Echoes in the Darkness

26

Owing to pretrial maneuvering there was certain information the jury would never know. They would never hear tapes in which Jay Smith and Raymond Martray discussed future armed robberies. Nor would they learn about the defendants alleged scheme to pin the blame for one of the Sears crimes on David Rucker.

They wouldn’t know about things that the police had found in his basement back in 1978. Things like silencers and chains.

Most frustrating to Jack Holtz, they wouldn’t know about the things in Jay Smith’s possession when he was arrested in 1978. Such as tape and a syringe containing a sedative, things that would dovetail right into the murder of Susan Reinert. They would never know about any of these things because they were deemed to be prejudicial.

The private investigator working for William Costopoulos referred to him as a “magician,” and he certainly looked the part. The newspaper artists found him easy to sketch. Costopoulos had the muscular good looks of the Greek islanders, tailored to fit his courtroom image. A leonine head and a rugged jaw decorated with a salt-and-pepper Venetian goatee made you think he’d make a great Iago if he could act.

And he could. Costopoulos was a flamboyant trial lawyer who kept his working-class background in his speech. His suits and shoes were unmistakably Italian, and his high-waisted pants were fastened to striped suspenders.

Whenever he’d come into court looking particularly dapper, his private investigator Skip Gochenour would say, “Goddamnit, I wish he didn’t always have to dress like a pimp.”

But it worked. A guy like Jack Holtz was larger than he looked. Bill Costopoulos looked larger than he was. It was a matter of theater. He handed out black-and-white glossies to the reporters and everyone seemed to like him.

Courtroom number one in the Dauphin County Courthouse suited the style of Bill Costopoulos. It was a great legal theater of Italian marble and walnut paneling. Art deco sconces lined the walls, and it had a high ceiling with a skylight. A huge gold crest behind the judges bench bore the coat of arms of the commonwealth.

The judges bench was massive and could accommodate a tribunal of judges. Beneath the bench of Judge William W. Lipsitt was carved: NO MAN CAN BE DEPRIVED OF HIS LIFE, LIBERTY OR PROPERTY UNLESS BY JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS OR THE LAW OF THE LAND.

The security, due to all the escape talk, was very heavy. There were always two deputy sheriffs in plainclothes sitting behind Jay Smith, and other officers from the state police or attorney generals office scanned the courtroom.

Across the courtroom from the jury seats was yet another jury box of equal size. In this trial it was used to accommodate the press.

Seeing the 1986 version of Jay C. Smith was a shock. It made one recall what had been said years earlier by the wife of his first attorney: “He seemed to change each time I saw him. He could even change his size.”

This time the change of size was explainable. He’d lost fifty pounds or more from the time back in 1978 when his secret life was exposed. And this Jay Smith looked ten years younger than that one!

He was tall, gaunt, balding, middle aged. He wore black frame glasses and a blue-gray business suit. Other than the blanched prison pallor, he looked to be in excellent physical health for a prison inmate fifty-seven years old.

This didn’t look like the sinister prince of darkness with layers of jowls falling into terraced slabs. This wasn’t an acid rocker dancing alone to a tune played on an electric bass with a hatchet. This Jay Smith was a mild, middle-aged schoolteacher.

He usually sat motionless, moving only to cross his legs or occasionally to write a note, or whisper to his lawyer.

The most notable Jay Smith mannerism was observable when he was touched. If a member of the four-man defense team approached to whisper in his ear, he would jerk his face away. If he’d been wearing a hat it would’ve gone sailing every time.

Jay Smith did not like having the faces of other human beings close to his. He was obsessive about it, and his reaction never varied. It was as though Jay Smith couldn’t bear intimacy.

Bill Costopoulos had the same problem that John O’Brien had had back in the Jay Smith theft trial of 1979. Do you put him on the stand? It’s hard to win a murder trial when the defendant doesn’t testify. Juries want to hear the accused answer for himself. But Jay Smith had relentlessly denied every bit of wrongdoing with which he’d ever been charged. The only infraction he’d ever admitted was that he owned guns that were not properly registered.

As far as Dr. Jay was concerned, he’d been slandered and prejudged from the first because of his research into doggie sex. He might even say that on the stand. So the strategy of the defense was to admit to the earlier theft convictions and get on with it. Later the jury could be told that he’d not taken the stand at his theft trial on bad advice and been wrongly convicted as a result.

Guida countered that strategy by bringing in the Sears witnesses and once again reenacting Bill Bradfield’s alibi testimony. And since Jay Smith would unquestionably get up there and still deny the Sears crimes, Bill Costopoulos didn’t dare let his client testify.

The opening remarks of Rick Guida were brief. He told the jury that the case involved the “heinous, brutal murder of a woman and two children.” Then he repeated, “Two children.”

He said, “This case involves the most massive criminal investigation in the history of Pennsylvania. Though there is only one defendant present, we will actually try two. For the first two or three weeks you will hardly hear Mister Smith’s name mentioned.

“But we’re going to ask you to find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, and, if you should do that, to sentence him to death.

“Much of the case is circumstantial evidence. The witnesses will take you where you are going. I’m only a guide. At the end, I’ll tell you where the witnesses took you. And where you should take him.”

The opening of Bill Costopoulos informed the jury that there was a deceptive man involved in this case and his name was “William Sidney Bradfield.” Costopoulos often used Bill Bradfield’s middle name, and always referred to him with scorn.

He said, “Jay Smith was targeted by a man who was very good at deception. He was made a target of exploitation by a man who was a master of exploitation. I refer to none other than William Sidney Bradfield.”

He told the jury that they were going to hear from a man named Raymond Martray, whom the prosecution “pulled from the bowels of the prison system.”

He said ominously, “I will deal with Raymond Martray when he gets up here and it will be easy.”

Speaking quietly, but appearing to subdue great emotion, Costopoulos said, “The evidence will indicate that these charges should not have been brought. The prosecution in October, 1983, had insufficient evidence to try Jay Smith with William Bradfield, and since then have only added Raymond Martray.”

Then he allowed a little sarcasm when he said very neatly, “And with that I will ask Mister Guida to call his first witness … for the second time.”

Costopoulos was the performer, and private investigator Skip Gochenour fed him the lines. They worked as a team at the council table, whereas Guida seldom referred to his legal assistant, or even to Jack Holtz.

Gochenour was a red-bearded ex-cop, built like a Coke machine. He was a savvy investigator who’d worked for Costopoulos on dozens of cases. The private investigator was not reluctant to tell anyone that he believed the Reinert children had been doomed from the moment their mother took out the insurance policies in favor of Bill Bradfield.

He said, “Bill Bradfield had no intention of being a daddy, and couldn’t even if he’d wanted to. They already had a daddy and the real one would’ve helped his children break their mother’s will. Those kids were sentenced to death from the start.”

He and Bill Costopoulos got Rick Guida’s attention within the first two days. One of the prosecution witnesses who’d testified several times over the years in regard to the Reinert murder was a former fingerprint expert who was now retired from the state police.

When Bill Costopoulos was cross-examining him on what appeared to be routine matters at the Susan Reinert autopsy, he innocently asked, “By the way, did you look between her toes?”

And when the witness answered that he had, Bill Costopoulos asked, “And did you find anything?”

The witness said that he had, there was a little bit of debris that looked like … sand.

“Beach sand?” Bill Costopoulos asked.

“Yes, beach sand,” the witness said, with emphasis.

When it was Guida’s turn to redirect, he didn’t ask how the witness knew beach sand from desert sand. Guidas head was stuck to that high ceiling. Guida was enraged.

He spent much of that day and the next practically impeaching his own witness who admitted that as a private investigator he’d worked with Skip Gochenour. Guida brought in half of the task force to testify that at no time had this former state police corporal ever mentioned to anybody that there were any granules of sand between Susan Reinerts toes.

But that was only half of it. Bill Costopoulos implied that a note found in Susan Reinerts car, with “Cape May” in her handwriting, was further evidence that she could have gone to the beach and been murdered by the Bill Bradfield gang in some sandy place, with one of them transporting her to Harrisburg afterward.

Jack Holtz testified that the note had been thoroughly investigated and referred to a turnoff on the way to teacher Fred Wattenmaker’s house where Susan Reinert and her children had been houseguests in the spring of 1979.

Bill Costopoulos and Skip Gochenour had disrupted Rick Guidas methodical, orderly approach.

As Bill Costopoulos put it, “We introduced a couple of grains of sand and Rick Guida brought in sand by the truckload before he was finished.”

Rick Guida wasn’t going to underestimate these fellows, he said.

As to that Cape May murder theory, it was never seriously a part of the strategy of Bill Costopoulos. He privately admitted that he couldn’t go very far with it because of Vincent Valaitis. The thought was that he could sell Sue Myers and Chris Pappas to the jury as possible murder conspirators, but Vincent Valaitis screwed up everything. How do you sell the jury a homicidal hamster?

The hair and fiber expert from the FBI testified that in the dust ball presented to him by Jack Holtz and Matt Mullin during their search of Jay Smiths basement, he’d found fifty head hairs but only one was identical to Susan Reinert’s. He said that it matched in more than twenty characteristics.

As to the rug fibers, he said that less than 7 percent of rugs are made of polyester and that he’d found “lustrous” and “de-lustrous” fibers. He said that fibers clinging to human beings are generally lost after four hours. His conclusion was that she’d picked up the fibers just prior to being thrown into the back of her car.

Jay Smith’s lawyer did a job on the FBI’s hair and fiber expert. Bill Costopoulos asked questions for which the expert didn’t have ready answers. He got him to admit that he didn’t know there were four kinds of polyester fibers. Without knowing much about hair and fiber evidence, Costopoulos looked as well versed as the FBI expert in this, the most subjective of the forensic sciences.

When he got back to the council table he whispered to Jay Smith, “How’d I do, teach?”

To which Jay Smith answered dryly, “You get a B-plus in science.”

The defense put on its own hair and fiber experts who had far more impressive scientific credentials than the FBI witness, the substance of their testimony being that the hair could be Susan Reinert’s or any other brunette’s. And that the fiber was red polyester but no more could be said.

It seemed certain that hair and fiber testimony was not going to convict or acquit Jay Smith.

The days passed slowly as the parade of a hundred witnesses repeated testimony that they’d given in other courtrooms over the years.

There was a marked difference in the style of opposing counsel. Costopoulos was never argumentative and seldom objected. He could be indignant with witnesses, even scornful, but not toward Guida. He always looked at Guida’s multiple objections with a faint smile as though he was trying to be more than reasonable with the prosecutor.

Rick Guida was constantly drinking water and dying for a cigarette and rolling his eyes in disgust at what he perceived as the indecisiveness of the judge, who obviously hated Guida’s many objections.

Judge William Lipsitt was sixty-nine years old and during the course of the trial marveled that Bill Bradfield had had four women going at one time while he himself didn’t even have one until he got married at the age of fifty-five. Judge Lipsitt wore oversized black frame glasses. His slicked-down hair looked suspiciously black. He walked as though he were on the deck of a rolling ship, listing from side to side. The judge was quaint and gentle, and Rick Guida was annoying him.

The prosecutor constantly asked to come to the sidebar where he and Bill Costopoulos could argue out of the jury’s earshot. Guida was so uncertain about the strength of his case that he had a tendency to overtry it.

The way Judge Garb had handled such requests for sidebar discussion was simple. He’d say no

Judge Lipsitt would say something like, “Uh … oh … well … naturally I try to avoid the sidebar.”

But he couldn’t say no. He’d look as though he’d like to say, “Oh, fudge!”

When Guida would object, he’d often say, “Yes, I guess it calls for a conclusion, but, oh, I’ll overrule the objection.”

The odd thing was that a great deal got admitted into the record from both sides, yet the trial moved swiftly. Even with Rick Guida doing more eye rolling than Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest.

To a jury who wondered what the Bill Bradfield alibi testimony was all about, Rick Guida once more used the clever device of reenacting the testimony at Jay Smith’s trial, with the prosecutor of that trial portraying Bill Bradfield while reading from the official transcript.

And he brought in the Sears employees again to identify Jay Smith as the bogus Brink’s courier. Suddenly, the jury was getting the idea that this fellow William Bradfield had told a very big lie for Jay Smith. For some reason.

When the day arrived, Bill Costopoulos, as promised, did a good job of trying to discredit the testimony of Jay Smith’s prison buddy Raymond Martray. Martray admitted under cross-examination that he did not tell in earlier interviews that Jay Smith had said he’d killed Susan Reinert.

There were a lot of people in the courtroom including most of the reporters who doubted him when he said now that Jay Smith had blurted, “I killed that fucking bitch.”

And yet, three women on the jury jerked their heads in the direction of Jay Smith when Martray said those words. It appeared that at least those three did believe Raymond Martray.

Martray said finally that he’d decided to cooperate with the police because he had children of his own.

“People say that I was a bad cop,” Martray said. “I wasn’t that bad.”

Bill Costopoulos implied that Martray had told the cops that Jay Smith used a “Spanish accent” because he’d read a magazine account of the call to police on the night the body was discovered, wherein the reporter had erroneously claimed that the caller had a Spanish accent.

Bill Costopoulos was all over the courtroom in flourishes, and at one point was right up in Martray’s face when Guida jumped up and demanded that he be ordered to back away from the witness.

Judge Lipsitt said, “It’s his style,” but ordered Costopoulos to ease off.

Apparently, the judge liked Costopoulos personally, and didn’t like Rick Guida.

After that testimony was over, Bill Costopoulos said that it was his best day.

Charles Montione was another story. He came in like an extra from Miami Vice, pinkie ring and all. Montione wore a trim goatee similar to the defense lawyer’s. He had street-corner good looks and sported a hairdo like the Wolf Man’s. He seemed as though he wouldn’t be credible.

Montione testified in a soft cellblock voice. He told of Jay Smith escape plans which added to the consciousness of guilt, but then he told the jury about Jay Smith’s “smirking” when Montione asked if he’d killed the Reinerts.

He described the remarkable business of Jay Smith wanting a magazine with a model who was posed in a very particular way.

Montione’s attitude as a witness was “I don’t want to be here, but I am, and you can believe me or not.”

Most people in that courtroom obviously did. The defense was worried about Montione’s apparent credibility.

Jack Holtz testified about a nine-page letter he’d seized when he arrested Jay Smith in 1985. It was a letter to attorney Glenn Zeitz, care of private investigator Russell Kolins. It was dated January 14, 1981.

The letter from Jay Smith outlined his whereabouts on the weekend of June 22, 1979. He informed his attorney that Grace Gilmore, the new owner of the house, had agreed to let him stay until July 1st, and that he was either visiting or telephoning his wife, and visiting or telephoning his lawyer over much of the murder weekend.

As to the night of Susan Reinerts disappearance, Jay Smith wrote, “On Friday, June 22, sometime in the late afternoon Grace Gilmore came. I heard movement upstairs and went to see what was up. I thought it was my daughter Stephanie returning for some clothes. Grace said she cancelled the trip to shore with sister.”

It was extraordinary how casually he tossed in the name of his daughter for his new lawyer, since at the time Stephanie and Edward Hunsberger had not been seen for three years.

He then described his daughter Sheri coming into the house and said he was uncertain if she’d seen Grace Gilmore. It was Sheri’s twenty-second birthday, he wrote, and they went out to supper. They returned and moved some of her things to her new apartment at about 7:00 P.M.

Jay Smith claimed in that letter that Grace Gilmore had returned on Saturday and they had coffee and a talk about what furniture he would leave. He maintained that she went down to the lower level of the house to look at the heater. Then she went back to work upstairs and he remained below in the basement apartment. Jay Smith wrote that Grace Gilmore had left in the afternoon but his daughter returned and stayed until after dark. He wrote that his brother came during the late morning on Sunday to determine what furniture was to be taken.

A letter to his brother that was also seized by Jack Holtz pursuant to his search warrant was simply an attempt to coach the brother on testimony regarding that weekend if he ever had to take the stand.

He told his brother that Grace Gilmore had come on Friday and Saturday, but did not mention her presence on Sunday. As to Sunday he wrote, “You came in the late morning or early afternoon. You had granddaughter with you. Sher came late in afternoon and left 8:30 or 9:30 P.M.”

As to events after that weekend that he hoped his brother could corroborate, Jay Smith wrote:

1) You moved my stuff.

2) Stuff had been kept intact since you got it.

3) I told you to get rid of clothes.

4) Car remains the same except for normal cleanup and maintenance. Many have driven it.

Prior to the first day of testimony, Jack Holtz had admitted to being scared of Bill Costopoulos who had a reputation for being able to rattle police witnesses and make them look foolish. But Jack Holtz wasn’t the same fellow he’d been back in 1979 when he was second banana to Joe VanNort-when he was only thirty-two years old and his hair was black.

He still had those glasses screwed to his face, but he evinced a lot of confidence when he took the stand to describe the seizing of the letters in Jay Smith’s cell.

He answered all of the questions on cross-examination in an articulate and careful fashion. He’d answer “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” whenever possible, and remained unruffled when the defense lawyer stalked to the witness box to discuss the seizure of a man’s personal correspondence.

Bill Costopoulos was very effective in his use of righteous indignation. He had good timing and didn’t pull it from the bag of tricks all that often. In fact he had a gift for creating smokescreens even when he had little substance to work with.

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.

Guida 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 lawyers 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 the 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 Reinerts 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 Brontë. 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 flat 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 Guida 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 Bradfields 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 verify 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.

“Not by your definition,” he said. “Well, when they would come to talk to you, would you talk to them?”

“No, not without my lawyer’s permission and my lawyer’s presence.”

“And was it Bradfield’s suggestion that you have a lawyer present when you were questioned?”

“No, it was my lawyer’s.”

“When was the last time you talked to Bradfield before coming here today?”

“I spoke with him on the telephone last night.” Then she paused and said, “Or the night before.”

“Did you tell him you were under subpoena?”

“Oh, yes. He knew that.”

“When did you first learn that Bradfield was having a romantic relationship with Susan Reinert?”

The witness leaned forward a little more and the tone in her voice could have chilled a martini. She paused and said, “I don’t believe he was having a romantic relationship with Susan Reinert.”

“You don’t believe that to this day?”

“That’s correct.”

“When did you find out that he was having a romantic relationship with Sue Myers?”

“Since I’ve known him, he hasn’t had a romantic relationship with Sue Myers.”

“All right, just so I’m clear, we’re not having a definition problem about a romantic relationship, are we?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“Did he ever tell you that he was the named beneficiary to the tune of seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars in life insurance?”

“No.”

“He never told you that?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Did he tell you that he was the designated beneficiary of her estate by a will executed May fourth, 1979?”

“No.”

“Did you ever learn of those possible facts?”

“Well, I learned of those possible facts, as you put it, after the death of Susan Reinert.”

“Did Bradfield tell you after her death that he was shocked that Reinert would name him as beneficiary in that insurance policy?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Now when you say you were looking at architecture for the three weeks before the weekend in question, what is it that you would do?”

“Wander around in Philadelphia, go to see specific buildings, go to see neighborhoods in general.”

“Do you recall where you were on June twenty-second, 1979, in the evening hours?”

“June twenty-second was a Friday, I understand, from what Mister Guida has said?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“You don’t know. When was the first time you were asked that question by the authorities?”

“Probably the first time I spoke to them.”

“Do you recall when that was?”

“No.”

“The fact is, is it not, that on that Monday, June twenty-fifth, when the two of you were supposed to go to Santa Fe together, that was the day that he told you to drive because he was flying?”

“On that Monday?”

“Yes.”

“That probably was the day that the plans were eventually clear that he would fly and I would drive.”

“How far is Santa Fe?”

“Approximately two thousand miles.”

“So, when he told you to drive two thousand miles in his car with his belongings, you really didn’t even question that, did you?”

“Question it in what way?”

“Would you consider your act of driving that car two thousand miles an act of obedience?”

“I consider it an act of common sense.”

“Would you consider it an act of loyalty?”

“No. We had to have the belongings and the car taken to New Mexico.

“How did you learn of Reinerts death?”

“When I was driving across the country, I spoke with him on the phone.”

“When did he tell you about the children?”

“I don’t remember if he had anything to say about them, or not.”

“Did you ever ask him what he might know about her death and their disappearance?”

“No, I did not.”

“When the two of you left Santa Fe to go to Boston there was a certain typewriter that he left in your custody and control, wasn’t there?”

“That’s correct.”

“The authorities were interested in that typewriter, weren’t they?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“You refused to give it to them for a long period of time, didn’t you?”

“No, that’s not precisely correct.”

“What is precisely correct?”

“There was, I believe, an FBI agent who came and asked for it. My lawyer in Philadelphia and I didn’t think that I should give up something without a subpoena or warrant of some sort. I told him to contact my lawyer, that I wasn’t going to give it to them. And I contacted my lawyer for instructions.”

“And he told you to give it to them?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you of course had talked to Bradfield before you gave it to them, didn’t you?”

“I don’t recall whether I did or not.”

“The typewriter that you gave them had a ball on it, didn’t it?”

“An element, yes.”

“Did you give them the same element that was on the typewriter when Bradfield left it in your custody and control?”

“Yes, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know?”

“I turned over the typewriter, as it existed, to them.”

“What else did they ask you to give them?”

“What else? It seems to me that they never actually took the typewriter, but took the ribbon and the element, what you are calling the ball, from the typewriter. If my memory is correct.”

“Directing your attention to Thanksgiving, 1978, he made some long-distance calls from where you were staying in Massachusetts. You are not aware by chance that he called Susan Reinerts mother’s house in Ridgway, Pennsylvania, from where the two of you were staying that Thanksgiving, are you?”

“Not currently.”

“After Susan Reinert was murdered, did you and Bill Bradfield develop a code system for communications?”

“No.”

“What was the purpose of the Ezra Pound book?”

“I don’t know what the purpose of the Ezra Pound book was.”

“When did you receive immunity from the government?”

“I really don’t recall the date. It was after that summer.”

“Do you understand what immunity is?”

“I believe my lawyer explained it to me.”

“Were you given immunity to the point where anything you said could not be used against you even if you had a role in the murder? Or was your immunity limited to anything you said, presupposing that you didn’t have anything to do with the murder?”

“I really don’t remember at this time.”

“You’ve had how many years of schooling?”

“At that time?”

“Today.”

Rachel paused, unclasped her hands, and glanced at the watery April sunbeams streaming through the skylight. Anybody else would probably have said, I have such and such degrees, but she answered the question precisely as it had been asked. The computer clicked a few times and then flashed the answer.

“Nineteen and a half,” she said.

“And it was only after you got immunity that you gave any statements whatsoever, isn’t that right?”

“I believe that’s correct. Yes.”

“When Bill Bradfield made a claim on the insurance policies and the estate of Susan Reinert, your relationship was a romantic one, correct?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“And it was a romantic one on the weekend in question, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“And it’s a romantic one today?”

“That’s correct.”

“Is it your testimony that there were no letters in your possession from Bill Bradfield while you were in Boston? In code?”

“Yes, there were no letters in code.”

“Was there anything in code in your possession from William Bradfield while you were in Boston at Harvard?”

“No.”

“What is cryptology?”

“Cryptology? That’s the study of codes.”

“Did you study codes?”

“No, I haven’t studied codes.”

“Was there a letter from Bradfield to you congratulating you for becoming an expert in cryptology?”

“No.”

“Was there a letter while you were in Boston, in code, instructing you to destroy, burn and scatter the ashes of the typewriter ball that was in your custody and control?”

“No.”

“Do you understand enough about immunity that if you testify untruthfully under oath that you can be charged with perjury?”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“When you were living in New Mexico did William Sidney Bradfield tell you that the newspapers in Philadelphia would draw a correlation between the murder of Reinert and Jay C. Smith?”

“I don’t believe so.”

Costopoulos got up and took a report to the witness box for Rachel to read. He stayed there, clearly intending to intimidate her. Guida did not request that he move away from this witness.

When she’d finished reading the report, she said calmly, “Well, it doesn’t refresh my memory.”

“My question is, did you ever tell Trooper Holtz that Bradfield told you that the newspapers would draw a correlation between the murder of Reinert and Jay C. Smith?”

“I don’t remember.”

And from this moment, witness and lawyer had a little power struggle that Guida did not interrupt, and during which Rachel didn’t even blink.

“And of course if Bradfield told you that, you wouldn’t remember asking him what he meant, would you?”

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“You don’t remember where you were Friday night, June twenty-second, 1979?”

“That’s correct.”

“Or Saturday, June twenty-third, 1979? You don’t remember?”

“Other than in Philadelphia, no.”

“And of course you don’t remember anything other than being in Philadelphia on Sunday, June twenty-fourth, 1979, do you?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you don’t remember your whereabouts or your activities that Monday, June twenty-fifth, 1979?”

“Aside from being in Philadelphia, no.”

“You don’t remember whether you left the residence of Bradfield and Pappas when the authorities came down to Santa Fe in the early summer of 1979, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t remember any coding system, and in fact you deny any coding system between you and Bradfield, don’t you?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you don’t remember that in Thanksgiving of 1978, Bradfield called Reinert’s mother’s house from where the two of you were staying, do you?”

“I don’t remember. That’s correct.”

“Knowing Bradfield romantically for the years that you’ve known him, is there anything you can remember that would help the prosecution in their effort to learn anything about the murder of Susan Reinert and the disappearance of her two children?”

“I don’t have anything to add.”

“I have no further questions,” Bill Costopoulos said, and sat down.

Bill Costopoulos hadn’t intimidated Rachel. The hound of the Baskervilles couldn’t have intimidated Rachel.

When that study in black and white and gray strode across the courtroom, a single word came to mind: resolute. She had the self-righteous cast of a true believer. But a true believer risks sounding less like Joan of Arc and more like Lucrezia Borgia.

Along with the “my danger conspiracy” letter to V in cipher was the following deciphered message on the reverse side, also explained to the jury by an FBI cryptanalyst.

Miss you Hon. Love you terribly. Love you so much. Hurt for you. Hope I can see you soon, but lawyer says going up there now could be grounds for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Lawyers warn there will be FBI plant near you soon. Car bugged. Chris has been subpoenaed for grand jury. He will say nothing much. He must maintain this all the way up through possible (probable) trial. Hand on Bible et cetera or be in perjury five to ten years.

If you’re in same position, you know practically nothing about case and nothing at all about Smith P of D. You must maintain this all the way up through trial hand on Bible forever. Did we mention Smith to Pappas? Try to remember. We can’t be inconsistent about what we told them. Perhaps you could write them and warn them. Will be visited by FBI. If they haven’t yet. Ask them exactly what they remember about what we said. Love you. Remember that we made it. Love you. Wish I were lying next to you and holding you.

Destroy this and ashes. Congratulations you’re on way to becoming expert cryptologist. Can you take some more rules? Hope so. Lawyers assure us we are dealing with the best FBI has. So we better be fairly sophisticated, okay?

When coding, use last number then first and so forth back and forth. Destroy messages after receiving them. Destroy them without being observed. Don’t let anyone know you’re receiving or destroying code. Repeat. Destroy completely. If ashes are left, destroy them also. Grind them underfoot or something.

It is perhaps noteworthy that neither Bill Bradfield’s ex-wife Muriel nor Sue Myers, nor Shelly nor Rachel, had married in all the years since they’d known him. Things like romantic fantastic irrelevant letters resembling games of Scrabble might have had something to do with it. After you’ve been part of his madcap adventures it might be hard to settle down to domestic routine. Besides, it was probably great to have a mission in life.

If Bill Costopoulos didn’t succeed with intimidation, he did succeed in his foremost aim. He’d demonstrated to the jury that Rachel, unlike Vince Valaitis, could be considered as a crime partner of William Bradfield. In fact, her performance was assessed during the jury deliberation. It was learned that one juror asked if they had the power to convict her of anything.