Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

The book I chose to read and do my book journal on this quarter was In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. I really thought that this book was much longer than it really should have been, although it was still a fairly interesting book. The idea that someone you have never met and never heard about could rob and kill everyone in your house is a rather unnerving notion.

In this book there is really only one part that I cannot figure out. Towards the end of the book Al Dewey one of the men responsible for catching Perry Smith and Richard Hickock the two men who were responsible for killing the Clutter family. Well Al had been working very hard on this case devoting almost all of his time to solving it. After they finally caught up with the killers and arrested them Al was very excited that he might be able to get back to his normal life again. Later on in the book he said that he didn’t feel that the case was finished, even after he watched Hickock and Smith hang. He then went on to say that he didn’t feel it was over until much later. He then went on to (yes I know that this paragraphs looks too big but it was all part of the same idea) describe the event I will give a brief description here. Al was in the cemetery weeding his father’s grave, when he decided to visit the Clutter’s grave. All four of the Clutters had been buried together in one mass grave with four headstones on top of it. When he arrived at their grave he saw Susan Kidwell, someone who had been very good friends with Nancy Clutter, one of the victims. Al didn’t recognize her at first but eventually she told him who she. She told him that Nancy’s old boyfriend Bobby had recently gotten married. Bobby had been Nancy’s boyfriend at the time she was murdered. Susan said that she herself was attending college. Her and Nancy had originally planned to go to college together unfortunately their plans were shattered when Nancy was murdered. I really can’t understand how this seemed to end the case for Al. I can of course guess but I never did like guessing nor was I ever very good at it. The only explanation I can think of is maybe that Al felt better knowing Nancy’s friends had moved on with their lives.