Echoes in the Darkness (1987)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  To Vince Valaitis there was absolutely no question. God Himself was speaking.

  His message was something like "Okay, you little putz, you want Gothic? I'll give you Gothic."

  Vince found himself skidding, sliding, careening, through the rain, hell-bent, as it were, for destruction. Then in the midst of it all, between the jagged flashes and the torrent of black water, he saw before him a miracle: Vince had driven on automatic pilot to God's house.

  He skidded to a stop in front of Mother of Divine Providence Church in King of Prussia. He jumped out of the car, but he was paralyzed. Vince Valaitis stood ankle-deep in puddles of dark water and verdant slime and watched his suit shrink. He pulled his necktie loose so he could breathe, and felt his shoes turn spongy. He forced those few sloshing steps to salvation.

  But there were bat shapes in the night, and a fist of iron in his belly was making him retch. And if this church had even one lousy little gargoyle on the roof, Vince knew he'd bolt and run screaming in front of a truck if he could find one.

  He rang the bell at the rectory and waited with the blades of rain slashing his face, hearing those terrifying Latin chants growing fainter in the distance.

  When the priest opened the door that night he saw a halfdrowned young fellow flashing a demented gerbil grin and doing deep breathing exercises to help ward off levitation.

  Here's what Vince heard inside his head: "I am a rational human being. I need fear no evil. I am in control. I shall begin at the beginning in a calm businesslike manner."

  Here's what the priest heard outside Vince's head: "FATHER, I KNOW WHO KILLED SUSAN REINERT!"

  The priest feared for the stained glass. Pigeons flew from the

  belfry--

  Soon, Vince Valaitis found himself sitting in the rectory bawling his heart out with a priest who was trying to figure out if he should hear this kid's confession or have him blow in a bag. And finally Vince started to talk. He was interrupted by sobs from time to time, but did he talk. He told about acid and hairnets and jigsaws and bloody bags of trash and silencers and Jimmy Hofla and 250 hits and devil suits and dildos.

  Pretty soon the priest was wondering if he should call the chancery office to see if they had an exorcist hot line, because he had himself a dilly!

  Vince couldn't shut up. He segued right into Brink's guards and chains and locks and strapping tape and golden showers and feces fiestas and humping hound dogs. He even got into Jay Smiths mail-order penis stiffeners, but that was gilding the lily because by now this priest had heard so much that a dick splint couldn't shock him.

  When Vince came up for air, the padre became the first person to tell Vince Valaitis that he'd better tell his friend Bill Bradfield to call the cops.

  Three little words. Heeded earlier they could've saved a lot of people an eternity of pain: call the cops.

  Jack Holtz and an FBI special agent, Carlin "Call Me Chick" Sabinson, got the assignment to meet and interview Vince Valaitis. Chick Sabinson was nothing like the stereotypical law school prep. To start with, there hadn't ever been many FBI agents called Chick. And he didn't even look like an agent. He was a smallish, ethnic-looking guy. You figured he'd spent his life eating deli food, but you weren't sure which deli.

  Don Redden said he'd once spotted Chick Sabinson sitting at his work table writing a task force report with both hands. One hand held the pencil and the other made identical sweeping strokes of penmanship without a pencil. So there was a bit of the artist in Chick Sabinson, and it showed in his interrogation technique.

  Jack Holtz, the ever-shy second banana, let Chick Sabinson do the talking when they were sitting face to face with pale and trembling Vincent Valaitis who was puffing away on a cigarette, even though he'd never smoked in his life.

  Chick Sabinson had a voice something like W. C. Fields, and after advising Vince of his constitutional rights, he got around to the business at hand. "Vince," he said, "can you see that we're not the kind of people Bill Bradfield said we are?"

  "Yes, sir," Vince said, getting green around the gills from his own smoke.

  "Call me Chick."

  "Yes sir. Chick," Vince said obligingly. He was one sick gerbil.

  "Vince," Chick Sabinson continued, "I'd like you to use your imagination. I'd like you to imagine that the government is a bus."

  Vince stopped puffing and said, "Bus. Yes, Chick."

  "Imagine that the bus makes a certain number of stops as it rolls down the street, Vince."

  Vince imagined a red, white and blue bus chugging right along. A streetcar named Desire. A bus named Salvation.

  "But Vince," Chick said, and now there was a note of caution in his voice, "if a person doesn't have the right fare and if the person isn't there at the bus stop when the driver says 'All aboarrrrrrd!' what's gonna happen?"

  "They'll miss the bus, Chick," Vince said, and he almost wept. Because he was on time. He'd pay any fare they wanted!

  "And the bus never returns, Vince. Never never never."

  Chick reached over and clutched Vince's arm because tears were welling in the teacher's eyes.

  And apparently he had no idea how anxious Vince was to get on the bus because he kept drawing word pictures. With both hands.

  "Let me put it another way," Chick Sabinson said. "The government is a bomb shelter. And when the war starts and the bombs begin to fall, the doors will open to let a certain number of people in. But only the early birds. And only if they come when they're invited. Do you understand what I'm saying, Vince?"

  Did he ever! That time Chick Sabinson accidentally picked the right metaphor. While Chick was talking bomb shelters, Vince Valaitis was seeing trekkie space wars. The clash by night involved megatons. Nukes mushroomed. Firestorms raged. People got vaporized in their beds!

  And there was Vince, three feet from the shelter door, a steaming little bespectacled radioactive lump. Wrapped in rosary beads.

  Vince let out a wail. "Do I need a lawyer? Have I done anything wrong?"

  Chick Sabinson said, Tell us what you know about Jay Smith."

  That did it. Vince started crying. Between sobs he said, "He's murdered all kinds of people! I think my life's in dangerj I don't want to be murdered. I only want to teach English!"

  And while Vince was sniffling Chick Sabinson got up and

  came over and put his arm around him and said, There there, Vince. Its all right. You're ours, now."

  It was wonderful belonging to somebody. Again, Vince Valaitis started talking and couldn't stop. He could hardly believe he was sitting there so happy with the FBI, and even with Jack Holtz who Bill Bradfield had said was a dyed-in-thewool Fascist. It all felt so good he just kept talking.

  Chick Sabinson and Jack Holtz almost got writer's cramp. Before they were finished with this young man in the months ahead, the FBI reckoned that Vincent gave them nearly a hundred hours of his time.

  Vince had only one real fear after that. When they saw the Mary Hume tombstone in his living room, they might accuse him of bumping off old Mary.

  On September 3, the FBI was called and informed that Bill Bradfield wanted to "set the record straight." He and Sue Myers and Vince Valaitis agreed to meet with the agents at a Howard Johnson's restaurant in King of Prussia. Bill Bradfield didn't know that Vince had already been setting the record a whole lot straighter than he'd ever dreamed.

  They met with Chick Sabinson. Bill Bradfield told the special agent that he was just a friend of Susan Reinerts and was shocked by the insurance and the will. And what he really wanted to do was to put up a reward for the return of the children, but he'd been advised by counsel not to do so.

  Bill Bradfield offered the opinion that if the children were alive there was obviously someone else involved with Jay Smith. Bill Bradfield said that he was now starting to conclude that Dr. Jay was probably the actual killer of Susan Reinert.

  He was relieved that Chick Sabinson was an educated man as opposed to Joe VanNort and his sidekick Jack Holtz. He said that while h
e was at St. John's he'd been studying the contribution of Ptolemy to Western thought, but couldn't explain it to the cops who thought he was taking a math class.

  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-ofAlexander-Craham-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 panicbefore Curran arrived. He jabbered something alxrnt 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, hut 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."

  Then she tried to tell them how he taught English and Latin to her. And how he tutored students in Creek and even taught Bible studies on his own time.

  The lawmen at this time didn't know about all the money storage and the rest of it. Nor did they know that Bill Bradfield and Shelly were going to get married in a French cathedral and dcclaim from The Wanderer" as
they followed the trail of the Mycenaeans and their thousand black ships.

  Matt Mullin had some compassion for the young woman, but Joe VanNort did not.

  After they returned, Joe VanNort said, "The FBI maybe wants to pay her tuition to Notre Dame. I wanna see her graduate through a correspondence course. In state prison."

  The federal grand jury happened to be in session in Philadelphia. The Reinert task force used the powers of this grand jury to subpoena phone records, credit card information and bank records, to go deeper into the affairs of William Bradfield and his friends. And of Jay C. Smith, as well.

  Vince Valaitis couldn't wait to talk publicly about the terrible dilemma that he and his friends found themselves in. Prior to volunteering his testimony to the grand jury, Vince talked to reporters again.

  "Bill Bradfield refuses to be interviewed," Vince told them, "because he fears no one will believe him. And because he has a higher moral motivation. He doesn't care about this world at all. He cares about his soul and another world. I've prayed a rosary with Bill and he wants to become a Catholic. I see Bill in an entirely different way than you do."

  He told the grand jury his strange story and then he volunteered what he thought might set the record straight for all of them:

  "In the news it says 'this clique of teachers.' It sounds like we're some kind of insidious group. This is something that evolved slowly. I can't even believe I'm sitting here saying all I've said to you.

  "There's nothing insidious about our group. We're good people. We're friendly. We love each other. I feel that people in our school district think we consider ourselves superior. They're saying that because Bill Bradfield is such an aggressive man, such a brilliant man, such an overpowering man, that we all believe in everything he does. That's not true."

  When Vince was through talking that day, one of the grand jurors said, "Explain to me, to all of us, why in the world didn't you at some time go to Mrs. Reinert and warn her?"

  And by now Vince knew he'd spend the rest of his life being asked that question. And by now he knew that even when the words were not being uttered, the eyes were asking it.