Echoes in the Darkness (1987) Page 9

  Sue rued the day she'd ever helped hatch this get-rich scheme. She hoped that Bill Bradfield would decide to compete with his old man in some other way. And Vince, she figured, better resign himself to the fact that his 5 percent of the business would turn out to be one clay pot and a beaded headband.

  Vince was still drawing a manager's salary so he had no complaints. What Vince missed were the good old times when his friends would invite him up to dinner and he'd have a great meal and go home supremely content from an evening of interesting stimulating talk.

  Once when Sue Myers had gone to bed. Bill Bradfield took Vince into his confidence and admitted that in the past he'd been guilty of "womanizing."

  Bill Bradfield implied that he would probably remain celibate to the end of his life, and that the absence of sexual pressure was perhaps the best part of his relationship with Sue Myers. He told Vince that the only true love he'd ever experienced had never been sullied. It involved a girl in Annapolis, who, in this version, did not do her dying like Ali MacGraw in Love Story. This one kicked the bucket in grand style like Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights. He'd been there at her bedside when she passed on to a better world.

  From the very beginning of the 1978 fall term, Bill Bradfield was on the move. Sue Myers had to take time off from school to devote herself to the failing store and was so exhausted she hardly had strength to interrogate him when he'd stay out all night. He looked so tired and his beard was so long and ragged that students said you could toss popcorn at him and it'd stick.

  Gone were the days when Vince would watch the man he considered the most brilliant and best-educated teacher he'd ever known playing cutesy-pie with Sue Myers. When Bill Bradfield would try to charm her with his imaginary ostrich named "Elliot Emu."

  He would trot out his feathered pal and in his Elliot Emu voice say, "Are you mad at me?"

  And she'd giggle and say, "No, I'm not mad at you. How could I be mad at Elliot Emu!"

  When he was home, Bill Bradfield would spend an entire evening doing what he liked best, watching television shows like Laveme ir Shirley or Mork 6Mindy. Like Sue Myers, Vince Valaitis had never seen Bill Bradfield reading even one of his five thousand books.

  Vince was aware of teachers at Upper Merion who took every opportunity to say that, far from being Upper Merion's intellectual leader, Bill Bradfield was a fraud. One English teacher, a relative of writer Lionel Trilling, frequently ridiculed him and called him "Busy Whiskers." Another, a former military man like Jay Smith, openly resented the entire independent study program ramrodded by Bill Bradfield and referred to him as "a bearded despot with a good two-line opening on any subject, but nothing more."

  This teacher complained of what was being done in Bill Bradfield's independent study program, and claimed that high grades were automatic while disciplinary matters were ignored.

  Still another English teacher, whose husband did in fact know something about Eastern religions, became interested in hearing Bill Bradfield at a party discussing the impact of Confucius on all of Eastern and Western religion.

  So the husband put aside his martini and Swedish meatballs and posed a few complex and scholarly questions to Bill Bradfield who instantly looked about as relaxed as a safecracker.

  Bill Bradfield stopped talking and scuttled away as if he'd found a maggot in his meatball.

  From then on that teacher's husband was of the opinion that Bill Bradfields Confucian epigrams came from the Hong Kong Noodle Company, and Bill Bradfield avoided that man like a vampire avoids sunburn.

  Vince Valaitis knew about those dissenters, but he did not, could not believe that Bill Bradfield was anything less than a brilliant, splendidly educated teaching professional. He longed for the conversations, but nowadays his friend was as busy as a piranha.

  In October, he told Vince and Sue Myers that he had to make an urgent trip to Annapolis because during the summer Chris Pappas had damaged a sailboat they'd hired. The boat owner was demanding that he personally see to the repair of the mast. The damage took place during a storm, he said, when he and Chris were sailing with "friends," who of course were Shelly and her pal.

  He said that he'd also discovered that their mutual Annapolis friend Rachel had a blue Volkswagen Beetle for sale and he thought he ought to buy it.

  He knew very well that Sue Myers was busier than a Gulag gravedigger and could not accompany him on a weekend to Annapolis.

  After he'd gone, Sue told Vince that she believed he was going there to be with Rachel.

  Vince tried to assure her that she was wrong to fear the ice maiden.

  "Bill has no romantic interest in anyone," he said. And then diplomatically added what he knew to be false: "except you."

  And true to her fashion, Sue nodded wearily and showed no emotion of any kind, keeping it all bottled and buried.

  But she said to the young teacher, "You don't know the half of it. I'm in a lot better position to understand Bill Bradfield and I tell you that he and that woman Rachel are strangely compatible. I think there's a relationship developing with this one and I don't know what it means."

  As to Susan Reinert, well, it appeared that she was through being emotionally manhandled. When Bill Bradfield didn't keep a dinner date at her home, Susan Reinert showed up at

  Upper Merion the next day with a plastic bag full of leftovers and instructed a student to deliver it to Mr. Bradfield with a message saying, "This is the dinner you failed to get last night."

  Vince got wind of it and decided to become a peacekeeper since things around Upper Merion were straightening themselves out under Jay Smiths replacement, and intradepartment feuds weren t needed. He took Susan Reinert aside at school and tried to inform her that Bill Bradfield might merely be signaling his desire to withdraw from his role as adviser to the world of Upper Merion, and that their friend had outside business worries with the art store, and perhaps receiving a pile of leftovers could get on somebody's nerves.

  Vince knew he had to be very careful when talking to Susan Reinert. Once, he'd tried to help by quietly informing her that to think of Bill Bradfield in romantic terms was futile because, confidentially, Bill Bradfield lived with Sue Myers.

  Vince got verbally slammed by the former wrestler for that one. Bill Bradfield told him he had a big mouth and he was giving Susan Reinert information about his private life that was none of her business, and any information would only encourage "that pathetic mousy woman" to sit next to him at faculty meetings. And that unless she was ignored she might never stop writing those notes with the disgusting sexual imagery that had caused Sue Myers to pop her cork in the first place.

  Still, Vince was a helpful and compassionate soul and eager to please everyone, especially Bill Bradfield, and he had it in his head that he should gently admonish Susan Reinert about having students deliver bags of garbage to a guy she was deluded into thinking cared for her romantically.

  He was in the process of trying to explain all this when she said to him, "Vince, I understand how close you are to Bill and to Sue Myers, but I need to know, will you remain my friend?"

  And the young teacher answered, "Of course. Why wouldn't

  I?,

  "Because Sue hates me so much."

  "She doesn't hate you. That's just not so," he said.

  "She means to see that I'm harmed," Susan Reinert said, and the tiny woman showed some real fear behind those oversized glasses.

  "That's silly," Vince said. "Just plain silly."

  "And she means harm to my children!" Susan Reinert said. "And I have that on the best of authority."

  What could Vince Valaitis do about that announcement? Now he was convinced that Bill Bradfield was not exaggerating when he said that Susan Reinert was more than neurotic, that she was absolutely crazy these days, and that Vince simply should avoid her.

  As usual, Bill Bradfield found out about Vinces good intentions and the next time they were alone Vince got it again. And by now, Vince was really worried about his friend beca
use Bill Bradfield was so intense that when he did come home he'd treat an episode of Love Boat like a bomb squad documentary as he lay motionless before the tube.

  Bill Bradfield flatly ordered Vince Valaitis to stay completely away from the "demented" woman. And to underscore the depths to which Susan Reinert had sunk, not just psychologically but morally, Bill Bradfield offered the young teacher and Sue Myers a most shocking and irresistible piece of news from an "unimpeachable source."

  Susan Reinert, he told them, was secretly dating none other than old Mr. Hyde himself.

  "Jay Smith?" Vince Valaitis said. "I can't believe it!"

  "I can believe it." Sue Myers smirked. She could always believe anything about her hated rival.

  "It's absolutely true!" Bill Bradfield said. "And soon I'll be able to tell you how I know."

  And as was his way, Bill Bradfield, when relating a story, no matter how incredible it seemed, always tossed in a little detail, like the alligator shoes.

  "I can tell you this," Bill Bradfield said. "They even have pet names for each other. Jay Smith calls her Tweetie Bird. Can you imagine? Tweetie Bird?"

  And while Sue Myers rolled her eyes in revulsion, Vince Valaitis gaped in wonder.

  How could she do it? There were all sorts of rumors about Jay Smith's daughters disappearance and that he'd done drugs with her, and rumors of incest, even that he had a mail order business selling penis stiffeners. To Vince Valaitis Jay Smith was evil incarnate.

  The young teacher wondered if he'd ever understand the intricacies of sexual attraction. Tweetie Bird. Why, it was almost as revolting as Elliot Emu.

  Chapter 8

  Death and Dream

  In the fall of 1978 William Bradfield was about as placid as a riptide, and the riptide formed an enveloping whirlpool. It all began with a death and a dream.

  The death was that of Susan Reinert's widowed mother who passed away unexpectedly in October, leaving each of her children $34,000 in cash and half an interest in western Pennsylvania timberland. Susan was also bequeathed her mothers wedding ring valued at $1,500.

  Her brother Pat Gallagher became executor of Susans estate and her children Karen and Michael were named as her beneficiaries. The timberland was left to appreciate, but for the moment, Susan Reinert had more cash than she'd ever had to manage before.

  The dream involved Bill Bradfield, who awakened one morning sounding like Martin Luther King. He announced: "I had a dream!"

  And poor overworked Sue Myers wondered if it was a wet one because they hadn't had sex for well over a year.

  "What dream?" she asked.

  "It came to me in a dream," he told her. "It's about Doctor Smith. He's innocent of the Sears robbery! I've been thinking about it and now I'm certain. He couldn't have committed the theft because he was with me that very day last August. I saw him on that Saturday at the shore in Ocean City. So if he didn't do that robbery, he could hardly be guilty of the other one since both crimes obviously involved the same man!"

  "You never mentioned seeing him in Ocean City," Sue Myers said.

  "It didn't seem important at the time. Now I'm sure of it. I don't know what to do about it, though. I need to think it over."

  And then he was dressed and out the door and Sue Myers went off to work and figured she probably wouldn't see him for another couple of days what with this new crusade to save Jay Smith.

  Bill Bradfield now became even busier and more elusive. And he began having nightmares. On the nights that he was at home he frequently awakened her by crying out in his sleep. Sometimes he wept without waking. She thought he was going crazy.

  Even Bill Bradfields beard had gone wild and tangled and shapeless. He truly began to resemble the man his faculty detractors had always compared him to. Bill Bradfield was so tormented and tense and exhausted he looked like Grigori Rasputin underwater.

  Finally he let Vince in on the greatest secret yet: that he alone had the power to free Jay C. Smith.

  Bill Bradfield, driving his father's Cadillac, was taking Vince home from the art store after they'd built some Christmas displays to stimulate business.

  Bill Bradfield affected his I-know-the-secret-of-theBermuda-Triangle voice and said, "I've learned something and I don't know what to do about it."

  "What?"

  "About Doctor Smith. He's a hit man for the Mafia."

  "Bill," Vince Valaitis said. "Bill, that is the nuttiest ..."

  "Listen to me," Bill Bradfield said. "I tell you it's true! He's killed people. Lots of people. And that's not all. He's going to kill others. People we know."

  "People we know. Sure."

  "People like Susan Reinert."

  "Susan Reinert! Doctor Smith is going to kill Susan Reinert? And I suppose he told you why."

  "He says she knows too much about his trash."

  "What trash?"

  "The trash at school. You know the rumors about the disappearance of his daughter and Eddie Hunsberger. Vince, he's been . . . well, I think he's chopped up some bodies and put them in the trash cans around school!"

  "It's insane," Vince said, as calmly as possible.

  "Is it? What do you think he was doing with the nitric acid he stole from the school? And how about those homemade silencers the police found? You know Doctor Smith well enough, don't you? You named him the prince of darkness." "He makes things up, Bill," Vince said reasonably. "Jay Smith always tries to shock."

  "He's been having an affair with her, Vince. He told me all about it."

  And Vince Valaitis now had a dozen images ricocheting in his skull: of Norman the janitor sniffing at those unspeakable bundles in the school Dumpster, and of Jay Smith himself, standing in a cloud of steam from a broken pipe, calling "Tweeeeetie Bird!" in a ghostly voice. Vince made a concession. "Well, maybe part of it could be true."

  "We can't go to the police, Vince. You have to swear to keep this a secret."

  "But we've got to go to the police!" Vince Valaitis cried.

  "We have no proof," Bill Bradfield informed him. "Not a shred of proof. They'd laugh at us. They wouldn't believe us. And then we'd be in grave danger."

  "We," Vince said. "We?"

  "The man's diabolical. He'd come for us. He'd come in the night. He'd come for our parents. Or his Mafia friends would. He'd be relentless."

  And by now it was a good thing Vince was not driving because he had one hand on his rosary and the other on his scapular. This was no monster movie. This wasn't something from Hitchcock or Rod Serling. For the first time in his life he wasn't shivery in a fun sort of way at talk of the macabre. This was real! For the first time in his life young Vince Valaitis was face to face with Dread and Terror.

  "What are we . . . you going to do, Bill?"

  "I think I can control him," Bill Bradfield said. "He's rather demented but not completely insane. I think I can convince him not to harm anyone. Then when I get sufficient evidence I can go to the authorities."

  "Oh my," Vince Valaitis said. "Oh my, oh my, oh my."

  "There're others in danger."

  "What others?"

  "He's so paranoid he wants revenge on everyone who's wronged him. People who didn't support him when he got arrested for the crimes he says he didn't do. He's talked about killing Bill Scutta."

  "My God, Bill's a dear friend!" Vince cried. "We've got to do something!"

  "And the superintendent. And a local policeman that he says is trying to frame him, and ..."

  Vince didn't have to ask the next question because his eyeballs were pressing up against the lenses of his eyeglasses and he was so cotton-mouthed he looked like a cat eating bubble gum, and Bill Bradfield anticipated the Big Question and said, "No, he didn't mention you."

  "Oh my," Vince said.

  "Yet"

  "Oh my"

  Vince Valaitis didn't believe it all, but one thing for sure, he was convinced that if he was to breathe a word of this he might very well end up scattered around King of Prussia in enough pieces to offend lots
of custodians like Norman the janitor.

  When Bill Bradfield told Sue Myers about his clandestine meeting with Dr. Jay Smith, the educators motives for murder had changed some.

  When she asked why Jay Smith would want to kill Susan Reinert he told her that he didn't know why, but offered the same warning about not telling the police.

  "I can handle Doctor Smith for the time being," he said to her. "You've wondered who I've been seeing these past weeks. You probably thought I was being unfaithful all those nights that I've been away. Well, now you know. I've been with Doctor Smith."

  "I don't like this," she said.

  "Trust me," he urged her. "Just once more. Be obedient."

  Sue Myers was tired. The jobs of teaching and retailing and hearing about Jay Smith were way too much for her. But as far as Jay Smith was concerned, there was at least a silver lining. Since Bill Bradfield was gone four or five nights a week and often slept away from home, it was better to imagine him humoring a madman like the former principal than it was to think of him in bed with Susan Reinert, or Rachel, or somebody new.

  Sue Myers wanted out of all this, but knew she hadn't the will or the strength. Sue Myers felt fossilized. Where Bill Bradfield would eventually lead her she couldn't say, but she'd been tagging along for fifteen years and knew she'd have to follow a while longer.

  Sue also had an uneasy feeling that she might be asked to contribute a little something to the alibi defense of the accused. And she was.

  It happened after a meeting that Bill Bradfield said he'd attended with Jay Smith's brother and his lawyer. Bill Bradfield wanted Sue to remember that he had once encouraged their friend and teaching colleague Fred Wattenmaker to make a bet with another teacher, who claimed Bill Bradfield would never make good on a promise to visit Fred at his summer home in Ocean City, New Jersey.

  Sue vaguely remembered the bet. Then Bill Bradfield asked her if she remembered that he had in fact made an August visit to the shore, but that Fred wasn't home. And she said yes, she remembered his saying that.