Echoes in the Darkness (32 page)

Bill Bradfield had left the list with Vince Valaitis for safekeeping. Bill Bradfield left trails of evidence scattered through his forest like a bearded Hansel, fearful of being lost.

Vince was a mess when it was time to go with Bill Bradfield to meet attorney John Curran for a strategy discussion. Vince had no intention of discussing strategy. Vince belonged to Chick Sabinson and the FBI. Vince was on the bus. Vince was in the bomb shelter. He was a nervous wreck trying to bring himself to confess this to Bill Bradfield and convince him to do likewise. But at the slightest hint of going to the law Bill Bradfield would start screaming about Fascists.

Vince agreed to drive Bill Bradfield to Ocean City for the meeting. He must have been exceptionally quiet during the drive because Bill Bradfield apparently sensed something.

When they were almost at the restaurant, he said quietly to Vince, "You talked to them, didn't you?"

"Yes." Vince sighed. "I've been talking to the FBI and you should too. Bill, they're nice people. We've got nothing to hide. We should tell them all about Jay Smith."

"Who else have you told?" Bill Bradfield asked, even more quietly.

Vince saw that the blood had drained from his friend's face like a sink full of dishwater.

"I've told Bill Scutta and my parents."

"You've killed Scutta," Bill Bradfield informed him. "You've killed your parents."

Vince knew of course that Bill Bradfield was alluding to the Jay Smith legion who'd knocked off everyone from Jimmy Hoffa to hookers from Philly, and he cried, "You have to trust them, Bill! You have to talk!"

"Stop the car," Bill Bradfield commanded, and when Vince did, he got out on the sidewalk and said, "Are you coming to talk to Curran?"

"No, I'm not," Vince said.

"You've betrayed me," Bill Bradfield said, slamming the door. "You've broken your solemn oath. You've killed me."

Bill Bradfield arrived at the restaurant meeting in such an agitated state that he was twisting and torturing his beard. He greeted John Curran who was already talking with Chris Pappas and Sue Myers, and he asked Curran to excuse them for a moment, saying he needed an urgent private talk with his friends.

After John Curran took a walk, Bill Bradfield informed Chris and Sue that Vince had talked to the FBI. But Chris and Sue weren't quite sure what that meant, and they seemed a bit relieved because though maintaining silence about Jay Smith might save them from a mob hit, they were looking more and more like killers themselves.

Bill Bradfield was obviously trying to talk away his panicbefore Curran arrived. He jabbered something alxrnt selling everything he owned and going to England or someplace else in Europe. Then he added that of course he'd give all his money to Sue Myers before leaving.

Sue Myers thought, sure, and he'd invite her to join him in England. About the same time Wallis Simpson got invited for tea and scones with the Queen Mum.

Bill Bradfield said that he, an innocent man who'd done nothing except try to protect Susan Reinert, might end up with a load of dirt in his face because of that sniveling little son of a bitch, Vince Valaitis.

Chris said, "Bill, they wouldn't electrocute an innocent man."

But Bill Bradfield told him testily that he wasn't worried about being smoked by the authorities. He was afraid of being snuffed by Jay Smith because of Vince's big mouth.

Chris Pappas was getting all mixed up again, and he said in frustration, "Jay Smith's in prison. So maybe we should tell the cops our side of all this."

Ah, hut Jay Smith's minions were everywhere, Bill Bradfield reminded him. And Vince Valaitis might have just signed his own death warrant. And they'd better be careful or their names would be on a murder contract right along with his. They were not yet free from Jay Smith danger.

By the time Bill Bradfield was through twiddling his beard,

it looked like Medusa's hairdo.

* * *

After Vince Valaitis had talked, and all of Bill Bradfields friends knew about it, Trooper Lou DeSantis and Special Agent Matt Mullin got the assignment to travel to California to interview Shelly again. It was the first time that her Catholic college had ever had the law arrive to chat with a student about murder.

After being taken to a private room and advised of her constitutional rights, Shelly told the lawmen that she was willing to talk, but she might need some sort of immunity.

The lawmen were licking their chops because little Shelly was showing a brow like a pile of linguini, and they thought they had something going. But then she told them what had her so worried. When Bill Bradfield and Chris were at summer school, she and her pal Jenny had been driving Chris's car all over the place without a proper registration or drivers license.

The lawmen couldn't believe it. They were talking about a murdered woman and two missing children and she was worrying about a traffic ticket. The Bradfield Bunch made them yearn for cattle prods and ice baths. Anything to wake them up.

Shelly told them her version of the weekend as she and Bill Bradfield had rehearsed it, replete with all the lies. The lies kept getting tangled as to where she and Bill Bradfield had been on Friday, June 22nd. She now said they may have been walking around Haverford College. As to the time he dropped her at her pal's, she changed it from 7:00 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.

As to Bill Bradfields obvious perjury at the Jay Smith trial, Shelly finally conceded that he could have made an honest mistake because he was bad about dates.

Then the cops told her a few things to test her response. They talked about some of Bill Bradfields amorous affairs, but Shelly said she didn't believe for a minute that there'd been anything at all between Susan Reinert and Bill Bradfield. Ditto with Rachel even after they pointed out that she'd been registered in the Philly hotel for one month prior to the murder under the name of Mrs. William Bradfield.

Shelly looked pretty smug when she heard that because Bill Bradfield had explained to her that Rachel was afraid of the seedy neighborhood and wanted any potential rapists in the hotel lobby to think she had a man in the room. Besides, Bill Bradfield had told her that he'd been celibate for five years. Rachel was just a friend and it was a pretty sad thing that in 1979 people couldn't accept friendship between the sexes that didn't involve something sordid. She informed the investigators that Chris and her girlfriend had that kind of relationship.

But they pointed out to Shelly that they'd seen the phone records of the hotel and learned that at 5:35 a.m. on June 1st, Bill Bradfield had made a call from that hotel to Upper Merion High School to say that he wouldn't be able to make it to class.

Shelly was stopped by that one, but finally she said, "Okay, maybe he spent the night with Rachel. But it was probably for a good reason. Don't you understand that people can spend the night together without thinking of sex? He was just exhausted."

Then she tried to tell them how he taught English and Latin to her. And how he tutored students in Creek and even taught Bible studies on his own time.

The lawmen at this time didn't know about all the money storage and the rest of it. Nor did they know that Bill Bradfield and Shelly were going to get married in a French cathedral and dcclaim from The Wanderer" as they followed the trail of the Mycenaeans and their thousand black ships.

Matt Mullin had some compassion for the young woman, but Joe VanNort did not.

After they returned, Joe VanNort said, "The FBI maybe wants to pay her tuition to Notre Dame. I wanna see her graduate through a correspondence course. In state prison."

The federal grand jury happened to be in session in Philadelphia. The Reinert task force used the powers of this grand jury to subpoena phone records, credit card information and bank records, to go deeper into the affairs of William Bradfield and his friends. And of Jay C. Smith, as well.

Vince Valaitis couldn't wait to talk publicly about the terrible dilemma that he and his friends found themselves in. Prior to volunteering his testimony to the grand jury, Vince talked to reporters again.

"Bill Bradfield refuses to be interviewed," Vince told them, "because he fears no one will believe him. And because he has a higher moral motivation. He doesn't care about this world at all. He cares about his soul and another world. I've prayed a rosary with Bill and he wants to become a Catholic. I see Bill in an entirely different way than you do."

He told the grand jury his strange story and then he volunteered what he thought might set the record straight for all of them:

"In the news it says 'this clique of teachers.' It sounds like we're some kind of insidious group. This is something that evolved slowly. I can't even believe I'm sitting here saying all I've said to you.

"There's nothing insidious about our group. We're good people. We're friendly. We love each other. I feel that people in our school district think we consider ourselves superior. They're saying that because Bill Bradfield is such an aggressive man, such a brilliant man, such an overpowering man, that we all believe in everything he does. That's not true."

When Vince was through talking that day, one of the grand jurors said, "Explain to me, to all of us, why in the world didn't you at some time go to Mrs. Reinert and warn her?"

And by now Vince knew he'd spend the rest of his life being asked that question. And by now he knew that even when the words were not being uttered, the eyes were asking it.

Flattened and humiliated, after an interminable pause, Vince said, "I . . . just did not . . . deal with it."

It was as good an answer as any of them would give. And it would never get any better.

When it was time to pay his lawyer a little installment, did Bill Bradfield just send a check or money order or even walk in and plop some cash on John Curran's desk? Of course not, since a straightforward move like that might cause him to limit his cast which already had more players than Nicholas Nickleby.

He didn't want his lawyer to know that he had the pile of money that Shelly had been hiding. He told Chris to ask his father if he'd take the cash and buy money orders for several thousand dollars and give the money orders to Bill Bradfield. He wanted his lawyer to think he was broke and having to borrow.

And Bill Bradfield told Chris what he'd like to do about the Judas who had caused all this misery for them.^

He said, "I'd like to blow Vince's brains out!"

He said that he was thinking about planting a story with Jay Smith that Vince Valaitis had hired a private eye to uncover things about Jay Smith. That way Dr. Jay wouldn't think that Bill Bradfield had talked to anyone about all the Jay Smith shenanigans, and he might be encouraged to have a member of the mob "take out" Vince.

Chris wasn't worrying about Vince at this point. Mostly he was worrying about Chris Pappas. He'd learned a lot from his master in the past several months. Chris saved potential evidence that came his way. After all, Bill Bradfield himself always said that he hated to destroy anything because he never knew when he might need it again.

The superintendent of the Upper Merion school board promised a crowd of 150 parents and citizens that while 3 teachers whose names were not mentioned could not be legally fired, they would be removed from direct contact with students.

Chris went to work at a construction job. Bill Bradfield, Sue Myers and Vince Valaitis were reassigned to nonteaching duties while the school district tried to figure out what to do with them. They were ordered to report to the deserted Union Avenue School and were given busy work.

The superintendent said privately to Vince, "Boy, if I could get you out of this district, I wouldP

Unfortunately for Vince, he and Bill Bradfield were forced to share the same basement office, the same work table in fact, and there was no real work to do. They'd just report every day and Vince would read the latest newspaper article on the Reinert case and try not to talk about it to his friend, but once in a while he couldn't help himself..

He saw a tidbit that some reporter wrote and asked, "Did you ever have breakfast at Susan Reinerts house?"

"Absolutely not!" Bill Bradfield answered.

"Pat Schnure says that Karen told her you did."

Bill Bradfield threw a desk calendar against the wall, and shouted, "They're all liars\ The hounds are after a conviction!"

"They're saying a lot about you and Susan Reinert," Vince said. "It can't all be lies."

And then Bill Bradfield looked at him with his blue eyes brimming with sadness and disappointment, and he started mixing metaphors:

"Vince, the Book of Job says that sometimes innocent people have to be punished. God never promised you a bed of roses. During court cases there are battles, and after battles there are bodies."

Something happened then that had never happened to Bill Bradfield. A disciple got mad enough to clench a fist.

Vince Valaitis slammed his fist down on the wooden table and said, "I'm not going to be punished for you! I'm not going to jail with you!"

Bill Bradfield got mad too. He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and said, "All right, if I'm going to be blamed for murder, I might well as admit it. Here. I'll show you how I did it."