Echoes in the Darkness Read Online Free PDF

active-and polite, which was to be expected. The Reinert grandparents, who lived thirty minutes away, couldn't get enough of their grandchildren. This family had every right to believe that life would be orderly, quiet, predictable.
    Impending middle age didn't do Bill Bradfield any harm in the mid-1970s. He stood tall and vigorous, his powerful chest and shoulders without a sag. His hair remained coppery and his brooding blue eyes glowed as boyishly as ever when the mood was upon him.
    Sue Myers served and obeyed and taught her classes and kept her secret about being his live-in companion. He pretended to be residing in Downingtown with his parents, if anyone inquired. Bill Bradfield had more secrets than the Politburo.
    Under the laissez faire administration of Dr. Jay Smith, a teacher like Bill Bradfield could take the bit in his teeth. Soon, he was not just teaching English but had small groups of advanced-placement students dabbling in Latin and Creek. In fact, he stopped referring to himself as an English teacher. When asked, he would say, "I'm a teacher of English, Latin and Greek."
    To Susan Reinert he was Byronesque. She didn't know what to believe about the many rumors of romantic trysts with other teachers, but she simply could not bring herself to believe the more insidious gossip about "involvement" with a few of his gifted students.
    Susan Reinert felt that a man like this would always be the target of jealous gossipmongers. His way with students and teachers was wholesome, she believed. He touched people with his hands as well as his inquisitive probing mind because he was an affectionate man, a natural man.
    Meanwhile, the diary entries of Susan Reinert were growing more troubled. "Where does responsibility enter? I don't seem to be convinced that its right to do something just because I want to. I'm so tired of crying."
    One day in 1974, a colleague named Sharon Lee and some other teachers got into a friendly dispute with Bill Bradfield about the value of American literature.
    "Its all second rate," he maintained. "One page of Homer is worth the whole of it."
    When Sharon Lee objected, Bill Bradfield said, "Pick a book from your list. Any book."
    "Okay, The Great Gatsby."
    "Lets meet and discuss The Great Gatsby," Bill Bradfield challenged.
    Susan Reinert volunteered to host the literary shoot-out in her home.
    It wasn't all that serious an event, as it turned out. Everyone had drinks. There was some literary jargon and critical theory tossed around and Bill Bradfield bashed American literature. No one later remembered much about what Bill Bradfield had to say on the subject, though they never forgot the way he'd said it.
    "He'd come up to within inches of you," a colleague later reported. "He was tall and big and he'd intimidate you with those piercing blue eyes. He was so intense he could sometimes be spooky."
    So the evening went pretty much as expected, with Bill Bradfield spooking some and charming others.
    Whether Bill Bradfield was a truly gifted teacher with an ability to inspire, as some argued, or a glib and clever scholastic hustler, as others maintained, he had a decided effect on his hostess, Susan Reinert.
    She was seen hanging on every word he uttered that evening, and, as always, Bill Bradfield uttered plenty of them. She confided to a friend that this guy was truly a Renaissance man.
    And there was poor Ken Reinert already getting puffy beneath the eyes even though he was at least a decade younger than Bill Bradfield. Ken almost never read poetry. He didn't know a damn thing about Ezra Pound. He liked to watch television.
    Sharon Lee, the teacher who had proposed the Gatsby debate, was single and attractive. Susan Reinert was married and unattractive. Bill Bradfield never stalked attractive women. One of his more critical colleagues said that Bill Bradfield could smell insecurity and loneliness the way a pig smells truffles.
    Late that evening when most of the guests had gone and Ken Reinert