Echoes in the Darkness

29

For her years with William Bradfield, Sue Myers had his thousands of books, most unopened, and that was all she had. By 1986 she at least was enjoying the company of a gentleman friend, and was still teaching at Upper Merion Senior High School.

Christopher Pappas was working at a construction job in 1986 and might never pursue the profession to which he’d been led by his former mentor. He said he feared he might forever be thought of as a fool.

Vincent Valaitis who also still taught at Upper Merion said that before Bill Bradfield he never thought of missing mass on Sunday, but from his experience he learned that the world is a far more evil place than he’d ever dreamed. That knowledge weakened his faith. He told of a moment in recent years when he’d been reading a book and a memento fell out. It was a card from Michael Reinert thanking him for buying him a cub scout uniform. He wept.

Ken Reinert and Susan’s brother, Pat Gallagher, still had not settled with the insurance company by 1986. It appeared that they would eventually get money, but only a fraction of her policies. Ken Reinert still was not able to talk about his ex-wife or their children.

All of the former friends of William Bradfield felt deep humiliation, but none admitted conscious guilt. Indeed, there were a great many people besides Sue Myers, Chris Pappas, Vince Valaitis and Shelly, who had heard awful tales of Jay Smith and his plot to murder Susan Reinert. None of those persons has been known to express guilt for not calling the police or notifying Susan Reinert of possible danger.

All of these people are put in a difficult position when a question is asked: “What would you have done if, according to Bill Bradfield, Jay Smith had been making those same terrible threats against Susan Reinert and the children?”

To say they would then have acted would of course be an admission that the life of Susan Reinert had been assigned a paltry value, by virtue of Bill Bradfields assessment of her. No one could answer the question.

All of them-William Bradfields friends and colleagues, his former students, his lovers, the families of his confidants, or their lawyers-all of them who had been told that there was a man named Jay Smith planning to murder Susan Reinert-all of them can ask themselves one question: “Did I believe Bill Bradfield that she was in danger?”

If the answer is yes, there are three ghosts that each of them might have to face from time to time. In the darkness.

What of the strange partnership between William Bradfield and Jay Smith? Well, perhaps there was nothing strange about it, once it’s stripped of picturesque settings and yes, Gothic trappings. Their partnership perhaps was not so different from those formed every day in center city Philadelphia by thousands of crime partners who have not earned certificates and titles from famous universities.

Perhaps it had nothing to do with sin and everything to do with sociopathy, that most incurable of human disorders because all so afflicted consider themselves blessed rather than cursed.

It may have been nothing more than an everyday moment when one sociopath detects a flare of black light in the eyes of another. Seeing a potential mate. Seeing his own kind.

If Jay C. Smith ever does sit in the electric chair, it would not be out of character for him to say testily, “I hope you’re all satisfied, because I never was a pervert, you know.”

The electric chair can be a sociopath’s greatest triumph if he thinks he can manipulate his audience to the end. To die in control is to die in ecstasy.

As to William S. Bradfield, Jr., he’s housed in the state correctional institution at Graterford, Pennsylvania. Sue Myers said that he was taking correspondence courses from Villanova in Arabic and astronomy.

“He loves prison,” she said. “He gets to tell his mother horror stories and scare her to death. At last, he’s a poet in exile. Locked away like Ezra Pound.”

His lawyer, Joshua Lock, said that people don’t understand Bill Bradfield, and that it’s true that he might prefer Graterford to a less austere prison.

Lock described Graterford prison as “almost Gothic.”

William Bradfield can live a life of contemplation. What he can’t do is define his life as Greek tragedy, not in Aristotelian terms where the tragic hero must change. The sociopath can’t change. For the sociopath there is no third act.

One might think that after it was over, after he’d successfully concluded an immense investigation that the FBI said was unsolvable, when Jack Holtz returned to Troop H he’d be welcomed as some sort of hero. But if one thinks that, one doesn’t know as much about the policeman’s lot as Gilbert and Sullivan did.

When he returned, it was to find that most of the investigators who’d been there back in 1979 were dead, or retired, or transferred to other assignments.

The first thing that was said to him was “Why the hell did it take you seven years to clear a homicide?”

There was even talk of not being able to find a slot for him, and perhaps returning him to uniform and traffic duties.

Rick Guida was at last able to remove the pictures of Karen and Michael Reinert from his desk. His letdown at the conclusion of the case was more noticeable than Jack Holtz’s. He spoke to the attorney general of Pennsylvania about getting Holtz assigned to his office to investigate major crimes.

Jack Holtz said that he’d do it, but he didn’t want to work on white-collar crimes. He wanted to work homicides. Not too much to ask as a reward, one might think. Just to pursue murderers, on behalf of the commonwealth.