Echoes in the Darkness (13 page)

"He's been having an affair with her, Vince. He told me all about it."

And Vince Valaitis now had a dozen images ricocheting in his skull: of Norman the janitor sniffing at those unspeakable bundles in the school Dumpster, and of Jay Smith himself, standing in a cloud of steam from a broken pipe, calling "Tweeeeetie Bird!" in a ghostly voice. Vince made a concession. "Well, maybe part of it could be true."

"We can't go to the police, Vince. You have to swear to keep this a secret."

"But we've got to go to the police!" Vince Valaitis cried.

"We have no proof," Bill Bradfield informed him. "Not a shred of proof. They'd laugh at us. They wouldn't believe us. And then we'd be in grave danger."

"We," Vince said. "We?"

"The man's diabolical. He'd come for us. He'd come in the night. He'd come for our parents. Or his Mafia friends would. He'd be relentless."

And by now it was a good thing Vince was not driving because he had one hand on his rosary and the other on his scapular. This was no monster movie. This wasn't something from Hitchcock or Rod Serling. For the first time in his life he wasn't shivery in a fun sort of way at talk of the macabre. This was real! For the first time in his life young Vince Valaitis was face to face with Dread and Terror.

"What are we . . . you going to do, Bill?"

"I think I can control him," Bill Bradfield said. "He's rather demented but not completely insane. I think I can convince him not to harm anyone. Then when I get sufficient evidence I can go to the authorities."

"Oh my," Vince Valaitis said. "Oh my, oh my, oh my."

"There're others in danger."

"What others?"

"He's so paranoid he wants revenge on everyone who's wronged him. People who didn't support him when he got arrested for the crimes he says he didn't do. He's talked about killing Bill Scutta."

"My God, Bill's a dear friend!" Vince cried. "We've got to do something!"

"And the superintendent. And a local policeman that he says is trying to frame him, and ..."

Vince didn't have to ask the next question because his eyeballs were pressing up against the lenses of his eyeglasses and he was so cotton-mouthed he looked like a cat eating bubble gum, and Bill Bradfield anticipated the Big Question and said, "No, he didn't mention you."

"Oh my," Vince said.

"Yet"

"Oh my\"

Vince Valaitis didn't believe it all, but one thing for sure, he was convinced that if he was to breathe a word of this he might very well end up scattered around King of Prussia in enough pieces to offend lots of custodians like Norman the janitor.

When Bill Bradfield told Sue Myers about his clandestine meeting with Dr. Jay Smith, the educators motives for murder had changed some.

When she asked why Jay Smith would want to kill Susan Reinert he told her that he didn't know why, but offered the same warning about not telling the police.

"I can handle Doctor Smith for the time being," he said to her. "You've wondered who I've been seeing these past weeks. You probably thought I was being unfaithful all those nights that I've been away. Well, now you know. I've been with Doctor Smith."

"I don't like this," she said.

"Trust me," he urged her. "Just once more. Be obedient."

Sue Myers was tired. The jobs of teaching and retailing and hearing about Jay Smith were way too much for her. But as far as Jay Smith was concerned, there was at least a silver lining. Since Bill Bradfield was gone four or five nights a week and often slept away from home, it was better to imagine him humoring a madman like the former principal than it was to think of him in bed with Susan Reinert, or Rachel, or somebody new.

Sue Myers wanted out of all this, but knew she hadn't the will or the strength. Sue Myers felt fossilized. Where Bill Bradfield would eventually lead her she couldn't say, but she'd been tagging along for fifteen years and knew she'd have to follow a while longer.

Sue also had an uneasy feeling that she might be asked to contribute a little something to the alibi defense of the accused. And she was.

It happened after a meeting that Bill Bradfield said he'd attended with Jay Smith's brother and his lawyer. Bill Bradfield wanted Sue to remember that he had once encouraged their friend and teaching colleague Fred Wattenmaker to make a bet with another teacher, who claimed Bill Bradfield would never make good on a promise to visit Fred at his summer home in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Sue vaguely remembered the bet. Then Bill Bradfield asked her if she remembered that he had in fact made an August visit to the shore, but that Fred wasn't home. And she said yes, she remembered his saying that.

And then he reminded her that the visit had been on a Saturday, hadn't it? And she said yes, it had probably been on a weekend.

But when he asked her if she remembered that it had been the weekend just prior to a Labor Day sale that she'd scheduled at the store, she said no, she was certain it had been the Saturday before that one.

He dropped it and never asked what else she might remember.

Sue Myers had been given the job of locating the three books requested by Jay Smith at the prison farm. But with the help of relatives, he'd put up bail and became a free man long before she'd managed to get the books he'd wanted.

One evening, Bill Bradfield informed her that they were going to the home of Dr. Smith on Valley Forge Road in King of Prussia to deliver the books personally, even though Jay Smith no longer needed them. That didn't thrill her, and she didn't get out of the car when Bill Bradfield presented himself at the door of Jay Smith, books in hand. Sue Myers was very happy that her former principal didn't come out to the car to say hello.

While they were driving home, Bill Bradfield said, "Damn, I think Doctor Smith's innocent. I can't believe the things he's being accused of. I think he needs good legal help and lots of advice."

But regardless of what Bill Bradfield thought about Jay Smiths innocence, Sue believed that Bill Bradfield had better not seek this advisory position. Nobody was going to control Dr. Jay C. Smith.

* * *

Whatever Jay Smith was doing in the fall of 1978 wasn't being shared with a coterie of friends. He was no Bill Bradfield. His wife was living at home when not in the hospital, yet she hardly saw him. If he and Bill Bradfield were spending all those evenings together, there were no witnesses.

Stephanie Smith was still writing her own little diary entries about her two-timing husband, which may have helped take her mind off her cancer. She was preoccupied with the woman he'd been seeing for some time.

Stephanie Smith wrote in her diary, "All women like to hear that love bit. After he uses her he'll tell her to go fuck herself and he'll find another sweet woman to get what he wants from her. I'm jealous!"

Jay Smith seemed desperate to get his wife out of his house for good. He made a strange request of his former secretary.

It had been a bad year for Ida Micucci. Her husband had died, and she had broken her hip and was at home trying to cope with it all when she received a telephone call from Jay Smith that had to be as crazy as any communication she'd ever received when he was still her boss.

Jay Smith merely said, "Ida, I'm apologizing for not calling when your husband died, but would you do me a favor and let Stephanie live with you?"

Just like that.

She replied no, she didn't think she wanted any roommates at this time.

And he thanked her politely and hung up.

Chapter
9

Magnet

There was always a lot of talk about the "magnetic" personality of William Bradfield, or the "magnetic field" around the man. Well, in the fall of 1978 those magnetic filings-his chums and protPSg6s and secret lovers-weren't all lining up according to positive and negative influences.

Susan Reinert was doing something that no woman had ever done to Bill Bradfield. She was giving ultimatums. It could have been that she felt more independent now that she had a modest inheritance. It could have been that, as she reported to her therapist, she'd finally had "more than enough."

According to Roslyn Weinberger, when Susan gave Bill Bradfield an ultimatum he got very angry. Then he calmed down and pointed out that if he walked out on Sue Myers it might prove fatal.

"She's hysterical, unstable, and God only knows what she might do," he argued.

But this time Susan Reinert wasn't buying. She said, "Sorry, that won't work. Not anymore."

And she told the psychologist that now she was able to withstand the litany of excuses, rationalizations and arguments that in the past had always confused her and resulted in an agreement to be patient and let one of his schemes cook a bit longer.

This time she said, "No way. Good-bye, then."

And she meant it. And he knew it.

He humbly suggested that if he could have just a little more time he might "ease Vince Valaitis into a relationship with Sue Myers," thereby allowing for less trauma when he left home.

She managed a little derisive laughter over this one since it would be about as probable as "easing" Jay Smith into holy orders. And at last it appeared that Bill Bradfield was going to cave in. He told her that he was indeed moving out of Sue's apartment and into his parents' home as a show of good faith. He outlined some major plans, and for the remainder of the school year, he said, he would simply have to extricate himself from his financial arrangements with Sue Myers and make ready for a new life.

Susan Reinert told Roslyn Weinberger and Pat Schnure the hot news that could not be announced until Sue Myers was completely out of the picture: she was marrying Bill Bradfield in the coming summer of 1979.

Susan Reinerts old friend Sharon Lee got married in December and Susan Reinert went to the wedding. The wedding was at Sharon's parents' house near the shore. The weather wasn't very cold and the morning after her wedding Sharon and Susan took a stroll along the beach. Susan Reinert told her friend that she and Bill Bradfield were being married in the coming summer, and that they intended to take her children to England with them.

The secret had to be kept from the children, Susan said, because she didn't want them in a position of having to lie to their father. She feared that her ex-husband Ken might suspect they were going to live in Europe and try to stop her from taking the kids. Susan Reinert had picked up some very secret ways.

Sue Myers suddenly found herself in need of an attorney. In one of his more bizarre moments Bill Bradfield told her that he was going to present her with a "cohabitation agreement" that she must sign and that she should "trust" him. And now Sue tried to decipher the scheme behind the scheme.

Having lived with Bill Bradfield for five years and having been his lover for fifteen, she immediately started thinking about the famous palimony case in California involving actor Lee Marvin. The theory behind the cohabitation agreement was that if two people parted by mutual consent, with a full disclosure of each partner's assets, the agreement couldn't be overturned at a later time should one party have a change of heart and want a bigger share.

Why did Bill Bradfield and she suddenly need this in their life? she asked.

Well, it seemed that he feared that Susan Reinert had gone and named him as beneficiary on a small insurance policy, and if Jay Smith were actually to kill her, Bill Bradfield might become the subject of enormous scandal because of that silly insurance policy.

"1 want to protect you from scandal," he told Sue Myers.

"And how will signing an agreement protect me?" she wanted to know.

Because, he said, he might be drawn into a sticky civil lawsuit involving the Reinert heirs, and Sue Myers as his livein companion might be subject to a piece of the liability as though she were his wife. This way, she'd escape the whole mess, attorney fees and all.

"And would you stand to inherit insurance money?" Sue Myers asked Bill Bradfield. "If something happened to Susan Reinert?"

"Out of the question," he said. "I've simply got to convince that neurotic that gestures like this are futile. She'll go to any lengths to draw me into her snare. I simply despise the woman."

And that, Sue Myers believed utterly. She was convinced that he truly despised Susan Reinert. And she would never change that opinion. So Sue Myers made herself an appointment with an attorney and never told Bill Bradfield about it. The lawyer told her that the whole thing sounded absurd and that she should not be talked into signing such an agreement under any circumstances.

When she talked to an outsider about such things, they all did seem insane. She wondered if she needed a psychiatrist rather than a lawyer.

Bill Bradfield also told her to get out of town for Thanksgiving because Jay Smith often "killed on holidays," and he might be unable to control the former principal. Sue Myers started to object, but thought it less stressful to humor him. Sue Myers was beginning to feel that she was watching this on television. She couldn't walk away without seeing how it would end.

In one of her many search-and-explore missions, Sue found what she called his "jogging diary." Bill Bradfield, the world's foremost keeper of notes, enjoyed jotting down his ideas and brainstorms when he returned from his morning jog. He probably thought that at least these were safe from prying eyes. But she was able to get a fast peek at the jogging diary one morning when he was in the shower.