Echoes in the Darkness

10

The associates of William Bradfield had certain traits in common: they were either especially impressionable, riddled with self-doubts, fearful of the future, or all three. Intimate experience with the opposite sex had been very limited or nonexistent in their lives. None had spent a significant period of life outside a classroom. Sue Myers, Vince Valaitis, Chris Pappas, Shelly, and Susan Reinert were decent trusting people. They were also more vulnerable than bloodroot.

The only one who was in some way different was Rachel, now off at Harvard pursuing a graduate degree, and learning how to look even more like Charlotte Brontë. Her love letters to Bill Bradfield, always mailed to Upper Merion Senior High School, are penned in the tiny precise formal script taught in British boarding schools, though she hailed from the American West.

Dear William:

I thought about you all day yesterday amp; (so far) all day today. Knowing you wouldn’t, but hoping to have you call up. Vaguely nervous with your people so close. I imagine what a confrontation would hold. All nonsense, of course, but inner dialogues haunting me all day. Have been in foul mood upon foul mood. You said something about my new-found interest in political matters. It isn’t. That is, the interest has always been there. The feeling of responsibility. But my notions of what seems sane don’t coincide with anyone’s-well, maybe yours, and that’s why I talk to you about things and the frustrations of never being able to get the kind of information I want. I keep wanting to have you here to say-“That’s why!”

Perhaps you weren’t even here this weekend? That would be strange. You’ve been locked up in my head these days. I miss you horribly. CSEPAHC? Center for the Study of Ezra Pound and His Contemporaries. (see clipping) Stung. Paralyzed. What can be said which will do justice to such a thing??? It’s beyond me. At Yale, yet. They should be ashamed.

I sat here gazing for a minute at the Pound picture. Not thinking about it really, or you. But having my head-the whole pan of my mind, my senses-feeling all the parts of your world coming to me through these black and white dots. Because I am so inextricably bound to you and you to the something that is, was, Ezra Pound. My nerves work differently. My heart and breathing speed up whenever I bump against one of the objects of your world. I cherish them all and no one can tamper with them in the least because what’s there that could be tampered with isn’t in the object but in the relation. And there for as long as I hold up my end, it is safe.

I have the control over things at last. The frustrations of not determining my world can ease. And there is peace and calm and quiet. The writing of these letters is an exercise in indulging myself-holding up of my end and revelling in the control and ownership. Generating rewards-exquisite ones-for myself. To end the letters becomes almost impossible. The stopping of the motion and the empty space and the thoughts that continue in my head but cannot go to you bring again the frustration that signals my entry back into the setting of things beyond my control. There is nothing else left to me but to make do with whatever it is that must be done to keep us together. Don’t worry, William. Sometimes I feel as if I surely must be getting wise.

Love me. Think of me. Something MUST be done to get around all the intricacies. I need your hugs.

Those who knew about Rachel were puzzled by the nature of her love affair with Bill Bradfield, Sue Myers in particular. Their relationship seemed as intricate as a DNA blueprint.

The letters that Rachel posted to Bill Bradfield at the school deal mostly with ethereal matters and a conviction that a unique notion of “sanity” is theirs. Sue decided that despite Rachel’s earlier marriage she was the icy Gothic maiden he’d always needed and if you took her picture it would come out sepia.

But in her Ezra Pound letter Rachel had mentioned “control” three times and hugs once, so if he controlled her three fourths of the time and hugged her for the remainder she might be quite obedient and happy. Probably, Rachel was more like Sue Myers and all the others than Sue cared to admit.

All of the Bill Bradfield cohorts led pretty ordinary lives on a day-to-day basis, lives revolving around school and books and papers, until Bill Bradfield, tireless as a laser beam, scorched them with the latest from Jay Smith.

Bill Bradfield was like an auteur film director who writes the scenario while he shoots the movie, and ends up with a plot so convoluted that he has to withdraw for a few days to let the players wait and wonder while he conceptualizes the next scene.

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 how 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 Smith’s 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 Bradfields 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?”

And Bill 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. Let’s 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. I was shocked to learn what the man’s 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 all 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 protege. “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 how Jay Smith could whip out his tape and wrap up a victim’s 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 his 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 mother’s 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.

It had taken Sue fifteen years to find out that her lover was a married man. Muriel had married Bill Bradfield in a civil ceremony before a Virginia justice of the peace in 1963. They’d lived as man and wife for three years.

During his visit, Bill Bradfield told Muriel that he was going to need a fast divorce. He assured her that she could remain in his house and he offered to send her on a paid vacation to the Republic of Haiti for the quickie. He explained that his art store in Montgomery Mall was in dire trouble and that there might be some liens and encumbrances cropping up very soon. He convinced Muriel that, as his legal wife, she might find herself in the middle of a lawsuit that was not of her doing. In short, he wanted to protect her from harm.

To Sue, Bill Bradfield explained the need for the divorce by saying something about civil marriages in Virginia not being exactly legal in Pennsylvania, so that’s why he’d never considered himself married. But now that Jay Smith was on the rampage and might get Bill Bradfields name in the newspapers, he didn’t want the publicity to stigmatize his wife Muriel, who wouldn’t be quite as stigmatized if she was divorced from him.

Sue Myers didn’t think the explanation made any more sense than Ezra Pound’s translation of Confucius, but what the hell difference did any of it make at this point? She knew she was sticking around till the final curtain; she just prayed that the props wouldn’t come crashing down on her head.

Sue Myers would later say that nothing really meant much to her as far as Jay Smith and Susan Reinert were concerned. Bill Bradfield had been crying wolf so long that she’d just humor him and go about her business, because she had the whole thing figured out: he was in the midst of a world-class, monster-size, life-threatening, mid-life crisis. She figured that the hunt for Jay Smith was an interlude. Bill Bradfield, at the age of forty-five, was a middle-aged Tom Sawyer run amok, but from all that she’d read on the subject there was every reason to hope he’d pull out of it in a year or so.

Meanwhile she was enduring her own mid-life agony. The sex therapist assured Sue that the libido couldn’t atrophy like a broken leg, so she could hold out for hope for resuscitation. She felt like dialing 911.

One chilly day in February, the branch manager of Continental Bank in King of Prussia was informed by a teller that a customer insisted on withdrawing $25,000 in cash from her savings account, which showed a balance of just over $30,000.

To bankers, large cash withdrawals often signify confidence schemes, so the managers policy was to question customers to make sure they weren’t being flimflammed.

The manager was a very large fellow, a bit younger than the little lady in the big coat. He introduced himself and told her he simply could not understand her demand.

“Mrs. Reinert, there’s no need for cash,” he said. “In a legitimate investment there’s no purpose served by handing over cash.”

“It’s my money. I’m not a child. I want cash,” she said.

“Why not accept a cashier’s check?” the manager said. “It’s every bit as negotiable as cash.”

“I need cash for this transaction.”

“How about a wire transfer? The money could be moved from our bank to the credit of your person in his bank.”

“No, that’s not acceptable,” Susan Reinert said. “Are you going to give me the money or not?”

Her high-pitched voice was getting a bit screechy, so the manager said, “Mrs. Reinert, let’s continue this in the conference room.”

When he got her to a private place he said, “Let me do you a service. I can call the person you’re investing with. I can ask a few questions on your behalf. This pressure you’re under to provide cash is not reasonable.”

“I’m not under pressure,” she said, “but I don’t want to reveal the investment information. I can tell you that it’s for a very high percentage of return.”

“I haven’t heard of anyone offering more than nine percent,” the banker said.

“It’s for much more than that,” Susan Reinert countered. “And I don’t want you to call anyone for me.”

“All right, then,” the bank manager said. “How about a compromise? Take your person a cash deposit of, say, fifteen hundred dollars. Ask your person why the balance couldn’t be provided in a more conventional way. That’s fair, isn’t it? I’ll make you a withdrawal ticket for fifteen hundred dollars in cash.”

The banker would later say that there was a little-known legal banking prerogative that allowed his refusal to release cash if he was certain there was something amiss. He had never done it before and doubted that he would ever again.

Susan Reinert took the $1,500 and left the bank. On February 21st, she telephonically transferred $11,500 from her savings account to her checking account. A few days later she transferred another $5,000. She then opened a new account at the American Bank in King of Prussia and transferred all her money there. On March 13th, she wrote a check for $10,000 in cash. On April 11th, she wrote another for $5,000 in cash.

The money was given to her in $50 and $100 bills. In all, she made six cash withdrawals bringing the total amount withdrawn to $25,000. Thus, she eventually succeeded in getting all of the “investment capital” in cash.

There was at least the promise of spring in the air when Bill Bradfield drove to Chris Pappas’s home one afternoon. He was wearing his blue parka with the big pockets that were capable of holding all sorts of Jay Smith death devices. He indicated that Chris might be named custodian of the chamber of horrors, and that it included acid.

“Acid?” young Chris Pappas said that day. “What acid?”

“He says he uses it to destroy parts of his dismembered victims,” Bill Bradfield said blithely. “I may have to hide it for him.”

And then Bill Bradfield added, “He also tortures living people with it. He uses an eyedropper full of acid to elicit cooperation. He drops it onto the victim’s skin and wipes it off with a damp cloth after they start to talk.”

Chris Pappas’s recollections of the events of that time always remained exceedingly vivid. His total recall impressed many outside observers. It was as though his memories were etched by that very acid.

“I’ll hide it out back under your boat,” he told Bill Bradfield. “How long do I have to store it?”

“Just like everything else, Chris,” Bill Bradfield told him. “Until we deal with this man. I have to pretend to be his disciple. If he says store it, I store it. If he wants it back, I have to obey.”

And then Chris Pappas asked questions about young Stephanie and her husband Eddie because any talk of dismembered bodies and acid would lead to the grisly speculation that was keeping everyone guessing.

“He’s not that confident about me,” Bill Bradfield said. “If he were, if he’d tell me anything I could prove regarding their disappearance, we’d have all we need to have him locked up.”

“We’ve got to keep trying,” Chris said.

“I can tell you this,” Bill Bradfield said. “He’s talked about using truth serum on victims. And you know that Stephanie and her husband had access to methadone and other drugs. There’s a drug connection somehow, but I can’t quite put it together. One minute he talks about taking over the drug operation in Chester County and the next minute he’s preaching an antidrug sermon. The man’s demented.”

“Do you really believe all of it?” Chris said. “I mean about cutting people up and acid and all that?”

“He places newspaper on a carpet when he kills his victims. The bloody newspaper’s wrapped in foil and then the whole thing’s wrapped in plastic trash bags. Then the bodies’re taken to a landfill above the Vince Lombardi service area on the New Jersey Turnpike.”

“Maybe some of it’s true,” Chris said.

“He uses out-of-town newspapers for the bodies. In case they’re ever found.”

And there it was. A Bill Bradfield detail: the alligator shoes, the hairnet, the out-of-town newspapers.

“I guess it has to be true,” Chris Pappas said. “I guess what he tells you has to be true.”

“We can doubt some of the details,” Bill Bradfield said. “Because the man uses marijuana. I find that shocking in light of his daughter’s drug problems.”

While Bill Bradfield was shocked about pot smoking, but not so shocked about chopping and dissolving human beings, Chris Pappas got a brainstorm.

He said, “Maybe I should conduct a reconnaissance on Doctor Smiths house! After all, you’re exhausted. You can’t do all this alone.”

Bill Bradfield said, “We might try that, Chris. I’d never let anyone else take such a risk, and certainly not Vince Valaitis. But I think you have what it takes to pull it off. Only don’t ever try to follow him. He’s very alert for tails.”

“I could just take down license numbers and descriptions of any cars that visit him,” Chris offered. “When we do go to the cops we might need all that.”

“I can tell you this: his actual number of mob hits, and I’m relatively sure of it, numbers between twenty and thirty. And he’s sent away for banana clips because he’s going to rob an armored truck eventually. He’s got a rifle that he’s altering to fire full-on automatic.”

And that led Bill Bradfield to an inquiry as to whether his handyman had made any progress with the armament, so Chris took Bill Bradfield out to the back of the Pappas property where his father raised flowers.

Bill Bradfield had a.357 Colt magnum, a gun he said he’d had for some time, and wanted Chris to tinker with it and oil it and make it ready in case something big happened. He’d also brought along a.30 caliber rifle and a bag of bullets.

With the rifle Bill Bradfield brought a story that was so tortuous that at a later time several outsiders dismantled and inspected it, saying it was like a homemade eggbeater held together with Krazy Glue.

It seemed that the.30 caliber rifle had its barrel cut down and the stock removed. It was a Jay Smith killing instrument, of course. Chris was asked to alter the illegal weapon even more. And the reason was only acceptable to performers in a play within a play within a labyrinth.

It seemed that the sawed-off rifle might actually belong to Bill Bradfield. Yes. It seemed that he had once owned a similiar.30 caliber rifle and kept it in his parents’ farmhouse. He made the mistake of mentioning this to Dr. Smith, and of course, given Jay Smiths demonic powers he very soon turned up with this rifle in this altered condition. Bill Bradfield immediately suspected that Jay Smith had drifted into his parents’ home in Chester County and spirited the gun away, disguising it in this fashion to torment Bill Bradfield by revealing just how omniscient and omnipresent he could be.

And yes indeed, the Bradfield.30 caliber rifle had mysteriously disappeared from his parents’ home, so this might be the very gun! But he couldn’t tell because it was cut down, and disguised.

And what did he want Chris to do with the gun? That was easy. As easy as an elephant’s pedicure. He wanted Chris to grind the serial numbers off the weapon so that if Jay Smith recalled the weapon from his bogus disciple, Bill Bradfield, and if Bill Bradfield couldn’t stop Jay Smith from using the weapon to kill someone, like Susan Reinert for instance, and if the murder weapon should happen to fall into police hands, it could not be traced back to Bill Bradfield who might in fact be the registered owner of the rifle in the first place!

It was just that simple. If you’re more Byzantine than Constantinople.

And Chris said something like “Makes sense to me!” And started up the old grinding wheel.

While the handyman was grinding away at the serial number, he inadvertently damaged the barrel of the rifle. Chris later learned that Dr. Smith thought it was a lousy grinding job and that it screwed up the weapon.

Chris expected Bill Bradfield to be pleased that he’d ruined a Jay Smith death weapon, but Bill Bradfield didn’t seem too happy about it.

Chris Pappas made up for the lousy grinding job by calling Bill Bradfield over to the house a few days later to see what he’d managed to accomplish in the ordnance department.

The young man had a small.22 caliber handgun of his own, and he’d tinkered and experimented with some pieces of pipe and steel wool and screen and anything else that would act as a baffle. It was like constructing a miniature car muffler.

This time he could show off a little, even as Bill Bradfield perused the monograph he’d given Chris to work with. When Bill Bradfield read the monograph, his fingers slid over the pages at incredible speed so that Chris, always a painfully slow reader, continued to marvel at the older man’s many skills. But Chris showed him some skill of his own that day and addressed all the problems in the pamphlet on silencers that Bill Bradfield had loaned him.

As Jay Smith had purportedly explained it, the gun mechanism was noisy and had to be coated with a rubberized material. The second noise in a gun shot was caused by the explosion of the powder. The third noise Jay Smith defined was the sound of the traveling projectile. He added that he used 22 caliber short ammo.

The methodical, reflective, pondering handyman had gotten some specifications at a gun store that listed muzzle velocities, and he’d computed that there’s only one bullet that travels below the speed of sound: a.22 caliber short. Therefore, the tiny piece of technical information relayed to him by Bill Bradfield, that the traveling projectile makes a sound, seemed absolute proof to Chris that Bill Bradfield was spending a great deal of time with a firearms expert, a military man like Jay Smith.

“Bill Bradfield knew nothing about guns or machinery. He couldn’t even drive a nail,” Chris Pappas later said. “If ever I needed convincing that did it.”

“Vince has gotten freaky on me,” Bill Bradfield informed him. “He’s taking tranquilizers to sleep. He’s no help whatsoever. As far as weapons, I’ve told him that Doctor Smiths given me his guns and that you’re subtly altering them so they won’t be able to be fired. He’s satisfied with that. He isn’t able to cope with much more these days. He’s not … shall I say man enough to understand that one day I may have no choice, no choice at all.”

“You may have to …”

“That’s right.” Bill Bradfield nodded grimly. “I may have to kill him.”

Chris started throwing off high voltage over this one, and he asked, “Have you given any thought to logistics? How’ll you do it? Do you have a plan?”

Asking Bill Bradfield if he had a plan was like asking Dwight Eisenhower if he’d given any thought to the June 6th channel crossing. The “plan” involved more props. There was an old car seat on the Pappas property. Bill Bradfield and Chris walked over to it and rehearsed. He told Chris to sit down on the left, as though he were Jay Smith driving.

“Pretend that I have this little silenced pistol in a plastic bag,” he said, lifting Chris’s.22 pistol. “Doctor Smith likes to do his talking in the car while we drive around, so that our conversations can’t be monitored. Now, I’ll wait until the appropriate moment, maybe when he stops at a stop sign, and then I’ll pull my pistol from the plastic bag and pow!”

With that, Bill Bradfield popped a few rounds at a tree, and they were hardly audible. Chris had done a great job with the homemade silencer.

“I’ve just shot Doctor Smith in the head!” Bill Bradfield cried, and then became appropriately grave.

Chris became more grave with the last news of the day. “Your parents’ lives may depend on our silence,” Bill Bradfield said. “If he finds out how much you know, he’ll kill my parents and yours.”

Bill Bradfield put the gun in his pretend bag and practiced a quick draw. Then he put a target on a tree at about the height of Jay Smith’s head. He drew and fired. He shot up a lot of ammo. He even tried shooting from the hip. He only stopped when he nearly blew his balls off with a superquick draw.