. Perry describes a recurring dream of his. In it, Perry picks diamonds from a tree, even though he knows doing so will cause the snake guarding the tree to attack him. Fearing ridicule, he doesn’t tell Dick that the dream ends with his rescue by an angelic yellow parrot.

Two days after the Clutters’ burial, Perry reads about the funeral in a hotel in Kansas City. Earlier the same day, he and Dick go from shop to shop passing bad checks and pawning the items they purchase. Although the plan is Dick’s, he grows depressed as the day ends, worried about what will happen to his parents. Perry assures him that they will make enough money in Mexico to pay off the checks.

Dewey and his family are increasingly on edge, partly because of stress and partly because they receive constant phone calls about the Clutter case. The authorities rule out all the initial suspects, and new details, including a missing radio, suggest that robbery might have been the motive. Dewey, however, is unconvinced; he’s particularly struck by the fact that the murderers took steps to make their victims comfortable, like placing a pillow beneath Kenyon’s head.

A week after the murder, Dick and Perry leave Kansas City and drive to Mexico. One week after that, Beverly Clutter and her fiancé marry.

Rumors about the murders circulate at Hartman’s Café in Holcomb. In early December, two families, including the Ashidas, announce their plans to leave town.

Now in Acapulco, Mexico, Dick and Perry meet a German man named Otto. While out fishing on Otto’s boat, Perry is largely content. However, he and Dick are out of money and plan to leave the following day. Having seen what happened to the money from Kansas City, Perry expects Dick will quickly spend anything they earn on alcohol and women.

Sure enough, a few days after selling their car in Mexico City, the money is almost gone, and Dick wants to return to the United States. As Perry goes through his belongings to decide what to take and what to put in storage, he finds a letter that his father, Tex John Smith, wrote to the parole board on his behalf while Perry served a sentence for an earlier robbery.

Capote writes that the letter “set[s] racing a stable of emotions—self-pity in the lead, love and hate running evenly at first, the latter ultimately pulling ahead” (150). Perry’s earliest memories of his family are happy; Tex met his wife, a Cherokee woman named Flo Buckskin, while working at a rodeo. For the first few years of Perry’s life, the family travelled the rodeo circuit. After the family settled in Reno, the marriage deteriorated, and Flo took Perry and his siblings with her to California. Flo’s struggles with alcoholism and Perry’s own juvenile delinquency led to his placement in a variety of institutions, including a Catholic orphanage and a Salvation Army shelter; in both places, he suffered physical abuse.

Tex ultimately regained custody of Perry, but the pair didn’t stay in Reno long; after Perry finished third grade, his father built a trailer, and they made their way to Alaska. At 16, Perry joined the Merchant Marine and, a few years later, the Army. After serving in the Korean War, Perry rejoined his father, who built a hunting lodge near Anchorage.

The lodge, however, did not attract much business, and as the money ran out, Perry and Tex’s relationship deteriorated. Perry made his way across the country, hitchhiking and working odd jobs. Authorities arrested him in Kansas for his role in a burglary, but Perry escaped to New York. There, authorities apprehended and extradited him to serve his sentence in Kansas.

Back in the present, Perry considers a letter from his sole surviving sibling, Barbara. In it, she scolds Perry for blaming his behavior on his upbringing. Although Perry hates his sister, he keeps her letter because his friend Willie-Jay “had written for him a ‘very sensitive’ analysis of it” (165). As Perry continues to struggle with what to pack, he yells at Dick to finish having sex with a prostitute so they can leave the hotel and avoid charges for another night.

As Christmas approaches, Dewey is increasingly obsessed with the Clutter case. At Hartman’s Cafe, the townsfolk pester him about leads. Later, at River Valley Farm, Dewey remembers a haunting dream his wife had about Bonnie Clutter.

Meanwhile, Dick and Perry sit by a road in the middle of the Mojave Desert, hoping to trick a driver into picking them up so they can kill and rob him.