On Thursday, the news of the Reinert murder and the disappearance of the children was all over the Philadelphia area, along with the information that she was heavily insured. Vince Valaitis had even heard himself described as a “Bradfield intimate.”
When his phone rang that evening he thought it was just somebody from the English department, or some nosy old sandbox pal, and he was getting ready to deny again that he’d ever been “intimate” with anybody. Which every close friend of Vince Valaitis knew was surely true.
It was Bill Bradfield on the phone. He had a little summer shoptalk for Vince Valaitis.
He said, “If you speak to the police again you’re going to put me in the electric chair.”
Vince knew Bill Bradfield was always a great one for exaggeration and resorted to hyperbole to get his way, but the electric chair?
In fact, Vince said, “What electric chair?”
And Bill Bradfield, who wasn’t keeping too cool these days out in New Mexico, said, “What goddamn electric chair do you think?”
“But Bill,” Vince said, “you haven’t done anything wrong! Jay Smith killed Susan Reinert. You tried your best to prevent it.”
Bill Bradfield had a little news flash of his own that Vince hadn’t heard.
“Jay Smith didn’t do it.”
And now Vince had to sit down. If Jay Smith didn’t do it, and Bill Bradfield was worrying about having his skull shaved for ten thousand volts, who the hell did it?
“Who the hell did it?” Vince asked bleakly. He was afraid to hear that maybe the real killer was Ida Micucci.
“I don’t know who did it,” Bill Bradfield said. “But it’s not Doctor Smith’s style. I want you to go back to the shore and cover all our steps to verify our whereabouts last weekend.”
“Back to the … I won’t do it!” Vince Valaitis said. “I won’t go near the shore! I haven’t done anything. You haven’t done anything. Maybe we should tell the police what we know.”
“No!” Bill Bradfield said. “You mustn’t talk to them.”
“Then what should I do?” Vince cried.
“I think you should get a lawyer,” Bill Bradfield said.
After he hung up, Vince Valaitis searched his video collection for some sci-fi. There had to be a better world than this one. Somewhere in a galaxy far away.
Jeff Olsen was attending summer school at St. John’s and living in a professor’s apartment with his bride. He had frequent visits from his former teacher who was usually accompanied by Chris or Rachel.
Jeff was twenty-two years old then, a clean-cut, fair-haired lad, who, like Shelly and several others, had followed Bill Bradfields advice to enroll at St. John’s.
Jeff Olsen had met Bill Bradfield when he was a sixteen-year-old student at Upper Merion and they became close friends over the years. He’d been to the apartment of Bill Bradfield and Sue Myers many times, and like all the others, had been told by his teacher that the living arrangement with Sue was purely platonic, and that Jeff should strive for chastity and even celibacy in his own life.
When Jeff Olsen was just eighteen years old, about to begin his college education, Bill Bradfield said to him, “Jeffrey, you’re a good man. In fact, you’re such a good man that if anyone came to me at some point in the future and told me that you’d killed eight or nine kids, that wouldn’t shake my feeling for you as a quality human being.”
Jeff Olsen never forgot that remarkable statement, particularly now that the newspapers were implying terrible things about his former teacher and friend.
The young man had many conversations with Bill Bradfield about the murder of Susan Reinert, particularly since Jeff was one of the madding crowd who’d heard that it might occur.
And now that it had, and now that reporters were writing about insurance and a will, Bill Bradfield came to Jeff for reassurance that his friend was not doubting him.
“I don’t want the goddamn money,” Bill Bradfield told the young man on more than one occasion.
But then he modified that declaration by saying, “But if I end up with it I’ll put it in trust for the children.”
Joe VanNort was the first to ask the question: “Where’s this pond I keep hearin’ about? This Ezra Pond?”
On July 4th, Joe VanNort and Jack Holtz were on their way to Santa Fe for a talk with Bill Bradfield and Chris Pappas.
The Cape May crowd hadn’t given them much, and the cops were considering the possibility that they’d all conspired to murder Susan Reinert for insurance in favor of William Bradfield. Since she’d died sometime Saturday or Sunday when they were together, it was certain that if one of them had done it they’d all done it.
The cops touched down in Albuquerque and rented a car to drive to Santa Fe. It was hot and tiring and it wasn’t all that easy to find a motel on the 4th of July holiday, particularly since the state cops had Pennsylvania “hotel orders” that were reimbursed by the commonwealth but not honored by all lodging places.
That evening, Jack Holtz was sitting in a bar and looking up at the Rockies for the first time in his life and drinking a Coors. Joe VanNort didn’t order a Manhattan as he usually did, but had his second favorite drink, Black Velvet with water back. He smoked a dozen cigarettes while they enjoyed the New Mexico sunset.
They arrived on campus by late morning. To Jack Holtz the college looked like a place where old hippies go to meditate. Their business suits were definitely out of place, at least in the summer session. People were flopping around in go-aheads or sandals, dragging their beads and rawhide behind them.
Joe VanNort and Jack Holtz were accompanied by a New Mexico state policeman just in case anything terrific happened, like Bill Bradfield throwing himself on the floor and confessing to the murder of his girlfriend. The cops were already convinced that Susan Reinert had definitely been his blanket partner.
Through prior arrangements with the school administrators they met Bill Bradfield and Chris Pappas in the school library. Naturally, the cops tried to separate them, but Bill Bradfield refused.
“We’ll answer questions together,” he told Joe VanNort who said okay and tried to keep it friendly. After commenting on how hot it was and what pretty Indian jewelry everybody was clanging around in he asked Bill Bradfield to tell him a little about his relationship with Susan Reinert.
Bill Bradfield said, “No, we don’t wish to talk to you. We both have attorneys and they’ve advised against it.”
“Who’s your lawyer?” Joe VanNort asked.
“John Paul Curran of Philadelphia,” Bill Bradfield said.
“And who’s your attorney, Mister Pappas?” Joe VanNort asked.
“John Paul Curran,” Bill Bradfield answered.
So far, Chris Pappas hadn’t done anything except sit there with his head on a swivel.
“Have you ever been in Susan Reinert’s car?” VanNort asked.
“Yes,” Bill Bradfield said.
“No,” Chris Pappas said, so they knew he could talk.
Bill Bradfield said, “Write your questions down and we’ll review them and answer them after our attorneys have gotten a chance to look them over.”
The cops trucked on back to the headquarters of the New Mexico state police and typed up twelve questions that they’d just love to have answered. Then they called the college and scheduled another meeting. But not before Joe VanNort had called the office of John Curran in Philadelphia and talked with a law partner who verified that they did represent William S. Bradfield, Jr., but said they didn’t represent a person named Christopher Pappas.
VanNort and Holtz arrived back at St. John’s at 1:00 P.M. and presented their written questions to the summer scholars.
But Bill Bradfield said, “I’m sorry, we can’t answer them at all. I’ve just talked to my lawyer.”