Echoes in the Darkness (21 page)

When it was the prosecutor's turn to cross-examine, there was a great deal of testimony as to how Bill Bradfield got around to remembering the date that he'd seen Jay Smith at the shore, but he didn't tell his "I had a dream" experience.

He had to repeat it all again, about how he'd been driving along in the Cadillac, and how he stopped at a restaurant because he hadn't eaten all day. And there was Dr. Smith, and they talked, and decided to visit Fred because Dr. Smith "suggested we not eat."

"That's why you didn't eat?" the prosecutor asked.

"That's correct," Bill Bradfield testified.

"Not to be facetious," the prosecutor said, "Doctor Smith's judgment overprivileged you?"

And there he was, Bill Bradfield, in front of twelve good men and true, and a courtroom full of people, and members of the press, and a few teacher witnesses who knew him. He was being asked publicly if Dr. Jay C. Smith could overrule Bill Bradfield's hunger pangs with a mere suggestion.

Bill Bradfield lost his professional demeanor. He got mad. He said, "It wasn't a judgment of privilege!" And he started stammering. "That didn't . . . the present interest was . . ."

The prosecutor tried to speak but got cut short by Bill Bradfield who said, "I don't think that is relevant at all! I don't think it was a judgment of privilege!"

"Just answer the questions," the judge advised. "Just answer the questions."

Bill Bradfield eventually testified to driving around lost with Jay Smith as his helpmate. (The prosecutor asked if Dr. Smith was his "co-pilot." It was droll, rather the opposite of having God as your co-pilot.) And they drove around and around until they found a man working in his garden. His named turned put to be Rudy. And they were directed to Fred's and knocked and left a note and departed.

"Can you identify Rudy here in the courtroom?" the prosecutor asked.

"I don't know," Bill Bradfield replied.

"Would you know Rudy if you saw him?"

"I don't know that I would."

Then the prosecutor said, "Isn't it a feet, Mr. Bradfield, that you didn't meet Rudy until 1978? And never saw him in the summer of 1977? Isn't that a fact?"

"I saw Rudy with Doctor Smith on August 27th of 1977!" Bill Bradfield said. "Mr. Wattenmaker told me that Rudy said two tall men in a red Cadillac came looking for directions."

"So if Rudy said he didn't meet you until 1978, that would be inaccurate?"

"That's correct," Bill Bradfield testified.

And then Bill Bradfield added a little detail that made it as vivid as alligator shoes. He said that when they returned to the restaurant Dr. Jay Smith had stuck him with the check. He looked toward the jury, but no one smiled.

Fred Wattenmaker's neighbor Rudy was called as a witness by the commonwealth and testified that he had seen Bill Bradfield at the shore. But it was last year. He denied that he'd seen William Bradfield or Jay Smith or anybody else in 1977.

"I'm in my seventies," Rudy testified. "But I still have a good working mind."

After less than two hours of deliberation the jury returned with a verdict of guilty in the theft at the Sears store in St. Davids.

That wasn't the worst of it, not for Bill Bradfield. The jury foreman was interviewed by the press as to the alibi testimony of William S. Bradfield, Jr., and the juror said, "We sure didn't believe that teacher!"

The juror's comment was in all the newspapers the next day.

Sue Myers said that Bill Bradfield was furious. It wasn't so much that Jay Smith had been convicted. It was that the jury hadn't believed him. He was depressed for days.

William Bradfield was too busy in June to remain depressed for long. He had arrangements to make with Shelly and Rachel who were both finishing their college semesters.

His unique relationship with each of the women in his life is best described by the women in question, and can be because of his reluctance to discard any proof of their love and devotion.

Whereas Susan Reinert's letters often contain references to sexual love and her need for more of it than he was willing to

give, and Rachels letters are loaded with obscure sentiments as to philosophical and psychological need, Shellys letters are written by a nineteen-year-old girl in love with religion and books and love itself:

Dear Mentor,

In reference to your letter of the fifth, this from Sonnet 25: "Then happy I that love and am belov'd ..."

I thank you for the Kenner reference list. What is my library going to look like when I've finished the book? My husband may have to cut my chocolate chip allowance to give me more book money. I haven't gone any farther in The Pound Era than the first chapter, but I've read that twice. Maybe when I get to the last chapter I'll understand his English even if I don't know what he's referring to.

I knew some of the terms you wanted me to look up from Greek, and I'm pretty sure I understand the others. You'll just have to see me in person to quiz me, won't you? (Heh heh. Devilish laugh. I'm so devious.) When we're bound for Greece, I'll get up every morning and declaim from "The Seafarer" or "The Wanderer."

I was reading a book by C.S. Lewis the other day and it captures perfectly a certain type of happiness. What I'm building up to is that if your letters or visits or love makes me cry, it also makes me feel like having a great deal of buttered toast.

Love always

Chastity until their inevitable marriage is also on the girl's mind, even as passion awakens.

Dearest Love,

I've been to see the monsignor about your annulments. He says there should be no problem about Fran since she married outside the Catholic Church. The problem comes up with Muriel. The Church considers a civil marriage between two Protestants valid, so we have to know if you were validly married according to civil law. On to more pleasant topics. I love you madly, passionately, eternally, and infinitely. There, I've been wanting to get that off my chest. Seriously, I miss you so terribly. Do you know what I've been doing? Whenever I come into my room, if there's no one there, I kiss my pillow and pretend it's you. I can't believe how silly I am.

I tell myself I will not be ruled by my passions, that it's silly to think I'm not strong enough to get through college without you, but I'm lying through my teeth. I want you, heart's-all-beloved-my-own, and I need you to be with me. I don't see how I can survive days, let alone years.

Will anyone ever recognize the quality of our love? I think not, but somehow I don't care.

I'm enclosing St. Josephs prayer for you to replace the copy I gave you. You are my dearest darling.

Always and all ways yours,

Shelly's letters also reflect her concerns about his holy war, namely to protect his colleague Susan Reinert from the evil Dr. Smith.

Sweetheart,

Your letter came yesterday. I was so happy to get it that I almost kissed it right there in the dining hall.

I'm so sorry that school is troublesome and that Dr. Smith is such a worry to you. As for that teacher, my claws start unsheathing when I think of her. Please be careful, William. We have a long time still to go and if you should get hurt before you are mine in everyone's eyes I don't know what I would do. It's hard enough to be circumspect as it is. Won't it be nice when I can be at your back as you fight your battles?

In May, Susan Reinert had to see her friend Pat Schnure on a matter of urgency. She was agitated to the point of tears.

"I've heard that Sue Myers is also going to England this summer!" Susan confided. "What's that mean?"

"I don't know! But that's not the worst part. I can hardly believe Bill did it!" "What?"

"The testimony at the Jay Smith trial. He lied. You see, I was with him at the shore when he says he saw Jay Smith. He never mentioned seeing Jay Smith at that time. He would've mentioned it to me. We were together almost constantly."

"What do you make of it? Why would he lie for Jay Smith?"

"I don't know, but he did."

"It doesn't make sense. Did you accuse him of it?"

"Of course. He's outraged. He says that I don't remember. He says I'm confused. He's furious that I don't believe him."

"Are you going to overlook it or what?"

"Overlook it? I don't know. I could live with a certain amount of dishonesty from Bill, I suppose. I know about all the romantic entanglements and so forth. But lying under oath? Perjury? I don't know if I can live with it."

The only person ever to see William Bradfield with Jay Smith outside of school was a teacher at Upper Merion, a friend of Susan Reinert, who spotted them at a diner on The Main Line.

"I was going in and they were coming out together," the teacher told Susan. "They stood in the parking lot and talked for a little while before getting into their cars and leaving."

"That explains why Bill was late for our date," Susan told her friend.

Susan Reinert was troubled by that incident and saw fit to discuss it again with her friend, in that Bill Bradfield had adamantly denied meeting Jay Smith at a diner or anywhere else.

"Why?" Susan wondered. "He says he was with Jay Smith at the shore when he wasn't. And he says he wasn't with him at the diner when he was!"

Susan Reinert was troubled. And she obviously had a serious talk with Bill Bradfield about his involvement with Jay Smith, because later, when a friend of hers was speculating about the Bradfield testimony and whether or not Jay Smith really had murdered and disposed of his daughter and her husband, Susan Reinert's friend asked her point-blank if Bill Bradfield knew anything about the missing couple.

Susan smiled cryptically and said, "Officially or unofficially? I can say this: Stephanie Hunsbergers alive. I'm not at liberty to say more than that."

And she didn't say more than that, and her friend didn't learn what little secrets Bill Bradfield was sharing with her. Clearly, it wasn't the other secret. The secret that she might be murdered by Jay C. Smith.

? ? ?

There were bits and pieces of Bill Bradfields biggest secret, that Jay Smith was going to kill Susan Reinert, that one friend would get and another wouldn't. There was one little detail that was shared only with Chris Pappas.

Bill Bradfield said that Jay Smith was extremely angry with Susan Reinert for having jilted him. According to Bill Bradfield, Jay Smith called her a "social climber," and he was going to deal with the social climber in his own way. He was going to beat her severely before he murdered her.

All the insurance coverage that Susan Reinert had purchased in the last few months, along with a small policy she'd already had, along with the accidental death rider meant that if she was to die accidently or be murdered within a year, her "future husband" stood to inherit $730,000.

The last policy came just in time. She'd asked for two copies because her "executor" wanted one, but the company refused. The agent delivered one copy of the policy to the Ardmore home of Susan Reinert on June 20, 1979. She said that she expected to be leaving the country in a matter of days.

Chapter
13

Bloodroot

For a few weeks Susan Reinert had been concerned about a lump in her breast, but by May 25th she received the good news in writing: "Ultrasonic breast exam showed only some shadowing behind nipple of left breast. No evidence of any lump or mass in either breast. The single calcification is of no consequence except that it might represent the area of shadowing seen on the ultrasound exam."

Bill Bradfield told Vince Valaitis that Susan Reinert might die from cancer if Jay Smith didn't get her first.

On May 31st she called to tell her therapist, Roslyn Weinberger, about Bill Bradfield's testimony in the Jay Smith trial. She called again a week later to say that she believed he'd perjured himself because he was sure that Jay Smith was an innocent man, and that he rationalized his perjury because he was seeking a "higher justice."

She said, "I'm not finished with this. I must know the truth. We've made a date to talk about it and I'll have to be satisfied."

When asked if she still intended to go to England with Bill Bradfield, Susan Reinert said, "If I do, I may live with him for a while to be sure I can trust him before we marry."

Susan Reinert told Roslyn Weinberger that despite her repeated requests he refused to talk to the psychologist and resented Susan's need to do so.

"There's still an open invitation," her therapist told Susan Reinert.

Susan made some notes about the coming trip to Europe. Her jumble of thoughts included worries about notifications to his ex-wives and to his children, as well as her own notifications:

What and when to tell about leaving? David and Muriel,

parents, brother, Ken, Fran, Sue, friends. How long

expect to stay in Europe. Leave together or separately? Jobs? What to do about medical coverage, bank accounts, safe deposit, charge account, mailing address, change of support-Ken, resigning, storage, clothes, books, records, furniture, bicycles. Marriage: When? Where? By whom? Technicalities? Divorce decree, blood tests, license, witnesses, ring(s). Announcements: Karen and Michael, Ken and Reinerts, friends.