Echoes in the Darkness

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “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 Smiths 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.

  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 protégés 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 Reinert’s 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.

  “I 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 live-in 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.

  His diary entry confirmed to her that maybe for once he was telling the truth, and that even if he’d been sleeping with Susan Reinert in the past, he was now simply trying to elude her clutches.

  The entry read: “I’d like to kill Susan Reinert.”

  If Sue Myers feared that Bill Bradfield might be seeing Susan Reinert on Thanksgiving weekend, she needn’t have. At a later time she learned that he’d traveled to Boston over that holiday. And, as it turned out, she had someone else to worry about. Bill Bradfield was visiting Rachel who had left Annapolis and moved on to Harvard for graduate study.

  After the Thanksgiving weekend had ended and Jay Smith had not knocked off Susan Reinert or anyone else, Bill Bradfield took credit for keeping Jay Smith “under control.” The word “control” surfaced frequently in conversations with Bill Bradfield.

  Sue Myers began seeing a sex therapist in Bryn Mawr to learn if she could ever hope to experience sexual desire again-assuming that she survived whatever was to happen, his mental breakdown or hers.

  She wondered if there could be sex after William Bradfield.

  During December, Susan Reinert contacted the USAA insurance company and tried very hard to secure a life insurance policy for half a million dollars, naming a “friend” as beneficiary. The name of the friend was William S. Bradfield, Jr.

  The insurance company denied her application on the grounds that such a large policy would overinsure her life.

  During the same week Susan Reinert wrote a letter to the man that Bill Bradfield claimed was trying to murder her for walking out on a clandestine affair. It was a straightforward business letter:

  Dear Dr. Smith:

  I am applying for an exchange teaching position in England under the Fulbright-Hays program for 1979-80 and could use a letter of reference from you.

  I hope you are doing all right, especially considering your present circumstances. If I can be of any aid, please let me know.

  Jay Smith responded immediately:

  Susan,

  I have some familiarity with the Fulbright programs and would be happy to fill out a reference for you. While teaching at Rider College in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, last year, I was on a review committee re Fulbrights.

  Send whatever data you have and I will write a reference geared toward the requirements.

  Hope you and your children are in good health.

  Jay Smith

  And that was all. It was a letter from one colleague to another. He didn’t even call her Tweetie Bird.

  Bill Bradfield held a critical meeting with Vince Valaitis at school. It was so intense it was subdued. Bill Bradfields soft husky voice could hardly be heard at times.

  “I need to tell you something. I need advice,” he said.

  “I’m listening.”

  Bill Bradfield took a date book from his pocket and thumbed through the pages. “I’m troubled,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. You see, I was with Doctor Smith at the shore on Saturday, August twenty-seventh, of last year.”

  “I don’t see what …”

  “That’s when the Sears store in St. Davids got robbed. So Doctor Smith’s been truthful all along. It was a case of mistaken identity. So it was probably the lookalike, whoever he is, who did the other one too!”

  And Vince started pondering because in the newspaper they said that the police found all kinds of evidence like security guards’ uniforms and badges and I.D. cards and guns.

  “But maybe he did do the other robbery. After all there was other evidence.”

  “I’m only concerned with the St. Davids case,” Bill Bradfield said. “Whatever else he did or didn’t do isn’t my business. All I know is he didn’t do that one.”

  “What about the stuff the police found in the house? What about all that?”

  “It’s very possible he’s telling the truth that Edward and Stephanie Hunsberger are not only responsible for all the contraband, but the robberies too. They may’ve had a partner who resembled Doctor Smith.”

  It didn’t take a lawyer to conclude that if Jay Smith could show he didn’t do the first one, he’d have a very good chance of beating the second case, and if the evidence in the basement could be suppressed due to search and seizure laws, Jay Smith might get his life back to abnormal, free once more to save children from homosexuality and prove to the American Kennel Club that it owed a debt to America’s women.

  Vince Valaitis got confused thinking about it. All he could say was “I don’t know, Bill. I’ve never encountered anything like this.”

  “Of course not,” Bill Bradfield said. “Nor have I. But damn it, I have an obligation as a citizen to come forward when I can save an innocent man who’s being harassed by the police. They’re twisting the evidence and forcing witnesses to identify the wrong man!”

  “Jay C. Smith is …”

  “Innocent of this. Whatever else he is. He’s innocent of this crime, Vince. And I fear it’s my duty to help him no matter what I feel about the man personally.”

  Chris Pappas hardly knew Susan Reinert other than to say hello when he was substituting for regular teachers at Upper Merion. Of course, there had been those telephone calls from her last summer when she’d called Bill Bradfield at St. John’s. And he’d guessed that Bill Bradfield had gone to Baltimore to see Susan after one of those telephone calls, but Chris accepted Bill Bradfield’s explanation that she was simply a pitiful friend and that he wanted out of his advisory role.

  In that he hardly knew her, Chris wasn’t as shocked as Vince Valaitis to hear from Bill Bradfield that she was the secret lover of Jay Smith, and that Jay Smith was very angry that she’d jilted him and wanted revenge.

  It was a lot more shocking to hear that Jay Smith
was a “screened hit man” for the Mafia-which meant that he was screened off from knowing who the contractor really was and vice versa. Bill Bradfield told Chris that ads were taken in the classified section to let a killer know all he needed to know, and that was how Jay Smith did business. Jay Smith had told Bill Bradfield about a vendetta against several of the people involved in his legal problems, and against school officials as well.

  Now Chris Pappas was warned that he must not go to the police or Bill Bradfield was a dead man. And besides there wasn’t a shred of evidence.

  While Chris spent a few days digesting the news that Jay Smith was a Mafia hit man and wondered why his friend had ever offered to be Jay Smiths character witness, Bill Bradfield came to him with an even more bewildering secret. He’d had a dream and worked out a date in 1977 and now he wasn’t just a potential character witness, he was an alibi witness. Jay Smith had been with him in Ocean City on the very day that the Sears store was victimized.

  It was put to the introspective, insecure, worrisome, thoughtful young fellow almost like a philosophical proposition. What would he do if he knew that a truly wicked man was innocent in a specific instance of a wicked crime even though he was by his own admission guilty of scores of more wicked crimes? Did Bill Bradfield have a duty to the rule of law, or would society be served better by letting Jay Smith get wrongly convicted?

  Chris worked on it for a while, but it was clear to him that Bill Bradfield had the distasteful duty of stepping forward and protecting the integrity of the system. He had no choice but to be an alibi witness for Jay Smith.

  Bill Bradfield reluctantly agreed.

  English teacher Fred Wattenmaker thought a lot of his colleague Susan Reinert. He once described her as “sensitive, sincere and caring.” He thought she was a wonderful mother.

  He got to know her children when she chaperoned some students on a Puerto Rican field trip supervised by Fed Wattenmaker. He told people that Karen and Michael were the type of children he would want if he ever had his own. During the past spring, Susan and her children had visited Fred Wattenmaker at his vacation home in Ocean City. A few weeks later, Bill Bradfield and Sue Myers also accepted an invitation and stayed for a few days. It was the only time that Bill Bradfield had been there except for a day in August, 1977, when Fred Wattenmaker found a note on his door saying, “Tell McKinley I won the bet. I was here but you weren’t.”