So Long, See You Tomorrow

until we had passed each other. And after that, there was no way that I could not have done it.

Why didn't I speak to him? I guess because I was so surprised. And because I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what was polite in the circumstances. I couldn't say I’m sorry about the murder and all that, could I?

One day during the first week or so of school as I was hurrying along a corridor that was lined with metal lockers I saw Cletus Smith coming toward me. It was as if he had risen from the dead. He didn't speak. I didn't speak. We just kept on walking

I didn't wonder what the evening paper meant precisely when it said that Cletus's father had accused his mother of having been intimate with the murdered man.

dict: "We, the undersigned jurors, do find that Clarence C. Smith came to his death by a gunshot wound inflicted by his own hand, with suicidal intent." There was no effort to establish a motive for the suicide and no mention of the murder of Lloyd Wilson. At the final hearing in the murder case, the verdict was "Death from a gunshot wound inflicted by an unknown hand."

At the coroner's inquest, the only witnesses were the sheriff and the three men who worked at the gravel pit. The jury returned the following ver

Cletus's father, not wanting to live, had shot himself through the head. Dangling from his right wrist, at the end of a shoe- string, was a .38 revolver with two empty chambers. A flashlight protruded from his coat pocket. A strand of baling wire was wound around his neck and waist.

I think it highly unlikely that Cletus was present at the divorce trial. How much did he know? Enough, probably. Enough so that it was preferable to play with a boy he hardly knew than with somebody he might be tempted to confide in—if there was any such person.

His mother had sued his father for a divorce, the grounds being extreme and repeated cruelty. His father then filed a cross bill charging her with infidelity and naming Lloyd Wilson, who lived on the adjoining farm, as corespondent.

There was never any real doubt about who had killed Lloyd Wilson. The only person who had any reason to do it was Clarence Smith, Cletus's father.