Chick Sabinson did not tell him about the government bus or the bomb shelter. Bill Bradfield admitted nothing. They parted amicably.
During one of his secret FBI meetings Vince told the lawmen about a typed letter that Bill Bradfield had once received at school.
It said, “Please come and meet me.” It was signed “Deirdre Paxton.”
When Bill Bradfield showed Vince the letter he’d smiled and said, “That’s from Doctor Smith.”
He’d borrowed Vince’s car and left the campus for forty-five minutes.
Vince also gave the FBI a list of telephone numbers from the Jay Smith-Bill Bradfield square-root-of-the-last-digit-of-Alexander-Graham-Bell’s-birth-date telephone system.
Bill Bradfield had left the list with Vince Valaitis for safekeeping. Bill Bradfield left trails of evidence scattered through his forest like a bearded Hansel, fearful of being lost.
Vince was a mess when it was time to go with Bill Bradfield to meet attorney John Curran for a strategy discussion. Vince had no intention of discussing strategy. Vince belonged to Chick Sabinson and the FBI. Vince was on the bus. Vince was in the bomb shelter. He was a nervous wreck trying to bring himself to confess this to Bill Bradfield and convince him to do likewise. But at the slightest hint of going to the law Bill Bradfield would start screaming about Fascists.
Vince agreed to drive Bill Bradfield to Ocean City for the meeting. He must have been exceptionally quiet during the drive because Bill Bradfield apparently sensed something.
When they were almost at the restaurant, he said quietly to Vince, “You talked to them, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Vince sighed. “I’ve been talking to the FBI and you should too. Bill, they’re nice people. We’ve got nothing to hide. We should tell them all about Jay Smith.”
“Who else have you told?” Bill Bradfield asked, even more quietly.
Vince saw that the blood had drained from his friend’s face like a sink full of dishwater.
“I’ve told Bill Scutta and my parents.”
“You’ve killed Scutta,” Bill Bradfield informed him. “You’ve killed your parents.”
Vince knew of course that Bill Bradfield was alluding to the Jay Smith legion who’d knocked off everyone from Jimmy Hoffa to hookers from Philly, and he cried, “You have to trust them, Bill! You have to talk!”
“Stop the car,” Bill Bradfield commanded, and when Vince did, he got out on the sidewalk and said, “Are you coming to talk to Curran?”
“No, I’m not,” Vince said.
“You’ve betrayed me,” Bill Bradfield said, slamming the door. “You’ve broken your solemn oath. You’ve killed me.”
Bill Bradfield arrived at the restaurant meeting in such an agitated state that he was twisting and torturing his beard. He greeted John Curran who was already talking with Chris Pappas and Sue Myers, and he asked Curran to excuse them for a moment, saying he needed an urgent private talk with his friends.
After John Curran took a walk, Bill Bradfield informed Chris and Sue that Vince had talked to the FBI. But Chris and Sue weren’t quite sure what that meant, and they seemed a bit relieved because though maintaining silence about Jay Smith might save them from a mob hit, they were looking more and more like killers themselves.
Bill Bradfield was obviously trying to talk away his panic before Curran arrived. He jabbered something about selling everything he owned and going to England or someplace else in Europe. Then he added that of course he’d give all his money to Sue Myers before leaving.
Sue Myers thought, sure, and he’d invite her to join him in England. About the same time Wallis Simpson got invited for tea and scones with the Queen Mum.
Bill Bradfield said that he, an innocent man who’d done nothing except try to protect Susan Reinert, might end up with a load of dirt in his face because of that sniveling little son of a bitch, Vince Valaitis.
Chris said, “Bill, they wouldn’t electrocute an innocent man.”
But Bill Bradfield told him testily that he wasn’t worried about being smoked by the authorities. He was afraid of being snuffed by Jay Smith because of Vince’s big mouth.
Chris Pappas was getting all mixed up again, and he said in frustration, “Jay Smith’s in prison. So maybe we should tell the cops our side of all this.”
Ah, but Jay Smith’s minions were everywhere, Bill Bradfield reminded him. And Vince Valaitis might have just signed his own death warrant. And they’d better be careful or their names would be on a murder contract right along with his. They were not yet free from Jay Smith danger.
By the time Bill Bradfield was through twiddling his beard, it looked like Medusa’s hairdo.
* * *
After Vince Valaitis had talked, and all of Bill Bradfields friends knew about it, Trooper Lou DeSantis and Special Agent Matt Mullin got the assignment to travel to California to interview Shelly again. It was the first time that her Catholic college had ever had the law arrive to chat with a student about murder.
After being taken to a private room and advised of her constitutional rights, Shelly told the lawmen that she was willing to talk, but she might need some sort of immunity.
The lawmen were licking their chops because little Shelly was showing a brow like a pile of linguini, and they thought they had something going. But then she told them what had her so worried. When Bill Bradfield and Chris were at summer school, she and her pal Jenny had been driving Chris’s car all over the place without a proper registration or drivers license.
The lawmen couldn’t believe it. They were talking about a murdered woman and two missing children and she was worrying about a traffic ticket. The Bradfield Bunch made them yearn for cattle prods and ice baths. Anything to wake them up.
Shelly told them her version of the weekend as she and Bill Bradfield had rehearsed it, replete with all the lies. The lies kept getting tangled as to where she and Bill Bradfield had been on Friday, June 22nd. She now said they may have been walking around Haverford College. As to the time he dropped her at her pal’s, she changed it from 7:00 P.M. to 8:45 P.M.
As to Bill Bradfields obvious perjury at the Jay Smith trial, Shelly finally conceded that he could have made an honest mistake because he was bad about dates.
Then the cops told her a few things to test her response. They talked about some of Bill Bradfields amorous affairs, but Shelly said she didn’t believe for a minute that there’d been anything at all between Susan Reinert and Bill Bradfield. Ditto with Rachel even after they pointed out that she’d been registered in the Philly hotel for one month prior to the murder under the name of Mrs. William Bradfield.
Shelly looked pretty smug when she heard that because Bill Bradfield had explained to her that Rachel was afraid of the seedy neighborhood and wanted any potential rapists in the hotel lobby to think she had a man in the room. Besides, Bill Bradfield had told her that he’d been celibate for five years. Rachel was just a friend and it was a pretty sad thing that in 1979 people couldn’t accept friendship between the sexes that didn’t involve something sordid. She informed the investigators that Chris and her girlfriend had that kind of relationship.
But they pointed out to Shelly that they’d seen the phone records of the hotel and learned that at 5:35 A.M. on June 1st, Bill Bradfield had made a call from that hotel to Upper Merion High School to say that he wouldn’t be able to make it to class.
Shelly was stopped by that one, but finally she said, “Okay, maybe he spent the night with Rachel. But it was probably for a good reason. Don’t you understand that people can spend the night together without thinking of sex? He was just exhausted.”