Echoes in the Darkness (52 page)

But this time he asked one question too many. It was a mistake and he knew it immediately.

As though the letter was irrelevant, he asked Jack Holtz, "Is there anything in this nine-page letter that would be significant to your investigation?"

Holtz was too serious about his job ever to grin openly on the witness stand, but he came close. He said, "It was all significant." Then he launched into all the things about the letter that differed from his findings.

He testified that Grace Gilmore had been at the shore from Friday until Sunday, and that Jay Smith's daughter had not been at the house, and that everyone except comatose patients had been interviewed and Jay Smith was not seen visiting his dying wife at the hospital, and he had not visited his attorney, and that his brother had not been at his house, and in fact nobody had seen Jay Smith's face from Friday afternoon until Grace Gilmore heard his car drive away on Sunday afternoon.

The inescapable conclusion was that the letter showed a tremendous consciousness of guilt.

Bill Costopoulos came back to the counsel table and could be heard by the reporters saying, "Aw, shit!"

It was his worst day. He was more careful with Jack Holtz after that.

Cuida kept the witnesses streaming in. Grace Gilmore took the stand and directly refuted the Jay Smith letter by saying she had gone to the shore and hadn't returned until Sunday afternoon.

Agent Hess of the FBI testified to interviewing Jay Smith shortly after the crime occurred when Jay Smith told it differently, saying he had not gone to dinner with Sheri on Friday, June 22nd.

A representative of Bell Telephone testified that Jay Smith had placed five calls to his attorney over that weekend, but there was a gap between 3:43 p.m. Friday and 8:37 p.m. Sunday, which was ninety-seven minutes after the men from Three Mile Island saw Susan Reinerts car in the parking lot.

And Holtz told the jury that the driving time from the Host Inn to the house on Valley Forge Road was ninety minutes.

Bill Costopoulos had an impressive group of lawyers in his law firm. They all resembled him in that they brought a little passion to their work, but as Josh Lock learned, it's okay as long as you don't get too emotionally involved with criminal defendants.

During the Jay Smith trial, one of his lawy ers was defending another murder case. A defendant was on trial for killing his mother in her bed. Like Jay Smith, this defendant had a sardonic sense of humor. He called it "mattress-cide."

And in the same spirit of punsmanship he'd torched her saying it was an act of "our-son."

The lawyer was working on this one almost as hard as Bill Costopoulos. During the presentation of his case, the punster happened to ask the Costopoulos law clerk to get him a copy of a martial arts book. He said it might come in handy in prison to learn a few self-defense tricks.

The law clerk obliged, and after the punster was convicted of matricide he demonstrated what he'd learned.

Right there in the courtroom he hauled off and threw a kung-fu special from the direction of Pittsburgh and almost coldcocked his ardent young lawyer.

Shortly after that, the members of the press asked the lawyer if he was now selling tickets at scalpers' prices to the execution.

* * *

Reporters need controversy. Most felt that Jay Smith would be acquitted. None believed the comb clue. They thought it had been planted by either Bill Bradfield or a disciple.

The mere fact the body had been driven to Harrisburg where Jay Smith was scheduled to be sentenced was evidence to many that he hadn't done the driving.

There were also discussions about the movie Witness which had taken place there in central Pennsylvania. In the Bill Bradfield trial, Rick Guida had found it patently absurd that Bill Bradfield would feel that there was no one in the police station to whom he could tell the alleged plot by Jay Smith to kill Susan Reinert.

Yet the entire movie Witness was built upon just such a decision. The protagonist thought there was a corrupt superior officer in the Philadelphia police, so he lit out for Amish country with his witnesses. He never called the FBI. He never called the state police. He just handled it himself. Just like Bill Bradfield. And he was a cop. All thfe critics in America, both fat and skinny, loved the picture and saw nothing absurd about the premise. It was a good thing for Rick Guida, everyone said, that Witness had not been released prior to the Bill Bradfield trial.

The most damaging physical evidence wasn't the comb, whether it had been lost by Jay Smith or planted by Bill Bradfield or a Bradfield disciple, or even, as some thought, planted by Jay Smith just for the perverse thrill of it.

It wasn't even the pin identical to Karen Reinert's that had been found in that car, nor the letters from Jay Smith to Bill Bradfield.

It was probably the letter within a letter wherein Jay Smith asked his dying wife to clean the Capri thoroughly, writing, "I can't stress the importance of this: clean out and then clean up."

And that the downstairs rug in a house they'd already sold must go, as he explained: "Every time I walk on that rug something new pops out."

Jay Smith, already imprisoned, was not worrying about a couple of marijuana seeds in his former house.

It was an even more damaging letter after Martray and

Montione described his obsession with forensics.

* * *

The mother and father of Edward Hunsberger, now missing for eight years, attended the Jay Smith trial whenever they could. In the William Bradfield trial they'd driven two hours to and from Harrisburg every day because they couldn't afford a hotel room.

During this Jay Smith trial Dorothy Hunsberger testified that back on June 25, 1979, when Jay Smith showed up for sentencing on the theft case, he'd arrived very late and that his hair was mussed. She said that he'd felt in his pockets and then smoothed his hair down with his hands.

Well, maybe. And maybe Mrs. Hunsberger saw and remembered what she now wanted to remember, this tragic woman, nearly seventy, haunting courtrooms for any clue to the fate of her only child.

Bill Costopoulos didn't cross-examine her. The jury knew nothing of Edward Hunsberger and Jay Smith's missing daughter.

Without a doubt, the most memorable witness in the Jay Smith murder trial was Rachel, the ice maiden. The entire corps of reporters as well as both counsel tables were waiting for the person they had called "the mystery woman" in the William Bradfield trial. Cynics said that the greatest mystery about her was how she could still be a loyal Bradfield woman, but she was.

The reporters were not disappointed when she took the long walk to the witness box. Now in her mid-thirties, she was Charlotte Bronte. Rachel was as tiny as Susan Reinert. Her hair was very dark and straight, parted in the middle and combed severely down behind her ears. She wore a long black skirt suit and a pale, high-throated blouse with a tiny black necktie. And fiat shoes, of course. She wore no makeup and no jewelry. Color her black, white and gray.

The precision with which she spoke was startling, so much so that she made each lawyer work at phrasing the questions carefully.

After Cuida got past the preliminaries, he said to his witness, "At the time you formed a romantic interest with Mister Bradfield, did you know that he was living with a woman by the name of Sue Myers?"

"Yes, I did," she answered.

"And what did Mister Bradfield tell you about his relationship with Sue Myers?"

"They shared living quarters, but there was not a romantic relationship between them at the time."

"Is that what he told you?"

"Yes, it is."

"In the summer of 1979, did you know that Mister Bradfield had been married?"

"No, I don't believe so."

"In terms of the fall of 1978 and spring of 1979, did he ever mention a woman by the name of Susan Reinert?"

"Yes, I do remember the name."

"What did he tell you about Susan Reinert with regard to any romantic interest?"

"I understood that she was interested in dating him, but that he wasn't interested."

"Did you ever meet Susan Reinert?"

"No, I did not."

"Did you ever meet Sue Myers?"

"Yes, I believe I met her once."

"During the school year of 1978 to 1979, were you studying at that time?"

"Yes, I was a graduate student at Harvard University."

"Now, on the Thanksgiving weekend of 1978, did you receive a visit from Mister Bradfield while living in Cambridge?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to refer you to the spring of 1979: did you visit the city of Philadelphia?"

"I was down twice."

"Did you see Mister Bradfield on that first occasion?"

"Yes."

"When was the second visit?"

"I came down after the end of the school term that semester. Sometime at the end of May."

"How did you register at the hotel on that occasion?"

"Mister and Mrs. Bradfield."

"And who made the reservation for that particular room?"

"Mister Bradfield did."

"Could you tell the jury why you used the name Mister and Mrs. Bradfield, as opposed to your own name?"

"Well, it was a center city hotel that was somewhat seedy but inexpensive, and I felt slightly more comfortable staying at a place identified as a couple. Instead of a single woman staying alone." "How long did you stay at the hotel?"

"Something like three weeks, but I might be slightly off on that."

"When did you leave the hotel?"

"It was on a Tuesday morning. I'm sure you could fill me in on the date."

"Was this when you drove to New Mexico ^with Mister Bradfield's car to meet him there in Santa Fe?"

"Yes, it was."

"Did he mention to you a man by the name of Jay C. Smith?"

"Yes, I knew the name."

"Did he ever mention any threats that Mister Smith may have made against Susan Reinert?"

"No."

"When was the last time you saw Mister Bradfield prior to his leaving for the shore on Friday, June twenty-second, 1979? Do you remember?"

"No, I don't."

"The testimony up until this time has been that Mister Bradfield was in Cape May for the entire weekend. What were you doing over the weekend when Mister Bradfield was

away?"

"I was looking at architecture in Philadelphia. Getting to know the city."

"And had you done that prior to that weekend while you were living in that hotel?"

"Yes. That was one of the main purposes for my being in Philadelphia."

"Did you do anything with anybody, or do anything in terms of registering, to verily your whereabouts for that weekend?"

"Aside from the hotel, I can't think of anything offhand."

After she testified that a change in plans had necessitated her driving his VW Beetle with their belongings, Guida asked her, "Were you in any way upset that you had to drive alone across the country while your friend, Mister Bradfield, flew?"

"Well, it would have been nicer to have him in the car, but I wasn't worried about the drive across the country alone."

"When you arrived in New Mexico, what was your living arrangement?"

"I stayed in the same room as he did."

"Now, you indicated that in 1979 you had this romantic

relationship with Mister Bradfield. Does that romantic interest continue today?"

"Yes, it does."

"Pass the witness."

Bill Costopoulos began by asking about the present relationship: "Because of your romantic interest that has continued until this day with Mister Bradfield, is it fair to say that you communicate with him now that he's in prison?"

Yes"

"And how frequently do you communicate?"

"I see him probably twice a month and talk maybe twice a month with him on the telephone."

"Have you always kept him advised of the investigation that was going on in this matter?"

"Meaning?"

"When the police would come to talk to you, would you report that to him?"

It was one of the few times she hesitated. She said, "I would say he probably ... I probably talked to him about it, yes."

"And in fact you'd tell him exactly what you were being asked about, wouldn't you?"

"There's a possibility. I don't remember specifically trying to tell him everything I'd been asked about."

"Do you remember resisting any cooperation with law enforcement after the weekend in question?"

"Resisting?"

"Not cooperating?"

"Not by my definition," she said.

With this, Rachel leaned forward in her witness chair and folded her tiny hands and stared Bill Costopoulos right in the eye and answered questions as precisely as anything manufactured by IBM.