A checkered life

Clutter on the eve of the murders. “Another cup, Alvin?” “Don’t guess I will. Thank you, ma’am.” But she had already fetched the pot. “It’s on the house, Sheriff. How you look, you need it.” At a corner table two whiskery ranch hands were playing checkers. One of them got up and came over to the counter where Dewey was seated. He said, “Is it true what we heard?” “Depends.” “About that fellow you caught? Prowling in the Clutter house? He’s the one responsible. That’s what we heard.” “I think you heard wrong, old man. Yes, sir, I do.” Although the past life of Jonathan Daniel Adrian, who was then being held in the county jail on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon, included a period of confinement as a mental patient in Topeka State Hospital, the data assembled by the investigators indicated that in relation to the Clutter case he was guilty only of an unhappy curiosity. “Well, if he’s the wrong un, why the hell don’t you find the right un? I got a houseful of women won’t go to the bathroom alone.” Dewey had become accustomed to this brand of abuse; it was a routine part of his existence ...»