After they returned to the living room, Shelly said they had to go out on some business. Chris knew better than to question any of Bill Bradfields other pals about “business” so he said okay and went home and finished watching the show.
None of Bill Bradfields friends saw him for nearly three hours.
The show Chris watched was I, Claudius, a tale of duplicity, greed and murder.
On Friday afternoon, Florence Reinert had the opportunity to speak on the phone with her former daughter-in-law. Susan intended to take the children with her to Allentown the next morning to a Parents Without Partners workshop. Since gasoline was still being rationed she wanted John Reinerts opinion as to whether her Plymouth Horizon could go there and back on a tank of gas.
John Reinert told her it would, as long as they didn’t take any side trips.
Then Susan discussed plans for Michael to be baptized on Wednesday at the Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge. She was a Unitarian, but said that she was happy to please the Reinerts by having the boy christened in the Episcopal faith.
On Monday Susan intended to deliver Michael to his grandparents where he would stay most of the week while Karen visited her father and went to a gymnastics camp. Susan then planned to take both children to a music fair at Valley Forge, and conduct a weekend garage sale with her neighbor the following Saturday.
She was going to be very busy, she said.
That evening Michael was to play in a father-son softball game with the cub scouts. The game was being played at a church about half a mile from Susan Reinert’s home. Ken Reinert arrived at the church with his second wife Lynn just before Susan showed up with Karen and Michael.
Michael was wearing his Philadelphia Phillies baseball shirt with the pinstripes and the big red P on it. Ken didn’t get a chance to talk to Susan or Karen because Susan seemed in a hurry and drove off as soon as Michael jumped out of the car.
The game had lasted only a few innings when unexpected thunder sent everyone scurrying inside the church hall where the regular cub scout meeting was to be held.
Ken and Lynn sat in the back while the pack leaders tried to control thirty noisy kids. Suddenly Ken looked toward the doorway and his former wife was standing there. She was still dressed in a white knit blouse with multicolored stripes and blue jeans.
Ken was supposed to deliver Michael home after the game and wondered if something was wrong, but before he could ask she signaled to Michael who ran to the back of the church hall and they walked out together. Michael did not return.
Ken and his wife Lynn couldn’t figure this one out, so they left for home at about 8:30 P.M. Fifteen minutes later there was a sudden cloudburst and Ken Reinert was standing on his front porch when the phone rang.
It was Michael. He told his father that he was sorry for leaving without an explanation, but that he had to get home to “scrub his floor” because they were going away.
His dad couldn’t figure that one either because Michael had never scrubbed a floor in his life.
He said to his son, “Michael, where’re you going?”
Michael called to his mother and said, “Mom, Dad wants to know where I’m going.”
And Ken heard his ex-wife say, “Well, why don’t you tell him you’re going bowling with PWP.”
It was very strange these days for all the Reinerts. The children had become uncommunicative and evasive when it came to their mother’s business.
* * *
That evening the president of the regional council of Parents Without Partners received a call from Susan Reinert who said, “Something’s come up. Something personal and I don’t want to talk about it. Could you have someone cover for me at the Saturday workshop in Allentown?”
At 9:00 P.M. that Friday night, June 22, 1979, a curious thing happened. An ice-laden cloudburst produced a summer hailstorm over portions of The Main Line communities. There were huge chunks of hail pelting the streets of Ardmore.
Mary Gove, Susan Reinert’s next-door neighbor, had a granddaughter Beth Ann who was sixteen years old. Sometimes Beth Ann would babysit with Karen and Michael when she was visiting her grandmother. Beth Ann and Karen and Michael all ran out to the street and tried to pick up as many hailstones as they could before they melted. Then they decided to count hailstones and see which porch was going to collect the biggest ones before the storm ended.
Susan Reinert came hurrying out of the house to call the children inside at about 9:30 P.M.
Mary Gove was surprised to hear two car doors slam a moment later, and then to hear Susan’s Plymouth Horizon pulling out of the driveway and heading toward Belmont Avenue.
Mary Gove said to her granddaughter, “Oh, I hope she’s not going to drive in the rain!”
But then she looked out again and the cloudburst had stopped. She was relieved.
There was much talk of the eerie battering of The Main Line by the summer hailstorm. It was a very unnatural night, everyone said.
Vince got off from his summer job at 5:30 P.M. that Friday, and came home to shower and pack. He was invited to dinner by Sue Myers and they were joined at eight o’clock by Bill Bradfield’s son Martin and his girlfriend Donna, who had returned from Europe one week earlier.
They had dinner and chatted and waited for Bill Bradfield, and finally Vince invited everyone downstairs to watch a movie on his VCR.
Sue Myers got sleepy before the movie reached the scary part and decided that this was another Bill Bradfield no-show, so she excused herself and went to bed. She wasn’t as mad as she might have been because he’d recently given her five $100 bills for her birthday. She didn’t even want to know where he got it.
At 11:15, Martin and Donna were about to go home when there was a knock at Vince’s door. Donna opened the door for Bill Bradfield.
He was wearing the blue parka with all the big pockets though it was hot and muggy after that unseasonable storm. Donna said, “Hi! How ya doing?”
Bill Bradfield looked past her and didn’t answer. He seemed distracted. He asked, “Where’s Sue?”
“Upstairs taking a nap,” Vince said. “We’d given up on you.”
“Get some gas for the car,” Bill Bradfield said to Vince. “Let’s get it packed. Let’s go.”
When he got upstairs and wakened Sue Myers he seemed even more agitated. He came back down and hardly spoke to his son. He kept telling Vince to hurry up. He actually snapped his fingers at him while Vince poured cans of rationed gasoline into the Volkswagen.
It was after midnight when Sue and Vince and Bill Bradfield drove to Chris’s house to pick him up. When Sue Myers asked where he’d been all evening he said that he’d gone to visit his ex-wife Muriel to say good-bye before leaving for summer school, but that she wasn’t home. He said he’d waited around for a few hours but finally gave up and left her a note.
Chris drove to Cape May and Sue Myers sat next to him. Vince Valaitis and Bill Bradfield were jammed in the back and the trunk was stuffed with their weekend bags. As they approached the Wait Whitman Toll Plaza, Vince peered at his dozing friend in his Whitmanesque whiskers. He looked as old as the poet.
Bill Bradfield was exhausted. His head kept flopping like a giant puppet’s. Suddenly, at the toll plaza he jerked upright and slapped his hand on the front seat and said, “I’m afraid this is it! I’m afraid this is the weekend Doctor Smith could kill Susan Reinert!”
Then Bill Bradfield said, “I tried to protect her! I followed him toward her house! I circled her house fourteen times! I lost him in the hailstorm!”
Vince, ever the supportive friend, said, “You don’t know that, Bill. You don’t know that he’s going to do her any harm.”