Echoes in the Darkness (16 page)

All in all, their lives were as sinuous and intertwined as an Argentine tango, but nobody was certain who was doing the choreography. Was this a Jay Smith production? Or a Bill Bradfield dance choreographed by Jay Smith?

Victims of confidence schemes, especially those that later appear childishly transparent, often report that in retrospect it seems dreamlike, but when it happened it was real, logical, even exciting.

Chris Pappas was in many ways the most vulnerable of all. This reflective young man who felt that he'd gained such confidence and insight through his close friendship with Bill Bradfield confided that he'd been disappointed when the Vietnam War ended. He'd thought that perhaps the battlefield would give him a chance to take up a challenge involving personal courage and determination. He'd always wondered now useful his intellectual and academic background might be in something as real as war. He wondered if the "epiphany" he'd felt as a student of philosophy would sustain him.

Well, he was about to get his chance at "combat." The next months represented the most intense and vivid time of his life. He described himself as living with his antenna humming. He said he was electric. The high voltage was switched on by Bill Bradfield.

One memorable evening in the apartment when Chris and Bill Bradfield were alone because Sue Myers was off at the art store, the older man decided to stage a demonstration. He prefaced it by announcing that since Vince Valaitis was too excitable and timid to be of assistance during these terrible days, it was falling on young Chris's sturdy shoulders to help him save the life of Susan Reinert. Testifying for Jay Smith in his upcoming trial was hardly discussed anymore. Bill Bradfields mission in life was stopping a killer who had as yet done nothing that could be proved.

Bill Bradfield excused himself and went to the bedroom and got into costume. When he returned, he wore a knitted woolen cap and his favorite blue ski parka with large cargo pockets.

"I've been forced to enter into a teacher-disciple relationship with Doctor Smith," Bill Bradfield said, "to get the evidence that'll put an end to him."

With that he pulled the cap down over his face and revealed it to be a ski mask. Then he took objects from each pocket. He had chains in one, tape in another, plastic bags in a third and a pair of exercise gloves in the fourth. Suddenly he wrapped the chain around Chris's wrists and padlocked the links together.

He wasn't all that graceful about it, but he hadn't had that much rehearsal time. It made the point. Young Chris was then unshackled and listened to the lecture that went with the demonstration.

"You have to practice," Bill Bradfield said, "until you know without thinking which pocket contains each item. The tape's for the eyes and mouth of Doctor Smiths victims. The plastic bags go over the victims head to either suffocate or stop the flow should the victim begin bleeding from the mouth or nose. He never uses surgical gloves because fingerprints can be lifted from the rubber."

Chris Pappas was informed that Jay Smith had given these instruments of murder to Bill Bradfield because he feared that with his trial coming up, the police might find some other pretext to search his home.

Chris agreed with his leader that the items were likely to be found in any household and in themselves didn't constitute proper evidence that could be taken to the authorities. Bill Bradfield had decided to hold them until such time as he could accumulate enough circumstantial evidence to make a case against his former boss. However, with the Jay Smith trial approaching he was afraid the police might get upset about his being an alibi witness. They might decide to search Bill Bradfield's apartment. And how could he explain his difficult mission to plodding policemen?

So he wondered if Chris could take the stuff home for a while? And Chris agreed that he'd do anything to stop the menace of Jay Smith.

Then Bill Bradfield asked Chris if he'd mind hiding a few other things. One was a big typewriter that Jay Smith had stolen from Upper Merion, and a tape recorder as well, and a film-strip projector that Jay Smith had stolen from Rider College. For all Bill Bradfield cared, Chris could throw this stuff away because it wouldn't go toward proving much. They were after a killer. They needed killer-type evidence.

Chris Pappas made an astute observation that night. He said, "Bill, whenever you talk about Jay Smith I notice you always refer to him as Doctor Smith. What do you call him when the two of you're alone?"

AndJBill Bradfield thought for a second and said, "Doctor Smith." Then he quickly added, "I have to appear subordinate. But I won't relinquish control, don't worry."

Bill Bradfield then went on to give a dissertation on the M.O. of Jay Smith who didn't want to be known as an "assassin." He preferred "terrorist."

Jay Smith, he said, theorized that it was far better to terrorize the survivors of a hit than merely to dispose of a victim. He "disappeared" people, left no trace of a victim. The person would vanish from the earth, and that was far more terrifying than an ordinary dead body could ever be. Besides, dead bodies could result in some forensic evidence that might lead back to the hit man.

"You make them disappear," Jay Smith had supposedly said, "and you get a public reaction. You have a social impact."

Bill Bradfield said that Jay Smith carried two guns. One was the "menace" gun and the other a .22 caliber pistol equipped with a silencer.

"The menace gun has to look like a gun," Bill Bradfield told his enthralled young friend. "You scare them into obedience with the big gun." And then Bill Bradfield showed Chris his Jay Smith impression pointing an imaginary big gun.

"You talk, you die!" Bill Bradfield said, pointing his finger. "You move, you die!"

And after he was through with the imaginary big gun he brought out his imaginary .22 caliber pistol with a silencer and said, "This gun of course doesn't even look like a gun. While the victim's watching the menace gun you pop him with the little silenced twenty-two."

And then things got pretty technical because Bill Bradfield pointed out that Jay Smith divided the sound of a gun into three parts: the mechanism of the gun, the explosion of the powder, and the sound of the bullet's flight.

Bill Bradfield knew that Chris Pappas was very clever with his hands and enjoyed tinkering perhaps more than he enjoyed academics, and he said, "You can use an oil filter with an internal diameter of one inch to make a silencer. You never know when we might need a silencer against him. It could come to that, Chris. Lets not kid ourselves."

Supercharged though he was, Chris Pappas hadn't bargained on shooting somebody, even somebody as thoroughly shootable as Jay Smith.

He said, "Are you sure we can't go to the authorities with all this? I mean, even if he's connected with the Upper Merion police, we might try . . ."

"It's no use," Bill Bradfield said. "It's hopeless. I didn't want to alarm you, and I don't dare tell Vince what I'm going to tell you because he'd go to pieces on me. You see, Jay Smith is connected with the State Department and with several police agencies. He's paid some police officials to protect him. I didn't believe it at first, but he proved it to me."

"Proved it?"

"His contacts told him all about my trip to Cuba, all of it. He knows that I posed as a journalist and that I was working through the CIA and that I got shot at and shot back."

"I thought you stabbed a guard there. I didn't know you shot

anybody."

"That too. He knows all of it. 1 was shocked to learn what the mans found out in the short time since I agreed to be his alibi witness. He knows the number of my post office box. He knows where my parents live. And for ail I know he may know where my friends live and where their parents live! He has fantastic access to public agencies. I can't go to the police until he can be locked up for good. And even then I'll be uncertain which agency to contact."

"It's a nightmare," Chris Pappas agreed.

Then Bill Bradfield took a pamphlet out of his pocket and said, "Jay Smith gave me this monograph on silencers. He trusts me as much as he's capable of trusting anyone. Do you think you could use it and build a silencer for us?"

This was the kind of challenge that Chris, the handyman, got stoked about: to use his mechanical skill and ingenuity on such a strange and valuable mission. "I'll play with it," he said.

Bill Bradfield lavished praise on his young prot6g6. "I believe you could make anything with those good hands," he said.

Bill Bradfield was not clever with his hands and not

mechanical, as his last act of the night demonstrated. The strapping tape was very sticky and when he tried to show his disciple now Jay Smith could whip out his tape and wrap up a victims mouth, Bill Bradfield got the tape all stuck to itself, and pretty soon the performer was dancing around in his ski mask getting grouchy because he was wrapped up in his own tape and the stuff was even getting stuck to nis beard and Chris thought he was going to have to take him to a barber.

The final thing he said to Chris that night was that Jay Smith wore a hairnet during his killings so as not to leave hair and fiber evidence. That was a Bill Bradfield touch. The little details: alligator shoes, hairnets.

On the drive home Chris Pappas was humming like a tuning fork. He didn't realize something that Vince Valaitis, the horror buff, would have noticed right away. The last male killer to wear a hairnet was Anthony Perkins in Psycho, and look what happened to him.

In January, 1979, Susan Reinert phoned her brother Pat Gallagher who lived near Pittsburgh. She wanted to let him in on a terrific business deal. It appeared that her friend Bill Bradfield knew of an "agent" who had found a reputable party willing to offer 12 percent interest for a substantial short-term investment. She informed her older brother that she was going to invest $25,000 and Bill Bradfield was coming up with $12,000 and asked if Pat cared to kick in $13,000 because a tidy $50,000 would guarantee the favorable rate.

Pat Gallagher had never met Bill Bradfield face to face, but during visits with Susan he'd heard enough from his sisters friends that he didn't want to meet him. He believed Bill Bradfield to be a "womanizer" and wished his sister would end the long relationship. He declined the investment opportunity.

About the same time, Susan Reinert decided that she needed a far larger insurance policy on her life. She made another inquiry into "term" insurance, the cheapest kind of life' insurance. There was no cash value, no dividends. It just paid a beneficiary in the event of death.

She wanted her children to be beneficiaries of a term policy, but an insurance agent discouraged her by saying it would be better to name an adult who would be an administrator or trustee for the children. She named William S. Bradfield, Jr., as beneficiary. She asked the agent to inquire if New York Life

would insure her life for $250,000. The home office was queried, but agreed to issue only a $100,000 policy.

Susan Reinert was disappointed and explained to her insurance agent that she was marrying her beneficiary William Bradfield, and that he was quite well off, owning a farm in Downingtown and a retail business in Montgomery Mall. She told the insurance agent that she hoped to get a teaching position in England and felt she needed a lot of insurance before leaving the country.

There were some negotiations with the home office about the $100,000 policy, and it was agreed that she could purchase an additional $150,000 of life insurance. The children were listed as contingent beneficiaries in the event the original beneficiary also died. Susan Reinert then said she was satisfied that she could go to England with peace of mind.

But in February, Susan Reinert made another attempt to purchase a policy with the USAA insurance company. This time she reduced the amount of requested coverage to $250,000, but with a $200,000 accidental-death rider. This time in her application she listed beneficiary William S. Bradfield, Jr., as "intended husband."

It was a one-year term life policy with no residual cash value, and would pay only if Susan Reinert died within a year. The $200,000 accidental-death clause did cover murder.

Things were speeding up. Sue Myers was surprised in February to be handed a written cohabitation agreement. It was all typed up and ready for her signature, and seemed designed to prevent either of them from suing the other for palimony. It specifically cited the Lee Marvin lawsuit in California.

As part of the cohabitation agreement Bill Bradfield listed his assets, current and future, as required by law. Without full disclosure the agreement could be nullified. On the disclosure list was "beneficiary on mothers policy, $250,000." As well as an undescribed "insurance policy, $500,000."

Another item read, "inheritance expected in future, $500,000," with no further description of that inheritance.

Once again, Bill Bradfield told Sue that the agreement was for her protection and that she should trust him. Once again, her hummingbird eyes darted all over the place and she said she'd think it over. And he whirled off in his dervish frenzy on some errand.

She got herself to the telephone and made another urgent appointment with her lawyer, deciding that Bill Bradfield had more financial secrets than the Teamsters' Union.

Also in February, Muriel Bradfield got an important visit from Bill Bradfield that eventually led Sue Myers to the discovery that not only was Muriel his legal wife, but that Fran, Muriel's predecessor, had also been his legal wife. .