that somebody had replaced the u with an a, and the e with a y so
that the date read “Jany.”
White suspected that Hale had ginned up the document while
trying to obtain the insurance policy, and altered it after realizing
that he had blundered on the date. Later, a federal official
questioned the man who Hale claimed had typed up the note. He
denied ever having seen the document. Asked if Hale was lying, he
said, “Absolutely.”
The second insurance company approved the policy after Hale
took Roan to the Pawhuska doctor again for the required medical
examination. The doctor recalled asking Hale, “Bill, what are you
going to do, kill this Indian?”
Hale, laughing, said, “Hell, yes.”After Hale served as a pallbearer at Roan’s funeral, White
learned, local lawmen did more than ignore Hale as a suspect: they
tried to build a case against Roy Bunch, the man who’d been
having an affair with Roan’s wife. White and his agents spoke to
Bunch, who maintained his innocence and told a curious story
about Hale. After Roan’s murder, Hale had approached Bunch and
said, “If I were you, I’d get out of town.”
“Why should I run? I didn’t do it.”
“People think you did,” Hale said.
He offered Bunch money to help him flee. Afterward, Bunch
spoke to a friend, who persuaded him not to take off, because it
would only make him look guilty. “If you run, they’ll hang it on
you for sure,” his friend said.
White and his men thoroughly investigated Bunch and ruled
him out as a suspect; as one agent noted, the “notorious relations
between Bunch and Roan’s wife were calculated to furnish a good