Echoes in the Darkness (1987)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  The first reptile bite was indirectly caused by Three Mile Island. Due to the meltdown scare at the nuclear power station, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the U.S. government had placed a hold on all broadcast tapes in the possession of the Dauphin County emergency radio system. Somebody apparently thought there was something to be learned from listening to the panicked citizens who phoned in messages which were recorded as a matter of policy.

  The trooper who was sent to pick up the tape containing the voice of "Larry Brown" who had reported the "sick woman" in the Host Inn parking lot was told that he'd need a court order.

  He wasn't an old-school homicide investigator like Joe VanNort who would've walked over the guy and snatched the tape. So he went through the delay of getting a court order while Joe VanNort lined up a voiceprint expert in New Jersey.

  But because of the NRC edict, there was a shortage of tape. And someone had inadvertently reused the one in question. They'd taped over and obliterated Larry Brown forever.

  The second screw-up was the homicide equivalent of a nuclear meltdown.

  "They what?" Joe VanNort yelled into the telephone Wednesday afternoon.

  It was true. They'd lost the body for good.

  The autopsy had been done on Monday, and VanNort was not satisfied. He was trying to arrange for a more experienced forensic pathologist to come in to do a lot more work.

  They'd told the funeral home on Tuesday that they did not want the body cremated. Susan Reinerts brother had requested cremation, thinking the cops were finished. Somebody didn't get the word. On Wednesday Susan Reinerts body was burned to dust.

  So they'd lost their voiceprint. And they'd lost their corpse. Joe VanNort called it snakebite, but the snake was a python and the evidence was being swallowed whole. Before he went home that night, he finished his eightieth Marlboro of the day and asked if anybody had stolen Susan Reinerts car yet.

  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 goiug 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 ... 1 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-yearold 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 cl
anging 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 Reinerts 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. Johns 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."

  "I've been told that John Curran doesn't represent you," Joe VanNort said to Chris Pappas. "How about you looking over the questions?"

  "John Curran represents him now," Bill Bradfield said. "And I'm afraid we have to go back to our work. You can mail your questions to our attorney and he'll forward them to us."

  Jack Holtz decided to take a shot. "That'd be very time consuming," he said to Bill Bradfield. "We're trying to locate two missing children and we need your help."

  "I'd like to help," Bill Bradfield told him, "but my first concern is with my studies."

  It was a long flight home. Joe VanNort was no longer so concerned about Ken Reinert or anybody else. He wanted Bill Bradfield and his little gang.

  Bill Bradfield had a few duties for Shelly that summer which the teenager performed with varying degrees of proficiency. The duties involved banking, ordnance and cryptology.

  Shelly was instucted to take $300 out of her $28,000 secret treasure and put it into the safety deposit box. Bill Bradfield had been stewing over the notion that the cops might somehow find the box, and he thought that an empty safety deposit box might not look kosher.

  Then Chris got on the phone and asked Shelly and her girlfriend to go to his house and dismantle the gun with the silencer and dump the pieces in the Schuylkill River.

  But then Bill Bradfield threw her a knuckleball. He told the teenager that he feared his mail might get intercepted by the police who would be trying to link him to Dr. Smith. So he would have to write to her in the code they'd discussed.

  And Shelly, who'd tried so hard to master Ezra Pound, and Greek, and his Bible studies, and had even become a Catholic for him, said sure she could. But that code was tougher than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Little Shelly failed him.

  Joe VanNort and Jack Holtz were both suspicious, cautious, deliberate crime men. Jack Holtz's caution extended into all phases of his life. He did very little on impulse and didn't like surprises. Perhaps his personality was the wrong kind to mesh with his former wife's. She had a flair for art and always talked of a need for self-expression.

  The first time Charlotte left him, he did all of his "hurting and healing," as he put it. But then "Chaz," as he called her, came home. A little later she left for good, seemingly on impulse.

  He claimed that when she left the second time it didn't hurt, especially since she didn't try to take Jason away from him. He and his son lived in a little house he'd bought on a twentyeight-year loan. He'd put a workout room and a weight machine in the basement and decorated the place with lots of ducks and outdoors pictures.

  He dated occasionally, but always felt that his job and his son kept him too busy for chasing around. He was thirty-two years old and Jason was nearly eleven so he figured with his mother helping they could go it the rest of the way without a woman in the house.

  He could cook Chinese and had decent recipes for shish kebab and chicken cordon bleu, but Jason would rather have a steak than the fancy stuff so Jack Holtz got pretty good on the grill.

  Jack Holtz had thick black hair, and behind his aviator glasses were large, heavily lashed dark eyes, the kind they used to call "bedroom eyes." As a result of an incorrect bite alignment his lower jaw looked unusually small and called attention away from the large neck below it and the big chest below that-the neck and chest of a guy who'd pushed some iron around. You had to be around him a bit before you noticed that he was fairly tall and well put together.

  That hair of his was the kind you see on the Bryl-Creem ads, full and dense and black. Before he was finished with this case it'd be the kind you see on the Grecian Formula ads: steelgray, all of it.

  He was something of a loner and didn't hang around with other cops, but the relationship between Joe VanNort and Jack Holtz worked for them. Jack Holtz was the kind of investigator who wanted to be as good as he could be, but wasn't sure he could be better than that. He worried about not having been to college. He thought he didn't express himself well, especially in court, when in fact he was an excellent witness. He was content to play second banana.

  Joe VanNort on the other hand pointed out that the Bill Bradfield gang had a whole bushel of college degrees and not one of them could tell a cat turd from a Candy Kiss. He wasn't intimidated by sheepskins and mortarboards. He was a confident top banana.

  The comb found in the trunk of Susan Reinerts car got worked during July. Information arrived in bits and pieces. A call to the War College in Carlisle identified the acronym, 79th USARCOM. A call from a cop in the King of Prussia area gave them a lead on a former principal named Dr. Jay C. Smith who'd taught at the same school where Susan Reinert had worked. Another call to the 79th Army Reserve Command brought the news that Jay C. Smith had been a colonel in the command prior to his retirement. Then they learned that Jay Smith had gone to prison on Monday, June 25th, from a Harrisburg courtroom.

  When the comb and the Jay Smith connection was explained to Joe VanNort, he wasn't impressed.

  "Its too obvious," he said. "This Jay C. Smith is in a whole pack of trouble and a comb from his army outfit ends up under the body. Too obvious. Sounds like something our pal Bradfield might dream up to throw suspicion on his old nut-case principal."

  Joe VanNort stuck with that notion for several months.

  While Bill Bradfield and Chris were winding up their summer studies Joe VanNort and Jack Holtz made another trip to St. John's. Only this time they made a prearranged visit to a New Mexico judge and had a court order when they arrived, an order requiring Bill Bradfield and Chris Pappas to submit to fingerprinting so that their prints could be compared to unidentified lifts taken in the Reinert home and car.

  Bill Bradfield didn't like any of it, paricularly the ride to the state police headquarters where he was mugged and printed like a thug. And he really didn't like being driven in a separate car from Chris Pappas. And Chris didn't like being photographed, because the mug shot had nothing to do with fingerprint comparison.

  When Bill Bradfield next called home he told Vince Valaitis that Joe VanNort was an extremely "unintelligent" man, and that as far as VanNort's partner was concerned, he'd like to have thrown Holtz into the school fountain.

  He was incensed with Holtz because when he was trying to explain to the cretinous cop about the Great Books Program at

  St. John's, and how demanding it was, and how he resented being subjected to police harassment, Jack Holtz had said, "The Bible's a great book. I don't read it myself, but I know it says in ther
e, thou shalt not kill."

  Bill Bradfield asked only one question the whole time he was with the cops during their second visit to Santa Fe.

  He asked, "How long do the state police stay on a murder case?"

  When the cops had made their second appointment at St. John's a college staff member informed Chris Pappas they were coming, and Chris told his mentor who ordered him to get the IBM typewriter out of Bill Bradfields room and into his own.

  After the cops went home, Bill Bradfield visited the Olsens after class and brought a small metal strongbox with him.

  "I've got some papers in here," he told Jeff Olsen. "They're not really important, but the police might find them and manipulate them to try to manufacture some evidence. Could you hold this box for me?"

  "Sure," Jeff Olsen said. "I'll lock it in the trunk of my car."

  "And I'd like you to keep a typewriter for me," Bill Bradfield said. "It was used to write some letters to Susan Reinert. They were nothing of course, but you know the cops."

  "Just leave it in this apartment," Jeff Olsen said. "Put it right there on the dining room table."

  Naturally, Chris got the assignment of lugging the heavy typewriter to the Olsen apartment. These days he was all muscle and faith.

  Later, Bill Bradfield, accompanied by Rachel, came again to the apartment of Jeff Olsen, with another important request. He wanted to use the fireplace. Bill Bradfield was carrying a wastebasket filled with documents of one sort or another.

  "These're just school papers and things belonging to Susan Reinert," Bill Bradfield explained. "I don't know why I save everything. It's mostly stuff from her students."

  Young Olsen told him to fire away and Bill Bradfield fed the papers into the fireplace and burned them and stirred up the ashes.

  Then he said, "Jeffrey, if the police should come here or contact you at any time, you don't have to cooperate with them, they'll try to trick you. But don't tell them that I warned you of that because then they'll twist what you say and try to make me look as though I'm obstructing their investigation. "

  And the student nodded and said, "Gotcha."

  "I simply trusted Bill Bradfield completely. I believed he was not guilty," Jeff Olsen reported at a later time.